The bottom line, thank God, is that woke-minded or woke-angled content has proven time and again to be a commercial non-starter. Industry realists are facing the fact that the sacralizing of race, gender and sexuality isn’t a great business model, and that Joe and Jane Popcorn don’t give a toss either way.

The unfortunate aspect is that proponents of advancing #MeToo consciousness and the relentless insertion of DEI and Vito Russo quotas into everything remain convinced that the moral-social goal counter-balances (and perhaps even outweighs) the financial. They believe they’re serving God’s revolutionary agenda, and if you know anything about human nature you know that it’s very difficult to convince moral zealots that they’re on a fool’s errand.

Translation: Just as Hollywood’s John Wayne faction (anti-pinko patriotism) and the enforcement of hiring blacklists persisted throughout the 1950s, the current woke plague will probably continue into the mid 2020s. Even this rudimentary assessment will probably seem needlessly complex to Joe and Jane Popcorn. HE recognizes that J & J generally prefer to define and quantify Hollywood issues with short primitive sentences. I get it.

The consensus after Joshua Logan’s Picnic opened in December ‘55 was that William Holden, who’d turned 37 the previous April, was too old to play Hal Carter, whom original author William Inge had written as a drifter in his mid to late 20s.

But Holden’s Picnic miscasting would have paled alongside another mismatch that mercifully didn’t happen. The film was Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky’s The Americanization of Emily (‘64), in which Holden had been cast as dog-robber Charley Madison. He wisely pulled out.

James Garner, who had previously been cast as “Bus,” the role that James Coburn ultimately played, took the Madison role.

Holden would have been at least a decade too old to play Madison, who is supposed to be a youngish, slick-operator type (mid 30s — Garner was 35) and certainly not 40ish and world-weary.

Filming on The Americanization of Emily happened in late ‘63 (a hotel party scene was filmed on 11.22.63) and, I believe, early ‘64. A drinker, Holden was 45 at the time and looked every inch of it. He was even looking a bit haggard and baggy-eyed in The Counterfeit Traitor, which was filmed in ‘61 when Holden was 43.

Remember how over-the-hill, creased and saddle-baggy Holden looked in The Wild Bunch, which was filmed in ‘68?

Which other major roles were filled by actors who were clearly too old to play them? Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen doesn’t count — too recent.

The HFPA has done everything possible to atone for past sins and it’s still not good enough — the twitter wokesters (Tomris Laffly, Clayton Davis, et. al.) want them suppressed and blacklisted to death.

I’m in a skin clinic undergoing a basel-cell cancer removal procedure**, but the woke Stalinists are trying to suffocate the Golden Globe awards by telling everyone (publicists in particular) not to mention this morning’s GG nominations.

Here’s what Sasha Stone posted a little while ago:

One of the reasons the wokesters are trying to suppress the Golden Globes is because the HFPA didn’t adhere to the feminist quota system — i.e., no women directors were nominated. For this and other reasons the GGs must be punished!

Here’s a complaint from Variety’s #1 wokester Clayton Davis:

“I just have this really weird feeling that something bad is gonna happen…”

McCuddy: “The big climactic bullet tango on the yacht does two things. It satisfies our curiosity especially after Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) asks the blood-soaked Quentin (Tom Hallander) if her husband was cheating and he says nothing PLUS it tells us something about next season. My 22 year old daughter thinks next season should be an African safari, which would be cool.”

Mashable’s Robert Daniels has posted a strong disapproval of Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light. It’s fair, I think, to call this a racial admonishment piece, as Daniels has voiced a fundamental objection to older white directors “fumbling” films about black characters — i.e., having the temerity to make such films in the first place.

Paul Rai’s approving comment [below] also laments James Gray’s Armageddon Time, another instance of an older white director “using black characterization as foundation fodder for [a white] director’s ethos.”

What do you think Daniels is talking about when he calls Empire of Light “a contrived, politically trite exercise”? He obviously doesn’t like the brief romantic pairing of Olivia Colman‘s Hillary and Michael Ward‘s Stephen, and he regards Mendes’ decision to merge an older, white, mentally anxious lady with a young, good-looking lad of color as a “trite” attempt to inject some kind of current cultural flavor.

In short, Daniels is saying, older white directors (Green Book’s Peter Farrelly included) need to stay 100 yards away from period sagas involving black characters, and 500 yards away if the story involves interracial sex.

Here’s how I put it on 12.7 in an HE piece “HE Fights for Empire of Light”:

Daniel Craig is intending to become the first ex-007 to play a gay guy. Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan…none of them expanded their repertoire in such a fashion. But Craig will boldly go where no James Bond has gone before.

The Industry’s Jeff Sneider is reporting that Craig will star in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, an adaptation of William Burroughs’ same-titled, partly autobiographical novel that was written in the early ‘50s but not published until ‘85.

Presumably to be set in old-time Mexico City, where Burroughs himself lived in the early ‘50s, Queer may or may deal with the accidental shooting death of Burroughs’ wife, Joan Vollmer.

HE not yet having seen The Whale is entirely on A24 and their reps, who are totally playing “hide the ball” from certain viewers. The idea of seeing it in the city this weekend is an option, of course, but a conversation I had this morning with three friends gave me pause:

Friendo #1: “The Whale is very bad.”
Friendo #2: “It’s a tough sit, but I was sobbing at the very end.”
Friendo #1: “The Whale begins with Brendan Fraser jerking off to gay porn.”
HE: “Is that how the play version began?”
Friendo #1: “I didn’t see the play.”
HE: “Jerking off? Please tell me [Darren] Aronofsky‘s camera shows restraint.”
Friendo #1: “And then somebody walks in on him.”
Friendo #3: “I missed the first minute at my Toronto screening. I got in when he was naked in the shower. I didn’t notice any jerking off. Maybe I missed it.”
Friendo #1: “I don’t remember a shower scene, but the first scene definitely shows him jerking off, bro,”
Friendo #4: “Yes! That’s how it starts!”
HE: “Aaaggghh.”

I have always been an ardent fan of Mr. Aronofsky’s, but saying that I am genuinely fearful of seeing The Whale is putting it mildly.