One of the finest opening paragraphs in the history of movie reviewing came from N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott in his 5.25.01 review of Michael Bay‘s Pearl Harbor: “The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for individual stories of love, ambition, heroism and betrayal. The name of that movie is From Here to Eternity.”

Two days ago (12.13) Variety‘s Owen Glieberman used a similar opening-graph strategy in his review of David Frankel‘s Collateral Beauty: “It asks a lot of an audience to sit through a drama about a parent grieving over the loss of a child. The subject is rough [with] a vast potential for programmed pathos and fake sentiment. That’s part of the miracle of Manchester by the Sea. It leads us through one man’s life of locked-in sorrow with a sculptured emotional elegance that is never false; at the same time, the cathartic honesty of its journey allows the audience to touch a nerve of desolation and still breathe free.

In David Frankel‘s emotionally cloying Collateral Beauty (Warner Bros. 12.16), Will Smith plays Howard Inlet, a New York ad agency co-owner in a state of acute grief over the cancer death of his young daughter.

Inlet is holding onto grief as a way of keeping his daughter “with” him, in a sense. But he isn’t just engulfed in sadness — his grief is theatrically grandiose, even tedious. There’s a moment when Inlet pedals his bike directly into oncoming Manhattan traffic, and it doesn’t just scream “go ahead, kill me, I don’t care!” — it also announces “this, ladies and gentleman, is what suicidal nihilism looks like in a Hollywood grief movie.”

Initially Inlet’s shutdown is very sad and understandable until you’re told that he’s been living in his grief hole for two years. I bailed on Collateral Beauty after 50 minutes or so, but I emotionally left when I heard Ed Norton‘s Whit Yardsham mention how long his business partner has been under.

There’s no hard and fast rule about grieving (although psychologists have written about how long it tends to last, obviously depending on the circumstances) but there’s a general notion that it can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, and as much as a year if you’ve really been walloped hard. But two years is too much. It just is. And eff this movie for throwing Will Smith‘s mope-a-dope into my lap.

Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg has put forward an obviously logical suggestion to improve the calibre of Oscar winners or at least increase the odds that deserving winners will be chosen as opposed to winners of popularity contests.

Feinberg is saying that in addition to the general membership’s across-the-board vote for Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, the Academy should allow members to vote only in their specific area of expertise.

Only actors should vote for actors, only production designers should be allowed to vote for their own, only screenwriters can vote for screenwriters, etc. Obviously fair, couldn’t be simpler.

“How much do most makeup artists know about screenwriting, or film editors know about costume design, or actors know about sound mixing?,” Feinberg begins. “The answer: about as much as anyone on the street. Why, then, does the Academy allow all of its members — each of whom hails from one of 17 branches of the industry — to pick winners in all of its categories? This process always has struck me as indefensible.

“I speak with Academy members regularly, and they are the first to admit that they should not be voting in many of the categories in which they currently are permitted a vote. One might hope they would abstain from voting in areas they know little about, but that’s not realistic; instead, they vote for the movie they liked the best, or the only one they even saw, or in some cases, the one with a cool title or poster. (Seriously.)

Here’s to the obviously centered, focused, clear-of-heart John Legend on the incorrigible publicity hound and psychologically unbalanced life form known as Kanye West: “Whatever’s on Kanye’s mind, I disagree with him.”

EXCLUSIVE : John Legend reacts to Kanye West's… by cliquetv

“Beware those who are quick to censor — they are afraid of what they do not know
Beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone
But there is genius in their hatred
[And so] they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own” — excerpted from Charles Bukowski‘s “The Genius of the Crowd“

Madonna‘s Woman of the Year acceptance speech at Billboard’s Women in Music event aired Monday. I should have paid attention a couple of days ago but I just watched it this morning. Hats off to the ballsy scald and the memories that sear. This is the kind of speech that Warren Beatty (Madonna’s lover during the Dick Tracy, Truth or Dare period) could never give — it’s the kind of buckshot that could only be fired by a fearless artist-egotist. It felt to me like a kind of rebirth, which is what artists have to do on a regular basis. They have to shed their skins or die, and recall their pain without pity. Favorite line: “There is no real safety except self-belief.”

The actual title of this four-month-old short is A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into A Bar. The subtitle: Why The Long Face?. Not bad, but very inside baseball. But maybe inside realms are a thing of the past. During an ’82 interview I told Jack Nicholson that I thought his Shining performance was so arch and super-eyebrowed that it felt like a kind of inside joke. He didn’t buy that because he felt I, a New York-based film writer, didn’t have the perspective to understand what was inside or outside about his work. “I’m inside,” Jack said, very slightly grinning and at the same time telling me not have any illusions about how cool I was or the value of my insights. Thud.

Moonlight director-writer Barry Jenkins — riding high, winner of several awards thus far, toast of the town, likely Oscar nominee — hosted a luncheon today at Craig’s. We chatted about Donald Trump, and how the coming Trump nightmare may inspire a spate of rich films (i.e., the old Orson Welles/Third Man theory about ghastly social environments being good for art while relatively happy, humanistic, well-nurtured societies, like Switzerland’s, tend to inspire mediocrity). Barry knows all about movies, and could be a critic if so inclined. Moonlight producers Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner were there; ditto editors Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon. Incidentally: Craig’s was serving the juiciest, best-tasting sliders I’ve had in months if not years.

I’m sorry but just about anyone can play a raging, drooling, bottom-of-the-gene-pool psycho. It only requires (a) a willingness to descend into the rage pit that many of us unfortunately have lurking inside, and (b) the abandonment of dignity and decorum. Bruce Dern and William Smith built their early careers out of this sort of thing. It’s just not impressive, and you’re going to convince me that Aaron Johnson is actually proud of his lowlife scumbag in Nocturnal Animals. Focus is actually trying to generate enthusiasm for this beast. Every acting-award campaign in history has not only been about seeking to elicit approval for acting technique but approval for the character. People didn’t just endorse Anthony Hopkins‘ performance in The Silence of the Lambs — they really enjoyed Hannibal Lecter. Due respect to the good people at Focus but my first reaction when I saw this ad this morning was “eccchhh!”

The SAG nominations have taken on a more populist cast (i.e., less sophisticated picks, an element of dumbshit-ism) since the SAG-AFTRA merger of 2012. How else to explain The Girl on The Train‘s Emily Blunt being nominated for Best Actress while 20th Century Women‘s Annette Bening and Elle‘s Isabelle Huppert were blown off?

I don’t agree with Sasha Stone‘s suspicion that La La Land‘s failure to snag an ensemble nom means something as Damien Chazelle‘s film is a total two-hander, and I fully expect La La‘s Emma Stone to win the SAG award for Best Actress. Nonetheless, three Stone observations (posted this morning) are worth pondering:

(1) “Perception is still everything. Unfortunately, La La Land missing in ensemble, for whatever reason, is not a good thing. It just isn’t. Can it overcome? Well, sure. Movies have in the past. But that is a big, big, big, big stat. Which would mean, to my thinking, Best Picture is down to Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea and Fences.” Repeating: I don’t agree about any notions about La La Land being on the ropes, but Sasha may be right about perception being more important than the reality. At the very least last weekend’s Natalie Portman BFCA Best Actress win + this morning’s SAG noms suggest that the Emma Stone campaign has some work to do.