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CBS Sunday Morning, a news-driven, topical-events show, is basically “performance television” for older people who aren’t that hip. The producers require their interviewers (or maybe the interviewers do this on their own volition) to pretend like they’re yeehaws from rural Arkansas, although without the yokel accents and wearing uptown apparel.

Watch the doofusy Jim Axelrod as Carrie Coon tells him that she’s become a hot Broadway ticket since costarring in The White Lotus. He leans forward and squints his eyes in skepticism if not astonishment, his voice adopting a “no, wait a minute…really?” quality.

Yes, Coon patiently explains. Her White Lotus performance led to her landing a starring role in Tracy Letts‘ Bug**, now playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club The wealthy suburban yahoos who know her are more eager to buy tickets for their day-long or weekend excursions into midtown Manhattan, etc.

HE to Axelrod: Has the “recognizable face and name upping ticket sales” equation ever not been true in the Broadway realm? Have you been living under a rock? No, you’re just pretending that you have.

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As it went last year, HE’s 2026 GoFundMe is a double-header. I’m trying to raise enough scratch to attend both the 2026 Cannes Film Festival (Monday, 5.11 thru Saturday, 5.23) and 2026 Venice Film Festival (Wednesday, 9.2 to Sunday, 9.12), and now HE’s 2026 GoFundMe page is up and rolling.

Tuesday, 1.13, 2:15 pm: Between public GoFundMe and private Venmo, the Cannes/Venice campaign has raised $3200 after four days…certainly a good start. That’s about 42% of the target goal ($8K), but the pace of accumulation feels…well, a bit sluggish.

True, there’s plenty of time to get there — 2026 has barely begun — but I’d ideally like to see this campaign come to a happy conclusion by, say, this time next month, or certainly by March 1st.  (Wouldn’t you if you were in my position?)

I’m looking to raise $4K per festival or $8K total. Rent, air fare, train fare, low-rent meals, cappucinos, baguettes, etc.

Please remember that I’m not “begging” for dough, as a few haters have claimed. I’m simply attempting to attract donations in a different, far less draining manner than the monthly method used by other webzines and columnists. I’m just asking for a one-off gimmee of $25 or $50 and whatever feels right. HE stopped paywalling this site a couple of years ago, and so the regularly refreshed content is entirely free and wide open, and this — this! — is the only pitch I’m making.

I’ve shed buckets of spiritual blood for this site over the last 21 and 1/2 years. Buckets.

Again, $25 or $50…. whatever’s affordable. Oh, and if you’d rather keep your donation anonymous, please send it to my Venmo account — @gruver56.

Special offer to haters: No name-brand Hollywood columnist has had more darts, steak knives and horse manure flung in his/her direction over the last eight years or so. (Except for poor Sasha Stone — she’s been taking it in the neck since the summer of ’24.)  I’ve been routinely shot with thousands upon thousands of sharp arrows by woke fanatics, and boy, do they lay it on! If there are such places as heaven and hell, the HE haters, trust me, will be roasting on a spit in the immediate wake of their demise. This, therefore, is their chance to free their souls. One decent donation and I, for what it’s worth, will offer a measure of charitable forgiveness in the usual…uhm, saintly, turn-the-other-cheek way. The haters may roast anyway because of other (many?) transgressions, but HE-wise their consciences will be clean.

Given the hungry, grasping greed of the current Cannes apartment- and condo-owners and the difficulty of finding a decent, affordable place in both cities (the cramped Cote d’Azur shoebox that Jordan Ruimy and I shared last year was deplorable, and it cost over $2300), I’m starting HE’s GoFundMe campaign earlier than usual. May the early bird catch the worm!

The Rolling Stones performed for six nights straight at Madison Square Garden in mid-June 1975, and Hollywood Elsewhere was there for one of the shows with then-girlfriend Sophie Black. Good seats too, snagged by Sophie’s Broadway producer dad, David Black.

I’ve never heard this recording of the 6.22.75 MSG show, but I remember the wowser beginning — a star-like, flower-petal stage unfolding as Aaron Copeland‘s “Fanfare for the Common Man” blared through and filled the house…cheers, howls, sonic excitement. And then the opening chords of “Honky Tonk Women”…

If you listen closely to the studio recording version of “Honky Tonk Women”, the Stones sing the chorus as follows: “It’s a haung-ahhauhuhhaung, it’s okay!…gimme gimme gimme the honky tonk blues.”

