“Now that [Phillip Seymour Hoffman] is gone, much has been said about his failure, about his fall,” writes N.Y. Times columnist David Carr in a recent post. “I don’t really see it that way. He got in the ring with his addiction and battled it for two decades successfully, doing amazing film work for years and doing the hard stuff to keep ambitious theater alive in in New York.

“And then something changed and he used. Everyone is surprised when that happens to someone famous, but it happens routinely everywhere else. Rooms of recovery are full of stories of people with long-term recovery who went back out and some of them, as a matter of mathematics and pharmacology, don’t make it back.

“I have no certainty about what went wrong, but I can tell you from personal experience that what happened was not the plan. I have been alone in that room with my addled thoughts, the drugs, and the needle. Addicts in the grip always have a plan. I will do this, get this out of the way, and then I will resume life among the living, the place where family, friends and colleagues live. He didn’t make it back to that place.”

I’ll be doing the Berlinale for five days (Wednesday through Monday morning), mostly to cover the premiere of Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel but also to hit the festival on my own dime. All Virgin America flights have decent (if costly) wifi so I’ll be in good shape for my 10:30 am JFK-bound flight out of LAX. It arrives at 7 pm Eastern, or roughly two hours before the 9:30 pm British Airways flight to London. American Airlines is offering trans-Atlantic wifi these days but British Airways, alas, doesn’t so I’m looking at seven hours of ennui, isolation and darkness. The flight arrives at London/Heathrow at 9:30 am Wednesday (1:30 am Pacific). The two-hour flight to Berlin leaves around noon and arrives at 3:30 pm (6:30 am Pacific).

I took this shot yesterday afternoon on the 20th Century Fox lot. It occured to me that the artist and Fox management must have argued about including “Die Hard 1988” in the lower left corner. The artist almost certainly felt that the image spoke for itself (art pour l’art) but some tedious management guy wanted the title and the year of release mentioned for the sake of the rubes. “We’re on a high-security production lot!” the artist probably argued. “You have to be a working industry person to be walking around here. Who’s not going to know what this is?” The artist was right, of course. The lower left diminishes the overall.

“The writers who are permitted to ‘columnize’ for The N.Y. Times have a tremendously influential platform, and I wonder whether they should use that platform to advocate on behalf of personal friends, as [Nicholas] Kristof did yesterday. If Dylan Farrow wishes to publish an open letter about her allegations, there are ample forums in this internet age. Should The Times and Mr. Kristof lend their credibility to her argument against Woody Allen?” — N.Y. Times public editor Margaret Sullivan, in an opinion piece posted about five hours ago.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (especially Brydon) really go to town on Tom Hardy‘s Bane in Michael Winterbottom‘s The Trip to Italy. The scene goes on at least a minute longer than it does in this clip. If this riff starts viralling, people are going to come up to Tom Hardy for years and years, cupping their hands over their face and going “rohhrr-rohhrr-rohhrr!”

The Dylan Farrow letter “has impacted Cate Blanchett‘s campaign,” Michael Musto tells Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil in a recently posted audio discussion. “Blanchett was the biggest lock since Colin Firth when he won for The King’s Speech. [But] suddenly, it’s not cool right now to vote for Woody Allen. Do I think Blanchett will win? I do because her performance is so strong and why would you hold it against her? This has nothing to do with Cate Blanchett, but I think it’s throwing a big wrench into the whole thing. (On Oscar night) if they say the winner is not Cate Blanchett, we’re going to know why she didn’t win.”

Michael Wolff‘s 2.3 Guardian piece about the Dylan Farrow letter isn’t novel or radical, but it strikes me as the wisest and most comprehensive assessment yet of what’s really going on.

“[This] is a story of interlocking media deals and cultivated media cronies,” he concludes. “Everybody is at work here. Everybody is someone else’s instrument. Everybody is promoting something. Two decades have passed but the Allen-Farrow betrayal, break-up, and molestation charges are somehow, all of a sudden, as vivid as yesterday.

