The following excerpt from Sasha Stone‘s “94th Oscars — It’s Time to Rethink Oscar Coverage” (4.30) doesn’t once mention the “w” word. Nor does she mention the legacy of Maximilien Robespierre or allude to new-styled blacklists or HUAC committees, etc. So HE readers who get upset or annoyed or threaten to abandon this site when the concept of woke terror is mentioned can rest easy:

Sasha: “Where bloggers were once the outspoken ones, the ones willing to puncture the status quo and say what couldn’t be said, now they have become hamstrung and silenced out of fear.

“If, say, Scott Feinberg or Kyle Buchanan or even Anne Thompson ever dared speak out about the things that all of us see going on [every day] ** — if they ever started to puncture the status quo the way bloggers used to do way back when — they’d be out of a job by the end of the day. If Next Best Picture’s Matt Neglia or Will Mavity stepped outside of the Twitter ideology for even a minute, both would be viciously attacked and eventually tossed onto the shunned pile.

“No one in the real world cares all that much about their online platform but if you work in any kind of media, content or entertainment you have to. You are under the thumb of the hive mind. You have only one option: total compliance. ‘When you have ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.’

“Not only is dissent not allowed in film coverage — it isn’t allowed in news either. Even if the regular person out there doesn’t pay attention to Twitter, what they’re seeing around them is shaped by Twitter — CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post — all of it is under the thumb of the tiny minority of Twitter users who control 80% of the content.

“They are purists, they are strident and they will come for you if you slip up even once. Sure, you can offer the withering apology. That is always an option but in general, they will keep coming at you, scrutinizing your past for any offense and going in for the career kill.

“Even the little bit of pushback I have been doing has essentially blackballed me from Film Twitter. David Poland has been likewise purged and shunned from Film Twitter for having slightly controversial views. Jeff Wells has been stripped of his Broadcast Film Critics membership for posting an anonymous conversation that was deemed offensive. I have to wonder what David Carr would make of today. Would he pander to the hive mind out of fear? Would he be outspoken? Would he be fired?

“Wells and Poland were among the few who helped launch Oscar blogging in the early days” — late ’90s. “It isn’t that they’ve stopped writing what they think — they do. It’s just that Twitter pays little attention to them because what Twitter wants from them is something they can no longer give, and it’s something I can no longer give: total compliance. It’s just not happening for those of us from a different generation who remember what it was like to get noticed for being controversial.”

Two years ago a suggestion was planted that Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (12.10) would feature the usual desaturated milky-gray palette that dp Janusz Kaminski has used over and over, regardless of subject, mood or theme.

In March ’20 a Vanity Fair spread seemed to confirm that West Side Story would instead use vivid, real-life colors.

Last weekend a new West Side Story teaser appeared on the Oscar telecast, and now it appears that the film has two side-by-side color schemes — standard milky-drab Kaminski tones when the focus is on outdoor street-gang activity (Sharks vs. Jets) vs. brighter, fuller colors — bright rose, yellows and gleaming whites — when the focus is on the (mostly indoor) women in the film, and particularly on Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler).

Due respect, Hollywood Elsewhere would rather swallow a handful of cyanide capsules than watch Our Flag Means Death, a forthcoming HBO Max comedy starring Taika Waititi as Blackbeard the pirate. To each his own, people like what they like, no harm or foul, etc. But make no mistake — this is what studio execs usually mean when they say the word “content”. Okay, this may not be a cyanide situation but it’s very depressing.

A little less than two years ago I posted a story about a toll-booth lawbreaking incident on the Connecticut turnpike. It never got any traction despite being about an everyday ethical issue that anyone could relate to. Here it is again:

Highway tolls are collected via E-ZPass (created in ’87) or by throwing coins into a metal bin. Human toll-collectors — people dressed in some dull gray uniform whom drivers literally hand coins to — are still around, I guess, but not, I would guess, for much longer.

Back in the pre-automated ’70s manned tollbooths were fairly common. On the Connecticut turnpike a red traffic light would beam as you approached the toll station. You would come to a halt, hand over 50 or 75 cents to the guy/gal, the light would turn green and you’d gun it.

One dusky evening in ’77 I was approaching a West Haven toll station on the Connecticut turnpike. I was driving my 1975 LTD station wagon, which always got lousy gas mileage. I realized a mile out that I didn’t quite have the full 50 cents, and no cash in the wallet. I was counting the coins as I approached…a quarter, a dime, a nickel and six pennies…no, seven pennies! Three cents short.

I sure as shit wasn’t going to pull over and accept some kind of traffic summons for being three cents light…c’mon. So I decided to be Steve McQueen in The Getaway.

I pulled up to the booth and handed the guy the 47 cents. I started to inch forward as he was counting and saying out loud “35, 40…hold on, hold on.” I hit the gas and the guy freaked — “Hey, wait a minute, whoa!” There was no gate so the red light and the violation alarm (ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!) would have to go fuck themselves. I was Clyde Barrow after a bank robbery.

The booth guy went into fury mode…”Hey, hey…stohhhhp!…whoooaaa!” I looked in my rearview as I pulled away. Toll-booth guy had stepped out of the booth and was standing in a half-crouch position…”whoooaaa!!”

I contemplated my situation as I drove away. I had just broken Connecticut state law and didn’t feel good about that. But there was something a bit wrong with that guy. I wasn’t a criminal. It wasn’t like I’d given him 12 or 13 cents or something. Who screams and shouts over a three-cent shortage? Within seconds I’d completely shorn myself of any guilt over shortchanging the state, and decided that the toolbooth guy…that howling uniformed goon was the asshole in this situation, not me.

