While surfing around yesterday for clips of the late, lamented Ron Leibman, I came upon this HE YouTube clip from The Hot Rock. Robert Redford is no comedian, but his expression after saying “Afghanistan Bananistan” is one the funniest moments in 20th Century cinema, right up there with Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot. I’m posting this to explain to delusionals that he’s not saying “Afghanistan Banana Stand.”

Because of black twitter antagonism towards the 97% honorable, brilliant and pragmatically positive Pete Buttigieg, Democrats will almost certainly be stuck with Joe Biden as the ’20 nominee.

I grind my teeth about this every day. Speaking as a generally fair-minded white-ass liberal with a cosmic undercurrent, I haven’t felt this kind of eye-rolling alienation — alienation bordering on antagonism — toward the black community since the day of the O.J. Simpson not-guilty verdict (10.3.95).

I know how certain wokesters will respond to this, but as an American citizen I’m allowed to say what I feel on a bone-marrow level. I hate the idea of Biden being the nominee. I’ve no choice but to accept it, but I really, really hate it. This is like hearing from the rank-and-file that Stuart Symington is sure to defeat Jack Kennedy in the ’60 Democratic primary race, except Symington was 59 in ’60 and Biden is 77…yeesh.

The late Ron Leibman was as much of a TV and stage actor as a film guy. My first impression was that he was brilliant at playing funny eccentrics.

For me his first three film roles were the keepers. Sidney Hocheiser, the brother of George Segal‘s Gordon Hocheiser, in Carl Reiner‘s Where’s Poppa? (’70). Murch, the exuberant car enthusiast and helicopter pilot in Peter Yates‘ The Hot Rock (’72). And the resentful, pissed off Paul Lazzaro in George Roy Hill‘s Slaughterhouse Five (’72).

These and the role of labor organizer Reuben Warshowsky in Martin Ritt‘s Norma Rae (’70) for a solid fourth.

Leibman won a Tony and Drama Desk Award for playing Roy Cohn in Angels in America. He snagged an Emmy Award for playing the lead in a short-lived crime drama series Kaz. Leibman is allegedly best known for playing Jennifer Aniston‘s “rich, short-tempered” father on Friends.

There’s no disputing that this Vogue cover shot of Greta Gerwig and her son Harold, shot by Annie Leibovitz, is kind of ravishing, and that her moss green, semi-transparent Valentino dress is quite the visual component, blending perfectly with the grass and soil and all. Whoever chose the dress did the right thing.

I guess the only question I have is what exactly makes Greta a Hollywood “heroine”? A standard definition says that she’s “a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” Well, she’s co-written some fine films with partner Noah Baumbach, directed one very good film (Lady Bird) as well as a follow-up that’s seriously loved in certain many quarters of the industry (Little Women), and she’s arguably the leading 30something woman director right now, and that ain’t hay. I’m just not certain that “heroine”…well, I don’t want to argue.

Just to put things on a fair and equal basis, which male director right now could fairly be described as being on Gerwig’s level — i.e., heroic?

No bullshit, no hesitations, no side glances — here are Hollywood Elsewhere’s 20 favorite films of the year without regard to awards handicapping and in order of preference — included because I responded on a pure gut-engagement level.

1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, which I’ve seen four times and could easily watch another couple of times without breaking a sweat.

2. Ladj Ly‘s Les Miserables — “Start to finish Les Miserables is rough, riveting, incendiary — written by Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti and brilliantly shot by Julien Poupard. It generally feels like a rough-and-tumble Antoine Fuqua film, using the basic dynamic of Training Day (but with three cops instead of two) plus a little Do The Right Thing plus a dash of the anxious urban energy of William Freidkin‘s The French Connection.” — posted on 5.15.19.

3. Todd Phillips‘ Joker — “I don’t know how or why Warner Bros. got behind a film as nutso radical as Todd Phillips, Scott Silver and Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker (10.4), but this is not corporate product. Make no mistake about the fact that this 122-minute film is propelled by misery, loneliness, alienation, despair, ennui, delusion and general social malevolence and madness. And it doesn’t back off from that.” — from “Genuine Art, Serious Madness, Real Anarchy,” posted on 9.29.19.

4. Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe‘s Queen & Slim — “Driven by predatory racism and sporadic violence, but essentially a feel-good film about kindness and charity and black togetherness, sans gun battles or car chases.” — from “Cop Killers With Kind Hearts…Really,” posted on 10.7.19.

5. Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins‘ 1917 — “A landmark war film with a single, continuous-shot approach that delivers an intense, knockout-level, ‘you are there’ slaughterhouse experience…an emotional hellscape that primarily struck me as a technical exercise, although blended with humanism, humor, sadness, brotherly compassion and even a moment of domestic tenderness.” — posted on 11.24.19.

6. Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse / “This Way Lies Madness,” filed on 5.19.19

7. Kent Jones‘ Diane / “All Hail Diane — 2019’s Best Film So Far“, filed on 3.27.19.

8. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood / “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Is…‘, filed on 5.21.19.

