I had a couple of issues with the 4K “restoration” of The Godfather — issues, not arguments. I was/am of two minds. My primary allegiance is with the 2008 Robert Harris-Gordon Willis restoration, but I also loved what the tasteful DNR-ing (or de-graining) achieved. On the other hand I didn’t care for the lack of warm colors in most of the indoor scenes (i.e., the paler, pinkish faces).

But last night I watched the new 4K The Godfather, Part II — all 200 minutes of it — and was completely blown away. Yes, it’s also been DNR’ed but with more restraint, it seemed, than the 1972 original. It looks ravishing, and yet it doesn’t mess with Willis’s storied, burnished, yesteryear color scheme during the young Vito sections. The 1958 footage looks cleaner, sharper and more vivid (especially the daytime outdoor stuff), but not to any problematic extent.

I’ve never seen this 1974 Oscar-winner look so good — it’s delightful.

The non-political Club Random is a cool hang.

My first reaction was that William Shatner…well, I guess there’s no point worrying about a pot belly at age 91. (He was born on 3.22.31.) Shatner: “Why can’t I play a thin, slim 60 year old?”

Maher: “You ‘re not really expected to have made it in your 20s, but when you slip into your early 30s and you still haven’t, that was the roughest time for me.”

Maher’s one-hour HBO Max comedy special, #Adulting, taped on 3.4 and 3.5 in Miami (Beach?), will air on 4.15.

Adam Carolla drop-by, posted on 3.22:

Or at least, it shouldn’t be if all the attendees follow the required protocol. Doing so, however, is rather complicated — achievable but complex. Which means that boomers and Baby Busters (born in the 1930s) will probably have trouble with the process unless, you know, they have a Zoomer or Millennial assistant doing it for them. Either way the line to get into the Dolby theatre will probably be horrendous.

“Last night’s W magazine party was held outdoors at hotspot Gigi’s. A consistent question heard throughout the night was, ‘Are we all getting COVID now?’ Guests nervously joked that Oscar weekend could be a ‘super spreader.’ Mask-wearing at W’s party and a Vanity Fair party earlier in the evening at Mother Wolf was a rare sighting.” — from “Ahead of Oscars, COVID Concerns Loom as Hollywood Parties Almost as Usual,” by Brent Lang & Marc Malkin.

From Wikipedia fragging page:

On the other hand there’s nothing “normal” about wearing a zebra-skin toga or bathrobe, a sartorial statement coordinated with a white bull terrier and a black panther-like dog in the doorway.

Six and a half weeks ago the 2022 Oscar nominations were announced, and to everyone’s surprise Parallel Mothers star Penelope Cruz, whom every handicapper had written off weeks earlier, landed a Best Actress nomination. And now, people are saying, she appears to be surging and may even win the Oscar come Sunday.

Maybe.

I’d love to see this happen, of course. As everyone knows (and as I reminded on 2.8.22) Hollywood Elsewhere stood by Cruz for weeks and weeks, alone and resolute against the stiff winds of seeming indifference…the only name-brand columnist who waved weekly flags for her deeply rooted performance.

All the other award-season Yodas were either Doubting Thomases or cautious fence-sitters…damp-finger-to-the-wind equivocators. If you want to make it in this business you have to have heart.

Penélope Cruz:

-Didn’t get a Golden Globe nod
-Didn’t get a Critics Choice nod
-Didn’t get a SAG nod
-Didn’t even make the BAFTA *LONGLIST*

And she STILL got the Oscar nom.

Legend behavior, your faves could never, etc etc etc. pic.twitter.com/hOMOx9LSra

— Zach Gilbert (@zachbgilbert) February 8, 2022

It’s not a secret that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is an arch-conservative, Trump-supporting wacko. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, therefore, that Thomas texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows numerous times on 1.6.21, calling Joe Biden’s election victory “the greatest heist of our history” and declaring that then-President Donald Trump “should not concede….this is a fight of good vs. evil.”

Obviously Mrs. Thomas should be subpeonaed to testify, as should Judge Thomas. Will this power couple be subpeonaed? It’s my personal opinion that the leaders of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6h on the U.S. Capitol are, no offense, slow-moving pussies so I guess we’ll see what happens.