There’s nothing sad, much less tragic, about a great actor‘s life ending after 95 years.

Hal Holbrook didn’t really get going as an actor until the early 1950s, when he was in his mid to late 20s. His first performance as Mark Twain happened at age 29. His film debut was in Sidney Lumet‘s The Group (’66), when he was 41 or 42. Holbrook had just turned 50 when he played Deep Throat in All The President’s Men. He played Abraham Lincoln twice, and delivered stand-out supporting performances in Julia (’77), The Fog (’80), Creepshow (‘82), Wall Street (’87), The Firm (’93), Hercules (’97) and Men of Honor (’00). His kindly older guy in Sean Penn‘s Into the Wild (’07) resulted in Oscar and SAG noms for Best Supporting Actor. His performance in That Evening Sun (’09), playing what Variety‘s Joe Leydon called “an irascible octogenarian farmer who will not go gentle into that good night”, was a milestone.

95 robust years, and roughly 70 of them as an actor in good standing.

When I think of Holbrook do I hear the twangy, crackling, sandpaper voice of Samuel Clemens? No, I hear the vaguely testy, whispery voice of Deep Throat. Less was more.

…begins with a single sentence, the first Kindle page, the first whiff. Or, speaking practically, with a careful scanning of the chapters to come. I’ve walked this path and merged with this man many times before…different forms, different narrators…so I feel free to hop around and parachute into this or that chapter at will. Call it a Citizen Nichols approach, co-written in a sense by Mark Harris and Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Hollywood Elsewhere won’t be able to stream Rebecca Hall‘s Passing until Wednesday, 2.3. But I’m reading and hearing things. Based on a same-titled 1929 book by Nella Larsen and mostly set in 1920s Harlem, Passing is about a married woman of color — Ruth Negga‘s Claire Kendry, whose blonde hair and half northern-European features allows her to pass for white, which was deemed desirable 90-odd years ago.

Claire’s racist husband Jack Belew (Alexander Sarsgard) believes her to be as white as Calvin Coolidge. This, I’m told by a colleague who’s seen it, is a stumbling block. The story focuses on the reunion of Kendry and Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and a subsequent attraction that kicks in and leads to tragic consequences.

Friendo: We’re supposed to believe that Skarsgard, Negga’s very racist husband who uses the N-word freely, is completely oblivious to the fact that his wife may have some black ancestry. He believes he married a 100% white woman.
HE: But Negga, though light-skinned and wearing a blonde wig in the film, is obviously mixed race to some degree. Just ask those scurvy racist crackers in Loving — they did everything they could to break up her marriage to Joel Edgerton. Oh, and I love that Passing was shot in black and white.
Friendo: The film is very well made, but its biggest flaw is the implausibility I mentioned. There is no way a racist husband would not realize that Negga has at least some African-American blood. He even mentions that he hates “them” even if they have a small fraction of non-white DNA.
HE: Jessica Kiang’s Variety review was unqualified in its praise. In her view, the movie is nothing short of heavenly.
Friendo: I assume Coda, Summer of Soul and Passing will all be winning something by the end of the festival.

Tessa Thompson (l.), Ruth Negga (r.) during filming of Rebeca Hall’s Passing.

N.Y. Times, filed 15 or 20 minutes ago: “Senator Mitch McConnell said on Monday that the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” embraced by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene amounted to a “cancer” on the Republican Party, issuing what in effect was a scathing rebuke to the freshman House Republican from Georgia.

“’Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,’ McConnell said. ‘This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.'”

Politico, 8:30 pm eastern: “Top House Democrats are moving to force Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off multiple committees this week — with or without Kevin McCarthy’s help.

“House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivered an ultimatum to McCarthy on Monday: Either Republicans move on their own to strip Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments within 72 hours, or Democrats will bring the issue to the House floor.

“The Democrats’ move, while highly unusual, comes amid intense fury within the Democratic Caucus over Greene’s long record of incendiary rhetoric, including peddling conspiracy theories that the nation’s deadliest mass shootings were staged. Greene also endorsed violence against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats before she was elected to Congress.

“Last week, Greene was officially awarded seats on the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Budget Committee.

“Greene has shown zero contrition for her past actions, tweeting over the weekend that she will “never apologize.” She also took a jab at Hoyer on Twitter Monday and revealed plans to travel to Florida “soon” to meet with former President Donald Trump, who she said supports her “100 percent.”

HE to Demian Bichir (sent on 1.15.21):

Greetings, bruh. Long time, hope you’re good. I was very moved by your sad Deadline essay about poor Stefanie. I’m so sorry for what befell her. Very few of us seem to acknowledge, even privately, how tenuous and fragile our hold on stability or safety is, much less happiness. I’m so sorry.

