When Casting Got In The Way Of Excellent Writing
October 5, 2026
Conflict Between Femmebot Theology and "I Play Rocky"
October 4, 2026
Letitia James Is Obviously Out To Punish The Cornell 7
October 3, 2026
I said it last night in my 10.15 N.Y. Sun review, and I’m saying it again now. Get your ass to a showing of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim‘s nearly three-hour film as soon as possible. Don’t let the weekend expire without seeing it, and don’t read anything about it before you do.
SFGate‘s Drew Magary, posted on 10.16.26: “Sometimes the best journalists are people who don’t even purport to be journalists. The late Anthony Bourdain was one such accidental herald, as was Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen before the gonzo comedian became recognizably famous no matter his alter ego.
“Let’s go ahead and add writer/performer Nathan Fielder to the list. You and I know Fielder best from Nathan For You and The Rehearsal. Everyone else is about to know him for You Can See Everything, a tag team effort with documentarian Lance Oppenheim that is not only the best film of 2026 so far, but also one of the finest works of journalism I’ve ever seen.” No, no…it’s not journalism per se. It’s something more…much more.
Magary: “This movie arrives in theaters with plenty of deserved Oscar buzz. But in this case, a mere filmmaking award seems insufficient in recognition. As far as I’m concerned, this thing deserves a Pulitzer (categories be damned). And maybe a Nobel Prize.”
Trump obviously didn’t vet Katie Zacharia properly before bringing her on. It was brusque and hurtful to subject this poor woman to the media meat grinder and subsequent lashing ridicule.
…for having become distracted by other leading Best Actor contenders, and in so doing allowed my Malkovich-in-Wild Horse Nine fervor to fall away somewhat. Sorry!
In HE’s Best Actor box it’s Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich on top, followed by Elsinore‘s Andrew Scott (I guess…haven’t seen it but had a big impact in Telluride), Fjord’sSebastian Stan, I Play Rocky‘s Anthony Ippolito, and The Odyssey‘s Matt Damon (bending over backwards, I respect Damon’s work in this).
Topping HE’s no-way-in-hell list in this category are Digger‘s Tom Cruise, Project Hail Mary‘s Ryan Gosling, Primetime‘s Robert Pattinson (forget it!) and Behemoth‘s Pedro Pascal. None of these guys has a ghost of a prayer. Okay, maybe a sympathy nom for Cruise.
And what is the most effective award-season strategy for the enemies of this Phil Lord and Chris Miller science project film to take it down and keep it down?….to basically eliminate this full-of-beans, technically daunting, heart-tugging buddy comedy from any sort of serious Best Picture Oscar consideration? I mean, I’m getting really, really sick of seeing PHM near the top of Oscar handicapper lists, and somehow this really has to stop.
A geek confection like Project Hail Mary simply has no business sitting alongside Wild Horse Nine, I Play Rocky, Fjord, You Can See Everything, The Odyssey, Artificial and The Invite, not to mention the unseen-by-yours-truly but highly spoken of La Bola Negra, The Debut and Elsinore.
Should I say it gently, flatly, persistently, cunningly, loudly, quietly, urgently, casually? Should I assemble a drum kit and go crash-boom-bang like the Purple Gang? Any way you slice it, Project Hail Mary has to be brought down several pegs, if not stopped altogether.
The bottom line is that Project Hail Mary made me feel…well, not exactly like a dumbass but a bit like that kid in the back of the seventh-grade classroom who always flunked pop quiz tests. Folk you!
I knew early on that I would feel vaguely distanced from this thing. I didn’t hate it but vague discomfort certainly flooded my system. I wound up feeling sorta kinda nothing. Okay, I felt relieved when it finally ended. Because I really hate films that make me feel this way…films that gun the brain engine and converse with exotic, ahead-of-the-curve techno-jargon. PHM sure as shit does this.
So I began looking at my watch around the one-hour mark. And I kept checking it every 15 minutes or so. I checked it six or seven times in all.
Sandra Huller doesn’t count. She’s basically flashback filler. In a big scene she sings Harry Styles‘ “Sign of the Times”, which I didn’t immediately recognize. I knew the singing scene was coming, and I, being a clueless, old-school dumbass, thought it might be the Petula Clark version…nope.
This film really filled me with alienation. Existential gloom. I sat there thinking about death, and how being dead would be one way, at least, of avoiding any more Phil Lord and Chris Miller films.
