There’s something fishy-smelling about a just-announced plan to cast a CG-simulated James Dean in Finding Jack, a forthcoming film based on Gareth Crocker’s same-titled novel.

For one thing, the novel — about a Vietnam vet determined to reconnect with a combat-assistance dog named Jack in the aftermath of the Vietnam War — is said to be mediocre. A Publisher’s Weekly review called it “sappy and unbelievable.” So right off the bat there’s concern.

Two, people have been talking about reanimating dead actors in newly-made films for many years, but it hasn’t really happened outside of Oliver Reed‘s post-mortem performance in Gladiator, Peter Cushing in Rogue One and in a couple of TV commercials. You’d think that the first semi-noteworthy appearance of a mythical dead actor playing a supporting role would be in a classier, more formidable-sounding vehicle than Finding Jack. Man-dog love stories are about as cloying as it gets in the game of second-tier, sentimental-appeal programmers.

Three, Finding Jack is being co-directed by two guys, Magic City Films’ Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh, and that in itself is sometimes a red flag, especially when one of the guys is named Tati Golykh.

Four, Ernst has been quoted by The Hollywood Reporter as saying the following: “We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean.”

Excuse me…what? They didn’t search for “the perfect character” but the perfect actor. The character of Rogan is a human being and therefore a “who” and not a “which.” And the way to describe Rogan’s arc is “extremely complex,” not “extreme complex.” And to claim that “after months of research” he and Golykh decided that only a CG imitation of James Dean could play a supporting character in their film? What kind of bullshit is that? They’re using the dead Dean because it will stir marginal commercial interest in their film, period. And so they’ve paid money to Dean’s family for the rights.

And five, I could see re-animating Frank Sinatra for a biopic — that would be exciting! — or bringing back the young Marlon Brando for a modern-day love story, but the Dean legend is not eternal. He died 64 years ago. New generations grow up, things change. Who other than boomers and older GenXers will care all that much about seeing the star of Rebel Without A Cause come back to life?

Jordan Ruimy’s top performances of the 20teens are, in this order, The Master‘s Joaquin Phoenix, The Wolf of Wall Street‘s Leonardo DiCaprio, The Social Network‘s Jesse Eisenberg, Lincoln‘s Daniel Day Lewis, Blue Jasmine‘s Cate Blanchett, Frances Ha‘s Greta Gerwig, Amour‘s Emmanuel Riva, Margaret‘s Anna Paquin, Whiplash‘s J.K. Simmons and Lady Bird‘s Saoirse Ronan.

HE’s list (in random order): Manchester By The Sea‘s Casey Affleck, The Wolf of Wall Street‘s Leonardo Dicaprio and Jonah Hill (don’t care if Hill is supporting), Joker‘s Joaquin Pheonix (also really good in Her), Silver Linings Playbook‘s Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, Inside Llewyn Davis‘ Oscar Isaac, Dallas Buyers’ Club‘s Matthew McConaughey, Lady Bird‘s Sairse Ronan, A Separation‘s Payman Maadi, Hereditary‘s Toni Collette, Moneyball‘s Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill (don’t care if Hill is supporting), 12 Years a Slave‘s Lupita Nyong’o, Greenberg‘s Ben Stiller, The Iron Lady‘s Meryl Streep.

Others?

From 3.27.19 Guardian story by Jessica Glenza, “Trump’s Spiritual Adviser: Relationship With President Is ‘Assignment’ From God”:

“Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser and megachurch leader Pastor Paula White said in an exclusive interview [that] her relationship with the president is the result of a direct ‘assignment’ from God, who directed her to ‘show him who I am‘.

“The controversial pastor at the central Florida-based New Destiny Christian Center is known for her luxurious lifestyle and preaching the prosperity gospel, which tells followers the more they donate to the church the more God will bless them.”

I shit you not. This is Trump’s “faith advisor.” For real. This woman works in the whitehouse. This one. This woman. pic.twitter.com/4avg0KOZN5

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) November 5, 2019

I drew this Peter O’Toole portrait at a tender, pre-pubescent age. Yeah, I had a certain facility but the eyes are too big and the facial proportion is all wrong.

If I’d been an actual budding artist I would’ve drawn something from real life, but instead I tried to imitate a studio-issued photograph with pencil strokes. I was basically more into expressing obeisance before the glamour of the Movie Godz than trying to tap into visual creation itself.

I went to Silvermine Art College one summer and drew some nude models, but my heart wasn’t in it. In high school I got the idea I might turn into a rock-band drummer, but my drumming was mediocre at best. It was only when I turned to florid letter-writing in my early 20s…only then did I realize “okay, this might work out.”

I need to say this carefully so I don’t get in trouble. Keanu Reeves is 56, fairly loaded and in reasonably good physical shape. The usual thing for a studly-spiritual hetero movie star of his age is to partner with a classy, curvaceous hottie who’s at least 10 or 15 or even 20 years younger. If Keanu was with a 35 year-old the paparazzi would shrug. Sometimes middle-aged actors will even do a Dennis Quaid (i.e., pair up with a 20something.)

But it’s a very rare thing for a guy like Keanu to hold hands at a big public event like the LACMA Art + Film Gala with a woman who…uhm, doesn’t fit the mold.

Her name is Alexandra Grant, a 46-year-old artist-designer. Besides being Keanu’s creative collaborator (she’s illustrated two Reeves books, Ode to Happiness and Shadows) she’s also his girlfriend. Let’s just say that Reeves, Hugh Jackman and Pierce Brosnan are in the same approximate boat, significant-other-wise. And there’s nothing the least bit wrong with that.

