For lack of any new inspiration, we’re going to go back and put together by-the-decade lists of our five favorite films from each year. It’s like having all your favorite recipes in one cook book. Or at least ours. We’ll begin with the 1940s (asterisks after the absolute can’t-miss films on the list):
Big Wave surfing, where men and women of unbridled audacity careen down walls of ocean 50-feet tall or greater, has always fascinated me. The tightrope between exhilaration and terror. Between a natural high and death. I marvel at humans who don’t give a second thought to doing this.
In the past fortnight I’ve been thinking of big wave surfing a lot as I keep an eye on the stock market. And not having a full-time job at the moment, I have more of a chance to do so.
The market is in Big Wave territory right now. Most of the time you ride those small waves where the Dow rises or falls maybe as much as 300 points in one day. Roughly about 1% yay or nay. Your heart rate doesn’t spike at all.
But let’s look at what’s taken place in the past two weeks. Beginning on Friday, February 21, when the floor dropped out of the market—the Dow cratered nearly 1,000 points—there’s been a lot of whitewater and foam in the financials. In the past 10 trading days, including today, we’ve had FIVE sessions where the Dow dropped at least 800 points and TWO where it has risen at least 1,000 points.
Here’s the good (and bad) news: You can make a lot of money on either a big Dow drop or a big Dow gain day. And you can also lose a lot of money on either type of day. The waves are higher, but just because the Dow is falling precipitously doesn’t mean your portfolio must.
Take today. Shares of Inovio (INO), a Philly-based pharmaceutical, are up 50%… TODAY. In one day. The Dow is down nearly 750 points as I write this but Inovio is up 50%. That’s crazy. Since Monday when INO opened at $3.96 per share it has risen more than 250% to $14.65.
Great, so how are we supposed to know how to ride these waves?
Here’s what I’ve been doing. Feel free to disregard all this advice. In this volatile market, concerning yourself with fundamentals and the like on a day-to-day basis is folly. The coronavirus news/hysteria/panic drives the markets. If the day begins with the networks and/or CNBC hyperventilating about a new death in California or a milestone number of cases diagnosed across the globe, the market’s gonna tumble. And on those days, at least what I’ve been paying attention to, the following companies will see an uptick: Gilead (GILD), Moderna (MRNA), Clorox (CLX) and INO. Also, gold will do well. And often Bitcoin (easy access: GBTC).
On those days when the market is tired of being scared, you’ll see titans such as Amazon (AMZN) or Apple (AAPL) or United Health (UNH) rebound. It’s almost like a seesaw effect between the stocks in the previous paragraph and this one.
Now let’s imagine you are not a trader but instead a, sniff (holds pinky finger out while sipping tea) an investor. A long-term investor. That’s fine, daddy-o. But I’m here to make money. And when the waves are breaking like Mavericks in January, just sitting on your board out in a kelp bed is no way to really take advantage of the action.
Sure, this is one possible outcome
Is it safer? Sure. But if you can free up a lot of capital and take a chance on an INO when the market craters and hold it for two days, well, how many puny waves must one ride and for how many years before you could get a 250% return on investment? On a week like this you can do so in two days.
Is it a risk? Sure. Is it potentially, if not life-changing then at least fiscal year-changing? I think so. Sure, you might get pulled underwater and have a Mark Foo mishap. But you’ll never know what it’s like to ride a Big Wave unless you start paddling as it builds. Or at least get a tow from Laird Hamilton. The peril is real; but so is the potential for a great reward.
Stupid is as stupid does. You have to love the graphics person who posted her name (“Mara Gay”) and position (NYT Editorial Board Member) immediately after she said, “It’s true.”
“We Need To Eliminate ObamaCare And Replace It With Something Exactly Like ObamaCare But Not Call It ObamaCare. Because, You Know, Racists Gonna Racist”*
LISTEN TO HIS ANSWER ON HOW HES GOING TO KEEP PROTECTIONS FOR PREEXISTING CONDITIONS I MEAN LISTEN TO THIS pic.twitter.com/yzNngWrKts
*”But also, we’re not gonna replace it with anything at all because we’re no here to give people health care, we’re here to preserve the white wealth class and also to prop up the military while neglecting soldiers…“
Al Mighty
Rumore has it that ESPN is attempting to lure away, or “trade” NBC for Sunday Night Football play-by-play man Al Michaels. Also they’re trying to put Peyton Manning in the booth with him for Monday Night Football and are gonna toss Romo money at him.
