The Guff Index

“The cool thing about cool is that it’s often undefinable.”

5/20/2025

I’m not sure what this is. Not sure what its going to be. Or how to proceed. 

It’ll probably be some combination of a catalogue, a diary and a commentary on what interests me. My guess is that it will be dominated by movie posts. But sports, specifically basketball (and more specific still, the Phoenix Suns) will make their presence known. So will books. Possibly an occasional tv show and some music will likely sneak its way in from time time. 

I’m going to start by writing. And posting catalogues and lists that I’ve been compiling for most of my life. Might post some videos as they get unearthed. Maybe a podcast if I ever muster enough courage. Just throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see if anything sticks. If the shit slides slowly down the wall, I will consider this a victory and soldier on. 

Right now I’m doing this for myself. One day, I hope I’ll have to consider others here, but in this moment, at the starting blocks, its all for me. 

Welcome. 

I used think a great deal about the movies.  I used to chat about film late into the night. I used to argue about the Cinema. It could get heated. It was great fun. An all time favorite pass time. 

I think about them less now. These days I prefer to feel them. They work better emotionally than intellectually. Consequently, I’ve never loved watching movies more.

However, I miss the discourse I so adored. Partly because most, if not all, the movie chatter happens online now. Something I’ve never been interesting in engaging with.

Until, now. 

Honestly I’m not certain I’m interested in engaging now. But I’m doing it. The hope is that by throwing all of my thoughts and opinions and, more importantly, my collections of thoughts and opinions, against the public wall known as the internet, this pages might find some friends and enemies and passer-by’s

One of the big reasons I’ve stopped with the heated exchanges of opinions about art is that iIt’s been increasingly difficult to explain why I was so moved by something, emotionally. 

When thinking about a movie, logic plays a big part and that’s an easier argument. This means that and this leads to that and the next thing that makes sense, before making complete sense as why would so-in-so do that, then? These days, logic seems to have left the conversation for me.

Mostly, it has no bearing on my appreciation for the movies. Mostly. When it is a factor its its a MAJOR problem. I don’t want to be thinking about if anything in a movie is logical. It usually means the story tellers have abandoned some arbitrary rules they made a point of setting up early.

Feeling a movie is more of a challenge when trying to convert someone over to your side of the debate. If they didn’t react to the movie or feel the same things as me, then, welp, fuck it. I’m not going to convince anyone they felt something they didn’t. 

But it could be a whole lotta fun to give it a try. 

The NBA playoffs have been taking up most of my movie watching time these past weeks so I haven’t seen a lot of stuff. The only movie I’ve seen recently that I have any interest in talking about is Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. 

Talk about feeling a movie. I have a few qualms and/or small complaints about the film, but I have forgotten what they are. Because, goddamn the highs of this movie are stupendous. It’s all of the cliches.  You feel this movie in your bones. It got my heart pounding, in new ways. Gave me goosebumps. The hair stood up on my arms. Not because it was scary, rather because the filmmaking was thrilling. I had a physical reaction to this movie. More than two of my senses behaved strangely do to the sounds and images coming from the screen. I FELT this movie. Fuck the, logic.

There will be essays and books and long form in-depth pieces written about this movie. They’ve already begun (I’ve only read Robert Daniels review and the subsequent back and forth between him and Odie Henderson over at rogerebert.com) and I’m not sure I can or want to add to the discourse right now. 

At a future date, after seeing the movie a few more times, I’d love to talk about a show stopping sequence where music transcends time and the past and future all party with the present. It’s a stunning display of filmmaking, and I’m not sure how Coogler and company thought it would work, because I’ve never seen or felt anything like it. Not remotely. But I need to spend some time with the scene and the movie as whole before I go there. 

I will say that before I saw this movie, the trope of having a single actor play multiple roles had become obnoxious. I really soured every time it happened in recent years. Logan, springs to mind. I liked that movie until the second, younger, Wolverine shows up also played by Hugh Jackman. Its not as clever as they all seem to think it is.

Michael B. Jordan, however, is excellent here as the SmokeStack twins. They get all the clever special effects, like the two characters interacting and passing one another props and such, out of the way in his/their first time on screen. Its subtle, non-showy and as we come to find out, essential to the plot and characters. One brother, rolls the other a cigarette and hands it to him. This is a great touch, made all the greater as we learn the backstory of these twins. 

