Today Michelle Obama very possibly delivered the strongest, most on-target speech ever given by a FLOTUS, about dignity and decency and human values: “I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for President of the United States has bragged about assaulting women…it has shaken me to the core [and] this is not something we can ignore, not just another disturbing footnote…this was a powerful individual speaking openly about sexually predatory behavior…the shameful comments about bodies, the belief that you can do anything you want to a woman…it is cruel, it is frightening and it hurts…that feeling of terror and violation…something that happens every single day…none of us deserve this kind of abuse…not for another minute, and not for another four years. This has got to stop right now.”

I’m posting this clip to remind the readership of two things: (1) Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Wolf of Wall Street performance as Jordan Belfort was, is and probably always will be his all-time greatest — way above his remarkably immersive performance in The Revenant; and (2) this speech is both a brilliant lampoon of the drooling predatory aesthetic of your average Wall Street killer and an inspirational motivator for anyone stuck in failure and a loser attitude. It’s neither one nor the other, but both simultaneously. And now it’s a third thing — an echo of a certain imploding Presidential candidate and the Genghis Khan conquering rationale he almost certainly believes in.

This morning Joe Scarborough questioned the sudden torrent of news stories about Donald Trump‘s alleged sexual shenanigans. He tweeted later than he’s “disappointed but not surprised by those twisting my words…I have no reason to doubt any of these accusations whatsoever.” These stories broke because of (a) fear of reprisal and the old safety-in-numbers calculation — victims keeping silent until they realize they’re not alone (which is what happened with the sudden outpouring of testimony against Bill Cosby), (b) the Access Hollywood/Donald Trump/Billy Bush “pussy” tape, (c) Trump’s statement during last Sunday night’s debate that he’s never been an assaultive masher, and (d) numerous women Trump allegedly made moves on got angry when they heard him say that. Simple.

Credible-sounding, first-person, journalist-vetted stories about various instances of sexually aggressive moves by Donald Trump have been pouring out since yesterday, and I think we all understand that Trump’s “it’s all fabrication, all bullshit” defense is itself bullshit. Multiple torpedo gashes, water pouring in, the ship sinking, man the lifeboats, etc.

The Presidential campaign of the 70 year-old mogul was toast before; now it’s burnt toast. He’s not only finished, but will probably take the Republican Senatorial majority over the side with him. It’s not likely that the Congressional Republican majority will be overturned also, but I can dream, can’t I?

How could Trump have figured this stuff wouldn’t come out if he ran for President? One, he never figured he’d get this far when he first announced his candidacy. Two, he’s so encased in his hermetically-sealed reality that he figured he could just deny and bluster his way past any allegations that might surface.

Trump began his campaign by denigrating Mexicans, but in the end he was destroyed by his arrogant, Napoleon-the-conqueror attitude towards women. Eat shit, mogul. Enjoy the sensation as your lungs fill with sea water and screaming is worthless as you begin to black out from a lack of oxygen.

When I read this morning that Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, my first thought was “they waited until 2016 to do this?”

The man is alive and thriving and chugging like a train at 75, but he peaked 50, 51 years ago. Glorified in song, fable, movies, CDs and iTunes for decades. There isn’t a corner in the world where Dylan’s prose isn’t quoted, where his reach and eloquence as a poet-troubadour isn’t bowed down to, and Team Nobel waits a half-century to say “hmmm, yeah, okay…let’s honor the most influential and magnetic poet of the 20th Century”?

From today’s N.Y. Times story: “[Dylan] is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“’Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,’ critic Bill Wyman wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in the N.Y. Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. ‘His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.’

HE riff #1: “A new manifestation of the ‘Surreal or Misheard Song Lyrics‘ riff I bring out from time to time. Last night I was listening to Bob Dylan‘s She Belongs To Me and decided that ‘the law can’t touch her at all’ isn’t as good and certainly not as primal as ‘Ma can’t touch her at all.’

“You can define ‘Ma’ as the proverbial family authority figure or some kind of tough, cigar-chomping butch boss in the tradition of Ma Barker or Maureen Dowd‘s “Ma Clinton.” I only know that ‘Ma’ rules while ‘the law’ litigates. If representatives of ‘the law’ can’t think of some way to mess with her mind and slow her down then so what? But if she stands up to Ma while wearing her sparkling Egyptian ring, that’s something else.”

Disney corporate wants that Star Wars cow milked to the max, and that’s what we intend to do…milk it! All hail the huge paychecks earned by director Gareth Edwards, co-director and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, screenwriter Chris Weitz and costars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn (who is Mendelsohn without the glistening sweat and the cigarettes?), Donnie Yen (Chinese market!), Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker (how slurry will his line readings be?). Rogue One: The Cousins pops on 12.16.

If I could ensure the financial failure of Doctor Strange by clapping three times, I would clap three times. How many ways do I hate thee, oh superhero fuckos? The suffocating of souls, the spreaders of poison, the corporate virus of 21st Century cinema.

A few weeks back I bought the Twilight Time Bluray of Elliot Silverstein‘s Cat Ballou (’65). Jack A. Marta‘s cinematography is crisp and colorful but lacking in character; the lighting is flat and too bright, only a step or two above the textures of a mid ’60s TV western. The stand-out element, of course, is Lee Marvin‘s dual performance as Kid Shaleen (good alcoholic gunslinger) and his twin brother, Tim Strawn (evil outlaw with a strap-on nose), which netted him a Best Actor Oscar. But Jane Fonda‘s titular performance is just as noteworthy. Cat Ballou is a mild western parody — light humor plus slapstick plus dabs of drama plus musical accompaniment by Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole — but Fonda acts with all the passion and intensity she can muster. Yes, every so often she delivers some exaggerated expressions and gestures to convey that she’s in a comedy, but most of the time she could be playing the lead in Hedda Gabler or A Doll’s House. At no time does she adopt any kind of winky-wink, “just foolin’ around and collecting a paycheck” attitude. She’s serious about this dopey spoof and going for broke in every scene.

