Has anything changed as far as the Best Picture Oscar death of Everything Everywhere All At Once is concerned? Since last Friday morning, I mean? Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think so. THR‘s Scott Feinberg killed its chances last Thursday (12.29) when he listed Top Gun: Maverick as the #1 likeliest winner. That was it, end of story, guillotine drop.

The following morning we hashed it all out. Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and myself, I mean. Here it is, all 43 minutes worth.

One of the funniest SNL routines from 1979 was “Bend Over, Chuck Berry,” a homophobic but somewhat funny spoof of disco and the Village People in which Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray and Garrett Morris, dressed in Village People garb, sang the satiric song.

I’ve tried to find a YouTube clip of this routine for several years, but it’s not accessible. In fact you can’t even buy an audio recording (“this song is not available for free download due to copyright or license restrictions“). It’s presumably been buried because of the anti-gay lampooning, which Lorne Michaels understandably doesn’t want circulating around.

I was beginning to think that Belushi’s hilarious mimicking of fat Liz Taylor choking on chicken bones had also been buried. SNL wouldn’t dare make fun of anyone today because of a weight issue. I found a clip on Reddit (taken from an 11.11.78 broadcast) but it won’t play.

Kicking off 2023 with grandly familiar 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s snaps…can’t hurt.

Sometime early in the From Here To Eternity engagement, probably in September or October 1953.

If I remember correctly, Kirk Douglas never once takes his shirt off in Billy Wilder‘s Ace In The Hole (’51). He was well-known, of course, for displaying his brawny physique in Mark Robson‘s Champion (’49), which had made him a star two years earlier. So the Ace in the Hole billboard marketing guy said “fuck it, let’s try and sell this cynical, bitter film about heartless journalism as a Champion reboot.”

I’ve only just discovered a YouTube clip of the A&P musical dance sequence that closes Noah Baumbach‘s White Noise. It’s the only portion of the film that really and truly works.

I’ve written about this twice over the preceding two and a half months, but it can’t hurt to re-post. It’s titled “White Noise Finale That Could’ve Been.”

Posted on 10.1.22: “The common consensus is that whatever you may think of Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a dryly farcical ‘80s period drama set in an Ohio college town, the final sequence — an ambitiously choreographed dance sequence featuring shoppers at an A & P supermarket — is the highlight.

“The sequence affirms the film’s basic theme about nearly everyone turning to all kinds of distractions (including food) to avoid contemplating their own mortality.

“Though brilliantly staged, the dance number is undercut by Baumbach’s decision to use it as a closing credits backdrop. Here’s how I put it to a friend:

“The LCD Soundsystem ‘New Body Rhumba’ finale could have been great if Baumbach hadn’t decided to overlay it with closing credits. I almost shouted out loud ‘Oh no!! He’s blowing it!!’

“I’m saying this because once the credits begin we instantly disengage as we tell ourselves okay, the movie’s over so the aisle–dancing is just a colorful bit, a spirit-picker-upper…whatever.’

“If Baumbach hadn’t given us permission to disengage, the dancing could have been wild and mind-blowing in a surreal Luis Bunuel-meets-Pedro Almodovar way. It could have been a mad slash across a wet-paint canvas…a Gene Kelly consumer-orgy crescendo.

“And then it could have segued into a closing credit crawl. Alas…”