For whatever reason my Apple TV mirroring system wasn’t working last night, and so I was forced to watch David Fincher‘s Mank — a film I’ve been looking forward to for many months, and particularly Eric Messerschmidt‘s silver-toned cinematography — on a 15-inch Macbook Pro. I’ve very sorry this happened. I’ve been hoping all along to catch it at a select theatrical venue of some kind (11.13), but with infections recently spiking that seems unlikely.

But at least I saw it, and for that I’m very grateful. Mank is obviously a brilliant, highly accomplished virtuoso act, and totally locked for several Oscar noms — Picture, Director (Fincher), Best Actor (Gary Oldman), Best Supporting Actress (Amanda Seyfried), Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, etc.

It hopscotches all around in a non-linear way, which of course is a tribute to the Citizen Kane scheme. I adored the use of clackety-clack scene descriptions dropping into the frame. And I loved re-hearing the line “it’s not the heat, it’s the humanity.” (Which apparently wasn’t written by Herman J. Mankiewicz but Alan Jay Lerner for Brigadoon.)

Mank is a very fine exercise in smarthouse entertainment. The nutritional value of the dialogue alone (written by Fincher’s late dad, Jack, in the mid ’90s, and then rewritten by his son and Eric Roth) should not be under-celebrated. Altogether the film didn’t quite levitate me off the ground, it did put me into a kind of subdued swoon mode — a certain form of aesthetic rapture that leaves you quietly stirred and pacified. That’s a fairly rare thing.

What’s the basic Mank arc? Basically that even for a self-destructive boozer like Herman J. Mankiewicz, life took a turn for the better when Orson Welles came calling. And that despite the political intrigues and whatnot, things worked out very nicely for an all-too-brief period. And at the end of the path came a Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

Boozing issues aside, Mank is depicted in each and every scene as a humanist and a good guy — a man who sides with the weak and unlucky, with the less fortunate and downtrodden. He’s good company.

Oldman is wonderful. I was initially not looking forward to spending over two hours with a pot-bellied drunk, and the fact that he looks like a bloated 62 year old rather than a plump, dessicated 43 year-old didn’t thrill me. But Oldman’s charm and particularly that thin, raspy little voice tossing off one witticism after another…he simply won me over. I just fell for the whirling patter and verbal derring-do.

It would be wonderful if Mank winds up winning the Best Picture Oscar. HE personally approves of this scenario. And yet even the staunchest admirers will have to admit it’s not exactly audience-friendly in the buttered-popcorn sense of that term. Unless, of course, sharp direction, whipsmart writing, superb production design and immaculate performances top to bottom get to you on a primal level. (As they do me.) In which case Mank is about as audience friendly as a classic Hollywood film could possibly be.

First and foremost Mank has been made by and for film monks — smartypants types, devotional cineastes, those with a general sense of X-factor sophistication. That probably leaves out a certain portion of the community who will bestow earnest praise for its technical accomplishments. We all know what that means.

Mank is not just about the writing of the Citizen Kane script, which the film definitely credits Mankiewicz with the lion’s share of the credit. Welles pruned and streamlined, it says, and of course directed the film magnificently.

Earlier today an industry pally asked if I’d be weighing in on Jodie Turner Smith playing Anne Boleyn. I shrugged and muttered to myself, “What’s the point?” Then a producer chum wrote about this and urged “just ignore it…it probably won’t work anyway.”

This may come as a shock to some, but there used to be a kind of standardized approach when it came to making historical films. The idea (and I know it sounds eccentric by today’s standards) was that depictions of this or that era would strive not just for historical accuracy in the usual ways but (are you sitting down?) to some extent culturally, atmospherically and psychologically exotic. That is to say different from our own. And when I say “different,” I mean insufficiently evolved.

There’s no avoiding what might be called the projection syndrome, or depicting historical realms so they resonãte with contemporary audiences. No historical film has ever been purely submissive to recorded history. Hollywood’s been allowing present-tense attitudes to seep into historical flicks for over a century now. But once upon a time certain aspiring filmmakers used to at least try to convince you that characters in their films probably looked and talked like their real-life counterparts did back in the day.

I’m not talking about Michael Curtiz‘s Robin Hood or Richard Thorpe‘s phoney-baloney Ivanhoe, of course, or Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Sign of the Cross or Samson and Delilah or Rudolph Mate‘s The Black Shield of Falworth or Dick Powell‘s The Conqueror, all of which were applications of broadly winking kitsch.

