And Hollywood wonders why this was a box office disappointment?

There have been reams of pages utilizing “One Battle After Another” as an illustration of a failure of the audience, that people just won’t come out to see a great movie. Having now watched it on HBO…

I was hipped by Harold that it was a disappointment. He went to see it in the theatre. Something I choose not to do. Not only do I find the experience passé, how do you expect me to sit for two hours and forty two minutes without getting up to pee? If you want to make a series, do so, but don’t give us these lengthy, extended films that are a chore to watch in one sitting.

Now I’ve recently thought that Leonardo DiCaprio was overrated. However he was good here. But Sean Penn? He’s the new Meryl Streep, you can see the preparation, you can see the acting, the ultimate result being that the portrayal just doesn’t ring true. The walk? Both bow-legged and stiff? Maybe if you’re in your twenties… I mean he’s signaling the rigidity of the character, but it ends up making viewers wince…this is why people decry Penn, he takes himself so seriously. I loved Willa’s put-down of him, about the tight shirt and the lifts in his shoes, but it’s hard not to square that with the real Penn.

But Benicio del Toro has never been better. Confident yet understated.

The acting in all was pretty good. But the plotting?

I didn’t read Pynchon’s “Vineland,” although online research tells me the film is not faithful to the book. But the first issue the flick has is TONE! You want to take it seriously. Is this a commentary on immigration? I mean there are no laughs at first. Except maybe for when Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia Beverly Hills first encounters Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw. The plot seems so fantastical, an underground rebel organization akin to the Weathermen, one which we don’t have today (don’t tell me Antifa is equal, Antifa is not even an organization!), taking violent action. The inspiration for putting their lives on the line is not made clear. And then they’re robbing banks… Is this like the Symbionese Liberation Army?

And then sixteen years go by and you start to wonder…is this like a Mexican drug lord movie, like “Sicario,” or is it a family drama and…why should I care so much?

I know, I know, the reviews talk about the humor. And there is some, but it’s not like I was laughing out loud, I smiled at most.

And then it’s a chase movie.

But all the critics have waxed rhapsodic. Maybe this is why they no longer have pull. If an adult went to the theatre to see this based only on reviews, if they didn’t consider themselves a cineaste, they’d be angry, they’d want their money back, and they would not journey to the theatre soon thereafter, if at all.

This is not what the public wants. This faux intellectualism. It’s not as bad as Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” then again, his previous film, “Licorice Pizza,” had tone and not much more…but at least the tone was consistent.

Do I think “One Battle After Another” would be best seen on a big screen? Sure. The cinematography was rich. But I watched it on an iPad and I didn’t feel that I was missing anything. Then again, the intelligentsia will say that’s why I didn’t love it. Hogwash.

Let’s say that theatrical is for event movies only. It is no longer a broad-based business. If anything, what is purveyed by Netflix and the other streamers is superior. And now you’ve got Tinseltown’s knickers in a twist regarding Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. The two main fears being that Netflix will make fewer films and those they do produce won’t be distributed theatrically.

This reminds me of nothing so much as Napster. You had the record labels and old farts saying that the CD was superior, that no one would want anything better, need anything better. But now computers and cars don’t even come with a CD drive, on demand streaming is king, and vinyl is mostly a souvenir, don’t let the press persuade you otherwise.

Why can’t Hollywood do what Spotify did and get ahead of the market?

Oh, that’s right, that’s what Netflix did. It switched its formula from rental to streaming and there was public outcry, people loved their DVDs! Ask them today if they even have a DVD player! And then all the studios licensed their product, building Netflix’s business, and Netflix started production itself. This is Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma write large. If you don’t disrupt yourself, someone else will!

When I think back on 2025, the best production I saw was “Adolescence.” Notice that despite all the ink spilled about “White Lotus,” no one is talking about that anymore, it was formulaic when “Adolescence” was not. And we can talk all about the one extended shot technique, but that was secondary to the plot and the performances. I still think about “Adolescence,” it raised issues in our culture today. Am I going to think about “One Battle After Another” tomorrow? No!

Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is right. Not always, but if you’re in the business of commerce/money as opposed to pure art, you should look at what the people say.

