Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Roger Durling, Sasha Stone, Anne Thompson, Tatyana Antropova, Lisa Taback, David Poland and yours truly attended last night’s Martin Scorsese tribute at the Ritz Carlton Bacara. Or, if you will, the presenting of the 2019 Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Filmmaking to the director of The Irishman, who of course was there also and full of the usual vim and vinegar and poetry and soulful sharings. The man is indefatigable…a locomotive.

The Irishman will win the 2019 Best Picture Oscar. It will, it should, it must, the Godz insist, etc. I’ve seen it three times now — at Netflix, at the Chinese premiere, and a few days ago at the Westside Pavillion.

Key Scorsese passage: “I realize that commitment and dedication to the art form are always rare so, you know, when you see it, this incredible commitment and dedication, please don’t take it for granted. It’s a new world today, of course, and we have to be extra vigilant. Some actually believe that these qualities that I’m talking about can be replaced by algorithms and formulas and business calculations, but please remember it’s all an illusion because there’s no substitute for individual or artistic expression…as Kirk Douglas knew and as he expressed through his long film career.”

The event was attended by roughly 300 rich people + four or five journalist blogaroos. Nice vibes, nice food, excellent video tributes, legendary speeches, etc.

Sasha picked me up at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Riverside at 3:50 pm, and we arrived two and a half hours later. Tatyana arrived maybe 15 minutes after we did. We decided against staying at the Villa Rosa Inn (the room was chilly and odorous and a bit haggard), so the Beetle carried us straight home. The return trip took about 90 minutes, Santa Barbara to West Hollywood.

During last night’s Martin Scorsese tribute in Santa Barbara, Irishman costar Al Pacino spoke for a little more than 12 minutes, and with a rambling, jazzy attitude. Boppity-beep-beep-bedulluh-bedulluh-pop…pow! Please, please go to 9:07 for his story about attending a Frank Sinatra concert at Carnegie Hall sometime in the early ’80s, and how Rich, who was then around 65 or so, performed a drum solo as the opening act. And then…well, listen to Al tell it. The message is if you stick to something you’ll get better and better at it, and that artists sometimes reach the peak of their powers in their 60s, 70s or even beyond, and that Buddy Rich was one example and so, right now, is Martin Scorsese.

2:45 pm: I just left for a big Martin Scorsese tribute dinner in Santa Barbara. Roger Durling and the Santa Barbara Film Festival organization are presenting the Irishman director with the 2019 Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. I’m actually hitching a ride from Sasha Stone, and then coming back with Tatyana, who can’t leave until later.

Four years ago the original Rubber Soul album cover photo was unearthed and circulated. By this I mean the naturally-proportioned image that wasn’t used in favor of the famously distorted image that become instantly iconic.

The photo session happened sometime in November ’65, and reportedly on or near the grounds of John Lennon‘s home on the St. George’s Hill estate, Weybridge, Surrey. (It’s currently called Kenwood).)

The folk-rockish, Dylan-influenced suede buckskin jackets obviously indicated the shot was taken in cool, autumnal weather. But until this morning I didn’t realize that the weather was more on the frigid side, as in one of the fabbies muttering “Jesus, take the shot already, it’s fucking cold out here.”

How do I know this? Paul McCartney has pulled his sleeves over his hands and fingers. Nobody does this unless it’s biting cold. (Or unless they’re light on Jack Löndon-like manliness.) I occasionally did this myself while walking around my New Jersey and Connecticut home towns so don’t tell me.

I didn’t pay attention in 2015 when this photo was first circulated, so this is new. Five decades plus and I never saw the freezing McCartney hands until today.

A middle-aged ex-basketball star with a drinking problem (Ben Affleck) lands a gig coaching a basketball team at his old high school in Torrance. We’ve all seen this film, of course. Hoosiers mixed with alcohol meets Kevin Costner‘s McFarland, USA. We also know there are only so many ways to tell this kind of story, and all of them with the same ending.

The compelling X-factor is the fact that Affleck’s own struggles with alcohol add a palpable subcurrent. Plus director Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant, Miracle) knows his way around athletic dramas.

The current title is The Way Back (Warner Bros., 3.20). A year and a half ago it was called The Has-Been.

Deadline Boilerplate, posted on 6.11.18: “The Accountant team of Ben Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor are circling The Has-Been, a drama scripted by Brad Ingelsby. I’m told Warner Bros is trying to make a deal on a movie that would happen on a fast track. No deals have been completed at this point.

Brad Ingelsby‘s script “centers on a former basketball all-star who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction. He attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate, ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater. The Has-Been will be produced by Affleck and Jennifer Todd, Mark Ciardi and Gordon Grey, with O’Connor also expected to be involved as a producer along with the writer.”

I’d like to read Inglesby’s script, if anyone has a PDF. Reach out on Facebook and I’ll send you an email.

