We can at least be thankful that Lee Kline, Criterion’s very own in-house teal monster, had nothing to do with the forthcoming Ben-Hur 4K UHD Bluray. Thank God Almighty for that!

Last weekend CNN’s White House correspondent Kaitlin Collins attended the Grammys with a dude she appeared to be entwined with — photographer Emilio Madrid. The problem (for me at least) is that he looks like a combination of a Spanish bullfighter and the late Richard Kiel (aka “Jaws”). A roundish, too-wide face. A way-too-low hairline. A too-wide mouth. Okay, that’s enough.

Kaitlin Collins should be with a guy who looks less like Kiel and more like a young Terrence Stamp.

The long-awaited 4K UHD Bluray of William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur finally pops on 2.17.26. Thank God WHE execs didn’t feel obliged to wait for the 70th anniversary of the multi-Oscar-winning film’s theatrical debut, which happened on 11.18.59.

It would have been a somewhat bigger deal if the WHE guys had gotten the lead out and released a 4K UHD Bluray on 11.18.19 (60th anniversary) or, better still, on 11.18.09 (50th anni). Physical media hasn’t been a big deal for a good 15 years, but the Ben-Hur UHD is still an important event in this diminished realm.

Ben-Hur was shot on 65mm film (Camera 65), which was then printed on 70mm film for reserved-seat exhibition with an aspect ratio of 2.76:1. (The rubes were shown 35mm prints with 2.39:1 or 2.55:1 aspect ratios.) Ben-Hur was not filmed at 30 frames per second (fps) but at the standard industry speed of 24 fps.

For decades the standard Ben-Hur synopsis has stated that the narrative begins in Judea and more particularly in Jerusalem in AD 26. The 4K UHD copy is different, calling the film “a classic adaptation of the Lew Wallace story of Palestine in the time of Christ.” Palestine? I’m not 100% certain, but I don’t think anyone uses the word “Palestine” in the entire film. I’m guessing that the WHE copywriter used “Palestine” instead of “ancient Judea” or “Jerusalem” because of contemporary anti-Netanyahu leftist politics.

“Wherever there is greatness — great government or power, even great feeling or compassion — error also is great. We progress and mature by fault. Perfect freedom has no existence. The grown man knows the world he lives in.” — written by Gore Vidal and spoken by Frank Thring (as Judea governor Pontius Pilate) in Act 3 of William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur.

Read more

The kidnappers of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of TODAY‘s Savannah Guthrie, may have delivered a possibly legit ransom note, TMZ has announced.

The note/email contained (a) crime-scene details that might verify that they’re real-deal kidnappers plus (b) a demand for “a specific substantial amount of Bitcoin” (i.e., in the millions). The note demands that “the cryptocurrency be sent to a specific Bitcoin address.”

Today is Tuesday, 2.3. Nancy was abducted three days ago — Saturday, 1.31. If the kidnappers were seriously fearsome criminals they probably would have sent the ransom note on Sunday, 2.1 or certainly by Monday, 2.2. The fact that they didn’t before this morning indicates they might not be the brightest or most efficiently organized felons on the planet. They’re definitely not Neil McCauley-level.

Senior L.A. authorities to detectives trying to catch these guys: “Here’s the straight dope, fellas. The TODAY show and every well-paid, well-connected person in big media is taking a special interest in this case so if you fuck up, you know what.”

Of all the high-craft, seriously aspirational, go-for-broke Timothee Chalamet films that he’s starred or costarred in since the mid teens, I’m not likely to re-watch The King and Beautiful Boy…sorry. And I’ll definitely never, ever re-watch Interstellar, a movie that I truly hated with all my heart and soul both times.

MARTY SUPREME
MARTY SUPREME + Introduction by actor and producer Timothée Chalamet
Sat. Feb 7, 2026 | 7:00pm
Aero Theatre

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN + Q&A with actor and producer Timothée Chalamet and actor Edward Norton
Sat. Feb 7, 2026 | 3:00pm
Egyptian Theatre

DUNE / DUNE: PART TWO in 70mm + Q&A with filmmaker Denis Villeneuve and actor Timothée Chalamet
Sun. Feb 8, 2026 | 7:30pm
Egyptian Theatre

INTERSTELLAR in IMAX 70mm + Q&A with filmmaker Christopher Nolan and actor Timothée Chalamet
Mon. Feb 9, 2026 | 7:00pm
Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood – Auditorium 19

THE KING + Pre-screening Q&A with actor Timothée Chalamet
Tue. Feb 10, 2026 | 7:30pm
Aero Theatre

BEAUTIFUL BOY + Q&A with actor and producer Timothée Chalamet. Moderated by Elle Fanning.
Thu. Feb 12, 2026 | 7:00pm
Los Feliz 3

MARTY SUPREME + Introduction by actor and producer Timothée Chalamet
Thu. Feb 12, 2026 | 10:00pm
Los Feliz 3

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME + Q&A with actor Timothée Chalamet. Moderated by Zane Lowe.
Fri. Feb 13, 2026 | 7:30pm
Cinespia at Los Angeles Theatre
Co-presented by American Cinematheque

…despite my having first having fallen for this song on Robert Palmer‘s “Some People Can Do What They like“, released in October 1976. The Belafonte is gentler, warmer, friendlier.

