Don’t recite your resume or your hobbies, don’t tell us what you own or how your golf game has improved or how much you love your pets or anything peripheral…none of that…just tell us who you are.

Okay, here goes: I’m a guy who lives to write and writes to live. I believe that while certain bedrock behaviors are more or less constant if you’re sober, moods and perceptions are always tipping this way or that. There is no “real” essential identity. There is only our genetic history plus the constantly adjusting, moving-train way of things…influences, appetites, defense mechanisms, second thoughts.

I was angry as a kid because I’d suffered through a traumatic birth, and angry as a teenager because my functioning alcoholic dad managed to persuade me that I had to avoid turning out like him…that anything would be preferable to that. And yet I miss him on some level.

Nicholson to HE: That’s very nice, Jeff, but as usual you’re dodging. Who are you? Just say it.

HE to Nicholson: I don’t have a pat answer, and neither do you. Nobody does. I’m an imaginative egocentric refugee from a middle-class New Jersey suburb. I live for those transcendent moments that descend from time to time. (We all do, I think.) I’ve been lucky in some respects, and I’ve been blessed with a strong constitution. Otherwise I’m a reasonably stable, steady-as-she-goes workaholic.

I vastly prefer the poetry of cinema + great writing + music to the occasionally maudlin reality of day-to-day life. My eyes go all watery when certain memories surface, and especially when certain songs and passages from certain film scores are re-savored.

Most of us understand about God’s absolute and infinite indifference about whether we are happy or not, and that there is only “be here now” and the hum of it all, etc. And yet deep down I seem to spend a lot of time trying to re-savor or re-appreciate my deepest and most lasting memories from the 20th Century, and all the while hitting re-fresh.

I understand the rule about not mentioning cats and dogs, but they’re mostly wonderful (98% of the time) to hang with.

I’ve been looking for this hilarious story on YouTube for ages. It’s from George Stevens A Filmmakers’ Journey (’85), and nobody’s ever posted it. It’s funny because it reminds us that no matter how divine the inspiration and how arduous and exacting the effort to make the movie turn out right, the last guy on the delivery food chain can still screw it up. From Shane to Bonnie and Clyde to a projectionist’s booth inside London’s Warner cinema.

A certain party who caught a research screening of David O. Russell’s still-untitled ‘30s period drama (aka “Canterbury Glass”), which will open at year’s end…a certain party feels that Taylor Swift, who plays a secondary role, delivers impressively.

As I understand it Swift plays a somewhat tragic figure a la Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, and that…okay, let’s stop right there. I don’t know if Swift plays a cameo or an actual supporting character or what. I don’t really know a damn thing, and with Russell’s rep declining to clarify for the time being, that leaves me high and dry.

Here’s how a Letterbox’d commenter put it a day or so ago:

“It felt like most of Russell’s effort was built into legitimizing Taylor Swift’s acting abilities more than the film surrounding her. She’s in the hunt for an Oscar nomination or even a win because, without spoiling, what she’s accomplished is remarkable (think Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything meets anne Hathaway in Les Miserables). But I do fear she could end up like Hong Chau in Downsizing if the film isn’t fixed editing-wise in post.”

You have to take the preceding with a grain of salt given that some many people out there want Swift to be wonderful and triumphant at whatever she does. Let’s just wait and see.

Another source tells me Canterbury Glass is a complex, non-comedic ensemble film involving threats and murder. It does not appear to be aimed at people who loved CODA. “Complicated,” “sophisticated,” etc. Robert De Niro plays a politician afraid that certain parties are trying to kill him. Another character meets death due to a car accident.

From a recent screening invite synopsis: “Set in the 1930s, this film follows three friends who witness a murder, become suspects themselves, and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.”

Three or four days ago I disputed Patton Oswalt’s overly admiring description of The Seven–Ups (‘73), a kind of French Connection wannabe cop film that starred Roy Scheider and featured another high-octane car chase. The only film directed by Bullitt and French Connection producer Philip D’Antoni. Decent but second-tier, and no one’s idea of wowser or amazing.

I kind of agree with Clayton Davis about Tom Hanks…actually I don’t. I think Hanks’ best performance was in Cast Away, followed by Big. (Denzel Washington was significantly more real-deal than Hanks in Philadelphia.)

HE sez…

Jack Nicholson: THE LAST DETAIL

Edward Norton: PRIMAL FEAR

Brad Pitt: MONEYBALL

Tom Cruise: JERRY MAGUIRE

Harrison Ford: WITNESS

…even think of voting for CODA, Jojo Rabbit or Black Klansman over The Father? And yet 57% did.