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Anton Yelchin is dead at 27 from a bizarre miscalculation, a freak accident. The poor guy was found early this morning, pinned between his car and a brick mailbox on a downslope driveway at his Studio City home. The car was reportedly in neutral and still running when he was found. 

“It appears he had exited his car and was behind it when the vehicle rolled down a steep driveway,” the LAPD said in a statement.

I’m very sorry. Condolences to family, friends, colleagues, fans. Appalling news.

Yelchin was a gifted actor, but his boyish looks, thin frame and refined demeanor led to his playing a certain type of guy over and over — i.e., the bright, sensitive, somewhat tortured puppy dog. That was his brand, his handle. When you wanted that thing, you went to Yelchin.

In my mind Yelchin delivered five standout performances — Zack Mazursky in Nick Cassevetes‘ Alpha Dog (’06), Pavel Chekhov in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek (’09), Jacob Helm in Drake Doremus‘ Like Crazy (’11), Ian in Only Lovers Left Alive (’13) and Brian Bloom in Victor Levin‘s 5 to 7 (’14).

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I’ve seen Episodes #1 and #5 of Ezra Edelman‘s obviously first-rate O.J.: Made in America. So far it feels like one of the most brilliantly crafted murder-mysteries ever made (doc, narrative, whatever) and one of the most penetrating explorations of our late 20th century racial dichotomy, ever. And a psychodrama about a self-destructive Othello complex second to none.  8:45 pm update:  I’ve seen it all; watched episode #5 a second time. What a sprawling epic tragedy…wow.

The man was guiltier than sin itself, the blood evidence alone proving it dozens of times over, and at the end of the day the jury said “nope, the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are not what really concern us — what matters is the importance of pushing back against decades of racist brutality by the L.A. police department by symbolically freeing a brother, even if that brother was a super-egotist who never really self-identified as ‘a black guy’ and was in fact ‘a Brentwood white guy’ through and through.”

This morning I decided to marathon through episodes #2, #3 and #4. I’m watching #2 now, and more particularly the section covering the ’92 L.A. riots. I was there. Actually, I wasn’t — I was mostly huddling in my West Hollywood home — but I remember the faint but distinct aroma of burnt wood and rubber, and how empty the nearby streets were after a dusk-to-dawn curfew order, which was in effect for at least one night. (More?) On one of the curfew nights I met with Entertainment Weekly‘s then-editor Barbara O’Dair on a hotel patio near Sunset Blvd.

A few days later I was filing a story from Cannes about a highly-charged conversation I’d had with director Spike Lee. I had shown Lee a quote from Mickey Rourke that basically laid the blame for the L.A. riots on Lee and John Singleton for having incited the conversation, or something along those lines. Lee flipped out — here are his remarks.

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From a 6.15 McSweeney’s essay by Samuel Priest: “I hate the new Ghostbusters movie because my number one issue when judging a film is and has always been Hollywood finance reform. And frankly, I’m tired of all big blockbuster movies. The movie system is corrupt and I think we need to put our foot down, right now specifically in 2016, to put a stop to this new Ghostbusters movie as a signal that we’re done with all big hollywood blockbusters. And if you don’t agree with me, well, maybe you need to stop buying movie tickets with your vagina.

“Of course we’re ready for a comedy-action movie with female leads. And of course, we’re overdue. But I think we need to wait for the RIGHT new Ghostbusters movie, not just ANY Ghostbusters movie. The women in the new Ghostbusters movie have a lot of good comedy experience — yes, of course. But over the last 20 years I can find a few examples of them not being funny, especially when you take those moments out of context.”

Last night I ran into Scotty Bowers, the 92 year-old co-author of “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” which popped in early 2012. (Here’s my review.) It happened at a nearby Whole Foods (Fairfax & Santa Monica Blvd.), and for a guy who will turn 93 in less than two weeks he’s very charming, alert and well-spoken. The only other over-90 fellow I’ve spoken to who has the same classy manner and mental acuity is Norman Lloyd, whom I first interviewed in ’05 and who’s now 101.

Scotty said the book has sold quite well. He mentioned $400K, but with the clatter of the market and having only just met the guy I didn’t press him on whether that was his cut or if worldwide book sales have grossed that amount.

I asked him about Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty, a long-in-the-works documentary based on “Full Service” that was reportedly screened for buyers at least year’s Cannes Film Festival. He only said that he’d offered over 100 hours of recollections in front of Tyrnauer’s camera, and that the film was in the home stretch, etc. I said it would be great to see the finished version play at one of the festivals next year.

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In ’79 or thereabouts I was reading the graffiti on the men’s room wall at the Bleecker Street Cinema (opened in ’60, died in ’91). Nothing but referenced, film-hipster stuff. Somebody had written “hello, Noel Carroll!” (Carroll is now a respected author, art philosopher and professor — he was then a critic for the Soho Weekly News.) Another visitor had written “let’s go!” Explaining what film that line was taken from would have been too pedestrian. Everyone who visited that bathroom knew it cold. (Pics below stolen from an undated Cinephilia & Beyond piece titled “SAM PECKINPAH’S ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ IS SAVAGE POETRY; ONE OF THE GREAT MASTERPIECES OF WORLD CINEMA.”)

