It’s definitely not welcome news that departing Los Angeles Times film critic Justin Chang is joining The New Yorker as its senior film critic, or at least as a co-senior bigmouth with Richard Brody (i.e., “the Armond White of the far left”).

Chang is a brilliant, first-rate critic who has passed along many valuable judgments and perceptions over the years. But over the past six or seven annums he’s become a bit of a social justice warrior (at least in my eyes) and something of an identity ideologue. Example: Last October Chang panned The Holdovers over a single depiction of racist cruelty between two minor characters.

The Chang hire means two things, and both are breaking my heart.

One, The New Yorker film desk is now doubly woked-up and, in my opinion, half-fanatical. I’ve been an occasional fan of Brody’s essays, but there’s no forgetting that in his 10.13.22 Tar review he actually doubted the existence of wokeism and cancel culture. That, good sir, is fanaticism.

And two, New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, hired by Tina Brown 31 years ago and one of my absolute favorite wordsmith smart-asses ever since, has been kicked upstairs by editor David Remnick.

Lane will be “expanding to writing [on] a wider range of topics,” Remnick has announced — a polite way of saying that Lane’s senior stripes have been torn off.

This is not the end of my online New Yorker subscription, but Remnick is downgrading and more or less humiliating one of the very few non-woke (or mostly non-woke) critics of a senior status. Not cool and rather shitty in fact.

Within the Best Actress race, Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone is flirting with the idea of a surprise win for Nyad’s Annette Bening.

NYC gabbermouth Bill McCuddy: “Most younger members will vote for Gladstone and Stone, and this could cancel them out. The Old Guard will ALL vote for oft-nominated Bening.”

Suggested Jimmy Kimmel joke, written by McCuddy: “It’s ironic now that both Bening and Beatty are known for their breast strokes.”

Deadline’s Pete Hammond:

HE just wants the Best Actress Oscar to go to an actress who delivered a performance of serious merit — Stone, Bening, Huller or Mulligan. I’m fine with any of these guys winning.

McDormand, Portman, Blanchett, Lawrence, Collette, Witherspoon…that’s it, just these six. Okay, Morton makes seven.

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Best Adapted Screenplay. America Ferrrara for Best Supporting Actress.

…life wouldn’t have a great deal of meaning. Okay, it would obviously deliver a certain amount on its own weight and steam, but movies bring it all into focus, if you catch my drift.

This may be the greatest George Lucas quote I’ve ever read. It makes me even more sorry that he’s worn so many godawful flannel shirts.

From Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson’s “Hollywood: The Oral History” (‘22).

…but this is an interesting photo, and saying this doesn’t make me a terrible person. And look at those hands.

…and probably best forgotten.

A World of Reel commenter named “M” has nailed the basic problem with Leonardo DiCaprio’s dumb-as-a-fencepost Ernest Burkhart character:

Yes, that’s 100% correct. Texas FBI guy Tom White should have been the main character.

Herewith the latest Oscar Poker, which alternated between agreeably plodding along and finding an occasional good groove…

How were things looking in early ’09, a time in the evolution of the species when Barack Obama was just settling into the Oval Office, MySpace was still a bigger thing than the five-year-old Facebook, Twitter hadn’t yet become an unavoidable big deal and the ensemble cast for this glide-along, critically scorned romcom included youngish, good-looking actors like Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long.

Yes, the same Bradley Cooper (born in ’75) who would begin work on Maestro less than a decade later.

Mindsets and general attitudes naturally had to be challenged, broadened or deepened by the advancement of time and the eruption of disruptive social-media lava, and so films like He’s Just Not That Into You (produced by New Line, exec produced by Barrymore, described by Manohla Dargis as “a grotesque representation of female desire”) had to gradually go away.

IMDB review: “My girlfriend and I, late 40ish or just beyond, saw this in a theater that was absolutely filled with high-school girls. Which surprised me actually, given that that most of the costars are either mid 30ish or nudging 40 (the 25 year-old Johansson is the youngest). But the teens, like the rest of the audience, seemed to really enjoy this film, as did we. (Pic ended with a worldwide gross of $178 million.)

“The relationships were nicely intertwined without being contrived (Crash anyone?), and unlike the similar Love Actually, nothing portrayed was too outlandish. The convention of adding comments by ‘real’ people to introduce story lines was well done and amusing. All of the guys are presented as having relationship issues or as being total boneheads. Hopefully there are more ‘nice guys’ interspersed in society than what this film might lead you to believe this (although I must say that the attitudes presented are definitely not inaccurate).

“Overall a very nice film with 2-hour-plus running time goes by rather quickly. If you’ve ever been in or tried to be in a relationship, you’ll probably enjoy this movie.”

Again, the link.

I’m watching episode 3 of True Detective: Night Country, and despite my attachment to the legend of Jodie Foster I really am done with it. Just not for me, bruh. It’s too dark, too buried, too “lemme outta here”, too labrynthian, too snowy, too grimy, too scowling, too complex and drawn out…too much of a nativist celebrationist thing, too chanty, too indigenous, too face-painty, too cheek-studdy, too “all the men except one good-looking young cop are appalling or fleshy or ugly rednecks or deep-down diseased”…too rank-smelling, too unattractive, too downish, too frostbitten, too sullen, too grubby, too “ya wanna fuck?”, too haunted and too many hoodie parkas…angry women, bruised women, resentful women, horrified women, dead women, hell-bent women…fine, good, you can have it…later.