Month: August 2023

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has quietly stepped back from the absolutism of the 2024 representation and inclusion standards.

I wouldn’t want to leap to conclusions, but this seems to be in line with the recent exodus of DEI execs from production companies and even the Academy itself.

Boiled down, producers and filmmakers who don’t want to jump through the Academy’s “identity reporting” hoops are free to shine the whole process if they want.

Deadline‘s Michael Cieply reported this yesterday (8.10): “Thanks to a quiet change in enforcement protocols, feature films entered in this year’s Academy Awards contest will be able to avoid reporting gender, race and disability data required by new inclusion standards governing Best Picture contenders, simply by opting out of contention for the top Oscar.

“The policy shift — which became apparent in recent changes to the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ addendum to the Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry platform — could free dozens or even hundreds of films vying for Oscars other than Best Picture.

“A previously declared requirement stated that all 300 or so awards contenders submit identity data regardless of their Best Picture prospects.”

Does everyone reading this understand the import? The Maoist DEI virus is weakening and receding.

Cieply: “Until recently, the Academy’s FAQ advisory noted that all features submitted for Oscar consideration were required to report detailed identity data on the platform, because the Academy was unable to say in advance which films might actually wind up in the Best Picture race, the only category for which inclusion standards will be enforced.

“By this week, however, that provision had been replaced with a new answer to Question 13, which asks: ‘Am I required to create a RAISE submission for a film that I don’t want to be considered for Best Picture?’

“The new answer says: ‘You will have the option to opt-in or opt-out for Best Picture consideration. If you do decide to opt-out, then you do not need to fill out a RAISE form.”

Certain DEI Hollywood wokesters (including, I would imagine, Variety‘s Clayton Davis) are having a shit fit as we speak.

@newyorker The director of the box-office hit "Barbie" wasn't always seen as the powerful female director she is now. Greta Gerwig explains why she was labelled a “bossy, unappealing girl” in school on The New Yorker's Radio Hour podcast. #gretagerwig #barbie #filmtok ♬ original sound – The New Yorker

For decades I’ve thought of myself as reasonably sharp and shrewd when it comes to booking flights and car rentals. I’m now reconsidering this assessment. The truth is that I’m fairly clumsy and even, from time to time, stupid at it. At times I amaze myself at how lacking in common sense I can be. I lack the knack.

If you want to slap the side of your head, consider the saga of my initially ludicrous Telluride travel arrangements. I’m not proud of having done this, but I’ve no choice but to own it.

Early on I decided against flying to Montrose and then taking the Telluride van shuttle. Most of the tragically hip arrive this way, and I hated it when I flew to Montrose last year. (Plus it’s moderately expensive.)

The thing is that I hate riding in minivans with strangers. I like to drive my own car and stop whenever I feel like it. I love breathing mountain air, stretching my legs at will, taking snaps, doing transcendental meditation on the side of the road, stopping at stores for whatever.

So three or four months ago I decided to fly American from LaGuardia to Santa Fe, which only set me back $430, and then — here’s the really brilliant part — rented a Budget KIA for six days (Wednesday, 8.30 to Tuesday, 9.5) for $692.86. That’s right — the car would’ve cost $262 more than the round-trip air fare. (COVID sent car rental rates through the roof about two years ago.) That’s an overall outlay (including gas) of roughly $1250, give or take. But at least I would have my own wheels, and I could enjoy the colorful drive to Telluride, which takes around six hours but is good for the soul and often a feast for the eyes.

Since making these arrangements I was invited to a friend’s Telluride birthday party, starting early Wednesday evening (8.30), so I wanted to be in town by sometime in the late afternoon. It suddenly hit me yesterday — here’s another brilliant part — that my LGA-to-Santa Fe flight arrives just after 4 pm, meaning that I couldn’t hope to arrive in Telluride until 11:30 pm or more likely midnight.

