The first quarter of 2019 ends on Sunday, and I’m telling you straight and true that Kent Jones‘ Diane (IFC Films, 3.29) is easily the fullest and finest commercially released film I’ve seen so far this year. The most restrained and fittingly modest. Certainly the most recognizably human.

I wouldn’t call Diane trying or dreary — it’s not — but it certainly reminds you that life can be that from time to time, and that you really need to be tough and sharp just to survive in a rudimentary fashion, and that’s not even counting the guilt that’s been weighing you down for decades or your dicey, no-account, drug-addicted son who…no, wait, he’s a Jesus freak now. Never mind.

Comparing Diane to HE’s other big favorite, Dragged Across Concrete, is nonsensical as the cards they deal couldn’t be more different, but Jones’ film is still two or three notches ahead.

It’s one of those modest, drill-bitty, character-driven films that just reaches in and flips your light switch. It makes you feel human; it makes you care. I knew it was a keeper less than five minutes in. It has a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score, but why not 100?

The Oscar situation is always weighted against intimate, small-scaled films that open in the spring, but at the very least Diane is a guaranteed Gotham and Spirit Awards contender for Best Picture. And I can’t imagine Mary Kay Place, who plays the titular character, not being an all-but-certain contender for a Best Actress Oscar nom. Unless SAG and Academy voters take leave of their senses. Which is always a possibility.

Diane is really and truly the shit. Even if you’re a GenZ or Millennial who doesn’t want to think about what life will be like 35 or 40 years hence, it’ll still sink in. There are those, I’m presuming, who’d rather not settle into a simple Bressonian saga about the weight of responsibility and life being a hard-knocks thing a good part of the time. Or who’d rather not consider the existence of a 70-year-old New England woman who lives alone but has good friends, and who drives carefully, tries to do the right thing, works part-time in a homeless soup kitchen and has been coping with certain dark recollections for decades.

Diane is certainly a rural New England mood trip. Wake up, make the bed, shovel the snow, prepare the coffee, tidy up, get it done, visit your bum son. Late winter, melting snowdrifts, real world, limited income, older person blues, “being 70something is no picnic”, enjoy a drink now and then, my friends are dropping like flies.

All through Diane you can sense tragedy waiting to pounce, and you’re constantly preparing for a shock of some kind. Including the simple kiss of death. But it goes in a different direction.

I know that Place has been working all along, but the last time I said “whoa, she’s extra-good in this” was when she played Orson Bean‘s hard-of-hearing secretary in Being John Malkovich, which was 20 years ago. Before that it was her Meg Jones performance (i.e., the no-boyfriend single who wants to get pregnant) in The Big Chill. She’s certainly never played a lead role as substantive as Diane. So there’s your Best Actress narrative — MKP played supporting characters all her life, and then fortune smiled when Kent Jones came along.

Who would you rather have as armed allies against a gang of bloodthirsty bad guys — Team Rio Bravo or the Assault on Precinct 13 guys?

Would you prefer Austin Stoker‘s “Lt. Ethan Bishop”, Darwin Joston‘s “Napoleon Wilson”, Laurie Zimmer‘s “Leigh” and Tony Burton‘s “Wells” as fellow defenders? Or John Wayne‘s “John Chance”, Dean Martin‘s “Dude” (a recovering alky with the shakes), Ricky Nelson‘s “Colorado” and Walter Brennan‘s “Stumpy”?

In my book there’s no comparison. Plus you don’t have to listen to any jail-house singalongs in the Carpenter film. As I said in a related thread, there’s no character in Rio Bravo who comes even close to Joston’s Wilson in terms of steely machismo and seething, hard-boiled currents.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s recent argument for the Green New Deal was brilliant. Two days ago majority leader Mitch McConnell brought the Green New Deal to a Senate vote, and the plan was defeated defeated 57-0 — all the Republicans plus three lily-livered Democratic senators. The rest of the Democratic caucus voted “present.”

