The Ferrari wikipage has a section about the genesis of the project, and right at the top it says that director Michael Mann “first began exploring making Ferrari around 2000, having discussed the project with Sydney Pollack.”

This suggests why the late David Rayfiel, the screenwriting “colorist” who worked on several respected Pollack films (The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Firm) as an uncredited “pinch hit” guy…it suggests why Rayfiel, who died 12 years ago, has an IMDB credit for “additional literary credit” on Ferrari.

Having just noticed this credit, a friend asked me if I heard Rayfiel’s voice while watching Ferrari.

HE reply: “I could not hear David’s voice — not in the same way I’ve heard his voice in all those Pollack films. But what do I know?”

“JBM” in HE comment thread: “Mann was the final writer, combining two scripts by the late Troy Kennedy Martin (died in ’09) and Rayfiel (died in ’11). But Martin did the heavy lifting.”

Fair HE Statement: Even in the tragic and traumatic here-and-now, it’s not anti-Semitic to explain or acknowledge the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Familiar quote: “If the Arabs were to to put down their weapons, there would be peace. If the Jews were to put down their weapons, there’d be no more Jews in the Middle East.”

Funny: “I think we need to shut down Harvard University until we figure out what the hell’s going on.”

As I noted a month ago, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall is a did-she-do-it? film — a smartly written marital mystery-slash-courtroom procedural. It’s about about whether or not a German writer named Sandra (likely Oscar nominee Sandra Huller) may be guilty of murdering her husband Vincent (Swann Arlaud) by pushing him out of a third-floor window in their Grenoble A-frame.

This is the source of the film’s tension, and what makes Anatomy a fascinating bad-marriage film.

In a 10.12 piece called “Anatomy of a Fall Is Prestige Cinema as Airport Novel,” The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody has hit upon something that I completely missed when I was writing my review. And I should have because it’s a total HE thang.

Brody observes that once the film has revealed that Huller’s character is bisexual, it is all but guaranteed that she’s innocent. Because in today’s woke-subservient climate no progressive-minded filmmaker is allowed to make a bisexual woman into a villain of any kind. It’s simply not done.

In Brody’s words: “There’s the revelation that Sandra is bisexual, which, as I watched the movie, struck me as an instant exoneration, for the simple reason that a film governed by high-minded consensus would no longer dare to posit a bisexual woman as a wanton killer.”

In Henry Koster‘s Desiree (29th Century Fox, 11.16.54), Marlon Brando‘s performance as Napoleon Bonaparte was actually pretty good. Plus the 30 year-old Brando was the right age to play Napoleon at the time of his crowning, which happened in 1804 when he was 35. Phoenix is a great actor but he was 48 during filming and looks it. He’ll turn 50 on 10.28.24.

Not so much the film itself. An “historical romance” aimed at impressionable women. The music score was created by Alex North; the CinemaScope cinematography by Milton R. Krasner. Jean Simmons played the titular role of Desiree Clary. Costarring Merle Oberon (44 at the time) as Josephine. Plus Michael Rennie, Cameron Mitchell, Elizabeth Sellars, Charlotte Austin, Cathleen Nesbitt, Carolyn Jones and Evelyn Varden.

Go to 4:55 — that’s when a nearby explosion rocks this Palestinian woman’s building, and yet she more or less shrugs it off and keeps talking. Courage.

No food, water, gas, electricity…nothin’.

If I was a resident of Gaza City you can bet I’d be locking up and humping it south with a backpack and sleeping bag, as long as it takes.

Martin Scorsese‘s films have always been clear about who the lead character is, and why we should care about him or her or at least feel a certain kinship, even if they were criminals or morally compromised in some way. We always absorbed the stories that unfolded from this lead character’s point of view.

Goodfellas had a point of view — i.e., Ray Liotta’s or Henry Hill‘s.

The Wolf of Wall Street had a point of view — Leonardo DiCaprio’s or Jordan Belfort‘s.

Mean Streets had a point of view — Harvey Keitel’s.

The King of Comedy has a point of view — Robert DeNiro‘s or Rupert Pupkin‘s.

Casino had a point of view — Ace Rothstein‘s or Robert De Niro‘s.

The Departed had a point of view — Leo’s for the most part although Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson muscle their way in from time to time.

Taxi Driver had a clear point of view — Robert De Niro‘s or Travis Bickle‘s.

In The Age of Innocence, the point of view was owned by Daniel Day Lewis or Newland Archer.

Raging Bull certainly had a point of view — Robert De Niro‘s or Jake LaMotta‘s.

The Last Temptation of Christ had a point of view — i.e., Willem Dafoe’s or Jesus of Nazareth‘s.

After Hours had a point of view — Griffin Dunne‘s or Paul Hackett‘s.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore had a clear point of view — Ellen Burstyn‘s.

None of these points of view (including Jesus’s) were necessarily imbued with moral instruction, and so goodness and morality weren’t preached.

We didn’t go to these films to receive moral messaging about the right moral path that the lead character should take. We were informed about how these characters felt about what was happening, and what they did in response to these forces of nature to further or clarify their game. They may have felt conflicted or guilty, but their stories were strictly about how they saw things and what they needed to do to fulfill their fate or at least stay out of trouble.

I’m sorry but Killers of the Flower Moon has no real clear point of view. It starts with the point of view of Leo’s Ernest Burkhart character but it kinda switches over to Lily Gladstone‘s Mollie Burkhart, and then it spreads out and diffuses.

Even the 19-minute chapter on the Osage murder saga in Mervyn LeRoy‘s The FBI Story (’59) has a clear point of view — James Stewart‘s or Chip Hardesty‘s.

In David Grann‘s non-fiction “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the point of view is more or less owned by the top FBI guy, former Texas Ranger Tom White.

The whole point of the book — it’s right there in the title — is that the Osage murder case launched the FBI. But that’s not in the film. Because Scorsese didn’t want to make a film about white guys.

I’m therefore suspicious of the praise for the Rolling Stones‘ Hackney Diamonds, which pops on 10.20.23.

I’ve been too lazy to even listen to some of it, partly because those ticket prices for that SoFi stadium show hat I attended in late ’21 kinda pissed me off and it almost had me thinking “fuck those greedy-ass guys.” Plus I’ve never liked songs that are sung too hard and and which seem to strain a singer’s vocal range (i.e., all that lung power wears me down), but I have to admit that “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” is starting to grow on me.