Look at Benicio del Toro as he chats with BUILD’s Ricky Camilleri — he’s a ’50s beatnik, a Russian revolutionary, a wolfman, a Silicon Valley malcontent. I know Benicio very slightly, and I’ve heard the stories. Deep cat, wicked laugh, hungry poet, a man of appetites. Or, if you will, “the thinking man’s Hollywood badass.”

I was persuaded that Benicio was extra-level 24 years ago. That’s when I first saw him as Kevin Spacey‘s outgoing assistant in George Huang‘s Swimming With Sharks. In January ’95 I saw him in The Usual Suspects at Sundance, enjoyed the hell out of his Fred Fenster riff in that police line-up scene, and the rest was history.

Three personal encounters: (a) In April ’95 I persuaded Benicio (plus Bryan Singer, Elizabeth Shue, Lara Flynn Boyle, Gregg Araki, Don Murphy, et. al.) to pose for a Los Angeles magazine piece about the new neo-noir. Benicio didn’t want to pose with a gun, and I sided with him — I felt his pain. A low-key argument with my editor ensued; (b) A brief “hey” at West L.A.’s Lazer Blazer; (c) I next ran into Benicio at Gare du Nord on 1.1.00 — the day after the big Millennial new year. Standing on the platform with a suitcase, cool as a cucumber….”yo!”

I’ve no argument with Benicio being the new Lee Marvin or Warren Oates. Why have these analogies surfaced? Because critics are hugely impressed with Benicio’s Richard Matt in Ben Stiller‘s Escape at Dannemora (Showtime, 11.18). Me too, although I’ve only seen two episodes’ worth. I’ll be working on the remainder this weekend.

Nobody is more LQTM than myself, but I burst out laughing when I read about an Australian father who’s livid over a local grocery store screwing up a birthday cake for his three-year-old son.

An 11.14 N.Y. Post story by By Lia Eustachewich reports that Shane Hallford “ordered the cake from a Woolworths store in Tamworth, New South Wales, [last] Sunday, three days before his son Mason’s big day. The sheet cake — which cost a whopping $49 — came with a special set of instructions. “I explained to them we wanted a frog theme, as my son loves frogs,” Hallford wrote on Facebook. “They told me it could be done, no worries at all.”

Look at this cake — some doofus actually calculated this would put a smile on some kid’s face. People can be so mediocre, so asinine. If David Lynch were to stage a kid’s birthday party, this is the cake he’d want to use.

Armie Hammer was spot-on when he tweeted a couple of days ago that he was (a) “so touched by all of the celebrities posting pictures of themselves with Stan Lee“, (b) that there’s “no better way to commemorate an absolute legend than putting up a picture of yourself” and (c) “posting a selfie makes his death about you and how cool you felt taking a picture with him.”

For a guy who always seems to say bland things during press junkets and whatnot, I was suddenly impressed by Hammer’s moxie. He was pointing a finger at relentless selfie narcissism, etc. Hear hear!

Then Jeffrey Dean Morgan disagreed and called Hammer an “asshat,” and the 32-year-old costar of On The Basis of Sex totally caved. He said he was wrong for “inadvertently” offending “many who were genuinely grieving the loss of a true icon,” and that he “want[s] to apologize from the bottom of my heart and will be working on my Twitter impulse control.”

No offense, but Hollywood Elsewhere is no longer impressed by Armie Hammer.

I just finished watching an 11.15 Young Turks report (live just recently) in which Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian were claiming there was and is something sketchy about TMZ’s report about Michael Avenatti being arrested for domestic violence. Avenatti was arrested, but Uygur and Kasparian appeared to be saying that a good part of the story was bogus, and that TMZ’s Harvey Levin, a rightie who’s presumedly in the tank for Donald Trump, had basically pushed an unsubstantiated hit piece on Avenatti and that TMZ’s cred is shot because of this. Kasparian also apologized for passing along the TMZ story yesterday without comment or questions.

I don’t have all the facts but consider the following post by Variety‘s Nate Nikolai, which appeared yesterday afternoon (11.14, 3:30 pm): “TMZ first reported that Avenatti’s estranged wife filed a report with the LAPD after the alleged incident occurred on Tuesday. However, in a statement to BuzzFeed News, attorneys for Avenatti’s estranged wife, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, contradicted TMZ’s report, asserting that she was not present in Avenatti’s apartment on the date of the alleged incident.

“My client and I have reviewed the TMZ article alleging that my client, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, has been injured and that Michael Avenatti has been arrested as a result of some incident that occurred between them. This article is not true as it pertains to my client,” the statement said. “Ms. Storie-Avenatti was not subject to any such incident on Tuesday night. Further, she was not at Mr. Avenatti’s apartment on the date that this alleged incident occurred. My client states that there has never been domestic violence in her relationship with Michael and that she has never known Michael to be physically violent toward anyone.”

I was feeling like Scatman Crowthers in that third-act Shining blizzard, driving from Denver’s Stapleton Airport up to the Overlook Hotel.

“The thing about TV series that I don’t understand and I think is hard for both of us to get our minds around is, you know, feature films have a beginning, a middle and an end. But open-ended stories have a beginning and a middle…and then they’re beaten to death until they’re exhausted and die. They don’t actually have an end. And thinking about that in the context of a story is rather alien to the way we imagine these things.” — Joel Coen in a chat with L.A. Times‘ Josh Rottenberg.