I should have originally arranged to fly in on Tuesday and flop somewhere and drive to Telluride the next morning. Why didn’t I do this? Because I didn’t know about the birthday party, for one thing. Plus I’m not a master travel strategist, to put it mildly. I don’t think this stuff through.

So I called American and asked if I could change the flight to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Nope, they said — I’d purchased an El Cheapo fare that didn’t allow any changes. Okay, I replied — can I just shell out $200 for a brand new one-way flight (LGA to Santa Fe) and hold on to my return fight? No and fuck you, they replied — your El Cheapo flight means that if you fail to board the outgoing flight (leaving from LGA on Wednesday morning, 8.30) we will cancel your return flight.

“Why would you do that?” I asked, feeling a tiny bit rattled. “I’m willing to buy a whole new one-way ticket, giving you guys an extra $200 on top of the $430 I’ve already paid for my original RT, and thereby vacating my outgoing seat and not asking for any special consideration of any kind, and you’re going to cancel my return flight as some kind of punishment? No offense but what kind of airline would enforce such a policy? Are you trying to be dicks?”

So in order to arrive on Tuesday I would have to buy a brand-new RT American fare (LGA to Santa Fe) for close to $600. Plus the $692 car rental plus gas expense. A total cost of $1450 or $1500. Not to mention the original $450 fare I bought in March or April.

The American phone rep was a Millennial. How did I know this? Because he yelped and whined like a little cocker spaniel and went “waaahh…you’re hurting my feelings by expressing your resentment over our ridiculously punitive air-fare policies…I think I need to pour myself a cup of herbal tea and talk to HR or a therapist so I can process your completely normal and unsurprising disdain over our eat-shit-and-die policies….it isn’t fair to me…you’re being mean…waaaah.”

Determined to sever myself from these American dingleberries at almost any cost, I bought a brand new RT fare from LGA to Albuquerque (Jet Blue) for, believe it or not, only $300 and change, and then, through Priceline, found an Avis weekly-rate car rental at Albuquerque for just under $500. A grand total of $800-something plus gas. I should have made these arrangements to begin with. Alas, I’m not smart or shrewd enough.

The drive from Albuquerque to Telluride is a half-hour shorter than Santa Fe to Telluride — five hours and 32 minutes (Albuquerque) vs. six hours (Santa Fe).

The 46th Academy Awards happened (unusually) on Tuesday, 4.2.74, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay were The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty, winner), The Last Detail (Robert Towne, based on Darryl Ponicsan‘s novel), The Paper Chase (James Bridges, based on the novel by John Jay Osborn Jr.), Paper Moon (Alvin Sargent, based on Joe David Brown‘s “Addie Pray”) and Serpico (Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler, based on the book by Peter Maas).

Given the indisputable fact that The Last Detail is widely regarded today as the most unpretentiously and understatedly soulful and compassionate film of the above five, not to mention that the most artfully honed and elegant in a semi-coarse, enlisted-man sense…it’s a crying shame that Towne didn’t take the Oscar. It was his. It had his name on it, despite the fact that Blatty was the one who actually took possession.

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Anyone who thinks there’s any serious value or intrigue to be derived from digging yet again into Hunter Biden‘s personal failings….c’mon, man!

For the 177th time: If there’s one thing that American families know about, it’s dealing with bad-seed sons, brothers, brothers-in-law, nephews or next-door neighbors. Alcoholism, drug abuse, self-destructive behavior…everyone’s either been through it or knows someone who has. Tragic but it happens. It’s certainly too common to be a thing.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced a special counsel investigation of bad druggie dingbat Hunter, to be headed that David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who’s been all over Hunter for years.

N.Y. Times Charlie Savage — 12:30 pm: “It is not clear whether this step will change anything substantive about the Hunter Biden investigation. But Republicans have sought to portray the Biden administration as conspiring to go easy on the president’s son, so at a minimum the naming of Weiss as a special counsel will offer Democrats an additional argument to rebut those accusations.”