AOC is 29 — a month older than my younger son Dylan. She’ll turn 35 on 10.13.24, which would make her technically eligible to run for president that year. But the smart move would be wait until the ’28 election, by which point she’d be in the same general age bracket as the 37 year-old Pete Buttigieg, who’s currently the youngest guy to ever run for president.

What rational, fair-minded viewer of this WGA video essay could possibly conclude that the four major talent agencies are playing fair and square? Variety‘s Dave McNary has described the video, which surfaced two days ago, as “scathing.” To me it just seems clear-headed and well-ordered.

“Agency Conflicts of Interest” explains the basics: (1) Writer income dropped by 23% between 2014 and 2016, (2) the reason is that on TV deals big agencies are wangling packaging fees instead of the usual 10% commission, (3) CAA, WME and UTA have also launched their own production companies, which means they’re now in a position to negotiate from both sides of the fence.

Key quote: “Packaging puts the agency in direct conflict with the writers. When your agency is also your employer, the conflict of interest is clear and flagrant.”

Two or three weeks before the 2.8.80 opening of The Fog, I did a sitdown interview with director/co-writer John Carpenter.

I told him I was a big fan of Somebody’s Watching Me, a voyeurism-and-stalking flick that Carpenter made right before Halloween (but which aired on 11.29.78, or a month after Halloween opened). I noted, however, that the main-title sequence — bold color, aggressive music, white parallel lines blending into a shot of a high-rise — was clearly “lifted” from the beginning of Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest.

My observation was offered in the vein of that famous T.S. Eliot remark: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” All enterprising artists “take” from the masters, and Carpenter had stolen from one of the best…no biggie.

For some reason Carpenter took umbrage. “Lifted?” he said. “Well, yeah,” I replied. “Borrowed from, inspired by, affectionately stolen…that line of country.” Carpenter frowned, grumbled, hemmed and hawed. But after some discussion he finally blurted out, “Okay, fine…I stole it!”

Shout Factory released a Somebody’s Watching Me! Bluray on 8.7.18.

I’ve just bought the very last Amazon copy of a DVD containing a 1.33:1 aspect ratio version of The Sting. Which I’ve never seen in my life. Every time I’ve watched this 1973 George Roy Hill classic it’s always been cropped to 1.85. As the film takes place in 1934 or thereabouts, a boxy aspect ratio (standard Academy ratio back then) is a perfect complement. Acres and acres of extra visual information (tops and bottoms)…I’ve already got the chills. The DVD in question was released in 2010.

Young Frankenstein, which also apes the mood and ambience of the early to mid ’30s, would have been another perfect boxy, especially in high-def. I’m not expecting to see any overhead boom mikes dropping into the frame — that’s a phony disinformation meme circulated by 1.85 fascists.

Note: Comparison shots stolen from DVD Beaver.

A generic example of what constitutes an absorbing scene. The ostensible focus is a technical-industrial thing — geological science, miniature oil tankers, parts that need replacing, etc. The audience doesn’t hear a word of the dialogue, of course, because the real focus is sexual attraction — Peter Capaldi succumbing to the mermaid allure of Jenny Seagrove. The bit in which Capaldi grabs the folded white smock from Peter Reigert and then Reigert grabs it back…perfect.

“Is there no decency in this man?” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asks about Jussie Smollett after prosecutors dropped all charges against the “Empire” actor https://t.co/FTXteyXy0Z pic.twitter.com/b4s3d6Iydk

— CNN (@CNN) March 26, 2019

Remember Stanley Kubrick‘s famous assessment of 1941, which he personally conveyed to Steven Spielberg? I can’t find the exact quote but the gist was “the filmmaking chops are brilliant…it’s not funny but it’s really well made.” Well, the famous ferris-wheel-rolling-off-the-pier scene disproves even that. There’s no way the ocean is deep enough for a 100-foot-tall ferris wheel to completely disappear — to just sink into the depths like the Titanic. Right off Pacific Ocean Park the ocean depth would be…what, 30 or 40 feet? If that? All Spielberg had to do was show the ferris wheel hitting bottom and then tipping over to the side.