9. Martin Scorsese‘s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story / “Rolling Along With Scorsese/Dylan” filed on 6.10.19.

10. FX’s Fosse/Verdon / “Fosse/Verdon — Theatrical, Exquisite, Pizazzy, Deep Blue,” filed on 4.25.19.

11. A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name / “Crosby Doc Hurts Real Good,” filed on 1.27.19.

12. Russo Brothers‘ Avengers: Endgame / “Okay With Nominating Endgame For Best Picture Oscar,” filed on 5.4.19.

13. Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story — “In and of itself Marriage Story is a very fine, emotionally open-hearted film. Impressively acted, written, paced and sung. But it could have been Shampoo or Rules of the Game if Baumbach had wanted to go there. The fact that he didn’t is fine with me.” — from “Marriage Story Could Have Been Shampoo,” posted on 11.11.19.

14. Mads Brugger‘s Cold Case Hammarskjöld / “Riveting, Occasionally Oddball Cold Case”, posted on 1.29.19.

15. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.

16. Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland / “After Tomorrow, Jackson’s Name Will Be Mud“, filed on 3.2.19.

17. Todd Douglas Miller‘s Apollo 11 / Just because I forgot to review this Neon/CNN Films doc doesn’t mean it doesn’t deliver a profound IMAX charge. I love that it offers no narration or talking heads.

18. Olivia Wilde‘s Booksmart / “This Time SXSW Hype Was Genuine“, filed on 4.25.19.

19. Trey Edward Shults‘s Waves — “One measure of a gripping Telluride film, for me, is catching a 10:30 pm showing (and they always start late) and maintaining an absolute drill-bit focus on each and every aspect for 135 minutes, and then muttering to myself ‘yeah, that was something else’ as I walked back to the pad in near total darkness (using an iPhone flashlight app to see where I was walking) around 1 am. This is what happened last night between myself and Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves.”

20. Sebastien Lelio‘s Gloria Bell / “Moore May Snag Best Actress Nom for Gloria Bell,” filed on 9.13.18.

Through some magical process that I’d rather not disclose, I’ve managed to watch the first 30 to 40 minutes of Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York — a film that will never play theatrically or even stream in this country because of something I’m tired of explaining or even referencing.

It’s obviously a witty, smoothly assembled, handsomely captured and perfectly harmless relationship comedy. It unfolds in a realm that typical 20somethings would never recognize in the world of 2019, and yet it’s mildly clever and easy to watch and go along with. I’m.sorry but I don’t see the problem. I was amused at times and actually laughed out loud twice, and that means something from a half-sourpuss, half-LQTM type like myself.

A Rainy Day in Manhattan feels like some kind of self-satirizing spoof — a “sophisticated”, old-fashioned, Allen-esque satire that could have been made 30 or 40 years ago, and in fact seems to be happening in some kind of weird time vacuum but so what?

Some critics have said it doesn’t work because it’s all taking place in Woody World (i.e., bucks-up Manhattan and the same kind of tony locales that Allen has used since the days of Annie Hall and Manhattan) and that the younger lead actors (Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez) clearly don’t belong in it — they would never talk like naive young snobs or make witty Allen-esque cracks about this or that.

But it’s amusing in a kind of goofball way because they’re all pretending that Woody World is an actual place and so they’re all playing a kind of dress-up and just cruising through and acting nonchalant, like it’s all a masquerade and they’re chuckling as they go through the notions.

And I really like the way Chalamet handles himself in this milieu. He’ll probably never ever behave this way in another movie ever again, and it’s fascinating to watch him pretend to be an Allen kind of guy (flush, entitled, smart-assy, tweed jackets) with casual confidence and just submitting to the unreality of it all.

And at the same time the movie is fine as a whole (or at least it seems to be at the 35-minute mark) — it shuffles along and seems to enjoy itself with an occasional wink at the camera. It doesn’t offend because it’s just gliding along…who cares? You’d have to be a real asshole to pan this without mercy. You’d have to have a fairly thick broomstick up your ass to begin with.

I attended last night’s THR “Awards Chat” interview with The Irishman‘s Al Pacino and the intrepid Scott Feinberg. It was fairly lively and amusing as Pacino interviews go. Al turns on the “personality” and the hoo-hah and makes everyone laugh as he re-performs his classic tales while dispensing an accasional fresh line. The show was supposed to begin at 7 pm but Al was late so it started around 7:20 pm and ended…oh, 85 or 90 minutes later.

Scott’s interviews are basically about biographical recap, so he started with Al’s early days and got heavily into the early to mid ’70s, and then Scarface and then the mid ’80s drop-out period, and then Al’s return to glory with Sea of Love (’89). But before you knew it there were maybe 15 minutes left and the last 30 years to cover, so suddenly Scott is racing through Al’s resume and summarizing like a gatling gun.

My favorite Al tale is the one about Diane Keaton vs. Pacino’s attorney (i.e., “He’s crazy!”). Pacino began to tell the great “Buddy Rich drum solo at Carnegie Hall” story, but seconds into it he remembered that he’d just performed this one three weeks ago at the Santa Barbara Film Festival Martin Scorsese dinner and that some may have seen it on YouTube, so he shortened it and told the story a different way.

