Our extravagant, suitable-for-Kim Kardashian pad in San Felipe. We drove back to WeHo in 7 hours and 15 minutes, including a 45-minute (possibly an hour) wait at the Mexicali border crossing.

In a 7.26 Medium article, Michael Tracey notes how mainstream media types have in many cases under-reported if not ignored the destruction to small businesses and lower-income nabes caused by the George Floyd protest riots.

I for one am horrified by a certain clip from the new trailer for Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are (HBO series, eight episodes). I’m referring to the moment when Jack Dylan Grazer (It, Shazam) appears to be laughingly on the verge of shearing off Jordan Kristine Seamon‘s hair. They’re both loving the moment….the fuck? (HE to Guadagnino: Head-shaving is never, ever a laughing matter.) Grazer plays an introverted mid-teen from New York who’s just arrived at an Italian military base with his gay moms, played by Chloe Sevigny and Alice Braga. Seamon plays Caitlin, a settled teenager who has lived on the base for several years.

Chloé Zhao‘s Nomadland (Searchlight) will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival on the same date — September 11, 2020. It will also screen at the New York Film Festival, or so the press release says.

It should be noted that Nomadland is a potential Best Picture contender with no apparent politically correct demerits — Frances McDormand starring, directed and written by Zhao, based on Jessica Bruder‘s book, compassion for disenfranchised people, white male currents subordinate.

The wokesters will be down with it, and old-school males will want to vote for it in order to convey their support for women filmmakers and to show they’re in the swing of things.

The Venice debut will apparently be physically real and theatrical; the Toronto debut will be digital. Who knows if the NYFF showing will happen with a live audience? Here’s hoping.

Pre-dawn (5:35 am) in San Felipe (7.27.20) vs. similar vista used for opening credits of Mike Nichols’ Catch–22 (sequence shot in Guaymas, Mexico), which opened on 6.21.70.