But some films have at least appeared to try for seemingly realistic presentations of this or that historical time period. Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon (’75), for one. Or Fred Zinneman‘s A Man For All Seasons. Or Philip Borsos‘ The Grey Fox (’82).

Recent exceptions like The Favourite aside, the Kubrick approach has pretty much been thrown out the window. Multicultural, color-blind, Hamilton-styled casting has been embedded for the last five or six years now, and for the most part there’s just no interest in doing anything other than to re-imagine history according to current standards and aspirations.

The main idea is to not just recreate history but progressively correct it, and thereby make things safe for future generations.

Plus the style of acting (i.e., behaving) and speaking in whatever role and by whichever actor is all 21st Century these days. Very few, it seems, will even attempt to sound “period”, and those that do don’t have the chops to make it work. I’m happy to say Ethan Hawke is not one of them. The other night I finally caught episode #1 of Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird, and his John Brown is worth the price.

I knew that Michael Mann‘s Last of the Mohicans had been given a certain cultural spin, but the historical authority was brilliant and Daniel Day Lewis Hawkeye was magnificent. Did the actual Marcus Brutus look and sound at all like James Mason in Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s Julius Caesar? Highly doubtful, but I bought the performance for the skill and discipline that Mason deployed. Did Henry II sound like Peter O’Toole‘s versions in Becket and The Lion in Winter? Perhaps Probably not, but there was no trouble believing that O’Toole had immersed himself in Jean Anouilh and 12th Century England and obtained a certain command of the realm.

That kind of RADA + force-of-personality command is hard to come by these days. All I know is that I’m feeling a kind of instinctual, across-the-board dismissal of any historical film directed, written by and/or starring Millennials or Zoomers. Because I know going in that I won’t believe it.

“Hunter Biden is a fallen man at this point. I knew Hunter Biden fairly well. We lived near each other in Washington for quite some time. And his wife, who’s an absolutely outstanding person…a good person. I never thought Hunter Biden was a bad person. I thought he had demons, but [during] the time I knew him he kept them mostly under control. At some point he lost control of those demons, and the world knows that now. He’s now humiliated and alone. It’s probably too strong to say that I feel sorry for Hunter Biden, but the point is [this]: Pounding on a man…jumping on, piling on when he’s already down is something we don’t want to be involved in.” — Tucker Carlson last night.

Tucker Carlson, who has spent the past two weeks obsessing on the Hunter Biden emails, now says it’s time to leave Hunter alone:

“The point is pounding on a man, jumping on, and piling on when he’s already down is not something we want to be involved in.” pic.twitter.com/25bwCBiSiN

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 30, 2020

I’d like to share a few words about one of my favorite Soviet films, Vladimir Bortko‘s Heart of a Dog (’88). I will also try to explain you what Russian Intelligentsia means.

The film is based on Mikhail Bulgakov‘s same-titled novella, which was written in 1925. But the manuscript was confiscated during a search in the apartment. Bulgakov became a persona non grata among the Bolsheviks for his critical views of the perversions of power and his commitment to Tsarist Russia. “Heart of a Dog” was published in English in 1968, and wasn’t published in the Soviet Union until 1987.

I read the book in 1988 and watched the film a year later. It was one of the rare occasions when a book and a film using the same material seemed equally accomplished.

“Heart of a Dog” is a philosophical and satirical work in which the author reflects on bolshevism, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie and human nature.

I re-watched Bortko’s film yesterday, and was reminded that one can repeatedly watch deep and powerful films and discover something new with each viewing.

The setting is 1924 Moscow. A frosty winter. A homeless dog, Sharik, wanders around in search of food. Men beat him with sticks, douse him with boiling water, chased him from everywhere. But one day Sharik meets Professor Preobrazhensky, who takes him to his place.

Preobrazhensky is a world-class scientist. Together with his assistant Bormenthal, he transplants hypophysis and seminal glands from a criminal guy (who was killed in an accident) into Sharik’s body. The dog gradually turns into a human. The sensational news instantly spreads across Moscow and brings the professor another portion of recognition.

However, the joy turns out to be short-lived, and very soon Professor Preobrazhensky comes to regret his scientific experiment. For after all, the ignorant Sharikov turns their life into a living hell.

Using Sharikov’s example, we observe what happens to a Russian person when he suddenly becomes a Soviet person. He throws his strength and devotion to following imposed ideas. But are they close to him?