By the way I liked you a lot in Robin Wright‘s Land, which I saw last night. I’m glad Robin chose you, believed in you. Your humanity came through. I didn’t think it was dramatically satisfying or appropriate for your character to [spoiler info]. I liked your character and valued his presence, and so I felt irked and cheated by [spoiler info].

But I also have to say that while I respect Wright’s attempt to offer some kind of comment about soul-cleansing isolation and to carve out some kind of naturalist ethos, I really didn’t care for her character, Edee Mathis, at all. Robert Redford‘s Jeremiah Johnson was human and relatable — Edee isn’t. What a profoundly stupid, self-involved, slow-to-awaken woman…she loves her isolation and her general disdain for other people too much. She doesn’t even keep her SUV near her cabin in case there’s an emergency? Idiot!

When you and your sister (Sarah Dawn Pledge) found Edee lying on the floor of her cabin, starved and half-frozen and near death…I’m sorry to share this but on another level I’m not. When you found her like that I was thinking “this idiot did this to herself out of flat-out stupidity and arrogance, and so by the laws of nature and natural consequence”…I probably shouldn’t say this but I was thinking that if she passed it would be more interesting than if she’d lived.

There’s a moment in which Edee looks at your character and says with a slight tone of suspicion, “Why are you helping me?” After you and your sister have literally saved her form the jaws of death, she looks you right in the eye and asks why, and with a vaguely snippy tone to boot. When a viewer feels this negatively about the central character in a film…well, it’s not a good thing. Even a nominally “bad” character can enlist audience sympathy if the film is handled right. I felt more emotionally supportive of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II than I did for Edee Mathis. I felt more compassion for Boris Karloff‘s monster in The Bride of Frankenstein.

If Edee had died in her cabin I would have said to myself “tough break but just desserts…this is the law of life and survival…now Edee will never have to deal with another human being ever again.”

Nothing matches the excitement of being half-buried by a perfect white snowscape, and the cozy pleasure of staring at falling snow from inside a warm home. I’m generally less transported when a big snowfall starts melting but until that point, it’s like I’m eight years old again.

The life and career of the dynamic Rita Moreno is given a proud upward spin in Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. It streamed last Friday (1.29) at the Sundance Film Festival, and the tone of it is very “go, Rita… we love and cherish you”, etc. Which is great — it’s what every positive-minded doc about a long-haul, never-say-die actress should be like.

But it also says “poor Rita, poor girl…the sexist, male-dominated entertainment world of the ’50s treated you like an exotic piece of meat…it failed to foresee the advent of Women’s Liberation of the late ’60s and the #MeToo movement of 2017 and beyond…it refused to see beyond the borders of the ’50s and failed to honor you for the spunky, spiritual being that you are now and always have been, and so it failed you. And we’re sorry for that but at least you’re still kicking it at age 89. And we love you for that.”

I’m basically saying that as buoyant and impassioned as Riera’s doc is, it plays the victim card over and over. It ignores the way things were when Moreno was coming up in the ’50s, and it tips in the direction of instructional 21st Century progressive feminism. It’s totally infused with “presentism” — judging the past by present-day standards.

It’s not about how Moreno’s life unfolded on a moment-to-moment basis when she was coming up and making her name and building her career, but about how badly she was treated and what assholes the various men were. Which they WERE, of course, but the ’50s were not a time of enlightenment as far as recognizing the full value of women in any realm was concerned. Moreno had a tough time because of that, but she came through anyway and look at her today…unbowed, feisty, still plugging.

Yes, the film industry was sexist, exploitive, insensitive…unable or unwilling to see Moreno as a unique Latina with her own identity amd contours. Yes, it was a bad place in many respects, but then again she was close to the top of the industry in the ‘50s. How many dozens or hundreds of other Latina actress dancers were hungry to be cast in the roles that she landed? How many others were as talented? Or making as much money? (There was a reason that she got the Anita role in West Side Story rather than Chita Rivera, who played thee spitfire character on Broadway). How many Puerto Rican-born actresses were hanging out with Marlon Brando in the ’50s and early ’60s and running in that heavy company? Or attending the 1963 Civil Rights March? And having a side affair with Elvis Presley and rubbing shoulders with almost everyone who mattered back them?

Yes, she really got going as a stage and character actress in the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. Yes, she was on The Electric Company and Sesame Street and Oz. Yes, she’s costarring in the Norman Lear reboot of One Day At A Time, etc.

