In a 6.122 THR article by Borys Kit, Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman is described as “an expensive vanity project.” The statement is Kit’s own, and I’m sorry but it’s bullshit.

The Irishman is easily one of the greatest films of the 21st Century, and the last 30 or 40 minutes delivers perhaps the most devastating passage about grief, regret and facing the end of one’s life in the history of movies.

For the 47th time, “Wild Strawberries with handguns.”

Parasite is a toy movie…a toy movie about class conflict, made by a serious, super-crafty cineaste and blah blah. Don’t crank me up again about the drunken con-artist family letting the fired maid into the house, etc. History will not be kind.

If there’s a general consensus about the Depp-Heard verdict, it’s probably something like “it’s finally over…let it go…whatever the truth of it, Depp seemed more honest than Heard plus he’s certainly more likable…it’s gone on long enough…let it go.”

From “Why We Love to Watch a Woman Brought Low,” a 5.20 N.Y. Times essay by Jessica Bennett:

“One might have thought — or, at least, I might have thought — that we’d be in a more enlightened place by now. And yet despite the public reckonings of #MeToo and the recent reexaminations of pop culture figures — Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Janet Jackson and others — there is precious little introspection over the widespread hatred of Ms. Heard.

“This trial seems to have exposed some of the rhetorical weaknesses of #MeToo. ‘Believe women’ for example — a phrase that was meant to underscore how rare it is for a woman to lie about her own abuse — had somehow morphed into ‘believe all women,’ which left no room for the outlier. That has apparently become, as the comedian Chris Rock put it this week, ‘Believe all women…except Amber Heard.’

“The intent of that early slogan was, in part, to encourage the public to treat women who speak up with basic dignity and respect, however messy and imperfect they or their stories may be. Yet none of that seems to have trickled down here.”

@gamethinkingtips Initially, I believed #amberheard. Then I watched the trial, saw the evidence… & realized that I’d been CONNED 😡 @gamethinkingtips #justiceforjohnnydepp #deppvsheard #johnnydepp ♬ original sound – Amy Jo Kim

Still in Toronto due to a pair of Air Canada flight cancellations yesterday (one due to a sick pilot, the other due to New York weather)…you don’t want to know. Not to mention Justin Trudeau‘s infuriating insistence upon masking. I left Paris yesterday morning at 8 am. By the time I arrive tonight I’ll have been travelling for roughly 42 hours.

Here’s what Gene Maddaus’ 6.1 Variety story partly reported about today’s Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial verdict:

Here’s how Maddaus summed it all up:

And here’s the Variety headline above Maddaus ’ story — technically correct but obviously a spin job — an attempt to portray Depp’s victory as a bit muddled, a half-and-halfer.

Two days hence Watcher (IFC Midnight), which I’ve been hyping since last January, finally opens. It’s an expert, quietly creepy, Polanski-level thriller, and well worth the price.

Set in present-day Bucharest and costarring Maika Monroe (It Follows), Karl Glusman and Burn Gorman, Chloe Okuno and Zack Ford‘s film is unquestionably scary and unnerving.

In my view it stops short of elevated horror — it’s more of a low-key, Roman Polanski-level thriller in the vein of Repulsion and The Tenant. First-rate chills and anxieties ensue. And not the “midnight movie” kind either.

Scream-level morons may respond in their usual way, but Watcher is as good as it gets with this kind of palette and approach.

4:30 pm Paris time, 10:30 am New York time. We’ve been airborne since 1:30 pm with nearly five hours to go. I chose Air Canada to save $$… big mistake.

All the sublime Parisian soothings of the last four days were erased this morning in one fell swoop. Everything has been hell. 5:30 am wake-up, idiotic Uber driver, wallet explosion on Roissy bus to CDG, interminable air terminal lines, etc.

Air Canada made me get a $35 Covid test, and we’re all wearing fucking masks on the flight. News flash: The pandemic is more or less over, guys, and fuck Monkey Pox. I hate hate HATE this crap so much.

Slight consolation: I’m wearing a very cool-looking Cannes Film Festival mask.

I needed something to take my mind off of this morning’s awful Air Canada / Charles DeGaulle gauntlet (150 minutes of Chinese water torture waiting), so I re-read last night’s thread about the unfortunate casting of Moses Ingram in the Obi Wan Kenobi Disney+ series.

It’s one of HE’s most fascinating threads in recent months, and I want to congratulate VicLaz6 for revealing to the world what a pack of salivating racist dogs many of the commenters are.

Seriously, most of the adverse comments alluded to impressions that Ingram’s Baltimore patois didn’t seem to belong in the Star Wars realm — the style and manner of her performance doesn’t fit, and therefore hurts the show’s credibility. (Along with the allegedly poor calibre of her acting plus the lousy writing.)

But the basic thrust, many said, was that the fault was less Ingram’s and more the casting directors.

I haven’t read most or even a fair percentage of the negative responses overall — only the HE sliver — and for all I know a good portion have been flat-out racist in nature. But something tells me the reactions are probably more mixed, and that Ewan McGregor’s fairly sweeping denunciation of all the naysayers as racist was unfair.

Regional Friendo: “Just saw Top Gun: Maverick…holy shit, that last act! Someone’s seen and plagiarized [a film released in 1977]!

HE: “Yup.”

Regional Friendo: “Wow…the hard-to-hit target, the steep mountain run [equals vulnerable target in ’77 film], even down to [Maverick costar repeating exactly what costar of ’77 film did during a big climactic action moment]. Five fucking Maverick writers to come up with that?”

HE: “As I’ve written, I would have respected it more if they’d followed the ending of The Bridges at Toko Ri (’54).”

Regional Friendo: “No way that was gonna happen. Too much money to make back.”

HE: “It would have hit home if they’d both died.”

Regional Friendo: “It’s not that kinda film. The audience would’ve revolted.”

HE: “‘Not that kinda film’? You sound like Jerry Bruckheimer.”

Regional Friendo; “I’m just telling you like it is
It’s exactly a JB film…it’s an audience film, not for Oscars. No studio would have green-lighted a film in which Cruise AND Teller die in the end.
It is what it is.”