Daily

I know what’s going on with the great Anna Karenina. I’m not stupid. It has a 69% Rotten Tomatoes rating — two-thirds admiring but with guys like David Edelstein, for one, calling it “as boldly original a miscalculation as any you’re likely to see.” I can hear the distant shouts of an unhappy mob as we few, we stalwart few, clean our flintlocks and await the inevitable. But at least Hitfix‘s Drew McWeeny is a thumbs-upper, and he states his case clearly.

Director Joe Wright “has taken one of the great novels of all time and working with one of the great voices in modern theater, Tom Stoppard, come up with something that honors the book but also refigures it in a way that illuminates the material to striking effect. Wright is once again working with his favorite leading lady, Keira Knightley, and this might be their most stylish, heightened effort yet. Wright and Stoppard have come up with an immediate way of making the book’s themes explicit, and how you respond to the film will depend largely on how you react to the device they’ve created.

“Seamus McGarvey‘s photography, the score by Dario Marianelli, the sumptuous production design by Sarah Greenwood…all of it plays into this overheated relationship, this all-consuming desire, and the film does a great job of conveying how that feels. Wright does everything he can to put us at the eye of this particular hurricane so we can feel it for ourselves. This isn’t about watching it with a dispassionate eye, but is instead about feeling what it’s like to get so caught up in passion that everything else fades away.

“To some degree, it is the way the story is told that wowed me more than the story itself,” McWeeny concludes. Wells insert: Exactly! It;s not the material as much as the brushstrokes. “The last third of the film loses some steam narratively, and it’s hard to make a wallow in self-pity feel as engrossing as the early embrace of the passion, but Wright manages to find grace notes even in that stretch. Overall, Wright continues to distinguish himself with this film, and it seems to me that he’s still just mastering his voice.”

Whoever attended last night’s semi-secretive Django Unchained screening in Culver City, all three hours’ worth, isn’t saying anything about it on Twitter. Or at least not on my screens. I’m all ears.

There was also a preview screening last night of Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity at a commercial plex in Sherman Oaks. (Probably the Arclight, I’m guessing.) An excellent source confides that “VFX were 95% completed, 3D and color grading still work in progress.” The 3D-converted, presumedly groundbreaking stuck-in-space drama, which costars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, was bumped last May into a 2013 release date.

Two years ago I added Fox Home Video’s Elia Kazan Collection so I could enjoy pristine viewings of Boomerang!, Gentleman’s Agreement, Viva Zapata!, East of Eden, A Face In The Crowd and Wild River…but really because of Zapata and Face In The Crowd. Now there’s a new Fox Bluray set containing eight of the Collection titles, but I’m only interested in the second edition because it contains Zapata and the exquisite silver capturings of dp Joseph MacDonald (My Darling Clementine, Call Northside 777, How To Marry A Millionaire).

$44 and change for the delight of watching the young and even more vivid Marlon Brando, Joseph Wiseman and Anthony Quinn act together on Bluray for the first time? Yes. A little foolish, I admit. A little nutso. But I eat this shit up.

I finally saw Paolo and Vittorio Taviani‘s Ceasar Must Die over the weekend. About four hours ago I drove down to the Four Seasons to speak to them — an honor. The Tavianis, 81 and 83 respectively, are mythic. The first movie review I ever had published in New York City was a spring 1978 piece on the Taviani’s Padre Padrone for the Chelsea Clinton News.

Vittorio and Palo Taviani at the Four Seasons — Monday, 11.12, 12:55 pm.

Here’s the mp3 but it’s a little rough as the Tavianis don’t speak English and a translator was back-and-forthing.

Ceasar Must Die is a documentary (almost entirely, I mean) about Italian prisoners putting on a presentation of William Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar. The idea is basically that guys who’ve known violence and savagery in their lives and are now paying for these sins are enlivened and emboldened and humbled and otherwise moved by the acting out of this famous melodrama.

I liked it. The scheme, the acting, the black-and-white photography. It’s clean and sharp and humane and itself moving. It’s the official Italian submission for Best Foreign-Language Film.

Caesar Must Die was the surprise winner of the Golden Bear at the last February’s Berlin International Film Festival . The Hollywood Reporter described the outcome as “a major upset,” and Der Spiegel said it was a “very conservative selection.”

