Let history note that when it came to sentencing Donald J. Trump for his Stormy Daniels felony convictions, Judge Juan M. Merchan wimped the hell out.

He decided on “a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation“….shame….shame!

From N.Y. Times reporters Ben Protess and Kate Christobek:

1.4.25 update: I re-watched Moonstruck last night, and my basic feeling was that as effective as the performances and John Patrick Shanley‘s screenplay are, parts of it are a little too broad and on-the-nose. It’s a good film, but it could’ve been better if director Norman Jewison had toned things down somewhat.

1.3.25: Cher’s bulls-eye Moonstruck performance landed a Best Actress Oscar in ’88, and good for her. But the real reason she won was because of (a) the film’s dead-perfect poster, (b) a single line of dialogue that she said to costar Nic Cage — “Snap out of it!”, (c) a back-and-forth between Cher and Olympia Dukakis — OD: “Do ya love him, Loretta?” / Cher: “Ma, I love him awful” / OD: “Oh, God, that’s too bad”, and (d) the fact that Moonstruck‘s ensemble cast was spot-on to the nth degree.

So it was a group effort, really. Cher, Cage, Norman Jewison, John Patrick Shanley, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello…they all won it together.

That’s Rob Camilletti, Cher’s 22 year-old “bagel boy” boyfriend, reacting to her win.

What exactly is a movie musical? Wikipedia defines it as “a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film’s themes or characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline.”

Therefore James Mangold‘s A Complete Unknown is obviously and unmistakably a movie musical. The songs aren’t personal-expression songs in a classic musical sense, and yet on another level they are, certainly in Bob Dylan‘s case. They also express themes and feelings that emanate from the social-political climate of the early to mid ’60s. It’s a magical mystical tour of that era.

The bottom line is that Mangold’s 141-minute film is wall-to-wall singing and performing. According to producer Fred Berger, Chalamet sings 40 Dylan songs in the film, and that’s obviously not counting the Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Johnny Cash songs that are also performed. (The Complete Unknown soundtack vinyl album contains 16 tracks; the CD version contains 23 tracks.)

Wicked is also a musical, of course, but a bit less of one in terms of the humber of stand-alone musical compositions. If you don’t count the orchestral opening and finale, 12 songs are performed by Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum and others.

And yet the insanely corrupt Golden Globe nominations have categorized Wicked as a musical but A Complete Unknown as a drama.

The Globe nominees for BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY are Anora (sporadically hilarious but hardly a “comedy”), Challengers (doesn’t even flirt with being a comedy or a musical), Emilia Perez (obviously a musical), A Real Pain (contains amusing dialogue while while adhering to a light farcical tone), The Substance (an exploitation body-horror film) and Wicked (a full-on musical).

“A Wing and a Prayer,” posted on 9.23.12: If you’re driving your Lexus drunk your reaction time is slower than if you’re cold sober, and if you’re really stinko you’re definitely a menace to all humanity. But drunk or semi-drunk driving isn’t all bad, and sometimes it works. Or at least it did for me.

I know, I know — did I just say that? In today’s world DUI is a felony punishable by huge fines and jail time in some cases, and rightly so.

But in the ’70s tens of thousands of people drove from place to place every night with a buzz-on and in some cases plain shitfaced, and some awful things resulted, I’m sure. But quite often, probably the vast majority of times, drunks just drove home and parked their cars and watched a little TV and went to sleep on the couch. And then woke up at 3 am, undressed and flopped in their bedroom.

May God forgive me but in my early drinking days when I lived in Wilton and Westport, Connecticut, I drove late at night with several beers and/or Jack Daniels on the rocks in my system, and I just cruised on through, and I mean weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend. No accidents, no fender benders, nothing. Others plowed their cars into ponds and trees and guard-rails, but not me.

There were times, in fact, when I drove down those winding country roads at high speeds and I would focus like a motherfucker, and I was convinced at times that I was driving like Paul Newman at Lime Rock.

I started to tell myself, in fact, that I drove better when half-bombed because I was less intimidated by the possibility of something going wrong. I drove without fear, without hesitation. I took those hairpin turns like a champ.