Did the toll-booth guy get my license plate? (This was before instant photographic capture.) Would he put in a call to the state police, telling them to pull over a young long-haired guy in a brown LTD wagon? I considered getting off the turnpike and driving for a few miles on local roads, just to be safe. Then I realized how loony-tunes that would be. The toll-booth guy was just an oddball with a temper, an obsessive without a life. I stayed on the turnpike and all was well.

But that haunted feeling of being a lawbreaker on the run is still with me.

I’m very sorry about the passing of Rifleman costar Johnny Crawford, which happened yesterday (4.29) at age 75. The poor guy began grappling with Alzheimer’s disease two or three years ago. Hugs and condolences for fans, friends, family, colleagues.

What makes this photo so great is a strong likelihood that no one arranged for the red hardtop Mustang (probably a ’65 model) to be cruising east at the corner of Sunset and Clark at this very moment. And even if someone did plan it, it’s kinda mindblowing that the Mustang and the Whisky are almost exactly the same shade of red**. This was probably taken sometime between 5.19.67 and 5.21.67, which is when the Byrds were headlining and the Doors were the openers.

** Yes, the Whisky red is a tiny bit earthier…a faint touch of brown.

…it’s good writing. (And good acting!) And if it was spontaneous, it’s one of the greatest off-the-cuff lines ever heard on TikTok.

Please enjoy Harrison Ford watching a magic trick & then reacting in the only way Harrison Ford reacts to anything pic.twitter.com/oAoUlDT3GY

— Clarisse Loughrey (@clarisselou) April 28, 2021

The anti-Kidman, pro-Messing mob is getting more and more strident. Kidding…we’re probably just talking about 40 or 50 Twitter soreheads, and possibly fewer. The complaints will mostly vaporize when Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos comes out…what, later this year?

In a 2014 Fade-In interview with the late F.X. Feeney, Nebraska director Alexander Payne said the following:

“Some studio people asked me out to lunch a couple of months ago, and they said, ‘Look, if we let you run the studio, what changes would you make?’ I said, ‘Well, thanks for asking. I believe in the $25 to $45 million adult comedy and adult drama. Why does everything now adult have to be absolutely shrink-wrapped and be robbed of the production value it could have? Where is Trading Places today? Where is Groundhog Day today? Intelligent summer comedies. Where are the intelligent ones?’ Then the studio guy said, ‘Well $45 million…I think I might disagree with your price point.’ I said, ‘You might, but where is Out of Africa today? Why don’t we have films like that?”

Payne wasn’t crazy to ask this. Others felt the same way. The middle-class Spotlight came out the following year (2015) and Manchester By The Sea happened in 2016. But look at how things are now. Good God. It’s just noteworthy, I think, that Payne’s viewpoint seemed entirely legit and reasonable and not in the least bit eccentric only seven years ago.

I’ve never seen and will almost certainly never see Steel Magnolias start to finish. Ditto Beaches. That’s all I can think of right now. There are dozens that aren’t coming to mind. My brain engine won’t turn over.

I once worked with a woman who had never seen Heat. When asked why, she said, "Because every man I've ever worked with has all but DEMANDED I watch it. My life is just fine without it." Me, I've never seen Scarface. Prolly not gonna. What's your "never seen/won't see" classic? pic.twitter.com/ELfL9EDbGG

— Tolkien Negro (@marcbernardin) April 29, 2021

Earlier Joe Rogan: “Are you a healthy person? Like, look, don’t do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. You should…if you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time and you’re young and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

HE to Earlier Rogan: “You know some younger people who eat well? Most of the younger people I’ve known eat crap and carbohydrates and drink a whole lot. People generally don’t start eating well until they get into their 30s and 40s.”

Today’s [4.29) Rogan: “I’m not an anti-vax person…in fact I said I believe they’re safe. I encourage many people to take them. My parents were vaccinated. I just said that I don’t think that if you’re a young healthy person, that you need it. [Fauci’s] argument was you need it for other people [to avoid infecting them]. But that’s a different conversation. And yes, that makes sense.”

Extra Rogan: “I am not a doctor. I am a fucking moron. I am a cage-fighting commentator. I am not a respected source of information even for me. But I at least try to be honest about what I am saying.”

HE clarity: “Is there potential harm in getting the vaccine? No. Is there potential harm in not getting the vaccine? Yes. End of discussion.”

Sidenote: Thank God Rogan’s ditched that atrocious red-tanning-bed studio design.

Viewers considering the merits of Chamber of Horrors (’66) were probably given pause by the fact that the director’s first name was “Hy” — short for Hyman. “Hy” is not the name of a director of a horror film — it’s (a) the host of a benefit variety show, (b) a guy you might play golf with, (c) a guy who owns a Palm Springs restaurant-bar or (d) runs a San Francisco comedy club.

Hy’s full name was Hyman Jack Averback. He was a fairly successful radio, TV and film actor who directed a lot of TV shows, and who co-produced F Troop.

Chamber of Horrors was originally shot as a feature-length pilot for a proposed series called House of Wax. It was considered too intense for the tube, so Warner Bros. marketers dreamt up the “fear flasher” and “horror horn” gimmicks. Shot at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank (Tony Curtis performed an uncredited cameo), it opened on 10.21.66.

The narrator of the trailer is William Conrad.