Have you heard? Chris Pine‘s schlongstuffer can be glimpsed (a) from a distance and (b) for “less than a second” in David Mackenzie‘s Outlaw King (Netflix, 11.9).

One of the observations in Jamie Dunn‘s 10.23 Guardian piece about such appearances (“Full frontal: why the fuss over Chris Pine’s ‘dazzling’ penis?“) is that gay journalists over-react when this or that actor goes willy-nilly.

“Is this the reason so many young actors are squeamish about getting naked for their art?,” Dunn asks. “Speaking in these pages back in March, James Ivory was irate that nude scenes in his Call Me By Your Name screenplay were altered to conform with Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet’s no-nudity contracts. We can understand Hammer and Chalamet’s trepidation. Just imagine, for example, if one of them were a grower and not a shower? Or, God forbid, their junk turned out to be a bit funny looking? The body shaming would be relentless.”

I happen to believe that growers who do nude scenes risk career damage. The nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Ken Russell‘s Women in Love didn’t exactly suggest associations with horses or elephants, but the editing saved them. Cillian Murphy did himself no favors when he allowed Danny Boyle and Anthony Dod Mantle to briefly glimpse his package in 28 Days Later. There was a scene in Patrick Brice‘s The Overnight (’15) in which Adam Scott (whose character was deeply bothered about having a small junk) did a nude scene — Scott was wearing a small-dick prosthetic but most audiences didn’t know that.

Guys performing nude should always work up a little heft before the director says “action!” A former girlfriend who used to work for Viva, the women’s magazine that ran nude male centerfolds, once told me that photographers always wanted their male subjects to be in a state of “maximum tumescence in repose.” One way not to look like you’re “hung like a cashew” (a devastating phrase coined by James Ellroy) is to pop Viagra or Cialis. In the military drill sergeants refer to low-level soldiers as “swinging dicks” — said medications actually allow that condition to manifest.

I’ve been a Tweetbot user for four or five years now (longer?), but version 5.0, which popped a few days ago, is exceptional. Deep black background. Redesigned profiles. Audio-video (giphy) playback within the timeline. A whole new realm.

Tweetbot, a creation of Tapbots (Paul Haddad, Mark Jardine, Todd Thomas), was reportedly forced to disable or degrade some features a couple of months ago due to some Twitter API changes that hurt third-party apps, blah blah…you’re making my head spin. All I know is that Tweetbot 5 is the coolest, slickest-looking twitter app I’ve ever fiddled with.

It’s okay with me if The Favourite‘s Olivia Colman wants to go for Best Actress, even if she’s not playing a lead role. I’ve accepted her strategy because you can’t fight City Hall, but I will not accept the forehead-slapping notion that the film’s two actual leads, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, are now Supporting Actress contenders. Stone and Weisz’s characters, Abigail Masham and Sarah Churchill, are the main protagonists and manipulators — characters who are driving the palace plot and carrying the whole equation in their heads. I’ll bend over for Colman but I won’t prognosticate the other two as supporting contenders…no!

So who’s the Best Supporting Actress front-runner? You tell me. I’m still figuring it out.

It’s not If Beale Street Could Talk‘s Regina King, I can tell you that. She’s probably one of the five but that’s mainly because everyone keeps including her as one of the hotties — I honestly didn’t think her performance (i.e., the strong, compassionate mother of Kiki Layne) is more than a line-drive single.

What if I choose the supporting performance and supporting character whom I liked and admired the most? If I did that would be Green Book‘s Linda Cardellini. Second place is First Man‘s Claire Foy, I suppose, but I wonder how many people are saying “wow, great hand-wringing wifey-wife!” Then comes Vice‘s Amy Adams, whose performance as Lynne Cheney I’ve been hearing about since last spring. And then Roma‘s Marina de Tavira — a solid, planted performance that radiates ripe, feminine humanity.

I’ve given the fifth slot to Margot Robbie‘s performance as Queen Elizabeth in Mary, Queen of Scots because — I’m serious — of her deglamorized makeup (flaming red hair, pale complexion, blotchy skin). People are always impressed when a pretty actress goes semi-ugly.

Most film sites point to general audience enthusiasm (vigorous box-office, social-media mentions, what their friends are tweeting) and say “wow, isn’t this great? Let’s talk about this, get into it…commercial success is such a joyous and fascinating thing! And it brings a little money into our own pockets if we show the right kind of enthusiasm.”

Other sites say “okay but wait…this or that film isn’t very good…in fact it’s mostly a drag so who cares if the popcorn inhalers are paying to see it in sizable numbers? They’re lemmings, pigs at the trough, no taste.” Or “this film is so well done, so on-the-stick, so world-class….why is it limping along at the box-office?”

Same thing with Oscar prognostication. Four years ago I did a couple of podcast threesomes with Sasha Stone and Awards Watch‘s Eric Anderson, and Anderson had this pet theme that he kept repeating over and over, to wit: THEY (the Gold Derby and Gurus of Gold know-it-alls plus his own Awards Watch community) like this movie for Best Picture or this actor for Best Actress or whatever, and so the odds favor a win.

And I would say from time to time, “Okay, but this alleged Best Picture favorite isn’t very good or is actually pretty bad…why are we pointing out over and over that it’s highly ranked by the usual suspects, the award-season sheep? All they know is which way the wind is blowing. Except their sense of wind direction is nothing more sage than that of a local TV news weather guy. Yappity-yap-yap-yap-yappy.”

