No backbone, no principles, no belief in the rule of law.

Remember Scott Feinberg’s enthusiastic Angelina Jolie promotions? All the gush? Well, none of that panned out. No SAG or BAFTA noms…sorry. That’s because of the horrible recriminations against Brad Pitt by Jolie and the kids. It’s called karma.

In the comment thread for HE’s Best Films of 1986 piece (posted late last night), it was argued that Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge and Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, dual ‘86 releases about kids finding a dead body and debating what to do about it, are of equal classic stature.

River’s Edge technically isn’t a 1986 film but I let that slide. Shot between January and March of ‘86, it premiered at the 1986 Toronto Film Festival (9.10.86 — a month after Reiner’s film appeared in theatres) but didn’t commercially open until May ‘87.

Hunter’s film is far more haunting, not to mention realistic and mature — a major, deeply unsettling arthouse film about a zombie virus that had begun to permeate stoner teen culture (it’s based upon a 1981 murder that happened in Milpitas) in the early Reagan era. A couple of critics described it as a kind of moral horror film.

Based on a 1982 Stephen King novella, Stand By Me is basically a sentimental flick about adolescent friendship and the veil of nostalgia. I hated, hated, HATED the title (the revered 1961 Ben E. King song has NOTHING to do with the plot), and I sorta kinda despised the presence and performance of chubby-ass Jerry O’Connell, who was 11 or so during filming.

No offense but Reiner’s film, which I regard as no more than decent as it is pure popcorn, shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath with Hunter’s.

Will a BAFTA Best Picture win lock in Conclave’s frontrunner status and finally put an end to sick, delusional stateside fantasies that Wicked or Emilia Perez or, God forbid, The Brutalist might snag the golden Oscar ring?

The Brutalist, which received nine BAFTA noms this morning, is a film designed to make viewers feel awful. This is not a strongly contested opinion. I would feel differently if (this is an absurd fantasy) A24 had offered complimentary snorts of high-grade heroin to select viewers in order to lessen the glum mood, but that’s water under the bridge.

Conclave’s 12 BAFTA nominations have affirmed its leading heavyweight status, at least for now. And yet nipping at the heels of Edward Berger’s Vatican drama is Jacques Audiard’s diverting-but-not-good-enough Emilia Perez, which has landed 11 BAFTA noms…will you guys please stop this? Put a cap on it.

Both the Movie Godz and the Joe and Jane Popcorn community have spoken, and the time has come to put a respectful halt to the Perez hoopla.

There’s no questioning that it’s an audaciously conceived film (Mexican trans drug cartel musical) but without the second word in that five-word description there’s no way it would be a Best Picture headliner (voting for it makes people feel safer), and we all know this.

Not to mention those underwhelming RT scores (both critics and ticket buyers).

Queer’s Daniel Craig getting edged out of a Best Actor nomination by Heretic’s Hugh Grant is absolutely not right and certainly not cool. Craig’s performance as the William S. Burroughs-like lead character in Luca Guadagnino’s film is shattering.

And congrats to The Apprentice ‘s Sebastian Stan for landing a BAFTA Best Actor nom for his spot-on, half-sympathetic-during-the-first-half performance as Donald whack-ass Trump. Hooray also for Stan’s costar, Jeremy Strong, snagging a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Time and again guys with abusive tendencies have seemingly tried to immolate themselves — almost trying to taunt #MeToo women as an exercise in self-destruction. Please vent about my appalling sexual behavior on social media…please! This is how I want to die.

I’m fairly certain this famous Pauline Kael quote is from her New Yorker review of Barry Levinson’s Diner (‘82), although it could’ve been sparked by a scene in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (‘81) in which Rourke, initially glimpsed lip-synching to Bob Seger’s “Feel Like A Number”, played a soft-voiced, settled-down felon who’d begun to think twice about…everything.

Rourke seemed to be in a state of charmed, almost magical ascendancy back then. I could go on and on about what happened or didn’t happen, but the glow had begun to fade by the late ‘80s. His last truly alluring performance that decade was in Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (‘87). Then came the early ’90s and boxing.