Here’s how I put it nine months ago: “A jury led by Mike Leigh looked at the doc and apparently decided the following before making their announcement: ‘Giving the prize to the Taviani brothers is not just a vote of approval for their latest film but also a way of honoring their past works and particularly the cinema of the ’70s and ’80s. We will also be saluting creative endeavor by artists of advanced years, which is something we all need to honor and support because we’ll all be there before you know it. This award will also be perceived as a metaphorical renunciation of the lamentable tendencies of the present. So it will be the right thing to do all around, and when it’s done we can all go home and smile at ourselves in the bathroom mirror.'”

Time and again I’ll be sitting in a restaurant or bar and a young couple who shouldn’t be a couple will stroll in and sit down at a table, and I’ll be just stunned. The attractiveness disparity is almost mindblowing. He’s a jowly beefalo who hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in two or three years and she’s a svelte super-model with hazel eyes, flaring cheekbones and an obviously well-toned bod, and yet she’s apparently throwing it to this guy and gasping. And I’m sitting there going “what the eff?”

A couple of hours ago I was eating a salmon burger at Astroburger (which I always call Mojoburger) when another one of these oddball couples came in, and once again the old saying about “birds of a feather flock together” was out the window. The woman wasn’t quite Angelina Jolie-level hot, but she was definitely approaching that ballpark. And the guy looked like Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl.

How does this happen? It didn’t used to happen when I was in my 20s and ’30s. Women wouldn’t talk to beefalos in the ’70s and ’80s. There were no beefalos. Beefalos sure as hell never got to talk to hot women. You had to look at least moderately attractive to even have a chat with a hot girl. You sure as hell couldn’t look like you ate quatre-fromage pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner and threw down four to six 16 oz. cans of beer. And if she gave you the time of day you wouldn’t get very far unless you exuded the same level of coolness and attractiveness (inwardly and outwardly) to make any kind of progress.

All I can figure is that the guy at Mojoburger was a successful musician or something, but still. I realize that physical attractiveness has always been a component and that serious charm and seductiveness is in the mind and the wit and the laughter. Just ask Cyrano de Bergerac. All I know is that this is the first time in the history of the species in which guys who are way, way below the level of the girls they’re sitting with in terms of conventional hotness…these beefalo guys are making out like crazy these days.

I’m again pleading with the Oscar Punditocracy to pay a little less attention to what the Oscar nomination preferences of the guilds and the Academy might be, and to man up and embrace the eternal by emphasizing more of what’s in their own hearts and minds and dreams. To play it more like me, in short.

Some attention has to be paid to the Oscar campaigns, of course. Okay, vigilant attention. I obviously do that. My ad income is all about this attention. I’m a realist. But the lifeblood of columnists, commentators and reporters who annually eyeball the award season should first and foremost be exuberant, straight-from-the-heart celebrations of films that do “it” rather than “that.”

We all know what it feels like when a film that we’re seeing for the first time is doing “it.” There’s some kind of special alchemy thing that kicks in. Some kind of exceptional fast-river-current delivery and rarified emotional pollen mixed in with a universal energy field. We all know when we’re seeing and feeling “it”….a movie that’s happening, alive, crackling, expanding….flooding into our systems, doing something extra, turning our heads and saying “we’ve baked a cake with a little bit extra in the way of flavor or ingredients!”

It may be just a pear cake, okay, but it’s done in such a way that your taste buds are feeling a very special and particular excitement that you’ve never quite experienced in precisely the same way. And that makes it an “it” rather than a “that.”

I could name a 2012 “it” film and a lot of people would go “oh, God…again!” and put me down so here are a few others: Holy Motors, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Master, Amour, Anna Karenina, Bernie, No.

A “that” film is one that is following or echoing a certain form or genre or relaxation, and in a way that makes you say to yourself “okay, this is doing that” rather than “wow, this is doing it!” A “that” film could be, let’s say, an exceptionally bright and well-modelled historical-political spin on a caper film. Or an expertly and very passionately composed adaptation of a hugely popular musical play from the ’80s. Or a dirge-like historical procedural about a Very Important Man trying to bring about a Very Important Thing. I understand the comforts of a “that” movie. It feels nice to have “that” in your head. But the ones that last over the years and the decades are the “it” flicks.

