JJ Abrams: "We knew there was no way to tell the end of the Skywalker saga without Leia" #StarWars #D23Expo pic.twitter.com/ztx3fZ3WOc

— Variety (@Variety) August 24, 2019

“Maybe we should all be like Venice — just ignore everything you journalists and the PC media say with regard to gender equality and Netflix and do whatever we want, and then sit back and hear how we are the best festival in the world.” — the honcho of a major, big-deal festival, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter.

Most engaged, here-and-now, top-tier film festivals are playing ball with p.c. progressive agendas these days. This means “going Sundance” however and whenever possible, which is to say (a) programming as many reasonably good films as possible that have been directed by women, POCs and gays, or otherwise programming with an eye towards p.c. quotas, (b) selecting as many “instructive” films with diverse subject matter as possible, and (c) not exactly frowning upon films directed by straight white males but being careful to limit their inclusion, depending upon the quality of their relationships with well-positioned progressives in the filmmaking and film-festival community.

It goes without saying that films directed by men with checkered or otherwise troubling pasts (Roman Polanski and Nate Parker being two) need to face the strongest possible scrutiny if not out-and-out prohibition.

Venice Film Festival topper Alberto Barbera

It also goes without saying, and certainly in the wake of an 8.23 Hollywood Reporter article titled “‘Completely Tone Deaf’: How Venice Became the Fuck-You Film Festival” by Scott Roxborough and Tatiana Siegel, that Alberto Barbera‘s Venice Film Festival has mostly been ignoring these rules, certainly in terms of quotas and flagrantly by inviting Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy to screen in competition, and by slating Parker’s American Skin in the (noncompetitive) Sconfini section.

The thrust of Roxborough and Siegel’s article is that industry progressives regard Barbera as an obstinate, convention-defying dinosaur and that in a perfect world he would be cancelled and then banished to Kathmandu for the rest of his life.

The basic impulse of many p.c. types is to silence if not exterminate all agnostics or aetheists in the conversation. Roxborough and Siegel certainly have their ears to the train tracks in this regard.

However, there’s one small consideration that Roxborough and Siegel seem to be ignoring, and that’s the remote possibility that Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy or even Parker’s American Skin might be — am I going to get in trouble for saying this? — good. As in worth seeing and discussing, at the very least. Hell, one or the other might even be very good. Or even, God forbid, excellent. That’s certainly a possibility as far as the Polanski film is concerned. Or even, to be liberal about it, in Parker’s case.

The underlying point of the Roxborough-Siegel piece is that the people they’ve interviewed — Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein, Swiss Women’s Audiovisual Network co-president Laura Kaehr, Toni Erdmann producer Janine Jackowiski plus an unnamed female filmmaker — and perhaps even Roxborough and Siegel themselves are not rigorously concerned with matters of cinematic quality.

What concerns them is progressive tokenist statements by way of festival representation, and how inviting Polanski and Parker to Venice represents a slap in the face to #MeToo and #TimesUp. Which it arguably does in a certain sense.

If I were calling the shots I would bend over backwards to include as many worthy films from women, POC or gay directors as possible, within the limits of good taste. But I would insist on not programming any film on the basis of quotas alone.

Excerpt: “In an era when Hollywood has little tolerance for talent swept up in a #MeToo scandal — as when Amazon dropped Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York amid resurfaced allegations from his daughter Dylan Farrow that he molested her when she was 7 — and even notoriously macho Cannes has made strides with female award winners, Venice stands alone as the last major un-woke film festival.”

HE response to above paragraph: Woody Allen has contended in his lawsuit that Dylan’s accusation is “baseless,” as the facts overwhelmingly indicate. Alas, Amazon execs didn’t care about the facts and history or the holes in Dylan’s account or Moses Farrow’s May 2018 essay or anything else.

Great Jackowiski quote: “You can see how in America, if you don’t play by the rules, you’re out. Here in Europe, there’s still the idea of the ‘genius’ who is allowed to do anything and should be celebrated for it.”

Transpose this quote to the early to late 1950s, and imagine a conservative-minded European producer saying it: “You can see how in America, if you had associations with communism in the 1930s, you’re out. [But] here in Europe, there’s still the idea of the ‘genius’ who is allowed to do anything and should be celebrated for it. Jules Dassin, for example, is allowed to make films in Europe despite his commie-agitator background.”

Jackowiski explains that “she isn’t calling for a ban on films from ‘problematic’ men but says ‘the issues surrounding them should be discussed, and their films should be seen in that context.'” Fair enough.

The Venice Film Festival begins on Wednesday, 8.28 — four days hence. Telluride kicks off two days later.

I’ve never paid the slightest attention to HBO’s Ballers because of the Dwayne Johnson factor. In the realm of feature films the man has seemingly had it written into his contract that anything he stars in has to be shit-level, so I naturally assumed some of this attitude would rub off on Ballers. (Many critics have been underwhelmed.) Now that it’s been announced that Ballers‘ fifth season will be the last, I need to acknowledge for the record that I’ve never watched so much as a trailer for this series, and that I’m fine with that.

Justin Theroux‘s digitally augmented “Tramp” in the forthcoming live-action Lady and the Tramp (Disney, 11.12) doesn’t seem to have that robust, bright-eyed personality of his animated forebear. It may have something to do with those “dead” CG eyes.