And don’t crap on the public too much. People do not want retreads, they always want something new, they’re open to something new, the fact that the purveyors don’t give it to them is something else.

There might be an audience for superhero movies, there might be an audience for the Spotify Top 50, but most people don’t even bother, they’re not even shrugging their shoulders, they just don’t care, these productions don’t speak to them.

And did you read  in the “Wall Street Journal” today about the lack of melody in today’s popular music? Once the mainstream goes on something you know there’s a problem:

“Has America Lost Its Melody? – Something changed in popular music around 2005. I suspect it reflects a change in the country.”

Free link: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/has-america-lost-its-melody-0ec9fc31?st=1yjWtD&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

This is how Lou Pearlman ate the labels’ lunch with Backstreet Boys and NSYNC! The majors weren’t selling this stuff, there was no competition. All the A&R people were too hip. Just like they’re too hip to sign something today that’s pure melody, laden with hooks…it just doesn’t get them off.

The record labels lost touch with the public years ago. That’s why the business is stale. And theatrical films are almost laughable.

Do I think they spent a lot of money on “One Battle After Another”? Do I think everybody involved gave it their best? Yes. But I also think it was the emperor’s new clothes…didn’t anybody see that this production didn’t appeal to enough people to make a profit? That the movie is flawed in tone and ultimately indescribable? Is it action, romance, comedy…so much is thrown in that the audience can’t ultimately be engaged, never mind that there is nothing to take from the flick.

And if you think “One Battle After Another” is an allegory about today’s political scene… Yeah, right. And today’s revolutionaries don’t even fight with violence, they fight with technology, computers, the internet…but everybody involved in this picture is an old fart invested in old ways. Hell, I’d like to see a movie about Ukraine’s homemade drones and how they’re attacking Russia’s vulnerabilities, that’s modern warfare… Not some nincompoops out of the sixties who look so out of date they’re laughable. And I’m not laughing with the filmmakers, but at them.

First and foremost it has to be an enjoyable experience. No one cares about the look and the performances if the story isn’t great. Same deal with music… Without a good song, it doesn’t matter how good the playing is.

The film industry needs the equivalent of the Ramones and the punk bands of the seventies, revolting against the overproduced rock of the day.

Oh wait! We’ve got that, on TikTok and YouTube. Instead of criticizing these platforms, creators have to study them, to see what is so attractive about these videos.

And I’ll bet most of the reviewers saying how great “One Battle After Another” is, and those at the studio too, don’t even have a TikTok account, they’re out of touch with the public. The public is ravenous, if it finds anything good it will embrace it and spread the word.

“One Battle After Another” is not it.

For the new year.

Tune in Saturday December 27th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

Wow.

I was going to write about another Netflix documentary, “Breakdown: 1975,” but when the ending reflected the attitudes of today…I lost the inspiration.

You see there’s no snow in Colorado. Just the stuff they made back in November. Since then, not only has it been too warm to make more snow, it hasn’t snowed for three weeks. The news has been pretty widely disseminated, but don’t conflate what is going on in California to what is happening in the Centennial State. As of this writing, Mammoth has gotten 67″ already from the Golden State storm you’ve been reading about, and it’s still snowing! And that’s not completely atypical for California, where they have these insane dumps and then days and days of sunshine. In Colorado it’s an accumulation of a few inches here and a few more there and you end up with three hundred plus inches at the end of the season. But not this year.

Now my policy is to go out each and every day. But on Monday…

It’s more crowded here than I’ve ever seen it. Bombers and beginners. The slopes are frightening, a straight-liner missed me by mere inches. But later in the day, just before I was done, I was just above the entrances to chairs 3&4, below the SLOW banners, and I saw this snowboarder about ten to fifteen feet away and I yelled out DON’T HIT ME! She was barely moving, I was completely stopped. And then she ran right into me.

I haven’t been out since.

Of course she skied away. And when I got up from my fall, my butt hurting and my knee a little bit too, I raced down to confront her. She just smiled and said she was skiing, she didn’t apologize at all.