How often are “it” flicks recognized as the best of the year? Now and then. But a lot of times movies that SCREAM “that” at the top of their lungs, movies like The Artist and Chicago, are the ones that win in the end. And that’s depressing. That’s awful. The spirit dies. Taste of ashes. Jump off a bridge.

We all have to play the game, but the emphasis should be on the current and the exaltation that comes from scrupuloulsy ignoring what the less-hip crowd (i.e., less hip than people like us) thinks or likes. Eff those people. We know better! We are the champions, not them!

I wrote the following 15 months ago, or on 8.24.11: “Every year I ask what could be more worthless or contemptible in the eyes of any fim lover with the slightest trickle of blood in his or her veins than a group of online journos saying, ‘What we might personally think or feel about the year’s finest films is not our charge. We are here to read and evaluate the feelings and judgments of that crowd of people standing around in that other room….see them? Those older, nice-looking, well-dressed ones standing around and sipping wine and munching on tomato-and mozzarella bruschetta? Watching them is what we do. We sniff around, sense the mood, follow their lead, and totally pivot on their every word or derisive snort or burst of applause at Academy screenings.’

“If I could clap my hands three times and banish the concept of Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby Oscarologists from the minds of my online colleagues and competitors, I would clap my hands three times. (Even though I love Tom O’Neil and am a regular Gold Derby contributor.) For it is the task of Movie Catholics (which includes all monks and priests and followers of the faith) to stand up and lead at all costs.

And it is bad personal karma to put aside what every fibre of your being tells you is the ‘right’ thing to do in order to proclaim (and therefore help to semi-validate and cast a favorable light upon) the occasionally questionable sentiments and allegiances of others.

“And I mean especially if these temperature-gauging, tea-leaf readings contribute to a snowball mentality or growing assumption that a certain Best Picture contender has the heat. There is no question in my mind that to some extent the Gurus of Gold and the Gold Derby gang contributed to 2010’s and 2011’s Best Picture win by The King’s Speech by advancing the notion each and every week that it would probably take the prize.

“And that, if you don’t mind me saying so, is a terrible thing to live with. A stain upon our souls.

“How would you feel if you were 92 years old, let’s say, and on your death bed and looking back upon your professional Hollywood life and saying to yourself, ‘In my own small but possibly significant way, I probably helped to create a perception of groundswell momentum and inevitability that led to the Best Picture triumphs of The Greatest Show on Earth, Around The World in Eighty Days and Driving Miss Daisy“? How would you feel about that? Good?

“True Catholics are players on the field, not watchers from the stands. They need to convey their own passions as personally, ardently and persuasively as possible, and to give as little credence as possible to the alleged preferences of a politically-motivated, comfort-seeking, sentimentally-inclined and recently suspect industry group.”

It’s been pointed out time and again that the Academy had a reasonable, fair-minded history in their Best Picture preferences from the mid aughts to ’10 but then ldid an about-face in ’11 and, in a startling cave-in to British kowtowing and comforting gutty-wut sentiment, gave the Oscar to an admirable-but-far-from-good-enough contender. And the The Artist won last year. For the sake of our souls, capitulations of this sort must never happen again.

If I was a filmmaker worth interviewing and I was getting peppered by David Poland with those little bee-bee pellet questions….ping! ping! ping! ping! ping!…I think I would shut down pretty quickly and just turn hostile and snide and sullen. I hate those little ping-ping questions. You should just talk to people, I feel, and groove along and share observations about this or that, and then weave questions in as they come to mind. Look at Apatow’s face as he answers question after question. He’s being ping-pinged to death.

“The dance is, how can I do something very insightful but at the same time make it funny and make it amusing, and figure out what is the balance between comedy and drama?,” Apatow says about two-thirds of the way through. “How can I get as much drama [that is] required in the movie and still be allowed to be funny, and not have the humor step on the drama? You don’t want the comedy to be sweaty. You want it all to be organic. You don’t want it to be pushed. It has to really come out of these situations.

“But I am trying to make the movies really funny. And I do want the ability to stop and..y’know, take hunks of time to not be funny at all, and then you have to figure out how to get back to funny without being weird. There are people who have done this very well.Cameron Crowe, James. L Brooks and Neil Simon especially, in his plays. And i look to their work as examples of how to do it. They were always big inspirations for me.