“Here’s a certainty: When you play out your personal dramas, hurt and self-interest in the media, it’s a confection. You say what you have to say in the way you have to say it to give it media currency — and that’s always far from the truth. Often, in fact, someone else says it for you. It’s all planned. It’s all rehearsed. This is craft. This is strategy. This is manipulation. This is spin.”

2013 was the biggest and boldest year for African-American themes and filmmakers in Hollywood history, hence the deserved presence of 12 Years A Slave‘s Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mandela: Long Road to Freedom‘s Idris Elba, Fruitvale Station‘s Michael B. Jordan and Slave‘s Lupita Nyong’o on the cover of Vanity Fair‘s Hollywood issue. But why include Mandela‘s Naomie Harris and 42‘s Chadwick Boseman? VF cover subjects for this annual issue are usually chosen because (a) they’re award-season contenders with serious heat or (b) are breakout types who seem likely to be players for years to come. No offense but very few conversation-starters were extra-lathered about Harris and Boseman’s performances. They may have great careers in front of them but people in my circle were not running around and saying “Naomie Harris is the next thing!” and “Chadwick Boseman killed in 42!”

Six and a half years ago I bought Criterion’s then-new DVD of Billy Wilder‘s Ace in the Hole (’51). For years I had written lovingly of this film’s flinty, hard-as-nails quality. I’ve mentioned Jan Sterling‘s “hard-boiled egg” line a couple of times. I’ve memorized Kirk Douglas‘s “eight spindly trees in front of Rockefeller Center” speech. But guess what? My main reaction to the DVD was “this is too cynical, too bitter…it overplays that aspect.” The best movies always define themselves with a precise tone and world-view, but too much cynicism kills the ghoulash. On top of which that Criterion DVD looks pretty good. I’m not persuaded that shelling out $30 bills for a Masters of Cinema Bluray (streeting on 4.28) is all that necessary. Who am I kidding? I’ll be shelling out but I won’t like myself in the morning.

For decades the Detroit auto industry was notorious for lagging behind on gas efficiency while mainlining profits from gas-guzzling SUVs. Three or four years ago Chrysler shut down the Delaware plant that made their hefty=sized Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen SUVs so they’ve presumably gotten into the swing of things. But it’s flat-out dishonest if not rancid for Bob “paycheck” Dylan to praise Detroit as an exemplar of “the finest” innovation and craftsmanship. “Is there anything more America than America?” he said at the beginning of Superbowl ad. How about selling out? Several native industries arguably exemplify the best aspects of American tradition and character. Detroit may be gradually changing its approach, but it’s known worldwide for having been myopic, arrogant and greedy for a long stretch of time. Why didn’t Dylan make an ad for Fender guitars? The Chrysler ad gave me the same sinking feeling I felt in ’79 when Dylan announced he was a born-again Christian. “Bob Dylan just negated 50 years of sticking it to the man in about 90 seconds,” some guy tweeted. Dylan stopped sticking it to the man in 1964.

Over the last decade or so I met and talked with Philip Seymour Hoffman maybe…I don’t know, six or seven times. Never for very long. He was amiable and easy-going enough. I took to calling him “Philly” in print because I once heard Bennett Miller call him that, and I figured what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. He always struck me as having at least a little disgust and anger about the things that educated, civilized people should be angry and disgusted about. He had a vaguely grumpy side. He clearly felt distaste for certain people and things, which of course was a good thing. (“Taste is a result of a thousand distastes” — Francois Truffaut.) But he never seemed like an addict type. I’ve known some self-destructive personalities, and I know a little something about why people allow heroin into their lives. It’s not about “pleasure” but immense relaxation. But Hoffman had so much love and talent and comfort in his life…respected, admired, top of his game. And with three kids, for God’s sake. I just don’t get it. I’m just…speechless. Hoffman had reportedly been struggling with smack. He had tried to get hold of the problem last year, obviously without lasting success. Deep down all addicts believe that brief drug vacations are worth their weight in gold because the idea of living without them seems intolerable. I know what that feeling is. When I had my vodka problem in the early to mid ’90s I used to say and write that “life would be unbearable without alcohol.” That was another life, thank God. Everyone is sad today. To hell with the Super Bowl.