No one wans to remember Joe Johnston‘s The Wolfman. How could a movie this tiresome have been written by the guys who penned Se7en and Road to Perdition (i.e., Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self) respectively?

Domestically released on 2.12.10 by Universal, The Wolfman was panned by critics (34% Rotten Tomatoes) and Joe Popcorn alike. It wound up grossing $139 million worldwide against a $150 million production budget.

The one bright spot was The Wolfman‘s Rick Baker and make-up effects supervisor Dave Elsey winning the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Posted on 2.12.10: The Wolfman makes you feel like you’re stuck inside a deep stone pit with Universal werewolves prowling back and forth and worrying about the grosses. Rowwrrlll! — make it shorter! Rowf! — let’s throw in another beheading! Owwooooohhll! — we need to at least get those research scores into the 70s! Let’s bring in Walter Murch…snarrrrrll!

You can’t say it doesn’t look great — every scene is expertly smothered in fog and smoke and ominous shadows, or lit by candles. Cheers to cinematographer Shelly Johnson and production designer Rick Heinrichs. But it makes you feel trapped, shackled.

I saw it with an Eloi crowd (i.e., radio promotional) at the Grove last night, and after 20 or 30 minutes the room had no pulse. The crowd watched, waited and seemed to be saying, “This is it? This? Well, we paid to see it so we might as well stick it out but this just isn’t happening, man. Where’s the juice? This thing is just…what is it?”

Benicio del Toro, who plays the doomed Larry Talbot, looks miserable in every scene. He does the job, hits the marks, mouths the dialogue, etc., but his eyes say, “Good God, get me outta here! I’ve been very well paid, yes, but I’m stuck in a piece of shit and my soul is writhing in pain.” Plus he’s been given an awful pudding-bowl haircut.

Four and 1/2 years ago I posted a Vimeo embed of Adrien Dezalay, Emmanuel Delabaere and Simon Philippe‘s “The Red Drum Getaway.”

For some obscure but logical reason it began attracting fresh eyeballs sometime yesterday. “Wow! This is fabulous,” “Great job, sir!,” “Trippy,” etc. The always alert Sasha Stone, never one to surf behind the eight ball, sent me a link this morning.

Yes, of course — at the very end that’s the lifeless body of Scotty Ferguson lying in front of the apes.

And yet now that I’ve watched it yet again, the only thing I would change is to end it at 2:37.

“Height is to men what breasts are to women,” an HE commenter said three years ago. To some extent yes, but not necessarily. Or not entirely. Tall or tallish guys enjoy an obvious pecking-order advantage, but towering fellows (6’5″ and up) can seem gangly and galumphy. Or even a tad freakish.

The bottom line is that broad shoulders are the real bodacious tat-tas in the XY realm. I came into broad shoulders when I turned 13 or 14, and believe me I know about the benefits. Ask anyone who’s been lucky by way of genetic inheritance. If you have broad-ass shoulders, you’re halfway home in terms of general estimates, job interviews, receptive women, etc.

By the same token narrow, rounded shoulders are generally not a good look. There’s never been a rounded, narrow-shouldered guy in the history of the planet who’s ever said “man, I am so lucky that I don’t have broad shoulders!” I see a fellow with narrow shoulders and I think “well, okay, I’m sorry…he’s obviously had his share of struggles.”

From “Physical Dominance vs. Psychological Security,” posted on 6.19.19: “I was in love with Alan Ladd and I went to a party at Romanoff’s. I’m 5’7” but in heels I’m 5’9” or 5’10”. They said, ‘Shirley, your favorite actor is here…come and meet him.’ I turned around. He was there and I went, ‘Oh hi, Mr. Ladd.’ He was about 4’9” and all my admiration disappeared literally in the dust.” — attributed to Shirley MacLaine but who knows?

Ladd was notoriously insecure about his height, which (to go by most accounts) was somewhere between 5’5″ and 5’6″. For his entire professional life this psychological albatross was draped around the poor guy’s neck. On the other hand James Cagney was roughly the same size (5’6″ or thereabouts) and he never squawked about it. He spent his whole adult life playing tough urban guys who slapped, punched or psychologically dominated other fellows, and nobody ever said “Jeez, he’s kinda short.” They said, “Shit, here comes Cagney…watch out.”

In short (pun), a good part of life is about owning the right kind of psychology — about feeling secure and confident about who you are and what you look like. It’s about planting your feet, looking the other guy in the eye and saying “take or or leave it but this is me…got a problem with that? Because I don’t.”