Are you happy, satisfied…ping, ping, ping?

“I am generally pretty happy guy. As happy as a neurotic insecure hypervigilant man in an existential crisis can be at any moment. But yeah, I appreciate where I’m at…it’s been super fun.”

Being ping-pinged by Poland makes an interview feel “sweaty” and “pushed.”

Punch Drunk Love collaborators Paul Thomas Anderson and Adam Sandler took questions in front of an Aero crowd early this evening (Sunday). It was a nice friendly chit-chat. Sandler began things by interviewing Anderson, but soon they were both taking questions and it stayed that way for 40 minutes. Anderson didn’t say squat about The Master and wore a great-looking pair of shoes. He conveyed a certain ambivalence about the length of Magnolia (1999), saying he’d love to be able to cut 15 minutes out of it. The film screened after they finished.

Read more

Greetings, Gurus & Goldies! Please read this piece I tapped out a while ago (“Oscar Predictions Are Always Muddled“) about the real-deal, deep-down deliberative process of Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby handicappers, and please, if you can (or if you’re allowed by our editors), address the central observation of the piece, which I’ve excerpted as follows:

“Once a Guru or Gold Derby-ite has decided that this or that film or filmmaker deserves award-season favor, he/she thereafter concludes that the entertainment community (Academy, guilds) has (a) almost surely come to this judgment on their own or (b) eventually will come to this judgment once they shake off their shallow or misguided attachments to other films or creative contributions that the Guru or Gold Derby-ite doesn’t approve of.”

Thanks & I hope to hear back from most if not all of you. Please keep your responses short & succinct, if possible.

From Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone: “I would argue that we all expose our biases — some just more obviously than others. I would also argue that there are too many so-called ‘objective’ Oscar writers, which is of course a pretense of being objective, but they aren’t all that interesting to read. It’s kind of like the difference between Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow. But that’s just me.

“This isn’t an exact science, obviously. We read the race as we think it’s going to go. But for instance, Silver Linings Playbook is a movie that won the audience award at Toronto. Without that award I would not even be considering it in the Best Picture race because of my own personal feelings. But since I have to at least sort of be on target I include it knowing that (a) it won in Toronto (four films that have won there went on to win Best Picture for the past many decades, (b) it’s Harvey Weinstein and (c) Dave Karger and Steve Pond have it in the winning spot. Their names on it alone puts it in the race. Similarly, I take Life of Pi more seriously as a contender because Anne Thompson has it in the number spot. I loved Life of Pi, and hated (or mostly hated) Silver Linings. I can’t trust my own judgment on either of them. The point is, we all have our different ways of going about this.”

“Scott Feinberg puts Silver Linings at #4 because he is good at predicting Oscars. He is the most objective of all of the predictors, save perhaps Steve Pond. I personally love people like Anthony Breznican and Pete Howell who are courageous and predict off-the-wall things. I am personally interested in how little earthquakes can sometimes shakes things up. It’s a big world and the Oscars are very very small.”

From Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil: “Your suspicions are probably right — that Gold Derbyites or Gurus add a dash (or shovelful) of their own taste to their predictions, but, if so, they risk gagging on the gruel. At Gold Derby we keep strict scores and records and so your crazy predix can haunt you later. We’re SUPPOSED to be crystal-balling this derby, not campaigning for poor Bill Murray or Matthew McConaughey because they need the push. Still, when you look over some pundits’ predix, it’s obvious that that’s what they doing. If not, maybe they’re just Oscar idiots?”

From TheWrap‘s Steve Pond: “I’m not Nate Silver, with a foolproof way to accurately forecast this silly thing. (My thing is silly, not his.) And I’m pretty sure I’m not Karl Rove, forecasting based on what I want to happen. With limited, conflicting and biased information, and sometimes with my own likes and dislikes nudging in there, I try to figure out what 6,000 other people are going to do. As Clint Eastwood said and as Sasha used to say on her site, deserve’s got nothing to do with it.

“My top 5 currently has a film I love in the top spot, plus two I like very much and two I haven’t seen. I expect that one of those last two will actually win, but until I see them (and talk to voters about them) I’m not putting them at #1. The film I would most love to see win is down at #7, and it’s conceivable that the only reason it’s on the chart is that I want it to get a nomination. But I can also give you an argument about how it’s going to get in because of the way they count nominating ballots — and I think that argument carries far more weight than my personal feelings about the movie.

