The term “clear box” is synonymous with “story-less template,” which is how I put it the other day.

It should be understood that the 108–minute version of Ken Russell’s The Devils (‘71), which is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel, was dissed by Russell and star Oliver Reed before their deaths. The franker British version, which runs 111 minutes, is the one to settle into. The Criterion Channel makes no mention of this, although it does offer a doc about the film’s censoring, titled “Hell on Earth: The Desecration and Resurrection of The Devils.”

In his latest THR Oscar forecast column Scott Feinberg is claiming that Past Lives helmer Celine Song is a more broadly popular Best Director nominee than Poor Things’ Yorgos Lanthimos, The Holdovers’ Alexander Payne and Maestro’s Bradley Cooper.

This is insanity! What kind of woke-ass, gender-focused sewing circle is Feinberg having tea with?

Past Lives is a nicely assembled but unsatisfying relationship film that doesn’t do the thing or bring it home (i.e., in crude terms it doesn’t let you come). It has been written off as a decent try by sensible industry folk, and yet Feinberg is allowing himself to be fiddle-fiddled by the A24 safe-space mafia…the identity fanatics who are whispering “we need a woman of color in the mix.”

Otherwise all I can say is that (a) Zac Efron sure looks better without the buffed-up wrestler bod and that godawful Prince Valiant hair, and (b) award–wise Colman Domingo, due respect, isn’t happening,

All Hollywood hiring practices are “performative.”

The primary goal has always been to make money, of course, and in the case of Barbie it didn’t seem unusually risky to tap into the mythology of a 60-year-old doll franchise and then give it a sassy progressive spin.

That said, nothing will weaken your standing or get you fired faster than your rivals sensing you’re trying to do something other than make money.

Ask yourself this: if you were the progressive-minded senior editor of a sweeping USC–funded study of Hollywood hiring practices regarding women and persons of color, and particularly if your report was created under the imprimatur of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, would you be inclined to be (a) critical or admonishing or punitive or (b) less so in that regard?

Three Fundamental Hollywood Laws: (a) nobody knows anything, (b) nobody wants to stand out by making bold creative decisions of any kind, and (c) you don’t need a conspiracy of cowardice given that cowardice is so deeply embedded in our DNA.