…in early June ‘17.

Allegedly snapped at a London party in 1957, when Cary Grant was around 53 and Sean Connery was 27. Connery was then filming (or had just filmed) Another Time, Another Place with Lana Turner. His hair was still reasonably thick, or at least not thinning.

I don’t believe that story about Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli offering the 007 role to Grant roughly four years later, sometime in early ’61. The 57 year-old Grant had reached his dashing physical peak when he shot North by Northwest in ’58, and was at least ten years too old to play a hotshot British agent — Grant himself believed this. Plus Broccoli wanted Grant to commit to five Bond films, a proposition which Grant immediately declined.

Connery was hired to play Bond sometime between the late summer and early fall of ’61. Filming on Dr. No began in Kingston, Jamaica, on 1.16.62. It opened commercially later that year. Connery made it through the first two films without a full toupee, but was forced to wear one for Goldfinger.

1. Bradley Cooper‘s Maestro
2. Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers (a ’70s character-driven thing, yes, but an absolutely first-rate resuscitation of this type of film)
3. Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things (rousing nutter filmmaking…bawdy, nervy, wildly imaginative and yet a tad over-praised at Venice and Telluride due to the hothouse atmosphere of those two gatherings)
4. Cord Jefferson‘s American Fiction
5. David Fincher‘s The Killer
6. Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot-au-Feu (aka Tbe Taste of Things)
7. Michael Mann‘s Ferrari
8. Guy Ritchie‘s The Covenant
9. Christian Mungiu‘s RMN
10. Ilker Çatak’s The Teacher’s Lounge (official German submission for Best Int’l feature)

11. Jonathan Glazer‘s The Zone of Interest
12. Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer — first-rate film but I groaned at the one-hour mark, knowing there were two full hours to go…my soul softly wept.
13. Aki Kaurismäki‘s Fallen Leaves (Chaplinesque, slightly glum relationship comedy-drama..quietly touching performances from costars Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen)
14. Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie [manosphere pissnado demerit]
15. Cruise & McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One
16. Errol Morris‘s The Pigeon Tunnel (richly visual, beautifully scored doc about John le Carre…enveloping and rather dazzling)
17. Eric Gravel‘s Full Time
18. Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon
19. Matt Johnson‘s Blackberry tied with The Burial, a formulaic but satisfying courtoom dramas featuring Jamie Foxx‘s best performance since Ray.
20. Ari Aster‘s Beau Is Afraid

21`. Ben Affleck‘s Air
22. Jean-Stephen Sauvaire’s Black Flies.
23. Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike’s Last Dance
24. Nicole Holofcener‘s You Hurt My Feelings

Yesterday Deadline‘s Justin Kroll reported that James L. Brooks is planning to direct a new feature — his first since 2010’s How Do You Know, which unfortunately didn’t work out.

The Brooks project is called Ella McCay, and it sounds like some kind of West Wing-y type deal but set in a governor’s mansion. Politics mixed with a romantic current, I’m presuming, Brooks being Brooks.

The titular role will be played by 27 year-old Emma Mackey (Emma, Death on the Nile), whom HE approves of on a primal attraction level. The costars are Woody Harrelson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Albert Brooks. 20th Century Studios will distribute.

Kroll: “The film will follow an idealistic young politician (Mackey) who juggles familial issues and a challenging work life while preparing to take over the job of her mentor, the state’s longtime incumbent governor (presumably Harrelson).”

Take over the governorship at age 30 or thereabouts? How would that work exactly? Maybe the plot will have Mackey secretly take over a la Edith Wilson after Governor Harrelson falls ill. Maybe she’ll assume power after Harrelson is brought down by a sexual scandal (i.e., New York State’s Kathy Hochul taking the reins after Andrew Cuomo was torpedoed)…something like that.

Brooks’ heyday happened during the ’70s on television (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi), and in features during the late ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Nobody was more in love with the Brooks brand than myself — those brilliant, incisive, emotional empathy scenarios that wrestled with real-life adult stuff. Then again Brooks has been out of the game for 13 years, and his last film was a bust, and he’s now 83.

When you boil it all down, Brooks’ feature film rep rests upon four really good feature films — 1979’s Starting Over (which he wrote and co-produced along with director Alan Pakula), 1983’s Terms of Endearment, 1987’s Broadcast News and 1997’s As Good as It Gets. But really three as Pakula was in command of that Burt Reynolds-Jill Clayburgh romcom.

Brooks’ I’ll Do Anything (’94) was a disaster, and Spanglish (’04) didn’t pan out either. On the other hand he produced Big (’88), The War of the Roses (’89), Jerry Maguire (’96), Riding in Cars with Boys (’01), The Edge of Seventeen (’16) and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (’23). Brooks also exec produced Say Anything… (’89) and Bottle Rocket (’96).

Kroll reports that Brooks will produce Ella McCay along with Gracie Films producing partners Julie Ansell and Richard Sakai.

If and when The Beast persuades Tucker Carlson to become his 2024 vice-presidential running mate, two things will most likely happen. One (and it pains me to admit this**), Trump-Carlson would probably beat Biden-Harris. Especially with RFK, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West mucking things up. And two, Carlson would probably mop the floor with Kamala Harris in the vice-presidential debate. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

Maggie Haberman to The Dispatch‘s Jamie Weinstein (11.20.23): “It’s a real thing that I’m hearing as a possibility. The likelihood of it I don’t know. I think there will be a pretty professionalized vetting process. Honestly, I know that might sound unbelievable, based on what we’ve seen from Trump historically, but Trump’s current political team is the best at least as a non-incumbent. There’s just a different level of control.

“I don’t think the Tucker thing is not real. I think the risk with Tucker Carlson and Trump is that Tucker Carlson is a star in his own right, and I’m not sure how Trump would contend with that.”