If it was my final responsibility to chose the five 2021 Best Actor Oscar nominees, I would select…

1. King Richard‘s Will Smith — a fully convincing portrayal of a gnarly pain-in-the-ass who’s all about persistence, obstinacy and discipline…Smith is obviously the most likely winner;

2. The Power of the Dog‘s Benedict Cumberbatch — An unforgettable performance as Phil Burbank, the stinky and cruel closet case who “deserves to die” — obviously first=rate acting but at the end of the day people vote for the character as well as the technique, and in this case the ugly vibes are too strong to permit a win;

3. Cyrano‘s Peter Dinklage — will others please acknowledge what an assured, perfectly finessed and deeply felt performance this is?;

4 & 5. Tie between Red Rocket‘s Simon Rex and The Tragedy of Macbeth‘s Denzel Washington — I just saw Macbeth last night, and was seriously stirred and even surprised by Denzel’s haunted Thane of Cawdor. Rocket-wise, kudos to a brave and realistic capturing of the second most reprehensible lead male character of the year, secondly only to Adam Driver‘s Annette protagonist;

6. Being The Ricardos‘ Javier Bardem — a vivid and moderately complex rendering of the three personalities of Desi Arnaz — professional performer, cagey businessman, compulsive philanderer.

Among the others…

7. Pig‘s Nicolas Cage — An honorable, deeply felt portrayal of a traumatized loner, but Cage has become too well defined as Mr. Weird Oddball Schtick — to stand out he needs to act against his usual type.

8. Don’t Look Up‘s Leonardo DiCaprio — Good earnest frustration stuff but not enough for a nomination.

9. Tick, Tick … Boom!‘s Andrew Garfield — I found Garfield’s Jonathan Larson performance overly manic and frazzled and stressed out (yes, I know — that’s what Larson was going through). Plus I didn’t care for the songs at all. If the film had been about Larson finally putting Rent together and getting it produced and then tragically passing the day before previews began, I would probably feel differently.

10. Cmon C’mon‘s Joaquin Phoenix — I’m sorry but gentle and nurturing Joaquin doesn’t work for me…JP has been put on this earth to play nutters and eccentrics and wacky cigarette-smoking weirdos.

11. Belfast‘s Jude Hill — too calculatingly cute by half…no way.

12. House of Gucci‘s Adam Driver — An accomplished performance as Maurizio Gucci, but Driver really needs to be punished for his Annette performance

13. The Card Counter‘s Oscar Isaac — a close-to-perfect performance is ruined by Oscar’s (i.e., “William Tell”) decision to hook up with Tiffany Haddish‘s “La Linda,” whom I didn’t believe at all, and wasn’t helped his curiously unsatisfying decision to [redacted].

In West Side Story, director Steven Spielberg and choreographer Justin Peck deliver a clever bit during the performance of the “Jet Song,” which is mostly sung by Mike Faist‘s Riff. Call it a form of engineered rhythmic punctuation.

Early in the tune there are four beats that accentuate the chorus — i.e., “When you’re a Jet (beat) you (beat) stay (beat) a (beat) Jehhht!” Except Spielberg and Peck arrange it so that Riff and the other Jets (Ice, Diesel, Big Deal, Baby John, etc.) are crossing a busy boulevard when the chorus is sung, and four cars hit their brakes (screech!) at the exact beat moments — “When you’re a Jet (screech!) you (screech!) stay (screech!) a (screech!) Jehhht!”

This bit knocked me right out. From that point on I was sold.

Blue-chip film restoration guru and exhibition master Robert Harris recently invited HE to visit the Bedford Playhouse. Earlier today Wilton friendo Jodi Jasser and I were given a grand technical tour, and then attended a private, friends-only, run-through screening of West Side Story.

How does Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner and choreographer Justin Peck‘s film play a second time? No diminishment. Just as vibrant and perfectly tuned, just as occasionally tearful. I still feel that the first four-fifths are better than the final act (i.e., post-rumble) but not to any problematic degree.

I had never visited this absolutely top-of-the-line, technically-awesome theatre (633 Old Post Road, Bedford, NY 10506), which is part of the Clive Davis Art Center. Nor had I visited time-trippy Bedford, which radiates only a few aspects of 21st Century life and consciousness — it’s quite the bucolic little hamlet. You can imagine young Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn walking their pet leopard on these streets back in the late 1930s.

The main BP theatre offers state-of-the-art projection (Christie digital) and sound with Dolby Atmos, luxurious reclining seats, a lobby cafe, a pair of smaller screening rooms, whistle-clean bathrooms. It may be the most technically impressive theatre I’ve ever attended outside of the usual first-rate industry facilities in Los Angeles, New York, London and elsewhere. It’s easily the highest quality theatre experience in a wealthy, super-exclusive New York suburb that I’ve ever tasted in my life.

I hereby resolve to attend the Bedford again and as often as possible. Thanks to Mr. Harris for the invitation, and to the Bedford Playhouse staff for putting on a perfect show.

