I know certain Rome neighborhoods fairly well, but I’m no geographical scholar. (I’ve only visited in one-week-bursts.) I’m drawing a total blank on this photo. It’s apparently not too far from Piazza Navona but where exactly? Does anyone have a clue?

The kitten photo was taken sometime around 2011, give or take.

Martin Scorsese has committed to producing The Saints, an eight-part, faith-based docuseries about eight saints. The bad part is that he’s doing this for Fox Nation, the conservative streaming channel.

I’m not saying this is like Scorsese injecting political cancer cells into his veins, but it sorta kinda feels like he might be doing that. Am I wrong?

The episodes will be directed by Elizabeth Chomko (What They Had). They’re being written by Kent Jones (Letter to Elia, Hitchcock-Truffaut).

So we’re talking about pious Marty here…the Marty who made Silence…the Marty who worships saints who went through all kinds of pain.

The eight saints are Joan of Arc (burned at the stake), Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist (head chopped off), Thomas Becket (head chopped off), Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Saint Sebastian (shot with arrows! clubbed to death!) and Maximillian Kolbe (starved nearly to death, injected with carbolic acid).

Scorsese: “I’ve lived with the stories of the saints for most of my life, thinking about their words and actions, imagining the worlds they inhabited, the choices they faced, the examples they set. These are stories of eight very different men and women, each of them living through vastly different periods of history and struggling to follow the way of love revealed to them and to us by Jesus’ words in the gospels. I’m so excited that this project is underway, and that I’m working with so many trusted and talented collaborators.”

The first four episodes of The Saints will debut on Sunday, 11.16.24, on Fox Nation. The other four will come out the following May.

Harry J. Sonneborn: “Land — that’s where the money is. And more than that — control. Control over the franchisee. Fail to uphold quality standard? You cancel their lease. And control over Dick and Mack.”

Ray Kroc: “If I were to do this….uhh, the brothers would effectively be…they, uh…effectively would be…”

Harry J. Sonneborn: “Yes. (beat, beat) So…whadaya say, Ray?”

Carter Burwell‘s somber music comes in right after the word “yes.”

After all kinds of grief, delay and unexpected potholes (including a last-minute blowoff by Tatiana Antropova, who had agreed to participate in a “Misfits” Zoom session), Hollywood Elsewhere hosted a three-way, audio-only “Misfts” discussion between entertainment critic, on-air host, podcaster and movie maven Neil Rosen (“Talking Pictures with Neil Rosen“), comedian, podcaster and East Hampton go-to guy Bill McCuddy, and myself.

We got into Road House, of course, along with Immaculate (HE is not a huge fan of Sydney Sweeney), Michael Keaton‘s Knox Goes Away, Asphalt City and Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance, which I’ve seen but haven’t reviewed.

Toward the end I introduced a new “Misfits” sidelight called “Revival House,” a discussion of great or near-great films that most Millennials and Zoomers (who regard anything released before 1980 as ancient history and therefore irrelevant) probably haven’t seen or have little interest in seeing. I started by discussing Cameron Crowe‘s Vanilla Sky (’01) but Rosen and McCuddy weren’t enthused enough, so I switched over to Martin Ritt‘s Hud (’63),and sudenly a great emotional switch was thrown because riffing on 20th Century films opens up a floodgate of passion, the kind that is barely felt (or felt infrequently) in today’s realm.

For roughly a half-hour the Wells-Rosen-McCuddy discussion (one hour, 11 minutes) was recorded from inside a soundproof booth at the Wilton Library. But it was interrupted when a Wilton Library staffer tapped on the recording booth door while pointing to her wristwatch and whispering that I can’t record a podcast of any length from inside it. I’ve noticed several people occupying the booth for longish periods (30 or 40 minutes), and I’ve recorded three or four Sasha Stone podcasts from within the same booth. But there’s no point in challenging a librarian.

While Rosen and McCuddy were chatting I picked up my phone and digicorder and strolled outside into a flagstone courtyard. My jacket asn’t warm enough for 40 degres, but I managed. Everything went well.

Except for the very beginning, that is, when I had trouble managing a three-way conversation. When I hit the “add” button it invited one person to join while un-inviting the other. I fiddled around and finally figured it out. If any HE reader-listener turdbrain says so much as one snarky word about this, they will be instantly terminated…fair warning. I’ve been an iPhone owner for 16 or 17 years — don’t even think about giving me shit about this.

Late last November Disney CEO Bob Iger reportedly stated that Disney films had over–invested in woke messaging and that henceforth it needs creators to lean more toward traditional (non–agenda–driven) entertainment content.

Isn’t this more or less what major Disney shareholder Nelson Peltz, a billionaire businessman and centrist Republican, has been advocating as part of an attempt to get himself elected to Disney’s board of directors on Wednesday, April 3rd?

I agree that a guy whose last name rhymes with a term for skinned mammal fur…a term commonly used by trappers and hunters (Tom Hardy barked it out a dozen times in The Revenant…”we’re gatherin’ pelts!…pelts!…we need more pelts!”)…I agree that it feels slightly inelegant for a time-honored, milk-and-honey U.S. entertainment corporation like Disney to be strongly influenced by a guy with a vaguely coarse-sounding eastern European name…and Peltz being a Florida-residing Republican on top of everything else…I get it…not cool.

And yet Peltz has a point, and it’s one that the Critical Drinker has been hammering home for a long while, and yet two days ago The Hollywood Reporter’s Caitlin Huston ran a story about Peltz that was basically a woke hit piece.