Click here for remainder of column at tatiana-pravda.

I’ve come up with three potential names for that paywalled personal advice column that I mentioned the other day. Personal advice in the way of love, travel, God, drugs. alcohol and misbegotten relationships. The first concept was a dull cliche — HE’s True Confessions. The second was a Howard Beale riff — HE’s I’ve Just Run Out of Bullshit. The third was inspired by Phil Collins — HE’s I Don’t Care Any More.

I agree with the alleged Facebook/Twitter suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop corruption story, whatever that may actually amount to. I don’t give a damn about Hunter’s alleged ickiness and neither does anyone else. Joe is the guy on the ticket, right? And not Hunter?

Will it come to light one day that Joe is faintly or moderately corrupt in some Ukraine- or China-related way? Maybe, and right now nobody gives a shit. The Hunter thing is a desperate, last-minute attempt to generate a Trump surge in the polls, and it’s not working.

Matt Taibbi has written that “attempts to squelch information about a New York Post story may prove to be more dangerous corruption than whatever Hunter Biden did with a crooked Ukrainian energy company.” Really? I don’t think so, and neither does anyone else.

Glenn Greenwald, who would love to spill battery acid on the Biden campaign, has quit The Intercept because “the news website he helped found [has] refused to publish an article he wrote on Biden unless he removed sections that were critical of the Democratic presidential nominee.” Good!

Agreed — Hunter Biden is/was a bad egg (or at least a formerly drug-addicted one) who profited from his father’s name and power and connections. This or that sundry maneuver (possibly revealed or alluded to on the infamous Hunter Biden laptops), and a lotta Ukrainian or Chinese dough in the mix.

All-too-standard stuff when it comes to problematic sons and daughters of famous wealthy guys. Icky, corrupt, not cool or admirable, etc. It doesn’t always come with the territory, but if often does.

So that’s one significant uh-oh on Biden’s side of the ledger. One.

How many Hunter Biden-level corruptions and worse (i.e., as in much, MUCH worse) are on Trump’s side of the ledger? Two or three dozen? Two or three hundred? The rank crimes and corruptions of Orange Plague are piled so much higher and are spread is so many different waya…the man’s lies and deceptions and shady deals aren’t just countless but breathtaking, and seemingly without end. C’mon, man!

On top of which the alleged odiousness of Hunter’s shenanigans have been roundly dismissed or at least deemed highly suspicious. Anyone can find the links, if they want to read the arguments.

Trump corruption stink bombs: 147 and counting.
Biden corruption stink bombs: 1.

As a friend says, “Even given that the Hunter Biden story is legitimate and should not be censored by the woke media, whatever transgressions did occur, in terms of what Joe Biden did, pale a thousand times next to the myriad documented transgressions of our president.

“Yes, the media, in recent weeks, has tried to bury the Hunter Biden story, along with QAnon and other things (and for the record: I’m not for burying any of that), but the contrast with Trump is the real story here.

“If Biden’s (lone) transgression matters so damn much, then why don’t Trump’s hundreds of transgressions matter more?”

HE to Journo Pally: You know what’s going on out there. You know how p.c. knee-jerk spitballing is baked into the default mindset of at least some Gold Derby handicappers. That or they’ve been terrorized into thinking that way. I talk about possibly gathering together an alternative attitude fraternity that might not fall into line with quite the same willingness and p.c. obsequiousness, and you put me down for that?

Journo Pally to HE: If you were a driver heading into the wrong lane of the Malibu Canyon tunnel, I’d stop you. If you were a neighbor whose house was on fire, I’d hand you the water hose. If you reported to me at [a publication], I’d steer you toward writing about film and television…writing that called upon your vast reservoir of knowledge, your passion, intellect, savvy — and away from your darker impulses.

There’s a way to have fun, serve your readers and steer a sober, responsible business course. There are ways for you to embrace the changes of our times, to highlight the incredible talents in every creative category of filmmaking, celebrate filmmakers from around the world and in every corner of our country. That’s a much better use of your time and a much better business strategy than [your] Straight Shooters idea.

You wrote a column a while back about reflecting on your life, your feelings, about turning over a new leaf. Do that. Lay down your weary tune. Turn on your love light. Get with the program.

