In the wake of the recent Blind Side squabble between ex-NFL pro Michael Oher and his one-time benefactors Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman has taken another look at John Lee Hancock‘s The Blind Side (’09), which told the story of young Oher and the Tuohys, and basically slapped it around, calling it “even more fake [today] than before.”

“[The film’s version of] Michael Oher is treated, by the Tuohys, as a kind of family mascot. There’s never any conflict between them, and not much in the way of conversation.

“Bullock’s Leigh Anne, with her diamond-studded crucifix necklace, charges through the film like a refugee from Dallas, crusading for her sainthood merit badge, while Michael, with his benign torpor, rarely rouses himself with a force of ego. At one point, when Leigh Anne and Sean are discussing whether to become his legal guardians, Sean says, ‘Michael’s gift is his ability to forget. He’s mad at no one, and he really doesn’t care what happened in the past.’ Leigh Anne agrees, making a (comic) point of how much she hates it when her husband is right.

“But Sean’s statement about Michael is shocking in how wrong it is. Michael’s gift is his ability to forget? Who would say that about a white character who’d suffered the kinds of things Michael did? The movie is reducing him to a Teddy-bear simpleton, with little to no psychology. He never has rich exchanges with the other family members; he never expresses anything but gratefulness (or, after he crashes the truck they just bought him, cringing regret). There’s no interior complexity to Michael, and that’s the lie of The Blind Side. It’s what allows his character to basically be used by the Tuohys to feel good about themselves.”

Okay, but you know what I remember about The Blind Side? I bought the bullshit. I knew I was being fed suspicious vegetables, but they found their way into my heart all the same. And the sales agent was Sandra Bullock‘s performance as Leigh Anne. Everyone bought it, and no amount of complaining 14 years later can change that,

Consider a certain George Hickenlooper quote from 2009, excerpted back then by Sasha Stone.

We’re all pleased that IFC/Sapan will be opening Trân Anh Hùng‘s The Pot au Feu (aka The Taste of Things) later this year as part of a generally vigorous effort to snag Oscar attention and perhaps even Best Picture and Best Director nominations.

And we’re doubly pleased that it’s just been announced as a New York Film Festival “Spotlight” attraction.

And we’re extra double ding-dong delighted that the NYFF guys aren’t calling it a North American premiere, which means this masterful foodie flick will be debuting at Telluride two weeks hence. (The Toronto Film Festival slate is not an option as its slate is wrapped tight with no room to breathe.)

But we’re still appalled that IFC/Sapan has (a) dropped the original, perfect-sounding French-English title, which translates as The Pot Roast and was used when it played in Cannes three months ago, and (b) saddled it with the pedestrian title of The Taste of Things….please!

I wrote last night that The Taste of Things “isn’t an awful title, but it sounds vaguely antiseptic and blanded down…flat, lacking in flavor and aroma…it no longer sounds or feels like a film simmering in French culture, but like a gourmet cookbook that might have been written by the owner of a suburban restaurant in northern New Jersey or Westchester County.”

The best response was posted early this morning by HE commenter “Christophe“: “I don’t mind the new title, but somehow find it ironic that notoriously marketing-obsessed Disney/Pixar had the guts to release a mass-market film called Ratatouille, and yet an indie foreign-film distrib thinks The Pot au Feu is too strange-sounding for discerning audiences.”

When you get right down to it, IFC/Sapan is hung up on au Feu as the original title starts with “The“, followed by “Pot,” a familiar kitchen term to any rube in Arkansas.

IFC/Sapan exec #1 during conference: “But they won’t understand what au Feu means, and we’ll lose tens of thousands in revenue!”

IFC/Sapan exec #2: “But millions understood Ratatouille, and that’s obviously a bigger tongue-challenge than au Feu could ever be.”

IFC/Sapan exec #3: “Will you come up for air, please? Clem Kadiddlehopper is not going to pay to see this film in Dogpatch, Kentucky…it’s a film that discerning, semi-educated audiences will flock to in the cities and suburbs, and a nice easy title like The Pot au Feu won’t give them a moment’s hesitation.”

The good news is that IFC Films and Sapan Studios, U.S. distributors of Tran Anh Hung‘s The Pot au Feu, have committed to a prestige Oscar campaign for the French foodie masterpiece, not just for Best International Feature (if and when it’s selected by France as its official nominee) but in all categories, including Best Picture.

This means it’ll open this year and not, as feared by HE, in the winter or early spring of ’24. From my perspective this is wonderful and gratifying news, as The Pot-au-Feu is still HE’s hands-down favorite film of the year.

For several weeks I’ve been sharing concerns that IFC and Saban might, God forbid, give The Pot au Feu the bum’s rush by opening it in the doldrums of early ’24, which is what IFC has done in the past with promising titles.

It is extremely heartening, to say the least, to learn otherwise, and that this Cannes-praised film might….do we dare to dream? …play Telluride and one or two other prestigious fall festivals…who knows?

I apologize for airing my pessimistic concerns, and I congratulate IFC and Saban for doing the right thing.