Scott Feinberg, Al Pacino during last night’s Awards Chat event.

The loud, over-reacting fathead who was sitting two rows ahead of me at last night’s DGA interview.

Al has fast, cat-like reflexes — thinks on his feet like a Reno poker dealer.

Unfortunately I was sitting behind a loud superfan type. A guy who had to cheer and laugh too loudly and go “ahhh!” and “whoo-whoo!” every time Al shared a funny line or whenever a well-regarded Pacino classic was mentioned. This is what happens when you let non-professional riff-raff attend these events. Seriously — this guy was a real animal.

Once or twice this 40ish muttonhead (who was wearing a short beard, glasses and a green sweater, and had a kind of pudgebod physique) hopped up and down in his seat like an excited four-year-old. At one point this fool raised his fist in the air like he was cheering a prizefighter. His long-suffering wife or girlfriend, sitting to his right, was quiet as a churchmouse — I was sensing that she was embarassed for the guy and felt she had to be extra-restrained in order to compensate for his behavior.

The bottom line from my perspective is that I was watching a three-person encounter — Pacino, Feinberg and this excitable fanboy. This sack of potatoes was a lot louder than Pacino or Feinberg and certainly more energetic, and after a while I saying to myself “Oh, Jesus Christ, this is awful…this guy is ruining the whole thing.” It was because of this ayehole that I spent half of the time listening and half Twitter-surfing. I couldn’t entirely focus because that would have meant letting this idiot into my head.

I’ve read three sample Kindle chapters of Ash Carter and Sam Kashner‘s “Life Isn’t Everything,” a strung-together oral history of Mike Nichols “by 150 of his closest friends.”

I’ll tell you right now that these portions — a prologue called “The Burton Stakes”, and the first two chapters, “Dybbuks and Golems” and “To Sell Another Drink” — feel too warm, too friendly, too alpha, too fond, too fraternal. There’s so much affection you can’t breathe.

Then again it includes a great snippet of a conversation between Nichols and Richard Burton, which happened sometime in the ’60s. Burton asked Nichols to look after Elizabeth Taylor in Rome. Nichols replied, “If it’ll help.” What Nichols meant, of course, is that nothing could ever help when it came to Ms. Sturm und drang. You had to weather it out or leave — there was no third option.

The basic drill is that no one disliked Nichols. No one found him irritating or frustrating or pompous. Some may have thought he was over-rated (I know one guy who insists Nichols’ only solid-gold films were Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate) but very few in the book share anything but astonishment and wonder at his miraculousness. They all feel blessed to have been in Nichols’ presence, however briefly. No one resented or felt sorry for him. No one wished he could’ve tried harder.

There’s no disputing Nichols’ charm, likability, sophistication, ease of manner — I sampled these things myself a couple of times. But the book (or at least the portions I’ve read) would have us believe that Nichols led something close to a charmed life. Failures, sure, but no major warts or crippling neuroses to speak of. Nichols had some tough times as a kid, but he managed to overcome or step around them, or shove them into a box.

It’s just a tiny bit boring to read over and over what a wise, fascinating, super-gifted guy Nichols was throughout the years and decades, even if he was all that.

Yes, he went into a downturn cycle in the ’70s. The Day of the Dolphin and The Fortune obviously speak for themselves. Nichols stopped making films and didn’t really get going again until 1983’s Silkwood, and when he re-emerged that static-long-take visual signature that he’d become known for (starting with The Graduate and ending with The Fortune) had disappeared, which struck some as unfortunate.

“Life Isn’t Everything” made me anticipate Mark Harris‘s forthcoming Nichols biography all the more, because at least his version (if I know Harris) won’t be entirely about how Nichols was always Mr. Wonderful.

For the third time, HE’s Nichols obit, initially posted after his death on 11.19.14 and then re-posted last year.

I first spotted this billboard last weekend. Ever since I’ve been telling myself to get up there and snap a photo. I finally did Thursday night, right after Scott Feinberg’s Al Pacino interview at the DGA, which I’ll write about sometime tomorrow. (It’s now 12:05 am.) Talk about a farewell hug. It’s sitting on the north side of the Sunset Strip, facing southwest and somewhere between Olive and La Cienega.

HE is duly impressed by (a) “You’re a damn liar, man”, (b) “Get your facts straight, Jack!” and (c) “let’s do push-ups together.” For the first time in a long time, Biden sounded sharp, strong and flinty. He challenged his questioner to a push-up contest, but that was because the guy is fat and Biden knew he’d win. But the mere mention of push-ups was impressive. It suddenly occured to me that Biden might be better at push-ups than me, and if he is, who the hell am I to call him “Droolin’ Joe”? Biden knows how to vent anger in the right way. That’s a good quality. Call this an HE attitude adjustment.

Just don’t talk about running in ’20. Don’t even flirt with the notion. Don’t even glance at it.