I understand and respect the apparent fact that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow lawsuit against Disney, which was filed this morning, has merit.

Her filing said that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and that her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film. So Disney’s decision to stream Black Widow day-and-date with theatrical constituted, she claims, a wanton breach of the agreement.

In essence ScarJo was paid $20 million but she wants more. She feels that Disney screwed her out of a lot of dough, and the alleged screwing basically happened because of Covid.

For sure, other big-name qctors whose big-studio films have been (or will be) opening theatrically and streaming concurrently will be looking to see how ScarJo’s lawsuit turns out.

Disney’s response: “”There is no merit whatsoever to this filing. The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Disney has fully complied with Ms. Johansson’s contract and furthermore, the release of Black Widow on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20M she has received to date.”

That said, I should probably confess that my interest in financial conflict stories (i.e., “You owe me more money”) is limited.

Jared Leto was almost certainly interested in the role of Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (UA Releasing, 11.24) because he wanted to be the total transformation guy — fat suit, shaved head, moustache. His costars — Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons — were almost certainly irked, annoyed, resentful, etc.

Imaginary Irons to Pacino: “Jesus, look at that, will ya?..always something with Leto, isn’t it?…extreme makeup, ‘look at me’, hippie hair, guy never quits.”

Imaginary Pacino replies to Irons: “You wanna talk about never quits, what about Driver? Jesus H. Christ, is there anything he hasn’t starred or costarred in lately? Not to mention that other Ridley movie, the medieval one. And that horse cologne ad….c’mon, man.”

This morning Glenn Kenny tweeted about a Carroll Park encounter with a Black dude who behaved in a way that indicated (a) mental or emotional instability, (b) a garden-variety hair trigger temperament, or (c) a combination of both. The dude in question “feigned” a fall, fell into Kenny’s lap and in so doing squashed a raw egg. The dude apologized, Kenny said “it’s okay, it’s okay” and the dude replied “I KNOW it’s okay.”

My interpretation is that “I KNOW it’s okay” meant one of two things — the dude was/is an asshole who gets into confrontational situations with strangers if he’s in a bad mood (some street wackos are like this), or he meant “you can’t say shit to me…whatever I do or say you have to sit there and fucking take it…new rules.”

If it had been me I would have figured “okay, just another anger-management asshole, New York City’s full of them” and let it go. But Glenn called the fuzz and reported this jerk, and then — here was his mistake – he tweeted about it. Kenny surely understands that white guys aren’t allowed to call the cops in any dealings with any person of color about anything because it…well, doing so might imply something about the way they see the world. Not in my opinion, of course, but in the minds of certain Twitter jackals. So Kenny had to apologize or walk it back or something in that vein.

HE rewrite of Kenny apology: “I, Glenn Kenny, do hereby apologize to the Twitter comintern for not turning the other cheek after that dude fell into my lap. The next time something like this happens, I will smile and say ‘thank you’ and maybe even buy the guy a cappuccino.”

“The current laws of civility mean that no, it can’t be exactly what it once was” — Gawker editor Leah Finnegan, quoted in Katie Robertson‘s 7.28.21 N.Y Times piece titled “Gawker: The Return.”

The nickname for the revived site, of course, is New Gawker, although it’s using the same old gawker URL.

What Finnegan means by “the current laws of civility” is that if you’re editing or writing a gossip site in mid-2021, you have to be really careful. You have to totally tiptoe around everyone and everything and I mean very daintily, with ballet shoes on. You can’t talk shit (i.e., post snarky or even meanish comments) about anyone except for members of that one ethnic group that anyone can take a dump on any time they want — older white guys.

Otherwise our current wokester laws, edicts and stipulations, taken together, constitute a climate that is dead set against even the slightest scent of irreverence.

Finnegan: “We are here to make you laugh, I hope, and think, and do a spit-take or furrow your brow.”

Spit-takes? As in real spit-takes? Not in this Stalinist climate. Either way you can’t go home again.

Friendo: “I predict New Gawker will become another arm of cancel culture. Another megaphone for people who want to amplify targets. We’ll see if [this prediction] turns out to be right.”

Bustle Digital Group’s Bryan Goldberg, who bought the Gawker name three years ago for $1.35 million, quoted by Robertson: “If there is one website that could get me sued into oblivion, then it is almost certainly Gawker. Let’s face it — do we think that Bustle or Nylon Magazine is going to pick a petty and ill-conceived fight with a deca-billionaire? Probably not.”

“Deca-billionaire” refers to Peter Thiel, the powerful Silicon Valley hotshot who became enraged at Nick Denton‘s previous Gawker for mentioning his sexuality and resultantly funded a Hulk Hogan invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, which shut Gawker down.

From last night’s “Sandbag Cosh” post:

“I’ve been shoved from time to time, but I haven’t been in an actual fist fight since my late teens, and the odds of getting into any kind of altercation these days are close to nonexistent. I don’t drink or even ‘go out’ except to films, and I can’t recall the last time I visited a Patrick Swayze tough-guy bar. Plus you never know how hair-trigger crazy a would-be opponent is, especially in these crazy times. Plus I wouldn’t want to risk getting my fingers snapped or swollen, as this would hinder my daily writing. Plus I’m not in good enough shape these days to fight anyone more than 15 or 20 seconds.

