“We’re just a shittier people than we used to be…sorry.” — Bill Maher, last night’s “New Rules” rant.

The vast majority of well-regarded films shot in frigid temperatures share a basic visual trait — snowscapes.

The highest ranking members of this fraternity include Fargo, The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, The Dead Zone, the ‘51 and ‘82 versions of The Thing, The Shining, Cliffhanger, Snowpiercer, Everest, Misery, Society of the Snow and, last but not necessarily least, the currently unfolding True Detective: Night Country.

But there have been damn few shot in miserably cold climes that aren’t swamped in whiteness, and there may, in fact, be only two of these: Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront (‘54) and William Freidkin’s The French Connection (‘71).

I’m not saying there aren’t more that qualify in this regard; I’m saying I can’t think of any.

I realize that only a morally bankrupt admirer of a director who behaved selfishly and hurtfully 45 years ago would even flirt with paying to see Roman Polanski’s WWII-era masterpiece, but…

When I was a young buck I had this primal thing for Jovan musk cologne, which hit stores sometime in the mid ‘70s. The scent did something to me, and perhaps for me. I had this possibly bogus idea, you see, that occasional Jovan slap-ons might have upped my batting average, which was in the .350 to .400 range during the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations.

Yesterday I bought a reduced-cost bottle of the stuff (CVS discount) and the scent just time-travelled me…whoooosh! Decades were erased in a flash. I was suddenly Marty McFly, driving my 1975 VW Fastback and wearing flared jeans and puka shells and Frye boots. Aromas are as good for time travel as Rod Taylor’s valour-seat, spinning-wheel device in George Pal’s The Time Machine (‘60).

From Doug Liman‘s 1.24.24 Deadline essay, in which he explains his decision to not attend Road House‘s SXSW premiere on March 8th:

“The action [in Road House] is ground-breaking. And Jake Gyllenhaal gives a career-defining performance in a role he was born to play.

“Alas, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas. Amazon will exclusively stream Road House on Amazon’s Prime. Amazon asked me and the film community to trust them and their public statements about supporting cinemas, and then they turned around and are using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures.

“That hurts the filmmakers and stars of Road House who don’t share in the upside of a hit movie on a streaming platform.

“And they deprive Jake Gyllenhaal — who gives a career-best performance — the opportunity to be recognized come award season. But the impact goes far beyond this one movie. This could be industry shaping for decades to come.”

HE to Liman: I’ve always loved Jake and I’ve loved many of your films (Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity, Fair Game, Edge of Tomorrow, American Made), but there’s no way in hell Jake’s Road House performance will be part of the Best Actor discussion at the end of this year. You can’t play a Zen-minded bouncer in a Florida Keys bar and expect any kind of award-season attention…forget it, man.

For what it’s worth, I’d love to see Road House in a theatre.

We’re all familiar with the cinematic simulation of a punch by having an actor pretend to punch the camera lens. The best-known examples of this technique are in Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest (’59), first when a South Dakota state trooper decks Cary Grant at the end of Act Two, and then 15 minutes later when James Mason does the same to Martin Landau.

It’s been asserted, however, that Samuel Fuller trail-blazed this effect in I Shot Jesse James (’49). It happens when a barroom brawler delivers a right cross at the camera. Jean-Luc Godard reportedly once referred to this visual device as “cinema-fist.”

The problem is that I’ve never seen I Shot Jesse Jamesall the way through. I tried watching the first 10 minutes and gave up. I tried a few years later…ditto. Has anyone?

There’s a tough, no-holds-barred essay by an anonymous industry person named “LIBERTAS CONSCIENTIAE” that popped on 1.24.24. I called around yesterday and tried to identify the author (unsuccessfully), but I’m 95% convinced that he/she doesn’t work in craft services, wardrobe, makeup, transportation or payroll.

If I’d been the author I would have toned down the bombast, but it’s still utterly required reading.

Posted just after Tuesday’s announcement of the Oscar noms, the piece basically says (a) DEI has all but ruined the entertainment industry and the Oscar brand in particular, and has to be jettisoned like a bad habit, and (b) former Academy honcho Dawn Hudson is the arch villain behind all the woke Stalinist guilt-trip measures that have been instituted over the past five or six years. It’s titled “Requiem for the Oscars: The Academy Awards on the Precipice.”

Consider the below excerpted paragraph about Oppenheimer, American Fiction and the Academy’s Oscar inclusion mandate, which kicked in this year. There is no way in hell such a paragraph would ever be posted on Deadline, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter or TheWrap because those publications have been entirely bought off and are presently confined to a social-political ideological corral that they have to stay inside of. They’ll never admit this, of course.

FAIR is an acronym that means Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, the difference being that it refers to woke intolerance and anti-white-male racism.