An old-time calypso number, “Man Smart (Woman Smarter)” was composed by Norman Span, who first recorded the song in 1936.

Homer’s Odyssey is about Odysseus’s ten-year journey home to Ithaca. Odysseus and his crew were blown far off course to exotic unknown lands. Odysseus resultantly had many adventures, including the famous encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, and an audience with the seer Teiresias in Hades. On the island of Thrinacia, Odysseus’s men ate the cattle sacred to the sun-god Helios. For this sacrilege Odysseus’s ships were destroyed, and all his men perished.

“Odysseus had not eaten the cattle, and was allowed to live; he washed ashore on the island of Ogygia, and lived there with the nymph Calypso. After seven years, the gods decided to send Odysseus home; on a small raft, he sailed to Scheria, the home of the Phaeacians, who gave him passage to Ithaca.

Frustrated, spiritually spent Odysseus (Matt Damon) to self: “First the decade-long siege of Troy, and then another ten years to get home! Good Lord!

“If only the young and impetuous Paris hadn’t fallen head-over-heels in love with Lupita Nyong’o‘s middle-aged Helen! On top of which she’s…what? Roughly 15 if not 20 years older than the 20something Paris? What could he have possibly seen in her? An obviously beautiful woman, yes, but hardly the most beautiful in the entire ancient Greek-Aegean world. At best Paris saw her as an exotic MILF, but was this mad passion worth the deaths of so many hundreds if not thousands of Greek and Trojan soldiers?”

Overview: Who needs ten years to return home? A year or two, maybe, but not a full decade.

Odysseus’s wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway in Chris Nolan’s film) had logical suppositions that would lead any reasonable woman to believe that her husband is dead. Who wouldn’t presume this after a couple of years?

What kind of wife shrugs her shoulders and says, “Ah, well…my husband has obviously been delayed on his way home, but I trust that he’ll eventually return so I will wait and keep myself chaste until the glorious day of arrival.” Commendable but not when you’ve been waiting ten fucking years. That’s ridiculous.

What if Odysseus couldn’t find his way back until 12 years had passed? Or 15 or 20? How many years of absence are tolerable or understandable? I say no more than two. Okay, three max.

If I were Penelope I would say after four or five years, “All right, screw it…Odysseus has obviously drowned or been killed or has settled down with another woman somewhere. I guess it’s time to start thinking about finding a replacement husband. What am I supposed to do? Wait until I’m 50 or 55 years old?

“And someone younger this time. My husband had begun to slow down or, you know, lose rigidity before he left. God knows what he’ll be like in the sack when he returns. If I’m going to remarry I want a man with a phallus like a piece of petrified wood.”

And so, naturally, the word gets out and several suitors start hanging around Penelope…all of them looking to “make it happen”. But then Odysseus finally returns, and in a big thundering climax he and his son Telemachus murder all the guys who were hoping for a little Penelope action.

Dying would-be suitor, arrow in his chest, bleeding on the floor: “What the fuck, dude? You’ve been gone for ten years and you expected your wife to…what, just wait and wait and wait? If you had been among us and some other king of Ithaca had been absent for ten years, you know you’d be looking to win Penelope’s favor and maybe discreetly do her on the side when no one’s looking…you’d be acting no differently. So why have you and Telemachus killed so many of us? What have we done that is so awful? Nothing.”

Sorry but The Devil Wears Prada 2 (20th Century, 5.1) is going to underwhelm. Such is the fate of nearly all sequels, excepting The Godfather Part II, T2: Judgment Day and…which others?

It’s obviously some kind of old-giving-way-to-the-new, passing-of-the-fashion-industry-torch saga. Meryl Streep‘s aging Miranda Priestly coping with the oppressive dynamics of a changing media landscape (digital overtaking print) as Anne Hathaway‘s Andy Sachs, now features editor at Runway, and Emily Blunt‘s Emily Charlton scheme to further their own ambitions blah blah blah.

The trailer offers one of two unappetizing scenarios — (1) Priestly is suffering from memory loss or perhaps even Alzheimer’s (who wants to watch a great ice-villain swirling downwards?) or (2) she’s playing cheap, petty mind games by pretending (initially at least) not to remember Andy and Emily blah blah blah. Only a frightened and insecure oldster would resort to such a tactic. Tedious either way.

HE is mostly looking forward to the Milan footage, especially after having gotten to know Milan a little bit after last September’s Venice Film Festival. Pic filmed at Milan Fashion Week in late September. Further Milan filming took place between 10.5.25 and 10.18.25.