No present-tense Oscar contender has quite the character or cojones of Marriage Story‘s Scarlett Johansson. And right now in my mind, there’s no one who’s more of an obsequious, go-along wokester and fact-averse denialist than The Daily Beast‘s Jordan Julian, who posted a piece on 11.27 that denigrated Johansson for speaking her mind about Woody Allen‘s all-but-certain innocence in that dusty, all-but-discarded matter of child molestation.

The headline of Julian’s article was infuriating: “Scarlett Johansson’s Persistent, Baffling Defense of Woody Allen Could Ruin Her Oscar Chances,” followed by a subhead that read “the actress has turned in the best performance of her career in Marriage Story but can’t stop defending the accused sexual predator.”

Three days ago Johansson told Vanity Fair‘s Chris Heath that she’s not backing off from her earlier statement (given to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Rebecca Keegan last September) that she believes Allen is innocent of that 27 year-old, one-time-only charge of child molestation — i.e., she hasn’t changed her mind.

The charge pushed by Dylan Farrow, Allen’s alleged victim, and Allen’s former romantic partner Mia Farrow has been disputed, dissected, exposed and debunked so many times that it’s grown a beard, but the “always believe the victim no matter what” crowd will not back off, and I mean in defiance of every piece of credible evidence that has come to light and despite an absolutely conclusive essay that puts the whole thing to bed, posted on 5.23.18 by Dylan’s older adoptive brother, Moses Farrow.

Johansson to Heath: “Even though there [are] moments where I feel maybe more vulnerable because I’ve spoken my own opinion about something, my own truth and experience about it — and I know that it might be picked apart in some way, people might have a visceral reaction to it — I think it’s dangerous to temper how you represent yourself, because you’re afraid of that kind of response. That, to me, doesn’t seem very progressive at all. That seems scary.”

When Heath asks if “any of the criticisms, when she heard them, made her think that they had a point,”: Johansson replies: “I don’t know…I feel the way I feel about it. It’s my experience. I don’t know any more than any other person knows. I only have a close proximity with Woody…he’s a friend of mine. But I have no other insight other than my relationship with him.”

But she does have an insight that complements her relationship with Allen — an obviously legitimate and first-hand viewpoint from Moses Farrow, a trained therapist who knows all the players and everything that happened, backwards and forwards. He was right there in the Connecticut Farrow home on the day in question. His testimony is undismissable. Except, that is, by obstinate contrarians like Julian.

Director Richard Tanne (Southside With You) has sent along a video tribute to retired Warner Home Entertainment exec Jeff Baker, called The King of Catalog. The 25-minute video was produced and assembled by Baker’s son, Travis Baker, a friend and colleague of Tanne’s.

Baker senior was one of the leading innovators and locomotives in the VHS/DVD business from the late 1970s until 2015. The King of Catalog, which was shot over a year ago, tracks his 35-year career. Baker was at Warner Home Entertaiment from 2006 to his retirement, and was largely responsible for pioneering their incredible run of premiere collector’s edition DVDs and Blu-Rays. He worked closely with filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone on packaging, special features and director’s cuts.

Tanne: “In many ways, Baker’s career mirrors the rise-and-fall arc of physical home video. Given your continued love and support of this dying format, I thought maybe you’d be interested in checking it out. And who knows, if it resonates in any way, it would certainly be an honor to see it posted on your site.

Two disputes with the bridge-destroying plans of commando team commander Jack Hawkins in The Bridge on the River Kwai, as posted nine years ago:

HE is wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to every HE reader out there, and to those who couldn’t care less about this site. Tatyana and I are thankful for our relatively happy and bountiful life in West Hollywood, and for the rich social and spiritual current that permeates so much of what we do, what with the screenings and film festivals and travel detours and whatnot. And for the love of our cats. I am personally thankful, as always, for having the ability to write and grow a column that continues to be read and kicked around, and which has remained a viable thing in terms of industry readership and award-season ads, along with the spirited (sometimes acrimonious) views, putdowns and from-the-heart opinions that are posted here. And I’m very thankful for the criticisms that I get almost every day, as a portion of them have been worth reading and heeding. So yes, we’re living a fairly great life as far as it goes, and we’re happy for that. I hope most of you can say the same. Cheers and relaxation to all.

For what it’s worth, I found Dolemite Is My Name generally sharp, likable, amusing and even “funny” here and there. Which is to say I laughed out loud a couple of times.

