Last weekend The Daily Beast‘s Jen Yamato actually tried to hold Joel and Ethan Coen‘s feet to the fire over the lack of diversity in the casting of Hail, Caesar! Apparently Yamato was not doing a put-on interview; she apparently meant every word. Kudos to the Coens for shutting her down and calling her question “idiotic.” The exchange was posted in a 2.3 Daily Beast piece:

The “overwhelming whiteness” of the casting in Hail, Casear! “could conceivably be explained away by pointing to the milieu of Tinseltown circa the 1950s, when the industry’s racial demographic was far less diverse than it is today,” Yamato writes. [Wells interjection: Hollywood was “less diverse” in the early 1950s than it is today? In the waning days of the Truman administration there were no minorities cast in mainstream films except in a spotty, token, peripheral fashion — cooks, maids, butlers, field hands, coat-check girls.]

Back to Yamato: “I asked the Coens to respond to criticisms that there aren’t more minority characters in the film. In other words, why is #HailCaesarSoWhite?”

“’Why would there be [more minority characters]?’ countered Joel Coen. ‘I don’t understand the question. No…I understand that you’re asking the question, [but] I don’t understand where the question comes from. Not why people want more diversity, [but] why they would single out a particular movie and say, ‘Why aren’t there black or Chinese or Martians in this movie? What’s going on?’ That’s the question I don’t understand. The person who asks that question has to come in the room and explain it to me.”

Yamato asked, “As filmmakers, is it important or not important to consciously factor in concerns like diversity?”

“’Not in the least!’ Ethan answered. ‘It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity…or it might not.’

Way back in the mid to late ’50s, the gulf between upstanding, responsible-minded, martini-drinking World War II generation types and your basic big-city bebop/beatnik subterranean jazz musician types was all but insurmountable. This is a partly amusing summary of this disparity. I’d listened to this Shorty Petterstein interview before, but I hadn’t seen the animated version until last night.

Brian Oakes‘ Jim: The James Foley Story, which I felt conflicted about after catching it last week in Park City, will air on HBO on Saturday, 2.6.

My main complaint was that the doc felt “too worshipful.” Oakes presents Foley as “a great fellow, a ballsy adventurer, clever, resourceful, generous of heart,” I noted. “I’m sorry to say this but two hours of adoration can wear you down a bit. Was there anything about Foley that was lacking or imperfect? Most likely but the doc won’t go there.” Jim is not my idea of a wildly dishonest film, but Oakes clearly wanted to pay tribute to his childhood friend first and get to the bottom of things second.

But even with this understandable motive there’s a definite feeling of denial when you listen to Oakes speak with with The Frame‘s John Horn during a 2.2 broadcast.

Foley “loved people, telling their stories, the underdogs, the victims of war,” Oakes tells Horn. “[He] had the recipe of a war correspondent…a rare breed [requiring] physical courage, moral courage….you need to be calm under very stressful situations.”

Horn asks why Foley was a conflict journalist in Libya and Syria. Why in particular did he decide to cover Syria after being seized in Libya and held for over 40 days, knowing full well that Syria was, if anything, a scarier place than Libya?

Obviously Foley, like many journalists who’ve covered war zones, was a kind of war junkie — risk, danger, adrenaline. That famous Chris Hedges quote that was used at the beginning of The Hurt Locker surely applies: “The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” Hedges, a seasoned conflict journalist himself, added that “war gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

Hollywood Elsewhere arrived in Santa Barbara around 5:30 pm, and is now residing in room #214 at the SB Holiday Inn. I can’t attend the opening-night screening of Mark Osborne‘s The Little Prince (sorry but I really can’t do animated) but I’ll be at the Arlington tomorrow night for the Modern Master Award presentation. The recipient will be Black Mass star Johnny Depp, who looks these days like Captain Jack’s slightly portly uncle. On Friday the American Riviera award will be presented to Spotlight‘s Micheal Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams. The SBIFF’s Virtuoso award will be presented in Saturday to Elizabeth Banks (Love & Mercy), Paul Dano (Love & Mercy, Youth, that Sundance dead-guy-farting movie called Swiss Army Man), Joel Edgerton (Black Mass), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Géza Röhrig (Son of Saul), Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Alicia Vikander (Danish Girl, Ex Machina). Sunday affords an opportunity to see Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups on the big Arlington screen. And on Monday Room‘s Brie Larson and Brooklyn‘s Saoirse Ronan will be honored with a special dual presentation of the Performer of the Year award, which will be moderated by Deadline‘s Pete Hammond. More to come later that week (Sly Stallone, Oscar-nominated directors tribute with Scott Feinberg) but this’ll do for now.

I don’t know what to do here. A Japanese Bluray of Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby‘s 1951 version of The Thing, one of my all-time default comfort films, pops on 2.26. From the RKO Collection, which is also issuing a Suspicion Bluray. I’ve never bought a Japanese Bluray before, but I’m sure the menu has an all-English option so what’s with the xenophobia? Exact same running time (87 minutes) as the 2005 Turner Home Entertainment DVD.

Comedy is tragedy that bends…right, Alan Alda? But something is telling me that an attempt to create humor out of the financial anxiety being endured by today’s 20somethings (which I’ve gotten a good taste of through my sons) with Miles “don’t be a pervert, man” Teller and Anna Kendrick…this feels like it may be a little short of Up In The Air when it comes to capturing the times.

