According to The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer, a jolting text message was sent last night to several writers from their agents.

It said that producers and writers “are truly on the one yard line…no deal on Thursday night but [almost certainly] by Sunday evening, or earlier. Down to two points.”

“The text also alluded to former WGA chief negotiator David Young: “Turns out the WGA negotiating committee called David and ran everything by him…last night at 5 pm they agreed to a deal. It was David who told them to go back and ask for those other two points and ‘squeeze their nuts the same way we did the agents’. That’s what happened and that’s who’s been behind the scenes this entire time, hence why it’s taking so long.”

HE friendo: “Due to the unreasonable duration of this strike, as well as considerable collateral damage heaped upon below the line personnel and outlying businesses, the WGA is trying to come back to its membership with a full victory lap on all issues.

“I’m hearing an extension of health benefits is also a sticking point for the AMPTP… they won’t relinquish [this in order] to discourage future strikes, but the WGA is being insistent.

“The AMPTP felt they’d closed a deal in principle on Thursday night, but the WGA came back with more caveats and it’s very convenient to attribute those to the hardliner not in the room: David Young. As I’ve said before, if Young had been the lead negotiator, he most likely would have advocated staying at the table, but the Guild was hellbent on this strike.”

…except there are two performances that push too hard.

I’m speaking of Monica Raymund (playing lead prosecutor Katherine Challee**) and Lance Reddick (as head judge Luther Blakely). You can spot the histrionics immediately, and I’m sorry but the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the late director William Freidkin.

Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Clarke and Jake Lacy respectively portray Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queen, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (defense attorney) and Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (defendant).

The 109-minute Showtime pic will debut on 10.6.23.

Dmytryk’s film ran 125 minutes. The court-martial climax lasted around…what, 25 or 30 minutes including the confrontational after-party?

…for nothin’ left to lose.

I just re-watched Memento for the first time since the fall of 2000….23 years ago. And I had the exact same reaction.

I didn’t give a flying fuck about trying to make sense of the confusing ass-backwards plot (if you want to call it a “plot”) and I will never care what actually happened for the rest of my life, but I was totally tickled by Guy Pearce‘s performance as the earnestly confused, 100%-behind-the-eightball Leonard Shelby.

I also loved Joe Pantoliano and Carrie Ann Moss‘s respective performances as Natalie and John Edward “Teddy” Gammell. And Mark Boone Junior‘s confession that his boss had told him to rent a second motel room to Pearce because he wouldn’t remember having rented the first one.

It’s the metaphor that matters — living totally in the moment (i.e., unburdened by memory or past associations of any kind) represents, if you can really let go, a kind of ecstatic cosmic freedom. Glorious and oddly hilarious.

Memento is the only Chris Nolan film that could be accused of having a sense of humor.

HE to Cameron Crowe: I know what Bernie Taupin used to look like. Longish hair, gentle features, sensitive eyes. Exactly like a sensitive lyricist would’ve looked in 1973.

Now he looks like someone else. Shaved head, pork pie hat, white goatee, leather jacket. Like a jazz musician from Marseilles, or the twin brother of French director Jacques Audiard. No resemblance at all to the yesteryear guy.

You and I look like older (but not too much older) versions of our youthful selves. Elton still looks like Elton, just older and heavier with artificially thick hair. Bernie looks like someone else entirely.