All hail director Richard Rush, who passed on 4.8.21 at age 91.

I met, interviewed and even hung out with Rush a bit during the 1980 promotion (spring and summer) of The Stunt Man — an audacious, whimsical turn-on that’s partly a sardonic comedy and partly a surreal meditation on the nature of “reality” and filmmaking. It was Rush’s one big triumph, or more precisely as a success d’estime within the community of hip know-it-all critics.

I was flattered to be invited to a special Manhattan Stunt Man gathering that included Rush, costar Steve Railsback and three or four elite journo schmoozer types — a boozy late-night hang that went into the wee hours. Out of this I became friendly (short termish) with Railsback’s wife Jackie (aka Jackie Giroux). Several weeks later I wangled a GQ assignment to interview Peter O’Toole, whose Stunt Man performance as director Eli Cross was one of his best, at his London home**.

Wiki excerpt: “Adapted by Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus from a same-titled 1970 novel by Paul Brodeur, The Stunt Man is about a young fugitive (Railsback) who lucks into a stunt double gig on the set of a World War I movie whose charismatic director (O’Toole) is quite the force of nature. Pic was nominated for three Oscars: O’Toole for Best Actor, Rush for Best Director and also for Best Adapted Screenplay.”

Nocturnal high-def Los Angeles in the early to mid ’40s…Gilda, The Outlaw, The Letter on theatre marquees. Hat stores, fur stores, Atlantic Richfield gas stations. A large spotlight mounted on a flatbed truck. Hundreds upon hundreds of mid ’40s autos parked curbside — a 2021 film set in this era couldn’t hope to deliver this kind of authentic realism. Downtown Los Angeles plus the mean streets of Hollywood. Video-like clarity plus simulated sound…fairly amazing.

For an alleged “problem” movie, Joe Wright‘s The Woman in the Window (Netflix, 5.14) seems more intriguing due to the latest trailer. Pic was initially slated for a 10.4.19 release via 20th Century Fox. Disney, which bought Fox on 3.20.19, got the willies after alleged poor test screening results. Pic was recut and given a 5.15.20 theatrical release. But then Covid stepped in. Netflix bought Wright’s film on 8.3.20.

[Video clip posted two or three times, but the copy was originally posted on 1.10.15]: There are great movie finales, or ones that end on a sum-up note that is fair, concise, honest, eloquent. And there are finales that do all that but also reach inside and push that button that you yourself don’t know how to find, much less push, half the time. A kind of sinking sensation in your soul. A sense of sudden wisdom and sadness and being oddly at peace with everything, including your own miserable self.

This is how I’ve felt time and again during the last 60 seconds of Franklin J. Schaffner‘s Patton (’69), stirringly fortified by Jerry Goldsmith‘s score and particularly by the words “all glory is fleeting.”

In short, everything worth cherishing in life is fleeting…it all fades and vaporizes…romantic love, freshly-shined shoes, a perfectly tuned six-cylinder engine, purring cats on your lap, world-class wifi, general ecstasy, feelings of absolute security, exquisite guitar playing, momentary pride in a difficult achievement, warm sunshine, the balm of friendship and camaraderie, the sight of snow-capped mountain peaks against a sparkling blue sky, perfect glasses of pineapple juice, Everett Sloane‘s girl in a white dress on the Staten Island ferry…don’t get me started.

All of it streaming past, leaves floating away on a mountain stream, nothing to have or hold. Either you savor your passing delights as impermanent and all the more valuable for that, or you don’t.

God: “What do you want from me?” Me: “I don’t know. The good moments lasting a little longer?”

Forthwith are the names of Hollywood luminaries who passed in 2020 or early ’21. I’m assuming all or most will be included in the Oscar telecast death reel, but you know the Academy — they always cut or ignore at random. Who’s safe and who might not be? And who am I missing?

Sean Connery, Chadwick Boseman, Kirk Douglas, Kelly Preston, (not Eddie Van Halen), Orson Bean, (not Kool & the Gang co-founder Ronald Bell), Honor “Pussy Galore” Blackman, Wilford Brimley, Kobe Bryant (his Dear Basketball won Best Animated Short Film Oscar), Edd “Kookie” Byrnes (not Pierre Cardin), Robert Conrad, (not Mac Davis), Olivia de Havilland, Brian Dennehy, (possibly not Rhonda Fleming), Buck Henry, Ian Holm, (possibly not Terry Jones), Irrfan Khan, John Le Carre, James Lipton, (possibly not Terrence McNally, who was primarily a playwright), (possibly not Ken “Eddie Haskell” Osmond), (possibly not Regis Philbin), David “Darth Vader” Prowse, Carl Reiner, Diana Rigg, John Saxon, Joel Schumacher, Jerry Stiller, (probably not Alex Trebek), Max von Sydow, (possibly not Lyle Waggoner, Dawn Wells or Fred Willard), Bertrand Tavernier…a total of 25 solid inclusions, give or take.

