A couple of friends invited me to join them for dinner during the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. I forget the name of the place but it was near a busy walk-street crossroads and adjacent to other eateries, and it had lots of outdoor tables and exquisite food and quite the vibe. You had to be somewhat in the know to know about this place, and I remember approaching and noticing as I scanned the crowd that Jane Campion, the festival’s jury president, was sitting and smiling and laughing with a table of friends.

The reason I spotted her as quickly and easily as I did were those two signatures — that shock of thick white hair and those dark-rimmed glasses.

If legendary caricaturist Al Hirschfeld was still with us, you know what his drawing of Campion would look like. How many famous people over the decades have been known for their dark-rimmed glasses? Campion, Phil Silvers, Woody Allen and who else? I’m asking.

The thing that Campion and Guillermo del Toro have in common is that GDT’s films have often focused on monsters while Campion’s latest film, The Power of the Dog, focuses on one particular monster, Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Phil Burbank.

…in a reasonable, persuasive, non-obsessive, open-hearted way, I will certainly do that. But only for the right reasons. Just because I passionately want to hate a film doesn’t mean I will hate it. If a movie works on its own terms, so be it. I am capable of recognizing and acknowledging that. But if I can find a fair-minded way to dump on this fucking film, I will do so.

Not that it matters, of course. For the degradation of taste and the all-but-total elimination of adult ticket-buyers who are more or less down with the idea of driving to the plex to experience an occasional serving of smart, soulful prestige cinema…those appetites and that tradition are dead and buried now, and Kevin Feige is one of the guys with a shovel, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.

For the 17th or 18th time, if I could cause the MCU to self-destruct by clapping three times, I would clap three times and shout “whoo-hoo!” while doing so.

You know that 90% of the critics are go-along whores…totally untrustworthy in the realm of superhero stuff…they don’t want to come off like negheads or outliers. Only haters like myself are trustworthy because we don’t give a shit.

“From hell’s heart I stab at thee…for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…oh damn thee, whale!”

Congrats to The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield for teaming up with Janice Min in a brand-expanding venture of some kind. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tatiana Siegel will join the Ankler next month; perhaps others will climb aboard in due time.

The idea, I’m presuming, is to (a) build The Ankler into a multi-voiced mini-trade as well as (b) stand up to the competition posed by Puck and the jottings of their respected film guy, “What I’ve Heard’s” Matthew Belloni (also a Hollywood Reporter alumnus).

I regard Rushfield as a good hombre and a human being. We’ve met, chatted, exchanged. He tried to help me earlier this year when I was thinking about converting the self-built, stand-alone, brick-and-mortar home of Hollywood Elsewhere into a Substack condo unit. In ’18, ’19 and ’20 RR would occasionally end his columns with “Daily Wells” excerpts as “leave ’em laughing” kickers. That felt pretty cool — a tribute to my sardonic prose style or whatever.

Then RR decided to keep his distance after I briefly posted a friend’s analogy between Nomadland and Chloe Zhao‘s Oscar prospects with the effect of the then-raw and horrific news of the Atlanta massage-parlor shootings; Rushfield didn’t want any sort of taint rubbing off on The Ankler. (Thanks again to those who made this into a “thing”, including the reprehensible Jen Yamato and various other two-faced acquintances, colleagues and former friends whom I won’t name.)

I’ve always thought of Rushfield’s reporting and opinion pieces as catchy, brutally honest and perceptive, and always with a touch of dry humor. Everyone agrees. But he’s rarely touched the woke Robespierre terror thing in any kind of candid way, at least not in my limited perception. He alludes, of course, but, being an astute industry politician, never spits it out. If an alien from the planet Tralfamadore were to rely solely on Rushfield to learn about the state of post-2017 Hollywood left-religion culture and the bend-over-backwards, virtue-signalling, BIPOC-kowtowing that more or less resulted in the catastrophic Steven Soderbergh Oscar telecast last April…let’s just say that others are a tad more willing to go there.