So the inaugural list is of my favorite multi character performances. I’m gonna leave animation or voice work out. It complicates it too much. Sorry Robin Williams in Aladdin. I’m also removing any movie where several actors play multiple characters. That just doesn’t feel like what I’m getting at here. Plus, I don’t want too choose my favorites from Angels in America (yes, I count the HBO miniseries as a movie. My site, My rules). So you won’t see the Cloud Atlas’ or Angels in America’s on this list. Here’s what I came up with.

  1. Nicholas Cage (Adaptation.)

  2. Lee Marvin (Cat Ballou)

  3. Eddie Murphy (The Nutty Professor, Coming to America, Bowfinger) Yes I can see that I snuck three movies in. Sue me.

  4. Peter Sellars (Dr. Strangelove…)

  5. Mike Myers (Austin Powers)

  6. Lupita Nyong’o (Us)

  7. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring (Mulholland Dr.) I’m cheating a bit here as well, because I’m not certain they are playing dual roles, but I think they are. And this might be the movie ultimate “You don’t watch this movie, you feel this movie”.

  8. Paul Robeson (Body and Soul)

  9. Alec Guiness (Kind Hearts and Coronets)

  10. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

I’ve soured on Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator a little. It felt a little too contrived (not the right word but the one coming to mind) on my last watch.

The toughest omission was Michael Parks in Kill Bill vol. 2.

Apologies to the Kim Novak's (Vertigo) and Jack Nicholson's (Mars Attacks) and Armie Hammer's (The Social Network) and all the others that I haven’t thought to look up. Also, I haven’t seen several famous dual role performances. Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers springs to my mind. I’ll get there one day.

BEST THING I SAW THIS WEEK: The NBA Playoffs, specifically Game 1 Knicks vs. Pacers

The NBA playoffs have been delivering top tier drama since they began. Pretty much every other game the Knicks, Nuggets or Pacers have played has been an all-time classic. But Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals left me speechless. For as much basketball as I watch there is nothing greater than saying, “how the fuck did that happen?” Obviously, if you have a horse in the race, its a different story. My beloved Phoenix Suns deservedly missed the playoffs because they decided to tank their season for good draft pick only to forget that we don’t own our pick this year. 

BEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: The Circus by Mr. Willis. 

This is the final album from Mr. Willis, who passed away just upon its completion. He was an old friend of mine and I’ve been listening to this album exclusively this week. Its excellent. You can find it on iTunes and Spotify. 

THE BEST THING I READ THIS WEEK: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot by Bart D. Ehrman

Mentioned in this post: Sinners (2025), Aladdin (1992), Logan (2017), Cloud Atlas (2012), Angel’s in America (2003) and my top ten lists for the years they were released. Excluding Sinner’s and the pictures on the dual role list.

1992 

  1. Malcolm X

  2. Unforgiven

  3. Life and Nothing More

  4. Reservoir Dogs

  5. The Crying Game

  6. Porco Rosso

  7. Supercop 

  8. Delicatessen

  9. Deep Cover

  10. Lessons in Darkness

2003 

  1. Memories of Murder

  2. Angels in America

  3. The Triplette’s of Belville (Les Triplettes du Belville)

  4. City of God

  5. Kill Bill: Vol. 1

  6. Elephant

  7. Capturing the Friedman’s

  8. 28 Days Later . . .

  9. School of Rock

  10. Lost in Translation

2012

  1. Frances Ha

  2. Looper

  3. The Master

  4. Amour

  5. Samsara

  6. Cabin in the Woods

  7. Django Unchained

  8. The Story of Film: An Odyssey

  9. Like Someone in Love

  10. Zero Dark Thirty

2017

  1. Get Out

  2. The Beguiled

  3. Dunkirk

  4. Thor: Ragnarok

  5. Mudbound

  6. mother!

  7. Phantom Thread

  8. Faces and Places

  9. Baby Driver

  10. Loving Vincent

As always, these are my thoughts as of May 25, 2025

Thanks for playing, 

Guff