In a 1.23 World of Reel post that riffs on a 1.13.22 Daily Mail interview, Empire of Light director-writer Sam Mendes laments the bombing or under-performing of not only his own film** but other auteur-stamped features that opened during 2022’s award season.

The comment thread that follows is fascinating, but I was particularly stirred by a post from “Andrew”, who compares the Miramax-dominated realm of 1998 (when well-educated boomers and GenXers were avid followers of critically-approved award-season flicks) to the coarse downmarket reality of today.

Mendes:

Andrew:

** Empire of Light is HE’s choice for the best film of 2022. And I’m far from alone in my admiration.

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Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale is a strange and shadowed study of self-imposed confinement. Brendan Fraser’s Charlie is a suffering sad sack, all right. I felt for the poor bloated guy, but what a tragedy. What a ghastly, grotesque experiment in plumbing the depths of regret and self-loathing, not to mention the drip-drip process of slow suicide.

Charlie’s choking-on-a-sandwich scene is one for the ages; ditto his eating binge + vomiting scene. Ditto his sweat-soaked, white-light death scene (i.e., my favorite moment in the film). James Whale and Todd Browning would be impressed; so would Montgomery Clift.

Obviously an intelligent filmed play, and mildly pleasurable for that. Fraser’s performance is a whopping, tearful freak show, but I felt the heart of it. And I was moved by that final gasp (partly a cry of release) when he finally goes to God. And yes, I’m proud that I got through it. I‘ve been terrified of watching this film for months, and now I’m past that hurdle. And I’ll never have to watch it again.

Robert Evans on aging, spoken directly to HE back in ‘96 or thereabouts: “Your hair turns gray, your nose gets softer, your ears get longer and your teeth get smaller.”

But noses don’t change their basic shape. Or at least mine never has. If you have, say, a button nose as a 22 year-old, you’re not going to end up with a Basil Rathbone nose when you’re 70.

Three hisses….hah! Mistake. Three guesses as to which Oscar prognosticator wrote the following, and the first two guesses don’t count.

…and they told me to state my pronouns, I would write Eat / Me. Okay, that’s fairly vulgar but I’d probably feel better about that designation than He / Him, which seems overly compliant.

Given the basic sinking-into-the-swamp dynamic that’s been evident for some time now…