Stanley Kubrick always wanted “interesting” from his actors, especially his supporting actors. That tended to translate into behavior that most of us would call quirky, twitchy, peculiar, eccentric, heavily mannered, etc. Hands down, HE’s all-time favorite quirk-freak-twitch performance in a Kubrick film came from Alan Cumming in Eyes Wide Shut. Second favorite: a Clockwork Orange tie between Michael Bates, who played an officious, extremely uptight prison guard, and Aubrey Morris as “P.R, Deltoid”. Third favorite: Murray Melvin as Reverend Samuel Runt in Barry Lyndon.

In every major industrial democracy there are varying levels of concern about the flow of unmitigated immigration from the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central America and Mexico. It’s not so much an economic, party or principle thing as (I know this sounds overly primal and primitive) a simmering matter of blood and tribe. Sad as it seems, right-leaning European and North American natives have been reacting fearfully and in some ways violently. (The recent Rome attacks upon allies of Cinema America by far-right groups is but one example.) Natives of Europe and North America are sensing cultural and territorial threats.

I’m not sensing the slightest threat of anything from my home in West Hollywood, but it’s been fairly well documented that rurals in this country (i.e., those who have the least contact with immigrants) are somewhat agitated about this. And it has concerned some that almost all of last night’s Democratic contenders raised their hands in support of restoring protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as well as pledging to provide health care for the millions in the country without documents.

I don’t know what the wisest or fairest solution might be, but earlier today Politico‘s Jeff Greenfield supplied two Presidential views on the matter.

President Bill Clinton in his 1995 State of the Union address: “All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens…it is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”

President Barack Obama in a 2014 interview with ABC News: “That is our direct message to the families in Central America: Do not send your children to the borders.” The U.S. Border Patrol, he said, should be able to “stem the flow of illegal crossings and speed the return of those who do cross over … Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable.”

The title of Greenfield’s article is “Did the Democrats Step on a Second Big Land Mine?“, and the subhead states the following: “On immigration, they’ve steered the party close to an open-borders policy without any serious reckoning with how to handle the influx of arrivals.”

I understood what Marianne Williamson was saying about a New Zealand-type assault weapon ban (which of course would be a completely sane response to myriad U.S. shootings), but she obviously didn’t belong in that group — a spiritual outlier, to say the least. People don’t want gentle preachers for leaders — they want realpolitik hardballers with principles.

Hollywood Elsewhere would love to see Sen. Kamala Harris land the nomination and thereafter bruise and bloody Donald Trump in the general campaign. She is tough-tough-tough-tough-tough-tough-tough-tuhfff! (“Rats on the westside, bed bugs…uptown!”) Kamala simultaneously bitch-slapped Joe Biden tonight over being chummy with racist legislators and over not supporting busing (Joe: “What I opposed was busing by the Department of Education!”) and proved she’ll be merciless with Trump on a debate stage. Kamala was definitely the stand-out contender during tonight’s debate, and she killed any possibility of a Biden-Harris ticket down the road! Pete Buttigieg came in second (his remark about Republican values, his joke about Trump’s ability to rupture diplomatic relationships, his candor over failing to quell racist currents in South Bend). Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand did okay but Biden looked a little old, a little weak. Eric Swallwell got him on the age thing; so did Kamala. You’re yesterday’s news, Joe!

Hollywood Elsewhere won’t be satisfied with a wokester makeover. I also want gay currents (if not from all three then at least from Kristen Stewart). And everyone understands that there are four Bosleys this time…right? (Sam Claflin, Djimon Hounsou, Elizabeth Banks and Patrick Stewart.) Nobody, it appears, has John Forsythe‘s “role” of Charlie, but Luis Gerardo Méndez plays “The Saint”, whatever that means or indicates. Define “synthetic.”

So the winners of last night’s Democrat debate were Sen. Elizabeth Warren (at least during the first half) and Julian Castro. Except Castro hasn’t a prayer of joining the elite fraternity of five.

Right now that fraternity is composed of “Typewriter” Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders (who will almost certainly go after Biden tonight for being a softball, middle-of-the-roader — a symbol of business-as-usual-before-Trump), Warren, Pete Buttigieg (who needs to put the cop-shooting thing to bed by saying “no bodycam, no badge” and slug Biden with a Muhammad Ali jab or two) and Kamala Harris. The rest are just spinning their wheels and wasting everyone’s time, and they know it.

Bernie needs to drop out and stop spoiling things for Warren. He knows he can’t beat Trump (although he might have if he’d run against him in ’16), and that he’s just mucking things up at this point. He’s a kind of ballsy neo-socialist hero, but at the same time a stubborn old goat.

The only candidate who’s really got that X-factor thing — that weird Colonel Kilgore light or special halo around his head — is Mayor Pete.

