In Steven Spielberg’s TheFabelmans, 87 year-old Judd Hirsch plays an elderly uncle on Michelle Williams’ side of the family. (Or something like that.). We’re already presuming Williams will be a Best Actress nominee, but two viewers believe that Hirsch is likely to become a Best Supporting Actor contender also.
Tipster: “I think Judd Hirsch will probably get a supporting actor nod. He’s only in three scenes (definitely less than 15 minutes total) but he stealsthewholefilm.”
Unless I’m forgetting something, Hirsch’s last Oscar nomination was for his performance as Dr. Berger, Timothy Hutton’s therapist, in Robert Redford’s OrdinaryPeople (‘80).
Answer: I would safeguard the lottery ticket by locking it inside a safe and secure place with thick steel walls, but first I would take photos of myself holding the lottery ticket along with a print edition of that day’s N.Y. Times. I would then make color copies of the lottery ticket. And of course hire a smart attorney to learn how to best proceed.
And then I would (a) give Jett and Cait the money they need to pay off their student loans and home mortgage, and then encourage them to buy a sizable colonial with a guest house in Westchester or Fairfield County that I would crash in from time to time; (b) give my son Dylan funding for a company or creative project of his own choice; (c) launch a motion picture production company, base it in lower Manhattan, decorate the offices just so, and hire smart people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s; (d) invest in some kind of promising green technology; (e) launch a pet care company that offers affordable spaying for people with limited income; (f) become a major financial supporter of the Telluride and Santa Barbara film festivals; (g) find some younger people (late 20s, early 30s) who are smart and creative but teetering and need a little stability in their lives (which I needed in the ’80s) and try to help their situations; (h) consider other investment opportunities that might make the world a better place; (i) secretly hire a team of Mission: Impossible guys to murder Vladimir Putin and his henchmen; (j) buy a loft in Lower Manhattan along with a BMW rumblehog scooter that I’d park in a nearby garage; (k) buy a nice three-bedroom apartment on rue Saintonge in Paris plus a BMW rumblehog scooter that I’d park in a nearby garage; (l) find an Asian supplier of gooey, high-grade opium; (m) buy a loft in Hanoi along with a BMW rumblehog scooter that I’d park in a nearby garage; and (l) buy a farmhouse in Tuscany along with a BMW rumblehog scooter that I wouldn’t have to park in a nearby garage because it’s Tuscany.
Chris Cuomo to Bill Maher: “The majority of people in this country want an alternative…they’re what I call free agents…I don’t like ‘middle’ or ‘independent’…everyone has been forced into picking a team. Culturally, we have to end the two-party system.”
After the disastrous disappointing underwhelming reception to his titular performance in Solo: A Stars Wars Story ('18), Alden Ehrenreich seemed to go into hiding. Okay, not entirely. Two years later he costarred in Brave New World, a Peacock streaming series based on the Aldous Huxley novel, but it was cancelled after a single season. The general impression (at least in this corner) was that the poor guy's career had been seriously dented, and that his leading-man aspirations had been dashed.
Login with Patreon to view this post
Last night HE commenter “K. Bowen” noted a key flaw in Phillip Barry’s well-liked ThePhiladelphiaStory (a 1939 Broadway play, and then a 1940 film from director George Cukor), or more precisely in how the play’s romantic relationships are sorted out in the third act:
HEresponse: That’s completely accurate. Cary Grant and James Stewart’s characters DO pair off at the end with their social-class equals, and yes, Stewart is CLEARLY more attracted to Hepburn than Ruth Hussey, who genuinely loves him but for whom he feels no fire in the loins.
In the end Stewart offers to marry Hepburn, but is turned down because Hepburn is more profoundly drawn to ex-husband and social equal Grant. So Stewart somewhat meekly and dejectedly accepts a union with Hussey, his own social equal.
Original play author Phillip Barry & screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart are basically saying “stick with your own kind” and “accept the social order of things” — wealthy blue-bloods belong with other wealthy blue-bloods, and middle-class strivers like Stewart’s Macaulay Connor and John Howard’s George Kittredge, a pretentious and moustachioed stuffed shirt if there ever was one, are better off with women of their own station.
So on one hand TPS is socially frank and realistic but on the other hand somehwat chilly and stifling. Compare this with the much nervier and more free-of-spirit, social-order-be-damned theme of Barry’s Holiday , which also costarred Hepburn and Grant.
Note: Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven uses a pet nickname for Hepburn’s Tracy Lord — “Red.” Hepburn’s hair color is front and center in the full-color poster, of course, but vague by way of Joseph Ruttenberg’s black-and-white cinematography. Hepburn’s freckly complexion (a typical red-hair component) was often obscured by makeup in her monochrome, big-studio heyday. Her natural red-auburn coloring was unmissable in John Huston’s richly hued TheAfricanQueen (‘51) and David Lean’s Summertime (‘55).
