Word around the campfire sez that Cannes Film Festival honcho Thierry Fremaux doesn’t like the idea of a masked festival starting on Tuesday, July 6. He doesn’t want to half-ass it — Fremaux wants a classic event in which everyone can relax and breathe openly and be human beings while dressed in sweaters and scarves.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, who has some kind of pipeline going with a French guy who hears things, reports that Fremaux is mulling the idea of bumping Cannes all the way into October. Maybe. He couldn’t do it concurrent with the big September festivals so he’d have to choose October.

The thinking (please stop me if I’m wrong) is that if worldwide vaccinations proceed at a good pace then maybe things could get back to normal in, say, six or seven months time. Maybe. Right now, as I’m sure most of you agree, the July 6th date (less than five months henceforth) is probably too soon. I don’t think we’ll REALLY be in the clear until the spring of ’22. At best.

If this turns out to be true, I’m very, VERY sorry about Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch and Leos Carax‘s Annette once again getting the shaft end of the stick and having to recalculate strategies. If this happens, of course. I know nothing for a fact.

Ruimy #1, posted on 1.18.21: “I reported in January that the Cannes Film Festival was very serious in eyeing a September/October event this year. It turns out the intel was accurate.”

Ruimy #2: “It seems as though the head honcho of the biggest and most important film festival in the world isn’t opposed to moving the event into the fall. [This] would have to do with Fremaux not being a fan of experiencing a ‘middle ground’ version of the festival. Meaning, he wants Cannes 2021 to be without masks or other PPE. And if that’s the case where France requires that people wore masks at large public events, then he’d rather just wait it out saying, ‘The middle ground is the worst.'”

Ruimy #3: “A Cannes that happens after Venice, Telluride, Toronto and potentially NYFF would throw everything out of whack.”

Uptown film festival veteran: “I’ve long suspected that launching Cannes ’21 on July 6th was a pipe dream. It felt weird and wrong that Thierry would even try it. But the fall? Maybe he will meld it with his Lyon thing?”

Posted on 1.27.21.

I’ve seen and admired Nick Jarecki‘s Crisis (Quiver, 2.26), a skillfully wrought, multi-charactered, Traffic-like drama about the intrigues and ravages of the opioid epidemic. It began shooting roughly two years ago, and was ready to roll out by early ’20, or roughly a year ago.

I don’t know how it would have fared critically or commercially if the pandemic hadn’t hit, but I know two things. One, Crisis (originally called Dreamland) deserves everyone’s respect, and two, it doesn’t deserve to contend with so much as a single bad Armie Hammer joke.

As Jake Kelly, an undercover double agent dealking with users and sellers and basically in quicksand up to his neck, Hammer delivers a steady, no-frills performance. He doesn’t try to do anything the cute or charismatic way. Crisis is a complex ensemble piece, but at the same time as lean and trim as anyone could imagine, and trouper-wise Hammer fits right in. He holds back.

Not once during my viewing did I think about Hammer’s recent travails. Okay, I did think about them but mostly I was muttering “this is what good cinema does…it brings you in and shuts the world out….nice deal.”

I was also thinking that whatever Hammer might have gotten wrong in terms of excessive zeal or showing a lack of sensitivity or consideration for this or that B&D partner, his troubles are his own turf’s. No overlap, leave it alone.

The same consideration should, of course, be given to the other two Hammer films opening this year — Kenneth Branagh‘s Death on the Nile (20th Century, 9.17) and Taika Waititi Next Goal Wins, which will probably “open” during the ’21 and early ’22 award season.

“After all, I was there — in the house, in the room — and I know both my father and mother and what each is capable of a whole lot better than you.” — from Moses Farrow‘s “A Son Speaks Out,” 5.23.18.

And yet Allen v. Farrow (HBO Max, 2.21) suggests that perhaps Moses wasn’t in Frog Hollow that day, or that he wasn’t around much or was off walking or sulking. The doc focuses hard on Moses in episode #4 and does what it can to discredit him. I can’t recall precisely if the contrary information is offered in episode #3 or episode #4, but it arrives when the doc quotes Woody Allen‘s testimony in the 1993 Judge Wilk child custody case.