Present tense: In short, if you’re as good a driver as I was and you’re not flat-out wasted, driving with booze in your system isn’t such a bad thing. Or at least it doesn’t need to be. Would I drive drunk now? Of course not. I stopped drinking 12 and 2/3 years ago (3.20.12) and I’m not an asshole. I’m just saying that I got away with it for years, and…well, I’ve said it.

The Penske Golden Globes are insanely corrupt. The most likely winners, it is widely presumed, will be the nominees backed by the deepest pockets….the price is right…if ya wanna slide, ya gotta grease…simple as that.

Which means, of course, that since poor little Neon can’t compete with Universal and Netflix in terms of Penske spending splurges (FYC Phase One ads in Deadline, Variety and THR, special facetime-luncheon whore events) that poor little Anora will probably get edged out, most likely by Wicked.

The second act of Anora is hilarious but it’s not really a comedy, and yet the Globes have categorized it as a musical or comedy. Wicked is obviously and emphatically a musical so it’ll probably win.

I’ve just submitted my Gatecrashers GG prediction ballot…see below…I know the deck is stacked against Anora but I can’t vote for Wicked…I just can’t.

From Richard Rushfield‘s Ankler piece about the Globes…”How to Watch a Second-Tier Awards Show“…essential reading:

“There’s something fitting about the timing of Sunday’s Golden Globes, [roughly] two weeks ahead of the second inauguration of Donald Trump. The gaudiness, the scandals, the obeisance to corrupt foreign powers, the random bit players elevated to high office — and Hollywood’s willingness to shrug and play along with the madness.

“That said, even amid an Attorney General’s probe into the legitimacy of the purchase (as I exclusively reported in November and which of course, was not covered in Variety, Deadline or THR), this ethics-challenged, anticipated-by-no-one awards show must go on.

“So if you’re the producer of an awards contender, does buying ads in a Penske publication help your shot at a nomination from the Globes? We don’t know that it does or doesn’t.

“The rules are on the site, of course, and they specify a voting body which includes the former HFPA members, but keeping the lines of church and state separate hasn’t exactly been a specialty of the Penske portfolio.

“If you have any question about how blurred the lines are, the fact that the Penske Big Three (Deadline, Variety, THR) have uniformly refused to so much as glance at the problems outlined above suggests the answer.”

30 years ago Kathleen Turner was hit with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects feet, joints and organs. It pretty much destroyed her career. The steroids and pain medication she took to treat the disease made her fat, and a few years later she developed a drinking problem. (Since arrested.) But how did she get that deep, raspy, rough-sandpaper voice?

The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney is the only one among three (Jon Frosch and Lovia Gyarkye being the other two) to include Anora, the year’s finest film, among his top ten.

So many critics are lost in their own dweeb vapors…in a realm of their own elite sensibilities. Average ticket buyers pay them no mind, and who can blame them?

Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer is Rooney’s #2:

HE-posted on 10.7,24:

No one will argue that films were generally better 19 years ago. They obviously were. Herewith a reminder, posted or or about 12.15.05:

Creme de la Creme: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes, Match Point, The Family Stone, Cinderella Man, The Beautiful Country, Last Days, Grizzly Man, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (13).

70% Masterful…Merging of Lovers From Different Cultures in the Midst of a Splendorous Natural Symphony…But Goes off The Rails, Drop-Kicks the Mood and Leaves You Stranded at the 110-Minute Mark: The New World (1)

Overly Schematic But Clearly Delineated (hasn’t aged well): Crash. (1)

Pretty Damn Good to Reasonably Good: Good Night and Good Luck, The Wedding Crashers, Syriana, Munich, The Aristocrats, Batman Begins, Broken Flowers, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, Cache (Hidden), The Interpreter (for the bomb-on-the-bus scene alone), Nine Lives (for Robin Wright Penn alone), Cronicas, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach has an assured place at the table), The Upside of Anger (for Kevin Costner’s performance), The Thing About My Folks (for Peter Falk’s performance), Mrs. Henderson Presents, Kung Fu Hustle, Kingdom of Heaven, Rent, Broken Flowers, Brothers (for Connie Nielsen’s performance and the austere and upfront tone of Suzanne Bier’s direction), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, War of the Worlds, Casanova, My Date With Drew (a good-humored rendering of a metaphor about youthful pluck and persistence and team spirit), My Summer of Love, Paradise Now. (27)

Not Half Bad: The Producers, The Dying Gaul, The World’s Fastest Indian, Four Brothers, Layer Cake, The Great Raid, Reel Paradise, Green Street Hooligans, Everything is Illuminated, Proof, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (13)

Gets Worse The More I Look Back Upon it: King Kong (1).

