Year: 2020

According to a recently posted N.Y. Times story by Katie Glueck, Mark Landler, Marc Santora and Michael Cooper, Joe Biden‘s flip of Pennsylvania and Georgia is decisive and growing. As of Friday evening his Keystone State lead over Trump was higher than 14,500. His Georgia advantage had been whisper thin, but by Friday evening Biden had tallied 4000 more votes than Trump.

In Arizona, the Times reported, Biden’s advantage shrank slightly “but not by as much as Republicans had hoped.” In Nevada today, Biden “nearly doubled his lead” over Trump to roughly 20,000 votes.

The trends aren’t going to change. The data overwhelmingly indicates that Biden’s leads back east are going to increase; ditto Nevada and Arizona. So why is the Times refusing to admit the obvious by declaring it for Biden-Harris?

And why are they continuing to post that infuriating electoral map in which Biden is still at 253 electoral votes and Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania are still color coded as undecided — and I mean not even leaning toward Biden-Harris with light blue tints.

If you didn’t know better you’d think it’s still a “who knows?” situation.

And why are the major networks refusing to call it? They know exactly what’s going on, but — I don’t want to sound rash or intemperate but there’s no other way to put it — they seem to be afraid of what the Trump loonies might say or do.

Another way of putting it is that they’re chickenshit.

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“Looking at the bigger picture, Democrats were done in by extreme voices that Mr. Trump was able to link to their party. Defunding the police will never be popular outside a few lefty precincts. The whiff of socialism helped kill Democrats in Florida.

“In California, voters rejected ballot measures that would have delivered a return of affirmative action and a bill to expand rent control. The result was a wake-up call for the overly woke.

“In battered Portland, Ore., where violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement have brought terror to the streets, a candidate who embraced Antifa lost to the more moderate mayor, Ted Wheeler.

“The violent fringe on the left helped Mr. Trump. The violent fringe on the right, sadly, did not appear to hurt him.” — from Timothy Egan’s “American Democracy Survives Its Brush With Death“, N.Y. Times, 11.6.

If I were part of a big snowball fight in 1897 Lyon, myself and maybe 10 or 12 others, I’d stick to the basic universal snowball fight rule. I would throw snowballs only at combatants — at those who were throwing them at me or at anyone in this particular throng who had declared themselves to be more or less fair game.

If a friend or a co-worker had happened along and I wanted to invite him to take part, I might hit him with a snowball or two — that would be okay. As long as the harmless violence stays within the fraternity, so to speak.

It goes without saying I wouldn’t throw snowballs at, say, an elderly woman or a couple of small kids who happened to be walking nearby. Or an innocent dog who’d strayed into the vicinity. Or a guy who was riding a bicycle and just trying to get through.

But in this high-deffed, colorized, smoothed-out Lumiere Bros. clip, the snowballers attack a passing bicyclist with a kind of strange, stupid fury. They pelt the poor guy again and again and knock him off his bike, and one of them even briefly snatches the bike — “It’s my bike now, deepsheet! Hah!”

If I’d been the bicyclist and especially after I’d hit the show-covered pavement, I might have taken a swing or two at someone. “Jesus…fuck’s wrong with you, man?” As in, knock yourselves out but what’s this got to do with me? If I’d been one of the attackers, I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised if the bicycle guy had let one of us have it. Ignore the rules of civilization, and you shouldn’t be surprised if someone pushes back.

The snowball fight was posted on YouTube on 3.20.20, but yesterday The New York Times‘ Sam Anderson posted it along with a few paragraphs’ worth of reactions.

“This is my favorite film of 2020,” Anderson wrote. “[It’s] a tiny masterpiece that perfectly distills not only our current mayhem but also, more profoundly, our baffling displacement in time.” The sequence lasts 52 seconds.

The Lumière brothers were, of course, among the world’s first cinematographers and editors. The footage was originally captured in jumpy, rickety monochrome, of course. It’s amazing how nowadays footage this old can be made to look this good. Check out the 1896 footage of the little girl and the cat [after the jump], which looks especially fresh and real due to the high frame rate (60 fps).

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Along with the ascendant respect and celebrity of MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, ex-SNL-er Leslie Jones has graced his rep with a brilliant analysis.

Jones allegedly left SNL last year to host a Supermarket Sweep reboot, a role in the Coming to America sequel, another opposite Kristen Bell in Queenpins and a Netflix comedy special.

I be hope I got his name right but I’m sure I didn’t! But I like him! He look like the only who is as worried as me lol!! pic.twitter.com/2WvOC0ofJn

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) November 6, 2020

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Translation: Cancel culture fanatics need to apologize for their epic awfulness and then STFU forever. Or commit ritual seppuku…whatever works.

Andrew Yang says Democrats need to improve their appeal to the working class: "In there minds the Democratic party unfortunately has taken on this role of the coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life." pic.twitter.com/UljmEH0sEn

— The Matt Skidmore Show (@ZachandMattShow) November 6, 2020

Fox, AP and Politico have declared Joe Biden the winner in Arizona, which gives him 264 electoral votes. So even without Pennsylvania or Georgia, which could tip Biden’s way, he’ll have 270 when the Nevada count is finally settled.

