Originally posted on 8.29.12: The details of this story won’t stagger anyone, but I want it fully understood I’m not making it up. It’s just one of those life-lesson stories that repeats the old adage about “you are your friends and vice versa.”

It was during the summer of ’82, and I was inside a new Italian restaurant on Columbus Ave., a block or two south of the Museum of Natural History. It had opened maybe a day or two earlier, and I remember sipping a vodka and lemonade (my drink back then) and talking to the bartender. There was a big noisy party at a big table in the main dining room. I asked the bartender what the ruckus was and he said, “Oh, that’s the owners and their investors…big dinner.”

I stuck my head inside and noticed that one of the guys at the table was an especially loud, large-framed, overweight guy who looked like a walrus. He was holding a drink in his hand and laughing with great merriment and going “Awwgghhh! Awwgghhh!” as he listened to somebody at the table say something wildly hilarious. He was kind of bouncing up and down in his seat and slapping others on the shoulder and going “awwhh-haaawwwhh!”

Right away I thought to myself, “That guy’s with the owners?” This new restaurant was trying to sell itself as a serious class act, and this guy was the kind of coarse beast you’d find at some neighborhood restaurant in Sheepshead Bay or Canarsie or North Riverdale on a Saturday night, not that there’s anything wrong with Sheepshead Bay, Canarsie or North Riverdale.

15 or 20 minutes later I was in the bathroom and the “awwgghh!” guy sauntered in and went right over to a urinal and did three things at precisely the same time — farted loudly, belched loudly and began to relieve himself. Perfect synchronization.

I knew then and there that this new restaurant wouldn’t make it. I think I actually muttered to myself “okay, that’s it” when I heard the belch-fart. Because any Upper West Side resturateur who has animals for friends will sooner or later lose favor with the locals, I reasoned. Having coarse friends means you have no taste and your judgment stinks, and that kind of thing tends to spread out in all directions.

Four or five months later the restaurant had closed.

Dolittle is set in the Victorian era — the late 1860s, 1870s or 1880s. The underwater sea-diving suit worn by Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Dr. John Dolittle is the same model worn by Kirk Douglas‘s Ned land in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. What if Downey’s Dolittle and Sherlock Holmes characters were to somehow join up and pool forces with Land, and all three were to hitch a ride on the Nautilus under James Mason‘s Captain Nemo? The only difference being that Nemo’s crew would consist of several talking animals instead of Robert J. Wilke and the others. Plus two or three kids. Then they’d run into the animatronic giant squid, etc. And then the big climax with fearsome, fire-breathing dragon.

A scene in a film is only as effective as the worst (i.e. hammiest) actor in it. In this instance, James Cagney and Edward Woods are invested in the moment, awed by their new guns, behaving within the bounds of realism. The leering guy in the middle is the problem. He’s “acting” and therefore ruining the suspension of disbelief. Such men are dangerous.

For some reason Nick Clement’s relentlessly positive movie reviews drive me up the wall. A respected Variety contributor, Clement’s general policy is to only write about films he loves. The problem is that he loves way too much crap. And his goon followers are equally undiscriminating. When almost everything you see is wonderful, beautifully crafted, super-exciting, heart-touching, triple-wowser and a visual knockout, you wind up devalue-ing the stuff that actually is wonderful, beautifully crafted, super-exciting, heart-touching, triple-wowser and a visual knockout.

I flipped out today when I saw poster art for Fletch Lives on Nick’s page. I said something like “Jesus, you guys are really living in your own universe. Every now and then you might want to come up for some air.”

“By the end of his first year of office, JFK had begun to establish his credibility as a world leader. His leadership style had matured as he acquired insights into the realities of the nation’s highest office. It was that growth that prompted Time to name him 1961’s Man of the Year and to commission this cover portrait from Italian painter Pietro Annigoni. When Annigoni went to the White House to sketch Kennedy, he was struck by the president’s pensive, often somber demeanor, and it was this side of Kennedy that the artist decided to capture. Many readers of Time detested the final portrait, including the president himself.” — Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. (Time cover, January 5, 1962.)

