“My first viewing of Love & Mercy put my attention more on John Cusack, whom I’ve never seen so vulnerable and exposed as he is here. So to me, on first pass, Cusack was the one I thought had the better chance at a nomination — not for lead, mind you, but for supporting. But then I saw the movie again. The second time through, Paul Dano’s performance emerged much more. So much so that I think he could be a strong contender not just to be nominated for Best Actor but maybe to win. It’s just a masterwork from Dano who tends at times to go a bit over the top. He doesn’t do that here.

Paul Dano, Brian Wilson, John Cusack.

“Both actors capture Brian Wilson’s gentle spirit and inherent sadness. Both actors show in such a subtle way how Brian Wilson tried so hard to beat back the voices and the demons. So while it’s true both actors make one complete performance, if it were me, I’d go for Dano for lead and Cusack for supporting. I’m saying this for two reasons: (1) the Best Actor race is going to be so crowded by Oscar-nomination time and (2) it will be hard to make sure this film is remembered at all because it’s being seen so early.” — from a 6.8 Sasha Stone piece called “The Dilemma of Paul Dano and John Cusack and the Best Actor Race.”

I really enjoyed and admired Listen To Me Marlon — an intimate, fascinating, full-scope portrait that turns rather sad during the final 20 minutes. Fascinating, never-before-seen footage. I’d read Marlon Brando‘s autobiography (“Songs My Mother Taught Me“) but until I saw Stevan Riley‘s doc last January I’d never heard him really open up. His recollections and reflections almost shook my lifelong suspicion that he’d allowed defeatism and bitterness to consume him over the last 30 years of his life. Directed and edited by Riley, produced by John Battsek. A select theatrical release on 7.29 plus some kind of exclusive Showtime airing.

I was complaining the other day about the vogue-ishness of transgender trending. A few hours later I was decisively told “no” (i.e., that shit will not fly, homey, so button it) by a columnist friend, and then another columnist friend replied that while the current era of transgender acceptance and celebration may seem threatening or confusing to some, it is nonetheless valid. My reply: “It’s not in the least bit threatening or confusing to me. Of course it’s valid but let’s keep in mind that the transgender option is a surgical remedy — a procedure that corrects a mistake that nature and biology occasionally perpetrate — and is therefore not quite the same as being a passionate socialist or a campaigner against fossil fuels or an opponent of NSA data gathering.

“Caitlin Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair has opened up the floodgates. Transgender choices have become a ‘thing’ in the p.c. realm — a cool vogue, a fashion statement, a topical celebration…a pride flag to hoist up the pole and cheer. And to judge by its proliferation in the media these days you’d think that transgender surgery is now suddenly being weighed or mulled over or considered by a semi-significant percentage of the population. Please. It’s an option that is now out there for people who want to take the plunge (and good for that) but calm down. What percentage of gender-ambivalent persons are having the procedure these days? More now than ever before, I’m guessing, but the attention being given to transgender stories and the general raising of consciousness is, I strongly suspect, wildly disproportionate to the statistical realities.

The most persistent argument against my Beware of Brownfellas piece is that (a) the 2007 Bluray version of Goodfellas was artificially brightened and (b) the new Goodfellas Bluray is a truer, more film-like rendering of what the original answer print looked like — i.e., nice and dark and murky. My response is simple. The 2007 Bluray version, which I’m completely happy with, contains a good amount of shade, shadows and darkness where appropriate. I saw Goodfellas three times in theatres in 1990, and I’m telling you that the ’07 Bluray is by no means an artificially brightened thing. It looks gritty, unaffected, like reality. How in the name of God can it improve the experience of watching Goodfellas by darkening and brown-tinting the image? How is it better for the viewer to remove details that were visible on the 2007 Bluray and bury them in shadows?

This morning I asked restoration guru Robert Harris about the why and wherefores, and his response was that the 2007 Bluray is “totally irrelevant.” What matters is the Scorsese-approved answer print that was supplied for the 2015 Bluray transfer. The 2007 Bluray, he says, “didn’t have stable reds, didn’t have proper black levels, didn’t have proper shadow detail.” The guys who mastered it, he says, “were using a more primitive technology.” And yet 2007 was ironically the first year “in which we had the ability to recreate film on Bluray.” It just wasn’t part of the ’07 Goodfellas. So, boiled down, the new Bluray is a welcome thing because it’s giving us a version that really looks like film, or so Harris and his brethren are saying.

Nancy Wells, my dear mom, passed Sunday night. She gave me everything — life, love, love of the arts (she turned me on to Peter Tchaikovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, John Updike, Frank Sinatra, George Gershwin…the list is infinite) and particularly love of theatre. She was the beating heart and balm of our family — 90% of the joy and spunk and laughter came from her, and she basically saved me and my brother and sister from my father’s alcoholic moodiness when we were young. (Not to diminish my dad’s influence too much — he gave me the writerly urge along with the barbed attitude, such as it is. But I would have been dead without my mom’s emotional radiance and buoyancy.) My mom loved show business, plays, films, music. She worked for NBC and BBC in the old days, acted in several plays in New Jersey (including Somserset Vaughn‘s The Constant Wife) and directed two or three plays at the Wilton Playshop. She was partnered in her own real-estate business in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

She had been gradually slipping away for a couple of years (during my last visit in early May she didn’t even open her eyes), and now, at last, her peace is absolute.

The corporates at the Watermark called and left a message about “an update on your mother’s situation” around midnight on Sunday. I called back and left a message…nothing. They called again this morning to say she’d “expired” at 8:55 pm Sunday night. Isn’t that what driver’s licenses and AAA memberships do — expire? I’m presuming that the Watermark, a perfunctorily compassionate if corporate-minded concern, learned from focus testing that the word “died” or “passed” is upsetting for immediate family members. 

I’m flying back to New York this weekend for a gathering of some kind.