“As for the idea that a film at #4 is a film about which the Guru/Gold Derby-ers has significant reservations — well, I have Argo at #4, and it’s only that high because so many other people have it at #1. So I’ll plead guilty on that count.”

From Deadline‘s Pete Hammond: “Gurus and Derby are fun games but NO one should take them seriously , especially in the middle of November. On that subject I wish the campaign consultants, Oscar hopefuls and other readers would not hang to these little prediction pulpits as anything other than that, just a game. Any ranking I do is only based on buzz, Oscar pedigree of the movie, my sense of Oscar history, voter conversations, other award shows later on and a hunch, and certainly not movies I like or dislike or any film I am trying to help.”

From Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “What a waste of time to speculate and generalize about such a disparate group of people. We all have different goals and ways of approaching Oscar coverage. Some of us have print journalism backgrounds, others are edited and published in print publications, some are columnists, others post online with less oversight, etc. Some throw opinions around with abandon, others try to objectively report and analyze the race.

“I would argue that Sasha Stone and you, Jeff, wear your causes on your sleeve, championing your favorites, while others like Tom O’Neil create catchy headlines to draw readers to Oscar debates of varying relevance. Some people are chasing traffic, others are serving a perceived constituency, whether inside the industry beltway or film consumers.

“Why throw us all into the same basket? It’s foolish. Each has earned their own following. We all know which writers we respect and why.”

From Toronto Star critic Peter Howell: “Jeff, you are being wilfully obtuse. Either that, or you have missed your calling as a drafter of municipal bylaws or writer of assembly manuals for Scandinavian furniture.

“You know, or ought to know, that the drill for both Gurus o’ Gold and Gold Derby is based entirely on likelihood of Oscar success, NOT personal preference.

“At this stage of the game where not all of the films have been seen, we’re all proceeding on hunches and (hopefully) informed speculation. Once the guilds start weighing in, our predictions are very likely going to change, once again reflecting what we think will win over Academy voters, not what we personally prefer. This is what we’re supposed to do, at any rate.

“I have a suggestion. Why don’t you start your own panel, whereby participants rank only the films that they feel deserve Oscar attention? Make it based entirely on preference, rather than trying to pretend that the Gurus and Gold Derby are something that they’re not.”

More from Sasha Stone: “There are two ways of approaching Oscar predictions. You go by ‘wishful thinking’ or you go by reality. You have to combine several factors, audience satisfaction being just one of those.

“Silver Linings Playbook has less of a chance to win than these other films. That is just an opinion, of course, and you wait for the guilds to ring in to solidify it. Some years are easier to do this than others. Silver Linings Playbook is light in subject matter even compared to The Artist and The King’s Speech. Romantic comedies rarely win Best Picture. Can it win? Sure. It would be an unusual win. A more likely win is either Argo or Lincoln. The former has a newbie actor turned director who has just made his second $100 million movie. It is a crowdpleaser, though not perhaps of the Silver Linings type. And then Lincoln, Spielberg’s best film in years and currently the best reviewed of all the Oscar contenders.

“Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty will change the race possibly, though the later the entry the harder the chance to win. It is a guessing game. That’s all it is. Some are better at divorcing their personal feelings from that guessing game than others. But I’ll tell you this straight up: you are grossly, horribly misjudging Lincoln.”

Wells to Stone: I just heard from a friend who went to see Lincoln last night at the Arclight, and she said she found it slow and slogging, and that a few people walked out. You’re living in a Lincoln bubble. An industry-centric Lincoln bubble. Reality will filter in eventually. It’s a good film but forget the Best Picture Oscar.

MSN’s Glenn Kenny and I did another Oscar Poker today. Our first chat (Oscar Poker #97) posted on 10.14. We went over an hour so I broke the file into two installments — Kenny Poker #1 and Kenny Poker #2. Topics: (a) real-deal Oscar prognostication. (b) Lincoln, (c) Gen. David Patreaus, (d) whether or not Bob Furmanek can survive the hit to his 1.85 credibility occasioned by Criterion’s On The Waterfront multi-aspect-ratio decision, and (e) the Best Actor and Best Actress races. This is Oscar Poker #101, by the way.

