Well, let’s see. There’s English teacher Les, the insufferable smug bearded dick with ears, Husband Les, the insufferable smug bearded dick with ears, Father Les, the insufferable smug bearded dick with ears, Author Les, the insufferable smug bearded dick with ears and Friend Les, the insufferable smug bearded dick with ears. So no matter which Les you “settle on”, you get an insufferable smug bearded dick with ears. Mason will have to up his smirking game though, I’ll tell you that.
There’s the early act III Les we all know and loathe, the Delicate Genius who’s experienced loss and pain on a level none of us slovenly mortals can ever truly grasp. Now on top of somehow turning Les’ maudlin cancer book (in real life not a book but just a collection of previously-released material BTW) into a semi-watchable film Mason has to study Dick Facey too, lest he fail to properly capture his many nuances and foibles. It’s just repulsive beyond words.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Few things are more sickening than the idea that Les is somehow a positive anything. The world of this strip is deranged, dangerously so.
“Catch me if you can!”
Masonry, did you just meet Les? No? You’ve known him for years and you still haven’t figured out he’s an egomaniac? Maybe you’d better figure out who you are first.
Yeah really. Mason is married to Les’ high school classmate. He’s been to Westview, Ohio multiple times. The movie pitch started in Montoni’s. He’s already inhated Les’ world more than any actor has ever inhabited the world of an ordinary schlub they’ve had to play.
That should be “inhabited”, but “inhated” is a funny typo. We all inhate Les’ world, don’t we?
And how long did it take you to “become” a Flash Gordon/Adam Strange rip-off on your last big film project, Mr. Jarre? To his credit, Masonne has clearly been trying to find the real Les Moore, but the simple truth is that his latest character study subject is like Gertrude Stein’s Oakland: there’s no there there.
Hahaha! Les is really gonna try to play this like no actor could ever portray him and his pain properly? That’s his latest angle of sabotage? What a turd.
He may have a point though. How could any actor depict him in an interesting way? No writer has even been able to do that yet…
And before he was an insufferable bearded dick with ears, he was the pathetic shlub who never met a social norm he could wrap his pea brain around.
Right…this too easy to snark on. Les is just an all around jerk. But Batty just tries to portray his bad habits as virtues.
How about the sociopathic hall monitor with the machine gun on his desk? TomBa’s recent attempt to retcon the image into a paper gun actually makes the context more ominous.
If teenage hall monitor Les could craft a pretty realistic-looking M60E4 out of papier mache for some artistic protest against the political absurdity of the Berlin Wall or something, then I might need to re-think some things about him….
“If teenage hall monitor Les could craft a pretty realistic-looking M60E4 out of papier mache for some artistic protest against the political absurdity of the Berlin Wall or something”
That would have made him a more interesting character, but it seems that Act I TomBa was more about the image of Les being a pawn of School Administration control and a jab at them (before TomBa made Les a teacher in Act II and had to retrench from “us vs. them”) The gun was only described as a prop by Funky in the very recent Act III past.
All pictures of Les should come with a trigger warning: “May induce homicidal rage. DO NOT blame your monitor for the images on it.”
I vote no, we’ll never actually see it, just Les’ reaction after, followed by a lot of facetiously self-deprecating remarks about how poorly it did at the box office due to the “public’s” infatuation with “Hollywood” trash. He’ll do it in that barely-perceptible passive-aggressive way of his too.
Ooo! Masone is a method actor. The Method requires you become miserable. Remember when Data was studying acting with Captain Picard and mentioned method study? Picard raised his eyebrow and dubiously replied, “The Method?,” as a great Shakespearean actor would. In the studio system actors went to the studio five days a week whether or not they had a film to make and practiced acting. Jimmy Stewart said it was the best way to learn acting. Jimmy Cagney said about acting “deliver your lines in a convincing manner.” Dustin Hoffman, a method actor walked around with a rock in his shoe to play Ratso Rizzo, and famously bragged to Laurence Olivier how he went sleep deprived to play the big scenes in Marathon Man, to which Olivier replied, “Why don’t you just act?”
As I said method acting requires misery, and Masone wants to be Less.
Holy shit that’s a great quote about Olivier…
Also, good to see New Yorkers in the Batiukverse practicing social distancing. Central Park looks emptier than it has ever been.
Lots of places are that way when Les shows up.
Why are they talking about the portrayal of Les when they haven’t even sold the movie yet? Because Batiuk isn’t telling a story, he’s just creating a scenario where he gets to praise Les.
You’re a hero, Les! Lisa’s story is the greatest story of our time, Les! Come to Los Angeles with me, Les! I want to do everything your way, Les! Come to New York with me, Les! Let’s meet with your irrelevant publishing agent, Les! Show me the location of every trivial moment in your honeymoon, Les! I want to become you, Les! Almost all from what’s supposed to be a famous and important person in this world.
This is puke-inducing on so many levels. He’s not just shoving a detestable character down the audience’s throat, he’s not even trying to tell a story.
And the universal New Yorker cartoon caption comes to mind “Christ what an asshole.” It does apply to both of them really Masone for his revolting sycophancy and Les for his smog I’m so deep no one could capture who I really am. Les you’re a smug shallow jerk who is so fragile that that you need a mother substitute who.brings you hot cocoa and cookies. And who has such little confidence in himself that he is driven to put people down so he will feel better. It would not be hard for an actor to portray Les, the huge challenge would be to make an audience like him.
Remember, too, that Masonry was cast as Les in the “Lust for Lisa” movie, and he was cast before Les went to Hollywood. It means that some sharp casting director knew that Mason Jarr was perfect for the role. Unless that decision was meant as deliberate mockery, Jarr should accept that he already has Les’s character down cold.
You’d think Les would be wrapping up this trip down retcon memory lane so he could get to work writing that script, but that’s just me…
Also, you’d think a completed script would come before location scouting. And casting the lead roles. And shopping the movie to potential interested parties. And an actor researching a role.
My recollection is that Mason didn’t really know anything about Les during the “Lust for Lisa” story. He kept pestering him with “This Les guy, who is he?” and other questions. That told me that Mason was here not because the role was a hot ticket, but because he was desperate for any role.
Yeah I think it was established that Masone was a C-lister waiting for his big breakthrough as a leading man… For fuck’s sake the man GOT STAGE FRIGHT BEFORE TABLE READS(!)
Which makes his jump from “Lust for Lisa” (which the network execs all but said was going to be late-night Cinemax softcore) to “Starbuck Jones: The Prequel to the Trilogy” with its $808 million dollar production budget all the more strange… And now a dimwitted ham actor of average at best talent who nobody knew two years ago has a greenlight and blank check to produce/direct/star in his own vanity project…
But as we’ve repeatedly noted, Batiuk has no fuckin’ idea how movies are made or how actors live…
(And don’t get me started on Marianne Winters not having a car and needing to bum a ride to the studio daily; or being halfway through shooting the movie and be like “You found Cliffe Angere? Of course well film a cameo scene for him!! Who cares if he’s 94 years old??” which somehow morphed into Angere being half the movie and sharing top billing)
But Batty got to shoehorn in the word: trampsteamer. He has been saving that word for decades.
I think TB’s vision of Hollywood film-making is stalled around the Butter Brinkle era – shabby backlots with cardboard and plywood sets, wardrobe mistresses quickly making over old costumes and sewing them onto starlets, scrappy understudies getting their big break…
Nah, that would actually be kind of interesting.
The Aqualung reference in the title made my day….