It’s a bit curious, by the way, that Riera decided to ignore Moreno’s big scene with Jack Nicholson at the end of Mike Nichols‘ Carnal Knowledge (’71). It’s one of her hallmark moments of that era, and yet Riera dismisses it because…you tell me. She also ignores Moreno’s Elvis Presley affair, which was basically about making Brando jealous. (And she succeeded in doing that.)

The narrative is only about how cruel and insensitive and oppressive the industry was to Moreno. Which it WAS, of course. But it also afforded her fame, fortune, access, opportunity….all kinds of drama and excitement and intrigues. Obviously hard and demeaning and ungracious, but also door-opening. The doc only tells you how oppressive things were and what pigs the men were. Or what control freaks they were. Which they WERE, of course, but when wasn’t life hard or challenging for saucy actresses, especially in the bad old days? What people haven’t been disappointing in this or that way?

Hunter: [about the radio repair] How long’s it gonna take?
Vossler: I don’t know, sir.
Hunter: You know what’s going on here?
Vossler: Yes, sir.
Hunter: No, I don’t think you do. Let me explain it to you. If we launch, and we’re wrong, what’s left of Russia is gonna launch at us. There will be a nuclear holocaust beyond imagination, and so it’s all about knowing, Mr…

[Hunter looks at Vossler’s name patch]

Hunter: Vossler. We have to know whether our order to launch has been recalled or not. The only way we’re gonna know, is if you fix that radio…you understand?
Vossler: [looks down]
Hunter: You ever watch Star Trek?
Vossler: St…yeah, Star…
Hunter: Star Trek! The USS Enterprise? All right, now you remember when the Klingons were gonna blow up the Enterprise and Captain Kirk calls down to Scotty he says “Scotty, I gotta have more power.”
Vossler: He needs more, more warp speed, yeah.
Hunter: Warp speed, exactly. Now I’m Captain Kirk, you’re Scotty, I need more power. I’m telling you if you do not get this radio up, a billion people are gonna die. And it’s all up to you. I know it’s a shitty deal but you got it…can you handle it?
Vossler: [silent]
Hunter: Scotty?
Vossler: Aye, Captain.

For the last two or three years, John Ford biographer Joseph McBride has posted this photo of young John Martin Feeney, who seems to be two and a half or three years old. McBride routinely posts on Ford’s birthday — February 1, 1894. The renowned director was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and died 79 years later in Los Angeles.

Obligatory HE response: This is a fake photo. John Ford was born bald and ornery and smoking a cigar and wearing shades and a floppy hat. He was suckled by his mother with Irish whiskey.. A legendary fimmaker and a visual composer second to none, but one of the most miserable and cantankerous sons of bitches who ever walked the earth. Gruff, snarly and dismissive…a caustic bastard of the first order.

And a boozy Irish sentimentalist of the first order. He never failed to depict alcoholics as anything less than charming or even endearing.

I love many of your films, Mr. Ford (my three favorites are The Grapes of Wrath, Young Mr. Lincoln and The Horse Soldiers), but otherwise…I’ve said enough.

My favorite scene in Mike Nichols‘ Wolf (’94) is the moment when the wig-wearing Jack Nicholson cuts Michelle Pfeiffer down to size, dryly summarizing her aloof manner and personality and putting it all into droll perspective.

The problem, for me, is that they’re eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In fact the moment that Pfeiffer said “I only have peanut butter and jelly and some milk”, I flinched in my seat. I’ll occasionally have a peebee-and-jay sandwich, but guiltily, self-loathingly. I hate how a person smells when they’ve eaten peanut butter, including myself. When I finish eating one of those awful things I immediately scrub my hands and face with soap, and then brush my teeth twice and gargle with blue minty mouthwash, and then wash my face again. And even then I can still smell the peebee. So as much as I admire the dialogue (written by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick with an uncredited assist from Elaine May), the odor of peanut butter gets in the way.

Why is this my favorite scene? Because back in my randy prime I’d occasionally run into a devastatingly attractive lass at a party or press screening, and she’d give off the same “don’t even think about it, buster” vibe. Which was fine with me as I was batting around .333 between the late ’70s and late ’90s and I learned early on not to sweat the strike-outs or pop-ups. What mattered was accepting the verdict with a certain degree of charm or at least politeness, and then you move on. And every now and then you’d run into someone who really liked you, and you’d pursue that and take it as far as it was meant to go. One thing you never, ever do is fall in love with someone who’s flighty or fickle or aloof or worst of all crazy — that’s a recipe for pure pain.

I always wanted to deliver a little speech like Nicholson’s, but I never did. I’ll bet Nicholson himself never did either.