Seasoned critic, scholar and documentarian Marshall Fine has written an assured and comprehensive take on the streaming takeover of (nearly) all things Hollywood. It’s in a forthcoming issue of Cigar Aficionado (i.e., Brian Cox on the cover). I have two or three quotes in it; Cinetic Media’s John Sloss, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, Christian Science Monitor critic and LAFCA member Peter Rainer, and five or six others also chime in.

At last night’s West Side Story premiere at Lincoln Center, costar Ansel Elgort (who is quite confident and kind of Brando-ish as Tony — don’t listen to the haters) was, no offense, wearing the wrong haircut. With his traditional black tux and tall, slender frame, Elgort needed to look less like Jared Kushner and more like a slightly scruffy street shuffler of some kind….more like a daydreamer who sometimes forgets to visit the barber shop. A family-of-Trump vibe isn’t the right thing to rock in this particular climate.

21 years ago I sat down with Tony Curtis at the Beverly Glen shopping center, just south of Mulholland Drive. I waved to him above the heads of several customers sitting outside a popular, packed delicatessen. Curtis waved me over and led me to the inside of a less-crowded Starbucks — fewer people, fewer stares.

When he ordered coffee for both of us, the woman at the counter insisted on a freebie. “Really?” he said to her. “Well, thank you so much!”

We talked about everything — politics, drug-dependency (Curtis had difficulties in this area during the ’80s), Burt Lancaster, old Hollywood, his website (tonycurtis.com, a venue for selling his paintings), women, new technologies, etc.

At midpoint I handed Curtis a list of his 120 films and asked him to check those he’s genuinely proud of. He checked a total of 18. He checked Sweet Smell of Success (naturally) but not The Vikings. Some Like It Hot (of course!) but not The Outsider. He checked Houdini. Every film he made after Spartacus in 1960 up until 1968’s The Boston Strangler, he didn’t check. He checked his role as a pair of mafiosos — Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter in 1975’s Lepke and Sam Giancana in the 1986 TV movie Mafia Princess.

Among his notable TV guest appearances, Curtis checked only one — the voice role of ‘Stony Curtis’ in a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.

Imagine my sitting down with Dwayne Johnson under similar circumstances. Imagine my handing Johnson a list of the nearly 40 films he’s starred or played a strong co-lead in over the last 20 years, and asking him to check those he’s genuinely “proud of”.

Dwayne’s answer would have to be “well, if you’re asking me that in the same way you asked Tony Curtis the same question, my answer would have to be zip. Because I’m not genuinely proud of any of my films. I’m glad a lot of them were popular and made money, and I’m certainly glad that I’ve become a hugely successful brand and all. But I’m not a Tony Curtis-level actor, and I never will be.”

Imagine my sitting down with Chris Pratt under similar circumstances. Imagine my handing him a list of the 14 or 15 films he’s starred or played a strong co-lead in over the last, say, 10 years, and asking him to check those he’s genuinely “proud of”.

Pratt’s answer would have to be “well, if you’re asking me that in the same spirit that you asked Tony Curtis and Dwayne Johnson, my answer would have to be that among the films I’ve starred in, I am genuinely proud of nothing. I’m ‘proud’ a lot of my films made money, and I’m certainly glad that I’ve become a hugely successful, bulky-bod, conservative-minded actor with big money and big homes.

“I’m genuinely proud of three films that I played a supporting role in between 2011 and 2013 — Bennett Miller‘s Moneyball, Kathy Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty and Spike Jonze‘s Her — but that’s another subject. The bottom line is that as a movie star I make commercial fast-food movies and that’s all. If I’m the star, you know it’s going to be a throw-away, more or less. You know it, I know it. I’m really sorry I did Passengers, which everyone hated, but the money was good so I took it and ran like a thief.

In the wake of West Side Story‘s post-premiere hoopla, the Ansel Elgort crazies, as predicted, have returned in force.

I’ve just asked a few of these pitchforkers to please post factual evidence that proves Elgort, co-lead of West Side Story, is in fact a predator, a sexual assaulter and/or a pedophile. Because my understanding (and please forgive if there’s something substantial that I’ve missed) is that Elgort isn’t guilty of a damn thing except for having possibly behaved brusquely (i.e., insensitively, heartlessly) with this or that lass.

