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Let it never be said that Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone doesn’t have a pair of cast-iron cojones. If you doubt this, read her Golden Globe reaction piece that went up late last night — “The Clickbait Outrage Machine Goes into Overdrive Post Globes.”

It’s one of the bravest and frankest essays ever written about the real-deal terms of female filmmaker empowerment in Hollywood. It’s a piece that only a tough woman columnist could have written. If I’d posted this on HE I would have been torn limb from limb by twitter jackals, and the buzzards would be feasting on the leftovers ten minutes later. But Sasha has the authority.

Yesterday I deftly debated the “gender parity watchdogs” who had howled in protest over four top-ranked female directors — Little Women‘s Greta Gerwig, The Farewell‘s Lulu Wang, Hustler‘s Lorene Scafaria and It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood‘s Marielle Heller — not being nominated for a Golden Globe Best Director award, and their films not being nominated for Best Motion Picture, Drama.

I stated that The Farewell is a highly superior film, but also argued that a reasonably convincing case couldn’t be made for Little Women, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood or Hustlers “being more transporting or historic or eye-opening” than Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Sam Mendes‘ 1917 or Todd Phillips‘ Joker. I also said it would be a push to convince people that Little Women, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood or Hustlers “are fuller meals or more humanist or more grounded in human vulnerability.”

That was as far as I felt I could go. But then Sasha’s piece appeared last night and made me look…well, like a guy who needs to be careful.

Because Sasha just said it. She basically argued that feminist industry progressives and their Film Twitter component are doing women no favors by insisting that a gender parity quota system should be observed when it comes to award nominations.

Film Twitter is basically declaring that (a) there must be some female award-show representation “so those involved can sleep at night, knowing that yes, Virginia, there is gender parity in Hollywood,” (b) not nominating women for awards is unacceptable, and (c) that those who defy this revolutionary mandate will have to pay a price.

“’Pick a woman, any woman‘ seems to be the message,” Sasha wrote. “Because if that happens [award-giving orgs] are shielded from attacks.

“I have no doubt that the clickbait cycle so prevalent today will seek to put Oscar voters on notice in the 11th hour, urging them to choose one of these [female-directed] movies for good optics, to shield them from the kind of heat the Globes got burned with [on Monday].

A Stone paragraph that will live forever: “If I were a woman I wouldn’t want anyone to do me any favors. I would want to make a movie SO GOOD that its value was undeniable. Like Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurt Locker, like Jane Campion’s The Piano, like Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, like Ava DuVernay’s Selma.**

“Voters should focus on choosing the best films or the best directors or the best scripts. But none of that matters to Film Twitter, which then is the feeder trough for clickbait all over the web.

Another historic Stone statement: “It seems like in our overriding desire to level the playing field we’ve decided that there is no absolute measure of what’s good and what isn’t, and that’s been replaced by a sliding scale that adjusts to factor in equality, parity, and inclusion.”

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Earlier today Netflix content honcho Ted Sarandos shared some Irishman numbers. Over the first seven days (11.27 to 12.3), he said, the 209-minute gangster flick was streamed by 26.4 million account holders.

He added that Netflix expects that household number to hit or closely approach 40 million after 28 days, or as of 12.25.

Sarandos said that the 26.4 million viewers over the first seven days watched “at least 70%” of The Irishman. Good dogs! Give ’em a biscuit! So as far as Sarandos knows, an undetermined number of Netflix viewers have yet to see the other 30%, or roughly the last 60 or 70 minutes. Or, you know, they watched some of it, turned it off, watched a little more, turned it off, and then watched the last hour or whatever.

Sincere question: What kind of droopy-lidded slug stops watching The Irishman at the 130-minute mark, which is just after the point when things begin to get more and more entertaining (“People aren’t freezin’ to death in New York…it’s summer”) and just when the suspense element is kicking in (when and how will Hoffa be hit?) and which delivers the legendary jaws-of-death finale (getting older and older, “Peggy won’t talk to me”, “leave the door a little bit open”).

