All his life Alan Ladd was said to be unhappy about his 5’6″ height. He was supposed to be a strapping leading man and heroic figure, and almost every film he made (including Shane) he had to stand on boxes. He felt like a shrimp. Then again James Cagney was only 5’5″, a perfect illustration of the maxim that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, etc.

If your reputation precedes you, people tend to assume that you’re larger than life on some level, and that corresponds to an assumption that you might be physically larger than you actually are.

Look at Elizabeth Taylor as she walks out to greet Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon on 2.21.92. She’s so tiny that she complains right away that her feet can’t touch the floor when she sits in the guest chair. She was actually 5’2″ — the same height as the hobbit-sized Mickey Rooney and Debbie Reynolds**. Reynolds’ husband Eddie Fisher left her for Taylor in ’58, and Fisher…good God, he was only 5’5″! Same as Cagney, shorter than Ladd. Taylor gave Fisher the heave-ho when she began her affair with Richard Burton during the filming of Cleopatra in ’62: RB towered over both of them at 5’10” — eight inches taller than Taylor, five over Fisher.

Fisher to Taylor on the set of Cleopatra: “Who’s that big guy?” Taylor to Fisher: “What’s wrong with you…that’s Richard Burton!” Fisher to Taylor: “Oh.”

** Carrie Fisher was 5’1″.

WATCH: Kamala Harris staffer attempts to shut down interview after Harris is asked a question she doesn’t like.

“They’re acting like they can’t hear me,” says the interviewer. pic.twitter.com/jLWG57db3E

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 18, 2021

My problem with Eyes Wide Shut was that I was constantly frustrated — bored — by Tom Cruise’s overly formal, generally repressed behavior as Dr. Bill Harford. I didn’t have the slightest interest in the well-being of his marriage to Nicole Kidman’s Alice, and I never believed for a second that Bill and Alice (whose dialogue was so slowly spoken and excruciatingly banal at every turn) had any kind of hot sex life going. So the final lines in the film, spoken by Alice, didn’t land.

I believed that Bill was upset by Alice’s story about a sexual dalliance with a sailor, and I believed he was curious enough about exotic sexuality to sniff around here and there, but I didn’t believe he experienced even a semblance of hormonal arousal during all his nocturnal wanderings. Bill was a prig and a stiff, and Stanley Kubrick’s film, while mesmerizing and perfectly composed, used way too much starch.

I like two scenes in the whole thing — the third-act, cut-the-bullshit, pool-table discussion between Bill and Sydney Pollack’s rich guy, and Bill’s chat with Alan Cumming’s gay hotel clerk.

…that Omicron is kind of a paper tiger that brings mild symptoms and could mainly be described as more of a pain in the ass than any kind of worrisome affliction. Am I missing something?

Hollywood CEO to The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield:

I’ve mentioned this minor point before, but HE continues to regret Kino Lorber’s decision not to re-think the aspect ratio of its forthcoming 4K UHD version of Some Like It Hot. This will be the first time that Billy Wilder’s 1959 classic has been released in this format (3840p x 2160p). Standard Bluray resolution is 1920p x1080p, of course.

The Kino transfer will be the same beautiful version that Criterion released in November 2018, complete with their perverse decision to needlessly and nihilistically slice off the tops and bottoms of the SLIH image, which has been 1.66 since the beginning of time.

Before the handsome Criterion Bluray version came along the entire civilized world had agreed that Some Like It Hot is a 1.66 film. That included Kino Lorber itself, which released a Some Like It Hot Bluray with a 1.66:1 a.r. in May 2011.

After being under-valued, barely acknowledged and even ignored by too many film critics and pundits, Twitter forecasters, Joe Popcorn industry veterans, award-bestowing critics groups and award-season prognosticators (not to mention the less-than-prescient Critics Choice Association), Parellel Mothers‘ Penelope Cruz has been awarded LAFCA’s Best Actress trophy.

A reputable critics group has finally stood up for the finest female performance of 2021.

Hollywood Elsewhere insists upon taking partial credit for Cruz’s LAFCA win — no other columnist-critic has pushed Cruz as hard as I have over the last several weeks…nobody. You can’t say that Hollywood Elsewhere’s never-say-die advocacy didn’t help to move the needle a little bit in Cruz’s favor.

A little more than three months ago Cruz’s Parallel performance also won the Venice Film Festival’s Volpi Cup for Best Actress.

The Worst Person in the World‘s Renate Reinsve was voted the first Best Actress runner-up in the LAFCA voting.

LAFCA has given Drive My Car their Best Picture award.

3:35 pm: Otherwise the other LAFCA foodie winners fell into right line with the “living in a separate universe” aesthetic. The Best Picture winner hasn’t been announced as we speak but…

I’m not speaking disparagingly or disrespectfully of the crowds who are surging into theatres this weekend to see Spider–Man: No Way Home with the above headline. Well, maybe a little.

I’m just referencing that old showbiz or advertising maxim about how you can’t make dogs eat a certain brand of dog food if they don’t like how it tastes. (Famous Sam Goldwyn variation: “If people don’t want to see something, you can’t stop them.”) This morning’s Spider–Man numbers tell us that the reverse is suddenly and startlingly true right now, even with Omnicron hovering over everyone and everything.

You know what this tells me, above and beyond the cheering crowds? It tells me that aside from your older fraidy cat moviegoers, Omnicron didn’t have that much to do with the flopping of West Side Story. It also tells me that younger audiences could stand to upgrade their taste buds and let a little Shakespeare and music into their life.

I don’t want to make too much of the faintly similar endings of Heaven Can Wait and Spider-Man: No Way Home. It should be said upfront that Heaven‘s ending is a bit more stirring and heart-melty, and it pays off better. And Tom Holland…all right, let’s not go there. But the unrecognized and unspoken recognition thing exists in both. That’s all I’m saying.

“West Side Story’s unsuccessful release tells us that we have undergone a fundamental shift in how we watch movies in America. And the entertainment industry should see it for what it is. Many thought as the pandemic spread and the theaters closed that it would all snap back as soon as the pandemic was over. People would flock back to do what they’ve been doing for more than a century, not only out of habit but tradition: They’d go out to the movies.

“But a technological revolution came; the pandemic speeded up what had already begun, just as it speeded up the Zoom revolution that is transforming business and office work.

“People got streaming services and watched movies at home. They got used to it. They liked it. They’d invite friends and stream new releases together. Or they stayed in their pajamas and watched it.

“I never thought movie theaters would go out of style, but I see that in the past few months, since New York has loosened up and things are open, I have gone to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows five times and to a movie not at all, except this week for this column. Like all Americans, I really love movies. But I can watch them at home.

“The old world of America at the movies, of gathering at the local temple of culture, the multiplex, is over. People won’t rush out to see a movie they heard was great but that’s confined to theatrical release; they’ll stay home knowing it will be streaming soon.

“Movie theaters won’t completely go out of business; a good number will survive because people will fill them to go to superhero movies and big fantastical action films. People will want to see those on the screen together and hoot and holler. But it will never again be as it was, different generations, different people, coming together on Saturday night at the bijou. The bijou is at home now, on the couch or bed, streaming in UHD.” — from Peggy Noonan‘s “West Side Story and the Decline of the Movie Theater,” Wall Street Journal, 12.16.21.