HE to Journo Pally: Wow, thanks. I agree with the positive thrust of the message, but — don’t take this the wrong way — you also sound a bit like Dr. Kauffman trying to persuade Kevin McCarthy‘s “Miles” to relax and let the seed pods take over.

Dr. Kauffman: Less than a month ago, West Hollywood was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then out of the progressive community came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life.
Miles: So that’s how it began…out of the sky.
Dr. Kauffman: Your new bodies are growing in there. They’re taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you’re asleep, they’ll absorb your minds, your memories and you’ll be reborn into a simpler, purer world.
Miles: Where everyone’s a wokester?
Dr. Kauffman: Exactly. If you give in, tomorrow you’ll be one of us, and you can become the new Perri Nemiroff. You’ll be happier. You’ll smile all the time.
Miles: I love films by Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Will I feel the same tomorrow?
Dr. Kauffman: [shakes his head] There will be no more need for Allen or Polanski or any other artist who hasn’t accepted the new reality.
Miles: No more watching J’Accuse or Rosemary’s Baby or The Pianist? No more Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Dr. Kauffman: You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me, it isn’t. We’ve all seen their films. They never last. They never do. Sardonic wit. Love and desire. Intrigue. Betrayal and facing evil. Without their films, life will be so much simpler, believe me.
Miles: You’re basically saying I need to stop fighting the idea that if I wasn’t a huge fan of Little Women, I’m a sexist who doesn’t get it.
Dr. Kauffman: Miles, if you didn’t like Little Women you are a sexist who doesn’t get it. Don’t you understand that?
Miles: I don’t want any part of it.
Dr. Kauffman: You’re forgetting something, Miles.
Miles: What’s that?
Dr. Kauffman: You have no choice.

Yeshua of Nazareth: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (aka “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”)
God to Yeshua: “Don’t take it personally, bruh. I’m not forsaking you. I’m just dealing impartial cosmic cards. Table stakes. It happens. Roll with the punches.”

Chance Browne, a renowned Fairfield County cartoonist and musician as well as an HE friend for decades, is the son of the late Dik Browne, who created two hugely popular comic strips, Hi and Lois and Hagar the Horrible. Chance recently noted with some pride that a legendary Hagar illustration sits on Joe Biden’s desk

Chance: “In Joe Biden’s 2017 memoir (‘Promise Me, Dad‘) he writes that his father gave him the ‘Why Me? Why Not?’ Hagar the Horrible comic strip as an inspiration to get him through some tough times. It’s been on his desk for 25 years now.

“The day after Joe selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate, a photo appeared online of Biden FaceTiming with Harris. Right behind his laptop the ‘why not?’ Hagar strip can be seen in a gold frame.

“The day was August 11, which was my Dad’s birthday. I know that he and my mom would have been so proud to have our lovable Viking be inspirational to the man who will work to save our country from [toxic Trumpism].”

HE response: “Love the Biden endorsement factor, although I’m still not fully understanding the meaning of ‘why me? Why not?’ Or maybe I do understand it and it’s bringing me down.

“The thought seems to be ‘why am I so unlucky or why does everything happen to me or why am I going through such a hard time?’ And the cosmic response is ‘why not? Some people are unlucky or destined to endure a difficult path. We all know life is unfair and that God randomly decides who will suffer and who won’t so don’t fight it…just roll with the fact that your life is going to involve a fair amount of suffering, not because you’re a bad person but because you drew an unlucky lottery number.’

“What I don’t understand is, how was this message comforting to Joe Biden? How did an awareness of the cold and brusque impartiality of fate get him through some of his rough patches?”

Earlier today Rory h asked “what’s the absolute worst film to get a Best Picture nomination since the category was expanded? Extra points for picking one that isn’t Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Forget Rory’s perimeters — what were the least and most deserving Best Picture nominees in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012?

Least Deserving 2009 Best Picture Nominees: Precious, Based On The Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire and Inglourious Basterds.
Most Deserving 2009 Best Picture Nominees: The Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, Avatar, An Education, Up In The Air.

Least Deserving 2010 Best Picture Nominees: Toy Story 3, The King’s Speech, Inception, 127 Hours.
Most Deserving 2010 Best Picture Nominees: The Social Network, Black Swan, The Kids Are All Right.

Least Deserving 2011 Best Picture Nominees: The Artist, War Horse, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Hugo, The Help.
Most Deserving 2011 Best Picture Nominees: Moneyball, The Descendants, Midnight in Paris.

