Apologies for only just reading Leah Reich’s 9.11 N.Y. Times profile of HE’s own Kristi Coulter and her book, “EXIT INTERVIEW: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career.”

Amazon: “A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com, from the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This.”

Kristi’s brand was completely respectful and admirable before I read this, but now I’m feeling the fervor. If any veteran of the HE threads (particularly “George”) ever says anything unkind or disrespectful about Kristi I will dedicate myself to their HE termination, even if I have to do it manually on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis.

Here’s a fast and blunt assessment of Scott Feinberg’s handicapping of Best Actor and Actress hotties, posted on 9.21.23.

BEST ACTOR FRONTRUNNERS:

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer — HE: I realize he’s a likely nominee, but he wears the same chilly, cold-eyed, alien-from-Betelguese expression in every scene.

Colman Domingo, Rustin — HE: A spirited channelling of an iconic, live-wire activist that conveys nothing except Domingo’s idea of a spirited performance. He’s so full of love and tingling energy that he almost puts you to sleep.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon — HE: As Ernest Burkhart, Leo is essentially playing a weak-willed, none-too-bright cockroach. He’s completely invested and believable, but who wants to concentrate upon, much less celebrate, the moral writhings of an Oklahoma yokel?

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers — HE: A masterful, onion-peeled, drop-by-drop performance of an unhappy older fellow with a snappy tongue…a history professor humming with resentment…sad and smart and as honest as performances of this type get.

Bradley Cooper, Maestro — I haven’t seen it, but the word on the street is that Carey Mulligan blows Cooper off the screen.

Haven’t yet seen Adam Driver in Ferrari or Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon, but if you ask me it’s Giamatti’s Oscar to lose. He should have won for Sideways — nobody with a brain disputes this,

BEST ACTRESS FRONTRUNNERS:

Annette Bening, Nyad — haven’t seen it but given the prickly reactions I heard in Telluride it’ll be quite the triumph for Bening to land a nomination,

Emma Stone, Poor Things — HE: Definitely the front-runner as we speak.

Margot Robbie, Barbie — HE: A likely nomination but think of Robbie’s exaggerated, chirpy-robot manner…do we really want to celebrate this kind of wind-up-doll acting?

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon — HE: Gladstone’s intention to go for Best Actress may result in a nomination, but it’s a tactical mistake. She should go for supporting. Her campaign is strictly an identity pitch. Gladstone performs decently as Mollie Burkhart, but she has no (i.e., wasn’t given any) big moments. Most of the time she just glares at the bad guys and lies dying in bed.

Carey Mulligan, Maestro – haven’t seen it,

Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall — HE: A genuine, fully-lived-in performance — diary of a survivor of a fraught marriage.

Greta Lee, Past Lives — HE: Nope.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Origin — haven’t seen it.

As we speak it’s Stone’s Oscar to lose. If Gladstone wins it’ll be another equity-over-quality joke, thanks to the fanatical New Academy Kidz.

According to The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer, a jolting text message was sent last night to several writers from their agents.

It said that producers and writers “are truly on the one yard line…no deal on Thursday night but [almost certainly] by Sunday evening, or earlier. Down to two points.”

“The text also alluded to former WGA chief negotiator David Young: “Turns out the WGA negotiating committee called David and ran everything by him…last night at 5 pm they agreed to a deal. It was David who told them to go back and ask for those other two points and ‘squeeze their nuts the same way we did the agents’. That’s what happened and that’s who’s been behind the scenes this entire time, hence why it’s taking so long.”

HE friendo: “Due to the unreasonable duration of this strike, as well as considerable collateral damage heaped upon below the line personnel and outlying businesses, the WGA is trying to come back to its membership with a full victory lap on all issues.

“I’m hearing an extension of health benefits is also a sticking point for the AMPTP… they won’t relinquish [this in order] to discourage future strikes, but the WGA is being insistent.

“The AMPTP felt they’d closed a deal in principle on Thursday night, but the WGA came back with more caveats and it’s very convenient to attribute those to the hardliner not in the room: David Young. As I’ve said before, if Young had been the lead negotiator, he most likely would have advocated staying at the table, but the Guild was hellbent on this strike.”

…except there are two performances that push too hard.

I’m speaking of Monica Raymund (playing lead prosecutor Katherine Challee**) and Lance Reddick (as head judge Luther Blakely). You can spot the histrionics immediately, and I’m sorry but the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the late director William Freidkin.

Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Clarke and Jake Lacy respectively portray Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queen, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (defense attorney) and Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (defendant).

The 109-minute Showtime pic will debut on 10.6.23.

Dmytryk’s film ran 125 minutes. The court-martial climax lasted around…what, 25 or 30 minutes including the confrontational after-party?

…for nothin’ left to lose.

I just re-watched Memento for the first time since the fall of 2000….23 years ago. And I had the exact same reaction.

I didn’t give a flying fuck about trying to make sense of the confusing ass-backwards plot (if you want to call it a “plot”) and I will never care what actually happened for the rest of my life, but I was totally tickled by Guy Pearce‘s performance as the earnestly confused, 100%-behind-the-eightball Leonard Shelby.

I also loved Joe Pantoliano and Carrie Ann Moss‘s respective performances as Natalie and John Edward “Teddy” Gammell. And Mark Boone Junior‘s confession that his boss had told him to rent a second motel room to Pearce because he wouldn’t remember having rented the first one.

It’s the metaphor that matters — living totally in the moment (i.e., unburdened by memory or past associations of any kind) represents, if you can really let go, a kind of ecstatic cosmic freedom. Glorious and oddly hilarious.

Memento is the only Chris Nolan film that could be accused of having a sense of humor.

Yesterday N.Y. Times industry reporter Kyle Buchanan declared that The Pot-Au-Feu (aka The Taste of Things) is “absolutely” competitive above and beyond the Best Int’l Feature category. He believes this because Tran Anh Hung’s French culinary romance is “incredibly Academy friendly.”

Most of us know what “Academy-friendly” means…a film that feels confident and well-crafted in a classic, well-settled sense…one that delivers emotional comfort by way of a well-threaded conveyance of commonly held truths and values…a film that resides within familiar boundaries and doesn’t push the envelope too much. In short, a film that appeals to over-45 sophistos.

But of course, there’s another kind of Academy-friendly film these days — one that appeals to the under-45 crowd by placing significant value upon identity politics (i.e., celebrating female, LGBTQ and non-white actors and filmmakers) above everything else…a film that caters to the tastes and views of the New Academy Kidz.

So which of the currently hot contenders and performances are traditionally Academy friendly vs. NAK-friendly? And which among these exude an intimidation factor — a film or performance that may be very good on a quality-level, but which voters will feel obliged to support regardless because they don’t want anyone to think they lack of a social conscience or, God forbid, may be harboring a certain undercurrent of racism.

Abbreviation-wise, the three categories are (a) AF, (b) NAK and (c) IF (intimidation factor). HE has also created a fourth category — FI or forget it.

HE director-screenwriter friendo: “There’s some movement on a rewards-based residual for streaming, based on viewing levels, but there’s no word on whether the minimum staffing as been resolved. It will probably get some caveat — that’s the showrunner’s call in some fashion. It’s telling that Amazon is adding advertising to Prime, commercials to its movies and originals, with an additional charge for an ad-free tier. This is a major concession. Jennifer Salke doesn’t read scripts and is inept. Advertising is easier to maintain and monetize, also meaning unions want that revenue as ads fuel profit margins. As I’ve long said, ad-supported streaming is the new basic cable.”

“I think the Vietnam War drove a stake right through the heart of America. [And] we’ve never really moved [beyond] that…we never recovered.”

I’ve been to Vietnam three times, and would love to return. I’ve even flirted with the idea or moving there permanently. There’s never been the slightest doubt in my mind that Johnson and Nixon administration policy makers brought immense horror and unimaginable slaughter to that beautiful, once-divided country, but during my three visits I’ve never felt anything but the most tranquil vibes. Nobody has ever given me so much as a hint of a dirty look because of my heritage. The natives who fought against the Americans are, of course, in their 70s and 80s or passed on. The 45-and-unders weren’t even born during the hostilities. Nobody wants to carry that war around — we all want to live in the present.

Which is why I didn’t want to watch Ken Burns and Lynn Novick‘s The Vietnam War, a ten-part, $30 million, 17-hour doc about that tragic conflict, when it premiered on PBS almost exactly six years ago (9.17.17).

But last night…I don’t know why exactly, but I felt suddenly drawn to this miniseries. So I watched three episodes — “The River Styx” (January 1964 – December 1965), “This Is What We Do” (July 1967 – December 1967) and “Things Fall Apart” (January 1968 – July 1968). Five hours without a break. This morning I watched episodes #7, #9 and #10.

