There’s only one thing that really matters when it comes to J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and it’s not (a) “is it a good or great film?” or (b) “does it have enough in the way of light-sabre duels?” or (c) “does it deliver a sufficiently emotional finale?” or anything in that realm.

No, what matters to Hollywood Elsewhere is “are there sufficient amounts of LGBTQ representation?”

I know that when I read earlier today that a hot romance between Oscar Isaac‘s Poe Dameron and John Boyega‘s Finn could not be counted upon…when I read this will not materialize in the forthcoming Disney release, I felt a stab of disappointment. I felt, actually, as if a lightsaber had punctured my heart.

Isaac felt the same way. In an apparent allusion to a physical relationship between Poe and Finn, the darkly attractive actor told Variety‘s Adam B. Vary that he “kind of hoped and wished that [same-sex issues] would’ve been taken further in the other films, but I don’t have control…it seemed like a natural progression, but sadly enough it’s a time when people are too afraid, I think, of…I don’t know what.”

What are all those straight Star Wars fans “afraid” of anyway? What’s so scary about love between passionate, trusting partners?

Isaac told Vary that the “ambiguity” of Poe and Finn’s relationship “might allow more people to see themselves” in Poe and Finn. “But if they would’ve been boyfriends, that would have been fun.”

And yet somehow the idea of Finn and Poe…there’s something about this image that doesn’t exactly say “Star Wars” to me. Am I being hurtful by sharing this thought? Am I standing in the way of a new evolving consciousness? I don’t want to be that person. I’m just, you know, an Empire Strikes Back kind of guy. Is there room for guys like me in the new Star Wars universe?

There is at least a note of assurance from The Rise of Skywalker‘s director. “In the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they’re being represented in the film,” Abrams told Vary. “I will say I’m giving away nothing about what happens in the movie. But I did just say what I just said.”

“Sadly, Greta Gerwig’s much buzzed-about Little Women was completely shut out by the National Board of Review, not even making it on to the top films list.” — from Marc Malkin‘s Variety write-up about today’s National Board of Review award announcements.

In other words, Malkin is a Little Women fanboy and is personally disappointed that it didn’t even make the top-ten cut. Not necessarily a bad sign for the Oscars, but not a good one either.

“And then there’s Adam Sandler,” Malkin goes on. “The funny man didn’t win the Gotham for best actor for Uncut Gems — that went to Adam Driver for Marriage Story — but NBR gave him the top actor honor.”

Anyone who calls Sandler a “funny man” after his performances in Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, Reign Over Me, Funny People and The Meyerowitz Stories is being dismissive. He’s suggesting that Sandler is a dramatic dabbler. That or Malkin is implying that he’s not an Uncut Gems fan. (Neither am I.) Either way it’s unfair.

A couple of nights ago I finally saw Chinonye Chukwu‘s Clemency. There’s a lot of support for Alfre Woodard‘s performance as a death row prison warden coping with guilt. Her acting is effective on its own terms, but I found myself disengaging almost immediately from the script, and to some extent from the direction.

In the very first scene Woodard’s Bernadine Williams, who presumably was hired because she didn’t seem like the excessively emotional type, is seized by emotion as she stares at an execution gurney. A youngish prison guard emerges from a nearby room and says “Warden?” No answer. “Warden?” Ditto. “Bernardine?” he says, and then finally Woodard acknowledges the guy.

Right away I was muttering “bullshit.” No way does a chief administrator of a prison ignore a colleague, or become so lost in thought that she doesn’t hear a question. Cheap theatrical device.

The first execution scene (intravenous) begins a few minutes later. A Latino male is strapped down and sweating his last few minutes of life. The dosing begins with some uniformed dude overseeing the injection of lethal drugs. A couple of guards stand at the ready. Oddly, Woodard’s warden is also in the room, standing right behind the doomed convict and staring at him intently, like a distraught wife or a mother would.

I’ve seen several execution scenes in my life, and I’ve never seen a single one in which a warden hovers over the condemned like a nurse. And I didn’t buy it. It irritated me, actually.

So I’m only a few minutes into Clemency and I’ve already had two dropout moments. I was thisclose to turning it off, but I stayed with it. But I never really “came back in,” so to speak. It’s an okay film in some respects. It’s not awful. I was affected — diverted — by Richard Schiff‘s performance as a bitter bleeding-heart attorney. Clemency will be released on 12.27.19.