And there you have it in Vail, Christmas 2025. It’s supposed to snow one inch tomorrow, and then six the day after and…I’ll go back out, but really, that’s not enough to make a truly significant difference.

So I’ve been reading and last night we finished “Pluribus” (am I the only one who doesn’t get it?) and today I decided to fire up Netflix and watch the 1975 documentary.

And this smorgasbord of images is great, however it always bothers me when they interview those who were not alive back then to testify… But everybody’s afraid if they only feature old farts, youngsters won’t watch. And for a minute there, I thought every American needed to watch “Breakdown: 1975,” to see the way it once was, when movies were necessary viewing, at the theatre, but… The film fudged the dates, it just wasn’t 1975, and then said the era was over with “Jaws,” which was untrue, and then featured right wing blowback and the gas emptied from my tank.

So I decided to watch the Seymour Hersh documentary, “Cover-Up.” Once again, WOW!

Now thinking about it, what struck me most about this doc was when Hersh referred to himself as an outsider. That’s it in a nutshell. Now, more than ever, society doesn’t like outsiders. And people don’t want to be  outsiders, they don’t want to be out there alone, never mind victimized by online abuse, so they take a side and stick to it. Seemingly everybody in America, from musicians to corporate executives…they hold their head down and don’t make waves because they don’t want to suffer the consequences, even if they’re right.

And Hersh has been right many times.

Of course he’s also been wrong. But that’s the nature of the game, if you’re never wrong, you’re playing it to close to the vest, you’re holding back too much. I guess you could say the same thing about musicians, when you get inspired and what you’ve created is too far out for the record company, if you’re afraid of alienating fans, that’s what you should include, that’s what you should release, because that’s what changes the world, not what is expected.

So you get Hersh’s story… His upbringing, his acceptance at the University of Chicago almost by accident. And I hate to piss people off, but that college experience helps form him, makes him who he is, because in that elite hothouse there are smart, educated people who challenge him, who want to wrestle with ideas, who inform and teach him too.

And then he becomes a reporter.

His “cases” are legendary. There’s the My Lai Massacre.

No one wanted to believe it. And then Calley was released from jail soon after conviction…just like the January 6th protesters. Didn’t matter what you did, if you supported the war… And Hersh posits that the story hadn’t leaked despite so many knowing about it because it was de rigueur, it happened all the time.

And if you ever thought Henry Kissinger was a hero instead of a war criminal… Wow a third time. He had a cozy relationship with the “New York Times,” they printed what he dictated while he was responsible for so much heinous stuff that people were unaware of. (At least until Hersh arrived.)

There’s Watergate…

You’ll watch “Cover-Up” and be disillusioned with the government. But the weird thing is today, the administration is doing all this stuff openly that they used to hide.

But the generations have changed. Boomers were taught to question authority. If you do that today, you can’t get a job at the bank, and then you can’t join the country club and…

When you’re outside looking in and it doesn’t add up, oftentimes you’re right, which is why this Bari Weiss/”60 Minutes” thing is so important. If we can’t depend on the news to bring us the truth…

Then again, today most people get their information online and are convinced of inane conspiracy theories that end up overshadowing the real ones. Even Abu Ghraib…we all saw the images. Today, the news site you click on, the one that aligns with your views, may not even post a story that doesn’t comport with the orthodoxy… Fox News got the message, when it started challenging Trump it was losing viewers to even more right wing outlets, so it got with the program.

Everybody gets with the program, but not Sy Hersh.

And this documentary is a bit different from most. It’s not a linear retelling of Hersh’s life. You ultimately get some details of his growing up, but what you’ve really got here is his greatest hits, and his reluctance to do this movie at all.

So “Cover-Up” is the documentary all Americans need to see. And since it’s on Netflix, many more people will see it than if it debuted in the theatre. You only get publicity once, and if people can’t partake immediately, they forget about a movie when it’s finally available for streaming, it’s not only no longer new, there’s a tsunami of additional product and…

Netflix is smart. “Cover-Up” came out today, when most people are on vacation and have the time to watch it. “Cover-Up” cuts to the heart of not only the government, but life in these United States. On one hand it will leave you numb, on the other suspicious of the government. And you should be suspicious of the government, and corporations too…Hersh gets into Gulf & Western and in the process it’s revealed that the editor he reports to, who doesn’t want to run Hersh’s business stories in the “New York Times,” has crossed the line too. And what does the editor say when confronted with his behavior? That his lawyer said it was okay. And then Hersh responds that that’s what he hears every day from those he’s investigating.