Plus lately Rushfield has been Mr. Doom and Gloom about movie-watching in megaplexes. I’m not challenging his assessments in the slightest (he knows his stuff and always keeps close tabs), but he is a dependable deliverer of despair and despondency these days, certainly as far as the sagging fortunes of exhibition are concerned. Again — he’s not wrong but every time I read one of his riffs in this vein I want to pop a Percocet or maybe snort a little heroin. (I don’t drink.)

From his latest column about West Side Story‘s “bellyflop”: “That’s the thing here in my recent forecasts [about] the end of the film industry, I don’t necessarily mean it will cease to exist entirely. Just that the industry as we know it is doomed.

An hour ago a filmmaker friend sent me a link to Luca Guadagnino‘s O Night Divine, a 43-minute short made for Zara. I’ve watched about a quarter of it, and it’s very easy to settle into. Nourishing, inviting…flush digs on Christmas eve, and snow everywhere. Shot at some swanky hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, O Night Divine costars Alex Wolff, John C. Reilly (as Santa Claus!), Hailey Gates, Samia Benazzouz, Chloe Park, et. al.

My heart skipped a beat when I noticed this morning that the Criterion Channel is streaming Ken Russell‘s The Music Lovers (’71) as part of a Glenda Jackson tribute. And not because I’m a huge fan of this hysterical Peter Tchaikovsky biopic. (Is anyone?) But Douglas Slocombe‘s cinematography is fairly wonderful, and it’s never been offered in HD, and so I allowed myself to fantasize that the film might have been covertly remastered or re-scanned or up-rezzed in 1080p and that Criterion had something to do with this. No such luck — it’s the same old shitty 480p version that’s been around since 2011.

Of course I love Wes Anderson creations…of course I do! It’s just that many of my Anderson faves are his commercials, and those dozens upon dozens of YouTube parodies. Feature-wise I’ve always been and will always be fully respectful of Anderson’s brand or stylistic stamp, and that includes, believe it or not, The French Dispatch, which I had a mostly unpleasant time with at Telluride last September.

But I am a genuine, whole-hearted fan of only a handful of Wes’s films — Rushmore (which I’ve always adored like a brother), Bottle Rocket, The Grand Budapest Hotel, the original black-and-white Bottle Rocket short, most of The Royal Tenenbaums. But I dearly love the Wes signage, specifically the shorts and parodies. The SNL Anderson horror film short is heaven.

I will always be on Team Anderson, and I will never resign. Partly because I’m 100% certain that one day he’ll reach into his heart and decide to broaden his scope, or perhaps even re-think things somewhat. (Wes is still relatively young.) He has to — artists have no choice. I just hope and pray he’ll make more of an effort to blend his hermetic Wesworld aesthetic with the bigger, gnarlier, more complex world that’s been there all along.

The 2022 Spirit Award nominations dropped this morning. Congrats to all nominees, but HE especially salutes the top nomination-getter — Janicza Bravo‘s Zola. Seven nommies = the almost certain winner of the Best Feature prize.

Otherwise, wokey-woke changes continue apace.

For decades the Spirits have been held the day before the Oscars, and were therefore wedded to that famous annual event. That’s over — the 2022 Spirits Awards will happen on Sunday, 3.6, or three weeks before the 2022 Oscars on 3.27.22. Which says, obviously, that the Spirits don’t want that linkage any more.**

Film Independent’s Josh Welsh: “At the Spirit Awards, we look for uniqueness of vision, original and provocative subject matter, economy of means, and diversity, both on-screen and off. Among [2022] nominees 44% are women and 38% are BIPOC…among the nominating committee members, 63% identify as women, 5% as non-binary, and 56% as BIPOC.”

More fundamentally: Remember the good old days (i.e., two years ago) when the Spirit Awards were widely regarded as the Indie Oscars? And when (excuse the following indelicate term) white-male filmmakers had as much of a shot at being nominated as anyone else? That’s history also. There’s always been more of a progressive p.c. emphasis among the Spirit nominees and winners (diversity, representation, indie contrarian attitude) but now it’s totally woke BIPOC feminist virtue signaling chitty-chitty-bang-hang. The only white guys who are allowed to be nominated are girlymen types (i.e., C’mon C’mon‘s Mike Mills).