In 1972, this Getaway shootout sequence (Steve McQueen vs. seven or eight cowboy-hatted Texas schloombahs) wasn’t intense enough even by Sam Peckinpah‘s own standards of violence, which had been burned into the cultural psyche with Straw Dogs and especially The Wild Bunch. In my book Roger Donaldson’s 1994 remake was better in almost every respect, save for the fact that Alec Baldwin couldn’t hope to measure up to McQueen.

And if someone were to remake The Getaway today, the standing order would be “out-gun the Donaldson version by a factor of ten-plus. And while you’re at it, come up with a flying motorcycle stunt that out-performs that stupid-ass one in that No Time To Die trailer.”

And the dialogue would have to be rewritten, of course. When Sally Struthers‘ distraught character (“Fran”) cries “have you seen Rudy?”, the anonymous Texas gunman would have to reply in a less dismissive way.

All hail Uncut Gems‘ Adam Sandler for having won the Best Actor trophy from the National Board of Review…Godz-approved. I’ve gone on record as an ardent non-fan of Uncut Gems, but Sandler’s crazy pinball performance as an uncontrollably insane gambling junkie is much better than the film — it becomes its own realm and testament.

Keep in mind that nine weeks ago Yahoo’s Kevin Polowy and I were the only two Gold Derby guys to include Sandler on our Best Actor lists. Currently there are five Sandler supporters — myself, Polowy, Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales, Collider‘s Perri Nemiroff and USA Today‘s Andrea Mandell — out of 31 GD spitballers.

Otherwise Hollywood Elsewhere has no major arguments with the National Board of Review’s 2020 awards.

I’ve certainly no qualms about Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman winning the Best Film award, or Once Upon A Time in America‘s Quentin Tarantino winning for Best Director — a basic split-the-vote approach. I understand and support the idea of Renée Zellweger winning the Best Actress trophy for Judy.

I’m of two minds about OUATIH‘s Brad Pitt winning for Best Supporting Actor — he totally deserves it but I also loved Al Pacino‘s Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman.

And I agree with giving the Best Supporting Actress award to Richard Jewell‘s Kathy Bates, although I thought Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern had this one in the bag.

I strongly disagree with the NBR’s Best Original Screenplay award going to Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein for Uncut Gems. Calling the Gems screenplay superior to those for Marriage Story, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood or Pain and Glory is, to me, an insane call. Steve Zallian‘s Irishman screenplay (“It is what it is”) winning for Best Adapted Screenplay is completely deserved.

Sen. Kamala Harris, the only significant woman person of color in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, is dropping out. If Cory Booker was a realist he would drop out also — ditto Andrew Yang, Julian Castro and Amy Klobuchar. They’re all finished, and they know it.

Next year’s Democratic presidential nominee is almost certainly going to be a stammering whitey-white male in his late ’70s, which means the vp pick could turn out to be…Harris? Although the smarter vp pick would be Buttigieg — running with a 37-year-old genius would offset the doddering factor.

Here we are in the pre-primary Democratic presidential home stretch and it’s an all-Anglo race now with three post-retirement-age poll champs — Droolin’ Joe Biden, Stubborn Old Goat Bernie and nagging schoolmarm Elizabeth — and a grand total of one sane, super-brilliant, sensible, catching-on candidate who’s under the age of 65 — Mayor Pete.

But of course, the South Bend Mayor is doomed to come up short because of the determination of African American voters to stick us with the 77 year-old Biden, who’s going to gaffe and stumble and brain-mulch his way through the primaries and during the campaign…can’t wait for that endless agony.

If anyone outside of the black community thinks Typewriter Joe is really and truly the man to lead the country into the 2020s…God help their synapses. If there’s really and truly no way out of nominating a septugenarian, I would much rather see Michael Bloomberg run against Trump.

Harris never broke out poll-wise. She was constantly in the lower single digits (in the same general realm with Yang, Booker, Castro and Klobuchar). She had that one surge following her busing contretemps with Biden during…what was it, the first or second debate?

Only now do I have the courage to admit that I always suspected Harris might not make it because she only stands 5’2″. Hillary Clinton stood (and probably still stands) 5’5″. James Madison was the shortest-ever president — 5’4″.