Although the doc doesn’t excerpt any passages from “A Son Speaks Out“, it passes along a Moses statement about his being at the house and seeing this or that, and then it flashes a statement on the screen: “Allen, during his testimony [at Judge Wilk’s custody hearing], said Moses “was nowhere to be seen” that day, or words to that effect. (I wish I had frame-captured this — my bad.)

And yet at the beginning of his essay Moses writes that he “was present for everything that transpired in our house before, during, and after the alleged event.”

If, like me, you dismiss a notion that Moses was lying when he wrote that he was there “before, durng and after”, it sounds as if Allen v. Farrow directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering are being dishonest on this particular point, at least as far as blowing smoke up viewers’ asses is concerned.

I’m especially bothered — flummoxed is a better word — by the “train set in the attic” thing. Dylan said the train was choo-chooing around the attic — the actual quote is “circling around the attic” — during the alleged assault. In episode #4 an undated Connecticut police drawing (or “schematic”) of the attic crawl space shows a circular (or oblong-shaped) train track of some kind, but why not a photo? Why wasn’t it dated? Who’s the artist?

Moses, on the other hand, wrote flat-out that there was no train set in the attic — period. (He said an electric train set was actually in a first-floor converted garage playroom that the boys used.) Why is this unresolved in the doc? Why didn’t Dylan mention a train set in her earlier statements? Why didn’t the doc drill down and clear this up one way or the other? Who drew the schematic?

Undated police-issued drawing of Frog Hollow attic crawl space, presented in episode #4 of Allen v. Farrow.

Here’s the link.

This is a terrible, terrible ending….”that really sucks, lady!” But a little riff by Esquire‘s Anna Grace Lee kinda blows too.

The first snafu is the headline — “An Alternate Titanic Ending Has Been Revealed and Boy, Did They Dodge a Bullet.” The alternate ending was actually posted on YouTube seven and a half years ago — 9.27.13.

And then Lee describes the last shot as follows: “And then we watch the epic transformation of the dark ruins into the vibrant vision that was the ship before disaster, where all the passengers greet young Rose as she reunites with Jack.”

Yeah, true, except what we’re actually seeing is Rose being greeted by dead people (characters who knew Rose before going down with the ship) as she enters a dreamscape version of the first-class grand salon.”

What makes this fantasy scene perfect is that it’s a musical number from a stage production of Carousel sans melody, especially with Leonardo DiCaprio waiting atop the staircase and facing the grand clock. And because it confirms what we all want to believe, that upon the moment of death we’ll be greeted by friends and family as we return to some form of life eternal, and with white light streaming in.

“What do you…Rita! how are you!…Bob, how do you explain that lifeless Alexander The Great flick with Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Fredric March? I mean, that movie just laid there like an uncooked, unseasoned filet of flounder. You need to jump into something, man…I don’t know, some kind of intense, contemporary, character-driven thing. Something about pool sharks or street gangs, something loose and jazzy and French New Wavey…”

Last night I marathoned through all four episodes of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering‘s Allen v. Farrow (HBO Max, 2.21.). Speaking as a longtime Woody Allen admirer and defender, I found it unsettling, more than a little disturbing and, I regret to say, a half–persuasive hit job. I was impressed with the chops, the craft and the sculpting, but I took notes as I watched and here’s a sampling:

“This is a hit job, probing but selectively so…a one-sided presentation, a stacked deck…Mia’s tale is so sanitized, so chaste…beware the perverted monster…I have to admit that it feels creepy…’smothering energy, suffocating closeness‘….Woody was clearly too invested in an emotionally intense, overly touchy relationship with Dylan…directions on how to suck his thumb?…this is so FOUL…give me a break!…so the Yale-New Haven investigators were determined to exonerate Woody?…why would they go to such lengths to distort?…why would they destroy their notes?…Paul Williams was muzzled?…what about the three kids who died under Mia’s care, two of them by suicide?…this is very bad for Woody but at the same time it’s not an open book, warts–and–all approach…the doc is totally in the tank for the Mia narrative.”

All through the first three hours (the fourth is mostly wrap-up) I was…be honest…quietly horrified. A pit of my stomach feeling that began to spread into my spleen. A terrible sensation. As in “oh, no…”

For 29 years I never realized (and nobody ever told me) that Soon-Yi is pronounced Soon-EEE, not Soon-YEE. Five words: “Jeff, the ‘Y’ is silent.”