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I dreamt last night that I went to see Finding Dory. I bought my popcorn and drink, sat in my seat, the lights came down…and then I woke up. Seriously, all animated films are out of my life for the rest of my life. Corporate-branded heroin for the family audience. I don’t care how good they are, and by saying that I’m obviously recognizing that most of them are. The experience that convinced me to kick animated films permanently was catching Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed‘s Feast at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2014.

A 6.18 Vice story reports that Oakland “has gone through three police chiefs in nine days in the wake of a series of scandals involving alleged sexual misconduct and racist text messages.

“Paul Figueroa took the position of acting police chief on Wednesday, replacing Ben Fairow as the department’s top cop. Just two days later, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf held a press conference to announce Figueroa had resigned his duties [due to alleged] racist text messages and emails exchanged by officers. While announcing Figueroa’s resignation, Schaaf used strong language to condemn what she described as the ‘toxic’ and ‘macho’ culture inside the department. ‘I am here to run a police department, not a frat house,’ Schaaf said angrily. ‘We are hell-bent on rooting out this disgusting culture.'”

Comment #1: The Oakland scandal is an HBO movie, and maybe even a feature. It’s the House of Borgia in uniform with nightsticks. It’s about the clash of two radically different realms — that of a progressive feminist mayor looking to enforce a fairer, less racist system vs. the sexist, swaggering old-boy network of beat cops in a big, tough, racially combustible city. Things are obviously changing in this country, and even the randiest and gruntiest big-city cops know their way of life is on the way out. But it won’t be pretty.

Comment #2: Did Schaaf ever read a Joseph Wambaugh novel when she was younger? Has she ever seen The Wire, Serpico, Prince of the City? Who does she think is attracted to being a cop in the first place? Liberal p.c. pantywaists? There are good cops out there, but others are not exactly sweethearts. Some are good-hearted and fair-minded but many are white traditionalists holding on to a shrinking turf.

Portland’s Hollywood Theatre is advertising a Tuesday, 6.21 showing of “the only known 35mm print of the X-Rated version” of Ken Russell’s The Devils. The question is whether or not this print will contain all of the controversial footage (include the infamous Rape of Christ and Sister-Jeanne-masturbates-with-a-blackened-bone scenes). And will the running time be 107, 108, 109 or 111 minutes? (The latter is the length of the longest-known British version.) I called the Hollywood theatre and spoke to a staffer who said they haven’t yet received the print (it’s being sent from Seattle’s Grand Illusion Cinema), but he’s heard it’s a print that was “sent out by mistake” by Warner Bros. some time ago. That sounded like bullshit to me. I then called the Grand Illusion, but no one picked up. A completely restored version of The Devils (including the risque footage) was allegedly screened at The National Film Theatre in London on 4.23.11. I don’t believe there’s any stateside Devils print, sent out by mistake or whatever, that contains this footage. But if anyone in Portland is planning to attend, I’d appreciate a brief report. Thank you.

You’re 17 or 18 and attending a high school basketball game, and suddenly a gang of bullies push a naked fat guy onto the court. Would your first instinct be to scream with laughter, or would you maybe wonder why anyone who would enjoy that kind of cruelty? If you’re one of the laughers, you’ll probably be okay with Rawson Marshall Thurber‘s Central Intelligence. But I’m telling you that after an interesting opening (20 or 25 minutes) and the beginnings of a kind of comedic Collateral tale with Dwayne Johnson as Tom Cruise and Kevin Hart as Jamie Foxx, the movie degenerates into rank idiocy and never looks back. It’s meant to be cartoon-funny. I’ll admit to having chortled two or three times early on but mostly I just sat there in agony, waiting for it to end. Blam, blam, BLAM! Any film in which the main protagonists jump out of a fifth-story window only to save themselves from death by landing on an inflated plastic gorilla….well, it’s just shit, you see. It really is. And any critic saying that Central Intelligence is some kind of fun, rollicking ride (Bilge Ebiri, Allison Willmore, J.R. Jones, David Sims, Barry Hertz, Stephen Whitty, Adam Graham) is never to be trusted again about anything. The movie is venomous big-studio garbage. From this point on Thurber is a dead man in my eyes.

Thorsten Schutte‘s Eat That Question (Sony Classics, 6.24) is a cool, often amusing doc about the legendary oddball rock star and musical provocateur Frank Zappa. Man, what I wouldn’t have given to be friends with this guy. In a way I was friends with him, even though I never bought a single Zappa album in my life. That’s because he didn’t create much in the way of catchy, riffy, soul-lifting music. He mainly created experimental mindfuck music, but always with invention, theatricality and winking humor. And I loved that about him.

Eat That Question director Thorsten Schutte, Moon Zappa during Monday’s night’s after-party.

What I really loved about Zappa was his smart, impudent, iconoclastic attitude. He’s greatly respected as an avant-garde musician, of course, but to me he was mainly a deadpan satirist. I will forever be in debt to the man who dreamt up “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” and who created/approved that magnificent album-jacket illustration [above].

Eat That Question is entirely composed of Zappa interview footage. It’s amusing, but over and over it tells you the same thing, which is that Zappa was cool to know and talk to and was always good for a pungent sound bite or two. Schutte gives you a very good idea, in short, of who Zappa was philosophically, attitudinally and personally.

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