Earlier this month I wrote that “if there’s been one steady-drumbeat message that has thundered across the Twitterverse for several weeks now, it’s that Pete Docter‘s Soul (Disney +, 12.25) is a truly exceptional animated feature…an emotional, spiritual, jazz-embroidered film so rich and resonant and full-hearted that it deserves to be in Best Picture contention.”

That, trust me, will never happen. Best Animated Feature, sure, but not Best Picture. Because I finally saw Soul last night, and despite an absolute avalanche of charm and energy and whimsical, wild-ass associations, it’s just not good enough. Too fast and busy, too scattered, too all over the place, too hyper. And because it pushes a fundamentally false or at least conflicted concept of life. And because (this is minor but significant) it tries to normalize obesity with the casting of the fattest animated cat you’ve ever seen in your life.

I knew something was up a few weeks ago when Variety‘s award-season columnist Clayton Davis, known for his extra-friendly instincts when it comes to multicultural Oscar bait, tweeted on 11.10 that he wasn’t a Soul fan.

And yet a general impression remains that Soul is a major Pixar creation with a big Oscar future. Some HE commenters have insisted that it should leap over its own category and compete for the Best Picture Oscar. (Hah!) Partly because they love the many winning aspects (heart, humanity, cleverness, abundant energy), but also because it’s about a black character and a black community.

In line with this, the critical response has been, I feel, fairly cowardly. They’re terrified of saying anything even slightly negative about such a film. And so right now Soul has a 100% RT rating and the Metacritic number is at 91%.

This morning I tapped out a spoiler-laden assessment of Soul. I realize, of course, that dozens of critics have already reviewed it at length. But please understand (repeating myself) that my remarks INCLUDE SPOILERS.

But before reading this, here’s Pixar’s boilerplate synopsis: “Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a middle school music teacher, has long dreamed of performing jazz music onstage, and finally gets a chance after impressing other jazz musicians during an opening act at the Half Note Club. However, an untimely accident causes Gardner’s soul to be separated from his body and begin to proceed to the Great Beyond.

“And yet Gardner manages to escape to the Great Before, a world where souls develop personalities, quirks, and traits before being sent off to Earth. There, Gardner must work with souls in training at the Great Before, and in particular a soul named ’22’ (Tina Fey), a pre-spectral spark with a dim view on the concept of life, in order to return to Earth before his body dies.”

I’ve just read Pauline Kael‘s nine-page Film Quarterly piece about Martin Ritt‘s Hud (“Deep In The Divided Heart of Hollywood“, Vol. 17, No, 4, Summer 1964).

Her perceptions about this brilliant (if conflicted) family melodrama are joyously spot-on. My immediate reaction was “say what you will about Kael’s occasionally skewed perceptions, but she sure saw right through this film…in fact, she saw what this film was with more clarity than the people who wrote it.”

Before reading her piece, consider a Hud riff that I posted 11 months ago. It recalled how Martin Ritt‘s 1963 classic, written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., was intended as a solemn moralistic drama about a selfish, snarly human being (Paul Newman‘s titular character), but ended up being enjoyed and even admired because of the charms of said shitheel.

The below excerpt from a 2003 conversation with Ravetch and Frank. Michigan Quarterly Review‘s William Baer explains the basics.

Baer: “Well, Hud was certainly a unique picture in many ways, but, most significantly, it dared to portray a central character who was a pure bastard, and who remained totally unredeemed and unrepentant at the end of the picture.”

Ravetch: “Yes, we sensed a change in American society back then. We felt that the country was gradually moving into a kind of self-absorption, and indulgence, and greed. Which, of course, fully blossomed in the ’80s and ’90s. So we made Hud a greedy, self-absorbed man, who ruthlessly strives for things, and gains a lot materially, but really loses everything that’s important. But he doesn’t care. He’s still unrepentant.

Frank: “In our society, there’s always been a fascination with the ‘charming’ villain, and we wanted to say that if something’s corrupt, it’s still corrupt, no matter how charming it might seem. Even if it’s Paul Newman with his beautiful blue eyes. But things didn’t work out like we planned.

Baer: “It actually backfired.”

Ravetch: “Yes, it did, and it was a terrible shock to all of us. Here’s a man who tries to rape his housekeeper, who wants to sell poisoned cattle to his neighbors, and who stops at nothing to take control of his father’s property. And all the time, he’s completely unrepentant. Then, at the first screenings, the preview cards asked the audiences, ‘Which character did you most admire?’ and many of them answered ‘Hud.’ We were completely astonished. Obviously, audiences loved Hud, and it sent us into a tailspin. The whole point of all our work on that picture was apparently undone because Paul was so charismatic.”

Here are the first three pages of Kael’s article — here’s a link to the whole thing.

In an 11.28 Brooks Barnes piece titled “Hollywood’s Obituary, the Sequel. Now Streaming,” producer-director J.J. Abrams explains the difference between movies and TV: “Television is the child and the audience is the parent. It’s smaller than you. You can control it by changing the channel. With movies, the roles are reversed. You are the small one. You’re supposed to look up at them.

