Jeff Wells

Please read Cenk Uygur’s 9.22 Newsweek piece that argues a statistical likelihood that President Biden might lose to Trump.

Plus a new Washington Post-ABC News poll (1,006 adults contacted between 9.15 and 9.20) has The Beast ten points ahead of Biden, 52 percent vs. 42 percent.

Not to mention this Hill opinion piece by Derek Hunter (9.20):

Uygur: “The old rule about incumbents was that if they are under 50 points in approval, they’re toast. President Joe Biden’s approval rating is under 40. There’s almost no chance he’s going to win. I’ve never heard of an incumbent polling under 40 points who went on to win reelection. When it comes to Biden, three in six recent polls had him in the thirties. In one recent poll, President Biden was at an abysmal 32 percent.”

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.

House speaker Kevin McCarthy is “a supernova of incandescent cynicism…he is MAGA’s greatest handmaiden…an absolutely corrupted individual…he has no conviction, he has no core, he holds no principles, he has no fidelity to the country…he has desecrated his oath of office.” — Steve Schmidt (“Why Kevin McCarthy’s government shutdown is in service of Donald Trump’s reelection“).

Allie Sherlock, age 18, is apparently Dublin based. (Was this video shot on Grafton Street?) Fionn Wheelan is 12 years old.

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?

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…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.

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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.”