The reason that 40 million are expected to watch The Irishman by Christmas, obviously, is because it’s easy. Just turn it on and flop on the couch.

But what if Netflix had decided to delay streaming until 12.13 or thereby kept it in theatres all through November and half of December, or roughly 42 days? Or if it had delayed the theatrical release until Christmas day? What percentage of that 40 million might have trekked down to a theatre and bought a ticket?

Knowing that most people are as lazy as overweight cats, my guess is that 10% might have shown up. 4 million tickets x $9 average ticket price = $36 million. Maybe I’m being too conservative. Maybe 15% or 20%. You tell me.

Ivan Reitman‘s original Ghostbusters came out 35 years ago. I can still feel the hate. Some of Bill Murray‘s quips were amusing, but I despised the third act with a passion — that idiotic demon dog, Sigourney Weaver‘s possession by “Gozer” and especially that huge marshmallow monster clomping around Manhattan’s Upper West Side. GTFO.

A woman I was seeing at the time, a marketing exec, found it delightful. I think on some level this may have contributed to our eventual breakup. I remember taking a walk one afternoon and realizing that her Ghostbusters worship was a bridge too far.

Jason Reitman‘s Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Sony, 7.10 20) is obviously not an urban thing, and looks heartland picturesque a la Andrew Wyeth.

Boilerplate: “After being evicted from their home, two teens (Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) and their single mom (Carrie Coon) move to Summerville, Oklahoma after inheriting property from their late grandfather. Paul Rudd is a local egghead professor who gradually hooks up with Coon. When the town experiences a series of unexplained earthquakes, the kids discover their family’s link to the original Ghostbusters”, blah blah.

Quickie cameos from original cast members Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts.

Reitman co-wrote the screenplay with Gil Kenan (Monster House, City of Ember).

These deepfakes struck me as better than decent. Imagine where this can go as the inevitable refinements become common. The creator is iFake, a person (presumably a youngish male) looking for Patreon support. Excerpt: “Deepfaking takes a lot of time and resources to pull off and so I’ve created this page for fellow DeepFake enthusiasts who might be interested in supporting me and my work.”

Atlanta Journal Constitution editor Kevin Riley is concerned about the paper’s reputation having been “severely tarnished” ** by Clint Eastwood‘s Richard Jewell (Warner Bros., 1.13). Hence the AJC has hired Los Angeles pitbull attorney Marty Singer to convey objections to Warner Bros., Eastwood and others involved in the film’s production.

The AJC and Singer are “asking” that the producers “issue a statement acknowledging that some events were imagined for dramatic purposes, and that artistic license and dramatization were used in the film’s portrayal of events and characters,” as Riley has explained in a 12.9 email. “In addition, we’re requesting a disclaimer to that effect be added to the film’s credits.”

The AJC beef is basically about an implication in the film that AJC reporter Kathy Scruggs, portrayed in Richard Jewell by Olivia Wilde, used sexual favors to obtain information from law enforcement sources.

Riley’s email includes an attached a copy of Singer’s letter to WB, Eastwood, screenwriter Billy Ray, etc.

Riley: “We welcome the accurate telling of Richard Jewell’s story. In fact, the AJC worked closely with the Atlanta History Center on a recent program that focused on a definitive new book on the subject by a former Wall Street Journal reporter and the former U.S. Attorney who handled the case. We recognize that the AJC, and the news media in general, are not above criticism.

“We can’t be silent when a film that purports to take the media to task engages in the very behavior that it criticizes. I feel compelled to stand up for the dedicated journalists who work for the AJC — otherwise a deceased reporter will be maligned in movie theaters across the country and around the world. This is especially concerning at a time when the nation’s leading news organizations are being attacked.”

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If this morning’s Golden Globes nominations said any one thing, it’s the fact that Netflix has kicked everyone’s ass with 17 nominations (more than double the second-place finisher). Another thing is that we’re all living in a streaming, streaming, streaming world these days, and that images projected out of a theatre booth and onto a big screen in front of popcorn eaters is no longer the primary thing…no longer the dominant way in which the art and transportation of cinema is dispensed and contemplated.