“But I like the idea (and I mean the ‘idea’) of carrying a sandbag cosh. The kind, you know, that Tim Roth carried around in Stephen Frears‘ The Hit. As a totem, mind — a weapon I’d almost certainly never use but could theoretically use if, say, some kind of brute threat were to manifest. So yes, I’ll admit it — I like the idea of carrying one of these guys around. And it’s a far less crazy notion that carrying a loaded pistol.”

Tatiana’s U.S. Citizenship exam will happen soon. Oral, not written or multiple choice. Out of 100 sample questions and answers, some immigration officer will ask her ten and she’ll have to answer at least six correctly to pass.

The test site revealed on 2.22.21 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it would scrap former President Trump’s revised naturalization civics test**. Starting on 3.1.21, USCIS restored the previous 2008 version of the civics test.

I’ve read the 100 questions and it’s all basic stuff, but you know how Jimmy Kimmel has gone out on Hollywood Blvd. from time to time to ask the tourists some basic geography questions and how most of them don’t know shit from shinola? They wouldn’t stand a chance against 90% of these questions.

** The 2008 civics test requires applicants to study 100 questions about American government and history and must answer 6 out of 10 questions (or 60%) to pass. In the Trump version of the civics test, applicants would be required to study 128 questions and answer correctly 12 of the 20 questions (or 60%) to pass.

Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer, which will soon debut at the Venice Film Festival, bears significant similarities to Larrain’s Jackie, which premiered at the same venue five years ago.

Both focus on privileged young women — Diana, Princess of Wales and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy — who, in their early 20s, married wealthy, world-famous men, and in so doing became figures of obsessive fascination and even worship among the media and the public, only to experience rupture in their early 30s, in Jackie’s case by murder and in Diana’s by divorce.

Why, I’m wondering, did Larrain decide to make a pair of films about tragic femmes whose stories are this similar (if regarded from this particular angle)?

HE: I realize that Spencer has its own turf and that Steven Knight wrote the screenplay and all, but I’m half-dreading it.

Jordan Ruimy: It can’t be that bad.

HE: I had great admiration for and felt great allegiance with Larrain after No (’12), but then came Jackie. I’d read Noah Oppenheim‘s Jackie script (it was about what what actually occurred as opposed to where Jackie was at in her head). Larrain changed it into a meditative interior art film…a dialogue thing, on the mopey, meandering side.

Ruimy: I don’t think Larrain is working from the same blueprint as Jackie here. Different screenwriter. It sounds more like a chamber piece.

HE: That’s what I’m afraid of — a woke emancipation chamber piece. Diana decides to file for divorce from Charles because she feels unhappy and unloved and alone. It sounds awful.

Ruimy: Too bad. Larrain showed great promise with his No trilogy. I don’t really think Jackie was anything woke or woke-ish.

HE: I didn’t say that, but it was a chore to sit through. Read the script I sent you — it’s from 2010, by Oppenheim. It worked better than the film.

Ruimy: Spencer has more potential for wokeness and relevance due to the British royalty being in the news [Harry, Meghan, Oprah] and Diana’s feminist journey inside Buckingham Palace.

HE: She freed herself from a powerful man — that was her big shedding, her big accomplishment. But of course, she became Princess Diana because she married Prince Charles. Unhappy as that marriage was for both of them, it transformed her life and cemented her status and reputation.

Ruimy: I know. It was her decision. Her claim that she didn’t know what was in store for her is preposterous.

HE: So Diana’s story is (a) she became hugely famous, wealthy and super-privileged by marrying Prince Charles, (b) she soon realized they were hugely incompatible and that he didn’t love her, and so (c) she embarked on a series of affairs. Big deal. What’s that got to do with the price of rice?

Following a recent blowoff by the Venice Film Festival and in the wake of generally negative feedback by others in the elite film festival community, Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde, a long-gestating adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ take on the life of Marilyn Monroe, has been drop-kicked by Netflix into a 2022 release date.

Recent scuttlebutt is that Dominik and Netflix have been fighting over final cut, but who cares at this stage? We’re talking Edmond O’Brien in D.O.A. here.

It wasn’t that long ago that Blonde looked like a major career booster for Ana de Armas, who plays Monroe. Now she’s a sparrow with a bruise and a broken wing. Tough luck. She’s also in the completed but not yet released No Time to Die, the endlessly Covid-delayed Bond film, and Adrien Lyne‘s Deep Water.

She’s also costarring in Anthony and Joe Russo‘s forthcoming The Gray Man> (Netflix).

Earlier today I posted a paywalled report about the compassionate West Hollywood pet clinics who are over-charging pet owners for…well, everything. Fees for a simple neutering procedure for Anya, our three-year-old female Siamese, will run between $700 and $800 and as high as $1000, depending on how greedy and opportunistic the clinics are.

I’ve just booked Anya for a spaying operation on Thursday, 8.12, at the highly regarded Clinica Veterinaria Albeitar in Rosaraito Beach — in by 10 am, out by 3 or 4 pm. I’m told that the tab will be around $100, give or take. No, that’s not a typo.

There are many Los Angeles pet lovers who will read this and instantly conclude that the Rosarito clinic is some kind of substandard operation and that we’re probably taking a risk by bringing Anya down there, etc. You know what that is? Racism, pure and simple. Just like those HE commenters who posted side-eye responses when I mentioned having dental work at the Baja Oral Center in Tijuana.