Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel is reporting thqt Ashlee Margolis, founder of the Beverly Hills firm The A List, recently wrote “an email to her staff about a new mandate to hit ‘pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.”

I’m just kinda wondering who else has been paused or kibboshed over the years for thie or that political or industry-sensitive offense. It happens — I know that much.

Here’s an HE rundown of the 15 best films I’ve seen this year, including some of my Cannes favorites (all unreleased) as well as Steven Zallian‘s Ripley, the knockout Netflix miniseries.

These are the films that I felt truly impressed by, that I liked the most or have thought about hard since seeing them…HE’s creme de la creme.

I’ve listed them in order of preference, and so that makes Sean Baker‘s Anora my #1 favorite, closely followed by Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light, Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera, Ripley, Robert Lorenz‘s In the Land of Saints and Sinners and Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice — these are the top six.

It’s not quite a 2024 half-time (i.e., first six months) list, but we all know that as a rule few June releases qualify as more than passing fancies.

I saw Jeff Nichols‘ The Bikeriders (Focus Features, 6.21) at Telluride last September…bad. Ditto Annie Baker‘e Janet Planet (A24, 6.120)…nope. I haven’t seen Bad Boys 4: Ride or Die but what could that possibly amount to? I saw Yorgos Lanthimos‘s Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight, 6.28) in Cannes…not my cup, and likely to be hated by many if not most ticket-buyers. And I still haven’t seen Christy Hall‘e Daddio (Sony Pictures Classics, 6.28).

Finest 2024 Films (15) in this order…I’ll paste in my review links later today or tonight:

1. Sean Baker‘s Anora (Neon, 10.18)

2. Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light

3. Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera

4. Steven Zallian‘s Ripley

5. Robert Lorenz‘s In the Land of Saints and Sinners

6. Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice

7. Alex Garland‘s Civil War

8. Halfdan Ullmann Tondel‘s Armand.

9. Rose Glass‘s Love Lies Bleeding

10. Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Perez (very good but calm down)

11. Magnus von Horn’s’s The Girl With the Needle

12. Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part Two

13. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire‘s Asphalt City (formerly Black Flies)

14. Luca Guadagnino‘s Challengers

15. Wes Ball‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

I liked Coralie Fergeat‘s The Substance, but not enough to place it among my top 15. Same deal with Tony Goldwyn‘s Ezra.

I still haven’t seen Vera Drew‘s The People’s Joker, the Zellner Bros.’ Sasquatch Sunset or Jane Schoenbrun‘s I Saw the TV Glow.

In other words, four years of authoritarian fascist suppression may be a short-term problem, but have faith, guys! Democracy may go on hiatus for a while, but Trump will die someday.

HE to Hanks: Nice squishy sidestepping, Tom!

If you know anything about the Sean Connery James Bond films, of which there were seven, you know that the only true-blues were Dr. No (’62) and From Russia With Love (’63) — tough, taut, character-driven, semi-realistic and modestly scaled, at least compared to the installments that followed.

Goldfinger was the first explosively popular Connery, of course, and a huge financial success. But while the first half was relatively lean and engaging, the second half was ludicrously plotted, and it was clear that the Bond producers had decided to weaken the focus on character and double-down on high-tech gadgetry, especially in the case of 007’s Aston Martin.

The opening sequence of Thunderball (’65) made it clear that the silliness was intensifying and that gadgetry was more or less running the show, especially when Connery escaped from a threatening situation with a flying air harness or jetpack, complete with an idiotic-looking crash helmet.

Compare this uninspired intro with the one that opened Goldfinger (planting explosives, white tuxedo under wet suit, bar scene, electrocuting an assailant in a bathtub) or the From Russia With Love opener — a moonlit cat-and-mouse duel between Connery (actually a guy in a Connery mask) and Robert Shaw‘e SPECTRE assassin. The bloom was clearly off the rose, and for purists Thunderball was the beginning of the downturn.

There were three more Connerys — You Only Live Twice (’67) and Diamonds Are Forever (’71), neither being much good. Connery’s final Bond was the relatively decent. Never Say Never Again (’83).

I’m summarizing the Connery-Bond history because three days ago Collider‘s Liam Gaughan, who’s been writing about film for roughly a decade, posted an article and a video essay that insisted the silly Thunderball opener was brilliant. The title was “These Are Hands-Down the Most Intense 10 Minutes in a Sean Connery James Bond Movie.”

