Early this afternoon I was in Le Petit Four, the longstanding Sunset Strip eatery. I was meeting with a couple of guys about a restoration of a classic ’50s film (can’t divulge specifics until next month), and about halfway through our chat Bill Maher, accompanied by a youngish Snow White-resembling brunette, walked in from the rear entrance. I caught his eye or he caught mine, and we exchanged a hint of alpha. He and Snow White sat in the inside rear area, maybe 15 or 20 feet from our table.

I’m not the hyperventilating sort who reflexively greets a celebrity if we happen to find ourselves in the same space. But I am quite the fan of Real Time with Bill Maher and yesterday I had seriously enjoyed listening to Maher’s “Sunday special” chat with The Wire‘s Ben Shapiro, and we did have a semblance of an email relationship about 20 years ago (just after Politically Incorrect was yanked over Bill’s “9/11 wackos were not cowards” line), and I was invited to fly to Las Vegas around the same time to catch his show, etc. And we did chat at a private party or two around that time.

So I felt there was an ever-so-slight basis to maybe walk over and offer a quick “yo” and duck out.

But as I was mulling this over, I was contemplating Bill’s “normcore” outfit — dark green-plaid shirt, black baseball cap, dark jeans, black athletic shoes. And I have to say that as one New Jersey guy contemplating another (Bill grew up in River Vale, and I was mostly raised in Westfield), I was vaguely….uhm, taken aback?

Anyone can wear anything they damn well please on a Sunday afternoon, of course, and it’s none of my damn business to criticize someone who happens to be in a normcore mood…please. The polite thing to do right now, I realize, is to sidestep the issue and move the fuck on. I was just a wee bit surprised, is all. I’ve always thought of Maher as an East Coast uptown guy with sartorial inclinations not that different than my own.

Anyway I decided to throw caution to the wind and walk over for a quick hello. Right away I sensed this was a bad idea. I mentioned that I’d listened to the Shapiro chat while driving home from Santa Barbara yesterday, but for some reason I couldn’t remember Shapiro’s name (weird). I was nervous and choking. I knew right away that I had erred because Bill didn’t say a word — he just gazed at me like I was a tree or a gas pump. I thought for a split second that he might be ripped or even tripping on something — his facial expression reminded me of that red-haired kid (Aaron Wolf) who was stoned during his Bar Mitzvah in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man. The same message was flashing over and over…”get outta there, get outta there, get outta there.”

This is why it’s better to just stay in your own corner. I guess this is a kind of follow-up to the “not talking with David O. Russell in Santa Barbara” story from a couple of nights ago.

I’m watching the Critics Choice Awards right now and thinking, “This is a nightmare…we’re all immersed in a benign, thumbs-up, positive-energy horror film…the seed pod wokey-wokes are everywhere and too terrified to think, comment or behave otherwise, and only a few of us have escaped the takeover syndrome — playing it cautiously out of fear of being called out, and yet thinking and assessing like semi-free human beings and secretly sharing un-woke thoughts.

We’re in the middle of a cultural-racialist-genderist revolution and a general consensus that bad white guys need to sit in the back of the bus for a few years, and as long as the revolutionary wheels are churning and crunching and filling the air with aspirational social fables, Hollywood will continue to grapple with the fact that for many in the industry, streaming and theatrical movies will serve the cause of enlightened social propaganda.

Wokeness might be good or (sadly) necessary for social change, but it’s not much of a propellant for the creation of knockout award-season flicks that really reach out and touch Joe & Jane Popcorn.

The bottom line is that the erratic pursuit of sweeping, penetrating, soul-touching art (a rare achievement but one that has occasionally manifested over the decades) has been more or less called off, it seems, because such films or aspirations, in the view of certain #MeToo and POC progressives, don’t serve the current woke-political narrative.

Friendo who’s also watching: “Ugh…Ariana DeBose says ‘no matter how you identify you are unique you are smart you are talented just as you are.’ Isn’t that the problem? This is what we have done to an entire generation — this is how they see the world…that they are special and each of them must be recognized.”

Originally posted on 1.8.18…more than four years ago:

Over the last 65 years we’ve seen four Invasion of the Body Snatchers films — Don Siegel’s 1956 original, Phil Kaufman’s 1978 remake, Abel Ferrara’s 1993 version and Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s decade-old The Invasion.

Now it’s time for a fifth involving the installation of seed-pod mindsets, with the change agents being the Millennial and Generation Z sons and daughters of today.

