Variety and THR are reporting that Jeremy Strong will probably play Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network, Part II. As I undersand the situation, Strong wouldn’t be “taking over” the role of Facebook founder from Jesse Eisenberg as much as succeeding Eisenberg. Original Social Network author Aaron Sorkin has written the sequel’s screenplay, and will direct as well.
Candance Owens’ Zoom interview with the imprisoned** Harvey Weinstein posted yesterday (7.30.25).
I’m kinda rushed and am saying nothing at this juncture. Give me time. I’m listening and taking notes as we speak.
This morning I read a day-old Chris Willman Facebook riff on Richard Curtis‘s Yesterday, and subsequently a 5.20.21 Uproxx / Vince Mancini piece about Jack Barth’s original screenplay (“Cover Version”).
This led me back to my original, six-year-old review (mostly a pan) of Yesterday (“Faker From The Heart“). And then to an article in which I passed along three alternate endings.
“Faker From The Heart,” posted on 6.29.19:
Posted six years ago: In the comment thread for yesterday’s McCartney Colbert riff, a guy named “Silver” mentioned an amazing ending for Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis‘s Yesterday — one that would have blown 100 million minds and restored Boyle’s reputation to where it was around the time of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later
It goes without saying that this kind of ending is so far beyond where Curtis, a softball peddler of romantic formulas, lives and creates that it could never happen with Curtis’ involvement, but imagine the seismic impact!
HE alternative. Intrigued by Jack Malik’s visit to his beach house, the 78 year-old John Lennon (Robert Carlyle) attends one of Malik’s concerts. Lennon wanders backstage after the show to offer congratulations, and joins a throng waiting for selfies and autographs.
Standing next to Lennon is an alternate-universe Mark David Chapman, who’s packing heat and looking to shoot Malik. Why? Because Chapman, like that older hippie couple Malik has spoken to in Act Two, knows all about Malik’s Beatle scam and is looking to punish him for being a fraud.
The quicksilver Lennon notices that Chapman is beset by dark vibes, and leaps into action when Chapman pulls out his snub-nose .38. Lennon punches Chapman in his Adam’s Apple and takes his gun. Malik is spared.
Alternate ending #2: Lennon tackles Chapman before he can shoot Malik, but is accidentally shot himself as they struggle on the floor. The horrified Malik cries out “somebody call 911!” and holds Lennon’s head in his lap as the elderly Liverpudlian slowly dies from his wounds.
Alternate ending #3: Malik is shot by Chapman but the assassin is quickly subdued by Lennon and other fans, and is arrested. Lennon kneels next to the wounded Malik, holding his hand and offering words of love and compassion as Malik draws his last few breaths.
The September 2019 consensus was that alternate ending #3 was the best. I agree.
I have no idea who painted this or how old it is or anything. Anyone? I just noticed it last night.
Will you look at those twinkle-toe beach sandals that Albert Einstein is wearing here? My mom used to wear summer shoes like this; ditto Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. I understand that genius types are usually indifferent to macho fashion statements and traditional male garb, but this is embarrassing, man!
Kamala Harris’s forthcoming campaign memoir “107 Days” (Doubleday, 9.23) will not admit failure on her part. Listen to her shpiel tonight when she chats with Stephen Colbert. Laying her cards face-up on the kitchen table is not her specialty. I don’t think she knows what “cards face up” even means.
She will not admit that she torpedoed herself when she said on The View there were no Biden policies that she disagreed with. She will not admit that her campaign had no interest in listening to, much less trying to win over, alienated white males and young right-leaning black dudes. She won’t admit that she erred in picking Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro as her vp running mate.
Harris sees herself as an evangelist for ambitious, well-educated women and willful women of color in particular, and so she can’t let hair down. And so her book will dodge, equivocate, sidestep, blah–blah and shilly–shally.
I voted for Harris but her missteps (the View thing in particular) really pissed me off, and all I can say now is that she really, really needs to forget about running again in ‘28.
The Dems need to go with Rahm, Gavin or Pete…a tough but sensible moderate liberal dude…not a woman this time.
If I was a USC film student who wanted to direct, and if guest lecturer David Fincher told me to “shut up and siddown” after asking me for a movie pitch, I would either say (a) “wait…hear me out…it all comes together at the end” or (b) “don’t be rude, dude…have a little patience…a little faith”.
Good Sex star Natalie Portman looks a good 10 years younger than someone born on 6.9.81. One of her costars in Lena Dunham‘s film is Role Model (aka 28 year-old Tucker Pillsbury). Two nights ago (7.28) Portman danced on-stage with Role Model at Madison Square Garden as he sang “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out“.
