Bradley Cooper‘s Maestro (Netflix, 11.22) is an even-steven two-hander about the occasionally turbulent marriage between conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). Both are obviously playing leads.

I still haven’t seen it, but performance-wise the buzz since Venice has been that Mulligan decisively outpoints Cooper.

Netflix’s Maestro one-sheet clearly states that Mulligan owns the spotlight.

It sounds as if IndieWire‘s Ryan Lattanzio has seen the film, given that he’s written that “the show is stolen from Cooper by Mulligan.”

And yet two days ago Variety‘s Clayton Davis sugggested that Mulligan should go for Best Supporting Actress. This is advisable, he feels, because the competition from Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Lily Gladstone is too formidable.

Davis doesn’t mention, of course, that Gladstone’s campaign is pretty much about the woke identity militia, and that her actual performance is no more than sufficient. She certainly has no “big” moments. I could even call it an underwhelming performance (i.e., she mainly just seethes and glowers and lies in bed during the film’s second half) but the woke mob would resort to their usual inferences.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a prominent veteran of California politics for over half a century, has died at age 90.

A Democrat and strong activist liberal from San Francisco, six terms as a U.S. Senator and the state’s senior senator since ’93, three terms as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 (she succeeded Mayor George Moscone after his 1978 murder) to 1988, etc.

More recently (and certainly within the last five or so years) Feinstein became not only a symbol of age diminishment but of the same kind of obstinate refusal to accept reality that we’ve recently seen from Sen. Mitch McConnell and which we may see down the road from President Joe Biden.

Big-time politicians never, ever resign over aging issues. They either get voted out or die — there’s no third way.

Who will Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint to serve out Feinstein’s term? Will he choose a caretaker or one of the three announced candidates for Feinstein’s seat — Adam Schiff, Congressperson Barbara Lee, and Rep. Katie Porter?

If Newsom picks one of these three, he’ll be giving that person a huge leg-up in the ’24 primary.

No sociopaths allowed. George was warned to leave Kristi Coulter alone. He went right ahead and slagged her anyway. That’s it — game over.

Here’s what did it:

It’s been 15 days years since Revolucian‘s Christian Bale temper tantrum mixtape — sourced from the set of Terminator Salvation in ’08. I really love it as a piece of music. It’s a masterpiece. I especially love playing it while driving, writing, getting dressed.

YouTube guy #1: “When I’m angry, I blast this song and dance-rage the tension out.”

YouTube guy #2: “This has been on my gym playlist for 10 years. Still makes me laugh.”

HE: “When I think of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things (\Searchlight, 12.8), I think of a one-two effect. First I think of Frankenstein’s sexually vigorous daughter, and then a back-from-the-grave woman whose worldview evolves from wide-eyed wonderment into critical male-shirking wokeness. I also believe that Emma Stone has the Best Actress Oscar in the bag.”

Friendo: “When I think of Poor Things, I first think of a lurching, amusing and sometimes audacious [effort] that feels second-rate-ish at the end of the day. Then I think of the in-your-face woke design (Ms. Barbie Frankenstein in a world of angry, damaged, predatory men!), then I think of all that sex and how it’s really kind of gratuitous (unless this were 1972) but wow, it sure is going to help sell the movie!”

Posted on 9.9.23:

Michael Gambon has passed at age 82.

In a 5.7.07 interview with Future Movies‘ Adam Tanswell, Gambon was asked what went into playing Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. He answered by discussing his approach to being an alleged character actor.

“I don’t have to ‘play’ anyone really,” Gambon said. “I just stick on a beard and play me, so it’s no great feat. I never ease into a role. Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. I’m not really a character actor at all.”

In other words, Gambon’s characters in The Insider (’99) and Open Range (’03) — respectively Brown and Williamson CEO Thomas Sandefur and ornery Irish bully boy Denton Baxter — represented aspects of Gambon himself.

These, in any event, are my two favorite Gambon performances. He was a very fine stage actor, but you can have the Potter films and even The Singing Detective, which I found repellent (that awful skin condition) and never liked.

…for Al Pacino‘s big third-act crescendo speech in Scent of a Woman (’92), which won him a Best Actor Oscar. And especially for the author of that speech, the recently departed Bo Goldman.

Martin Brest‘s hefty-grossing, odd-couple, May-December relationship drama opened 30 and 3/4 years ago. It feels like yesterday.

I realize that during the ’90s Pacino’s acting style became more and more florid and bombastic, arguably reaching its apogee with another big crescendo speech in The Devil’s Advocate (’97). And I’m aware that soon after Scent‘s theatrical run “hoo-hah!” became as much of a Pacino signature as “you dirty rat!” was for James Cagney. I’m not 100% certain that Goldman didn’t write “hoo-hah!”, but I think it was a Pacino improv.

In late ’92 I wrote an L.A. Times piece about the somewhat controversial 156-minute length of Scent of a Woman. It was published on 1.3.93. The title was “LENGTH OF A ‘WOMAN’ — Minutes, Schminutes…Does It Play?”

Here’s most of the article:

The following comment-thread clash about Martin Scorsese and Killers of the Flower Moon appeared early this morning:

Joey, Jett’s 13 year-old pit bull, died late last night. Heart attack, gasping for air, agonizing. But he didn’t die alone. Jett and Cait sat close and let him know he was loved…”with” him to the end.

Posted several weeks ago:

Since Thursday I’ve been dog-sitting in West Orange while Jett, Cait and Sutton are in Massachusetts for a weekend funeral. Joey, a pit bull with a bum hind leg, and Luna, a sausage beagle, are both older but they love me and I them.

But they insist on fairly close proximity and almost constant affection at all times, and after three days and nights I’m exhausted from lack of sleep due to sharing the guest room bed with these guys as they take up most of the mattress space. Three nights of bad sleep, mainly due to Joey.

Right now I’m trying to get a little extra shut-eye (I was up half the night from the sprawling bodies and dog farts, plus we just lost an hour to daylight savings) by locking Joey downstairs behind the plastic staircase gate.

And of course, Joey is whining and moaning and banging against the gate as we speak.

Update: Joey has somehow crashed or squeezed through the gate. He’s up here now with us, and of course he’s back on the bed. I love these guys but I’m getting sick of this — I’d like a little peace.

New update: Lying on the couch and of course they have to sleep either right next to me or on top of my legs.

Jett scolding: “U trained them, dad. U give Joey too much love and attention and let him walk all over u. My [disciplined] way may seem cruel but it’s the only way to have any sanity.”