“Thunderball is widely remembered as one of Connery’s best Bond films,” Gaughan began, “especially in comparison to its three predecessors.” WHAT??

“Dr. No was a sexy romance that introduced audiences to the character”, he continued. Bullshit. There was some flirting between Connery and Ursulq Andress on Crab Key but not much else, as the film mostly portrayed Bond as an ice-water operative who had the steel to shoot a bad guy in cold blood.

Gaughan then called From Russia With Love “an action-packed Cold War adventure,” an apparent suggestion that it’s too many decades old to be relevant or gripping, and Goldfinger “a culturally redefining classic that introduced recurring elements that would appear within subsequent entries in the series” — gadgetry, he means. An accurate statement.

“However, the thrilling opening sequence of Thunderball set the standard for what the James Bond franchise’s action could look like going forward,” Gaughan wrote. Allow mw to reiterate that the Thunderball openly flirts with self-parody, and that the jetpack flying sequence invites derisive laughter.

Correction: The most intense 10 minutes in a Sean Connery James Bond movie is the train compartment stand-off and slugfest between Connery and Shaw in From Russia With Love.

…when it comes to woke-trans stuff?

I don’t know that he is on my side, so to speak. If he holds opposing views, fine. But something tells me this dude and I park our cars in the same garage.

@the_reasons_i_drink ♬ original sound – the_reasons_i_drink

The Criterion Channel is currently celebrating Paul Schrader, whose latest film, Oh, Canada, I saw and quite admired two or three weeks ago in Cannes. But one of the Schrader films Criterion is currently streaming is Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters…hoo boy.

I admired many things about Mishima — the super-disciplined direction, Ken Ogata‘s lead performance, John Bailey‘s cinematography, Phillip Glass‘s score and the way it goaded me into reading several samples of Yukio Mishima‘s writing and to meditate about the meaning of Mishima’s fierce life…the life of a very serious hombre…a bisexual rightwing superstar-artist who committed ritual suicide at age 45.

If Mishima hadn’t offed himself so flamboyantly — if he hadn’t disemboweled himself on 11.26.70 and had Masakatsu Morita, a friend and political ally, cut his head off (he actually failed after three tries, prompting Masayoshi Koga, another ally, to finish the job) — would Schrader have made this 1985 film?

Certainly not, but that results in a big question: who did Schrader hope to reach with Mishima?

We all understand that conservative Japanese culture is queer for swords and reveres the idea of seppuku or harikari, but I, while respecting this reverence as much as I’m able, find it deeply appalling and repugnant.

Which is how I felt about the essence of Mishima as a whole. Beautifully done but what the living fuck was wrong with this guy?

I saw Mishima at the Harmony Gold screening room sometime in September or ’85, and when it was over I muttered to myself “okay, I’ve done my duty…I’ve shown respect for a major filmmmaker by giving his latest film my full, focused attention, but I will never, EVER watch this film again. I will endeavor, in fact, to put it out of my mind as completely as possible.”

Which is what I did for nearly 30 years. Until Criterion put it back in last weekend.

Hitler: “The Rosenbergs went to the electric chair for less than what Trump did [in terms of damaging the U.S.].”

Jordan Peele is no one’s idea of a brand-level visionary. He’s certainly no Spike Lee or Rod Serling or anyone in that grade-A realm. He’s basically a guy who mainly produces and occasionally dabbles in feature-film directing.

Peele got lucky once with Get Out (’17), but he’ll never breathe that kind of rarified air again. (Bob Strauss knows this but will never admit to having absurdly over-praised that racially-stamped Stepford Wives.) Us was agreeably creepy and unsettling but didn’t seem to add up to much. Nope felt portentous but was also patchy and splotchy and WTF-ish.

I’ve always regarded Peele as a well-liked, moderately talented industry hyphenate (director, producer, project hustler) who jumps into or attaches himself to anything that’s shaking (like that 2019 Twilight Zone series, which was nothing). Peele is a likable guy and fine as far as he goes, but he’s basically a hack. (And that’s not a felonious offense.) It seems as if Jeff Sneider is entertaining a similar assessment.