On the other hand I understand the Shirley MacLaine mindset. I’ve been a tall, slender, broad-shouldered guy with fairly good hair (augmented by Prague-installed follicles when I got older) all my life. I’ve been that guy since I was 11 or 12, and by the time I hit my early 20s I was feeling pretty cool about it. I know my looks helped in my hound-dog days in the ’70s and early ’80s.

But I’ve always had this unfair or prejudiced attitude about short guys, and I mean going back to when I was nine or ten. I’ve always had this belief that guys need to be 5’8″ or taller, and if they’re not…well, not a problem for me personally but they will have a certain gauntlet to contend with on a daily basis. Life is unfair and often cruel.

There’s a reason why I tend to tug down on the face mask so it sits just below my nostrils while driving. Repeating: While driving inside a sealed, air-tight space. Because the warmish air being expelled from my lungs collects under the mask and mostly escapes through the upper portion. This in turn fogs up my glasses.

Two choices: (a) constantly wiping the moisture from the lenses so I can see clearly in order to drive safely or (b) tugging down on the mask. Option (b) is obviously preferable, but admonishments from “virusbros” and friends alike have been unceasing.

Just for the record, virusbros is one of two COVID-19 terms that HE has recently coined and which are now entering the lexicon. The other (announced yesterday) is freedom drivers.

What other newly coined (or new re-defined) terms have been making the rounds? Ask anyone if they know what the acronym PPE means. I guarantee nine out of ten won’t have a clue.

Last weekend the Venice Film Festival‘s artistic director Alberto Barbera said the festival will happen in the usual physical, real-world way, and that he’s “currently not weighing digital options” a la the Toronto Film Festival.

The 77th Venice International Film Festival is slated to unfold between Wednesday, 9.2.00 and Saturday, 9.12.20.

The pesky coronavirus could interfere with Barbera’s plans, of course. He’s saying right now what he feels he needs to say. He has to project a resolute front.

“The Venice Film Festival cannot be replaced by an online event,” a Venice spokesman told Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli earlier today. He added that “there is obviously the possibility that we use technology for some initiatives,” but “it’s too early for this to be decided.”

It only feels creepy if you let it. Or want it. It’s just a drone, just a recorded message.

Even during a pandemic, having a drone issue orders to law-abiding citizens is creepy. pic.twitter.com/2HQgtElESj

— Mike (@Doranimated) April 6, 2020

Nobody cuts action sequences today like the great George Tomasini did…Jesus, 65 years ago in To Catch A Thief. This somewhat leisurely car-chase scene, I mean. Tomasini was Alfred Hitchcock‘s top editor for 11 years (’54 to ’64) give or take, and for my money he’s one of the all-time greats.

The things I admire most about Tomasini’s expertise are (a) the sublime feeling of assurance that his cuts always seem to convey, (b) the elegant timing of each cut, each right across the plate and arriving at just the right speed and rhythm, and (c) the perfect harmony of all the Hitchcockian elements (mostly rear-screen in this sequence, the way the bus footage links up perfectly from both angles, the close-up of Cary Grant‘s feet tromping on the car floor…all of it). You just know you’re in good hands.

Okay, there’s one timing cheat in the below sequence. As Grace Kelly‘s car approaches the middle-aged woman carrying laundry across the hillside street, which forces Kelly to slam on the brakes. Too much time elapses between the initial sighting of the woman and Kelly’s screeching halt.

Wiki excerpt: “In a 2012 listing of the 75 best edited films of all time, compiled by the Motion Picture Editors Guild based on a survey of its members, four films edited by Tomasini for Hitchcock appear. No other editor appeared more than three times on this listing. The listed films were Psycho (the legendary shower scene), Vertigo, Rear Window and North by Northwest (the crop-duster sequence).”

To Catch A Thief aside, Tomasini also cut Hitch’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, The Birds and Marnie. He also edited I Married a Monster from Outer Space, The Time Machine, The Misfits, Cape Fear, Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and In Harm’s Way.

The poor man died of a heart attack at age 55.

Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales called yesterday to see how I’m doing, etc. Hanging in there, glad to be healthy and doing my best, I said. That includes doing my best to not feel morose, I qualified. Wilson said I need to stop writing so much about the virus. I’m trying like hell to write about anything movie-ish that pops into my head, I said, but I don’t see how I can avoid the spiritual equivalent of the 1930s Dust Bowl right outside my door. It’s like the Martians have landed.

Write about Quibi, he said. The short-form video platform launches tomorrow (4.6) and PMK is sending out loads of screeners, etc. “Good idea,” I said, although inwardly I was tailspinning into depression. I mean, I didn’t get into racket to write about ten-minute shorts.