Last time I checked (roughly four months ago) Portman was romantically involved with Tanguy Destable, a French music industry guy wih short gray hair and a closely cropped, salt-and-pepper beard.
Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? (Searchlight), a semi-biographical dramedy, will close the 2025 New York Film Festival with a world premiere screening on Friday, 10.10.25.
Pic is “inspired” by the early career moves of stand-up comic John Bishop, who broke into the biz in 2000 at age 34.
Bishop is called “Alex” in the film, and is played by the 55 year-old Will Arnett. Alex’s wife Tess is played by the 58 year-old Laura Dern. Cooper has directed the film as well as cowritten (with Arnett and Mark Chappell) and produced. He also plays Alex’s best friend Arnie.
Wiki excerpt: “Bishop performed stand-up comedy for the first time in Manchester in October 2000, and the following year, made it to the final of all the major new act competitions, including ‘So You Think You’re Funny’, the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards, the BBC New Comedy Awards, and the City Life North West Comedian of the Year Award, which he won.”
Posted by Matt Neglia on 7.30.25: “In a pair of galvanizing, deeply honest performances” — Neglia has apparenly seen it — “Will Arnett and Laura Dern play Alex and Tess Novak, whose marriage has reached an impasse. With amicable sorrow, the couple — parents of two young boys — mutually agree to split up.
“Yet in Cooper’s keenly observed comic drama, their separation leads to unpredictable midlife self-reckonings, most dramatically in Alex’s wild career pivot to become a confessional stand-up comedian in New York City’s West Village, where he finds new direction and camaraderie.
“This seemingly outlandish scenario — in a script by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell, inspired by the true story of British comedian John Bishop — is never played for easy laughs, while Cooper uses his penchant for naturalism to give the actors space to find their complicated centers. In his beautifully lived-in third feature following A Star Is Born and Maestro (NYFF61), Cooper confirms his dexterity for representing the complexities of human relationships, constructing a film that is both lacerating and sweet-souled, funny and tender.
“Is This Thing On? features a stacked, stellar supporting cast, including Andra Day, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds, Sean Hayes, Peyton Manning and Amy Sedaris, as well as charming assistance from New York stand-up standbys such as Chloe Radcliffe, Reggie Conquest and Jordan Jensen, supplying the film its downtown authenticity.”
Is Donald Trump about to cut a deal with Ghislaine Maxwell in which he either pardons her or reduces her sentence? The latter, I’m guessing.. I’m also predicting that the deal won’t be announced for at least a year, so that the quid pro quo can be “hidden”, so to speak. At that point, Maxwell will never say a word against Trump. Problem solved.
Jett: “Bring a bathing suit this weekend. Or u can borrow one of mine.”
HE: “Okay. We’re going to the Jersey shore?”
Jett: “No, pool.”
HE: “Big public pool?”
Jett: “Does it matter? We’re going to the public pool. Bring a suit.”
HE: “Just wondering about low-rent kids urinating in the pool. You know…suddenly a patch of water gets a little warmer for a bit?”
Jett: “Do u have to make everything unpleasant? We’re going to the pool with you or without you.”
HE: “I’d like to go…great. And if nature calls, I’ll climb out and hit the men’s room.”
Earlier this year the Gold Derby “experts” embarassed themselves to death by all-but-unanimously predicting that The Brutalist‘s Brady Corbet would take the Best Director Oscar. This is because the GD members are easily intimidated sheep…no balls, no moxie, no backbone or belief, no critical integrity…a certain herd instinct manifests and then “baaaahh!”
Right now 14 Gold Derby-ites are spitballing their Best Picture preferences, and wouldn’t ya just know that seven of them have Sinners at the top of their lists?
Again, the Gold Derby guys know absolutely nothing. They’re on the Sinners train solely because of the social safety factor. They’re afraid not to predict a Sinners Best Picture win or at least a Best Director nomination for Ryan Coogler.
Friendo (speaking this morning): “But a Black director has never won a Best Director Oscar…how long can this continue?” HE to friendo: “The Best Picture Oscar that went to 12 Years A Slave in 2014 was obviously owned by the great Steve McQueen. 12 Years A Slave was and is an epic, humanistic masterpiece. Sinners is an under-lighted, sex-and-blood vampire exploitation film.”
HE can think of nothing better or more glorious than to die on this hill: A Sinners Best Picture win would raise high the banner for the progressive degeneration of cinema in the 21st Century…a process of decline which began to manifest in the ’90s and has been gathering more and more steam since….oh, 2010 or thereabouts, or the year of Ironman.
