Scott Z. Burns‘ The Report (Amazon, 11.5 theatrical, 11.29 streaming) is a diligent but sanctimonious film about the brave, herculean and arduous effort by Senate staffer Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) to research and write a 6000-page report about the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program and the use of torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) between October 2001 and December 2007.

It’s a passable, moderately stirring film — the story of a steadfast, determined guy who did a good and valuable thing. Which is nominally inspiring. Burns’ implied message seems to be that “if you hate torture and what the Bush-Cheney team approved for a six-year period in the name of our country, you’ll feel proud and satisfied and perhaps even cleansed by The Report. Because it’s about reclaiming our moral character and authority.”

But as a film it’s not all that interesting. Or at least, it isn’t by my sights. It feels virtuous but plodding. This, at least, was my reaction while watching it last January at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

No one with a shred of morality or decency could or should feel anything but profound regret about the use of torture, okayed by the Bush-Cheney team, to try and extract information from suspected Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden sympathizers. Torture is foul and ugly, and it almost certainly drained this country of whatever moral authority it had to start with.

As most of us know, the detention and interrogation program was authorized by President George Bush six days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and came to an end in December 2007. The use of torture was subsequently prohibited by an Executive Order issued by President Obama when he took office in January 2009.

But nobody knew the details until Jones’ Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, which was researched and authored over a period of three and a half years (March ’09 to December ’12), and was compiled against considerable pushback by many in the D.C. intelligence fraternity.

The report was approved on 12.13.12, but it wasn’t released to the press until 12.9.14.

Total candor: I would nonetheless be less than fully honest if I didn’t confess to being half-inclined to dislike The Report, sight unseen.

Because it seems to represent (in my mind at least) the views of the humanistic, torture-condemning industry cabal that ruthlessly torpedoed the award-season campaign of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty in late 2012 — arguably the ugliest takedown campaign of the last decade.

(The second ugliest was last year’s attempt by industry wokesters to kill Green Book. But Academy members, to their eternal credit, told these Stalinist bullies and p.c. virtue–signallers to go fuck themselves…that they like or love what Green Book is about and how it made them feel, and to hell with the Twitter scolds.)

The rap against Zero Dark Thirty was that it endorsed torture by depicting EITs in two or three scenes, and by suggesting or implying that in one instance it may have provided information that led to the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden. An expensive sports-car bribe also played a part, the film said.

The fair-minded pro-ZDT crowd (to which I belonged) felt that depicting torture didn’t amount to an endorsement of it. But the takedown crowd covered their ears.

From “Joe Biden’s Poll Numbers Mask an Enthusiasm Challenge,” an 8.22 N.Y. Times story by Katie Glueck:

“A Monmouth University poll from this month showed Mr. Biden leading with the support of 28 percent of likely Iowa caucusgoers — virtually unchanged from the same poll’s results from April.

“But Patrick Murray, the director of Monmouth’s Polling Institute, who recently spent time in Iowa, said those numbers did not give the full picture of Mr. Biden’s support in the state.

“’I did not meet one Biden voter who was in any way, shape or form excited about voting for Biden,’ Mr. Murray said. ‘They feel that they have to vote for Joe Biden as the centrist candidate, to keep somebody from the left who they feel is unelectable from getting the nomination.'”

Yesterday Film at Lincoln Center posted this video of a post-screening discussion that followed last weekend’s premiere of Ari Aster‘s 171-minute “director’s cut.” The theatrical cut ran 147 minutes. I’m sure fans would love to see the longer version. How about scheduling a screening at the American Cinematheque (Hollywood or Santa Monica branch)? Or at the Academy, for that matter? Or at the very least, how about Bluray-ing or streaming the longer version?

At the tail end of an 8.21 “Notes on the Season” piece about the Emmy and Oscar races, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond mentions that The Report costar Jon Hamm “mentioned” the other night that “he believes Clint Eastwood‘s Richard Jewell — so far not officially dated by Warner Bros — will be released in December.”

I’m hearing that it’s more than a case of Hamm believing this will happen, but that it’s pretty much locked and loaded. Warner Bros. will of course deny or sidestep until they announce down the road.

During filming pic was called The Ballad of Richard Jewell, which was also the title of Marie Brenner’s 1997 Vanity Fair article. The IMDB still refers to it as The Ballad of Richard Jewell but Wikipedia is calling it plain old Richard Jewell (which doesn’t sound good, by the way — the title needs “The Ballad of”).

From “They Done Him Wrong“, posted on 6.18.19: “The conservative-minded Eastwood is doing The Ballad of Richard Jewell, of course, because of the anti-news media narrative.

“In Jewel’s case the narrative (which unfolded over 88 days from late July to late October of ’96) was earned and then some. Several reporters and commentators (including the Atlanta Constitution‘s Kathy Scruggs and NBC’s Tom Brokaw) fingered Jewell as the likely Atlanta bomber without having all the facts.