Least Deserving 2012 Best Picture Nominees: Life of Pi, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Lincoln.
Most Deserving 2012 Best Picture Nominees: Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Just a reminder that Adam Wingard‘s Godzilla vs. Kong, which wrapped almost a full year before the pandemic enfolded everything and everyone last March, is still planning to open on 5.21.21. Pic stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Jessica Henwick, Julian Dennison, Kyle Chandler and Demián Bichir.

Then again Dr. Fauci said today that the world probably won’t be achieving a semblance of normal until 2022. The U.S. will have a vaccine in the next few months, he said, but there’s a chance a “substantial proportion of the people” won’t be vaccinated until the second or third quarter of 2021. Remember last spring (i.e., “the good old days”) when everyone was saying the pandemic probably wouldn’t start to lift until the late fall of ’20?

On the set of 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, director Ishirō Honda confers with Shoichi Hirose (guy inside Kong suit) and Haruo Nakajima (guy inside Godzilla suit).

So Neo’s wearing a tennisball cut in Lana Wachowski‘s currently filming The Matrix 4. I realize I’ve never conveyed anything in the way of specific, adult-level reasoning, but there’s just something about a tennisball coif that rubs me the wrong way. Part of my concern in this instance is the fact that Keanu Reeves‘ follicles are a little too sparse.

And why make another Matrix movie at all? After the dual debacles of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, which opened and collapsed 17 years ago to moans of regret and embarassment, where’s the honor in dredging it all up again? What are the odds that the newbie restores even a fraction of the mystique of the original The Matrix, which opened on 3.31.99? I’ll never forget catching it for the first time at a commercial screening at the Beverly Connection plex. I came out levitating.

Keanu Reeves was 33 or 34 when The Matrix was filmed in ’98. The film suggested that he was 25 or 26, somewhere in that realm. Neo would therefore be in his mid 40s in The Matrix 4. I’ll allow that Reeves appears to be in fairly good shape these days. He’s lost that beefiness that he’s been sporting in the John Wick films. But he’s kept the scraggly whiskers.

Project Ice Cream began principal photography in San Francisco on 2.4.20. Shooting was halted on 3.16.20 due to Covid. Shooting resumed in Berlin sometime last August. The Matrix 4 is expected to open on 12.22.21.

There’s a movement afoot to launch a contra-Gold Derby Oscar Prediction chart, called Straight Shooters. The idea is to spitball the Oscars without the wokester filter — to resist the political stuff (or at least not to bow down in a kneejerk fashion), and to adopt a grounded and sensible ars gratia artis perspective.

Which would mean what exactly? Well, Straight Shooter members wouldn’t necessarily celebrate a film solely because it embraces POC, LGBTQ or woke female perspectives, although they might. Nor would they necessarily discount a film by an older white director or a performance by an older white actor or a film with a white-centric focus in general (i.e., Mank).

In a perfect incarnation, Straight Shooters would be about keeping wokester politics out of it, and letting the pure love of great films and exceptional film technique and world-class acting shine through.

People who may deserve to be Oscar-nominated wouldn’t be nominated strictly because of their ethnicity or gender or sexual identity. Or not be nominated for same. They would hopefully be championed or promoted because they’ve done excellent work. No one should be necessarily celebrated because of an absence of alignment with progressive causes, but at the same time a certain political ingredient or metaphor needn’t be a problem or an obstruction.

It could well turn out that most of the Straight Shooters might project Nomadland to win the Best Picture Oscar and Chloe Zhao to win Best Director. (As I currently am.) But they wouldn’t be required to support same because of Nomadland‘s subject or Zhao’s gender and ethnicity.

Straight Shooters would represent a symbolic unlocking of the handcuffs, and throwing off the politically correct ball and chain. People would be free to support who they want to support regardless of whatever p.c. points are involved. These estimations may in some instances (and perhaps more than a few) align with the predictable Oscar preferences of certain parties. Or not.

The point would be to judge films and performances as if it was 1988 or 1997 or 2005 or 2009 or 2014…to assess the best and the brightness without the demands or requirements of political correctness mucking everything up.

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“The under-40 crowd has invested Race, Gender and Sexuality with a kind of cosmic significance. It doesn’t mean a lot to them — it means everything to them. Indeed, much of their conversation and writing seems to always come back to it.” — from “New Academy Kidz Aren’t Concerned With Whole Equation”, posted on 2.26.18.