Posted on 9.15.13: Manhattan life is plagued by many irritations. I hate the fact that subway car doors frequently don’t open for several seconds after the train stops at a station. (In Paris you can manually open the doors yourself with that silver latch handle thing.) But the biggest drag these days (for me anyway) are the slowpokes on the street and especially in the subways.

I’m not saying they have to race around like crazy rats, but what’s wrong with walking with a purposeful stride? Very few do this, it seems, and the ones that are really slow are always blocking the sidewalks in groups of five or six or more. I was going to say it’s the tourists but I’m starting to think it’s almost everyone these days except for X-factor types. For me walking around Manhattan is exhilarating exercise, especially if you walk with a little bounce in your step; for the vast majority it’s apparently something to be endured by reducing energy expenditure as much as possible and shuffling around like 80somethings.

So basically when you’re walking around Manhattan half the game is spotting the “blockers” before you’re stuck behind them and have to sidestep their ass. The ones to watch out for in this respect are couples of any age, older women, heavy middle-aged men and especially urban females of girth.

I first mentioned this eight years ago: “Out-of-towners always seem to walk the streets without the slightest hint of spunk or urgency in their step, like they’re making their way from the bedroom to the refrigerator at 2 ayem in their pajamas and nightgowns. And they’re always wearing those dead-to-the-world expressions. (Writer Fran Leibowitz has described the shuffling gait of tourists as the ‘mall meander.’)

“Every day I’m walking along at my usual spirited pace and these Jabbas and sea lions are always walking ahead of me in self-protecting groups or, worse, three abreast. The idea that they might be blocking people, much less defying the basic transportation law of going with the flow, doesn’t seem to occur to them. Then again, the flow in Jabba tourist areas (Times Square, Rockefeller Center) is very zombie-paced so it probably feels right from their perspective.”

There’s a scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57) when William Holden angrily kicks a non-functioning two-way radio, and suddenly it’s working again. There’s a scene in The Hot Rock (’72) in which a police precinct captain (William Redfield) is told by a subordinate that the phones aren’t working, and he asks “well, did you jiggle it? Did you…you know, fiddle around with it?” There’s a bit in The Empire Strikes Back (’80) when the Millennium Falcon won’t turn over and so Han Solo twice slams a console with his fist and wham…it’s working again.

11 years ago my last and final Windows laptop (I had more or less become a Mac person two years earlier) stopped working in some fashion — it was acting all gummy and sluggish — and so I decided to bitch-slap it a couple of times. Instead of suddenly springing to life, the laptop more or less died. Violence, I realized with a start, was not the answer. Times and technology had changed. I resolved at that moment never to try and William Holden or Harrison Ford or William Redfield my way out of a technical problem again.

Light flurries began to fall around 10 pm in the Wilton-Westport region. I’m posting this because I’d forgotten how cool it is to wake up and look out upon snow-covered woods. Comments are unnecessary — it’s just a nice thing to experience, especially if you’re from West Hollywood.

“Much too long in gestation, too much expectation, not dishonorable but ultimately unnecessary and disappointingly slack. And of course missing some key players from the original.” — tapped out by “brenkilco” on 8.31.21.

“A dingleberry doodle plot involving memory implants and obscured lineage and a secret no one must know (no one! just ask Jared Leto!) and a little wooden horse with a date (6.10.21) carved into the base, and some shit-hooey about original replicant creator Eldon Tyrell having given Rachael, the experimental replicant played by Sean Young in the ’82 original, the organic potential to reproduce and blah blah. And a narrative pace that will slow your own pulse and make your eyelids flutter and descend, and a growing need to escape into the outer lobby so you can order a hot dog and check your messages.” — posted on 8.30.21.

“Fucking way too long” — Ridley Scott, quoted in the Telegraph.

The following passage is from Clifton Webb’s Wikipedia biography. Born in 1889, Webb’s given name was Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck. Thank God for the mind of Noel Coward.

By the way: Gene Tierney‘s Laura Hunt and Dana Andrews‘ Mark McPherson would’ve never lasted as a couple. Laura was attracted to Mark’s good looks, no-bullshit honesty and moral integrity, but she’d become accustomed to a flush, upper Fifth Avenue lifestyle, and that would have been impossible on a Mark’s meager salary. Laura’s ideal husband, of course, would have been a blend of McPherson plus Clifton Webb‘s Waldo Lydecker (money, brains, sophistication).

In a 14-paragraph discussion about various pluses and handicaps affecting the 2021 Best Actress Oscar race, Vanity Fair ‘s David Canfield and Rebecca Ford acknowledge (a) the worthiness of Lady Gaga, Kristen Stewart and Nicole Kidman’s respective performances in House of Gucci, Spencer and Being The Ricardos, and at the same time (b) note that buzz for the films themselves has been settling down. And they salute West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler, of course.

Then they actually manage to mention (in paragraphs #10 and #14) the year’s finest lead female performances, hands down — Parallel Mothers’ Penelope Cruz and The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve. Which struck me as obliging and accommodating.