From The China Syndrome to The Firm to The Thing to any number of other films that start with "The", Brimley has had an interesting career chock full of exceptional performances.
The one I want to talk about here is the character he played in a great, too-little-seen movie called Absence Of Malice, starring alongside Sally Field and Paul Newman. Brimley played Assistant U.S. Attorney General James A. Wells, a no nonsense, straight-shooting public servant who was going to do what it took to get to the truth.
He didn't suffer fools lightly.
Speaking of fools, I was watching the Senate committee hearings and the testimony, such as it was, of Jeff "I do not recall" Sessions today. While I was, it dawned on me how much more streamlined and quickly the proceedings would go if Brimley's character was doing the questioning.
Have a read of some of his quotes, and see how easy it is to imagine how much better things would be going if he was in charge.
"Now we'll talk all day if you want to. But, come sundown, there's gonna be two things true that ain't true now. One is that the United States Department of Justice is goin' to know what in the good Christ - e'scuse me, Angie - is goin' on around here. And the other's I'm gonna have somebody's ass in muh briefcase".
"You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat."
"Tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna sit right here and talk about it. Now if you get tired of talking here, Mr. Marshal Elving Patrick there will hand you one of them subpoenas he's got stuck down in his pocket and we'll go downstairs and talk in front of the grand jury."
It only speaks to how surreal and desperate the current situation is that I'm wishing a fictional character would come rescue us.
But maybe it's going to take a fake person to get rid of a fake president.
