Yesterday’s USA Today presidential poll dropped me into a terrible pit of despair. The Beast, it said, is running ahead of all Democratic contenders. Trump is bettering “Typewriter” Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Bernie Sanders by 5, Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8, Mayor Pete by 10 and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.

This country has never been led by anyone as remotely horrific and diseased as Trump, and yet a majority of Average Joes prefer him to any or all of the Dems? Thoughtless swine. Reprehensible cattle. Diseased scum. Disciples of fascism.

This plus BoJo’s decisive trouncing of Jeremy Corbyn has me scared shitless. British Joe Bumblefucks couldn’t stand Corbyn, and our domestic variety can’t abide immigrant-embracing, big-government progressives and their general submission to the p.c. twitter narrative.

Better a strong sociopathic gangster with all his myriad corruptions and dedication to increasing the pace of climate change, they seem to be saying, than allowing the country to be overrun by immigrants, minorities and LGBTQs and operating on a general principle that white, under-educated, working-class people are bad news.

This is a living, gasping, bleeding nightmare. How can this be happening? The only thing Trump hasn’t done to defy decency and the general principle of lawful behavior is shoot someone in broad daylight in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and the bumblefucks are still with him. We’re living in a facsimile of Hitler’s Germany.

If anyone has a link to the new Black list scripts with a suggestion or two about which ones I absolutely must read, please pass along. I know nothing but I’d like to at least move beyond that a bit. Favorite title: A Magical Place Called Glendale by Sara Monge.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 12.17) is a double-header on Hollywood Boulevard — J.J. Abrams‘ Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney, 12.20) at the El Capitan at 2 pm, followed by a 7 pm screening of Tom Hooper‘s Cats (Universal 12.20). Cats runs 110 minutes; at 142 minutes, The Rise of Skywalker is over a half-hour longer. Both films will open on Thursday evening.

There’s also a Trump impeachment rally at 5:30 pm across from City Hall.

I don’t know when this was taken (roughly the early to mid ’50s) but the idea of paying $1.50 for a place to crash in midtown Manhattan is mind-boggling. The rooms were almost certainly shitholes but still.

East Coast critic (i.e., not HE): “I find it funny to see the entire media world tie itself into yoga knots pretending that Little Women is a good movie. Sasha is right about it — as storytelling it’s a mess, eager but muddled, and as a result it lacks cumulative power. The overpraise is ludicrous and sexist — it’s the empress’s new clothes.”

West Coast critic (ditto): “He’s right. Men are taken seriously and thus are given a decent and respectful critique. Women? People are ‘nice’ to them, forgiving and thus aren’t taking them seriously. Meet the new patriarchy, same as the old patriarchy. It’s a way of keeping women in a box or a gilded cage, so as not to be any kind of real threat. It’s infuriating. Women can never be taken seriously if they aren’t treated as equals.”

“Just as the Kavalry activate their system, Trieu teleports the setup to downtown Tulsa, finding Joe has become ooze, and kills the Cyclops leadership. Before Trieu kills him, Manhattan uses the distraction to teleport Veidt, Laurie, and Wade to Karnak, where Veidt reworks his squid-rain system to send frozen squid to pulverize Trieu’s device; killing Trieu in the process. Angela takes shelter in the theater where Will and her children are; where Will explains Manhattan had worked with him to bring about this necessary conclusion. While cleaning up eggs from the night before, Angela recalls Manhattan’s statement about transferring his powers through an organic medium. Finding one unbroken egg, Angela eats it and attempts to walk on water as she saw Manhattan do the night before.” — from synopsis of final episode (#9) of Damon Lindelof‘s Watchmen series, which concluded last night.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Democrat, Michigan’s 8th district) was booed by rightwing lunatics as she explained her decision to vote to to impeach President Trump. The 43 year-old Slotkin previously worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and for the Director of National Intelligence. She was a senior advisor on Iraq policy at the U.S. State Department, and worked for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy as an advisor on Middle East policy. In 2012 she became chief of staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, and later that year was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy. Last November she defeated Rep. Mike Bishop, a Trump-supporting rightie, with 50.6% of the vote.