Allen v. Farrow is a hit job, all right, but at the same time I was persuaded that what was being presented was honest as far as it went. The doc DOES lie by omission quite a lot, but I was also persuaded that the overly intense affection that Woody exhibited for Dylan was wrong. I could feel it. Diseased. Not right.

Then again Showbiz411‘s Roger Friedman might have had a point when he wrote that someone needs to give Mia a special Oscar for the performance of her life.

I just can’t understand Moses Farrow and his 5.23.18 “A Son Speaks Out” essay. What he wrote doesn’t square AT ALL with the Mia, Kirby & Amy narrative that sank into my system last night. So who’s lying? Mia is obviously lying by omission, but so, it seems (what else am I to think?), is Moses apparently, and I feel so angry about the possibility that he might’ve led me down the garden path.

What kind of diseased dysfunction would goad Moses into blowing that much smoke? How could he write what he wrote and not mean it? I’m almost beside myself with fury.

Moses’ essay, after all, has been the cornerstone of my belief in Woody’s presumed innocence for three years now.

And really…how is it that in all of his 85 years Woody never ONCE violated or over-stepped with anyone else? It’s so baffling. One single five-minute horror episode that happened on 8.4.92 when he was 57 years old, and the rest of his life is essentially spotless. My understanding of human behavior argues with what I saw last night. At the same time there was that awful feeling…

How in God’s name did those nannies let Woody take Dylan away like that? They had been put on HIGH ALERT, for God’s sake. “Don’t let him be alone with her,” they were told. He clearly had what seemed like pervy or at the very least inappropriate inclinations, etc. What kind of sociopath nanny would let Dylan go off with him? They looked for Woody and Dylan for 20 minutes and couldn’t find them? Frog Hollow isn’t that big.

I just took Clayton Davis‘s “How To Avoid Being Too Much of a White Person When You Vote for Year-End Awards” quiz. The idea is to check off all the current award-seeking films that (a) meet the Academy’s forthcoming diversity requirements, and (b) fall under the categories of Representative (20), LGBTQ (10), Taboo Issues (5), Disabilities (5) and Women Filmmakers (15). One point per film. 55 points total.

Clayton’s minimum passing score is 30. I got a 29. 16 out of 20 “Representative” films. Big fail on LGBTQs, 3 out of 5 “taboos”, etc. I pledge to do better in ’21.

Clayton statement #1: “It’s important to say what this form is NOT. It is not a demand that you vote for these films. It is not a guide for a diversity quota so more people of color are represented in the film industry. It is not a document made to make a voter feel guilty about liking Green Book more than Roma or preferring Crash to Brokeback Mountain.” [HE comment: In 2018 and early ’19 there was definitely a coordinated campaign to shame and belittle fans of Green Book — it won the Best Picture Oscar anyway.]

Clayton statement #2: “It’s deeply believed that if industry voters have enough films of diverse and inclusive voices, there will never be a need for any quota or mandate, as people fear or suggest. To go further, Hollywood executives and producers will see the return on those investments with box receipts. Films like Lee Daniels’ The Butler ($116 million) and Get Out ($176 million) were smash hits with modest budgets, with the latter winning an Academy Award for best original screenplay (Jordan Peele).”

2020 films that are vaguely or mostly Anglo-favoring, non-representative, non-LGBTQ, non-taboo, etc.: Underwater, Dolittle, The Gentlemen, The Last Full Measure, The Rhythm Section, Birds of Prey, The Lodge, Horse Girl, Fantasy Island, Downhill, The Last Thing He Wanted, The Night Clerk, The Invisible Man, The Way Back, The Burnt Orange Heresy, Swallow, The Hunt, Lost Girls, The Roads Not Taken, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Resistance, The Main Event, Extraction, Bad Education, The Wretched, Capone, Blood and Money, The Lovebirds, Artemis Fowl, The King of Staten Island, You Should Have Left, Irresistible, Greyhound, Palm Springs, An American Pickle, Waiting for the Barbarians, Tesla, Bill & Ted Face the Music, I’m Thinking of Ending Things , The Devil All the Time, The Nest, Blackbird, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Kajillionaire, The Boys in the Band, On the Rocks, The War with Grandpa, A Rainy Day in New York, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Jungleland, Let Him Go, Hillbilly Elegy, Mank, Dreamland, Sound of Metal, The Christmas Chronicles 2, Uncle Frank, The Prom, Let Them All Talk, Wonder Woman 1984, News of the World, Promising Young Woman, Pieces of a Woman.