Part of the reason I didn’t much care for PHM is Ryan Gosling’s over-acting. But it’s also Gosling himself…those vacant, close-together eyes. The shouting, the geek laughter, the slapstick physicality. What it is about this guy that I find so cloying, so irksome, so alienating? I haven’t really liked Gosling in anything since La-La Land.
I’m not privy to all the inside-baseball exhibition moves, but I was under the impression that bookings of Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord (which will expand into hip suburban venues on 10.23) had been, for the time being, restricted to the indie smarthouse realm (IFC Center, AlamoDrafthouse, Nitehawk). Wrong — it’s also currently at the AMC Lincoln Square and AMC Kips Bay, which obviously indicates a stronger buzz factor than previously detected. (Tonight’s 7 pm Lincoln Square showing “almost full”!)
The Oscars are the annual result of several cultural-political arguments that always feel like hand-to-hand combat, and are always heated and vicious. Every significant film and performance constitutes a guerilla war unto itself. (Except, that is, for the war among Best Picture contenders, which is always major and is why the triumph of the reprehensible EEAAO in early 2023 was such a crushing calamity.)
If Average Joes and Janes are too dim or otherwise lacking in brain cells to savor the various outcomes amidst the crack of rifle fire, that is their misfortune or disability.
If TheNolanoidCultOdyssey takes Best Picture it’ll be received as a confirmation of national popcorn mediocrity and nothing less than a suppressiveculturaltragedy. If YouCanSeeEverything wins it would yield nothing less than an explosion of forehead–slappingculturaleuphoria. If lPlayRocky were to win, it would represent a triumph of the heart element…of back–to–basics ‘70svalues and fundamental decency. If La Bola Negra wins, it would be be celebrated as a huge victory for…uhm, people who love it as well as the international gay agenda consortium.
Brad Bird‘s Ray Gunn, an animated Blade Runner-type deal with Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson, premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 10.10.26. Pic is slated to go theatrical on 12.4.26; Netflix streaming begins on 12.19.
From Guy Lodge’s 10.10 Variety review: “Like Blade Runner, the fifth animated feature from Brad Bird sits in the genre-melding realm of sci-fi noir; unlike Blade Runner, with its seamy, rain-sodden transformation of Los Angeles, this lighter, brighter detective story is not willing to sacrifice much gleam.
“[Pic is] a handsome return to the retro-futurism Bird previously practiced in The Incredibles and his live-action oddity Tomorrowland: in this case, a vision of an impossible 21st-century metropolis as might have been dreamed in 1939.
“The story kicks off when gumshoe Ray (Sam Rockwell) is hired by Arnold (Bobby Cannavale), the lunkhead fourth husband of tempestuous pop megastar Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson), to spy on her, though his motivations, of course, aren’t entirely what they seem.
“When people start showing up inconveniently dead and she’s thrust into scandal on the eve of her new album launch, Ray finds himself effectively babysitting her whilst carrying out his own snooping.
“But she’s a hard woman to pin down, in multiple senses; the more he knows about her, the less he knows about her, and naturally something sparks between them.”
This 1958 North by Northwest snap of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint has been viewed for decades, and for all this time I’ve been in love with the lace-up pumps that Grant wore during filming at Chicago’s LaSalle Street station.
As far away from the clunky civil-servant New York beat cop shape as can be imagined. Sleek Italian design, no thick soles, Spanish flamenco heels.
Around the 26-minute mark Holmes called Evans from the Texas federal prison where she’s serving an 11-year sentence.
Around the 31-minute mark Evans explains why they fully participated in Nathan Fielder‘s You Can See Everything (which HE will be seeing at 3 pm today).
YouTube commenter: “[The call was] clearly planned by Evans and Elizabeth. He sounds like a teenager declaring his love…in my eyes it was a pathetic attempt to try and show everyone how in love they are with each other. I guarantee they’ll split up within a couple of years after her release.”
Holmes to Evans as she entered prison three-plus years ago: “Now we are free.”
And Leonardo DiCaprio is 100% entitled to saunter around with a gorilla gut if he so chooses. If he wants to be Ward Bond in the ’50s, fine…try it out!
But generally speaking a 40something or 50something guy with a dad bod should, I feel, always feel ashamed of this, and he should always “hide” the belly by sucking it in, double especially when paparazzi cameras are lurking about.
In the 42-year-old Poltergeist, Craig T. Nelson performed a comedic “before, after” stomach-sucking routine in front of wife JoBeth Williams. Suck it in, bro, and keep it in.
Bond was only 57 when he died of a heart attack on 11.5.60. A lifelong anti-Communist rightie, Bond passed under a presumption that Richard Nixon would win the presidential election, which happened on 11.8.60.
