According to The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer, a jolting text message was sent last night to several writers from their agents.

It said that producers and writers “are truly on the one yard line…no deal on Thursday night but [almost certainly] by Sunday evening, or earlier. Down to two points.”

“The text also alluded to former WGA chief negotiator David Young: “Turns out the WGA negotiating committee called David and ran everything by him…last night at 5 pm they agreed to a deal. It was David who told them to go back and ask for those other two points and ‘squeeze their nuts the same way we did the agents’. That’s what happened and that’s who’s been behind the scenes this entire time, hence why it’s taking so long.”

HE friendo: “Due to the unreasonable duration of this strike, as well as considerable collateral damage heaped upon below the line personnel and outlying businesses, the WGA is trying to come back to its membership with a full victory lap on all issues.

“I’m hearing an extension of health benefits is also a sticking point for the AMPTP… they won’t relinquish [this in order] to discourage future strikes, but the WGA is being insistent.

“The AMPTP felt they’d closed a deal in principle on Thursday night, but the WGA came back with more caveats and it’s very convenient to attribute those to the hardliner not in the room: David Young. As I’ve said before, if Young had been the lead negotiator, he most likely would have advocated staying at the table, but the Guild was hellbent on this strike.”

…except there are two performances that push too hard.

I’m speaking of Monica Raymund (playing lead prosecutor Katherine Challee**) and Lance Reddick (as head judge Luther Blakely). You can spot the histrionics immediately, and I’m sorry but the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the late director William Freidkin.

Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Clarke and Jake Lacy respectively portray Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queen, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (defense attorney) and Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (defendant).

The 109-minute Showtime pic will debut on 10.6.23.

Dmytryk’s film ran 125 minutes. The court-martial climax lasted around…what, 25 or 30 minutes including the confrontational after-party?

…for nothin’ left to lose.

I just re-watched Memento for the first time since the fall of 2000….23 years ago. And I had the exact same reaction.

I didn’t give a flying fuck about trying to make sense of the confusing ass-backwards plot (if you want to call it a “plot”) and I will never care what actually happened for the rest of my life, but I was totally tickled by Guy Pearce‘s performance as the earnestly confused, 100%-behind-the-eightball Leonard Shelby.

I also loved Joe Pantoliano and Carrie Ann Moss‘s respective performances as Natalie and John Edward “Teddy” Gammell. And Mark Boone Junior‘s confession that his boss had told him to rent a second motel room to Pearce because he wouldn’t remember having rented the first one.

It’s the metaphor that matters — living totally in the moment (i.e., unburdened by memory or past associations of any kind) represents, if you can really let go, a kind of ecstatic cosmic freedom. Glorious and oddly hilarious.

Memento is the only Chris Nolan film that could be accused of having a sense of humor.

HE to Cameron Crowe: I know what Bernie Taupin used to look like. Longish hair, gentle features, sensitive eyes. Exactly like a sensitive lyricist would’ve looked in 1973.

Now he looks like someone else. Shaved head, pork pie hat, white goatee, leather jacket. Like a jazz musician from Marseilles, or the twin brother of French director Jacques Audiard. No resemblance at all to the yesteryear guy.

You and I look like older (but not too much older) versions of our youthful selves. Elton still looks like Elton, just older and heavier with artificially thick hair. Bernie looks like someone else entirely.

Snapped in ‘62: Gregory Peck was peaking with To Kill a Mockingbird. Cary Grant had peaked with North by Northwest three years earlier, but he was on the gradual downslide and would retire four years hence. The stout, moustachioed, Ugly American-ized Marlon Brando had peaked in the early to mid ‘50s but would resurge in the early ‘70s. Rock Hudson was peaking with Lover Come Back but…okay, he had Seconds to look forward to, I suppose.

Montclair’s tattoo-and-taxidermy store is called Unlucky Rabbit (123 Walnut Street). The red-frame tints are my own.

Us Weekly ‘s Yana Grebenyuk is reporting that Pete Davidson (aka “Mr. Bone”) is doing the old in-out-in-out with Madelyn Cline. The 25-year-old Cline costarred in Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion, but I honestly don’t remember who she played or what she did or anything. Okay, I just looked it up — she played Whiskey, Dave Bautista’s girlfriend.

Baseball hats!

Yesterday N.Y. Times industry reporter Kyle Buchanan declared that The Pot-Au-Feu (aka The Taste of Things) is “absolutely” competitive above and beyond the Best Int’l Feature category. He believes this because Tran Anh Hung’s French culinary romance is “incredibly Academy friendly.”

Most of us know what “Academy-friendly” means…a film that feels confident and well-crafted in a classic, well-settled sense…one that delivers emotional comfort by way of a well-threaded conveyance of commonly held truths and values…a film that resides within familiar boundaries and doesn’t push the envelope too much. In short, a film that appeals to over-45 sophistos.

But of course, there’s another kind of Academy-friendly film these days — one that appeals to the under-45 crowd by placing significant value upon identity politics (i.e., celebrating female, LGBTQ and non-white actors and filmmakers) above everything else…a film that caters to the tastes and views of the New Academy Kidz.

So which of the currently hot contenders and performances are traditionally Academy friendly vs. NAK-friendly? And which among these exude an intimidation factor — a film or performance that may be very good on a quality-level, but which voters will feel obliged to support regardless because they don’t want anyone to think they lack of a social conscience or, God forbid, may be harboring a certain undercurrent of racism.

Abbreviation-wise, the three categories are (a) AF, (b) NAK and (c) IF (intimidation factor). HE has also created a fourth category — FI or forget it.

HE director-screenwriter friendo: “There’s some movement on a rewards-based residual for streaming, based on viewing levels, but there’s no word on whether the minimum staffing as been resolved. It will probably get some caveat — that’s the showrunner’s call in some fashion. It’s telling that Amazon is adding advertising to Prime, commercials to its movies and originals, with an additional charge for an ad-free tier. This is a major concession. Jennifer Salke doesn’t read scripts and is inept. Advertising is easier to maintain and monetize, also meaning unions want that revenue as ads fuel profit margins. As I’ve long said, ad-supported streaming is the new basic cable.”

“I think the Vietnam War drove a stake right through the heart of America. [And] we’ve never really moved [beyond] that…we never recovered.”

I’ve been to Vietnam three times, and would love to return. I’ve even flirted with the idea or moving there permanently. There’s never been the slightest doubt in my mind that Johnson and Nixon administration policy makers brought immense horror and unimaginable slaughter to that beautiful, once-divided country, but during my three visits I’ve never felt anything but the most tranquil vibes. Nobody has ever given me so much as a hint of a dirty look because of my heritage. The natives who fought against the Americans are, of course, in their 70s and 80s or passed on. The 45-and-unders weren’t even born during the hostilities. Nobody wants to carry that war around — we all want to live in the present.

Which is why I didn’t want to watch Ken Burns and Lynn Novick‘s The Vietnam War, a ten-part, $30 million, 17-hour doc about that tragic conflict, when it premiered on PBS almost exactly six years ago (9.17.17).

But last night…I don’t know why exactly, but I felt suddenly drawn to this miniseries. So I watched three episodes — “The River Styx” (January 1964 – December 1965), “This Is What We Do” (July 1967 – December 1967) and “Things Fall Apart” (January 1968 – July 1968). Five hours without a break. This morning I watched episodes #7, #9 and #10.

I was fascinated, fascinated, horrified, saddened, at times close to tears. What a deluge of death, delusion and horror. Immeasurable and irredeemable. The second most divisive war in U.S. history. And I couldn’t turn it off. Had to see it through. Glad I did.