Add-ons: Michael Apted. Allen Daviau. Alan Parker. Michael Chapman, Lynn Stalmaster.

There’s almost nothing anyone can say about yesterday’s Daunte Wright shooting in Minneapolis except “here we go again.”

If the fuzz pulls you over for whatever, the dumbest thing you can do is to resist or run. This has always been true in any region, under any circumstance. If you’ve been pulled over, resistance of any kind will end badly…period.

In this instance the 20-year-old Wright, who had been ridiculously pulled over for having an air-freshener or two hanging from his car’s rearview mirror, defied the bulls and drove off when they attempted to cuff him for a past warrant. A cop shot him. Wright succumbed to the wound several blocks later, crashed the car and died. Brilliant! Air fresheners!

Where is it written in the annals of Minnesota police regulations that if a suspect runs you whip out your pistol and shoot him dead? I know that if I say “Wright should have just chilled and cooperated,” Twitter will say I’m a bad person so I’d like to announce here and now that I don’t know what he should’ve done.

“…in advance of voting makes me want to take a bath with a toaster, as Bill Maher joked the other night” — Sunday (4.11) email from seasoned East Coast Academy member who’s been around.

HE: Pandemic year + no exhibition + wokester mandates = most nothing-level Oscar year of all time. An asterisk year. Nobody gives much of a shit…they just don’t. An era committed to cultural-political change by way of instructional Red Guard this-way-or-the-highway-isms boils down to “do you wanna be cancelled? No? Then get with the program.”

goodvibe61 (posted late Sunday night): “I think at the end of the day, many people feel badly when the film that’s going to win and does win is a film that you just don’t care that much about. And I think that’s the deal here.

“And like most years I don’t think Wells is alone with this idea. Yes, he’s repeatedly said it’s a fine film that he respects very much. But is it a film that he truly loves, and will pull out the Criterion repeatedly to watch? Will he even OWN the Criterion, let alone desire to play it? Probably not.

“I watched Nomadland once, and have very little desire to do so again. I could perhaps be talked into seeing it once on a big screen…maybe. It just doesn’t particularly ring my bell. It’s well made. The performances are quite good. It just won’t be a favorite on mine, not by a long shot.

What does Nomadland want anyway? To dominate the civilized world like Genghis Khan? To color every conversation, influence fashion, colonize third-world territories, etc.?

How about a sequel? Nomadland 2: Final Van Breakdown. Alternate: Nomadland 2: Don’t Call AAA.

I’ve always had a thing for grim and drizzly weather atmospheres. The smell of Sidney Lumet rainfall on vaguely stinky Manhattan streets…no other aroma quite like it in the world. Swallows you right up.

It somehow erroneously seeped into my head years ago that on-set makeup wasn’t all that flagrant. I had assumed this because for the most part it wasn’t all that visible. Not to my eyes, at least. Wrong assumption.

“Joni in the room…not outshone, not outclassed, not intimidated in the least, not trying to please. God, I love ‘Coyote‘ — a song allegedly inspired by the attentions of Sam Shepard during the Rolling Thunder Revue. Trying to steal Joni’s chords is nearly impossible because of those maddening alternate and custom tunings. She was doing things in the 1970s that nobody else was on to. I really enjoy those weird chord shapes and progressions, which are so unique. She is an international treasure as a songwriter, guitarist and singer. Hejira is one of the finest albums ever recorded.”

— a clip from “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese,” which opened on 6.12.19 and quickly became known as a doc partially diminished by pointless play-acting bullshit.

Last night Bowen Yang played the Titanic iceberg in a surreal interview sequence with Weekend Update‘s Colin Jost. Essentially a riff on social-media egotism and 21st Century delusions of grandeur, it was, is and always will be one of the funniest, most brilliant routines performed on Saturday Night Live this century….hell, ever. Yang, 30, has been authentically touched by the right kind of madness.

Not to mention those two Carey Mulligan routines that actually worked — irritable bowel syndrome and the 19th Century seaside lesbian romance parody (which translated, whether SNL intended it or not, into a little bit of a “tough shit, Winslet…too little and too late!”).