If Demi Moore scores an Oscar nom for going all body horror in The Substance…fine. But it’ll be one of those gold-watch, career tribute deals…a gesture that says “40 years, Demi!…we’ve all loved you since your Brat Pack heyday (About Last Night, St. Elmo’s Fire) and your ‘90s heyday (Ghost, Striptease, Indecent Proposal, G.I. Jane) and here you still are,” etc.

The Substance is basically a slick, David Cronenberg-ian, anti-male-asshole social satire, and it doesn’t ask Moore to do much more than deliver extreme reactions to the extreme things that happen more and more to her body. It’s not a heart-and-soul thing — it’s a freak-out thing.

Chad McQueen, the son of Steve McQueen who, like all sons of Hollywood superstars, shouldered a certain spiritual burden, has passed at age 63. He lived 13 years longer than his famous dad, who departed in 1980 at age 50.

I interviewed a hung-over Chad nine years ago at the Beverly Hills hotel. The topic was an excellent doc about Steve McQueen’s arduous experience while making Le Mans, which Chad produced. Here’s the article that resulted.

“Hovering McQueen Ghost,” posted on 11.24.15 (two years before the first stirrings of woke terror):

I sat down a couple of days ago with John McKenna, co-director of Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, which I saw and greatly admired in Cannes six months ago, and with Chad McQueen, the late superstar’s actor-producer son.

We convened in the Polo Lounge inside the Beverly Hills hotel, and sure enough a guy started playing piano halfway through the chat and half-ruined the recording. And Chad, who was late for the interview due, he said, to having enjoyed a little too much liquid cheer after the doc’s premiere the night before, was entirely amiable and loose-shoe but also seemed a tiny bit…uhm, baked.

(l.) John McKenna, co-director of Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, and producer Chad McQueen — Thursday, 11.12, 11:40 am — in lobby of Beverly Hills hotel.

But it was thrilling to commune with the son of one my all-time heroes and to throw out a few thoughts and asides…whatever came to mind. Chad’s eyes are covered by dark shades, but he seems to have inherited a few of his dad’s physical traits, including his hair, jawline and manner of speech. Plus he has that watchful thing, that vibe…a chip off the old McQueen undercurrent. 

I was silently saying to myself, “What a hallowed California moment…chilling in the Polo Lounge and talking about Steve McQueen with his only living son and shooting the shit about this and that and Junior Bonner“…yeah.

Here’s an mp3 of our discussion, such as it was.

I learned two interesting things: (a) While I had no issues with the 112-minute running time when I saw the doc in Cannes (unlike, say, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy, who suggested a trimming), the film is now down to 102 minutes, which naturally makes me want to see it again; and (b) McKenna said that McQueen wanted to do his own driving and actually compete in the real-deal 24 Hours at Le Mans race in the summer of ’70, which is when the film was shot.  But studio insurers said no. This turndown, McKenna suspects or believes, created frustration in McQueen and perhaps a bit of anger that may have contributed to the disarray during production.

Michael’s Telluride Blog has polled several know-it-alls and asked them to rate recently screened Telluride hotties. They corrrctly put Sean Baker’s Anora at the top of the heap, but strangely rated Edward Berger’s ultra-brilliant Conclave in fifth place.

Trust me, trust me, trust me — the second-place September 5, the third-place Emilia Perez and the fourth-place Saturday Night are not — repeat, NOT — better than Conclave. They’re all commendable but aren’t quite as good as indicated here.

I began hearing about an anti-Conclave snobbery virus hours after the first showing. Snoots! These wankers (including Awards Watch’s Eric Anderson) definitely have their heads lodged in their posteriors. Don’t trust them! I know whereof I speak.

The first Telluride T-shirt was supposed to be for three year-olds, but the storekeeper sent an infant-sized one instead. So I called the store to report the error, and asked them to please send a second shirt in the correct size. It cost me an extra $20 or so.

Clint Eastwood‘s Juror No. 2 seemed like an obvious fall release, but then word began to circulate that perhaps Warner Bros. might delay the opening until sometime in early ’25. Which was deflating news.

Now we’re told that the jury deliberation drama will (a) be the closing night attraction at AFI Fest, screening on Sunday, 10.27, and then (b) will open modestly on Friday, 11.1 (technically on Thursday night, 10.31).

Five days between the AFI closer and the first screening at your local AMC? Will there be critic screenings before the AFI Fest debut, or will WB keep the film totally under wraps before 10.27?

I’m not sensing great churning emotion or excitement from Team WB on this puppy. I’m sensing “okay, fine, we’ll release it already but calm down.”

Set at a writer’s retreat in Morocco, Susannah Grant‘s Lonely Planet (Netflix, 10.11) is about a fiftysomething, semi-blocked novelist (Laura Dern) flirting with and then having it off with a 30something dude (dashing Liam Hemsworth as the bored husband of a younger female writer).

Imagine the howls of protest and revulsion if the story was about a 57 year-old male writer having a mad affair with a bored, youngish and profoundly attractive wife of a male writer. “He’s over 20 years older!…a shameless hound taking advantage of her…she has no agency in this relationship!”, etc.

The bottom line is that progressive feminist culture approves of older women being pleasured by brawny dudes with washboard abs and and rock-hard phalluses…the way of our world.

Honest confession: If I was a 34 year-old guy being flirted with by a pretty 50something woman, the sight of long, bony feet might gave me pause. I don’t know which is more probematic — fleshy, pudgy feet or overly prominent big toes with crimson nail polish. The ideal middle ground is exemplified, I feel, by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Donald Trump’s closing statement during Tuesday night’s debate: “[Vice-President Harris] is going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for three and a half years. They’ve had three and half years to fix the border…they’ve had three and half years to create jobs.”

Answer: Her job was to be President Biden’s smiling, ceremonial stooge, and she performed that task (including serving as the border czar) as best she could, given the inherent limitations.

Any eigth-grader who’s paid attention in government and civics class knows that vice-presidents have no agency of their own. They’re one heartbeat away from the presidency, but aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate the vice-presidency is an empty, officious, ceremonial job.

Please listen to Bobby Baker:

Like most vice presidents in this era, vice-president John Nance Garner (’33 to ’41) had little to do and little influence on President Roosevelt’s policies. He famously described the vice presidency as being “not worth a warm bucket of spit“.

Lyndon Johnson hated being JFK’s vp. (Sometime in mid ’63 he told friends that “my future is behind me.”) Ask Al Gore if he felt that being Clinton’s No. 2 was a satisfying gig. Ask Mike Pence if he felt great about being Trump’s backup. The only vp who made the job into something with real power was Dick Cheney.

…the private plane freak-out scene, in which everyone confesses something deep down in order to clean their slate, the Stillwater drummer would blurt out “I’m a woman!”

[Initially posted on 4.21.21]: My vocabulary isn’t sophisticated enough to describe the alternating tempos, sudden slowdowns and shifting rhythms in “Stop” (’66), a standout single from the Moody Blues and cowritten by Denny Laine and Justin Hayward. (Or was it Laine and Mike Pinder?)

The song reportedly reached #98 in the Billboard charts during April 1966 after getting lots of airplay on NYC AM rock radio (WABC, WNEW), and then it kind of slipped away.

Relatively unknown to even hardcore MB fans — i.e., the ones who only know them from the ’67 to early ’70s period of Days of Future Passed (“Nights in White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon”), In Search of the Lost Chord and On the Threshold of a Dream.

I know that a lot of breakthroughs happened in ’66, and this, in its own small way, was one of them.