Universal/Amblin’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter earned $750K last night in 2,350 theaters nationwide — roughly $319 per screen. The Dracula-upon-the-bounding-main horror pic, directed by the Norweigan André Øvredal, cost $45 million to produce. Deadline‘s D’Alessandro: “That preview result is in the vicinity of last August’s vampire horror movie, The Invitation, which did $775K in previews, a $6.8M opening and $25.1M final domestic.”

Is there any species lower in the theatrical attendance realm than fans of low-rent horror? Talk about greasy-fingered animals…the absolute bottom of the barrel.

The Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. thing REALLY isn’t happening at this stage. He’s too eccentric, too admired by toxic Trumpies, too disliked by MSNBC’s Laurence O’Donnell, too caught up in conspiracy interpretations, and his speaking voice is impossible.

If Woody Harrelson had worn this hat a few months ago, okay, but it’s kinda crazy to align himself now after most of the thoughtful centrists have said “naah, later.” It calls his judgment into question.

COVID renegade Eric Clapton is another Kennedy admirer/donor.

Kennedy is polling decently (i.e., around 17% or 18%) because many Dems and independents are profoundly uncomfortable with re-electing an octogenarian President — a guy who will be 86 when he leaves office on 1.20.29. They’re terrified of another Woodrow Wilson presidency, and especially of Kamala Harris stepping in if, God forbid, something were to happen.

You know what I would respect and salute? If Woody had worn a Chris Christie hat. Christie is the only Republican primary candidate who talks straight about The Beast. An adaptable, transactional politician, okay, but one with actual balls.

From Peter Biskind’s “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” re-tweeted today by Tim Grierson:

“Myth of the Cocaine Movie,” posted on 1.14.13:

Game show host and comedian Marc Summers is now 71. Burt Reynolds died on 9.6.18 at the age of 82. They collided on Jay Leno‘s Tonight Show on 10.17.94, or nearly 30 years ago. Summers was 43, Reynolds was 58. I’d never seen this video clip before today.

Summers wiki quote: “Reynolds was going through a bad divorce with Loni Anderson. This was not planned, it was all real. Jay called me afterward and asked, ‘What’s going on between you and Burt?’ It was like survival of the fittest. I was a comic. You wait your entire life to get on the Tonight Show, and I wasn’t going to let this guy fuck it up for me.”

[Originally posted on 7.18.15 but re-wrote and re-edited] The following is a true story. I was starting something with an L.A. woman (actually a fellow journalist of a vaguely similar ranking) in, I think, the early aughts. Okay, maybe the late ’90s. I was mildly intrigued as far as it went (i.e., not head over heels), but then she eventually conveyed what the situation was.

She was “seeing” two guys at the time. Meaning that she was boning them concurrently without either of them knowing about the other, or so I understood. It took a while for the truth to come out, but she gradually informed me that I was basically being auditioned as a back-up in case one of them didn’t pan out. She was serious. There were two pitchers on the mound (alternating innings?) and I was being told that if I wanted to I could start warming up in the bullpen just in case.

I told her I didn’t care for this arrangement, and her response was to basically say “whoa, really?…you’re throwing away an opportunity here.” Yeah, I was. My thinking was that I might step into a situation if a woman is seeing another guy — maybe, depending — but not two. Okay, I’ll be even more honest. If she had told me I could start “pitching” along with the other two and then come what may, I might’ve taken the deal.

I don’t think she was uninterested in me as much as more interested in where things might go with the first two guys. I know she was at least interested enough in me to say “go warm up in the bullpen and we’ll see.”

Okay, a lot of people juggle relationships. Younger people, I mean. I guess to be extra fair about it the woman from the late ’90s was just being upfront whereas no guy in this history of civilization has ever admitted to seeing two or three girls simultaneously. Guys tend to be covert about that stuff.

Comment from Seb Booth: “Between men and women of equivalent attraction levels, it is far easier for women to just get laid on average. Plus ugly and fat women can still get laid easier than ugly and fat dudes on the same level (unless they’re loaded).”