The Disqus comment count function (top right of each post) has returned! Heartfelt thanks to HE’s own Sasha Stone and a Manhattan tech guy named Dan, who saved the day when he reported the problem to the Disqus tecchies, and then they fixed the issue…whatever it was.

The comments themselves never disappeared but the count did. It felt awful when it vaporized — sure feels great to have it back.

…than to learn that the Marvel machine has finally, irretrievably ground to a halt. 14 years of this shit. Alas…

From Richard Rushfield‘s “Who Killed the Marvel Juggernaut?,” an Ankler piece that appeared this afternoon:

“What has been the effect of having new Marvel material — directly tied to the films — rolling out constantly on TV?

“Part of the wonder of Marvel films was their scarcity. As social media grew simultaneously and pushed to show you every nook and cranny of the latest news cycles phenomenon, as stars raced to display ever more of themselves to feed the monster, Marvel was releasing a handful of movies a year. A lot by movie standards but by the standards of the culture, a stately output.

“Now there’s a new Marvel thing every week. There’s always a new Marvel thing. And yes, the Marvel movies are a bigger thing in theory — at least they have a bigger marketing budget behind them — but how much of that gets lost? In people’s minds, is the rollout of Shang-Chi of a different dimension of magnitude from the rollout of Hawkeye?

“There are those, like the folks filling Hall H last week, who can’t get enough. You could give them 27 new series a week and they’d still be camping out in costume for opening day of Thor 15.

“But for the rest of the world, where the trick, now more than ever, is convincing them that this new film is an event worth leaving the house for, how does the constant availability of new Marvel material affect that?”

Deadline‘s “The Dish” (Justin Kroll + Mike Fleming, Jr.) has heard that Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, which has been screened in rough-cut form and raved about, is skipping the ’22 Oscar race in favor of a possible “global showcase premiere” at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. This would be followed by Flower Moon opening theatrically through Paramount before the big Apple + debut in the mid-to-late fall, blah blah.

HE worships Mr. Scorsese and is down for Flower Moon this year or next or any which way, but there’s no masking the immense clouds of disappointment that this story has created…a deep black shadow has fallen over the Oscar landscape.

The idea of Apple, Paramount and Scorsese having seemingly lost their nerve and cut bait on the ’22 Best Picture race…it’s just shattering.

I’m not saying that I know anything or that the alleged take-it-to-Cannes plan is locked in (I hope it isn’t!), and yes, this may be thin speculation on Kroll-and-Fleming’s part, but Variety‘s Clayton Davis is also saying it’s real, and I’ve got the blues, man…I’ve really got the blues.

If the Kroll-Fleming-Davis story turns out to be true, here’s my theory: When Scorsese’s The Irishman, a brilliant, gut-slamming gangster epic for the ages, lost the Best Picture prize to Bong Joon-ho‘s generally decent but slightly underwhelming Parasite (certainly in terms of the con-artist family letting the fired maid into the home during a cats-and-dogs rainstorm — easily the most moronic plot turn of the 21st Century), Hollywood marketing savants were confronted with a new social chemistry.

Scorsese’s loss told them that (a) younger Academy voters regarded the Scorsese gangster brand (and in fact white-guy directors in general) as yesterday’s news, and (b) were more excited about giving the Best Picture Oscar to a South Korean film that was directed and written by a chubby, non-white guy…that was the message they wanted to send.

So even though Killers of the Flower Moon, a sprawling historical melodrama set in 1920s Oklahoma, qualifies as an anti-white-guy “woke” film, there is concern on the part of nervous-nelly Apple and Paramount execs. After the Irishman setback they’re a tiny bit afraid that the once-prestigious Scorsese brand is no longer a slam-dunker (certainly among younger, female and person-of-color Academy members), and that Flower Moon needs a big, months-long build-up campaign because your 50-and-under Academy members (not to mention the overseas contingent) are half-inclined to look askance at a big, costly, ambitious film by a white-guy director who, after all, has had his four-decade period of glory (Mean Streets through The Wolf of Wall Street), and that the worm has turned and it’s time to celebrate movies that are either about or made by people of color for a change.

This, I’m afraid to say, is what might be behind the Great Killers of the Flower Moon Withdrawal Strategy of mid ’22, if, God forbid, the Kroll-Fleming-Davis story turns out to be true. Which it probably is.

It was announced two and a half months ago that Leave It To Beaver‘s Tony Dow had been stricken with liver cancer. (His second or third bout.) It was announced today that the 77 year-old sculptor and former actor-producer, a resident of Topanga Canyon, has passed.

Update: An early morning 7.26 post from The Hollywood Reporter‘s Mike Barnes states that while Dow is on his last legs in a hospice, he hasn’t actually died yet.

Dow apparently led a frustrating life in some respects, but who hasn’t grappled with ups and downs and crummy detours and shitty moods from time to time? In the ’90s Dow was coping with resentment and depression (which is often about anger turned inward), but if it hadn’t been for his Beaver fame certain doors might not have been opened and he might’ve had a more difficult time of it…who knows?

Wiki moment: “In December 2008 Dow was chosen as one of three bronze sculptors to show at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition, in the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. He represented the United States delegation, which was composed of artists from the Karen Lynne Gallery.”

Or, if you will, just desserts.

I know I shouldn't laugh! 🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/nwWlNfCobU

— Figen (@TheFigen) July 25, 2022

The WordPress feature that counts and posts the number of comments is on the fritz. WordPress always gives you grief of one kind or another. The number of comments always appears on the upper right corner of each post. I’m trying to implement a fix as we speak.

Tuesday update, 12:30 pm: Various consultations have happened, and much fretting. A Manhattan guy has been hired to try and figure out the comment problem, and there are plans afoot to install a brand new version of the Armory theme, the most recent version of which was installed in 2016.

And therefore it’s finally recognized, a decade after the fact and to the voting Academy’s eternal shame, that the 2011 Best Picture Oscar shouldn’t have gone to The Fucking Artist With a Cute Little Dog but to Bennett Miller‘s wise, seasoned and spiritually humming sports saga, Moneyball.

I knew the truth of things back then, but the mob was in love with Michel Hazanavicius’ black-and-white gimmick film and there was no talking them out of it.

Moneyball, Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants and Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris are the only 2011 Best Pic nominees that have stood the test of time. The Artist sure as hell hasn’t. And Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, The Tree of Life, War Horse…no need to re-bash but they weren’t good enough.

Ask any film lover about the guy whose head was sliced off by a plate of glass in The Omen, and they’ll say “of course…yes.” Ask about the man who played Jack the Ripper in Time After Time…the guy who noted that in Victorian-era London he was a freak but in late ’70s San Francisco he’s an amateur…and the film lover will say “yup, definitely….I know that guy.” Or Spicer Lovejoy, the snooty manservant and bodyguard of Billy Zane‘s Caledon Hockley in Titanic.

But very few will name the actor who played these characters — David Warner.

For me the seminal Warner impression will always be Henry Niles in Sam Peckinpah‘s Straw Dogs (’71), although I could never figure out several things about Niles, whom one of the tough-guy characters calls “you bloody pervert.” Which Niles was, in a sense. Or at the very least a creep. He even tried to sexually attack Susan George during the climax, but it stopped when Dustin Hoffman grabs him by the shoulders, looks in Niles’ watery eyes and shakes his head in a stern no-no fashion.

The great David Warner, who was also an excellent stage actor, has expired at age 81.