Unquestionable Failure That Nonetheless Half-Saves Itself as It Comes to a Close: Elizabethtown (1)

Biggest Bummer (and splattered milkshakes don’t matter): The Weather Man (1)

Solid First Stab by Talented Director: Scott Caan’s Dallas 362. (1)

Grudging Approval (i.e., respect for an obviously first-rate film that I didn’t particularly enjoy watching all that much): Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (1)

Blaaah: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country, Shopgirl, Jarhead, The Libertine (5)

Tediously Acceptable: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Catherine Keener’s fine performance helped); March of the Penguins. (2)

Crap Marginally Redeemed By…: Sin City (heavenly Nevada silver-mine black- and-white photography); House of Wax (Paris Hilton’s death and some fairly inventive pizazz shown by director Jaume Collet-Serra). (2)

Cavalcade of Crap…Moneyed, Honeyed, Sullied…an Affront to The Once Semi-Respectable Tradition of Mainstream Hollywood Filmmaking: The Dukes of Hazzard, The Island, Bewitched, Rumor Has it, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Must Love Dogs, Memoirs of a Geisha, Domino, The Legend of Zorro, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Constantine, Aeon Flux, Fantastic Four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. (15).

The fun starts around the 5:30 mark.

I was deeply disappointed when I caught an allegedly magnificent 70mm print of John Ford‘s The Searchers last July at the Museum of the Moving Image.

“No ‘bump’ at all over the versions I’ve watched on various formats over the years,” I angrily wrote. “No bump whatsoever, fuckers! Plus some shots looked overly shadowed, and some looked a tad bleachy.”

But of course, trusting sap and sucker that I am, I’ve bought the forthcoming 4K Bluray, which looks extra-marvelous according to various reviewers. I don’t trust these whores at all, but I want the 4K to be extra-special so I’m talking the plunge.

If I feel burned again after watching it later this month, there will be hell to pay.

From my 7.21 review:: “Immediately my eyes were telling me that the 70mm restoration is some kind of reverent con job, and that ticket-buying schmoes like myself were being gaslit.

“’This?’, I was angrily saying to myself. ‘Where’s the enhancement? Where’s the extra-exacting detail that a ‘straight from the original VisaVision negative’ 70mm print would presumably yield?”

“The MOMI theatre is seemingly a technically first-rate operation with a nice big screen, but what a fuming experience I had. I was ready to hit someone.

“Technically sophisticated friendo who knows his stuff: ‘In order to present a film print properly — especially 70mm — more things must come together than you might imagine in your worst nightmare.’

“Thanks, powers-that-be! Thanks for lying right through your teeth!”

I adored Linda Lavin‘s simultaneously hilarious and emotionally devastating performance in the Broadway stage presentation of Neil Simon‘s Broadway Bound, which I still regard today as his finest play, hands down.

Lavin played Kate Jerome, the steadfast mother of burgeoning radio-show scriptwriters Eugene (the Simon stand-in, played by Jonathan Silverman) and Stanley (Jason Alexander). She was wonderful — the audience (including myself and my parents, Jim and Nancy, sitting in the third or fourth row) stood and cheered and wouldn’t stop at curtain call.

I would love to watch the 1992 TV movie version right now, but it’s not streaming or even on Bluray, and copies of the DVD are so scarce that it costs $79 a pop on Amazon.

Anne Bancroft played Kate; Silverman and Corey Parker played Eugene and Stanley. Hume Cronyn, Jerry Orbach and Michele Lee costarred.

Lavin passed on 12.29.24. A truly great and wondrous actress — lifted my heart, melted me down.

The four acting-Oscar winners will be Chalamet, Anora‘s Mikey Madison for Best Actress, A Real Pain‘s Kieran Culkin or Anora‘s Yura Borisov for Best Supporting Actor and…I’m not sure about Best Supporting Actress. It’s probably a toss-up between Emilia Perez‘s Zoe Saldana and Wicked‘s Ariana Grande…either one winning would basically amount to a compensational “throw the movie a bone” gimmee as neither film will win the Best Picture Oscar.