If JFK had never lived when he did and was suddenly here and running for President at age 42 (born in ’77), he would kick the living shit out of Typewriter Joe and everyone else for that matter. But of course he’s not.

The two hottest U.S. film festivals happen within six weeks of each year — the Sundance Film Festival in mid-to-late January and South by Southwest in mid March.

Sundance appeals to your basic wokester SJW #MeToo LBGTQ crowd (along with your garden-variety Lefty Snowflake Stalinist Sensitives) who are committed to overthrowing old norms and ensuring that independent cinema is generally more progressive and “representative” with fewer white guys of whatever age.

SXSW attracts hipster genre geeks who’ve been fortified by woke attitudes but whose attitudes and tastes are still a little more whoo-whooish and popcorn-consumptive than your card-carrying Sundance followers. And that’s pretty much the whole enchilada.

It was announced today that John Cooper, director of the Sundance Film Festival since ’09, will move into a newly-created “emeritus director” role after the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. What does it actually mean to be an “emeritus director”? I wouldn’t know but I’m presuming it means you’re consulting from time to time but basically out of the driver’s seat in terms of selections, political ramifications, dealing with talent, putting out fires and whatnot.

One thing you can always count on in these situations is that the reason[s] why a well-connected person has decided to leave a powerful, well-paid gig will never be disclosed at first, but will usually leak out several weeks or months after the fact, or certainly within a year or two.

Cooper isn’t that old (what is he, late 50s or early 60s?) and has only had the director gig for 11 years. The El Sundance Supremo job has to be one of the coolest, most enjoyable and exciting gigs in the film realm so why leave? Why surrender that responsibility? What else is he going to do with his life?

Is Cooper leaving because of some kind of political power move by his rivals within the Sundance organization?

Journo friend: “I’ve been asking those very same questions myself. One would just assume that being the Sundance chief for 11 years and operating near that top slot for many years before that has taken its toll, but who knows. I’ve been a staunch supporter of the lineups, even the 2016, 2017, and 2018 editions, which you partially disregarded as “socialist summer camp” festivals, but I found much to admire with those editions and could come up with 15 or so high-caliber films/docs every one of those years.

“2019, however, was different. It was as if they had shot themselves in the foot with their mass virtue-signaling and overtly p.c./woke decision-making. I could barely come up with ten noteworthy films. There was The Farewell, Luce, Hala, Blinded by the Light, David Crosby: Remember My Name and then what? Maybe Cooper is seeing which direction the festival is heading and wants nothing to do with it. The docs were good, as usual, but there was something missing, I felt — a relevance that was badly needed but couldn’t be found.

It’s been a dirty little secret for most journos I’ve spoken to felt that Sundance 2019 was a horrible edition, but they wouldn’t dare utter that on print.”

HE to Journo Friend: “But if things were swerving into a certain woke/virtue-signalling direction and Cooper wanted to steer things back in a direction he felt more comfortable with or respectful of, WHY LEAVE? Why not stay and fight it out? Why not lobby for this or that kind of film that he may feel is underrepresented?

“Either Cooper decided he wanted to chill and lead a less stressful life — slip into cruise mode, live longer and healthier, laugh and enjoy life more, grow a vegetable garden, etc. Or he was politically pushed out and decided to take the emeritus job as a face saver.”

Journo friend: “Maybe he was outgunned? Outnumbered? It’s no secret that most ‘critics’ want an SJW-landscape as the future of movies. Just look at the results of Jordan Ruimy‘s poll yesterday. Even TIFF seems to be heading in that direction, albeit in more conservative baby steps. Also don’t forget Robert Redford‘s strange but brief appearance at the opening day press conference, when he all but admitted to stepping down from the festival. Something is happening. There’s an elephant in the room which no media whatsoever is going to have the balls to acknowledge.”

TYT‘s Cenk Uygur: “The heart of Hillary Clinton‘s problem and why she would ever lose to an idiot monster like Donald Trump, is because she ran on ‘no change’. People didn’t like that message. Mainstream media never tells you that and plus, they’re part of the status quo, they love the status quo and they don’t want you thinking that people want to change the status quo. What is the essence of Joe Biden’s campaign? [Other than the replacing of Trump], ‘no change.’ In fact, [Biden] literally went to a bunch of wealthy donors last week and said, ‘Nothing will fundamentally change…I promise you.’ So if you’re gonna run on that message, of course Trump would like to run against you. Because that’s exactly what he ran against last time, and why he won.”

The legendary distributor, exhibitor and producer Ben Barenholtz passed earlier today in Prague, at age 83. A Manhattanite for many decades, Barenholtz moved to Prague last year and into “an apartment over a legit theater in a cool, low-key neighborhood,” according to a New York-based distributor I spoke to this morning.