Chart courtesy of BBC.com

Wow — things got real at Trump’s unhinged press conference tonight!! 😳 pic.twitter.com/xByO6OhyoB

— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) November 6, 2020

To not connect the below logo with the spirit of Howard Beale and the special (though now anachronistic) energy and poetry of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network is to truly miss the point of…Jesus, where do I start?

Peak Beale described himself as shatteringly alive, at one with nature and the universe and a vessel of crackling electrical energy. He claimed with some conviction to be imbued with the cosmic spirit that Hindus call “prana” —a state of knowing and being that is spaceless and timeless and aglow with “oh, such loveliness.”

For like anyone touched by satori, Beale had recognized he was merely a conduit for that which flows and surges through every living atomic particle in the universe, humming and throbbing with eternal energy and attuned to the cosmic altogether.

Herman Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, John Lennon, George Harrison, Donovan, Timothy Leary…they all knew and recognized Howard as one of their own.

Donald Trump is, was and always will be a craven, Queens-born real-estate hustler, and approximately a quarter-inch deep; Beale is, was and always will be a well-educated, thoroughly establishment media figure who stumbled into spiritual transcendence by way of low ratings, alcohol and despair.

I feel Beale-ishness within me. I always have. I say this as a survivor of alcoholism (in myself, my dad and his father before him) and a grateful graduate of the LSD school of the Baghavad Gita.

If I’d known last year or even last January that life as I knew it for decades and decades, a life that involved occasional joy and parties and adventure and travel and great restaurant meals and watching movies inside first-class theatres…if I’d known all of this would suddenly come to a crashing halt as of last February and that it would stay that way for many subsequent months…if I’d known this was in the cards I would have savored life as it used to be a lot more. I would’ve said to myself and to friends over and over, “I know this sounds sappy, but from a certain perspective our lives are fairly wonderful right now.”

The opening Mexico City action sequence in Sam Mendes‘ Spectre (’15) is arguably the coolest and certainly the most visually ambitious in the entire Bond canon. But there’s a dividing line.

If you’re a serious film monk you prefer the opening four minutes, which is purely about exciting design and atmosphere, perfectly executed choreography and dazzling camerawork — a grade-A Scorsese moment. And if you’re a popcorn-level goon you’ll prefer the second clip, which goes crazy with CG and outlandish action starting at the 1:50 mark.

I don’t know the exact figures but the goons probably outnumber the cineastes by an approximate ratio of 20 to 1, and that’s why action films are made the way they are these days. But kudos to Mendes for at least delivering the opening four.

As I understand the current formula or mindset, anyone spitballing the 2020 Best Picture nominations needs to favor progressive-minded contenders as liberally as possible, regardless of how good they might be on their own terms or what the Movie Godz might say. At least three or four out of ten, and preferably five. An Oscar handicapper ignores or under-values wokester favorites at his or her own peril. Just ask Tom O’Neill and the Gold Derby crowd.

Right now the rock-solid, no-special-consideration contenders are five — Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland, David Fincher‘s Mank, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, Florian Zeller‘s The Father and Lee Isaac Chung‘s Minari (although the latter is a little more of a Spirit Awards thing than a great-guns Oscar contender, even with Steven Yeun‘s performance warranting a potential Best Actor nomination).

In all candor and conviction I believe that Azazel Jacobs‘ French Exit and Rod Lurie‘s The Outpost also belong in this category because they occupy and inform their respective territories (sardonic-fatalistic dry humor and hyper-frenetic, true-life battle jitters) with great style and strong characters. They don’t need any favors. Both stand on their own two feet and look you right in the eye.

I also believe that Chris Nolan‘s Tenet, for all the difficulty understanding the dialogue or plot particulars (and I really can’t wait to watch it with subtitles when the Bluray hits on 12.15), is a major accomplishment — a daring, highly original, high-powered action film with eye-popping sequences that I’ve never before seen in my life.

So that’s five rock solids and three “totally owning their own turf” films that deserve Best Picture contender status. Eight altogether.

I’ve seen Ron Howard‘s Hillbilly Elegy. It’s a familiar-feeling people movie about a guy struggling to walk his own path despite a dysfunctional family upbringing and dispiriting cultural influences. A lot of difficult behavior from Amy Adams’ character, but the story is the story and the film accomplishes what it sets out to do. And Glenn Close is great as “Mamaw.”

Due respect for Regina King‘s One Night in Miami, but it’s a well-written, well-acted ensemble film that is more good than great.

Nobody’s seen News of the World, The Prom, Judas and the Black Messiah or Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. And I haven’t gotten around to Ammonite or Promising Young Woman.

Good or even brilliant as it may be, Soul is animated and therefore ineligible for the Best Picture Oscar.

I’m not stupid. I understand what I should say (or would be wise to say) in order to curry favor with all the distributors and publicists. You have to blow with the prevailing winds to get along — I realize that. But who else is respectfully standing outside the kneejerk wokester hivemind cabal like Hollywood Elsewhere? Who else among Oscar prognosticators assesses the situation with at least a semblance of backbone? Like it or not, but there are many Academy and guild members who see things as I do, which is to say straight and true without any p.c. blather or tapdancing. And that is HE’s value.