How deep of a cultural imprint was left by the standout films of 1986? How many were genuinely worth the candle, or are remembered with genuine affection or excitement?

The answer is that ‘86 was a phenomenal year. It saw the release of 30 films that really and truly rang the bell, and that ain’t hay. In my book ‘86 is at par with 1971 and 1999.

A little while ago I kicked this topic around with Sydney-based movie hound Nathan Laird, who is quite the whipsmart gabber. It’s loading as we speak — maybe it’ll post by midnight. Or by 9 am tomorrow…who knows?

HE’s top 30 films of 1986, and not necessarily in this order:

(1) Oliver Stone‘s Platoon, (2) James Cameron‘s Aliens, (3) Oliver Stone‘s Salvador, (4) David Lynch‘s Blue Velvet, (5) Jonathan Demme‘s Something Wild, (6) Michael Mann‘s Manhunter, (7) Neil Jordan‘s Mona Lisa, (8) Woody Allen‘s Hannah and Her Sisters, (9) David Cronenberg’s The Fly, (10) Jim Jarmusch‘s Down By Law, (11) Mike Nichols‘ Heartburn, (12) James Ivory‘s A Room with a View, (13) Jean-Jacques Beineix‘s Betty Blue, (14) Roland Joffe‘s The Mission, (15) Claude Berri‘s Manon of the Spring, (16) Tony Scott‘s Top Gun, (17) Spike Lee‘s She’s Gotta Have It, (18) Fons Rademakers‘ The Assault, (19) David Zucker‘s Ruthless People, (20) Paul Mazursky‘s Down and Out in Beverly Hills, (21) John Hughes‘ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, (22) Adrien Lyne‘s 9 1/2 Weeks, (23) Hal Ashby‘s 8 Million Ways to Die, (24) Randa Haines‘ Children of a Lesser God, (25) Martin Scorsese‘s The Color of Money, (26) David Anspaugh‘s Hoosiers, (27) Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge, (28) Jamie Foley’s At Close Range, (29) Sidney Lumet‘s The Morning After, (30) Bruce Beresford‘s Crimes of the Heart.

According to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, Eric Roth recently dumped on….sorry, recently confessed to having genuine feelings of disappointment about Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon. Naked honesty! Clear light!

Roth: “Leonardo was concerned that it would be too much of a great white hope story, so he decided to play the other part which is fine…except I had already written five years worth of scripts [based on David Grann’s novel).. I have some mixed feelings about the movie…not, uhm, I love the movie all and all, Marty made an incredibly sorrowful and accurate portrayal of what we did to these people and the greed. I think it’s a very important movie. I just wish it had more entertainment. I love Tom White, the [originally conceived] main character who Jesse Plemons ended up playing. I wish we had more of him.”

“All Hail Tom White, Taciturn Hero of Killers of the Flower Moon”, posted on 1.20.24:

Here’s how I put it to a screenwriter pally a couple of hours ago: “My God, what a truly compelling and fascinating film Killers of thge Flower Moon could have been. Hats off to Roth for some wonderful writing, sublime tension, terrific structure. It really lives and breathes!

“And what a great, soft-spoken, drillbit character Tom White is! His laconic, man-of-the-prairie dialogue is so spare and true and eloquent.

“If only John Sturges had directed this screenplay in his prime! Or Oliver Stone in the ’80s or Michael Mann, Chris Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson…Sam Peckinpah even.

“If only Marty and Leo hadn’t lost their nerve…if only they hadn’t been so scared of provoking the wokesters and suffering their ferocious wrath, i.e., “We’re done with white heroes! Only racists-at-heart would tell such a tale! And fuck David Grann!”

“My head was completely turned around by reading this, and Roth wasn’t even afraid of including racist cracker dialogue from time to time. (Brave.) And Mollie Burkhart actually conveys a certain gratitude (i.e., a slight smile) to White at the very end. I don’t know if Lily Gladstone even read this version of the script, but if so she almost certainly would’ve hated it.