It didn’t hint that Peltz doesn’t belong on the Disney board because he sounds like a meat-and-potatoes guy who doesn’t “get” the vagaries of showbiz, although that’s been implied here and there. It did, however, indicate that his thinking is tinged by racism and sexism, and this strikes me as cheap urban-progressive character assassination.

Tens of millions of average Americans despise the way Disney has woke-ified its brand over the last several years, and Peltz is simply saying “c’mon, this stuff has gone too far, time to roll it back.”

Two observations about Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Sony, 6.7.04).

(1) I appreciate that both Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are known for having gone through periods of emotional volatity, and that this feeds into the hyper, wild-ass adventures of Detectives “Mike” Lowrey and Marcus Miles Burnett. But Smith and Lawrence were young bucks when they made Michael Bay‘s Bad Boys (’95) and now they’re in their mid to late 50s — Lawrence will be 58 next month and Smith is 55. It’s potentially funny when young guys do stupid, crazy shit, but when the same wild-ass guys are approaching 60….maybe not so much.

(2) I interviewed Lawrence in ’99 or thereabouts. I think it was connected to Ted Demme‘s Life, a prison comedy in which Lawrence costarred with Eddie Murphy. We sat at a metal dining table in the back yard of his Burbank home, shielded from the sun by a huge cloth umbrella. Lawrence was very cool to hang with, although I sensed that he was giving me pre-prepared schtick rather than spontaneous answers. I didn’t mind. He was settled and relaxed and “a good guy” as far as it went. I was happy to be there.

Alejandro Amenábar‘s Abre los ojos, a psychological horror film about self-loathing and self-mutilation and penance, opened 27 years ago. I was intrigued by it but less than a fan. It was definitely an odd detour flick if I’d ever seen one.. I pretty much decided “okay, first-rate film but too unsettling and therefore never again.”

And then along came Cameron Crowe‘s Vanilla Sky (’01), an English-language remake that creeped me out even worse. It’s been 22 years and change since my first and only viewing. In my head this wasn’t a film about Tom Cruise‘s youung publisher character going through all kinds of traumas and convulsions and suppressed freak-outs…it was about me and my selfishness and assholery and self-delusion.

To this day I can’t recall another 21st Century film that made me feel quite so awful as this one.

The quality of Vanilla Sky is/was undeniable — a haunting Manhattan nightmare vibe, first-rate direction, superb John Toll cinematography, powerfully acted by Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Kurt Russell (I don’t even remember who or what Russell played), Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, etc. It’s definitely a stretch movie — Crowe and Cruise stepping outside of their safe zone and then some.

The more I think about it the idea of re-experiencing the commanding assurance of this film, the high-dive plunge of it all, is tempting, but I don’t want to drop into that pit of dread and anxiety ever again.

HE’s 15 Richest, Best Crafted, Most Compellingly Performed Tom Cruise Films (in this order and excluding all of his high-powered, robo-bunny formula action franchise films): Jerry Maguire, Collateral, Risky Business, The Firm, Born on the Fourth of July, Rain Man, Jack Reacher, American Made, The Color of Money, Tropic Thunder, A Few Good Men, Edge of Tomorrow, Losin’ It, Interview with the Vampire, Magnolia.

HE’s 14 Least Favorite Cruise Films (excluding all of his high-powered, robo-bunny formula action franchise films): Cocktail, Far and Away, Legend, Days of Thunder, Eyes Wide Shut (very well made, compulsive watchable but finally a curiously chilly experience), Minority Report (irritating Kaminsky bleachy-gray color scheme), Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai, War of the Worlds (good film with atrocious ending), The Mummy, Knight and Day, Valkyrie, Lions for Lambs, The Outsiders.

Posted on 7.29.15: The basic thrust of Mark Harris‘s Grantland piece on Tom Cruise (posted as part of the site’s “Tom Cruise Week” tribute) is that his decision to become the dominant 50something energizer bunny of the action-franchise realm is unfortunate because he seems to have concurrently shut down his ambitious acting game.

Eight or nine years ago Mark Harris obxserved that Cruise’s peak acting years happened between 1988 and ’99, or the timespan in which Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia were released. That’s because Cruise’s performance in each landed a Best Actor nomination, but that’s not encompassing enough.

Cruise also delivered riveting, touch-bottom performances as a selfish, resentful younger brother in Barry Levinson‘s Rain Man (’88) and as Vincent-the-compassionate-assassin in Michael Mann‘s Collateral, and he delivered aggressively A Few Good Men (’92), The Firm (’93), Interview with the Vampire (’94) and Vanilla Sky (’01).

James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown would be wise to open later this year as 2024’s award season is looking a bit anemic…compared to ‘23 it’s a weak, mewing little kitten…hobbled by last year’s WGA and SAG strikes.

A boilerplate principle photography period is three months, so James Mangold’s film having begun filming a couple of weeks ago indicates a mid-June finish.

That would give Mangold a fairly comfortable post-production period — five full months — to finish A Complete Unknown for theatrical release…let’s say around Thanksgiving or thereabouts.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (‘13), an early ‘60s folk-music period drama with similar visual elements, shot in the late winter and early spring of 2012. It could have been “rushed” into that year’s Oscar season but the Coens wanted to hang back a bit.

Among the fastest post-production turnarounds in Hollywood history are Robert Webb ‘s Love Me Tender (‘56), Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (‘59), Oliver Stone’s W. (‘08) and Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers (‘19) — all were edited, fine-tuned and finished in the vicinity of 11, 12 or 13 weeks.

Mangold would have 20 weeks to finish and present A Complete Unknown by mid November. If he finishes principal by mid June, he could even pull a Preminger and have it ready to screen at the New York Film Festival by late September or early October.