“Oppenheimer was very good but EXTREMELY DENSE, and it’s kind of crazy how even though the movie was three hours long it felt like they didn’t have any spare time to add some expositional photography or moments of silence, except for the Trinity bomb test scene.

“Trinity aside it was pretty much a never ending chain of dialogue scenes. If they added some breathing room it could have been a solid miniseries but then it wouldn’t be on a big IMAX screen, which was nice but not 100% necessary. And honestly? The Trinity explosion seemed a tiny bit understated.

“So it’s good, yes, but something you really need to prepare yourself for mentally and physically.

“I could have used a more comfortable theatre chair, all things considered.”

Nobody knows why Sinead O’Connor has left this mortal coil at age 56, but there are indications that the legendary singer-songwriter, deeply depressed over the January 2022 suicide of her 17-year-old son Shane, may have taken her life over same.

I’m very, very sorry about this sudden tragedy. No one on planet earth ever quite compared with Sinead, particularly during her eight-year heyday between the mid ‘80s and early ‘90s. She was an Irish banshee genius of the absolute highest order.

“Sinead O’Connor’s Beautiful Scream,” posted on 1.28.22:

A 7.26 Variety story about the 2023 Toronto Film Festival’s documentary program, written by Addie Morfoot, pays special attention to Caroline Suh’s Sorry/Not Sorry, a TIFF doc about career difficulties and impediments suffered by women who accused Louis C.K. of gross sexual harassment a few years ago after he jerked off in front of them.

I haven’t seen the doc but five of the accusers are comedians Tig Notaro, Rebecca Corry, Abby Schachner, Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov.

Morfoot reports that Suh’s film is one of “several” TIFF docs that focus on women “who have been unjustly ignored for their achievements.”

One can probably assume that Suh explores how and why Louis C.K.’s five accusers have paid a certain price for blowing the whistle on the guy.

Innocent question: LCK’s behavior was diseased and ridiculous but what exactly did the five accusers expect would happen in response? Did they expect cheers and hosannahs and paper confetti in the air?

If I was a woman who was once an unwilling or appalled witness to LCK whacking off, I would have rolled my eyes, muttered “jeez, what a fucking creep” and moved on with my life and career.

I would have figured, in other words, “if I go public with this, I might experience a little professional pushback from comedy club owners and friends of LCK and whatnot so why go there? As much as I resent the political reality of things, it’s probably better to let it slide.”

Luc Besson’s Dogman, a Venice ‘23 selection, has two guaranteed elements: (a) the relentlessly spacey Caleb Landry Jones and (b) a whole lotta dogs. And yet the mirror image is of a red-haired glam chick with bright red lipstick.

HE to Bresson: Is Dogman about about what I’m afraid it might be about? This poster is scaring me.

Whatever the facts behind the various accusations thrown at Kevin Spacey since 2018, time and again efforts to convict the Oscar-winning actor (today is his 64th birthday) have failed. The U.K. trial (nine sexual asssult charges) is the latest whiff. Elton John’s recent pro-Spacey testimony was almost certainly a key factor in his acquittal. That or the prosecution’s case may have been weak or flawed all around. Or both.

Hail, O Great Gods of Rome!

If you haven’t yet watched, here it is. But please also revisit my two-year-old (7.6.21) article, titled “Diverse Exorcist & Torturing of Ellen Burstyn.”

My Detroit references are few and far between. Urban decay. Bankruptcy in 2013. The first act of Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance (‘93) happens in the grubby downtown area. Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. The MC5. Martha and the Vandellas. Michael Moore‘s Roger and Me…wait, that was set mostiy in Flint, right?

You’d never know Detroit was originally settled by French colonists, I can tell you that. As you approach downtown everything looks a bit blighted, undernourished, down at the heels. Flat landscape. Blah architecture. A cinder-block strip club or two. Empty lots with overgrown grass and tall weeds.

Suburban Detroit is like a thousand other sprawling areas in the Midwest that are largely defined by…nothing. Okay, by the general draining of spirit. The scourge of soul-less corporate commercialism.

Downtown Detroit is even worse. You can feel the enervation and the lethargy. This must be what Berlin or Nurnberg or Dresden felt like in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Detroit is one of those cities that present three choices — become a heroin addict, commit suicide or pack up and leave.

And then you go across the Detroit river to robust and well-tended Windsor, Ontario, and it’s like a breath of fresh air.

5:20 pm: Anyway I’m well out of Detroit and on a Flix bus heading east to Londön. I’ll be visiting a friend in Grand Bend, a bucolic lakeside village in Ontario, for six days. I’ve never seen Lake Huron before.

…who mumbles and gulps and swallows dialogue with a haunted look on his face, Caleb Landry Jones has it all goin’ on.

“Hurricane Billy” Friedkin has been ducking press inquiries about the notorious and ignoble French Connection censorship matter, but if he attends the ‘23 Venice Film Festival to promote his latest film, The Caine Mutiny Court–Martial, which will play out of competition, we’ve got him! He won’t be able to wiggle or slither or sidestep his way out of it.

Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance and Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar will also screen in Venice a few weeks hence…yay!