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From Owen Gleiberman’s 3.22.18 Variety review of Shana Feste‘s Boundaries (Sony Pictures Classics, 6.22):

“We’ve seen him dozens of times before, saying any damn thing that comes into his head (because living on the planet for 70 or 80 years has given him the right to do so). He’s on his own incorrigible wavelength, dropping putdowns as fresh as his body is old, spicing every cranky comment with a perfectly chosen F–bomb.

“He’s also part of the family, of course. He’s the grumpy old man, the naughty codger from hell — the hilarious over-the-hill a–hole who is always played by someone like, you know, Alan Arkin. Just about every time we see him, he’s a showbiz creation, a character baptized in shtick.

“But in Boundaries, a touching yet wised-up father-daughter road movie that’s the best version of this sort of film you could imagine (it’s standard, but very tastefully done), Christopher Plummer plays him with a lived-in, soft-shoe command.

“At 88, Plummer looks about as handsome as a man his age can be, with cheekbones that take the light beautifully, his white hair swept back and set off by a beard that’s still, from certain angles, sort of sexy. He plays Jack Jaconi, the pathologically charming and selfish father of Laura (Vera Farmiga), and by the end of the opening scene, when she’s sounding off to her therapist about him, we’re certain that he must be some version of the monster she describes. Laura won’t even take his calls — that’s how much damage he’s caused.

“Then Jack shows up, and he’s such a smiley and debonair old coot that he doesn’t only seem not so bad; he seems real. True, the tropes are all in place. Jack, who has just gotten kicked out of his senior-citizen facility, has $200,000 worth of marijuana he’s trying to unload. (Yes, he’s a drug dealer.) He also speaks his mind with such a sly-boots sense of humor that it takes us a moment or two to notice how merciless he is. When his teenage grandson, Henry (Lewis McDougall), makes a mild off-color remark about not wanting to go into a shed for fear of being molested, Jack says, “You wouldn’t get molested with a bow in your hair.” Ouch! (On several levels.)

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All along the concern about Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox, 11.2), the Bryan Singer-Dexter Fletcher biopic about Queen and Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), was that it might be too softball, fan-clubby or family friendly — not adult or hard-edged enough. After Sacha Baron Cohen left an earlier version of the biopic in 2013, Queen guitarist and producer Brian May was quoted saying that “we can’t mess up [Mercury’s] legacy.”

Yesterday I flipped through an 11.4.15 draft of Anthony McCarten‘s script of Bohemian Rhapsody. Scripts are only blueprints, of course, and McCarten’s draft was rewritten sometime in mid or late ’16 by Justin Haythe, so impressions of a two-year-old script hardly mean anything.

Nonetheless my general impression is that if the McCarten draft bears any resemblance to the finished film, it’s (a) going to be a huge hit with both Queen fans and dilletantes in general (the 1985 Wembley Stadium Live Aid concert is quite the crescendo) but (b) it’s a long way from warts and all.

I solicited the opinions of a script aficionado (male) and a Los Angeles-based producer (female) who had also read it.

“I think the script is a device for two things: Rami Malek and the music of Queen,” the script guy said. “I liked the script, although it could have been more shocking or darker. I wouldn’t call it softball but it isn’t edgy either. It’s certainly mainstream enough to work at the box-office and get Oscar buzz. A source told me (apparently Bohemian Rhapsody tested last week) that Malek knocks it out of the park.”

The producer notes that “two of the band members who are producers on the film” — May and drummer Roger Taylor — “wanted a family friendly picture, which would account for the softness. And yes, the script amps up Freddie’s relationship with Mercury’s lifelong companion Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and downplays the lurid nature of the secret trips to the Mineshaft as a result.

“Mary seems to have the virtue and patience of a saint — not a real character. And the parents (Meneka Das as mother Jer Bulsara, Ace Bhatti as father Bomi Bulsara) are just too Ozzie and Harriet cute. Everyone is too cute.

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Yesterday the owner of The Tracking Board, producer Rock Shaink, Jr., whacked the newsroom and shut the site down. Editor-in-chief Jeff Sneider, chief film critic Drew McWeeny and film reporter Ed Douglas have all been cut loose.

I don’t know how and where TTB’s CEO & founder Chris Contreras fits into this, but the site is definitely kaput.