I can’t recommend “Cover-Up” enough. Not because it’s the best documentary I’ve ever seen, but because it raises issues that are not being raised elsewhere, and it illustrates you can make it, have a career, challenging conventional wisdom. Just don’t expect to be honored by the company or be invited for drinks at the bar…

But if you have the cojones…

I feel vindicated! According to the obituary in the “New York Times,” Pete Townshend considered “Yummy Yummy Yummy” one of his favorite songs when it came out. And I loved it too! I even bought the single! And singles were made to be played over and over, until the vinyl turned grey, and mine did… I even took it along with me to Providence when we went to visit our cousins on some holiday, I was the only boy there, I sat in the corner of the room alone and listened…

You’ve got to know, everybody hated bubblegum music.

Scratch that… Bubblegum music had a huge audience amongst the young and brain dead, who had not shifted to album rock, which had its biggest triumph with “Sgt. Pepper,” which had no singles at all, in the same year that the 1910 Fruitgum Company released…

“Simon Says.” I hated that song! It was stupid!

1967 was not only the year of “Sgt. Pepper,” it was also the year of “Disraeli Gears” and “Are You Experienced,” both of which you had to own to hear, at least until the summer of ’68, when “Sunshine of Your Love” crossed over, “Purple Haze” never did.

1967 was the year of FM rock’s birth. First in San Francisco, then in New York. And believe me, I was a listener, I owned all those albums, but if you lived anywhere else you were a victim of AM Top 40 radio. Most people didn’t even own an FM radio… That band was seen as traveling short distances and featuring classical music. As for cars…good luck finding one with an FM receiver back in ’67.

So the hipsters not only knew the albums of the burgeoning album rock scene, but the Top 40 too. Upon which they placed judgment. And there were a lot of great tracks in ’67, like “Dance to the Music” and “Respect” and “Soul Man” and…nobody bought the albums of these acts (don’t write me and tell me you own one, the bottom line is the album phenomenon started with white rock, period). Stuff that those in the know could listen to and enjoy. But “Simon Says”? That was going backwards! That was a return to the pre-Beatle era. That was the kind of commercial dreck labels put out today, commerce as opposed to art.

And the following year’s “1, 2, 3, Red Light” was just as bad, if not worse.

Bubblegum music was foisted upon the public by the team of  Kasenetz & Katz. They were the stars, the bands were faceless, they usually didn’t really exist, although concoctions were formed to go on the road and hoover up money.

But back in ’67… “Rolling Stone” launched that year and didn’t gain mainstream traction for almost half a decade thereafter. Meaning…there wasn’t much information about these two producers and their productions, all we had were the records. It was not like today, where you can go deep down the rabbit hole on the internet.

But it was more than straight bubblegum.  Kasenetz & Katz had their first hit with the Music Explosion’s cover of “Little Bit O’ Soul” earlier in the year of 1967, before anybody had even heard of bubblegum, never mind “Simon Says.” And “Little Bit O’ Soul” was seen as credible, it was infectious without being saccharine, it got respect. It fit into the Texas oeuvre of Doug Sahm and…even though the band was from Ohio.

And after the run of bubblegum was just about done, in 1969, Kasenetz & Katz had a hit with Crazy Elephant’s “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’.” Which had the rough-throated vocals of FM rock matched with an undeniable hook of a chorus and a driving beat. These were not saccharine, clean-cut boys who’d barely crossed the line over to puberty, these were definitely men, there was a sexual undertone, and an organ solo and a guitar solo… If only today’s acts could write a song so infectious. Yes, that’s what Kasenetz & Katz specialized in, infection…you heard their songs and you could not get them out of your head.

Now I didn’t know until the internet filled in the gaps that 10cc worked with the producers, even participated in the records before they were called 10cc…they used the money to build Strawberry Studios in Manchester.