One year away from the 2020 election, a Washington Post-ABC News poll of registered voters has found that Mayor Pete is polling ahead of President Trump by 11 percent — 52% to 41%.

Droolin’ Joe, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are running strongest against The Beast nationally, with Biden leading by 17 points (56% to 39%), Warren by 15 points (55% to 40%) and Sanders by 14 points (55% to 41%).

But Biden is a slow-mo train wreck/gaffe machine, and his lead is partly if not largely due to stubborn black voters refusing to reassess. Am I encouraged that Warren takes Trump by 15%? Yes, definitely. But you know she’s vulnerable with Medicare For Life, the Pocahantas thing and that schoolmarm voice. And we all know that Bernie won’t make it because of the heart attack.

I don’t know which is a scarier one-on-one debate prospect, Trump vs. Biden or Trump vs. Warren.

Does it bother anyone at all that Trump, Biden, Bernie and Warren are all in their 70s, and that the 70 year-old Warren is younger than Biden by seven years? Executive- or management-performance levels peak when people are in their mid 40s to mid 60s.

How about electing a President who’s below retirement age?

Pete, I’m dead certain, would kick the tar out of Trump in a debate — ten times brighter, better educated, more mature and composed, military background.

Bad Boys For Life (Columbia, 1.17.20) is obviously a gaudy and shameless cash grab by a couple of over-the-hillies whose careers have been downswirling for quite some time.

Will BBFL “open” regardless of quality? As the core audience has been known for occasionally stupid and gullible allegiances, yeah…probably.

How do I know for certain that Bad Boys For Life is second- if not third-tier stuff? Because of what the trailer shows, and especially how it’s cut. And also because it was directed by the Belgian-born Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. During his peak years (’93 to ’03) Smith wouldn’t have glanced at these guys. But things change.

When did I know that Smith would wind up screwing the pooch? When he passed on The Matrix to make Wild Wild West — that’s when I knew he would eventually sink into the swamp. Smith’s all-time peak moment came when he starred in Tony Scott‘s Enemy of the State (’98). His second-best was starring in Michael Mann‘s Ali (’01). And I’ll never forget how completely cool and transporting he was in Fred Schepisi‘s Six Degrees of Separation (’93).

Angsty Loner to Mr. Lonelyhearts: I’m 16, a high-school junior, and miserable. Partly (mostly?) due to the fact that my hormones are raging while my experience with hetero physical intimacy has been, shall we say, limited.

Which doesn’t mean I haven’t emotionally suffered over this or that dashed relationship. I’ve eaten my heart out over…I don’t know, seven or eight girls since the third grade. Maybe more. And none of the objects of my desire have been more than semi-interested, if that. Girls are fickle and flighty and all over the map, and at the end of the day I don’t seem to have what they want. Temporarily, I mean. Before their mood switches back again.

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I just re-watched this. On a certain level it’s hard to believe this is still a thing. But in the minds of many some, it still is. And there’s no talking to them about this, and I don’t want to go over the whole thing again. At all. But when you re-watch this, I just don’t sense any lying. Apart from what the New York and Connecticut investigators concluded or what Moses Farrow wrote or any of the rest of it, I’m not seeing or sensing the little tells that say “this guy is dodging something.” They just aren’t there.

The other takeaway is that there’s a huge difference in terms of biology, energy, alertness and mental acuity between a 57 year old and an 82 year old. I’m sorry but this is what I was thinking. Aging is such a bitch.

Posted today at 4 pm Pacific: “For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.

“It was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form.

“And that was the key for us: it was an art form. There was some debate about that at the time, so we stood up for cinema as an equal to literature or music or dance. And we came to understand that the art could be found in many different places and in just as many forms — in The Steel Helmet by Sam Fuller and Persona by Ingmar Bergman, in It’s Always Fair Weather by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger, in Vivre Sa Vie by Jean-Luc Godard and The Killers by Don Siegel.”

HE insert: Scorsese prefers the drably photographed, TV-movie-ish version of The Killers just because Don Siegel directed it, and not Robert Siodmak‘s deliciously noirish The Killers (1946) with Burt Lancaster, Edmond O’Brien, Ava Gardner and Sam Levene?

Back to Scorsese: “Some say that Alfred Hitchcock’s pictures had a sameness to them, and perhaps that’s true — Hitchcock himself wondered about it. But the sameness of today’s franchise pictures is something else again. Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.

“They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.

“Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving images and sounds is going to be expanded.

Another Farewell, right? I’m especially disinclined with Crazy Rich Asians‘ Michelle Yeoh and Henry Golding rounding out the cast. And I’m saying this as a heartfelt fan of The Farewell.

George Michael and Wham? Later.

Alternate plan: See it with a fair-minded attitude, and then trash it. Unless it’s good. But it can’t be with that cloying poster image.

Hollywood Elsewhere and the much-whispered-about Yamaha Rumblehog lost traction, tipped over and hit the floor sideways this morning. It happened in the underground parking lot of the Paradigm talent agency (8942 Wilshire) at 10:20 am. I banged my elbow slightly but no worries. Like a terrified animal about to be killed, the rumblehog pissed a pint of gas onto the floor when we hit the floor. I almost said ”Aagghh…act like a manly motorcycle and not some candy-ass scooter!”

I sustained no injuries, but I do blame the construction guys who built or remodeled the Pardigm garage because the floor is too slippery to corner with. Should I have noticed this and driven accordingly? Yes, but the floor is a lot smoother and slicker than other talent agency garages, and I’ve been to them all. They should post a sign at the entrance that says “WARNING TO MOTORCYCLISTS — extra-slick floor makes cornering dicey if not dangerous.”