Sneider broke the news yesterday afternoon on Twitter, stating that “my time as an Editor-in-Chief has come to an end, as the newsroom has been disbanded. I’d like to thank the site’s owner for taking a chance and giving me this incredible opportunity, which has been a really valuable learning experience, one I’ll always be grateful for.”

The site currently says “as we prepare to share a new partnership rollout, we’ll be experiencing limited posts over the next few weeks, but will be featuring a new spec book, Launch Pad Feature & Pilot announcements, and the new annual spec book!”

Obviously Shaink and Contreras, who stalled for months and months to change the name of the site to The Industry, felt that they were losing too much money because ad revenues were too low and that their goals in that realm didn’t seem achievable within the right time frame.

Sneider was made editor in January of ’17; Douglas and McWeeny were hired last fall. It just seems weird to launch a serious effort like this, trying to compete for a piece of the advertising pie that is more or less owned by Penske Media, The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap, hiring name-brand contributors and then abruptly pulling the plug 15 months after it begins…WHAM. It suggests that Shaink is an impulsive or whimsical fellow, not a long-game player.

The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield: “The Tracking Board was some semi-legit producer” — presumably Shaink — “who was operating it out of his house. He had the notion for a script tracking board, and when that didn’t turn into riches, he thought he’d make it a general trade site, putting in some money to it but not enough to really muscle your way into a seat at the table alongside Penske and THR.

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Las Vegas Police Department announcement: “Calling all cars…calling all cars. Be on the lookout for a moderately good-looking male who may live or work in Las Vegas, between 5′ 9″ and six feet, mid 30s to early 40s, sometimes wears a hoodie, lean but fit. Suspect looks like a genetic cross between Ken Wahl when he was starring in Wise Guy, Republican actor Vincent Gallo when he made The Brown Bunny and Willem Dafoe in the ’90s and early aughts. Be careful when approaching suspect as he threatened Stormy Daniels as well as her daughter, so he may threaten you. Daniels’ attorney is offering a $100K reward for anyone who accurately identifies and locates the suspect.”

Alden Ehrenreich was almost certainly chosen to play the rogue-ish Han Solo by producer Kathy Kennedy because she felt obliged to kiss the ring of her longtime boss Steven Spielberg. The famed director discovered Ehrenreich in 2003, when the 28-year-old actor was 14, after seeing him in a Bat Mitzvah video at a party. Spielberg’s endorsement eventually led to Ehrenreich getting an agent, landing gigs on TV series like Supernatural and CSI, and being cast as Vincent Gallo‘s younger brother in Francis Coppola‘s Tetro (’09).

So when you’re watching Solo a few weeks hence and asking yourself how the producers could have possibly decided that the too-short, beady-eyed Ehrenreich could fill Harrison Ford‘s shoes in a way that audiences would totally accept (instead of hiring Baby Driver‘s Ansel Elgort, the obvious choice), remember that Aldenreich was primarily chosen as a deferential gesture to big bossman Beardo.

Stormy Daniels‘ attorney Michael Avenatti, who was in the courtroom earlier today, is such a gifted raconteur….great stuff, starting around 4:50, peaks at 6:25…”the client’s name is Sean Hannity.”

For whatever reason I never paid attention to Tom Steyer‘s most recent videos until this afternoon. This is all basic “duhh” stuff, but a sizable percentage of the viewing population doesn’t pay attention as a rule. Who had to look up the title of this post? It’s from a well-known film, but is not actually spoken.

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Trump attorney Michael Cohen was forced to reveal this morning that Fox News host Sean Hannity is a client, aka “the mysterious third client.” U.S. District Court judge Kimba Wood ordered Trump’s longtime personal attorney to disclose the Hannity relationship.

Hannity has always been in the Trump-Pravda tank so it’s not exactly a shocker that he and Cohen are joined at the professional hip, but what little journalistic integrity Hannity had until today seems compromised all the more.

Hannity interviewed Cohen in January 2017 about the Steele dossier [below]. During this interview Cohen reiterated his claim that he’s “never been in Prague…never.” That assertion was disputed last Friday by a McClatchy report.