Last year the National Society of Film Critics gave The Rider, a moderately stirring but dramatically unsatisfying film, their Best Picture award. You therefore have to contemplate this year’s winners with at least a pinch or two of salt.

That said, Hollywood Elsewhere fully approves of their Best Actress prize going to Diane‘s Mary Kay Place and their Best Actor award to Pain and Glory‘s Antonio Banderas.

Do you want to know why Place (also winner of LAFCA’s Best Actress Award) hasn’t been nominated for a Best Actress award by the HFPA (Golden Globes), and most likely won’t land a covered Best Actress Oscar nomination? Money. IFC Films long ago decided against bankrolling an Oscar campaign on Place’s behalf, and this is what happens when you make that call. And Place gave the best female performance of the year.

We all knew the NSFC would give Parasite their Best Picture award. Incessant political pressure from the pro-Little Women lobby finally bore fruit with the NSFC giving its Best Director award to Greta Gerwig. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood‘s Brad Pitt and Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern won Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

Best Picture: Parasite
Best actor: Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Best actress: Mary Kay Place, Diane
Best supporting actress:  Laura Dern, Marriage Story and Little Women
Best supporting actor: Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Best director:  Greta Gerwig, Little Women
Best screenplay: Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won, Parasite
Best cinematography: Claire Mathon, Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Atlantics
Best nonfiction film: Honeyland

Here’s what I’m vaguely sensing or at least preferring…

Best Motion Picture (Drama): Will win: The Irishman. Should win: The Irishman.
Best Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical): Will win: Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Sentimental Favorite: Dolomite Is My Name.
Best Director: Either Bong Joon-ho, Parasite or Martin Scorsese, The Irishman.
Best Actor (Drama): Joaquin Phoenix, Joker.
Best Actress (Drama): Rene Zellweger, Judy. Might win: Saoirse Ronan, Little Women (due to incessant campaigning on film’s behalf by allies of progressive industry feminism)
Best Actor (Comedy/Musical): Eddie Murphy, Dolemite Is My Name.
Best Actress (Comedy/Musical): Awkwafina, The Farewell. (HE exception: The Farewell is eccentrically amusing here and there, but it’s a heart + family movie about impending death.)
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
Best Supporting Actress: Will win: Hustlers‘ Jennifer Lopez or Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern. Should win: Richard Jewell‘s Kathy Bates.
Best Foreign Film: Will Win: Parasite. Should win: Les Miserables.

Last night Tatyana and I attended an A-plus Parasite party at the Sunset Tower hotel. Crowded but not oppressively so, and attended by some of the coolest creatives in town — Guillermo del Toro (who officially co-hosted with Colleen Camp), Leonardo DiCaprio, Noah Baumbach, Laura Dern, Michael Mann, HE’s own Phillip Noyce and Vuyo Dasi, Portrait of a Lady on Fire‘s Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant, Jay Roach, Eli Roth, Lukas Haas, Kevin Bacon, Show Me What You’ve Got‘s Svetlana Cvetko, Dolemite In My Name‘s Larry Karaszewski, Knives Out producer Ram Bergman — along with the usual industry-journo crowd. Plus a lavish buffet supper, etc. The coolest gathering in town.

Hardly anyone wore whitesides, and I was checking, believe me.

There was such a feeling of “this is the place, these are the people, this is the film” that it began to hit me that Parasite, a richly cinematic, very incisive serving of social portraiture that is nonetheless hampered by ludicrous plot turns in the second half, might win the Best Picture Oscar. You can always sense a favorite when everyone comes to the favorite’s party. Everyone wants to be chummy and hair-mussy with the perceived winner in whatever realm. It’s just human nature.

I’m trying to deal with this curious premonition like a mature adult, but there’s a little part of me that’s going “please, God…no.” I’ve been calculating all along that Bong Joon-ho‘s film (his finest ever) would take the Best International Feature Oscar without breaking a sweat, but it can’t win that plus the Best Picture Oscar…can it?

The most exciting and pleasing moment of the evening was when I went over to Adele Haenel and…well, behaved like a typical adoring fan, complimenting her Lady on Fire performance and telling her I’ve seen it three times (in Cannes last May, twice in Los Angeles) and chit-chatting about this and that.

