Early this morning I re-read a 7.24.16 piece that riffed on Michael Moore‘s “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win,” and the nightmare of those days suddenly rushed back in. The debates hadn’t happened and the election itself wouldn’t be for another three and a half months, and somehow Moore knew. And as I read his words along with my own, long-buried feelings of irritation and even loathing for Hillary Clinton began to fill my chest. She orchestrated it all. She brought hell into our lives.

The graying and complacent Democrats and centrists who nominated Clinton and then ignored everything that was happening out there, brushing aside all of the fervor and passion churned up by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders…these people are the authors of our present nightmare. I get the willies when I re-live it. I didn’t realize it at first, but the summer of ’16 was a truly terrible period in American history. Not as terrible as now but close.

“I’ve been split on Hillary Clinton since she vanquished Bernie Sanders,” I began. “Half of me accepts that I have to vote for her sensible, pragmatic, Obama-continuing wonkery (along with her hawkish foreign policy instincts), and the other half can’t stand her — her cautious sidestepping of the Bernie revolution, that cackle, the Wall Street ties, the testy substitute-teacher vibe, her liberal-leaning but weather-vane-ish political values, the just-revealed DNC connivance against Bernie, the eye bags, the eff-you to the Berners with her selection of Tim Kaine, her compulsively secretive nature.”

There are three things about Clint Eastwood‘s The 15:17 to Paris (Warner Bros., probably sometime in late November or December) that scare…okay, concern me. I didn’t moan or roll my eyes but I did go “hmmm” when I read about them. My brow was furrowed, and I say this with all due respect for Eastwood’s celebrated fast-shoot, fast-cut approach to making features.

Worry #1: Eastwood’s decision to cast the real-life heroes of the 2015 train attack in France — Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone — as themselves. You know that’s a dicey call, and that the best we can expect from these guys will be “not bad but somewhat self-conscious” performances. You know their best won’t be good enough. No one will make a big deal about it, but deep down people will be muttering.

Worry #2: The decision to tell the story of the friendship of these guys when they were kids. There’s no way of exaggerating how little I care about this aspect. Didn’t I just finish explaining that back-stories and origin stories are a pain in the ass, and that all a really good film needs is a gripping capture of the way things really are when stuff starts to happen?

Worry #3: The dopey-sounding title. Firstly the “The” is completely unnecessary. Delmer Daves‘ 3:10 to Yuma (’57) and James Mangold‘s 2007 remake, both based on a 1953 Elmore Leonard short story, didn’t see the need. Secondly, only military people use military time; everyone else uses the common colloquial. The title — hello? — should obviously be 3:17 to Paris. Keep it straight, simple.

The 15:17 to Paris was announced in April, and began shooting last month. It’s already damn near close to wrapping.

What about creating a small but distinctive and attractive certification stamp that would be roughly synonymous with a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval…a stamp could that could be shared by da coolest Hollywood sites as a badge of honor?

I’ve previously floated the idea of Hollywood Elsewhere being a kind of Charley Varrick site. Myself and Sasha Stone vs. the big combines and the measured, cautious, status-quo mush (trade announcements, hires, pitch deals, tediously “thoughtful” analysis of sequel earnings, trends, inventory assessment, bean-counting, reviews, steady as she goes) that they tend to churn out.

Yesterday’s MTMP discussion with Tracking Board‘s Jeff Sneider, or a portion of it rather, inspired a notion about how this romantic allusion (“last of the indie crop-dusters”) could include not just Hollywood Elsewhere and Awards Daily, but also Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler plus another site I’m not allowed to mention.

Each site is obviously about their particular content and brand, but at least they’re all pointed and independent-minded — a quartet of distinctive, singular-voice platforms that any industry, especially one so closely entwined with dreamscapes and metaphors and cultural reflection as the entertainment industry, needs to stay healthy.

Back in late ’01 or early ’02, in the doldrums of the dot.com bust, David Poland and I tried to get a discussion going about creating a super-site of indie Hollywood voices — myself, Poland, Anne Thompson and Nikki Finke, believe it or not. I can’t recall if Sasha Stone was involved or not. It obviously never came to anything, but his idea was to merge four or five niche voices into one Big Niche Voice location. One-stop shopping for people looking for a little extra punch & personality instead of standard status-quo journalism.

My lone wolf instincts are too well-ingrained to talk about merging with anyone or anything, but a few select sites sharing a badge of honor…that could work. I’m thinking of a distinctive logo of some kind (like an MPAA PG-13 or R rating logo) that says “this is a cool site…a place you should visit…one of the few special places where precise and particular individual voices can be found…you can trust this site not to bullshit or bore you or cause your eyelids to droop a bit.”

Whaddaya think?

I wouldn’t see Patrick Hughes‘ The Hitman’s Bodyguard with a knife at my back. Mostly shitty reviews, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, same old action crap, 40% Rotten Tomatoes score…forget it. And yet it’ll earn over $20 million this weekend on 3377 screens. If it makes $21 million it will have averaged around $6200 per screen — not bad.

There’s irony in the fact that Steven Soderbergh‘s Logan Lucky, a smart, agreeably mellow heist film that’s allegedly better and smarter and generally more of a pro-level thing, isn’t doing as well. Yesterday it took in a lousy $2.8 million from 3,031 locations for a projected $7.7 million haul by Sunday night — nearly a third of what the Reynolds-Jackson film will make. 

Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes and Hilary Swank…good cast, and all of them mouthing smart lines in just the right away.  In my book Logan Lucky, which cost $29 million, is just as satisfying as any of the Ocean’s heist films, if not more so.

By yesterday morning Joe Popcorn had obviously decided to blow the Soderbergh off. Whyyyyeeeeeeeeee?

