After reading yesterday’s riff about Matt Drudge appearing as a character in Impeachment: American Crime Story, a filmmaker friend wrote the following: “I remember seeing you with Drudge on the Paramount lot at that early Titanic screening. I think you were in the front row? Or maybe I was.”

HE reply: You were in the front row. Drudge and I were sitting with the late Marvin Antonowsky around the middle of the orchestra. The screening happened on or about 11.21.97, and it was raining when I arrived.

Remember when it used to rain in Los Angeles? Two or three times a year, mostly between December and March.

Gregg Brilliant was the Paramount publicist with whom I spoke on the way out. (I think.). I was very emotionally affected by Gloria Stuart’s death-dream finale. As was Drudge. The current was palpable. The physical and technical achievements aside, I knew in my heart of hearts that 93% of Titanic was only good (or pretty good), but that the last 15 or 20 minutes were heartbreaking, and that the finale was levitational.

A day or two later Drudge wrote that he’d just seen Titanic, and had “left the show in total tears.”

Because of the heavy rain and dark clouds during my drive between People headquarters to the Paramount lot, I had naturally turned my lights and windshield wipers. Upon parking I killed the wipers but forgot to turn the lights off. So when I returned to the car three and a half hours later, the battery was drained. Hello, AAA!

Nobody will ever feel the Titanic vibe the way a lot of us did back then. It was ruined, in a sense, by the worldwide mob loving it so much. The more popular it became with K-Mart Nation, in fact, the less affection I was able to feel for it. Or express my feelings for with any freedom.

This morning I wrote Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky to convey my shock and concern over the reportedly severe Covid illness of director Andrej Zvyagnitsev, 57, the legendary, hugely admired director of The Return (’03), Elena (’11), Leviathan (’14) and Loveless (’17)

Zvyagnitsev’s infection, which began two months ago, recently became so serious that he was flown to Germany for intensive care. A recent report states that his lungs are 90% infected, or conditions to that effect.

Three immediate and obvious questions: (1) Was Zvyagintsev not vaccinated (the Russian vaccine is called Sputnik)?; (2) And if so, why is he so godawful sick? The vast majority of vaccinated people never get this close to death; (3) What is it that’s so derelict or unreliable about Russian hospitals that Zvyagintsev had to be flown to Germany?

Zvyagintsev has been planning his first English-language film, What Happens, which will be shot in the U.S. Produced by Rodnyansky and written by Oleg Negin, What Happens “is the director’s contemplation on the nature of human relationships, the state of modern man and the fragility of human life.’

Here’s hoping Zvyaginstev will get through this…please.

Guillermo del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley (Searchlight, 12.17) intends to resuscitate 1940s noir melodrama with all the pulpy trimmings — a rural old-style carnival, fake mind-readings, geeks biting off chicken heads, a slimey snake-in-the-grass lead (Bradley Cooper) and secondary characters with names that scream out yokel origins — Clem Hoately, Pete and Zeena Krumbein, Ezra Grindle, Bruno, Hayseed McGillicutty. (Okay, I made the last one up but the other five are real.)

The script, co-penned by GDT and Kim Morgan, is based on William Lindsay Gresham‘s 1946 novel, which was immediately adapted into the renowned 1947 noir starring Tyrone Power.

We all understand that Guillermo and Kim’s basic idea was to remake the Power film, which was directed by Edmund Goulding, but to massage it in their own way by leaning on the novel. And yet each and every time a famous film is remade, the filmmakers always say that they were guided by the original book. They never, ever say that the initial film adaptation was the inspiration.

Born in 1914, Power was in his handsome-young-man prime (32 or 33) when he played Stanton “Stan” Carlisle in the Goulding film, and I think it’s fair to say that his youthful aura mitigated or modified Carlisle’s sleazy maneuverings. Cooper was 45 or so when he played the same character in the Del Toro version. (Silver Linings Playbook was eight years ago.) It’s a different thing when a guy who’s close to pushing 50 plays a doomed, duplicitous character; age often makes an actor look a bit weary, creased and compromised.

The 1947 original ran 111 minutes; Guillermo’s version run two hours, 19 minutes. The newbie opens on 12.17.21 — three months hence.

For those who know the ’47 original, here’s how the casting lines up:

Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Bradley Cooper now, Tyrone Power then); Molly Carlisle/Cahill (Rooney Mara now, Coleen Gray then); Zeena Krumbein (Toni Collette now, Joan Blondell then); Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett now; Helen Walker then); Bruno (Ron Pearlman now, Mike Mazurki then); Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins now, Taylor Holmes then).

I didn’t know Norm MacDonald was grappling with cancer, and why would I have? I’m just saying this hit me like a ton of bricks. MacDonald didn’t just make me laugh; I also loved his basic attitude, which was more or less “there are many things to laugh at or make fun of, but there are some real slimeballs and monsters out there, and so it’s kind of funny to occasionally say ‘hey, this guy’s a real slimeball and that one’s a real monster!”

I also loved that the wokester Stalinists hated Mcdonald. I can’t recall if he was condemned for sharing sexist or insensitive attitudes (which I don’t relate to or agree with) or being blunt-spoken about something else, but I know that the sensitives hated him as much as they allegedly hate me and Bill Maher and a few others, and that they did what they could to tarnish his rep by talking shit and whatnot.

I loved MacDonald’s impudence.