“I think going to a theater is like going to church and watching a movie at home is like praying at home,” Abrams adds. “It’s not that you can’t do it. But the experience is wholly different.”

Key Barnes paragraph: “In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so fast and on so many fronts, leaving many writers, directors, studio executives, agents and other movie workers disoriented and demoralized — wandering in ‘complete darkness,’ as one longtime female producer told me.

Photo by Philip Cheung for The New York Times .

Barnes: “These are melodramatic people by nature, but talk to enough of them and you will get the strong sense that their fear is real this time.”

“Cinema as an art form is not going to die,” said Michael Shamberg, the producing force behind films like Erin Brockovich, The Big Chill and, rather appropriately, Contagion. “But the tradition of cinema that we all grew up on, falling in love with movies in a theater, is over.

“Cinema needs to be redefined so that it doesn’t matter where you see it,” Shamberg says. “A lot of people, sadly, don’t seem to be ready to admit that.”

In other words, Barnes explains, “the art may live on, but the myth of big screens as the be-all and end-all is being dismantled in a fundamental and perhaps irreversible manner.”

“No wonder Hollywood has been experiencing, as the trade newsletter The Ankler recently put it, ‘a heart attack wrapped inside a nervous breakdown.’”

posted by yours truly on 4.7.18.

When asked if he was “surprised” when Donald Trump whacked him for saying that the 2020 election “was the most secure in American history”, former cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs delivers a great reaction.

It starts at 1:07. Of course Krebs wasn’t surprised. Trump is a maniac and he knows this, so he (a) frowns slightly, (b) tilts his head and looks up, and (c) darts his eyes left and right before he says, “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised.”

The full interview airs tomorrow night on 60 Minutes.

In case you’re missing the thrust, the formerly sane Jon Voight is basically urging Trump loonies to combat the peaceful transition of Presidential power. A fair, legit election has taken place, and Voight is saying “this is a bridge too far…our country is in peril…stand with the patriots…don’t allow the murderous left to destroy a country that we love.” I’m sorry but the man is a drooling fanatic.

Sedition — inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority — is a serious felony, punishable by fines and up to 20 years in prison.

The person who shot this Twitter video (Voight himself?) got the framing all wrong. His head is way too low — too much dead space above. His eyes should be just above the middle horizon line.

Jon Voight claims “we are in great danger if we fall under a Biden administration.” pic.twitter.com/VIoYCCPNe4

— The Hill (@thehill) November 28, 2020

HE [text]: A little more than a month ago I began to feel an alien presence in my system during the pre-dawn hours — achey muscles, chills, that “uh-oh” feeling. I thought it might be Covid, but thank God it was gone by 9 am that morning. Mostly thanks to a certain genetic inheritance from my mother’s side, which I’ve learned from hard experience not to identify.

It came back again this morning at 4 am. I don’t have a high temperature or chest congestion or anything in that realm, but something definitely invaded my system in the wee hours. It’s now 4 pm and I haven’t been able to do much except sleep. Yes, it’s lingered a bit this time. Not even my glorious virus-fighting genes were able to vanquish it.

Friendo to HE: You’re feeling under the weather?
HE to friendo: I am under the weather.
Friendo to HE: You took your temperature?
HE to friendo: Yes, I did — 98.5
Friendo to HE: That’s a good sign. Sleep is the best remedy. Do you have any sleep aids?
HE to friendo: I’m sleeping just fine. I can barely stay awake.

As noted yesterday, N.Y. Times film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis have authored a sprawling essay titled “The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century (So Far)“. The piece, I wrote, is “mainly an opportunity for Tony and Manohla to demonstrate how profoundly aroused and motivated they are by the woke political winds that are currently blowing through urban culture.”

They apparently picked their faves from a woke checklist perspective…much attention paid to women and a lot less to white males (and no gay ones)…mostly a multi-cultural celebration, many shades and ethnicities (including two Koreans) plus extra-special special tributes to Keanu Reeves and Melissa McCarthy. But no love for Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Casey Affleck, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and many others.

Friendo: “Even if America were 40% white (or 85%, or 20%), we shouldn’t be rating artistic achievement based on gender and skin color. It makes sense to do that for college admissions, but not for arts criticism. ‘You gave the best performance of the year…because you’re Chinese!'”

I’ve never been much of a fan of obscure, low-budgeted, boilerplate film noirs. It’s a real oddball cult thing. I realize and respect the fact that some can’t get enough of this genre, and are always forking over for Bluray box sets, etc. This fraternity will most likely be interested in a new noir package coming on 2.15.21 from England’s Powerhouse Films — Columbia Noir #2.

One of the noirs is Joseph Newman‘s 711 Ocean Drive (’50), which until today I’d never had the slightest interest in. (I just rented it on Amazon.) Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger and Don Porter. Bookies, wire services, greedy gamblers, horse races, etc.