But limited series don’t beat their stories or characters to death. The Sopranos was never beaten to death. Mad Men didn’t feel beaten to death — to me at least. Joel is mostly referring to series that keep going and going until they can reach that magic syndication figure.

In Patti Cakes, Danielle Macdonald played an obese New Jersey girl who wanted to make it as a rapper, however unlikely this seemed to some (including her unsupportive mother, who was a lounge singer in her day). In the similar-sounding Dumplin’, McDonald plays an obese Texas girl who decides to compete in a beauty contest, however curious or ill-conceived this seems to some (including her mother, who runs the beauty pageant in question and is played by Jennifer Aniston).

Thursday, 11.15, 1:40 pm — 57th Street and Seventh Ave. It took me a little while to recover from Mary, Queen of Scots. I ducked into a market/food bar joint a few doors down from Carnegie Hall. I scooped up some hot steaming vittles and waited in line to pay.

HE to cashier: “Where’s the cutlery?”
Cashier to HE: “Duh whah?”
HE to cashier: “Forks and spoons?”
Cashier to HE: “Sullabaugh.”
HE to cashier: “What?”
Cashier to HE: “Sullabaugh.”

I walked in the direction of where she was pointing, but I couldn’t imagine what a “sullabaugh” might be. I looked and looked…nothing. I turned and looked back at the cashier, and then caught her eye.

HE to cashier: “I still don’t see any knives and forks!”
Cashier to HE: “Sullabaugh!”

A light went on.

HE to cashier: “Oh, you mean salad bar? Fine, sorry, I’m stupid. Thank you!”

A couple of days ago a group of Hollywood heavy-htters — Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chris “2001 desecration artist” Nolan, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Rian Johnson, Karyn Kusama and Damien Chazelle, among others — sent a letter sent to Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich, asking that he use his influence to plea with WarnerMedia and AT&T to reconsider pulling the plug on FilmStruck.

Excerpt: “The FilmStruck service was (IS) the best streaming service for fans of cinema of all kinds: classic studio movies, independent cinema, international treasures. Without it, the landscape for film fans and students of cinema is especially bleak. There’s a reason there was a huge outpouring from artists and fans over it being shuttered, they were doing the Movie God’s work.”

Hollywood Elsewhere appreciates the above-named artists using a possessive conjugation of the HE term “Movie God.” It’s actually supposed to be used in the plural — there are several Movie Gods just as there are several Greek Gods residing atop Mount Olympus — and the proper spelling is “Movie Godz.” If you’re going to use the term, fine, but get it right.

Unless the AT&T baddies change their mind, the Filmstruck curtain will come down on 11.29.

Thursday, 9:05 am: Enroute to a screening of Mary, Queen of Scots. Can’t seem to connect MacBook Pro to iPhone internet, but I was half-taken by the trailer for Disney’s live-action Dumbo. The problem is that while I bought a flying baby elephant in the animated Disney original, I can’t accept it in a live-action context. I appreciate the effort, but something inside me says “nope.”

The forthcoming Ben Wheatley adaptation of Daphne du Maurier‘s Rebecca, for all intents and purposes a remake of Alfred Hitchcock‘s 1940 Oscar winner, can’t possibly blend with contemporary mindsets. The patronizing old-school sexism and upper-class chauvinism that Joan Fontaine‘s character was subjected to (and was so intimidated by) will seem ludicrous by today’s standards. And Armie Hammer as Maxim de Winter, sure to be processed alongside the original performance by Laurence Olivier? Beaten before the attempt is even made.

Sometime in 2019 a slightly more explicit version of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho will reportedly be offered by a German video distributor, either as a Bluray or streaming file or whatever. Nothing breathtaking is included — it’s just a tad more explicit than the prudish U.S. cut.

Apparently this version, which almost shows a little Janet Leigh sideboob in the Bates Motel peep scene, was sent to Germany some 58 years ago. The German cut also shows a bewigged Anthony Perkins stabbing Martin Balsam three times, or twice more than in the U.S. version. There’s also some bathroom clean-up footage that’s slightly more specific.

Here’s a 2012 article about the extra German footage.

Universal Home Video should issue a new Psycho Bluray with this footage, of course, but they should also (a) remaster it in 4K and (b) offer an alternate boxy version (1.37:1) — the current Universal Bluray slices off acres and acres of visual information with an unnecessary 1.85 aspect ratio.

In 50 words or less, please explain the core reason for the apparently insatiable appetite for deadpan graphic horror among millennials. Why the endless fascination with rage, blood spatterings and psychotic brutality on one hand, and a relatively unenthusiastic attitude about elevated horror (i.e., The Witch, Hereditary, The Babadook), which people like me tend to favor.

HE theory: Two and a half years ago I posted a piece titled “Where Are Angry, Despairing Millenial Dramas?” The idea was that millennials have as much reason to feel despair and anger as England’s kitchen-sink dramatists and filmmakers did in the late ’50s and early ’60s. But they’re not watching or making many films that portray or echo their experience. Theatrically they’re into FX-driven superhero films, dumbshit comedies, horror, etc.

Perhaps on some level horror films are, in their heads, a kind of metaphorical kitchen-sink realm. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but maybe.

“Dunk on Me,” a two-week-old music video by the New York-area band Blood Cultures, is an example of non-elevated horror, to put it mildly. “Dark, brooding electro-pop…combining equal parts psychedelic textures and dance-worthy beats…the music produced is as murky and obscure as its creator’s true identity.” — NME.