Remember that Humphrey Bogart line in Casablanca when Ingrid Bergman laments the possibility that Victor Laszlo “might die in Casablanca”, and Bogart says, “What of it? I’m gonna die in Casablanca — it’s a good spot for it.” Prague isn’t a bad place to depart from either. The vibe is very special there, I’ve always felt.

Two years ago Barenholtz completed his first directorial effort, Alina, which played at the Metrograph but apparently isn’t streaming anywhere. (I’m suddenly seized by an urge see it.) Here’s a good Barenholz profile that ran in the N.Y. Times a couple of summers ago, written by John Anderson.

Ben’s Wikipage says he was “developing a sequel to Alina as well as working on an autobiographical film, Aaron.”

Barenholtz was one of the original innovative cool cats of the 20th Century Manhattan indie exhibition and distribution scene. He was also a genuine human being. I used to run into him at Manhattan parties in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and over the years I knew a lot of guys (Sam Kitt, Joel and Ethan Cohen) who had worked with him in some capacity. He always wore that slightly bemused grin.

As an exhibitor, Barenholtz was known for innovative promotion and screening of cool films (Village Theatre, Elgin Cinema) and as a distributor for having discovered and nurtured the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, John Sayles and Guy Maddin. And for Libra Films (Cousin Cousine, Eraserhead, Return of the Secaucus 7), his distribution company that he launched in 1972 and ran until the early ’80s, and then Circle Films (Blood Simple, John Woo‘s The Killer), which was a going concern until the early ’90s.

This political cartoon, posted yesterday by Michael de Adder, is an instant stone classic. On Facebook Rod Lurie asked if it was “fair”. Political cartoons are rarely “fair”, but the best (like this one) convey core truths — i.e., how things actually are or what we believe them to be. We all understand that Trump’s southern-border immigration policy is to keep out or otherwise strongly discourage, partly through the imposing of harsh and heartless measures upon children of would-be immigrants. There’s no ambiguity about that. De Adder’s illustration doesn’t lie.

Boilerplate: “Like many, Canadian artist Michael de Adder was saddened and appalled by the images of El Salvadoran migrants Oscar Alberto Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, drowned on the bank of the Rio Grande river. So de Adder created a political cartoon to capture the way he felt about the tragedy and the reaction from President Donald Trump and his administration to the plight of migrants seeking a better life.

“Martínez arrived along with his wife, daughter and a brother at a migrant camp, hoping for an appointment to petition for political asylum in the United States. The family spent two months waiting in temperatures that reached 113 degrees before they decided to try to cross the border. They first tried to enter at the international bridge, but were told the office was closed and to come back another day so they turned to the river.

“Martínez and his daughter made it to the Texas side of the border, but when he returned to the river to help his wife cross, the little girl jumped into the water after her father. The current overwhelmed the two and they drowned clinging to each other while Martínez’s wife and Angie mother watched, unable to help.”

150 film critics have named Jordan Peele‘s Us as the Best Movie of 2019 thus far. Sure it is! Peele’s film was actually fairly decent as far as it went, but I found it…well, certainly ballsy. Imagine the cojones it took for Peele to decide upon Ken Kragen’s “Hands Across America” campaign as the film’s ultimate evildoer or baddy-waddy.

In all seriousness, Us earned a Metacritic score of 81 and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94 and an audience rating of 63. So why did Ruimy’s Raiders call it the best of the year so far? I have my suspicions ** — what are yours? Time Out‘s Joshua Rothkopf compared Us to John Carpenter‘s The Fog (’80), the somewhat disappointing follow-up to the hugely successful Halloween. That’s about right.

The next most popular nine among the 150 are (in this order) The Souvenir, Booksmart, Long Day’s Journey Into Night 3D, High Life, Transit, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Apollo 11, Ash is Purest White and Avengers: Endgame.

Here, again, is Hollywood Elsewhere’s 12 best of the year so far:

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

2. Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete / “All Hail Dragged Across Concrete,” filed on 3.21.19.

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

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

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

Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis‘ Yesterday hasn’t won overwhelming critical support, but apparently it’s going to sell a lot of tickets. I’m not saying it’s going to match Bohemian Rhapsody numbers, but a similar dichotomy has kicked in — mezzo-mezzo reactions on RT and Metacritic but hugely popular with Average Joes. Moderators of two film clubs or classes (one in Los Angeles, another in Westchester County) said the same things.

L.A guy: “Yesterday played way through the roof with my crowd (biggest of the season), really one of the most enthusiastic responses I’ve ever had. You could really see this crowd, perfect age for Beatle memories, dig this in a very big way.”

Westchester guy: “Not only did the screening sell out but the audience was probably half kids, from about ten into their teens. Most there with their parents. This sold out strictly on word-of-mouth and an email blast to the membership — in other words, a lot of people have seen this trailer and apparently want to see this movie. It was a big, big hit with the audience. A lot of people last night walked out smiling, wiping away tears.”