Hmm. We’ll see. I’ve always watched football games, college and pro, based on who’s playing them and not who’s behind the mike. Sure, I loved Keith Jackson and Brent Musburger, but each was also calling big games… because they were the best at what they did. Michaels is as deft as anyone in sports today, but he also usually gets the premier NFL matchup of the week. And ESPN’s MNF offering usually feels like the leftover after NBC’s SNF game. I wouldn’t put that all on Joe Tessitore and Booger.
Of course, if ESPN is able to land Michaels, could NBC pair a father-son booth of Collinsworth & Collinsworth now that Jac has signed on with the Peacock?
Help Me Understand This About The Coronavirus
Let’s say you’re under 75 years old (sorry, Susie B.). You have a bit of the sniffles, maybe you’re sneezing and even coughing. You feel sick. Why on God’s green Earth would you take yourself to a hospital and ask to be tested for coronavirus other than out of some need to want to post it on InstaGram for the “likes?”
–There’s no vaccine. So testing positive for coronavirus doesn’t mean that you’re going to be given an anti-venom and be suddenly cured.
–You’re going to cost yourself at least a couple thousand dollars.
–Hospitals are filled with two things we cannot stand: 1) sick people and 2) paper work.
–Your chances of dying are probably in the 1% range.
–All in all, you’re better off staying in bed for two weeks and finally binge-watching Peaky Blinders.
Am I missing something here?
We Are Spartacus
Finally knocked Spartacus off the must-see list last night (and early this morning). Here’s what stuck with us: a film released 60 years ago about an era of history two millennia ago is incredibly timely this very minute.
See, there’s a scourge of slaves loose in what is now present-day Italy and all they wanna do is get the hell out of the Appian Way, cross the Mediterranean and return to their respective sh*thole countries. But Rome doesn’t want to set a precedent (that a 16 seed can take down a 1 seed), never mind that these slaves exist solely to give their lives for the entertainment of Romans (“Stick to sports, Kaep!”).
But here’s where the film becomes prescient and timely. Rome is a Republic. But one of the consuls, Crassus (Sir Laurence Olivier), convinces the Senate that he must be put in charge (“A dictatorship,” one senator, Graces (played by Charles Laughton) protests. And Crassus replies, “Order.”
As in law and order. As in, sure, democracy and freedom is all well and good, but when things get dicey we need to throw all of that out the window and employ authoritarianism. And then Crassus said something about looking the other way when MIB murders a WaPo journalist and chops him into little pieces. Or maybe it was late and I was tired. Who can recall?
Also, Jean Simmons gets naked—twice! And she’s not even wearing her KISS makeup.
Coronavirus may be a pandemic, but stupid is a uniquely American epidemic. Symptoms may be a red baseball cap and an inclination to think that carrying a gun will solve your problems.
NIT-Re Dame
The Fighting Irish, clinging to life for an NCAA berth, led No. 7 (or No. 6) Florida State by 13 points with under 10 minutes to play in South Bend. Then they were outscored 25-10, including 5-0 in the final minute, to lose 73-71.
This will be the first season since 2014 that neither the men’s nor women’s program reaches at least the Elite Eight in the NCAAs (men in 2015 and 2016, women in 2017-2019). And head coach Mike Brey, now in his 20th season, has a problem: too many other Catholic schools are either out recruiting or out-developing Notre Dame: Villanova (two national championships in the past five years), Dayton (arguably player of the year in Obi Toppin), Marquette (nation’s leading scorer in Markus Howard) and Gonzaga (perennial Top 5 team the past few seasons without a super superstar).
There are five Catholic universities ranked in the Top 14 and Notre Dame is not among them. That would have seemed unfathomable years ago.
The Irish are 18-12 and sure, six of those losses are by 2 or fewer points… but you have to win more of those. They’re NIT-bound unless they get at least to the ACC championship game. At least.
Women Of The Year
Time magazine, which for decades named a Man of the Year, went back and named a woman for the honor for every year from 1921 onward. Enjoy this gal-lery.
Of note: In 1985 the Woman of the Year is named Wilma Mankiller. And somehow in 2005 Bono made the cover. Because of course he did.
Petri Dish
We’ve been enjoying the work of Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri of late. Turns out she ascended to her gig, as an op-ed columnist for WaPo, at the seasoned age of 22. The daughter of a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, Petri graduated from Harvard with a PhD in whimsy, or at least it would seem so after reading this profile on her.