“Jewell’s tragedy nonetheless feeds into Trump’s fake news mythology, and Eastwood’s film, you bet, will almost certainly strike a chord in America’s heartland or, you know, with the same ticket-buyers who flocked to Clint’s American Sniper and chortled along with Grant Torino‘s Walt Kowalski.”

Hammond: “Will this be another sneak attack on Oscar season from four-time winner Eastwood, a producer-director fond of quickly delivering his movies. Just last year he did that with The Mule, and in the past has had great success with such films as American Sniper and Million Dollar Baby in December. Warner Bros has an unusually strong slate of possible awards contenders already this year, but what’s one more when it comes from Eastwood? We shall see.”

A story of a struggling guy with all kinds of issues, set against a New York-in-the-’50s political murder mystery. Seemingly set in ’54 or ’55, to judge by the cars. Directed, adapted, produced by and starring Edward Norton, and costarring Willem Dafoe (still wearing his Lighthouse beard?), Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Leslie Mann, Bobby Cannavale.

Wiki boilerplate: “A private investigator with Tourette syndrome (Edward Norton) works to solve the mystery of who killed his mentor (Bruce Willis) in 1950s New York.” One of the hotter Telluride titles, and the New York Film closing-night attraction. (Also slated for TIFF.)

I always thought Tourette syndrome sufferers were given to profanity and vulgarities — not in this instance. The twice-blowing-out-the-match scene is excellent.

A day or two after the passing of Peter Fonda author and film scholar Joe McBride posted a Facebook comment about Roger Corman‘s The Wild Angels (’66), in which Fonda played the first significant role as a motorcycle-riding guy. McBride called it a much better film than Dennis Hopper‘s Easy Rider (’69), in which Fonda played his second significant role astride a Harley.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

This was told to me second-hand. It happened to a Connecticut guy whose high-school nickname was Jungle. (And was later changed to Nate.) Sometime in the early ’70s at some outdoor rock concert, the name of which escapes. But the godly Allman Brothers were on stage and performing “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More”…sturdy sound, chugging rhythm, heavy bass and drums.

Jungle was all the way in front, maybe 15 feet from the stage, and “tripping his brains out”, as that phrase goes. And thinking, as people on halucinogens sometimes do, about the spiritual currents in his life and how he needed to stop fucking around like some doobie-smoking hippie loser and really get going.

Jungle somehow climbed up even closer to the stage. And as he listened, having scaled a fence of some kind, to the mighty thundering Allmans, he stepped out of the immediate and saw himself at a metaphorical midway point in his life, situated between this mythical super-group (symbols of power, strength and divine purpose) and the scurvy, grungy hippies below.

Jungle turned to the crowd and looked at the hippies and particularly some pathetic beardo in cutoffs and sandals (“Spare change, man?”). Again Jungle looked at the band, and then a muscular spasm went through his body as he said to himself “Jesus God, this is me…this is my choice…and I’m not gonna be a fucking hippie any more! From here on I’m with the Allmans, which is to say the realm of focus, control, vision, hard work and discipline…no more fucking around! ‘Cause I ain’t wastin’ time no more!”

Congratulations to Quentin Tarantino and wife Daniella Pick on their announcement that a baby is on the way. Whatever the child’s gender, he/she will naturally be subjected to a relentless education about film. By the age of seven or eight he/she probably will have seen each and every Sam Fuller film ever made, and will be able to recite the release years of each, the principal cast members, the cinematographer and aspect ratio used, etc. Not to mention the films of Sergio Leone, Martin Scorsese, Howard Hawks, Richard Linklater, Brian DePalma, etc. By the time the kid is ten he/she will be blase about visiting the major film festivals. I could go on and on. His/her future is all mapped out.

Having opened in Poland on 7.26 and in Lithuania on 8.2, and with openings in Greece (8.22), the Netherlands (8.29) and Turkey (8.30) over the next few days, Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York will open the Deauville American Film Festival on 9.6. Followed by openings in France (9.18), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (9.26), Spain (10.4), Italy (10.10) and Vietnam (10.11).

And then the grand Mexico opening on 10.25, which will be celebrated by Hollywood Elsewhere with an actual visit to one of Tijuana’s megaplexes. I’m presuming that a subtitled version will be viewable somewhere.

Catching Rainy Day in Tijuana unfortunately involves an agonizing four-hour drive, give or take. It’s one of the most miserable things you can do in life, slogging it out on the 405 and 5 south, stop and go, hour after hour, miserable San Diego traffic, border backup, etc. The only way to beat it is to leave on Thursday and come back on Saturday.

I haven’t been to Mexico in six or seven years so as long as I’m doing this I might as well rent a modest room in Poco Cielo (south of Rosarito Beach) and have a nice dinner at the storied La Fonda, which has the greatest outdoor balcony overlooking the sea. La Fonda suffered a fire a couple of months ago, I’m told. Party animals were apparently to blame.

