Everything About Rex Reed Begins With Movies

Today is Rex Reed’s birthday. When I called him Sunday to ask how he planned on celebrating, we covered the usual—movies, politics, being generally exhausted by many things, and being specifically exhausted by certain things—before returning to a topic that’s increasingly present in our conversations: the end. Specifically, his end. 

“I am beginning to see into the crystal ball, you know, and the end is coming soon.” He confides this as he’s done so many times before. It’s a lamentation...