But Kasenetz & Katz’s epoch faded except for one last gasp with Ram Jam’s version of “Black Betty,” which was big in the heartland, not so much on the coasts.

But their benefactor, Neil Bogart, really hit his stride in the seventies. After parting ways with Buddah and forming Casablanca he stumbled with his initial release, a Johnny Carson compilation, but then struck gold with KISS and Donna Summer and more.

What Bogart did best was promote. As for the money and where it went… Well, Polygram ultimately swallowed the label. And although Bogart started over with Boardwalk, the times were different. The full force promotion of yesteryear no longer worked. Bogart could will a hit. Well, not exactly will it, but create such a field of distraction and excitement that people paid attention, and hits ensued.

It was a different era.

Well, not completely different from today, which is cottage industry. Kasenetz & Katz came from nowhere, they established a foothold with the help of Bogart and more. Today, you’ve got all the tools at home, you don’t need a major label deal, you can post and get views and listens and make money and most people have never even heard of you or your music. But back in ’67, it was different. There was a threshold. Either you had a record deal or you did not. And either you were on AM radio or you were a sideshow… FM came along to rescue the sideshow, make it the main show, but before that…

“Yummy Yummy Yummy”…

I constantly have acts and their retinue tell me to give a record a few spins, to live with it.

Nothing like that was a hit back in the days of sixties Top 40. If you didn’t get it on the first listen, didn’t die to hear it again on the radio, didn’t need to go to the store to buy the record to hear it whenever you wanted to…you weren’t in the game, no one was interested, not the stations or the public.

And unlike today, records didn’t last a long time. They were hits and then they were done, replaced by new hits…not that you ever forgot the old ones. You played them to death until you could listen no more, but they were indelibly imprinted upon your brain.

As for “Yummy Yummy Yummy”…it had a driving beat. And then a nasal vocal that did sound straight out of the bubblegum canon, but then there was a change…

“Ooh love to hold ya, ooh love to kiss ya

Ooh love, I love it so”

The singer took it up a notch, lost his nasality, and then there was a chorus of backup vocalists, making the whole thing sweet.

And then the driving beat once again, with stabs of emphasis.

And the second time through the verse the backup vocals were littered throughout, everybody was having a good time. There was exuberance!

And then came the nonsense lyrics…

“Ba, da, ba, da, da, da, da

Ba, da, da, da, da, da”

And then the modulation up! And even more emphatic vocals.

And an outro with the “Ba, da, ba” backup vocals and the lead singer testifying on top…and when it fades out all you can do is take it from the top once again.

And if you don’t get it…

You’re too hip for the room. You’re the same person who believes “Metal Machine Music” is a masterpiece, who listens to music with your head as opposed to your heart, who is worried about what others think about your taste while simultaneously bullying them into believing your word is gospel.

In other words, you need to take “Yummy Yummy Yummy” on the surface. Shut off your brain and just let the music…

Infect you.

Kasenetz & Katz infected the entire world.

Legendarily, those behind the scenes make most of the money, the acts that front the songs end up famous with the name and oftentimes little else. Then again, Kasenetz & Katz were not only the producers, in many cases they were essentially the act.

Leaving the question… How did they do financially?

Now the truth is bubblegum music has never faded away, those songs are still played, so there’s publishing money, assuming they took an interest, and it being the sixties they probably did.

And assuming they continued to get paid by the record company… You complain about streaming royalties? Good luck getting paid at all by indie labels in the past.

Now did they sell their interests?

I don’t know… Maybe some deep research will tell me, but all I know is those records were hits over half a century ago and they’re still part of the fabric of society today. So whoever owned the rights/income stream has done very well. What seemed as disposable, transitory back then, turned out not to be. Which is why I always tell acts not to sell their songs, their babies. Certainly when they’re young.

So a piece of music history died this week. You may not have known Jerry Kasenetz’s name, but if you’re a student of the game, he and his partner Jeffry Katz are LEGENDS!

And I still smile when I hear the Music Explosion, Crazy Elephant and Ohio Express hits. They’re part of my life. AND I AIN’T APOLOGIZING FOR IT!