Consideration #1: The “Gabby” episode — the one that happened in 2014 and blew up on Twitter for three or four days in late June 2020 — is nothing, or at least nothing indictable.

Consideration #2: I don’t think flirtatious texts between a 20something Elgort and this or that teenaged girl are proof of anything.

Here’s how I put it 18 days ago: If and when the hair-trigger Twitter mob tries to to revive that idiotic Ansel Elgort + “Gabby” narrative about alleged statutory rape, just remember that the whole story was completely fraudulent. ‘

The story ignited in June 2020 and ran out of gas after three or four days.

Ansel and “Gabby’s” relationship happened in New York State in late 2014, when she was old enough (17) to consent. Elgort turned 20 on 3.14.14. He and Gabby were sexual and then Elgort hurt her feelings by ignoring her messages in some kind of passive-aggressive way. That’s all it was. It was nothing. Relationships will occasionally leave bruises. I know what it feels like to be casually dumped or abruptly ignored by a lover, but it happens. Tough shit, life in the big city, etc.

Portions of Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (20th Century, 12.9) had me in tears. Dude tears, of course — the eyes well up but you don’t go all the way and start sniffling with Kleenex. I’ve been listening to that original 1957 Broadway stage show album all my life, and earlier tonight it all came back and started flooding through me. I tried to tweet my reactions as best I could on the Metro North train back to Wilton. The final 25 or so minutes don’t work as well as they should, but I forgave the film anyway.

I can’t just roam around town on a whim. Because every waking minute I’m on the hunt for power outlets. Because I don’t feel secure unless my iPhone 12, both external batteries and the Macbook Air are fully charged. And finding outlets is a very difficult thing, or so it seemed today along Broadway on the Upper West Side (90s, 80s, 70s). Starbucks cafes used to be my default power-outlet lifeline ten years ago, but it’s literally been years since I’ve visited one in which the outlets weren’t totally covered over. (I get it — they don’t want wifi bums sitting there all day long.) A half hour ago I poked my head into a Starbucks at B’way and 75th…eureka! Six or seven outlets! Happy, blissful…the world isn’t as cold and indifferent as it seemed.

Most critics despise Ghostbusters: Afterlife; Joe and Jane Popcorn are apparently okay with it, or at least not hating it that much. Having loathed Ivan Reitman original Ghostbusters (‘84) as well as Paul Feig’s feminized 2016 reboot, I decided early on I wouldn’t be seeing Jason Reitman’s years-later, Paul Rudd-starring rehash. So I’m asking — why is this alleged piece of shit an apparent hit?

A forthcoming limited series about the making of Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Last Tango in Paris is in the works from CBS Studios and Greg Silverman’s Stampede Ventures. Variety‘s Naman Ramachandran reports that the series, written by Jeremy Miller and Daniel Cohn, will span the 18 months before, during and after the production of Tango, and will be told through the lens of those at the center of the events — stars Maria Schneider, Marlon Brando and Bertolucci.”

Ramachandran gets it dead wrong, however, by stating that Bertolucci “admitted” that the film’s infamous anal rape scene film “was not consensual” as far as Schneider was concerned. I repeat — DEAD WRONG. Bertolucci never said that the scene itself (which was scripted) was non-consensual — the only surprise or non-consensual aspect was the use of butter as a lubricant.

In a 12.3.16 Variety piece by Seth Kelley, Bertolucci said that “I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didn’t tell her what was going on” — i.e., by not telling her about the butter. And yet, the late director added, he didn’t regret shooting the scene. “I didn’t want Maria to act her humiliation, her rage. I wanted Maria to feel, not to act, the rage and humiliation. Then she hated me for her whole life.”

Two days after the Kelley interview, on 12.5.16, Bertolucci clarified to Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli:

“I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about Last Tango in Paris around the world,” Bertolucci stated. “[Three] years ago at the Cinematheque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene. I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would [use] butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies.

“Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false!”

Bertolucci explained that “Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. The only novelty was the idea of the butter.”

The sexual penetration of Schneider by Brando was simulated, of course.