Two days ago I praised FX’s The People vs. O.J. Simpson, which premiered last night, as one of the most arresting true-crime miniseries I’ve ever seen…bracing, crackerjack, really well acted, sharp writing, tightly cut,” etc. Yesterday N.Y. Times reviewer Danielle Henderson posted a response to last night’s debut episode that closely mirrors my own. What I’m looking for in particular are yea-nay reactions to Cuba Gooding‘s casting (i.e., not so much his performance) as O.J. Simpson. From my piece: “Cuba is too small. He looks older than O.J. did at the time. O.J. had relatively trim, clean features while Cuba looks weathered, saggy, baggy-eyed. Cuba has the wrong nose — OJ’s nose was straight, almost Romanesque. Cuba is whiny and raspy-voiced, his shoulders are too narrow and small, he’s too short and too wimpy. O.J. had a fairly deep and resonant voice plus largeness, presence, force. He was a formidable football guy. Cuba looks like his assistant, his trainer.”

The Coen bothers have a near-perfect track record. They’ve never made a “bad’ film, but once in a blue moon they don’t quite nail it. The Ladykillers, The Man Who Wasn’t There, arguably Raising Arizona. (I don’t agree with the alleged consensus view that Intolerable Cruelty is a stumble — I think it’s wall-to-wall hilarious.) In any event it gives me no pleasure (in fact it almost hurts) to report that another mitigated Coen misfire is now upon us. Hail, Caesar! (Universal, 2.5) is a zany re-imagining of early 1950s Hollywood that I loved in script form. This part is funny and that part is cool, but the whole never lifts off.

The smarty-pants dialogue has verve and flair. The attitudes, haircuts, costumes and production design are all aces. Pic has many elements, in fact, that are sharp and zippy and loads of fun (including a sailors-shipping-out dance number with Channing Tatum), but it’s spotty and slapdash. Something is missing. Yes, if you ease up on your Coen Bros. expectations Hail, Caesar! is agreeable enough. It’s not slop. It’s apparently much better than the other January and February openers playing right now.

“Why is this not coming together?” I said to myself during the pre-Sundance screening two and a half weeks ago. “The material works on paper and that the Coens are my favorite boys so what the fuck? C’mon, guys…get it together!” Hail, Caesar! is far from a trainwreck but at best it’s a 6.5 or 7. It’s supposed to be one of their knucklehead comedies but while it’s amusing here and there it’s never consistently funny in a follow-through, momentum-building sort of way.

Remember the inspired “Wheezy Joe” bit in Intolerable Cruelty (i.e., the gun mistaken for an inhaler)? There’s nothing in Caesar that comes close to that. If you ask me Inside Llewyn Davis — by any yardstick a downish, somber-attitude film — is funnier in its own studied way. John Goodman‘s back-seat performance as a junkie musician was a stone classic; ditto that “where’s his scrotum?” scene along with the moment when the amiable G.I. folk singer slurps the cereal milk. There are no bits or performances in Hail, Caesar! that deliver on this level.

Hail, Casear! is a satirical take on Hollywood culture around 1950 or ’51. It’s about real-life MGM general manager and vp Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) and how he deals with the kidnapping of Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), a Robert Taylor-like star during the filming of a Quo Vadis-like Biblical epic called Hail, Caesar!: A Tale of the Christ.

MINOR SPOILER WHINERS ALERT: The genius move, for me, is the Coen’s decision to not only cast lefty-commie screenwriters as the kidnappers but depict them as being in league with the Russians — a vision of subversion straight out of the HUAC playbook and the commie-hating minds of John Wayne, Cecil B. DeMille and Adolph Menjou.

More often than not January and February are a time for cruddy, low-rent genre flicks and shit-ass movies of whatever variety. Did you know or care that there’s a Natalie Portman movie playing in theatres right now called Jane Got A Gun? (Even if it hadn’t been for the just-concluded Sundance Film Festival I probably would have had difficulty with it due to the casting of Joel Edgerton.) Or The Finest Hours…do you give a damn about seeing that one? What about Ross Kate‘s The Choice? Or Oliver Parker‘s Dad’s Army? Or Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail, Caesar? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has earned a failing grade of 50%. I can’t wait to ignore Deadpool and How to Be Single and especially Race. The only soon-to-open film that I know is good is The Witch. I might wind up being receptive to Zoolander No. 2 as I half-liked the original, but I’ll be missing the all-media due to being at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

There are three or four cutaways to a seated and somewhat responsive Alfred Hitchcock in this excerpt from a 3.7.79 ceremony that honored the master of suspense with an AFI Life Achievement Award. Look at his face, his eyes, his expressions or lack of — the man is all but comatose. Either he doesn’t understand half of what’s being said or he understands and doesn’t care. When Sean Connery is introduced a confused Hitch turns to Cary Grant and apparently asks “who’s that?” Connery’s answer: “It’s me, Hitch!” Born in August 1899, Hitchcock wasn’t quite 80 when this ceremony took place. He died 11 months later. One of the AFI attendees was Saboteur costar Norman Lloyd, who was 64 at the time. Lloyd is now 101, active and crackling and sharp as a tack. Quantity is nothing without quality.

A lot of older Academy members have expressed outrage about losing their voting privilege because they haven’t worked or been “active” within the last ten years. (Along with the Academy’s vague suggestion that their advanced age means they’re probably racist on some level.) If the Academy had only listened to my suggestion to the deadwood problem, nobody would be upset and the community would be more or less at peace. My solution, for the umpteenth time, was to allow everyone to vote but to “weight” votes of the more active members on a 3-2-1 basis. All ballots would have to be tabulated on a basis of accumulated points. If you’ve worked or been “active” within the past 10 years, your vote would be worth three points. If you’ve worked or have been “active” between 10 and 20 years ago, your vote would be worth two points. And if the last time you were “active” was over 20 years ago your vote would be worth one point. Simple. Or it could have been.