Received yesterday from Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy: “Well, now I guess the cat is out of the bag concerning my double life and my negative review of Spotlight. After all, I can’t go around writing raves of my own films.”

CNN and MSNBC are beating the “ISIS is coming, beware of their bullets and bombs” drum over and over. Obviously the ISIS threat is real and horrific, but the media is hammering this story like the scariest thing since 9/11 or Hurricane Sandy. They’re not reporting anything inaccurately, but they’re playing into the hands of these crafty psychopathic losers, it seems, by exaggerating their strength. Fear drives ratings. Note: The video was captured just before Hasna Aitboulahcen, a 26 year-old female cousin of the recently-wasted Abdelhamid Abaaoud, blew herself up. French SWAT-like policewoman: “Where is your boyfriend?” Hasna: “He’s not my boyfriend!” French policewoman: “Where is he?” Hasna: “He’s not my boyfriend!” And then BOOM…intestine wall-splat. Abaaoud was killed soon after, his body so riddled with bullets that he reportedly could only be identified with a fingerprint check.

Yes, the Key West Film Festival actually intends to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Paul Verhoeven‘s Showgirls. They’re selling this, I gather, on the basis of this 1995 debacle being some kind of post-ironic, “so bad it’s good” camp classic…something like that. The screening will happen Friday night, and Verhoeven, 77, is here…whatever. Last night I met KWFF founder & chairman Brooke Christian, KWFF director of programming Michael Tuckman and vice chairman Stephen Ananicz — goodfellas. Thanks also to guest services chief Lauren Luberger, who put me in the Marker. I missed the KWFF‘s opening-night screening of Spotlight at the San Carlos Institute, but then I’ve seen it four times. I also missed a post-screening interview between Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and ex-Boston Globe editor Ben Bradlee, Jr., who’s charismatically portrayed in Tom McCarthy‘s film by John Slattery.

(l.) KWFF director of programming Michael Tuckman, (r.) founder & chairman Brooke Christian.

KWFF program chief Michael Tuckman and son Tito during last night’s opening-night soiree at Audubon House.

Heartfelt thanks to the Key West Film Festival guys for bringing Hollywood Elsewhere to this hot & humid, wonderfully fragrant, somewhat boozy tropical neverland for four days (i.e., last night thru Sunday). HE was dark for several hours yesterday due to a lack of wifi on my LAX-to-Miami flight. And then I checked in and walked around and attended the KWFF opening-night party at the storied Audubon House. I’m staying at the upscale, totally pleasant Marker Resort, but if I had my druthers I’d be crashing at the Cypress House, an old (built in 1888), cultured hotel that dares to possess a slightly faded, Ernest Hemingway-esque, early 20th Century vibe — an almost repellent notion when it comes to your typical 2015 Kardashian-Kanye tourist who wants only brand-spanking newness and nouveau luxury. There’s a barricaded 1% aura around the Key West Westin Resort & Marina — if you’re not staying with us, keep your distance. I’ll be renting a bicycle today and maybe even a kayak…who knows? It’s touristy as fuck on Duval Street and around the Marina, but if you selectively edit that stuff out and concentrate on the other-worldliness — the quiet and shaded historical areas, the sea and sand, the Bahamian conch-style homes and the delicious scents and aromas, the feeling of being in a little hamlet that’s beginning to succumb to the U.S. of Vulgar Over-Commercialization but is nonetheless holding firm in certain areas — and the friendliness of the locals, and it’s pretty hard not to feel good about…well, everything.

One of the porches at Key West’s Cypress Hotel — the coolest old-vibe establishment I’ve yet come upon, and reportedly haunted.

It’s great to disembark from your jet and walk right onto the tarmac and feel that warm, tropical on your face, and then you spot that sign on the airport terminal announcing where you are.

Key West’s Smathers Beach, just south of the airport.