Ahh, the SNL glory days of ’93 to ’98! Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson, etc. “Well, it’s finally official: murder is legal in the state of California.”

Well, at least the wokesters have something to celebrate now.

First, as one who was friendly with Matt Drudge in the mid to late ’90s, I’m seriously impressed with Billy Eichner‘s impersonation of the guy (voice, physical resemblance, the hat) in the below clip from episode #2 of Impeachment. Listen to Eichner’s voice between :21 and :27 — “I hear you’re working on a new story about another woman our dear leader harassed.” Sounds a lot like the Real McCoy — just saying.

It’s odd how Impeachment producers have obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to make various cast members closely resemble the characters they’re playing, and yet they chose Beanie Feldstein to play Monica Lewinsky.

Second, there’s a scene in which Hillary is enraged at Bill for having lied to her about the Lewinsky thing. Hillary is far from stupid, and everyone knew Bill was an incorrigible hound when he was Governor of Arkansas in the ’80s and early ’90s. Plus everyone understands that leopards almost never change their spots. So what’s the possible basis for Hillary feeling betrayed and enraged over yet another infidelity during their White House years?

Hillary had a right to feel angry, of course, but about looking foolish by telling reporters that her husband was innocent. Bill broke their agreement by getting caught, and that made Hillary look like a liar or a fool. Generally speaking she obviously knew who he was in terms of randy behavior (watch Primary Colors) and couldn’t have been shocked to learn that he and Lewinsky had been intimate.

** We saw Titanic together on the Paramount lot in late November ’97, and a few weeks earlier he dropped by the People offices in West L.A. at my request to help me with a technical problem.

Award-seeking fall movies often spark bitter disputes. God knows Green Book did, and I was an ardent fan of that film all through the ’18 and early ’19 season. I didn’t “believe” that Green Book had a certain humanity and emotional poignancy that would connect with Average Joes in the Academy and the guilds — I knew it did and would.

Green Book wasn’t the deepest or most complex film in the world, but for a character-driven period flick about a pair of flawed but recognizably human fellows and the way things unfortunately were back in 1962, it rang true. And I knew people would respond to that fact. I was 90% sure that the wokester take-down efforts would come to naught because Green Book had the heart, the cards and the horses.

But now, God help us, it’s starting to appear that Kenneth Branagh‘s mawkish and treacly Belfast might be able to Green Book its way into the Best Picture category, and perhaps even into a win. As God is my witness and on the soul of my soon-to-be-born grandchild, Belfast isn’t worth the candle. I wouldn’t call it a calamity — it’s watchable and even interesting from time to time, and it delivers a certain bounce when Cieran Hinds is around — but it doesn’t have anything magical going on.

I knew after catching Belfast in Telluride that certain industry softies (i.e. the Sid Ganis brigade) would call it magnificent and heart-touching, etc. But I didn’t take them seriously. Competently made lump-in-the-throat movies, however treacly they may seem to some of us, will always win a certain portion of the crowd.

But this morning it hit me that the Belfast forces may be more numerous than I realized, and that they may be gaining strength. Awards Radar‘s Joey Magidson tweeted a few hours after seeing Belfast in Toronto that it may`go all the way and become “our” Best Picture winner, and that it’s “absolutely beautiful.” TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, a sensible and attuned pulse-taker who knows the difference between wheat and chaff, apparently attended the same TIFF screening and wrote directly after that it’s “visually stunning, emotionally wrenching and gloriously human.”

I feel drained and absolutely dumbfounded that we’re hearing such keen praise are for such a pandering and sentimental effort, a drama that partly incorporates the spirit of The Wonder Years (a thought posted by IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich) or even Leave It to Beaver (a view shared this morning by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy), than to John Boorman‘s Hope and Glory or Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma.

Pond: “Visually stunning, emotionally wrenching and gloriously human, Belfast takes one short period from Branagh’s life and finds in it a coming-of-age story, a portrait of a city fracturing in an instant and a profoundly moving lament for what’s been lost during decades of strife in his homeland of Northern Ireland. Plus it’s funny as hell — because if anybody knows how to laugh in the face of tragedy, it’s the Irish.”

Not only is Belfast not funny as hell — it tries for a tone of heartfelt amusement, but I didn’t so much as crack a smile.

Ruimy: “Belfast is rendered in rather ineffective and obvious ways — the first crush, going to the cinema, an absent father, Catholic school. Young Jude Hill, as a Branagh stand-in named Buddy, brings an insufferable amount of wide-eyed twee. [And] the whole thing sorely lacks a point-of-view, and so we never really get to know the boy well enough to become emotionally invested in the story. The end result is a mix of scattershot moments that want to feel personal and lovable, but end up isolating us. Too on-the-nose and lacking grit, Belfast plays like an odd mix of Roma and Jojo Rabbit.”

From Stephanie Grisham‘s “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw At The Trump White House” (Harper Collins, 10.5):

…if this or that anti-vaxxer passes on. Veronica Wolski could’ve taken the stab and saved herself. She didn’t because she was an idiot. Now there’s one less rightwing nutbag spreading toxic gas…works for me.

Posted today (9.13.21) by Jeff Bridges: “My cancer is in remission — the 9″ x 12” mass has shrunk down to the size of a marble. Covid kicked my ass pretty good, but I’m double vaccinated and feeling pretty good. I heard that the vaccine can help folks with Long Haulers. Maybe that’s the cause of my quick improvement.”