I just updated my Gold Derby predictions but nothing much has changed over the last couple of weeks. The Best Picture Oscar is La la Land‘s to lose, even though it can be argued that Manchester By The Sea makes for a far more penetrating experience. The two big stories of the week will be whether or not Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will punch through in some unexpected way and whether or not Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply will deliver something extra. I’ve already decided in Billy Lynn‘s favor by virtue of the 120-frames-per-second cinematography, which I can’t wait to sink into.

“I don’t see how Michelle Williams doesn’t get nominated for Manchester By The Sea. She is magic throughout, but in one scene, you will not see better, this year or any. After that…who knows?” — from 10.11 handicap piece by MCN’s David Poland, titled “Settling Into The Starting Gates.”

The bottom line is that Gary Faulkner, the real-life Colorado guy who tried to capture or assassinate Osama bin Laden 11 times (or so Chris Heath reported in a September 2010 GQ article), never got his man. The architect of the 9/11 attacks was killed by U.S. special forces in Islamabad on 5.2.11, or roughly eight months after Heath’s article appeared. So Larry Charles‘ Army of One (11.4 VOD, 11.15 Bluray/DVD), which has not been screened for critics or shown at any festivals, will deliver, at best, a portrait of American rural eccentricity and a lively Nic Cage performance. Costarring Wendi McLendon-Covey, Rainn Wilson and Russell Brand.

It takes intestinal fortitude to stand against prevailing winds, and even more of that stuff to take exception with some on your side of the fence. With voices like Dana Harris, Alex Billington and Matt Zoller Seitz cheering the downfall of Birth.Movies.Death editor Devin Faraci, who yesterday announced his resignation over a barroom sexual assault that happened in 2004, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, herself a one-time victim of sexual assault, has pushed back against the anti-Faraci contingent and — the thought!– voiced her own opinion according to her own values, judgments and experience.

Devin Faraci, Sasha Stone and Amy Nicholson during a recording of one of the Canon podcasts. [Date unknown.]

Stone is basically saying that whomever Faraci was 12 years ago and however vulgar or appalling his behavior was on this now-notorious night in question, he’s a better man than the Twitter mob is currently giving him credit for and has shown himself to be, in Sasha’s opinion, something of a woke feminist. Here are excepts from her 10.12 article:

“[So far] the press has continually left out one major aspect of this story. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but it certainly matters to me, and that is Faraci’s advocacy for women online, specifically women at the center of the 2014 Gamergate controversy, the Ghostbusters controversy and the need for more representative depictions of women in film.

“Why it matters is that there is no one in fanboy film culture to take Faraci’s place, to take on that fight because it’s too hard. So perhaps there is some kind of justice on one end, but it comes with a price.

“It’s ironic that the one former fanboy blogger who spent many recent years a transformed person will no longer be contributing to the ongoing debate about women representation in video games and superhero/fanboy film culture because of sexual assault allegations online. Fanboy culture is not exactly known for embracing feminism. That needed to be challenged and destroyed. Faraci was on the way to doing that. Only someone of Devin’s stature could have. He was one of them [but] he stopped being one of them, even if eventually his past caught up with him.

“No one covering this story, not Dana Harris at Indiewire, not Dustin Rowles at Pajiba and not Seth Abramovitch at The Hollywood Reporter has noted that Faraci’s loss is a major blow towards this fight to undo the damage fanboy culture has wrought on women. Maybe they don’t think it matters. Maybe to you reading this it doesn’t. Maybe you think he made no impact at all, but I can tell you this much — there is a massive population of fanboys who are cheering right now that there is no longer anyone who is going to take them to task for their stream of shit against women.

Late yesterday Hollywood Reporter award-season pundits Scott Feinberg and Stephen Galloway posted one of their where-are-things-right-now? chit-chat pieces. Like many politically sensitive pulse-takers these guys tend to sand off the edges or otherwise soft-pedal what they’re sensing or hearing so I’ve (a) shortened the piece and (b) boiled the snow out of it.

Point #1: Best Picture winners “tend to reflect the larger zeitgeist,” Feinberg believes. Meaning that if Hillary Clinton wins the election (which of course she will) the Best Picture winner will not be a melancholy masterpiece like Manchester By The Sea (which Feinberg regards as too heart-breaky) but something upbeat, which means Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land, according to this tea-leaf reading, has it in the bag;

Point #2: The Birth of A Nation, already deemed a financial failure, also got the cold shoulder from industry types when it had its first AMPAS screening last weekend. Feinberg-Galloway believe that three alternative racially-themed dramas — Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Loving — will pick up the slack, but the real heavyweight in this realm, I suspect, will be Denzel’s Fences;

Point #3: Ava Duvernay‘s 13th will probably be nominated for a Best Feature Doc Oscar, but will probably be out-pointed by Ezra Edelman‘s O.J.: Made in America.

Point #4: Having seen a portion of Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Feinberg says the 120 frames-per-second process in which it was partly shot is “eye-opening…there’s never been anything quite like it,” although it’s “risky” and “whether or not people will like this new look remains to be seen.” Translation: Huzzahs for the audacity but we all know what “remains to be seen” means.