You’re On Your Own
This blog’s most vocal reader is currently grooving with the MH staff’s opinions, thoughts, so we thought we’d crush the honeymoon right here. With this suggestion to bring down the deficit.
So here’s the deal: the average life expectancy of an American male is 76.1 years. For an American female, 81.1 years. Our proposal: following retirement Uncle Sam pays out Social Security and Medic-Aid (or Medicare, whatever you call it) until you reach those ages, depending on your sex. After that, the U.S. government stops footing the bill. That’s what family is for. Or your savings. Or churches. Etc.
Now if you think that’s heartless, the question becomes how much is being asked of people in the primes of their lives in order to provide care for those whose quality of life isn’t quite what it used to be. Often, not even close. Were Social Security and other government programs designed to take care of people for a full quarter century? And you might say, well why not just push the retirement age back? And my answer would be because if given the choice, I’d rather have the years from, say, 64-68 free to do what I like with government benefits than I would the yeas 77-81. But that’s just me.
No one’s giving you a death sentence. It’s just a matter of saying that this is on you, or your loved ones, or on someone who knows you and has turned AMZN into a 36-bagger. I’ll hang up an listen.
Instead of ranking films individually by the year from the 1920s, particularly since I don’t think I’ve seen one all the way through, I’ll simply list ten that I think we all should aspire to see before drawing our final breaths.
Now, since we’re limiting it to the 1920s, we won’t be listing the landmark 1915 film, Birth Of A Nation (considered to be the first real feature film that created a spark). Nor will we be listing its less celebrated sequel, Afterbirth Of A Nation, a pro-abortion film that understandably caused a bit of a stir.
So here are 10 films from the Roaring Twenties we should all see. Or at least record them when they appear on TCM and tell yourself that you’ll watch them at a later date, which is what I do:
The General (1927): Buster Keaton practically invented hare-brained stunts and he performed them all himself. Born into a vaudevillian family, Keaton was an acrobat, actor, writer, director, all of it. But you have to see the gags and stunts he created to truly appreciate what he really was: a genius. Along with Charlie Chaplin, the first of the Hollywood legends.
2. Metropolis (1927): A pioneering German science-fiction drama, directed by Fritz Lang, best known for its poster that hangs in 10% of liberal arts majors’ dorm rooms. Set in—get ready for this—the 21st century. Good time to see how prescient they were.
3. Wings (1927) : This has nothing to do with the airport in Nantucket and a lovable, lunk-headed mechanic named Lloyd. Although, like the sitcom, the plot does revolve around two flyboys, but not brothers. On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Award ceremony was held at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood (next door to where Jimmy Kimmel now tapes his show) and this was named Best Picture. Simply for that reason you should see this (also, the film was thought to have been lost for years before a print was discovered in a film archive in Paris).
4. Nosferatu (1922): Before Dracula looked suave and debonair, there was this German creature from your nightmare. Inarguably the patriarch of all horror films.
5. Safety Last (1923) : If there’s one image from the silent film era that will stand the test of time, it’s Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock 12 stories above street level. No special effects here; Lloyd did his own stunts.
Before films took out insurance policies
6. The Jazz Singer (1927) : Another landmark film at it was the first to utilize sound throughout. Okay, so it’s Al Jolson in blackface, but that too is historically worthwhile: to show you how much times have changed.
“Mammy, how I love ya/how I love ya” (I only know this from watching Bugs Bunny cartoons)
7. Battleship Potemkin (1925) : A Soviet film that retells the story of a 1905 mutiny aboard a Russian battleship. Ordered up by Comrade Lenin for the 20th anniversary of the actual event to signify that, when duly repressed, the proletatiat can and will rise up. Considered by some to be the greatest film of the era.
8. The Gold Rush (1925): We have to include at least one Charlie Chaplin film in this list, though his greatest film, City Lights, was released in 1931 (we may have failed to include that in our list the other day; please forgive).
It’s no fun to have your signature mustache absconded with by Hitler
9. Nanook of the North (1922): The first documentary feature, a non-fiction film focusing on an Inuit hunter. In the 1920s, the ability for an audience to experience a place almost no one had ever seen and probably none would ever travel to was tantamount to visiting another planet.
10. Phantom Of The Opera (1925) : Lon Chaney in one of the first iconic film roles in Hollywood. Also vying for this recognition would be Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921).
****
Lest we forget…
11. Steamboat Willie (1928): Walt Disney’s first animated feature. What was to become of that enterprise?