Wilson also had some strategic marketing advice, which was to work the big streamers (Quibi included) for ads until award season kicks in. They all have to do something to excite the locked-down viewer base in this bizarre time-out period, and are probably open to focusing on conversation-starter sites like HE. Particularly in the realm of prestigious miniseries like FX’s Mrs. America, which I plan on watching tomorrow or Tuesday.

The conversation strayed to Oscar season and which early fall festivals might happen during what we all hope and pray will be the tail-end of the pandemic. We acknowledged that even if the virus begins to ebb sometime in June or July nobody is going to want to fraternize in close proximity in northern Italy, the #1 death camp locale before the United States and particularly the New York City area took over in that regard.

Bottom line: forget the Venice Film Festival right now.

What about Toronto? Also doubtful, it seems. Ditto the New York Film Festival (late September to mid October), but who knows? After practicing social distancing for a half year with masks and gloves who in their right mind would want to parachute into a dense urban environment with mobs of film lovers, tightly packed theatres and nightly social gatherings?

The smaller, eternally cooler Telluride Film Festival might work out, at least theoretically. Especially if Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger are extra careful about not allowing each and every seat to be occupied and are perhaps even open to staging the festival a week or two later than usual, especially if the coronavirus fade doesn’t begin until July or, God forbid, early August.

The Hamptons Film Festival could also happen for the same reason — smaller, less threatening in terms of crowds, presumably more flexible. Ditto the London Film Festival (early to mid October)

Will Oscar season happen? If the pandemic lifts when it probably will, yes. Certainly! But with some big summer films getting bumped into the fall as we speak (including Top Gun: Maverick, No Time To Die and Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch with Chris Nolan‘s Tenet sure to follow) it’s going to be a hell of a jam-packed season.

In a piece titled “Oscar Contenders in 2020 Must Face a Complex and Uncertain Path to Success“, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson says the following:

“Festivals play an enormous and vital role in establishing and vetting award-season contenders. How will foreign films become viable awards candidates without them? When will films open in their countries and build some kind of following?

“Of course, we do not know where the world will be in late August (Venice) or Labor Day (will sleepy Telluride, Colo. welcome intruders from the coasts?) or September (will industryites be willing to fly to Toronto or New York?) or October (the Hamptons, London?).

“It’s easier to imagine local festivals playing to their home audiences than pulling in buyers and sellers from around the world, although that’s an urgent necessity for the global film market, especially without Cannes.”

An attorney friend called me this afternoon. I asked what he was up to, and he said, “I’m just doing my drive…it makes me feel free.” I think you’ve just coined a term, I said. Pandemic freedom driving! Or just plain freedom driving, I guess.

Obviously not an option for most New Yorkers, Chicagoans and Bostonians, but certainly for Los Angelenos.

I’ve been in this town 37 years, and I’ve never once jumped into the car or hopped on the rumblehog with the intention of just cruising with no game plan, and before the mob pounces I want it understood that I haven’t done this yet.

But if my attorney pal is doing this I’m figuring a thousand or ten thousand others are following suit.

HE to “Virusbro” scolds: Is there something wrong or irresponsible about roaming the streets and freeways of Los Angeles with no destination in mind and with no intention of going or stopping anywhere (except maybe a gas station)…to hop in and drive around town like Randy Newman in ’83, but wearing an N95 mask and surgical gloves?

I’m sure there’s something shitty and deplorable about this. C’mon…lay it on me.

I’ve had this “bonding with Joe Rogan” thing going on for a while, but no longer. Rogan is saying he’s so appalled by the idea of Droolin’ Joe being president, of Declinin’ Biden not being physically or mentally up to the job, that we’d have to trust in his cabinet and vice-president…that’s a thoughtless and horrid thing to say.

I don’t like the idea of a president with cognitive issues any more than the next guy, but Joe Biden‘s basic instincts are fair and humane and respectful of Average Joe Sixpack — I know that much about him for sure. A barely audible, gray-faced Biden on his death bed would be ten times preferable to an obese, lying sociopath in the White House. I’m truly disgusted that Rogan feels otherwise. Where is his decency?

Joe Rogan–who supported Bernie–on his podcast yesterday w/ managing director of Thiel Capital Eric Weinstein.
“I’d rather vote for Trump than [Biden]. I don’t think he can handle anything. You’re relying entirely on his cabinet.”
1.3 million views on YouTube since yesterday pic.twitter.com/Sxor0RvVZ0

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) April 4, 2020