The second most pleasing moment was hearing from journalist pally Bill Desowitz that “many” people he’s spoken to feel the same way about Parasite as I do — i.e., Bong’s best, very commendable but calm down.

Yes, I know — Vertigo‘s second-half plotting is just as ludicrous. But it ends so magnificently. Scott looking down from the bell tower, his hands outstretched, cured of his phobia, Madeline gone.

I’m not trying to fight city hall. If the Best Picture Oscar has Parasite‘s name on it, so be it. I won’t be angry or upset about this exactly, although I will feel disappointed. The Irishman is the best film of the year, hands down. I know it, the Godz know it, many people out there know it, and history will verify.

A couple of nights ago I was awakened by voices coming from the downstairs garage. Conversational but loud. I looked at my watch — 3 am. I told myself it might be someone who’d returned home late and was possibly arguing with a friend on his phone. But after 10 or 15 minutes it was still going, and I gradually realized the voice wasn’t arguing — it was blah-blahing.

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Kantemir Balagov, the director of the much-admired Beanpole, is only 28 years old (and his appearance suggests he could be even younger). But he’s already delivering the studied chops and immaculate directorial control that are par for the course among accomplished directors twice his age.

How intense is Beanpole? How invested, how richly composed, how well acted, how Klimovian, how Kubrickian, how immersive? “Very” on all counts. A psychological survival tale set in Leningrad just after the ravages of World War II, it’s probably the fiercest and darkest post-war drama made in the 21st Century.

Hollywood Elsewhere sat down with Balagov a while back, and it’s fair to say he doesn’t default to the usual animated, occasionally jokey, “delighted to be here” repartee. He sits there and waits for your questions and answers them, politely but curtly. And that’s it. He doesn’t feel he has to augment or supplement. He’s a first-rater and knows it. A mixture of confidence and patience.

Beanpole director Kantemir Balagov.

Balagov is quite the portraitist and, to go by a just-posted Variety interview, quite the film scholar.

Is it fair to call Beanpole gloomy? Yes, but also riveting. I felt sorrow and pity for each and every character, of course. But the tone is solemn and somewhat oppressive. And yet, given the context, this is probably necessary.

Viktoria Miroshnichenko‘s titular character, Iya, is an all-but-catatonic giraffe from whom verbal expression does not easily emanate. Why must she take 30 to 45 seconds to collect her thoughts before answering the simplest questions? Because that’s Balagov’s intention — to convey her destroyed inner state with traumatized expressions, gut feelings and minimal dialogue.

Vasilisa Perelygina‘s Masha, Iya’s best friend, is far more interesting — more expressive and generally more alluring. If Perelygina had played the lead (which is to say if Iya had been eliminated), I would be a bigger fan of Beanpole. In my estimation she’s a natural movie star.

But not Viktoria. Iya is impenetrable and burdensome and, as far as the afore-mentioned death of the child is concerned, inexplicable and even hateful.
The ghastly murder of Masha’s young son is “addressed” but not really dealt with, and I was simply unable to get past this.

Balagov’s idea, I gather, is that if a character is profoundly devastated by war trauma, it’s within her realm to accidentally smother an innocent. In basic emotional movie-watching terms that’s simply not acceptable.

North by Northwest star Cary Grant naturally had top billing over costars Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. But that wasn’t enough. His agents insisted on red lettering to further distinguish his superiority and extra-ness. And they insisted on stretching out the width of his name to C A R Y G R A N T so the number of letters in his name (only nine) wouldn’t seem insignificant compared to Saint and Mason’s.

Yesterday Richard Rushfield‘s Ankler newsletter ran, as a year-end thing, four HE excerpts. I wouldn’t have revived this issue if he hadn’t done this, but as long as he has I’m just going to repeat the legend from last May, which is that aside from Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, the N.Y. Times‘ Glenn Kenny, the National Review‘s Kyle Smith and myself the entire critical community acted like cowards by refusing to even briefly acknowledge the girth thing. They all “ignored” it because they were afraid of being accused of fat-shaming.