Consider this view without considering the source: “Liberals have become utterly, pathetically illiberal, and it’s a massive problem. This snowflake culture that we now operate in, the victimhood culture…everyone has to think a certain way, behave a certain way, everyone has to have a bleeding heart and tell you 20 things that are wrong with them. Liberals are getting it so horribly wrong. It’s [grown into] a kind of version of fascism. If you don’t lead your life the way I’m telling you to, then I’m gonna ruin your life. I’m gonna scream abuse at you. I’m gonna get you fired from your job. I’m gonna get you hounded by your family and friends. I’m gonna make you the most disgusting human being in the world.”

Couple this with a Bret Easton Ellis remark from last month:  “This is the one thing that has bothered me the most about the left. And as a creative it is something that worries me. I often wonder how you can be a writer, an artist, a director, a filmmaker, and ally yourself with a party that is basically subsidizing an authoritarian language belief on what you can say and what you can’t say and how you can express yourself or how you can’t express yourself.”

And a quote from Sarah Silverman on a recent Bill Simmons podcast: “’Righteousness porn‘ is ‘really scary and it’s a very odd thing that it’s invaded the left primarily…it’s like, if you’re not on board, if you say the wrong thing, if you had a tweet once, everyone is, like, throwing the first stone. It’s so odd. It’s a perversion.”

There’s no question about the accuracy and legitimacy of these opinions. Having tasted wokester “cancel culture” myself a few months ago, courtesy of the Sundance People’s Committee, I’m naturally susceptible to such views. And to the gist of quote #1. But quote #1 has a problem, and that’s the person who said it. Not to mention the talk show that this person said it on. So when you pull it all together and weigh the political schemes and ramifications, I feel obliged to distance myself from quote #1….even though it’s a fairly accurate assessment.

This is a chickenshit way to react, agreed. That’s because I’m torn and afraid at the same time. We’re living through a time of terror. Lillian Hellman would be appalled, not to mention Dashiell Hammett.

According to an 8.21 N.Y. Times report by Nicole Sperling, the ongoing dispute between Netflix and two major exhibition chains, AMC Theatres and Cineplex, about the theatrical release of Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman boils down to an unrealistic expectation on the exhibition side.

The chains want Netflix to delay streaming The Irishman for “close to three months” after its theatrical opening day while Netflix, following their Roma model, wants to begin streaming 21 days after the theatrical debut.

This despite a claim by former 20th Century Fox distribution exec Chris Aronson that “more than 95 percent of movies stop earning their keep in theaters at the 42-day mark,” according to Sperling’s article.

Exhibitors nonetheless fear that the proposed 21-day window will persuade ticket-buyers to bypass The Irishman in theatres, as they would only have to wait three weeks to see it at home.

90% of The Irishman‘s theatrical revenue will come from educated, review-reading, 35-and-over types who will want to immerse themselves in Scorsese’s wiseguy epic (it allegedly runs around three hours) and be part of the conversation, and most of these transactions will happen during the first three weeks, four at the outside. A portion of the under-35 megaplex mongrels may attend out of curiosity, but the bulk of the business will come from Scorsese loyalists and cultivated cineastes.

So if Netflix wanted to be accommodating, they would agree to wait 45 days to stream — half of the window that exhibitors want. My hunch is that the deal with AMC and Cineplex will result in a 30-day delay. Somewhere between 30 and 45 — that’s where the peace lies.

Netflix will want The Irishman to be in theatres during the heat of award season, or from mid-October to early December. Open it in theatres on Friday, 10.18 and keep it in plexes for seven weeks, or until Thursday, 12.5. We all understand that peak Irishman business will happen between the weekends of 10.18 and 11.15, max. And more likely between 10.18 and 11.7 — be honest. Especially considering the allegedly somber, meditative tone (“It’s not Goodfellas“) and three-hour length.

In the exhibitor fantasy realm The Irishman, given the theoretical 10.18 theatrical debut, wouldn’t begin streaming until mid-January. Unlikely. Especially with the currently abbreviated Academy voting window.

Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), a fictional Fox News producer, is apparently dreading an imminent meeting with ogre-ish Fox honcho Roger Ailes (John Lithgow). Also unsettled, it seems, are fellow elevator riders Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman). They’re so rattled by what may be in the offing (or what’s in the air) that they don’t even small-talk each other. Then Carlson says it’s “hot in here.”

Pospisil (weird last name, a mashing of “possum” and “possible”) and Carlson get out, but the coolly observant Kelly doesn’t.

After the oddly muted response to Showtime’s The Loudest Voice, the Bombshell challenge will be to prove itself as the bigger, better, more pointed Ailes drama, above and beyond the marquee-name aspect.

Directed by Jay Roach and scripted by Charles Randolph, Bombshell will pop theatrically on 11.20. If it’s any kind of award-calibre thing…well, we’ll see.

Bombshell costars Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Mark Duplass, Rob Delaney, Malcolm McDowell and Allison Janney.