I’m talking about a scenario in which the Anglo Saxon whitebread gene is regarded as inherently arrogant, criminal and bad for the planet — flawed, cruel, heartless, exploitive. A consensus emerges that the only way to correct this abhorrent culture is to fully indict the historical criminality of whiteness over several decades and in fact back to the beginnings of this nation — what it’s been, what it is now and where it’ll lead if things aren’t turned around.

Alien spores float down from space, affecting only the children and grandchildren of boomers and GenXers. Once turned, the awoken are free to call Anglo-Saxon culture by it’s true name — oppressor, a cancer, a scourge upon humanity. Within days the idea is spread that it’s time for enlightened non-whites to marginalize or dilute or even overthrow white culture so that POC culture can re-shape things and bring in a little fresh air and more fairness, freedom and opportunity.

Gradually seed-pod consciousness spreads to members of the liberal intelligentsia, and more and more of them are suddenly embracing the program. The general idea is “let those shitty old crusty white guys eat some of the shit that POCs have been eating for the last couple of centuries,” etc.

Gradually it becomes accepted that if you’re white and straight you’re kind of a bad person, or at the very least suspect. And that you probably need to re-educate yourself and embrace the new reality…or else.

A clever horror-comedy satire that ten years ago would have come and gone and been forgotten by awards season is transformed by seed-podders into a Best Picture contender, and those who question the validity of this are regarded as cranks or closet racists.

Friends and family members of seed-pod film critics begin to notice a certain robotic manner and a glassy, out-to-lunch look in their eyes.

Liberal-minded film critics Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn declare that they’ve been making sure that POCs are ranked prominently in their year-end awards ballot, partly because they admire their films but also because they’re about or were made by POCs.

Jane Campion responds to Sam Elliott's #ThePowerOfTheDog comments: "I'm sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H. He's not a cowboy; he's an actor. The West is a mythic space and there's a lot of room on the range. I think it's a little bit sexist." https://t.co/I32wQ8lCiF pic.twitter.com/Tftq4AoXCy

— Variety (@Variety) March 13, 2022

On 3.11 (Friday) HE noted that feminist Asian-Canadian wokesters had called for the decapitation of Cinemablend critic Sean O’Connell, partly because he panned Domee Shi‘s animated feature and partly because he seemed to dismiss it along “racist” and “sexist” lines. (I don’t agree with that assessment, but what do I know?) Now, however, Joe and Jane Popcorn have pretty much sided with McConnell, giving the Disney+ release a 65% rating — a significant difference from the obsequious 95% rating bestowed by critics.

Yesterday Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke became the first major Democratic Party figurehead to explicitly come out against the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools. He said it in so many words during a town-hall-styled meeting in Victoria, Texas, a small town northeast of Corpus Christi.

I’ve listened to the video six or seven times — Beto definitely said this.

Until yesterday no big-name Democrat had stood up and said “ixnay” to the wokesters on CRT and equity in schools, which were (a) huge losing issues for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe last November and (b) vaguely contributed to the ejection of three woke Democratic school board members in San Francisco a few weeks ago. This is a very significant thing. Everyone has been saying that Democrats need to step away from CRT or face defeat in next November’s mid-terms — this is the first leak in the dyke.

I’m surprised….well, not that surprised that Beto’s statement hasn’t been reported by CNN or MSNBC or The New York Times.

Reported on 3.12.22: “O’Rourke spoke to a crowd of Texas in Victoria on Friday, where he was asked about critical race theory’s appropriateness for being taught in grade schools. O’Rourke at first dodged the issue, telling a crowd member that the concepts of CRT are not being taught in schools at present.

“‘And I think you and I are probably on the same page as well. We don’t see CRT being taught in our schools right now. It is a course that is taught in law schools,’ O’Rourke said.

“Immediately after his comment, a member of the audience asked if O’Rourke supported CRT in schools, to which the gubernatorial candidate said, ‘No, I don’t think [CRT] should be taught in our schools.’

Posted on 2.16.22: Remember those woke nutcase San Francisco school supervisors who made headlines in early ’21 by announcing plans to remove the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from local schools (among others), and who were also big equity supporters (i.e., make the grading system easier for BIPOC students in order to address allegedly unfair advantages enjoyed by smarter kids who get better grades)?

And remember how Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe in last November’s Virginia Governors race because McAuliffe endorsed the teaching of critical race theory in Virginia schools, and particularly because he implied parents who shared concerns along these lines were racist?

Well, the same thing has happened in ultra-liberal San Francisco, of all places. Those woke school board members — school board President Gabriela López, members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga — have been removed from their positions “over a failure to reopen schools last year” due to virus restrictions and particularly due to “unpopular actions aimed at advancing racial justice.”