“I wish I had read this six or seven years ago. It would have clarified a lot of things. Roth and Scorsese went with a woke version of Grann’s tale, of course, but in the early stages Roth truly did himself proud.”

If you weren’t much of a fan of Killers of the Flower Moon or even if you were, please read this early Roth draft — it’s a revelation.

Five months after THR published Rebecca Keegan’s 8.14.24 hit piece on Sasha Stone, which I described and commented on the very same day, Racket News’ respected reporter Matt Taibbi has jumped into the fray. Which is fine — better late than never.

I’m not going to recap Taibbi’s article chapter and verse, but he covers the whole messy affair, deftly and dryly and without using the terms “woke Stasi” or “woke terror” or anything in that general realm.

He basically trashes Keegan and her THR bosses for behaving like cloddish dickhead assassins…for whacking Sasha like some dude on The Sopranos by disingenuously pretending to take her facetious “white power!” tweet seriously, and then by calling around and basically poisoning her brand among distributors and award-season marketers and ad-buyers, and essentially assuring that her $200K annual income would be whittled down to almost nothing.

Taibbi:

Stone:

Here’s some of what I posted on 8.14.24:

…and which is mercifully drawing to a close as we speak. Again, better late than never.

I’ve said repeatedly that identity campaigns have become passe. Lily Gladstone‘s was the last such campaign to have an impact. Nonetheless Netflix and Emilia Perez star Karla Sofia Gascon are currently riding this horse around the track.

The basic idea conveyed by Julian Sancton’s 1.11.25 THR profile is that Gascon is a “controversial” figure, which in the realm of respect and decency is a fringe fallacy. Gascon is certainly a historical figure, yes, but broadcasting the fact that she’s had to contend with online haters doesn’t enhance her brief. Who cares what ugly people are saying on social media?

Gascon has given an entirely respectable, emotionally forceful performance as the titular character in Jacques Audiard‘s audacious musical drama, although not (be honest) an Oscar-worthy one. Respect but no cigar. End of story.

“An Uh-Oh Moment for Karla Sofia Gascon,” posted on 11.2.24:

She’ll be Best Actress-nominated, of course, but in the blink of an eyelash our tectonic plates have shifted and…wait, what’s happening?…identity campaigns are no longer a compelling poker hand.

Or so says an 11.2 N.Y. Times article by Jeremy W. Peters and “Identity Trap” author Yascha Mounk in particular.

If you ask me Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone losing the Best Actress Oscar vote earlier this year to Poor Things’ Emma Stone was an early indication of this cultural-turning-the-road thang.

“‘Maestro’ vs. ‘Oppenheimer — Mano e Mano,” posted on 11.4.23:

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1902 — 1967) and Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) were well-born, well-educated Jewish geniuses of the 20th Century and internationally famous giants in their respective fields (physics and music)..men who rocked their realms and left indelible cultural impressions while unmistakably shaping and changing the 20th Century in historic terms…in short household names, known to every school kid who ever cracked open a book.

Gifted, mercurial and selfish (as many if not most creative-genius types tend to be), both men led dramatic and to some extent conflicted personal lives (and certainly a professionally turbulent one in Oppie’s case). They both smoked like chimneys, causing Oppenheimer to die of throat cancer and Lenny to die of lung failure and a heart attack. And now, as fate would have it, both men are the subjects of major, highly praised motion pictures in 2023, and both directed by gifted and intense and highly exacting auteurs (Chris Nolan and Bradley Cooper) — Universal’s Oppenheimer and Netflix’s Maestro (11.22).

Both films are intense and rich and brilliant, but in my heart and mind there is no comparison in terms of the viewing pleasure and emotional upheaval factor — no contest at all.

Richard Rushhfield‘s best suggestion about fixing the Oscars (he’s published three or so over the last few days) is to move up the date to “early” January, and let all the various pre-Oscar award shows scramble and adjust.

Basically get it over with sooner, Richard urged. Except we all know that early January is unworkable. Late January should be the target.

Yesterday Sasha Stone and I kicked this all around, except we didn’t stick to the subject and indulged in the usual Jeff-and-Sasha digressions.