N.Y Times: “The California Senator has suspended her presidential campaign after months of slumping poll numbers, a dramatic comedown after her campaign began with significant promise.

“Ms. Harris has informed staff and Democratic officials of her intent to drop out the presidential race, according to sources familiar with the matter, which comes after a upheaval among staff and disarray among her own allies.

“The announcement is both dramatic and unexpected, perhaps the most sudden development to date in a Democratic presidential campaign where Ms. Harris began in the top tier.”

The Indiewire-stamped Gotham Awards are currently underway. There are always two questions that follow the presenting of any trophy in any early-in-the-award-season show. One, did the recipient[s] deserve this award? Two, how political, progressive or “woke”-significant was the motive behind the choosing? And three, does this particular win “mean” anything — will it influence the thinking of other award-bestowing orgs?

[10:12 pm] Marriage Story wins the Best Feature award — deserved, not so political, highly meaningful for the Oscars — serious boost.

[Written at 6:05 pm Pacific): HE recognizes that the odds favor Adam Driver winning the Best Actor prize for Marriage Story, but I’d rather see Adam Sandler win for Uncut Gems or Willem Dafoe for The Lighthouse. 10:15 pm update: Driver — sorry about Sandler and Dafoe coming up short, but them’s the breaks.

Best Actress-wise, HE’s favorite contender is Mary Kay Place for Diane. If Place doesn’t win, I’d like to see Awkwafina take it for The Farewell. 10:19 pm update: Awkwafina! Fine, no worries.

Winners So Far: Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story has won for Best Screenplay award. Deserved? Yes. How political? Not particularly. Influence? A definite Oscar race booster.

24 year-old Taylor Russell, who plays the daughter in Waves (and who doesn’t figure all that strongly in the narrative until the second half), has won the Breakthrough Actor award. Deserved? Certainly. How political? Not so you’d notice. Influence? Minimal — this is a Gotham thing that will stay in the New York City region until further notice.

Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert‘s American Factory (Netflix, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama‘s Higher Ground Productions, 97% Rotten Tomatoes) has won the Best Documentary award. This is a hand-made, shoe-leather, Frederick Wiseman-style doc about working people coping with workplace conditions and economic currents. My guess is that the Obama-brand had something to do with the win.

[6:10 pm] I have to prepare for the Once Upon A Time in Hollywood event, which starts at 7 pm.

I call bullshit on the flying motorcycle soaring like a hawk up and over a medieval city wall and crashing into a line of tourists. Steve McQueen‘s motorcycle leap over a hilly barbed-wire border frontier in The Great Escape…fine. But this thing? Update: Okay, they actually figured a way to make this happen with a specially built super-ramp and an Xtreme stunt guy, etc. But no one trusts what they see in a film anyway so who cares? It’s all bullshit.

Hollywood Elsewhere is attending a hush-hush, blood-oath, sworn-to-secrecy Once Upon A Time in Hollywood shindig this evening at a location to be announced later tonight or tomorrow morning. It’s partly a push party for OUATIH‘s Oscar prospects (Best Picture, Brad Pitt for Best Supporting Actor, etc.) but mainly a promotion of the home-video release. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is now streaming (1080p plus 4K) and will be released on physical media (4K, Bluray, DVD) on Tuesday, 12.10. We’re talking, of course, about the 20-minute-longer version (Rick Dalton in The Great Escape, black-and-white Red Apple cigarette ad).

From “Same Old Wackadoodle,” posted on 5.19.19: The idea was that Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life might represent a return to a kind of filmmaking that Malick hadn’t really embraced since Days of Heaven, which was shot 43 years ago and released in the fall of ’78.

Because over the last decade (and I wish this were not so) Malick has made and released four story-less, mapped-out but improvised dandelion-fuzz movies — The Tree of Life (’10), To The Wonder (’12), Knight of Cups (’15) and Song to Song (’17).

The fact that The Tree of Life was widely regarded as the first and best of Malick’s dandelion fuzzies (the principal traits being a meditative, interior-dreamscape current plus whispered narration, no “dialogue” to speak of and Emmanuel Lubezski cinematography that captures the wondrous natural beauty of God’s kingdom)…the fact that The Tree of Life was the finest of these doesn’t change what it basically is.

