Film maven Edward Douglas is not a brutally frank critic, much less a harsh one. In the realms of fantasy and horror he has tended to be obliging, and sometimes even bend over backwards. So this outright dismissal of Zelda Williams and Diablo Cody‘s Lisa Frankenstein (Focus, 2.9) means something, I think.

Has there ever been a real-life situation in which a famous person didn’t die in their home (and I mean a nice homey-home with a warm fire going in the fireplace and pets lying on their bed) and wasn’t surrounded by family members?

I’m asking because each and every time a celebrity death is announced we’re always told that the passage-into-infinity hasn’t happened in a hospital and that the deceased was absolutely surrounded by family and loved ones.

Don’t most people die in hospitals, and often in the wee hours when family members are home sleeping?

Not once has a celebrity passed while family and friends were out to dinner or otherwise and only a professional caregiver was there…right? Do I have that right?

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” — Orson Welles.

Very few of us are going to die as pleasantly as we’d like to. Death usually happens under circumstances we can’t foresee, much less plan for, and sooner than we’d like. And the likelihood that you’re going to die while lying comfortably in bed between recently-washed sheets is almost nil. The odds are that your final throes are going to either be painful or traumatic or grotesque, and possibly a combination of all three.

By the way: There used to be a stand-alone site called Cinemorgue, which featured listings and descriptions of thousands of death scenes that are alphabetized by the names of actors and actresses.

Cataloguing endless death was apparently too much work for someone, and so Cinemorgue became Cinemorgue Wiki, which allowed readers to submit their additions and corrections directly.

I’d forgotten how many times Elke Sommer was gruesomely killed on-screen. Two skiiing accidents, shot three times (machine gunned in 1969’s The Wrecking Crew, the Dean Martin-Matt Helm movie), blown up, and bludgeoned to death.

Almost all movie deaths, it seems, are brutal, bloody, sudden, ghastly, traumatic and otherwise unpeaceful. Nod-off deaths — like Sir Cedric Hardwicke ‘s passing in The Ten Commandments — have been few and far between over the last 40 years. Is real-life death ever smooth and easy? Only if you do yourself in with pills.

I’ve learned that Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance, which received enthusiastic reviews when it premiered at last September’s Venice Film Festival, will receive some kind of limited U.S. release in April, possibly a streaming-only deal or perhaps a brief theatrical exposure in major cities followed by streaming.

My understanding is that the distribution arrangement will be announced sometime this week. The distributor isn’t an indie major but an outfit like Vertical or Ketchup…someone in that vein.

This indicates a change in the political weather as Woody’s films have been unwelcome domestically for several years now, especially in the wake of woke terrorism, which kicked off in 2018 or thereabouts. I’m presuming it won’t play any theatres as exhibitors are generally terrified of wokesters and don’t want the hassle.

A couple of weeks ago I reported that “a certain U.S.-based distributor is looking to open (or at least stream) Coup de Chance a couple of months hence, give or take.”

I also noted that a 4K Italian Bluray of Coup de Chance will be released on 3.18.24.

Two months ago I riffed about Rialto’s re-release of Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist.

This seemed to indicate a possible lessening of wokester terror as it wasn’t that long ago when even streaming distributors were afraid of offering Polanski’s J’Accuse (aka An Officer and a Spy) to English-language consumers. They’re still afraid of doing this, of course, but if The Pianist can be re-released why not Polanski’s 2019 Cesar winner?

Poated by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy last August:

Posted on 12.30.21, previously paywalled: Almost all big-time gangsters go down in flames sooner or later, and almost always after a relatively short heyday — imprisoned, expelled from the U.S., blown away like Tony Montana or Tony Soprano, found stuffed inside a garbage can.

Gangsters rarely live to be old and gray-haired and surrounded by grandchildren. Okay, Vito Corleone did but that was fictional. Meyer Lansky made it to age 80 (cancer took him out) but he only had $57K in the bank at the end. Pablo Escobar was shot to death in the end, but he lasted as a kingpin for 17, 18 years — an exception to the rule.

If I was running Gangster Financial Services, my basic pitch would be this: “Sooner or later you’re going to have to lam it. You need to face the fact that you’re probably looking at five or six years at the top, perhaps a couple more, nine or ten at the outside. But sooner or later the law will indict you or rivals will have you killed.

“Smart gangsters understand that they need to start planning their escape early on. They need to start putting money away and building low-key homes in Vietnam or Eastern Europe or Belize or Paris or Rome, and having false passports and identity cards made and arrangements with good plastic surgeons, so when it’s time to go on the run, they do so on their own terms, and in relative comfort.

“We at Gangster Financial Services understand the game and how it works. Let us help you and your family plan for the inevitable, while you still can and before it’s too late. Oh, and by the way? No private zoos while you’re flush and at the top. Only idiots have Bengal Tigers and giraffes living on their property.”

Last night I re-watched George Pal and Rudolph Mate’s When Worlds Collide (‘51), an ambitious if under-budgeted sci-fi disaster flick. Early on I was intrigued by (i.e., fantasizing about) 23 year-old costar Barbara Rush, whom I’d never paid much attention to (and who is still with us, by the way, at age 97).

She was unquestionably front and center during the ‘50s, but my most vivid memory of Rush is from Warren Beatty and Hal Ashby’s Shampoo (‘75).

