In a 1.15.23 Variety piece about epic film disasters (or the kind of woeful misfires that only talented directors are capable of making), Owen Gleiberman delivers a perfect description:

“You sit down to watch a movie by a director whose work you love. He’s swinging for the fences. His ambition is on full display and so, in fits and spurts, is his talent. Yet something else is on display too: a lack of judgment that starts out like a worm, wriggling through the proceedings, before growing and metastasizing until it’s eating everything in its path.”

Besides Damien Chazelle‘s Babylon, Gleiberman’s examples include Francis Ford Coppola‘s One from the Heart, Steven Spielberg‘s 1941, Martin Scorsese‘s New York, New York, David Lynch‘s Wild at Heart, Steven Soderbergh‘s Kafka, Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Zabriskie Point, Baz Luhrmann‘s Australia.

HE feels that Oliver Stone‘s most calamitous, worm-consumed film by far is Heaven & Earth.

Director-writer friendo (three days ago): “Many of us in the comedy community are happy for the Velma backlash as Mindy Kaling is considered the ultimate example of a woke comedian. An HBO Max wokey Scooby-Doo failure warming the cockles on my heart.”

Critical Drinker (3:12): Velma “may actually be one of the most repulsive, creatively bankrupt, nasty, mean-spirited and reprehensibly terrible things I’v=ve ever watched in my entire life.”

Last night I finally streamed Romain Gavras‘ Athena, a dynamically shot urban warfare flick that’s almost entirely consumed by fury, racism, urgency, constant shouting, explosions, flames and velocity. It’s another film in the vein of Ladj Ly‘s brilliant Les Miserables (’19), or, if you will, another example of “cinema de banlieue”, the first of which was Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (’95). But I quickly tuned out of Athena — too loud and unyielding, too relentless, too ferocious, too much of an onslaught. First-rate tech — excellent cinematography and choreography — but I began to feel bored with 10 or 15 minutes. I stuck in out to the end, but I needed dramatic nourishment so I re-watched Emily the Criminal (my second time). Hit the spot.

…with a man and a woman realizing that death is imminent and about to enfold them, and that they’re powerless to stop it? Not a solitary figure, mind, but a couple — romantically linked, father and daughter, anything along those lines.

Last night I was watching the end of Kurt Neumann‘s Rocketship X-M (’50), and that concludes with Lloyd Bridges and Osa Massen staring out of a porthole window as their rocketship plummets to a crash landing.

There’s Mimi Leder‘s Deep Impact ’98), in which TV anchor Tea Leoni and estranged father Maximillian Schell stand on a beach as a half-mile-high tidal wave approaches at 1000 mph.

The last few seconds of Arthur Penn‘s Bonnie and Clyde (’67), just before the posse start firing as Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway gaze at each other for the last time.

Stanley Kramer‘s On The Beach (’59), of course, with two emotionally entwined couples (Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson) facing either slow radiation death or suicide.

Paul Greengrass‘s United 93 doesn’t count as none of the doomed passengers are portrayed as emotionally linked, or at least none with dialogue.

Which others?

“Whenever it’s a damp, drizzly November in my soul…whenever some pain-in-the-ass HE commenter (Renaissance, Vic Lizzy, Jeremy Fassler) posts something prickly or ugly…whenever I feel like stepping into the street and knocking people’s hats off, then it’s high time to pop an Oxy and stream a comfort flick…Charley Varrick, Fear Strikes Out or any black-and-white VistaVision title, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Horse Soldiers….that line of country.”

Thanks again to Mark Frenden, HE’s go-to guy for any kind of visual tweak or manipulation….fast turnaround, never fails. I realize that I need to be weathered up to fit in…working on it.

Many of us believed that that Banshees of Inisherin costar Kerry Condon was an Oscar shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress. She was and is the heart and soul of Martin McDonagh‘s metaphorical dysfunction drama — no one disputes this. But then the Golden Globes gave their Best Supporting Actress prize to Wakanda Forever‘s Angela Bassett as (be honest) a make-up gesture for the HFPA’s racist history in terms of membership. And then last night the insufferably woke Critics Choice voters went for Bassett also.

So now Academy voters undoubtedly FEEL OBLIGED to award Bassett also. If they give their Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Condon instead Twitter may detect a very slight after-aroma of racism, so they have to give it Bassett…even though we all agree that her banal, quarter-of-an-inch-deep Wakanda performance doesn’t deliver a fraction of the soul and substance that Condon provided.

Bassett is 64 and has been plugging away since the early ’90s, so her supporters are calling it a career tribute award now. It’s a rigged game. Life is unfair. The actress who gave the best supporting performance probably won’t win.

Friendo: You’re not allowed to criticize the idea of Angela Bassett winning an Oscar for a histrionic performance in a stupid superhero flick. I was thinking about saying “it’s great Bassett is finally winning an award but too bad it’s in a superhero movie”, but then I realized I’d get attacked for it. You can’t attack religious symbols.

HE: As I said last night, Sunday night’s Critics Choice awards show felt like some kind of Twilight Zone experience. Voting the woke party line (sacralization of race, gender, sexuality plus focusing on emotional core issues over an instance of morbid self-destructive obesity) means NOTHING in this context. It’s Maoism.

Friendo: Wokeism is a cult, that’s for sure. Look at what Cate Blanchett said last night…”the patriarchal notion of competition for a top award” or whatever she said.

HE: I thought Cate was more of a circumspect type.

Friendo: I just mean that actresses like Blanchett at this point are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They feel obliged to suggest they don’t want to win if they’re already at the top and are white. They feel a bit guilty so they’re saying ‘let’s get rid of the awards…everybody should get a certificate of merit.’ They’re almost there now. Merit has gone out the window.

HE: Oh, I see. Cate feels obliged to project a certain blithe spirit…a vague sense of guilt about this, and so she’s saying “I don’t need to win”. She’s not hungry for it, clearly. It’s unseemly to project hunger or ambition. Maybe this means Michelle Yeoh will take the Oscar now.

Friendo: She felt guilty about the possibility of beating Michelle Yeoh at her moment of near-triumph, and so rather than beating a woman of color with a decades-long narrative she probably doesn’t want to win.

HE: That’s what she was saying — you’re right. From a racial or tribal perspective, white artists defeating artists of color is not a good look.

Friendo: Exactly.

HE: Under our current Maoism defeating a person of color flirts with a morally unsavory narrative.

Friendo: Be honest — does anyone honestly think Angela Bassett should win for that Wakanda performance role? Equity mindsets mean that artists of color can never really rise on their own merit. Awards have to be gifted to them by whites.

HE: It’s totally ridiculous that Bassett has beaten Kerry Condon twice so far…c’mon!

Friendo: No intelligent human could argue even half-heartedly that Bassett’s performance is superior to Condon’s.

Legendary Kansas City film owner and “uber collector” Wade Williams passed six or seven days ago at his home in Kansas City. Respect and condolences. The ginger-haired Williams owned theatrical rights to a trove of films from the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and beyond, particularly science-fiction titles. He was quite the legend in Kansas City film buff circles, having also managed a repertory cinema or two. He was also, truth be told, a guy who infamously stood in the way of restoring Invaders From Mars, which his estate still holds the theatricL rights to, for many decades. (Ignite Films finally did an end run around Williams in order to beautifully restore Invaders.) Williams had long been regarded as a notorious “rights squatter” who thought and operated in the mule-headed tradition of Raymond Rohauer. On top of which he was a right-winger. But he cared deeply about the lore of pulp cinema, and so HE is thereby offering a final respectful salute.