I was fascinated, fascinated, horrified, saddened, at times close to tears. What a deluge of death, delusion and horror. Immeasurable and irredeemable. The second most divisive war in U.S. history. And I couldn’t turn it off. Had to see it through. Glad I did.

Excerpt from a 10.10.14 assessment of David Ayer’s Fury: “The climactic situation comes when the weary Brad ‘Wardaddy’ Pitt and his four bone-tired men (Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena and a revolting redneck animal played by Jon Bernthal) are stuck next to a country farmhouse with their tank temporarily disabled by a land mine. They soon after discover that 300 well-armed German troops are marching in their direction.

“Pitt has been ordered by his superior, Jason Isaacs, to protect a supply train, but five guys in a broken-down tank vs. 300 German solders is just suicide, plain and simple. They’ve no chance so why does Pitt decide to fight it out? To what end? They aren’t trapped. They could run for the trees and meet up with U.S. forces later and live to fight again. But no. You can call it bravery but I call it nihilism.

“I understand crazy courage and uncommon valor and all that. I choke up every time I think of Sam Jaffe climbing to the top of the temple so he can blow the bugle and warn the British troops of an ambush at the end of Gunga Din. And I understood the situation during the finale of Pork Chop Hill when 30 or 40 trapped U.S. troops have nothing to do but fight back against hordes of Chinese troops. And the ending of Platoon when U.S. troops were being overrun by North Vietnamese but they fight on regardless and even call in an air strike against their own position. And I certainly understand the Wild Bunch finale when William Holden and Ernest Borgnine and the other two decide that they’re getting old and their lives are over so why not go out in a blaze of gunfire?

“But the Fury finale is nothing like any of these scenarios.

Friendo: “That’s not how it went down.’

HE: “What do you mean that’s not how it went down’? That’s exactly how it went down. Pitt said ‘Nope, I’m gonna fight it out….you guys run for the trees if you want.’ Think about that decision for four or five seconds. It was utter suicide and for what?”

Friendo: “If they made a movie about guys who ran for the hills I don’t think it would be quite the same, would it?”

HE: “Not run for the hills but hide in the trees until the company passes by, and then regroup with the nearby American troops and fight on. What’s wrong with that?

“They weren’t fighting the enemy in order to give other Allied troops time to achieve some other objective — this wasn’t the Alamo. They weren’t ordered to protect a bridge at all costs, like the guys in Saving Private Ryan. This was April 1945 — the end of the war. Hitler would be dead in a couple of weeks. It didn’t matter. If Pitt and his homies had abandoned the tank and run like thieves I would have jumped out of my seat and said ‘Yes! Run for it! All right!'”

Friendo: “The Fury finale was analogous to those two cops in the mean streets of Los Angeles in Ayer’s End of Watch.”

HE: “Not the same thing at all. Sorry but you’re throwing out bad analogies. And that finale in End of Watch was ridiculous also. L.A. cop Jake Gyllenhaal is shot by gangbangers, what, 12 or 15 times and he’s attending the funeral of his partner in the next scene?

Friendo: “I will stand to the end of this thread defending my analogies just like Pitt did against the Nazis!”

HE: “During the big court-martial scene in Paths of Glory a French infantryman, Private Maurice Ferol (Timothy Carey), is asked by the prosecution why he retreated after his comrades had all been killed in an attack on the Ant Hill (i.e., a German fortification). The question is satirically re-phrased by Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), the defense counsel. ‘Why didn’t you attack the Ant Hill single-handed?’ Dax asks. ‘Single-handed? Are you kidding, sir?,’ Ferol replies. ‘Yes, I’m kidding,’ Dax says.

“Pitt and his crew going up against 300 German troops isn’t much different from Ferol vs. the Ant Hill, trust me.

“A soldier can’t go into battle saying ‘I don’t want to die…where can I hide?’ He has to go into battle saying ‘we have to man up and accomplish our objective.’ The chances of survival are never good but suicide is suicide. And as a moviegoer I can’t support a battle in which there’s no chance of the protagonists prevailing. There has to be at least a shot at victory.

“If it’s a choice between self-destruction and running for cover in order to live and fight another day, just call me Jeff ‘run for the treeline’ Wells.”