Late yesterday afternoon I caught Manhattan’s first commercial screening of Peter Farrelly’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Apple, 9.30 streaming). It happened at 5 pm on the top floor of Union Square’s Regal plex, and I almost died from watching all the crap-level trailers. (The Black Adam is especially toxic.)

This isn’t about the film (my review will appear later this morning) but about a mentally disturbed guy who talked loudly throughout the entire film. To himself.

Nobody said or did anything to influence the behavior of this horse’s-ass-who-was-off-his-meds, myself included. I should’ve manned up and walked over and offered my usual usual —“due respect, bruh, but would you please shut the fuck up?” But an instinct told me that this erudite 30something skull-capped gentleman might be the hair-trigger type. So I sat there and took it.

Thank you, Regal management. I paid thirty-six bills (including medium-size popcorn and a “small” half-quart-sized drink) to have my Greatest Beer Run experience interfered with by a muscle-bound, brain-scrambled psychopath.

It didn’t feel like a burn, I mean. I was mildly intrigued as far as it went. It’s a mid-level creeper about the lure of idyllic fantasy realms, and how people are so forlorn or morose in their day-to-day that they find fantasies all the more tantalizing.

That’s not a bad thematic premise to rest a film upon. You have to give DWD credit for aiming at people with the capacity to process a metaphor.

Florence Pugh is given all the big “what the fuck is going on?” acting moments, and she handles them pretty well. Harry Styles absolutely passes the test — he’s a completely decent actor and pleasing to gaze upon, and can dance reasonably well. Chris Pine is passable as the Manipulative Bad Daddy of Victory.

Yes, I had a few logic quibbles but I’d rather take issue tomorrow. It’s kinda late and I’m on a slightly bumpy train.

After all the alleged bad blood and off-screen scandal I guess I kinda expected something mildly shitty or a tiny bit disappointing. But DWD is mildly watchable, and that I didn’t expect.

Do I think it’s an extra-brilliant, extra-delicious, top-tier film? No, but it’s certainly tolerable, and the ‘50s cars are in great shape. I especially liked the black T-bird.

Honestly? I found it slightly more engrossing than Booksmart.

Okay, one complaint: The first time Harry goes down on Miss Flo he doesn’t yank off the undies so I didn’t believe it. Why didn’t he just flip ‘em off? (That’s a lyric from “Louie Louie” — “It won’t be long now…she’s flippin’ ‘em off”). But the second time he does.

The strangest thing happened about one-third of the way through — there’s a close-up of a large, thick uncooked steak that’s been marinated and sprinkled with peppercorns. And then it’s cooked and placed on the dining table, and I couldn’t stop thinking about eating at least a portion of it. My mouth was literally watering.

I don’t know how many minutes of screen time Michelle Williams has in The Fabelmans, but the tally was apparently low enough to persuade some that her performance as Sammy Fabelman’s mom belonged in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Screen time, of course, is not the ultimate measure. Patricia Neal’s Hud performance only amounted to 21 minutes and 51 seconds (or one-fifth of the 112-minute running time) and she was nominated for Best Actress anyway. And she won.

Second to last paragraph in Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily piece (9.20.22) about Hollywood’s devotion to to radiant Academy values (virtue, goodness, inclusion, equity, Millennialism): “It isn’t just that people are no longer watching the Oscars; it’s that people are tuning out the whole community.”

Excerpt #2:

Posted by The New Yorker’s Richard Brody on 9.20.22:

Posted by HE on 9.17.22:

This is a sad Carnegie Hall Cinema story from late ‘78 or early ‘79. I was working as a manager of this cellar-level, not-for-profit repertory house, which was owned and operated by the moustachioed, semi-rapscallion Sid Geffen (who also ran the Bleecker Street Cinema).

The name of the young woman who worked in the CHC ticket booth has faded, but let’s call her Deirdre of the Sorrows. When I called this a sad story I meant it was about unfairness, and it boils down to this: Not only did poor Deirdre suffer trauma through no fault of her own, but she was blamed for it.

One fine weekday afternoon the Carnegie Hall Cinema was robbed of $170 or $180. (Or more — I was never much for numbers.). A stick-up man walked up to the street-level booth (Seventh Ave. just north of 56th), pulled out a pistol, told terrified Deirdre to fork over and she did.

I quickly called the fuzz. I can’t recall if it was a plainclothes or a uniformed beat cop who dropped by, but he interviewed Deirdre and myself and maybe Sid, filed a report, etc.

Two days later the place was hit again — same guy, same gat, same terrified Deirdre. So Sid fired her.

Sid had figured or intuited one of three things: (1) Deirdre had made the first robbery too easy or anxiety-free for the thief, so much so that he figured that double-dipping would be no-sweat, (2) Deirdre was “in on it” with the thief — a theory that I found paranoid and silly, knowing Deirdre as I did (and no, I hadn’t even thought about trying for any sort of erotic entanglement — that would have been crude and unprofessional plus she wasn’t my type), and (3) Deirdre was a Jonah or a bringer of bad luck.

I didn’t think Sid gave any serious credence to the cahoots theory, but anyone would consider (1) and (3), especially the easy-mark thing.

Sid never asked for my opinion, but if he had I would have said “Deirdre is a responsible, decent person…this was just bad cards.” And those last five words would have, in Sid’s eyes, helped to seal her fate.

Dooley Wilson’s “Sam” in Casablanca: “Leave him alone, Miss Ilsa. You’re bad luck to him.”

…is an excellent thing to smell, taste, feel. I spent two hours getting tickets for the NYFF. I was right at the front of the line and OF COURSE they were sold out of seats for both She Said screenings. And then I caught a 2 pm screening of a film I can’t write about until Tuesday, 10.4.

A Woody Allen rep is spinning Allen’s recent quote (provided to La Vanguardia, a storied Spanish publication) about making his currently shooting film his last and final.

“Currently [Allen] has no intention of retiring,” the rep said. “He said he was thinking about not making films, as making films that go straight to streaming platforms is not so enjoyable for him, as he is a great lover of the cinema experience.”

HE to Allen rep: Allen is first and foremost a filmmaker, and has been for the last 50-plus years. How is “thinking about not making films” not a de facto declaration of an intention to retire, at least as far as filmmaking is concerned?

The same thing happened four years ago when Robert Redford announced he was packing it in. The very next day a p.r. spokesperson said “no, no, not true…Bob is still very much active and in the game!” Redford said that his retirement statement was “a mistake.” And then, of course, he retired.