At MSG on 6.22.75, the Stones sang “it’s them hawng-kay-TONK, hawng-kay-TONK wimmin’…gimme gimme gimme the honky tonk blues.”

And I don’t want to hear any fucking bullshit about this. The words “honky tonk women” simply aren’t sung on the recording.

1. Bugonia (nominees: Ed Guiney, p.g.a. & Andrew Lowe, p.g.a., Yorgos Lanthimos, p.g.a., Emma Stone, p.g.a., Lars Knudsen, p.g.a.) — Not a serious nomination…not a chance. Marginal Lanthimos.

2. F1 — Ceremonial nomination. Totally respectable film for what it is, but included just to round out the pack.

3. Frankenstein (nominees: Guillermo Del Toro, p.g.a., J. Miles Dale, p.g.a., Scott Stuber, p.g.a.) — not a serious nomination, and GDT knows this.

4. Hamnet (nominees: Liza Marshall, p.g.a., Pippa Harris, p.g.a., Sam Mendes, p.g.a., Steven Spielberg, p.g.a., Nicolas Gonda, p.g.a.) — A serious, totally respectable nomination.

5. Marty Supreme — Totally serious, high-octane nomination…world-class all the way.

6. One Battle After Another (nominees: Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson — Obviously a favored winner, not because it’s better than Marty Supreme but because all the industry whores are supporting it for political metaphor (anti-Trump) reasons, and because of the safety-in-numbers factor.

7. Sentimental Value (nominees: Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar) — Totally serious, high-octane nomination…world-class all the way.

8. Sinners (nominees: Ryan Coogler, p.g.a., Zinzi Coogler, p.g.a., Sev Ohanian, p.g.a.) — A schlocky exploitation film secures an identity tribute nomination…terrific. Politically meaningful as far as it goes, but hasn’t a prayer of winning.

9. Train Dreams (nominees: Marissa McMahon, p.g.a., Teddy Schwarzman, p.g.a., William Janowitz, p.g.a., Ashley Schlaifer, p.g.a., Michael Heimler, p.g.a.) — Not a serious nominee. Basically an attaboy, pat on the back.

10. Weapons (nominees: Zach Cregger, p.g.a., Miri Yoon, p.g.a.) — Totally serious, high-octane nomination…world-class all the way.

Shame, shame, shame upon the Directors Guild noms for blowing off Sentimental Value‘s Joachim Trier.

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Coogler, Sinners (Warner Bros.)…get outta here.
Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein (Netflix)…WHAT??
Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme (A24)…fine.
Chloé Zhao, Hamnet (Focus Features)

Paul Newman never rode or ran or hung out with these L.A. buckaroos…he just didn’t. Okay, maybe when he was shooting Jack Smight‘s locally-shot Harper (’66).

And why would 28 year-old Ali McGraw have been at this Hollywood hills soiree? Born in Pound Ridge and educated at Wesleyan, she was strictly an East Coast gal. Her first significant costarring role in Goodbye Columbus (’69) was just starting to shoot so no one really knew her, and Love Story filmed a year later.

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Reprehensibly racist Minneapolis blah-blah says she “feels wrong” for paying her respects to Renee Nicole Good because she’s a “white woman who’s privileged.” Women like this are certainly one reason why Trump got elected in ’24.

Leftist woman says she “feels wrong” for paying her respects to Renee Nicole Good because she’s a “white woman who’s privileged.”

“White tears are not helpful.”pic.twitter.com/ReJat6GgJU

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 9, 2026

Wiki excerpt: “The day after Good’s shooting, the Minnesota Star Tribune identified the ICE agent involved as Jonathan Ross. His name has not been publicly released by federal authorities, but has been identified through court records.

“The Star Tribune reported that court documents show Ross, an Iraq War veteran, has been with ICE since at least 2016 and had previously been dragged and injured by a vehicle in a separate incident in 2025 in which he smashed the rear window of the vehicle and reached in to try to unlock the door. In a White House press briefing, Vice President J.D. Vance stated that the shooter had previously been injured in a traffic stop six months prior to this incident, corroborating the Star Tribune‘s reporting.”