There are many sights and sounds, I’m sure, that signify or summarize the Key West atmosphere, but I’ll go with this morning’s rooster wake-up for the time being. Dawn hadn’t broken at 6:20 am as I stood on the small mini-balcony of room #220 at Key West’s Marker Hotel and recorded the crowings. The humid air, even at this hour, verges on hothouse, and the rich earthy aromas (which were exterminated in most areas of Los Angeles decades ago) are to die for. Welcome to the Conch Republic — a haven of revelry and ghosts and abundant tropical flora…a kind of expatriate aura, a realm apart, Florida’s answer to the leftwing, architecturally storied, cool-cat vibes of Austin and Savannah…o come all ye tourists and party animals! But also flavored and punctuated with little pockets of haunted Hemingway-esque history. When you turn on a TV in a typical middle American hotel room, the default channel is usually Fox News. But in Key West it’s MSNBC…okay? Again, the roosters.

Any movie featuring the assassination of Justin Beiber can’t be all bad. I can’t remember what I said before about Zoolander 2 but I take it back. Or I’m re-qualifying. I think. If it’s possible to cheekily lampoon 21st Century shallowness and self-absorption…hmmm. I was going to say that this looks half-funny (and it does) but…well, now I’m wondering about the difference between preening soul-cancer types of ’01 and right now. Ben Stiller starring, directing and co-writing with Justin Theroux. Owen Wilson, Penélope Cruz, Christine Taylor, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, Cyrus Arnold, Billy Zane, Fred Armisen, et, al.

Director Rod Lurie attended a Warner Bros. lot screening tonight (i.e., Tuesday, 11.17) of Ryan Coogler‘s Creed (11.25), and posted an excited riff about it on his Facebook page: Unbroken long shots, which Lurie calls “oners” (an infuriating term), “are a little bit like breaking a four-minute mile. Bravo and all that, but it’s been done. Many times. But in Creed, the latest in the Rocky saga, director Ryan Coogler is kind of breaking the world record. And at the same time he achieves something that every director in the sports-movie genre is challenged with — finding a unique way to shoot a boxing match.

“There are three fights in Creed, and the middle one — the one in which the title character (Michael B. Jordan) makes himself a contender — is a doozy. Somehow Coogler and his director of photography, Maryse Alberti, shoot the whole thing — every punch, every miss, every duck, every uppercut, every yell from the corner, the between-round coaching from both corners, every cheer…everything in one take. And it’s not done with swish pans and running the lens through lights — i.e., no cheating. It’s the real deal all the way and genuinely thrilling.

The legendary Ian McKellen discussed his fabled career with director Guillermo del Toro in front of a packed house at Santa Monica’s Aero theatre this evening. A fine, spirited discussion between lions of their respective realms. Listen, celebrate Mr. Holmes (which screened at 9 pm), eat the popcorn and remember  that I caught McKellen’s performance as Salieri in Peter Shaffer‘s Amadeus 34 years ago on the Broadway stage.  Team Elsewhere (myself, HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko) had front-row seats but way off to the side — a shitty vantage point. Which meant I had to creep over and take semi-close-up shots while lying on the cement floor. And then it was autograph time when it ended (beware of super-aggressive GDT fanboys!) and then GDT and McKellen got into their big, humungous, jet-black SUV and took off…and then hung a right on Montana and pulled over in front of the theatre and got out to talk to fans again. Again, the mp3.

It was big news last May but it’s common knowledge by now: Jane Fonda takes ownership of Paolo Sorrentino‘s Youth (Fox Searchlight, 12.4) in the space of a single, blistering six-minute scene with costar Harvey Keitel. Her character, a feisty Brooklyn-born actress named Brenda Morel, visits a swank Swiss spa to tell Keitel’s Mick Boyle, an aging director and longtime colleague who’s written his latest movie for her, that she’s decided to take a TV role instead of starring in his project. Movies are over, she explains, and so is Boyle — he hasn’t made a good film in too long a time. Brenda’s message is so corrosive and scalding that Mick…okay, no spoilers.