On 11.28.16, or two and three quarter years ago, I noted that then-President Elect Trump was “living on his own fake-news planet, and millions of followers have probably bought into this. Campaign-trail bullshit is one thing, but when has a U.S. President-elect ever insisted upon a straight-faced investment in alternative facts?

“This is what tyrants and dictators do — this is Nero time. Tell me how it’s inappropriate to apply the term ‘insane’ to Trump as this stage. I’m serious.

“What’s the difference between Trump and President Mark Hollenbach in Fletcher Knebel‘s “Night of Camp David,” a 1965 thriller about a first-term Senator, Jim MacVeagh, who comes to believe that Hollenbach has mentally gone around the bend and needs to somehow be relieved of his duties? They seem similar to me.”

Here and now: It struck me today that Trump’s recent behavior and statements indicate a state of mind that is way, way beyond the fruitcake ramblings of President Hollenbach, and yet here we are. And poor Justice Ginsburg has been treated for a malignant tumor on her pancreas. I’m feeling a terrible sense of hovering doom.

Three days ago Paul Schrader, having just caught a theatrical showing of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, said it’s basically a film at war with itself by trying to be two things at once.

“It’s like vibrating under the spell of juiced-up, pro-war amphetamines while, in the distance, hearing a dour somewhat confused country preacher declaiming war’s evils,” Schrader wrote on Facebook.

A filmmaker friend interpreted this to mean (although Schrader didn’t seem to actually be saying this) that there can be no such thing as an actual “antiwar film” because if your battle footage is depicted with any realism or honesty, it’s impossible not to convey the exhilaration of surviving an armed conflict (alluded to by that famous Winston Churchill quote about “nothing in life [being] so exhilarating as to be shot at without result”), and that this tends to neutralize any intended antiwar import.

Put more simply, if your war film seems to echo or confirm Churchill’s recollection, which is probably all but impossible, you can’t really make an “antiwar film.”

HE to filmmaker friend: “I don’t agree. The exhilaration of combat aspect has been understood since the first accounts of the military campaigns of Alexander The Great (Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus), and certainly since Plutarch wrote about the adventures of Julis Caesar.

“But these and other accounts through the centuries (including Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory) have never negated the fact that the nature of war is to slaughter and destroy — to deliver horror and pain and misery en masse…to inflict cruelty without mercy, at least as far as the enemy is concerned. How can any honest depiction of this not be antiwar-ish?”

Schrader also said something that’s very clear and true about Apocalypse Now, which is that “the schizophrenic nature of the film goes back to the script itself. John Milius‘s original script was all bravado and gung ho crazy. Francis has the opposite sensibility. The Ride of the Valkyries, the surfers, the bunnies — that’s Milius. The Michael Herr narration, the plantation exposition, the meditations on evil — that’s Coppola.”

CBC Reporter: “What are the Koch brothers trying to achieve?” Jane Mayer, author of “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right“: “They are very, very strident libertarians who want to shrink the government, reduce taxes, particularly their own taxes…they’re the biggest producers of toxic waste in America, and they’re also among the bigger polluters in terms of air pollution, water pollution and climate pollution.”

In short, along with his brother Charles, David Koch was the primary sponsor of climate-change doubt in the United States.

As recently as 1973 there was a drive-in theatre at the corner of Olympic and Bundy. Really. It was called (wait for it) the Olympic Drive-In. The street-facing side of the screen featured a mural of a 20something couple riding a wave. It opened on 4.4.45 and closed on 10.14.73.

The last time I even contemplated the memory of drive-in theatres was when I was watching that abandoned drive-in shoot-out scene in Michael Mann‘s Heat, which was 24 years ago.

The last time I saw a film at a drive-in was sometime in the early to mid ’80s. I think it was a Bob Zemeckis film (Used Cars or Romancing The Stone). Somewhere in the northern Burbank area, or in North Hollywood. My first drive-in experience was with my parents, somewhere in the vicinity of Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore.

I’m kind of surprised to learn that 330 domestic drive-in theatres were in business as of two years ago. But only in podunk backwaters that nobody’s heard of, much less visited. Carthage, Missouri. Middle River, Maryland. Newville, Pennsylvania. Honor, Michigan. Russellville, Alabama. Sterling, Illinois. Driggs, Idaho. Lakeland, Florida.

Earlier today: I respect the affectionate feelings that some have shared about the drive-in experience, and I love the Americana aspect of drive-ins (those iconic images of ‘50s and ‘60s films playing to an army of classic Chevys, Impalas, Ford Fairlanes and T-Birds), and let’s not forget the most common aspect, which was the sexual stuff (mostly second-base and third-base action).

But if you cared even a little bit about Movie Catholic viewing standards (as in decent sound and tolerable light levels, and no headlights hitting the screen every five minutes) ) you avoided drive-ins like the plague. You went to drive-ins for the car sex, and you brought your own beer.

Wise guy to HE: “‘And let’s not forget the most common aspect, which was the sexual stuff (mostly second-base and third-base action).’ I guess this explains the affection for Elton John ballads. You really are from Connecticut, aren’t you?”

HE to Wise Guy: “What are you saying, that people actually got laid at the drive-in? Some did, I guess. But they sure kept it a secret.”

…a bright, well-educated, reasonably candid, even-tempered, emotionally mature human being was President of the United States. Less than three years ago…imagine.

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?