As horrific as this morning’s Saugus High School shooting was (two fatalities, three critically wounded, shooter apprehended), none of us are shocked or surprised when this kind of thing occurs. The truth (and God help us) is that school shootings are an almost routine occurence. We know this won’t be the last, and that random slaughter is more or less a facet of American life now.

Which is why the bigger gut-punch, for me, is the two-day-old news about the drowning of Venice, Italy — the worst flood there since 1966, and a harbinger of future floods to come. The eternal beauty and serenity of Venice is no longer a given, and the vibes are anything but serene with this the Sword of Damocles hovering. It’s shattering, heartbreaking.

Wash, rinse, repeat: Many world-class cities (Manhattan included) are going to be flooded in the coming decades, and it’s basically the fault of those on Donald Trump‘s side of the aisle — thoughtless industrialists, the denial brigade, China, India, cattle industry, etc. And 38% of the American electorate is down with the Trump agenda. Because they’re devoted to aggressive ignorance, and because the maintaining of Anglo Saxon dominance and pushing back against POC encroachment is paramount to them.

Thanks to Sony Pictures and the tireless p.r. team behind A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood for the nice Mr. Rogers sweater. I’ll never wear it outside my home, but it’s very warm. (I regard thick red sweaters as an east-coast Republican thing — I’m more of a black Italian sweater type of guy.) But it’s very generous of Sony to send this over along with some other Rogers items. Thanks, guys.

Over the last year I’ve been campaigning against the wearing of black sneakers with white midsoles, aka “whitesides.” Last November I announced that these grotesquely designed creations had become “the new Crocs,” and as bad as the wearing of gold-toed socks. I naturally presumed that X-factor industry types would agree with me.

But over the last couple of days I’ve noticed that Matt Damon, Christian Bale and Adam Sandler are all wearing these godforsaken things. Even Brad Pitt is wearing a variation — i.e., cream-colored sneakers with whitesides. For whatever reason these guys are refusing to acknowledge that wearing whitesides makes you look like a huge dork.

I suppose this means that I’m the clueless one, right? The guy who doesn’t get it? I think not. I’ve been to Italy a few times and I know what goes, and these shoes are an embarassment to mankind.

The last effort from Joel and Ethan Coen was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology film for Netflix. But that didn’t count because it wasn’t really a single-narrative “Coen Bros. film” that opened in theatres. Within that realm, Joel and Ethan have been M.I.A. since Hail, Caesar!, which came out three years ago. Except that was a bit of a disappointment. It was fine (Josh Brolin was excellent) but at the same time a bit strained and somehow incomplete.

If you ask me the last real Coen brothers film was Inside Llewyn Davis, which was six fucking years ago.

I “liked” but didn’t love True Grit (’10) all that much. It was basically about Jeff Burly Bridges going “shnawwhhhhr-rawwwhhrr-rawwrrluurrllllh.” It certainly wasn’t an elegant, blue-ribbon, balls-to-the-wall, ars gratia artis Coen pic — it was a well-written, slow-moving western with serious authenticity, noteworthy camerawork, tip-top production design and, okay, a few noteworthy scenes.

So let’s just call the last ten years a difficult, in-and-out, up-and-down saga, but at the same time acknowledge that the Coens have enjoyed two golden periods of shining creativity and productivity.

The first golden period was a four-film run — Blood Simple (’84), Raising Arizona (’87), Miller’s Crossing (’90) and Barton Fink (’91). The Hudsucker Proxy (’94) was a weird, half-successful, half-sputtering in-betweener. The second golden period (’96 to ’09) was a nine-film run that included Fargo (’96), The Big Lebowski (’98), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (’00), The Man Who Wasn’t There (’01), Intolerable Cruelty (’03), The Ladykillers (’04), No Country for Old Men (’07), Burn After Reading (’08) and A Serious Man (’09).

My moviegoing life has been diminished by the absence of the “real” Coen Brothers. If I was a mega-millionaire I would invest in whatever they want to make.

During a chat with JLo for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Robert Pattinson (aka “Rbatz”) said that the Twilight series (a) has always struck him as a profoundly “weird story” and (b) that “it’s strange how people responded a lot to it.” Jesus…after all these years and he still doesn’t understand the primal appeal of this franchise?

“I guess the books are very romantic, but at the same time, it’s not like The Notebook romantic,” Rbatz said. “The Notebook is very sweet and heartbreaking, but ‘Twilight’ is about this guy, and he finds the one girl he wants to be with, and he also wants to eat her. I mean, not eat her, but drink her blood or whatever.”

No, no, no…it’s not about Edward Cullen wanting to drink Bella Swan‘s blood and turning her into a fellow vampire (although the story does eventually go there). It’s about the undying love and steadfast loyalty of a hunky young guy whose feelings aren’t driven by sexual hunger but an everlasting, otherworldly urge to shelter and protect.

The Twilight series goes off the rails in Breaking Dawn, Part 1 when Edward and Bella have sex and she gets pregnant. Being dead, Edward can’t achieve a stiffie, much less produce sperm, so the whole sexual angle is fucking ridiculous.