Adorned with an almost Kabuki-like appearance created by director Paolo Sorrentino, Jane Fonda as the Brooklyn-born Brenda Morel in Youth.

During yesterday’s smallish joint press conference for Youth, Keitel, perhaps momentarily allowing his impressions of Brenda Morel to bleed into reality, referred to Fonda as a “diva.” Right away Jane, three seats away with Rachel Weisz and Paul Dano between them, flashed him a look. Keitel: “I mean in a good sense…why are you making a face at me?” Fonda: “I don’t see myself that way but I’ll accept it, I’ll take it.” Keitel: “Well, you’re a legend, an icon.” (The banter happens at the 16-minute mark of this recording.)

I’d been sitting with this extremely attuned icon in a second-floor hotel room an hour earlier, and frankly feeling disappointed with myself for not preparing better questions. I had arrogantly concluded before driving over to the Four Seasons that I knew so much about Fonda and felt such a rapport with her (we were both raised by dismissive, emotionally aloof fathers and more or less educated ourselves, and I don’t know what else…similar cockatoo attitudes about food, a certain alertness of mind, a fill-the-schedule attitude?) that I felt I didn’t need to cram. Mistake. Always cram, always prepare.

But then I listened to the recording….hmmm, okay, not bad, tolerable. What can you accomplish in 15 minutes? Not much. Lightweight questions, banter, mild chatter.

Last Thursday (11.12) I expressed a certain confusion over the new Carol one-sheet, which, I wrote, “seems to be aimed at potential viewers with conservative hinterland values,” as the photo suggests that Cate Blanchett “has a thing for Rooney Mara but that slightly out-of-focus Rooney isn’t noticing or isn’t that interested or something along those lines.” The cover art for Carter Burwell’s Carol soundtrack is another matter. If I was in charge of choosing the main movie poster, this is what I’d go with.

Two significant Love & Mercy plugs have happened over the last 24. One, today’s announcement about Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling having selected Love & Mercy‘s Elizabeth Banks and Paul Dano as Virtuoso award recipients (i.e., supporting-level award contenders) at next February’s Santa Barbara Film Festival (2.3 thru 2.13). And two, Youth costar Jane Fonda — herself a Best Supporting Actress contender — offered a big Dano plug at the start of yesterday’s Youth press conference at the Four Seasons hotel. Fonda: “Oh my God. I live with a music producer [Richard Perry] and so I know about Brian Wilson and the fact that he’s a genius, and so I wanted to see the movie. And [Paul], as the younger Brian Wilson, I just found astonishing. Really special. I liked the movie too. Elizabeth Banks and John Cusack…all of them. Such a good film.” Again, the mp3.

At the recent Love & Mercy Brian Wilson concert at Vibrato: (l. to r.) Melinda Ledbetter, Paul Dano, Brian Wilson, Elizabeth Banks.

I know a little something about the trials of a rock band (having been a mediocre drummer in my early 20s in a not-half-bad blues rock group called the Sludge Brothers) and the difficulties of creating a sound that works and recording it the right way and getting the right gigs, etc. And yet Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger‘s Vinyl, to go by this trailer and previous teasers, seems uninterested in the brick-and-mortar stuff. It looks like just another bacchanalian coke-and-booze Satyricon thing. Self-destruction (or dangerously flirting with same) by way of drugs and booze is not interesting. Almost Famous was 15 years ago — it would be great if Vinyl was more like it. You know…a longform about the music business of the late ’60s and ’70s that takes a Spotlight approach — one that shows you how it really works in a survivalist, real-world sense (songs, recordings, relationships, beautiful women, wild adventures, creative clear-light moments, finding and keeping the right manager…the general uphill struggle of it all). You know what would be really great? A longform about the creative-transcendence boom years of ’64, ’65, ’66 and ’67. It was all over by late ’68 anyway. There’s nothing more boring in the universe of narrative film than getting fucking wasted.