It breaks my heart to say it (although we’ve all felt this building over the last decade or so), but theatres are no longer the churches of our culture, the places where it all shoots out and caresses and coagulates and massages and comes together — living rooms are. For megaplexes are essentially zoos, gladiator arenas, amusement parks, video arcades, comic-book mythology salons. The communal experience survives to some extent, yes, but screening rooms and film festivals are the only decent way to go, certainly for anyone seeking a pure and unsullied experience.

Living rooms diminish the current between filmmakers and audiences, mainly by diluting the concentration levels. Which fits right in with the generally fragmented ADD thing — food breaks, bathroom breaks, walk-the-dog breaks, take-out-the-garbage breaks and deciding to watch the 209-minute Irishman in two or three installments rather than the whole thing in one setting. Not to mention texting and surfing while watching Robert DeNiro pop some guy.

Three Netflix features landed Golden Globes nominations in the Best Motion Picture, Drama category — Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, Fernando Meirelles‘ The Two Popes — and Craig Brewer, Eddie Murphy, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski‘s Dolemite is My Name was nominated in the comedy or musical category.

Many of us were presuming that Netflix would probably do better than anyone else with the GG noms, but I didn’t think Marriage Story would snag more noms than The Irishman. But it did, six to five.

And yet MS‘s Noah Baumbach didn’t land a Best Director nomination, and neither did partner Greta Gerwig for Little Women.

I think it’s vaguely shitty (or vaguely clueless) of the Globe guys to blank Uncut Gems‘ Adam Sandler and The Irishman’s Robert De Niro in the Best Actor, Drama category, but that’s what they did.

The Irishman‘s Al Pacino and Joe Pesci are eyeball to eyeball in the Best Supporting Actor category (and also threatening to cancel each other out), but as Pesci isn’t a campaigner and Al is a brilliant one, we probably know where this is heading.

Ricky Gervais will host the Golden Globes ceremony from the usual Beverly Hilton location on 1.5.20.

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Gal Gadot: “My lieyeefe…(beat)…hahsn’t been whutyouproblythinkithahs….(bump-bump-bump-bump)…we ahll have our strahggles.”

Kristin Wiig: “Yehvuhbeeninlohhf?

GG (smiling): “A lohnng time agooh.”

I guess I’m wondering why Chris Pine‘s Steve Trevor character, a mortal in his mid 30s when he ran into Wonder Woman during the first World War and who sorta kinda blew himself up in Act Three…I’m not only wondering how he escaped death, but how come he isn’t at least 105 years old in 1984? Obviously there’s an explanation.

I mostly hated the first Wonder Woman. I was okay with Gadot and Pine’s romantic scenes, but I hated the D.C. Amazonian-destiny-mythology bullshit. I found Robin Wright‘s Antiope and Connie Nielsen‘s Hippolyta irksome, and I couldn’t stand Danny Huston‘s Erich Ludendorff and David Thewlis‘s Ares. Their turgid dialogue, I mean.

Welcome to 1984…to big hair, shoulder pads, no smart phones or iPads, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Reagan in the White House, Huey Lewis and the News‘ “The Heart of Rock & Roll”, shitty 480p TVs, Lionel Richie performing “All Night Long” at the close of the Los Angeles Olympics, etc. Oh, and disco was dead in ’84 — it flourished from ’76 to ’80 or ’81.

I was still the proverbial lad in ’84…no marriage, no kids, driving a beater, living in Beachwood Canyon.

The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) have given Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite their Best Picture and Best Foreign-language Film award, and also their Best Director trophy….c’mon! Parasite is a worthy, well-made film but it’s not without issues or speedbumps. What purpose does it serve to pour this much award syrup over it? If they’re going to give their Best Picture and Best Director awards to Parasite, why not give the foreign language award to Les Miserables or Portrait of a Lady on Fire? As in, you know, “spread it around”?

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