What did shitkicker types think? Did anyone see it last night in some Bumblefuck plex? HE tech guy Dominic Eardley caught a matinee in Louisville earlier this afternoon, and reports the theatre was nearly empty except for himself and a small group pf middle-aged women who came for Channing Tatum.

HE’s Logan Lucky problem: Tatum, Driver and Craig are much smarter than the guys who pulled off the Rififi or Topkapi heists, but they and others like them were dumb as fenceposts when it comes to making a common-sense choice as to who would make the best U.S. President, or at least not destroy the concept of basic sanity in terms of serving in the Oval Office. I just didn’t believe that Tatum and Driver and Craig could ever be as brilliant as all that. If they were truly brainy fellows they wouldn’t be doing time in jail, roaming around in pickup trucks, getting laid off, tending bar, driving forklifts and all the rest of it.

Last night Bill Maher deplored what he called the Bipartisan Pro-Fat Movement on both the left (anti-fat-shamers) and the right (relentless celebration of burgers, fries and bacon). Which amounts to bipartisan tolerance of a national health crisis. In liberal circles the worst thing you can do is mention weight, because that’s fat-shaming. Despite obesity being the cause of 18% of the deaths in America and a huge chunk of our health care bill, among shaming police the most important message you can send to any calorically challenged person is that your body is perfect the way it is.

Can I turn this into another plug for Patti Cake$? Despite my agreeing with Maher 110%, I still tumbled for Geremy Jasper’s Bergen County fable. Despite the reliance upon underdog-trying-to-make-it formula, it won me over. And as I’ve said before, this means something when coming from someone like myself. Who saw Patti Cake$ last night, and whadja think? How was the room while it played, and what was the feeling on your way to the parking lot?

My favorite bumper attraction, made or at least sold by CafePress for $7.99. Noticed this on the rear bumper of a big, fat black Chevy Suburban in the WeHo Pavillions parking lot — Friday, 8.18, 5:35 pm.

Just to sum up, on 8.7 Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan posted something about Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Phantom Thread (Focus, 12.25) being perceived as an upscale 50 Shades of Grey. This echoed an item last February that said PTA’s screenplay is about Daniel Day Lewis’s designer character falling for one of his muse/models (played by Vicky Krieps?), and how she gets him hooked on drugs and how they fall into an intense BDSM relationship. Does anyone know anything more specific?

Imagine having a high-end, bucks-up Hollywood career like Jennifer Jones had in the ’40s, ’50s and early ’60s (The Song of Bernadette, Since You Went Away, Duel in the Sun, Portrait of Jennie, Ruby Gentry, Beat the Devil, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, A Farewell to Arms, Tender Is The Night) and then things starting to go wrong and crazy in the mid ’60s (she attempted suicide in ’67) and finally ending up in an embarassing piece of shit called Cult of the Damned (aka Angel, Angel Down We Go). Imagine the shame, the self-loathing! Kino has a Portrait of Jennie Bluray (complete with green-tinted finale and full-color shot of the Jones portrait at the very end) out on 10.24.

Taped this morning at a small studio on 10615 Burbank Blvd., just west of Cahuenga Blvd. Completely easy and enjoyable. Scan the latest Oscar Spitball chart while listening. We briefly discuss Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler at 39:40. Thanks, Jeff — let’s do it again sometime.

Senior White House strategist and alt-right nationalist Steven K. Bannon has been cut loose. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

As far as Hollywood Elsewhere is able to ascertain, Bannon was dismissed because of increasing complaints that his bloated face and diseased-looking skin had disturbed too many people. Bannon’s face is the very portrait of soul rot. He looks like an angry compulsive boozer — swollen schnozz, grey pallor, spots and blemishes, puffy eye bags. I’ve seen Bannon-style faces in bars all across America, and in Ireland too. I’ve seen them in diners, trailer parks, VFW halls and bus stops so don’t tell me.

Other reasons for Bannon’s dismissal: (a) too toxic and self-aggrandizing, (b) too much of a media attention whore, (c) combative bad-mouther, (d) clashed with Jared Kushner, etc. We all knew Bannon would go sooner or later, right? No biggie.

With Justin Chadwick‘s Tulip Fever (Weinstein Co., 9.1) finally opening after nearly three years of test screenings, re-edits and release-date shifts, Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan has attributed the shoddy treatment to the 17th Century historical drama being a tweener — i.e., neither award-worthy nor juicy enough.

If you ask me the avoidance is due to three factors: (1) the word “tulip” in the title, which implies a certain painterly stillness or lack of narrative propulsion, (2) the casting of runt-sized Dane DeHaan as Alicia Vikander‘s romantic suitor and (3) Christoph Waltz as her cuckolded husband. Nobody wants to hang with those guys in this context…nobody.

From “Skeptical, A Certain Distance,” posted on 4.29.16:

“You can tell Tulip Fever is a carefully honed, well-crafted thing. The cinematography by Eigl Bryld (In Bruges) is obviously handsome; ditto the production design. It’s probably safe to assume that the screenplay by Tom Stoppard, based on a book by Deborah Moggach, will have a certain rhyme.

On Friday morning I’ll be doing a MEET THE MOVIE PRESS discussion wth The Tracking Board‘s Jeff Sneider. I don’t want to converse in that rat-a-tat-tat, Mexican-jumping-bean fashion that everyone always defaults to. Then I’ll be catching a special pre-TIFF screening of Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. Among the topics I’d like to kick around with Sneider: New releases (Logan Lucky, Patti Cake$, Crown Heights), HE’s Oscar Spitball chart, Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler, John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick going to Toronto, the expected $50 million appeal of It, and the curious persistence of Get Out in the Best Picture conversation.