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A 1.31 N.Y. Times piece by “Carpetbagger” Cara Buckley asks, “Why Didn’t Steven Spielberg Get an Oscar Nomination for The Post?” I thought that question had been answered earlier this month. In this space, I mean.

“In some views, the failure to gain much awards traction is an indicator of a shifting Oscars landscape,” Buckley writes, “where Moonlight, a small independent film with an all-black cast, won Best Picture over the white-on-white spectacle of La La Land.”

Bullshit — Moonlight eeked out a win because a sufficient number of Academy members wanted forgiveness or better yet erasure on the #OscarsSo White thing, which peaked in early ’16.

“In this awards season especially, one distinguished by underdog stories and diversity in Lady Bird, Get Out and other pictures, The Post felt out of place,” Buckley explains. “For all of its important messaging, it remains a very white, very upper-middle-class film.”

Lester Friedman, author of “Citizen Spielberg,” tells Buckley that ‘this isn’t the year for a middle-of-the-road Hollywood drama.'”

Or, as I said in a 1.13 post called “Oscar Bait Movie Is Over,” “Oscar-bait movies are regarded askance by younger industry types plus the new guild and Academy members. This is probably why Steven Spielberg‘s The Post never caught on. People smelled Oscar-bait calculation from the get-go, and they don’t like the mindset (an “important” story or theme done classy, aimed at 50-plus types, bucks-up stars and screenwriters) and the “game” of it all.

“The 45-and-unders looked at this well-written, respectably made prestige flick with two boomer superstars (Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks) and said, ‘Where is it written that we all have to stand up and salute traditional Oscar-bait movies like little toy soldiers every fucking November and December?'”

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The fact that Sally Potter‘s The Party (Roadside, 2.16) runs a mere 71 minutes is, in itself, a fascinating selling point. For me at least. Most dramas of this sort are mining their second acts at the 70-minute mark. People often complain about longish running times, but I wonder if the average ticket-buyer feels vaguely shortchanged if a film is too short, whatever that might mean.

Last year Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, Nate Jones, Kevin Lincoln and Jada Yuan ran a list of 50 films with running times under 90 minutes, but how many well-regarded films have run less than 80? I can think of exactly one — Woody Allen‘s Zelig, which ran 79 minutes.

Not to mention The Party‘s 93% and 74% scores from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.

Respect for Party costar Cherry Jones, who also appears in Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York, for saying the following to the N.Y. Times: “There are those who are comfortable in their certainty. I am not. I don’t know the truth. When we condemn by instinct our democracy is on a slippery slope.”

Filming on the sixth and final season of House of Cards resumed yesterday, with the newly-added Diane Lane and Gregg Kinnear playing (according to the N.Y. Times‘ John Koblin) a brother and sister. In a 1.31 post, Vanity Fair‘s Yohana Desta wondered if Lane and Kinnear will play “a pair of elite D.C. spin doctors ushered in to smooth out the kinks of [President Frank] Underwood’s disappearance.”

Have I missed something? Where has it been hinted that Kevin Spacey‘s chief executive might vanish? That would be an odd way to go, no?

If I were running House of Cards, I would keep it simple. Just as Spacey became an instant dead man last fall in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, Frank Underwood needs to succumb to a heart attack. Nothing tricky or complicated — he just drops dead. (An act that can’t be performed, of course.) Start the season with a funeral procession down Pennsylvania Avenue. Flag-draped casket, muffled drums, the clop-clop of horses.

I for one would love to see House of Cards continue beyond a sixth season. The saga of the presidency of Robin Wright‘s Claire Underwood, and whether or not she can put forth a vision and a way of governing separate from her late husband’s. Priorities, finaglings, battles and challenges. What does she have to hide, and what do her enemies have on her?

Best Stormy-to-Jimmy quip: “I thought this was a talk show, not a horror movie.” Second best: “Define true.” Stormy Daniels has a seven-year-old daughter, born in January 2011.

And A24 won’t open Ari Aster’s horror film, in which Toni Collette is said to be phenomenal, until 6.8

If David Lynch‘s Wild At Heart is so great, why can’t I remember a single scene or shot from it? Okay, I remember a closeup of Laura Dern‘s crazy feet on top of her bed, excitedly “running” without moving. But literally nothing else.

I didn’t actively dislike Wild At Heart. I remember sitting there and saying to myself, “Yup, this a Lynch film, all right.” I vaguely recall feeling underwhelmed and letting it go as soon as I left the theatre, but that was 27 and 1/2 years ago.

Nic Cage‘s Sailor Ripley is a southern outlaw borrowed from mid ’50s Elvis mythology, Dern’s Lulu Pace Fortune is constantly anticipating sex or panting about something or other, and they both embody the title.

I can’t honestly say I have the slightest urge to check it out again. I certainly wouldn’t buy this Bluray. Okay, I might stream it someday to remind myself which aspects I didn’t care for 27 and 1/2 years ago. I’d watch a Bluray of Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man or The Straight Story without a moment’s hesitation.

Early this morning a post by Brent Budowsky, opinion columnist for The Hill, stated that he “now strongly believe[s] that President Trump will soon fire Robert Mueller.”

Trump will “use the upcoming report of the Justice Department inspector general as a pretext to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein,” Budowsky warned, which would pave the way to fire Mueller, which would guarantee the most extreme constitutional crisis in American history.

“With an 85 percent probability, I now believe that President Trump will never agree to be questioned by Mueller and his special counsel team. The fast-moving time schedule to resolve whether Trump does or does not agree to be questioned by Mueller will be a precipitating event for Trump firing Mueller if indeed this occurs.

“I assign a probability to these warnings because they may not be proven correct. However, because there is a significant prospect they are, and because the consequences for America would be so dangerous and dramatic if they are, it is time to issue a warning in the strongest possible terms that a great constitutional crisis may be imminent for the republic.”

If I were Diane Keaton I would have tweeted “Thank God for #MeToo and Lordy, it’s about time, but the fact that Woody Allen is my friend isn’t why I’m convinced that he’s innocent of any accusations in the matter of Dylan Farrow. I’ve known Woody since the late ’60s, and I haven’t the slightest wisp of a doubt that he’s a man of honor in every respect. Check out his 60 Minutes interview from 1992 and see what you think.” Instead she said she “continue[s] to believe him” because he’s her friend, which most would translate as “I believe in loyalty above all else.”