In any event I was surprised to notice that HE’s own Glenn Kenny provides the commentary track on the disc.

From Bosley Crowther‘s N.Y. Times review, dated 7.20.50:

“It is not the bookmaker (O’Brien) who is the villain in this film. It is the suave and elusive syndicate gangster (Kruger) who makes the poor little free-enterprise ‘bookies’ pay tribute to him. And in its illustration of this vermin, 711 Ocean Drive is no more original or revealing than 100 previous gangster films. He is the same evil fellow you have seen countless times before, and the story of his badgering of the hero is as familiar as the palm of your hand.

“The hero, whom O’Brien plays in a cocky, truculent way, is, indeed, something of a champion of the highest American ideals. All he wants to do is run his operation and make love to a syndicate gangster’s wife — a thoroughly acceptable ambition, since the latter is beautiful, fragile, well-bred Joanne Dru.

“It is Kruger as the boss of the syndicate who is the snake in the grass — he and Donald Porter as his henchman — a pair of contemptible racketeers. And the ultimate extirpation of O’Brien after a chase through Boulder Dam seems not so much a glorious triumph for law and order as a notch for the syndicate.

“In short, this little picture, conventionally written but well photographed, does no more than any gangster picture in reminding us that gangsters are crooks.”

With United jets transporting the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine to hubs starting today and the Moderna vaccine close behind, it’s been reported that actual injections of the serum could begin as soon as 12.12.20. Health workers first, and then the frail and sickly, and then your semi-sturdy old farts (70-plus) followed by 60-plussers and so on. If you’re healthy and 32 years old, you might be looking at a wait.

A few weeks ago slightly over 40% of respondents told CNN pollsters they wouldn’t be getting the vaccine — brilliant! Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will require two shots spaced 14 or 21 days apart. This will give recipients about a year’s worth of immunity, and then they’ll need to repeat the process.

HE: Wait…$40 for a large portion of garlic mashed potatoes?

Erewhon: That’s correct.

HE: But it’s just, like, mashed potatoes.

Erewhon: But with garlic and other sprinklings. It’s very good.

HE: No dish of mashed potatoes is worth $40. If I was to order a large plate of mashed potatoes at the swankiest gourmet restaurant in town, I seriously doubt they’d charge $40. $15 maybe. $20 if they wanted to be assholes. They wouldn’t dare charge $30…c’mon.

Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard has endorsed a Ben Shapiro tweet that says the film has been trashed primarily for political-cultural reasons. That’s largely true, but I also believe that Amy Adams‘ performance as J.D. Vance‘s drug-addicted, drama-queen mom is a tough element to hang with. It’s been on Netflix for over two weeks now — what’s the general verdict of the HE commentariat?

There’s no question that (a) dying is a part of life, (b) we’re all gonna get there and (c) there’s nothing like a little wit and levity to brighten our awareness of the inevitable. And yes, Dick Johnson Is Dead has ratings of 100% and 89% on RT and Metacritic, respectively.

The user scores on these aggregate sites, however, are somewhat lower — 7.4 on Metacritic, 8.1 on RT. And that’s where the real truth lies.

Never, ever trust critics when it comes to films like this. They’re not allowed to be honest about their deep-down feelings about anything, and they know it and so do readers. Which is one of the ways in which Hollywood Elsewhere is different.

I watched my father and mother approach death and deal with the physical and mental decline aspects, and they weren’t especially happy about it, I can tell you. At the very end my mother just said “fuck it” and refused to eat or even talk with me or Jett when we last visited her. She just wanted it to be over.

I’m sorry but I’d rather contemplate life and all its myriad intrigues, expectations and pitfalls than the absolute finality of “lights out and adios muchachos”. And I really, really don’t want to submit to a meditation about old-age dementia.

If a deep dive into old age is required, give me Stephen Walker and Bob Cilman‘s Young At Heart (’07). I loved this film, and so did my mom when I finally managed to show it to her.

I’m not refusing to watch Dick Johnson Is Dead. I’m actually nudging myself in that direction by the very act of writing this riff.

But at the same time I’m a bit like Terrence Stamp in The Hit — philosophically or even serenely accepting of death on a certain level, but when the proverbial John Hurt figure pulls out the gun and says “we’re gonna do it now, Willy,” my reaction would be “not now…it’s tomorrow…we have to get to Paris first…you’re not doing the job…not now!”

Keith Watson’s Slant review: “A drawback to Johnson’s deliberately gimmicky style—which includes glitzy visions of Dick in heaven surrounded by notable personages as diverse as Frederick Douglass, Sigmund Freud, and Bruce Lee—is that it doesn’t allow us to access her father as a person. We feel his warmth and his abiding love for his family, but we learn relatively little of his personal history beyond the highlights.

“Dick’s attitude toward his own death is so breezy and his relationship with Johnson so frictionless that the film can at times feel remarkably undramatic.”