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This isn’t an easy thing to contemplate but in less than five years Jodie Foster, who was barely pubescent when she made Taxi Driver, will turn 60. I’m mentioning this because she seems to be playing that age in Drew Pearce‘s Hotel Artemis (Warner Bros., 6.18), an original-sounding, noir-atmosphere crime drama with a strongish cast — Sterling K. Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Zachary Quinto, Jeff Goldblum, Jenny Slate. Wiki premise: “In riot-torn, near-future Los Angeles, The Nurse (Foster) runs a secret, members-only hospital for criminals. Waikiki and Honolulu (Brown, Henry) become patients after an armed robbery goes wrong,” blah blah.

What a shame that a ripped piece of cardboard who refuses to star in half-decent films has been named by Variety as the closet thing Hollywood has these days to a Seriously Bankable Star.

Roughly speaking Dwayne Johnson is doing the same kind of top-dollar, macho-action-star thing that Kirk Douglas consolidated in the ’50s, Steve McQueen delivered in the ’60s and early ’70s, Sylvester Stallone dealt in the late ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s, Arnold Schwarzenegger monetized in the ’80s and ’90s, Vin Diesel tried and failed to do as a stand-alone (until the Fast & Furious franchise took off), Robert Downey, Jr. began to do with Iron Man in ’08 and which Bruce Willis did in the early ’90s and is still half-doing today.

Except Johnson is no Douglas or McQueen (please!), and he represents an evolutionary step down by the standards of Stallone, Willis, Downey and Schwarzenegger, who actually made good films in their prime years. Johnson makes big, dopey, adolescent wank-offs, and then raises his fist and goes “yeaahhh!”

On top of which he seems less than hardcore when it comes to political principles and launching (don’t laugh) a possible Presidential run.

Last December Johnson told Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister that he cares “deeply about our country, and about our people…decency matters and being a decent human being matters, and character matters, and leadership matters.”

And yet Johnson said that a 2024 run “would be the realistic consideration” because he has more movies and more millions to make before he tries to restore big-government decency and character. “Realistically, as we go into 2018, when you look at my slate as we’re developing and shooting into 2019 and 2020,” Johnson says, “[and] the slate goes deep into 2021, so it feels like the realistic consideration would be 2024.”

I’m not misinterpreting or misquoting in the slightest way here. Johnson really told Wagmeister that while he has serious arguments with Trump and that he’s giving serious thought to running because he cares about the U.S. and wants to restore a climate of decency and character, he can’t see running in ’20 because of existing commitments to make and produce a few more films.

A debate about blacklisting arose yesterday in a thread about the passing of R. Lee Ermey. Ermey claimed a few years back that he’d been blackballed by Hollywood for expressing some rightwing, anti-Obama beliefs during a Toys for Tots rally in December 2010. He apologized the following month but allegedly endured some professional turn-downs regardless. I posted two or three thoughts about blacklisting and karma and whatnot, which received some pushback. For clarity’s sake here they are again:

1. The Right wrote the book on political blacklisting in the late ’40s and especially the ’50s. So much so that they kinda “own” blacklisting in perpetuity, as they put many good people of conscience and principle through considerable misery, and thereby earned a good amount of poison karma for themselves, and so any blacklisting that comes back at their descendants is just too effing bad. Blacklisting is a bad thing, but they can’t deny the discriminatory karma that’s in their blood. If you hatch ugly eggs, you can’t complain when the chickens come home to roost, even if it’s a half-century or more later.

2. Speaking for myself I’d never be in favor of denying anyone work if they’re good at their job or craft or even if they’re less than talented — no blacklisting under any circumstances! Jon Voight‘s views may be reprehensible, but he’s a first-rate actor and should never be shit-canned because he said some appalling things about Barack Obama. Good creative ferment is all that matters.

3. But given the UNDENIABLE FACT that the Right created and implemented the toxic blacklisting of certain Hollywood persons on the Left during the late ’40s and ’50s, and because the evil karma serum has been generationally passed down through blood and genetics, Righties have NO LEG TO STAND ON if they want to cry foul. They can’t. If they run into any anti-Right blacklisting or discrimination they’ll have to TAKE IT and LIKE IT because their souls are stained. Because their grandfathers brought horror and hell into the lives of many good and principled directors, screenwriters and actors back in the day. Somewhere in heaven Dalton Trumbo, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson are listening and noting the irony.

4. Once again, blacklisting is a lousy thing to even consider, much less implement, but Righties have no ethical leg to stand on IF and WHEN political blackballing were to rear its ugly head in their backyards. In a serial or generational sense they own it, their grandfathers wrote the book and they have to take the karma like men.