When your constituents are suffering from a lack of electricity during extremely cold temperatures, only a stone sociopath Senator would fly to Cancun in order to bask in mid ’80s heat. It doesn’t matter what Ted Cruz‘s administrative abilities may have been to help alleviate the situation. Winging off to Mexico at the height of a major disaster is comically atrocious theatre.

It’s basically a rightwing thing — the world is for the few — some are able to climb to the top but most struggle in the middle and many slide to the bottom….that’s life!

Truth-Serum Cruz: “I happen to be one of the few creme de la creme types with the option to escape this Arctic nightmare. What do you want me to do, hand out free blankets and extra underwear off the back of a truck? Hand out free hot coffee? If you don’t like the fact that I’m in Cancun, tough shit. Try and vote me out if you can, but let me tell you something — the dumbshits who support me like the fact that I’m chlllin’ in Cancun. Because they’d like to be here with me.”

Directed and written by Melville Shavelson and starring Charlton Heston and Harry Guardino, The Pigeon That Took Rome (6.20.62) is a comedy set in the final days of World War II. Don’t forget that Rome was captured by the Allies on 6.4.44.

“In 1944, during the last stages of the war in Europe, American officers Paul MacDougall (Heston) and Joseph Angelico (Guardino) are sent to Rome to act as spies for the Allies, even though they have no experience in espionage. Working with Partisan resistance soldier Ciccio Massimo (Salvatore Baccaloni), MacDougall and Contini send regular reports to their superiors by carrier pigeon.

“Angelico also finds himself falling in love with Massimo’s pregnant daughter Rosalba (Gabriella Pallotta), while her sister Antonella (Elsa Martinelli) has her eye on MacDougall. Angelico proposes to Rosalba, and Ciccio prepares a feast to celebrate his daughter’s upcoming wedding. However, Ciccio prepares squab for the occasion, killing all but one of the carrier pigeons. Ciccio scrambles to replace them, but the new pigeons he finds are German, and they deliver MacDougall’s and Angelico’s messages directly into enemy hands, creating new confusion.”

…you’re basically telling the audience, “Okay, guys…time to grim up and grapple with those uh-oh Jesse Plemons vibes. One look at that kisser and it’s like “okay, here we go.”

Plemons was just cast by Martin Scorsese in a major role in Killers of the Flower Moon, as a top-dog FBI agent investigating a string of murders of Native Americans in 1920’s Oklahoma. Plemons can be best described, no offense, as (a) a funny-looking Matt Damon, (b) a creepy looking Matt Damon with a drug problem or (c) a space-aliens version of Matt Damon after being kidnapped 40 years ago and just returned to earth except he hasn’t aged a day — kidnapped at 45, still looks 45.

You can’t go wrong with Plemons…those demon eyes, that copper-meets-carrot cake hair.

I love the “big smelly fish in the back seat of the maroon-colored sedan” scene in The Irishman. Plemons played Chuckie “dumb shit” O’Brien. Questioned about what kind of fish has stunk the car up, Plemons is too dumb to simply say “look, a friend of mine ordered it…I just picked it up.” Instead he prolongs it, fucks around, refuses to tell the guy that it’ wasn’t his fish. O’Brien was also too dumb to put the fish into a bucket of ice and then put it in the trunk. Instead he wraps it up in newspaper and then places it on the back seat, and smells the whole car up.

…for all those millions of Midwesterners and particularly suffering Texans who are all but freezing to death as we speak, I’m sorry. I hate extreme cold — the kind of windy cold that sometimes descends upon Boston and Chicago around thus time of year. 26 degrees in Austin, 18 degrees in Park City, etc.

CBS News: “A Texas mayor resigned after seemingly telling residents to fend for themselves in a Facebook post amid a deadly and record-breaking winter storm that left much of the state without power Tuesday. ‘No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Body said on Facebook. “Nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim — it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and fired of people looking for a damn handout.”