The bad news is that Tran Anh Hung‘s film has been retitled, according to Variety‘s Clayton Davis, as The Taste of Things. HE’s gut reaction: gaaahh!

IFC and Saban’s concern, obviously, is that U.S. audiences might find the original French title, which basically means meat and vegetable stew, meaningless or overly obscure.

The Taste of Things isn’t an awful title, but it sounds vaguely antiseptic and blanded down….like something that a whitebread PTA committee might have decided upon. It’s flat, lacking in flavor and aroma. It no longer sounds or feels like a film simmering in French culture, but like a gourmet cookbook that might have been written by the owner of a suburban restaurant in northern New Jersey or Westchester County.’
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But overall this is excellent news, at least as far as IFC & Saban’s Oscar determinations are concerned.

There is one term that sums up the “Bradley Cooper‘s prosthetic nose in Maestro is a form of Jewface anti-Semitism” on Twitter/X.

That term is “deranged, saliva-spraying, ethnic-aggressive lunacy.”

In May ’22 Variety‘s Clayton Davis complained about Carey Mulligan being miscast because a Brit shouldn’t play a Chilean or Costa Rican. Where is Clayton on Bradley’s schnozz? Has he joined his fellow firebrands in standing up against this?

Twitter/X statement from Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein: “It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of Bradley’s efforts…it happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”

Sometime in the mid ’90s the late Robert Evans shared a biological observation with me: “When you get older your nose gets bigger, your ears get bigger and longer and your teeth get smaller.”

We’ve all sampled food-and-atmosphere moments to die for…perfect transitional serenity…that quietly radiant feeling in which the place and the warmth (and not just the climatorial kind) are so calming and poignant that time itself has seemingly stopped…much more than just sitting at a table…enveloped by bliss and rapture.

Two nights ago I happened upon a brief video of such a moment…12 years and three months ago (late May 2011) on a calm and sunny day in Venice, Italy…placid, a gentle breeze, the faint sound of water lapping at pilings…sitting at an outdoor table at Trattoria San Basilio, a fairly small (you could even call it tiny) restaurant, waterside in southern Dorsoduru…no tourists, no madding crowd…Calle del Vento, 1516, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy.

Right now I feel as strongly about this moment as Mr. Bernstein felt about the girl in the white dress on the Staten Island ferry.

Video shot on a Canon camera….the quality of iPhone videos wasn’t good enough back then…good God, I was still filing on Movable Type!

Three or four weeks ago the driver’s side window in my VW Passat gave up the ghost. It went down but wouldn’t go up again. The front-seat passenger window worked fine and still does; ditto the two backseat windows.

A broken open window obviously means no protection, so I had to handle it pronto. I asked Vinny, a local mechanic whom I respect, if he could fix it. Sure, he said. The next day I met him at a vaguely down-at-the-heels Bridgeport shopping plaza.

Vinny took the door apart and determined that the electrical mechanism that controls the up-and-down motion of the window had suffered a short circuit. The short was caused by a small pool of water that had collected in the door well. To fix it correctly he’d need to find a new white-plastic window mechanism, Vinny said, but he managed to manually crank the window upward.

It was gratifying, at least, that the window was closed and locked in that position. All I had to do was remember to not hit the down-window switch.

I told Vinny I’d get in touch after I returned from Ontario and would promptly pay him to buy and install the mechanism, etc.

Vinny was buried in another job when I returned but that was okay.

Last Saturday I went to a local car wash, and as I approached the vacuum section a Latino guy in a low-thread-count T-shirt motioned for me to lower my window so we could speak. I was temporarily spacing out or daydreaming, but like a total idiot I unthinkingly hit the switch and lowered the driver-side window…gaaahh! It was once again stuck in the open position, and the car was 100% vulnerable to scurvy, slime-fingered thieves.

I immediately called Vinny and said, “Yo, Vinny…the window is down again. Can you help me today or tomorrow or soon?” He said he’d been sidelined with a bad foot (gout) but that he’d search for a used mechanism and we could hook up the next day or certainly the day after.

The following night (i.e., Sunday) it was lightly raining as I sat in the Wilton Library parking lot. I turned the engine on and began listening to music. I was concerned, of course, about more rain water getting into the car through the open window. My left arm was sitting on the elbow rest but I wasn’t touching any buttons or window switches. I sat and listened to Randy Newman and thought about my life.

And then, like magic, the driver window activated itself….whrrrrrrr. The window went up halfway, stopped, thought about it for two or three seconds, and kept going up until the window was completely closed shut.

My mouth fell open. I gasped. It was a moment straight out of Irving Pichel‘s The Miracle of the Bells (’48). Just like the statues of St. Michael and the Virgin Mary slowly turn on their pedestals until they face the coffin of Alida Valli‘s Olga, the driver’s side window had closed itself…the hand of God or some tekekinetic force had intervened.

Vinny’s foot was still hurting yesterday (i.e., Monday afternoon) but we’ve planned on a Wednesday afternoon meet-up.

And that “thing” is that Maestro isn’t all that focused on Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein. Well, it is to a considerable extent, obviously, but Carey Mulligan’s Felicia has the spotlight. Duhh.