A couple of days ago Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg asked why I had decided that his latest Gurus of Gold Best Picture predictions indicated that he is a Silver Linings Playbook naysayer “when I have it at #4? Just because I don’t think it’s going to win doesn’t mean I don’t hold it in a very high regard.” Fair enough. I re-phrased by stating that Feinberg is one of three “apparent modified frowners” (along with EW‘s Anthony Breznican and L.A. Times reporter Mark Olsen).

Every year I try and explain what Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby predictions are really about, and I guess it’s time to re-explain. One, they are never solely about predicting those movies or individual contributions (directing, performances, etc.) that a Guru or a Gold Derby person believes is likely to be nominated or to win based on an allegedly neutral assessment of what other people like. They are always partly if not significantly about what the Guru or Gold Derby-ite personally admires and would like to see nominated or win.

The process works as follows: (a) a Guru or Gold Derby-ite decides that he/she likes this or that film or performance or whatever, and then (b) takes the temperature of the room (i.e., licks his or her finger and raises it in the wind) and adapts himself or herself to an idea of how things are.

The adaptation is about this Guru or Gold Derby-ite, a film devotee who’s spent many years or decades in the movie journalist trenches, having decided that this or that film or filmmaker deserves award-season favor. He/she thereafter concludes that the entertainment community (Academy, guilds) has (a) almost surely come to this judgment on their own or (b) eventually will come to this judgment once they shake off their shallow or misguided attachments to other films or creative contributions that the Guru or Gold Derby-ite doesn’t approve of.

It follows then that if a Guru or Gold Derby-ite puts a presumed or potential Best Picture contender at #4, he/she is saying that while he/she respects or approves of this film to some degree, he/she isn’t really feeling it and, truth be told, is probably harboring some minor or modest reservations about the film.

To go by his Gurus of Gold predictions, Feinberg believes that Argo is the most likely Best Picture winner at this time, followed by Les Miserables at #2 and Lincoln at #3 and Silver Linings Playbook at #4. Let me explain something. Lincoln hasn’t a fucking chance in hell of winning the Best Picture Oscar — it’s too plodding, too slow, too reserved, too Kaminski-ized, too much of a dutiful procedural. But Feinberg personally loves it so he’s got it at #3. Argo is a very skillfully made and highly engrossing caper film, but it has really no subtext or undercurrent and there’s no way it wins — not unless Academy members decide to just give in out of laziness and vote for its chops or likableness. But at least part of Feinberg’s decision to rank it at #1, trust me, is because he personally likes and admires it and so does everyone else he’s been talking to and so he’s putting himself (his thoughts and experiences and whatever else) into the equation and putting Argo on top. He’s doing his job at an industry analyst, but he’s also listening to that little man in his chest.

In short, he is not Jimmy-the-Greek-ing his industry readings — he is Scott Feinberg-ing them.

Feelings about a film are finally inseparable from predictions about a film’s chances. Nobody is impartially looking at the field and saying “this is what my inner Jimmy-the-Greek is telling me about this film’s chances in the Best Picture race.” It is always to some extent about private personal preferences. Anybody who claims to be 100% impartial is a liar. Nobody ever predicts with genuine conviction that a film they truly hate will win the Best Picture Oscar, and nobody ever predicts with any emphasis or assurance that a film they truly love will fail to be nominated or will almost certainly lose. Feelings and private opinions are never not in the mix. Anyone who says they’ve completely removed their own preferences and persuasions from their deliberative attempts to predict award-winners is simply not being honest.

The one exception is when somebody like Pete Hammond says in the final stretch that he’s been talking to several Academy members and they really like or really don’t like this or that film. That I believe because it’s real reporting and not just pulling preferences out of your ass.

“You know, when I say impotent, I don’t mean merely limp. When I say impotent, I mean I’ve lost even my desire to work. That’s a hell of a lot more primal passion than sex. I’ve lost my reason for being…my purpose. The only thing I ever truly loved.” — George C. Scott‘s Herbert Bock in Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Hospital, which was efficiently but incidentally directed by Arthur Hiller.

Chayefksy bust outside the TV Academy in North Hollywood — Thursday, 11.8, 8:45 pm.