Its not just that I associate this political Newsweek cartoon with the early ‘90s. (Obviously.). It’s been pasted to an office door for 30+ years, and there’s something about chuckling at the predatory jungle atmosphere of Washington, D.C….it’s hard to put into words but this image somehow makes me feel all mushy inside. I love the Quayle hair between the deer ears.

HE is about to drive back Los Angeles. I had a smooth and enjoyable time here, and I hope my reporting about the various SBIFF events helped to some extent. Thanks to Roger Durling, managing director Sean Pratt and hospitality director Sherry Stimatz. Cheers and farewell. I promise to drive carefully.

Last night the Santa Barbara Film Festival had a special 10-years-after screening of Silver Linings Playbook, the greatest, funniest and edgiest feel-good romcom of the 21st Century. And then SBIFF honcho Roger Durling interviewed director David O. Russell and editor Jay Cassidy.

And the whole night was beautiful — re-watching it, listening to David and Jay’s recollections, recalling that big Toronto Film Festival debut and the Soho House after-party, and what a truly happy time 2012 was for Hollywood Elsewhere (and perhaps for millions of others)…a glorious feeling of engagement, flush wellness, reasonably high spirits and casual bon ami with everyone…Barack Obama was running for re-election and it was five or six years before woke horror…the terror!…descended and turned Hollywood life into a kind of early 1950s Commie-purge nightmare.

I wanted to speak with DOR at the after-party and share and radiate the usual usual, but somehow I sensed that strolling over and saying “hey, David” might not be a great idea. Tiny little needles were telling me that. Russell was friendly ten years ago, but he sure wasn’t last night. But it was mostly me. I’m funny that way. There’s a part of me that doesn’t feel all that good about social engagement…a part that would prefer to just go home and write about stuff and shine the face-time.

If I had manned up and managed to speak with Russell, you know what I might have asked him? Danny Elfman‘s Silver Linings score is one of the greatest ever composed, and I’m sure Russell agreeds with me. But you know what I might have asked about? His reaction to those recent photos of Mrs. Danny Elfman.

I know — stupid idea. It goes without saying that his response would have been totally private, but he wouldn’t have responded anyway because questions like that are out of bounds when it comes to chatting with someone like myself. I understand that, of course. But everyone was talking about it, and you know that Russell and his colleagues had reactions. This is why I don’t like going up to famous guys. Because certain things I might want to discuss would be “off-limits” (i.e., the famous guy would be afraid to share an honest opinion) and it’s like this weird dance…mention this but don’t mention that, and keep in mind which subjects are okay to mention and blah-dee-blah. It’s exhausting.

I still seethe, by the way, when I think back to the HE hate chorus that went after SLP, and the many hours I spent arguing with them and telling them how completely full-of-shit they were.

During the screening I was thinking back to that ridiculous Claude Brodesser-Akner Vulture piece that asked “Can the Romantic Comedy Be Saved?“.

HE response: “I’ve never called Silver Linings Playbook a romantic comedy, although it is comedic and unmistakably romantic at the end, and it does, to its detractors’ discomfort, use a familiar and formulaic romcom-type ending (although David O. Russell shapes and renders it in a novel, engaging, live-wire way). It’s a much smarter and deeper thing than your typical Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigel film, for sure, and much more skillfully made. But you wouldn’t be wildly off if you called it a ‘romantic comedy.’

“I would call Silver Linings a manic romantic dramedy about anxiety, obsession, family and sports-betting superstition. It obviously doesn’t walk or talk and go for the easy-lay emotion like the other romcoms, but it’s certainly an oddball cousin in the family.

“Which is why I find it staggering that Vulture‘s Claude Brodesser-Akner posted a piece today called ‘Can the Romantic Comedy Be Saved?,’ and he didn’t even MENTION Silver Linings Playbook.

“My first thought after I caught SLP in Toronto was ‘finally, a romantic comedy that I can not only stand but I actually like…this is how they should be made!” Brodesser-Akner could have disagreed and written that SLP actually isn’t a romcom and explained why, or mentioned it as a genre outlier or whatnot. But he doesn’t even acknowledge its EXISTENCE.

“To Brodesser-Akner SLP is so far outside the bounds of what a romantic comedy is that he doesn’t even acknowledge that Russell’s film at least vaguely qualifies for the reasons I mentioned above. He doesn’t even bring it up for the purpose of dismissing it. Amazing! Because he’s dead blind.”