Whatever the bottom-line human reality of Hunter Biden‘s psychology (which obviously has been off-center and unstable for some time), the tabloid-media image of Joe Biden‘s younger (and only surviving) son is that of the new Jordan Belfort — wealthy and connected with a seemingly wild nocturnal life, alcohol and crack cocaine issues, an affair with his late brother’s wife, sued for child support by a Washington, D.C.-based stripper, asking for a “brand-new dildo, fresh out of the package” at a strip club, an outrageous party animal.

Plus his well-compensated but resigned-from seat on the board of an energy company in Ukraine places him right in the center of the Ukraine scandal, at least as far as Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani‘s imaginings were concerned, and it’s entirely possible that Hunter will be asked by Congressional Republicans to testify sometime before the Senate’s final impeachment vote.

So Hunter’s saga has almost every Wolf of Wall Street element — unsavory affairs, drugs, booze, strippers, dildos, paternity suits, the appearance of 1% favoritism and at least the appearance of corruption, etc. And all of this is echoing back upon his father’s current campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Is the Hunter Biden mess being pushed along by Republican-friendly sources and journalists in order to make Typewriter Biden look bad through parental association? Of course, but at the same time it is the stuff of lurid, juicy, high-calorie scandal.

And I, for one, would like to see Oliver Stone make a movie about all this, in the same way he made a better-than-decent film out of George W. Bush‘s life and times. Which couldn’t come out until sometime in ’21, at the earliest. It would be good. We would all definitely pay to see it.

Hunter Biden has to sit down with a major media figure and admit to all his wild shenanigans, chapter and verse, and then throw himself upon the church steps and say, “I was a flawed man and yes, I did some things I shouldn’t have done, and I’m sorry…I’m now sober and going to AA meetings, and that’s where things are at now. If he does this, his accusers will have nowhere to go, and the stench of tawdry scandal will start to abate.

Around the 1:40 mark, Irishman dp Rodrigo Prieto explains how the attitude and character of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) is reflected in the film’s matter-of-fact shooting style. Quote: “Frank Sheeran approached his job [as a Philadelphia mob family assassin] is a very methodical way. He cases the place, he decides what he needs to do, and then he does a, b, c and d. So the camera behaves like that. The camera is not doing, you know, spectacular, mysterious moves — it’s kind of matter-of-fact. This is the building, this is where it is, here comes Frank Sheeran, the victim comes up…pup-pup.”

I don’t know how many tens of thousands are into occasionally aging their iPhone snaps and videos with vintage effects, but I got the bug earlier this year. There’s something delicious about making high-def 1080 video look like crappy video from the ’80s. Or, better yet, like speckly 8mm film from the ’50s, ’60s or ’70s. Not to mention the option of choosing varying aspect ratios, but at the same time keeping the high-quality sound.

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Consider The Root‘s Michael Harriot properly bitchslapped and cut down to size in the wake of yesterday’s bizarre criticism of Pete Buttigieg. The Atlantic‘s John McWhorter has posted a response that’s half logical schooling and half WTF forehead-slapping.

I finally caught up with Jan Komasa‘s Corpus Christi four or five nights ago. I apologize for not mentioning it earlier because it’s a very fine, self-aware film with a poignant spiritual current.

It’s about a kind of spiritual impostor, a 20 year-old just released from a juvenile detention camp who pretends to be a priest when he arrives in a rural Polish village.

The irony is that this blue-eyed kid with a violent past (played by Bartosz Bielenia) gradually becomes the real thing — a comforting presence who stands up for decency, compassion and forgiveness, and whose influence seems to make a real difference to the local townspeople, especially in the matter of a recent DWI car accident that took the lives of several high-school-age youths.

Corpus Christi is basically saying that profound spiritual currents can manifest in almost anyone, and that some people have the God thing inside and some don’t. In this sense it’s a thoughtful discovery drama that stays with you.

Komasa’s film is the Polish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. It premiered to positive reviews at the recent 2019 Venice Film Festival. It also played Toronto.

Corpus Christi reminds me of two English-language films with a vaguely similar stamp — Lawrence Kasdan‘s Mumford (99), about a popular small-town psychologist (Loren Dean) who’s gradually exposed as a fraud, and Bryan Forbes‘ Whistle Down The Wind (’61), about a young small-town girl (Hayley Mills) coming to believe that a bearded criminal hiding in her father’s barn (Alan Bates) is a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Corpus Christi is inspired by real events, but I don’t see how that matters one way or the other. It is what it is on its own terms.

Last weekend’s screening happened at San Vicente Bungalows. Producer Laura Bickford (Traffic, Che, Duplicity, Arbitrage) arranged it. I took the below photo during the after-party. (l. to r.) Cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski, Jr., director Jan Komasa, producer Aneta Hickinbotham.

Note: My “Komasa” spelling is correct.