Anderson finally got sick of me and excused himself from all podcasts that I was part of, but I was right then and I’m right now. Listening to the go-alongs will sap your soul.

The thing to listen to now as we head into Halloween are the societal undercurrents and profound cultural weather patterns. “Popularity” among the baah-ing critics, prognosticators, guild and Academy members has obviously been a deciding factor in many if not most races, but never forget those surprising turnarounds. Never forget the Roman Polanski and Ronald Harwood Pianist wins and the look of quiet smiling terror on the face of Harvey Weinstein when it seemed as if the Best Picture Oscar for Chicago might not happen after all.

And never forget the gulf between Manohla Dargis’ rave review of A Star Is Born and last night ‘s tweet by Jonathan Katz.

Yesterday I was once again taken to task about having left a film before it was over — around the 90-minute mark. When I’m in terrible pain that’s about how long I last. I usually know I’m going to hate a film five or ten minutes in, and so I endure about 80 minutes worth before I can’t stand it any longer. Here’s a rationale that I posted early this morning:

“My impressions of the first 90 minutes of any film count for quite a lot. Name me one universally praised film in which the general richness of appeal and absorption levels (narrative, stylistic, thematic) aren’t 100% obvious during the first 90 minutes. At the 90-minute mark of a first-rate film you’re always saying ‘this is really good…please let me stay until the finish…in fact I never want it to end.’ With a gnarly, punishing film you’re looking at your watch every 10 or 15 and forcing yourself to tough it out, or you’re saying to yourself, ‘This is agony, life is short, I’m bailing.’ That’s the difference.”

23 years ago I was sitting right next to Jack Nicholson when he bailed on Showgirls, so don’t tell me.

Exactly two months before I had that 12.8.15 chat with Kurt Russell during a Hateful Eight junket, I experienced a “yes!” moment with a 10.5 Salon piece about guns by Amanda Marcotte. It contained one of the cleanest and most concise explanations of why the right is so adamant about the holiness of guns (i.e., refusing to regulate their use like the government regulates cars and drivers):

“Conservatives aren’t lying when they say they need guns to feel protected. But it’s increasingly clear that they aren’t seeking protection from crime or even from the mythical jackbooted government goons come to kick in your door. No, the real threat is existential. Guns are a totemic shield against the fear that they are losing dominance as the country becomes more liberal and diverse and, well, modern.” (“Diverse’, of course, being a code word for fewer whites calling the shots.)

“For liberals, the discussion about guns is about public health and crime prevention. For conservatives, hanging onto guns is a way to symbolically hang onto the cultural dominance they feel slipping from their hands.”

In the comment thread I explained that “50 years ago this country was more or less run by WASP whitebreads + Irish and Italian Catholics, etc. Blacks were seen as a minority, most gays were closeted and women worked the kitchen and tended to the kids. Those days are over and old-fart rural conservatives know it. That’s what the guns are about. To give them a sense of power in times of increasing powerlessness.”

The last time I posted the final scene from Martin Ritt‘s Hud, some low-level attorney (or some low-level attorney software) swooped right in and told me to remove it. But you see, my devotion to legendary movie finales is greater than my compliance with copyright protocol. And besides, who else in the blogosphere is hailing this 1963 film or has made such a big deal, year after year, about the ending? Unregenerate shits who don’t reform, don’t have second thoughts, don’t reconsider, don’t relent…love it.

First, any article, editor or journalist who mentions the word “pressure” in the context of a celebrity profile is a hack. If I’ve listened to one unctuous junket whore ask an actor “how much pressure did you have to cope with?” and blah blah, I’ve listened to it 700 or 800 times. Second, until I glanced at this THR cover I wasn’t even thinking about The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Sony, 11.9)…not even a blip on the screen. Third, now that I’m mulling it over I’m asking myself if I even want to sit through it. Fourth, the last time I checked Foy’s performance as Neil Armstrong‘s hand-wringing wife (Janet Shearon) stood a reasonable chance of being nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but no mention of First Man in the cover copy? Fifth, I respect the fact that Foy’s freckly alabaster skin is a signature that she embraces, but if I were her I would steer clear of black nail polish.

To go by Peter Avellino’s Twitter feed, Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood has returned to Hollywood Blvd.

Excerpts from my 9.1.18 Telluride review of Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer: “I’ve been in and out on director Karyn Kusama — loved Girlfight, hated Aeon Flux, loathed Jennifer’s Body but found The Invitation a truly fascinating creepout. And now Destroyer.

“This is a complex L.A. crime tale about Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman), a wasted, walking-dead Los Angeles detective trying to settle some bad business and save her daughter from a life of crime and misery. It unfolds through a complex, pain-in-the-ass flashback structure, and is punctuated by all kinds of nihilistic, hard-boiled behavior by the mostly criminal flotsam characters.

“Destroyer has guns, uniformed cops, blood, a scene in the Westwood Federal building cafeteria, purple ink, ugly asshole criminals with sickening haircuts, drugs, a handjob given to a dying criminal slob, a bank shootout. Everything in this well-made if godforsaken film is scuzzy in a just-so way. Everyone and everything is covered in the stuff. Even I felt scuzzed out from my seat in the tenth row of the Herzog.

“Destroyer is mostly about the way Kidman looks, like a combination vampire-zombie with dark eye bags and a complexion that suggests a heroin habit mixed with twice-daily injections of embalming fluid. Plus a Desolation Row, gray-streaked hair style. It’s also about the whispery way in which she speaks. I swear to God I missed over half of her dialogue.