So does A Hidden Life represent a return to the old days? Does it deliver an actual story with, like, a beginning, middle and end? Does it offer a semblance of character construction and narrative tension with some kind of skillfully assembled climax, etc.?

No, it doesn’t. For Malick has gone back to the same old dandelion well with a generous lathering of Austrian countryside visuals plus some World War II period trimmings.

Malick’s script tells Jagerstatter’s story but obliquely, as you might expect. The big dramatic turns are “there”, sort of, but are dramatically muted or side-stepped for the most part. I hate to repeat myself but A Hidden Life generally embodies a meditative, interior-dreamscape approach plus whispered narration, some “dialogue” but most of it spoken softly or muttered plus a lot of non-verbal conveyances, and some truly wonderful eye-bath cinematography by Jörg Widmer that more than lives up to Lubezski standards.

The thing you get over and over from the film is how magnificent the locations look — mainly the small Italian mountain village of Sappada plus Brixen and South Tyrol, also in northern Italy.

Should attitudes about allegedly heinous sexual behavior be mitigated by the passage of several decades? If a certain industry bigwig in his 50s is credibly accused of having harassed or assaulted a woman nine months or two years or even a decade ago, is that the same kind of outrage as an 86-year-old director having allegedly done something equally awful 40 or 45 years ago, when he was in his early to mid 40s and, not incidentally, swimming in the sexually wanton waters of the ’70s?

The conventional response would be “no, time doesn’t matter, doesn’t mitigate anything — a criminal is a criminal is a criminal.” And I’m not disagreeing with that. The opposite view is that an 86 year-old Roman Polanski, married with two grown kids, isn’t the same person he was 40 or 45 years ago. Emotionally, psychologically, even on a cellular-makeup level, that person literally doesn’t exist any more.

A separate view is that many respected filmmakers, especially those who were running around with power in the freewheeling ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, are unfortunately guilty of blemished or dishonorable behavior in the sexual arena. It’s very hard to find a famous person who doesn’t have some kind of skeleton in their closet, and the fact is that rebels and malcontents are often drawn to the creative realm, etc. The bottom line is when you start saying “your decades-old sexual history is too odious for us to allow you to be nominated for a Cesar or an Oscar”…where do you draw the line? Or do you draw it at all?

Certain French actors and filmmakers — Catherine Zavlav (Kabul Kitchen), Andrea Bescond and Eric Metayer (Little Tickles) and director Amandine Gay (Speak Up) — along with the U.S.-based Rosanna Arquette are calling on the European Film Awards to rescind Roman Polanski‘s nominations for An Officer and a Spy ahead of the 12.7 Cesar awards.

“The movie industry’s acceptance of Polanski must end…its complicit willingness to ‘separate the art from the artist’ must end,” a protest statement reads. “We ask that you also step forward and take a stand against sexual violence as movie industry professionals and European citizens. We ask you to shine your spotlight on rape culture in Europe and to shame, rather than laud, its perpetrators in the film industry.”

When you finally arrive at the mostly empty and semi-secluded El Matador, La Piedra and Leo Carillo state beaches, the effort feels worth it. For a while.

But getting there is hell unless (a) you’re on a motorcycle or an HE-approved rumblehog or (b) you manage to avoid peak traffic by traveling between 11 pm and 6 am. Most of the time there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between PCH and the 405. It’s basically about cars and the near-futility of finding a parking spot (unless you’re visiting the afore-mentioned, Trancas-area beaches) and that constant whaagghhh of traffic and that atmosphere of speed and aggression and predatory restaurants and the suffocating howl of it all. It just drains your soul.

I’ve visited so many tranquil and extra-beautiful and far-from-the-madding-crowd beach areas around the world (in Northern California and Oregon, in central Vietnam, Key West, Maine, New Jersey’s Long Beach island…yes, even in New Jersey!…France’s Côte d’Azur, Marina del Campo on the island of Elba, Baja California, Cape Cod, San Blas and Playa del Carmen and Cozumel in Mexico, and I’m sorry but alongside these havens the Malibu region is nothing to cherish or speak fondly of.

It’s one thing if you own a nice canyon home or cliffside spread or if you’re jogging along the track at Pepperdine U., but otherwise “later.”