There’s a scene in which Beatty’s Beverly Hills hairdresser (i.e., George Roundy) is trying to persuade a bank officer (George Furth) to give him a loan to start his own hair salon with. When asked about collateral, Roundy tries to explain that his business value is largely based upon celebrity client loyalty. “I have the heads…I do Barbara Rush,” he states. Alas, this isn’t enough for the bank officer.

Married to Jeffrey Hunter from ‘50 to ‘55, Rush was very fetching in her 20s, but augmented this with a certain interior, deep-drill quality that seemed rooted in good character and basic values. Call her the trustworthy, on-the-conservative-side, guilt-trippy type. This was especially evident in 1958’s The Young Lions and ‘59’s The Young Philadelphians.

It was this sense of duty and restraint plus a corresponding low-flame quality when it came to hints of sultry sensuousness that probably limited Rush’s appeal as she got into her 30s. Wikipage: “She was often cast as a willful woman of means or a polished, high-society doyenne.”

Before today I regarded Jacob Elordi as a tall, broad-shouldered, dishy-looking actor who may or may not have been a fellow of serious character or intestinal fortitude.

His two most recent performances were nothing to write home about — a Paul Bunyan-sized Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola‘s Priscilla and a laid-back, to-the-manor born hunk in Emerald Fennel‘s Saltburn.

But after lightly roughing up Joshua Fox, a producer for Australia’s “The Kyle & Jackie O Show” after Fox good naturedly but idiotically asked Elordi for some dirty bathwater (a goof on Saltburn‘s Barry Keoghan slurping same)…after this episode was reported I said to myself, “This settles it…Elordi is now a man with his feet planted on terra firma.”

By which I meant he’s no longer just an actor looking for another job, another high-impact role…he is now his own poet, his own creation, the captain of his own ship…he’s now a dude who won’t take any shit from any douchebags and will most likely refuse to back down if this happens again.

Elordi is now a personality as well as a semi-tough guy…Frank Sinatra, Sean Penn, Robert Mitchum…that line of country. Hats off, stiff salute.”l

Elordi allegedly pushed Fox against a wall and then allegedly put his bands on Fox’s throat, but he didn’t hurt the guy. He was just making a point like Sinatra used to back in the old days when some asshole journalist or photographer had gotten on his nerves.

In a recording that was aired on the show, Fox can be heard introducing himself to Elordi before proceeding to give him a container. Here’s HE’s version of the conversation:

Fox: “Really random but I want to give you this…Jackie wants a birthday present.”

Elordi (reading from a piece of paper): “Jacob Elordi’s bath water?”

Fox: “She’s a big fan of [Saltburn.”

Elordi: “What am I supposed to do with this, put bath water in it?”

Fox: “Yeah, and then you could send it to the studio.”

Elordi: “Jesus, man…you’re kidding, right? God, why are there people like you on this planet?

Fox: “Seriously, it’s for Jackie O.”

Elordi: “You’re obviously goofing off like a 13 year-old but this isn’t even slightly amusing…not witty, not clever. It’s just fucking stupid. Wait, are you filming?”

Fox: “Yeah.”.

Elordi: “Can you not, man…please?”

Fox said he felt “intimidated” as Elordi got “in [his] face” and backed him against a wall. The actor’s security team was also present during the incident.

For two or three weeks I’ve been watching a brief YouTube solicitation for donations to the Biden-Harris re-election campaign.

The spot might persuade a certain percentage to donate, but it mainly reminds that Joe Biden is too old and over-the-hill to be an effective campaigner.

Can Joe do the actual job? Mistakes and elite woke allegiances aside, he’s shown that he’s a moderate veteran who knows the ropes and can handle the demands after a fashion.

Does Joe project prime-of-life strength and hard-snap vigor? Please.

The 62 year-old guy on the left is clearly attractive, mentally sharp and possessed by natural charisma. The pale 81 year-old guy on the right is squinting too much — obviously in a state of natural great-grandfatherly decline — and he hoarsely mumbles more than enunciates.

I used to visit my late mom in an assisted living facility so don’t tell me.

This ad is telling us, in short, that the guy on the left has it and the guy on the right mostly doesn’t.

I want Biden to be re-elected and yet it’s obvious that he might not make it, as Steve Kornacki and that recent, seriously stunning NBC News poll suggests.

If Biden loses next November his name will be mud until the end of time.

Rather than accept reality and strategically step aside, historians will lament, he arrogantly insisted that he was the best candidate to defeat The Beast, and in so doing plunged the nation right back into another four years of deranged, law-defying chaos and neo-totalitarian horror.

Substitute Michelle Obama for Kamala Harris and the whole picture changes. People despise Harris and are terrified of a succession scenario, but the same folks would be down (or at least a lot happier) with Michelle.

I’d never heard of these magazines until late yesterday morning (Sunday, 2.4). They were sitting on a checkout rack at a ShopRite market in West Orange — a ten-minute drive from Jett, Cait and Sutton’s home.

The reason for their absence from HE radar is that my most-visited food haunts over the last two years — Wilton’s Village Market and WeHo Pavilions — wouldn’t dare offer them because this would suggest that Trumpers and obesity-sufferers are regular shoppers, which is somewhat degrading from a cultural standpoint.

The irony is that there’s nothing overtly coarse or downmarket about the ShopRite in question. And yet someone in ShopRite management figured these rags would appeal to customers. Do the math.