What I’m absorbing from this new Maverick: Top Gun teaser is Tom Cruise‘s Maverick doing loop-dee-loops in the manner of Han Solo flying the Millennium Falcon…a lot of wild-ass, bordering-on-reckless stuff. Plus the usual testosterone shenanigans, some of which alarms Jon Hamm‘s three-star admiral. Plus confirmation that Jennifer Connelly‘s “single mother running a bar near the Naval base” is in fact an age-appropriate romantic partner for Maverick. And yaddah yaddah.

There’s a brief shot of a flag-draped coffin so who buys it? My money’s on either Miles Teller‘s “Rooster” Bradshaw or Monica Barbaro‘s “Phoenix”.

Boilerplate: “When Maverick finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission, he encounters the chip-off-the-old-block son of Maverick’s late friend ‘Goose’ Bradshaw. Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will fly it.”

Posted on 7.18.19: “San Diego-based fighter pilots!….the aura of studly military rock stars, coping with buried anger and the burden of expectations, brusque and strapping and throwing their heads back in laughter while playing piano in a honky tonk.

“And the women who both love and compete with them. With the big climactic test of skill and character looming. And so on.

“I haven’t read the script (co-authored by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie and Eric Warren Singer) but I want a scene in which Cruise tells Connelly that Kelly McGillis‘ Charlie Blackwood left him for another woman, and then (beat, beat) Connelly tells Cruise, ‘Yeah, I know…it was me.’ Or: ‘I’m sorry, that’s tough. (beat) She left me too.’

Last week gender-equity gendarmes were shocked and appalled after Greta Gerwig’s Little Women was shafted by the total absence of Golden Globe and SAG awards noms. An apparently reactionary “male tsunami” factor had kicked in, and alarm bells sounded far and wide. To be sure, N.Y. Times reporters Nicole Sperling and Brooks Barnes echoed the concern.

The distress signals were heard in Boston, I can tell you, for yesterday the Boston Society of Film Critics offered reassuring hugs of support for Little Women by handing it three top awards — Best Film, Best Ensemble and Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan‘s performance as Jo March). Beantown crix had Little Women’s six

But that was almost nothing compared to this morning’s Little Women endorsement by the Capri, Hollywood Int’l Film Festival. Gerwig’s coming-of-age period drama will open the celebrated annual gathering on 12.27.

I think it’s safe to say that after the Boston-Capri one-two punch (plus Best Screenplay trophies from Chicago and Kansas City critics plus a Windy City Best Supporting Actress award for Florence Pugh) that Little Women has regained momentum, turned the tide and is now poised to land a Best Picture Oscar nom. (Right?) Were she with us Agnes Varda would almost certainly concur.

Four views of life conveyed by Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight:

(1) When much of the world has come to believe that your well-known organization is racially biased (i.e., #OscarsSoWhite), choose a Best Picture nominee that will demonstrate or at least indicate otherwise;

(2) There’s nothing like a barely pubescent handjob on the beach to lend conviction and clarity to your sensual vistas;

(3) If you’re a frail, delicate wimpy sort in your childhood and early teens, don’t despair because you’ll develop into a strapping, brawny studly type when you hit your 20s and/or early 30s, especially if you get into a weight-lifting regimen in prison.

(4) Forget about sex in prison. Once the gates are slammed shut, celibacy is the rule and the reality.

You have to admire the marketing chutzpah of the distribution executive who calculated that a visually concise Saul Bass logo (is there any other kind?) would be more than sufficient to attract Times Square passers-by. You have to admire the certainty and the confidence. The applicable term is “balls.”

Jordan Ruimy: “What’s with The Irishman’s Joe Pesci getting all the awards love? Don’t critics realize that the film really picks up steam once Al Pacino shows up?”

HE: “From a critics group viewpoint, giving a supporting performance award to Pacino is too easy, too common, too knee-jerk, too peon. Giving it to Pesci indicates a deeper, more cultivated appreciation for the subtler aspects, not just in The Irishman but in all things.”

In the matter of Best Picture choosing, most people don’t vote for craft, texture, precision, expertise. These things are important to critics but not Academy and guild members as a rule; ditto Joe Popcorn for the most part.

The cliche is that industry people vote for films that radiate strong emotion, except in the instances of horror films like Chicago, The Artist, The King’s Speech and whatnot. What they really respond to, I’ve always believed, are narratives that pass along views about life that they recognize as real and truthful.

So what are the leading 2019 Best Picture candidates saying about our time here on earth, and which of these lessons or themes are the most compelling? Starting from the top…

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