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I don’t fault Tim Allen for being an emotionally liberal arch-conservative, and he definitely deserves a round of applause for being 30 years sober. But fuck his kneejerk dismissal of Gavin Newsom, the only tough, blunt-spoken Trump pushbacker with a pair of steel cojones….doesn’t back off.

Allen: “I drank when I was eleven years old. All my buddies were vomiting and getting in trouble with their parents, but it never affected me [too much]. I never said no to a drink.”

Maher: “The more you’ve had, the more you forget how much you’ve had.”

HE-posted in 2019 and again in’20…

Speaking as one who happily sipped wine for decades before realizing it was no longer an option, I can say without question that alcohol really did seem to bring a certain glow and ebullience to my life.

I used to think that civilized drinking was essential to a certain kind of joie de vivre. My European visits in the late ’90s and aughts were, I sincerely believed, immeasurably enhanced by the right kind of vino, especially when the bar or restaurant was lighted subtly and softly.

I was never a pathetic, falling-down drunk, although I experienced some truly insane and hilarious episodes when I was buzzed. Especially in my 20s and early 30s. Like falling asleep at a party in Marin County in ’83, and waking up at 6:30 am in a sitting position in a large high-back chair with a half-full glass of Jack Daniels and ginger ale in my right hand.

I was almost never shit-faced (or at least not after high school), but at the same time my motto was “life would be unbearable without alcohol.” I was just having a good time. Breaking no laws, spilling nothing, getting away with it. I’m especially glad that I got to carouse around Italy three or four times before I renounced. Drinking good wine in a sensible way can be wonderful.

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Million Dollar Movie and CBS’s The Late Show** had totally schooled me on Hollywood’s 1930s and ‘40s hotshots. I knew who Jimmy Cagney was…Pat O’Brien, Errol Flynn, King Kong, Godzilla, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy…I knew them all cold.

And this kid doesn’t know Brad Pitt?

Wait…should I trust a woman who lacks the discipline to properly structure a sentence? “If anyone needs me I’ll be slurping apple sauce at the senior center”…easy.

** My paternal grandparents let me watch The Late Show (11:30 pm) when I stayed with them on weekends. No “off to bed” restrictions. Stay up as late as you want. Plenty of cake, cookies and ice cream.

I would listen to them (Jim and Evelyn) bicker all the time. Pop–Pop Wells refrain: “Jeffrey, don’t ever get married.”

Try to imagine a “step-back and ease up” essay like this one, written and spoken by CBS’s Tony Dokoupil, being shared on CNN or MSNOW…

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Sensible centrists are occasionally allowed to quote from a National Review article. Like this one: “Mamdani’s Commie Housing Official Is a Lunatic,” posted on 1.7.25.

“If Cea Weaver did not exist, one would be hard-pressed to invent her. Weaver seems to have been designed in a laboratory to work in the Ideological Compliance Department of the East German Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltung, but, as the result of an unfortunate accident with a time machine, ended up overseeing housing policy in the most important city in the United States.

“Weaver believes that ‘rent control is a perfect solution to everything’ — not least because it is an ‘effective way to shrink the value of real estate.’ She considers that ‘private property is a weapon of white supremacy,’ she believes that ‘home ownership is racist,’ and she holds that the highest aim of government ought to be to ‘impoverish the *white* middle class.’

“And they say that ambition is dead in America!”

“In Weaver’s estimation, the United States ‘built wealth for white people through genocide, slavery, stolen land & labor,’ ‘white supremacy built the north and the south,’ and the most reasonable response to these presuppositions is to ‘endorse a no–more–white–men in office platform.’

I’m sorry but the NR‘s closing paragraph is very well-phrased:

“Unwilling to limit her racism to the temporal realm, Weaver also enjoys fantasizing about her enemies roasting in the afterlife. ‘I wish I believed in God,’ she declared in 2019, ‘so I could believe that all men who take credit for women’s work and all white men who take credit for the work of women of color would one day burn.’

“Perhaps this was what Mayor Mamdani was referring to when, in his inaugural address, he promised ‘the warmth of collectivism‘?”

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