I don’t understand how Chicago cops could have announced last February that they had conclusive evidence against Jussie Smollett arranging to stage a racially-motivated attack with the help of two Nigerian brothers, and then a few weeks later prosecutors drop the whole thing and say “never mind”…the fuck?

I’m sorry but this feels like a fix, like some kind of back-room deal, like Chicago authorities just caved in the interest of…what, noblesse oblige?

All charges against Smollett were dropped this morning, but why? Are you telling me the evidence against him has been found to be bogus? Okay, maybe, but why were authorities convinced otherwise until this morning?

“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his [$10K] bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the state’s attorney’s office said in a statement this morning.

What the hell could community service and agreeing to forfeit $10K possibly have to do with anything?

If the evidence against Smollett is conclusive, then the prosecutors should proceed with the case. Right? If the Nigerian brothers lied and the whole case was bullshit, then folding their hand would be appropriate. But the facts had been vetted. It seemed as if Smollett was guilty. The cops were persuaded.

Ancient Chinese proverb: “Fish stinks from the head.”

How many have seen Walt Disney‘s original 1941 Dumbo? I did when I was seven or eight, something like that. That endearing scene in which tearful little Dumbo longs for his mom’s embrace after she’s been locked up for being a “mad” elephant…right? Then came my second immersion when I saw Steven Spielberg‘s 1941, which opened (good God) almost 40 years ago. That scene, I mean, when Robert Stack’s General Stillwell weeps while watching the locked-up-mom scene in a Hollywood Blvd. theatre.

Disney’s almost 80-year-old animation may seem a little crude by present-day standards, and the film only runs 64 minutes, but the original Dumbo (overseen by Walt and “supervising director” Ben Sharpsteen) emotionally works.

Dumbo‘s basic theme (first articulated in Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl‘s Dumbo, the Flying Elephant, a 1938 children’s book) is that young oddballs — anyone or anything perceived as “different” — are doomed to suffer at the hands of selfish, short-sighted humans. But if the little fella has some kind of inner gift or aptitude (like flying, say) and can somehow express it, the ugliness can be stilled to some extent. Or he can at least snuggle up with mom.

Tim Burton‘s big, over-produced, annoyingly simple-minded remake sticks to the same basic idea — i.e., oddballs can find light at the end of the tunnel if they can show a little moxie.

Burton takes a small, mostly sad little story — a big-eared baby elephant that can fly is separated from his mom, and has to learn to fend for himself — and basically throws money at it while adding nearly 50 minutes to the running time — 112 minutes vs. the original’s 64.

Okay, money and a really nice compositional eye, at least during the first half. The first 55 or 60 minutes of Dumbo are largely about old-worldish production design (by Rick Heinrichs, who worked with Burton on Sleepy Hollow) and Ben Davis‘s cinematography, which is really quite handsome. Within the first hour every shot is an exquisite, carefully lighted painting.

We’re talking about a small-scaled, old-fashioned, Toby Tyler-ish realm, owned and operated by the hucksterish but good-hearted Max Medici (Danny DeVito). A big canvas circus tent, wooden bleachers, peanuts and popcorn, lions and lion tamers, strong men and fat ladies…the kind of operation celebrated in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Greatest Show on Earth (’52) and in Samuel Bronston‘s Circus World (’64).

But the second half — or when poor Dumbo’s life is darkened by Michael Keaton‘s V. A. Vandevere, a P.T. Barnum-meets-Beetlejuice figure who represents all kinds of venality, corporate greed and the seven circles of hell — the second half is just awful. The scale of Keaton’s super-circus (a Dante-esque amusement park called Dreamland) is oppressive. Watching this portion is a combination of (a) “villainy! vulgarity! greed!”, (b) “turn off the stupid spigots,” (b) “who wrote this godawful dialogue?” (answer: Ehren Kruger) and (d) “please burn it all down.”