Woody Allen‘s chief defender disputes Allen v. Farrow producers…the plot thickens…

Olivia Colman‘s expression conveys a trace of amusement. Her face says, “My clever dad has his occasional moments…he worries me and amuses me at the same time.”

Anthony Hopkins‘ face says, “I know I’m amusing, heh-heh, and I’m glad to see you’ve noticed….you’re welcome!”

This father-daughter dynamic is not what the movie is about, of course, but that’s okay. The ad has its own mindset — its own movie to sell.

It’s hot and cold there. The soil is reddish or brownish terra cotta. The topography is like Twentynine Palms or east of Indio, mostly flat with occasional sand dunes, hills and scattered boulders. So where’s the exotic excitement?

When Kyle Buchanan wrote a profile about Promising Young Woman‘s Carey Mulligan a couple of months ago, attention was gained and the pot was stirred. Especially when Mulligan was quoted saying that she “took issue” with Dennis Harvey‘s Variety review of her film.

Yesterday Buchanan posted an interview with Nomadland‘s Frances McDormand, and the motive was more or less the same as Mulligan’s had been — perk up the conversation, blow a favoring breeze.

On 3.15 McDormand and Mulligan will almost certainly be announced as competitors for the same Best Actress Oscar. Why do I have this feeling that this is not McDormand’s year to win? Partly because she won an Oscar three years ago for her performance as an angry mom in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, her second such honor after winning for her Marge Gunderson in Fargo 24 years ago. Enough, right?

But now McDormand has offered another reason. She’s told Buchanan that she’s still looking to live under the radar. Buchanan notes McDormand “is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators“, adding that when her husband Joel Coen “was asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show.”

Buchanan further notes that McDormand sometimes appears “barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture,” a form of “mild noncompliance [that] is tantamount to a declaration of war in Hollywood.”

Right after Fargo, McDormand “made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years,” she says, “but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to. It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.”

“To her,” Kyle writes. “Nomadland is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. ‘That’s why it works,’ she said. ‘That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”

Get the picture? Low-key, no thanks, we’re good, the Oscars are a bit gaudy, we have our own deal.

I’m very sorry about Tiger Woods having been injured this morning in a “serious” one-car accident, and that a Jaws of Life rescue was necessary to extract him.

It happened around 7:12 am. Woods’ vehicle (a Genesis GV80, made by Hyundai) was heading north on Hawthorne Boulevard at Blackhorse Road, on the border of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes.

People who drive at a reasonable speed with both hands on the wheel don’t, as a rule, wipe out and flip over. Usually accidents of this type happen as a result of speeding. Woods has reportedly injured his legs. His golf career may be seriously impacted.

A certain number of QAnon-influenced Texas morons are using TikTok to share suspicions about all the “fake snow” that has blanketed their homeland. The idea is that government baddie-waddies, possibly aided and abetted by Bill Gates, engineered the snowstorm in order to get the righties. The “proof” is in the fact that the stuff on the ground isn’t real snow, certain Texans are claiming. Because if you try and melt the “fake snow” with hair dryers. matches or bunsen burners, it turns black rather than melts.

Ain’t that America?