East Coast f riendo #1: “Male feminists are allowed into Utopia. Just chop your balls off and you’re good.”

East Coast friendo #2: “It’s equity in practice. Achievement doesn’t matter. It makes them look good. It’s very Gen-Z on Tumblr circa 2013..”

“When talent and merit are replaced by representation, then we’re living in a world that doesn’t care about movies anymore.” — Brett Easton Ellis in a 2.19.19 guest column for The Hollywood Reporter.

In short, the 2018 “socialist summer camp in the snow” Sundance serum has spread everywhere — to New York and Toronto and pretty much every U.S. film festival except for blessed Telluride and Santa Barbara…all are now parroting the party line by favoring or appealing to your basic wokester SJW #MeToo BIPOC LBGTQ crowd (along with your garden-variety Lefty Snowflake Stalinist Sensitives) who are committed to overthrowing old norms and ensuring that independent cinema is generally more progressive and “representative” with fewer white guys of whatever age.

** Remember Spirit-Oscar overlap in terms of Best Picture nominees? That idea went south in 2019 when the five Best Feature Spirit nominees — Eighth Grade, First Reformed, If Beale Street Could Talk, Leave No Trace and You Were Never Really Here — weren’t nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Due respect and congratulations to the six women who earlier today were nominated for Best Actress by the Critics Choice Association — The Eyes of Tammy Faye‘s Jessica Chastain, The Lost Daughter‘s Olivia Colman, House of Gucci‘s Lady Gaga, Licorice Pizza‘s Alana Haim, Being The Ricardo‘s Nicole Kidman and Spencer‘s Kristen Stewart.

Five of the above were also nominated for the Golden Globe Best Actress award (i.e., Alana Haim didn’t make the cut).

The CCA nominated Haim for having tapped into something genuine and grounded and non-actressy, but CCA voters can’t tell me with a straight face that Haim gave a more affecting and relatable performance than Cruz did. C’mon…

All of the above connected (Gaga especially with paying audiences), but HE and the Movie Godz are again declaring that elbowing aside Penelope Cruz‘s just-right turn in Pedro Almodovar‘s Parallel Mothers was a wrongo — it really was. There’s no question in my mind that Cruz gave the year’s finest female lead performance — none whatsoever.

Earlier today Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro reported that Adrian Lyne‘s Deep Water, a Ben Affleck-Ana de Armas erotic thriller that’s been sitting on the shelf for ages, is going straight to streaming on Hulu.

Based on a 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel, Deep Water was pulled last week from a Disney theatrical release (previously slated for 1.14.22), probably because it isn’t good enough and/or is regarded by Disney execs as a guaranteed money loser.

D’Allessandro didn’t report a streaming date.

Disney has had a rough experience with almost every inherited 20th Century Fox release. The Last Duel disappointed ($100 million cost, $30,2 million domestic), and then West Side Story flopped, and now this.

Poor Adrian Lyne — this would have been his first film to hit theatres since ’02’s Unfaithful.

Nancy Reagan was the toughest, closest and most trusted adviser of her husband, Ronald Reagan, during his California governorship and U.S. Presidency. I never had any strong opinions about her one way or the other. I didn’t dislike her as much as I didn’t care. Except, of course, when she launched her infamous “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign in 1986, which nearly everyone regarded as an embarassment.

But my heart went out to her one day in the summer of 2013. It happened inside Alex Roldan hair salon, which is on the first floor of the London hotel in West Hollywood. She was driven from her Bel Air home to the salon every two or three weeks, my hair guy told me, but at age 92 she was obviously frail and her legs were apparently gone. I recognized the syndrome as my mother, who passed in 2015, was going through similar woes at the time.

Two people — a personal assistant and a hair salon employee — were trying to help Mrs. Reagan move from a shampoo chair into her wheelchair, and it was taking forever. I was about ten feet away and was on the verge of offering to help. It wasn’t my place, of course, so I just stood there and watched. The poor woman. Old age offers very little dignity, and no mercy at all.