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Chris Rock knows that his forthcoming Martin Luther King biopic, reported yesterday by Deadline‘s Mike Fleming, can’t be hagiography.

This partly means that it has to get into MLK’s infidelities with white women, which the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, armed with with secretly recorded motel-room tapes, tried to blackmail King with.

Years ago Oliver Stone and Paul Greengrass wanted to explore this aspect in their own respective King biopics, but both projects stalled. (Greengrass’s was titled Memphis.) On 1.17.14 Fleming reported the skinny.

If Rock paints a saintly, over-reverent portrait he’ll put everyone to sleep. Surely he understands this.

The fact that Rock’s untitled film is based upon Jonathan Eig’s “King: A Life” suggests that Rock will be taking at least something of a warts-and-all approach.

The book has been described by its publisher as an “intimate portrayal of King as a courageous but emotionally troubled individual who demanded peaceful protest while grappling with his own frailties and a government that hunted him.”

An 8.14.23 Amazon review by Bill Emblom states that Eig’s book “covers the adulteries that King was involved in…[the ones] that Hoover wanted to ensnare him in through bugging his phone or room at the Willard Hotel in Washington.”

Football star and actor Jim Brown was into white women also. Was this due to Brown being a somewhat frail, emotionally troubled guy, or was it because his tastes simply led him in this direction? Remember that Spartacus scene in which Laurence Olivier‘s Marcus Licinius Crassus says he enjoys both snails and oysters? Were Crassus’s appetites an outgrowth of his being an emotionally unstable fellow? As J.J. Hunsecker once said, “Are we kids or what?”

Steven Spielberg will executive produce via his Amblin with Kristie Macosko Krieger producing.

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Five and two thirds years ago (1.14.18) I posted a piece called “New Oscar Bait Hinges on Tribal Identity,” in which I attempted to gauge the pulse of Hollywood’s award-season wokesters.

Stand-out comment #1 was from filmklassik: “A bit cheeky to say ‘never ever again’ (because who the hell knows?), but yeah, in this particular cultural moment it is all about Tribal Identity. And what’s disturbing is, we have a whole generation now for whom Tribal representation is, to use one critic’s word, numinous. The under-40 crowd has invested Race, Gender and Sexuality with a kind of cosmic significance. It doesn’t mean a lot to them — it means everything to them. Indeed, much of their conversation and writing seems to always come back to it.”

Stand-out comment #2 was written by Dan Gaertner: “Will Jeff Wells, Sasha Stone and Tom O’Neil be around in 5 or 10 years? To the new millennial film/award race culture, they’re dinosaurs from another dimension. They don’t approach film, art, or awards in the same fashion. They are tuned into a completely different frequency.”

HE to Gaertner [10.6.23]: Sasha and I are definitely still around, and to our way of thinking we aren’t dinosaurs but sensible, feet-on-the-ground realists and straight talkers. Tom O’Neil used to be a tough nut, but he joined the wokester cabal eight years ago when Jay Penske purchased Gold Derby. O’Neil became a Gold Derby consensus manager more than an occasional opinion guy.

Nearly seven years ago I noted something about Lily Gladstone‘s emoting as Jamie, a lovestruck ranch hand, in Kelly Reichardt‘s Certain Women. I noted that Gladstone’s quiet performance, which won her a Best Supporting Actress prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), “registers in a demure, low-key way,” but is “more or less a one-note thing, expressive but largely non-verbal.”

Does that description remind anyone out there of a more recent Gladstone performance?

[“Unrequited Love is The Only Kind That Lasts,” posted on 12.6.16] For one brief moment yesterday, Lily Gladstone‘s performance as a smitten horse stable worker in Kelly Reichardt‘s Certain Women became a thing. Okay, it’s still a thing today. Perhaps her pop-through will gather a certain esteem between now and the announcement of Oscar nominations in January. Gladstone’s performance certainly registers in a distinct, low-key way, and it’s at least conceivable that Academy and guild members will take notice and vote for her. If, that is, they can get through Reichardt’s film, which has struck some (myself included) as a “watching paint dry” experience.

I didn’t need reminding but I’ll bet a lot of people had never given Gladstone’s turn a second thought until the Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave her their Best Supporting Actress award — a decision that seemed questionable if not eccentric given that it necessitated a blow-off of Michelle Williams‘ world-class emoting in Manchester By The Sea.

I certainly realized that Gladstone was a big stand-out element after watching Reichardt’s film at last January’s Sundance Film Festival. But her performance is more or less a one-note thing, expressive but largely non-verbal — “I’m a Belfry-residing stable hand who’s sad and isolated but deeply intoxicated with the idea of having Kristen Stewart as my lover, and I can’t wait for her next biweekly law class so I can sit there and ignore her teaching so I can just sink into her beauty.”

Gladstone freaks when Stewart’s character decides to stop commuting from Livingston to teach the Belfry class, and so she drives all the way to Livingston herself to tell Stewart that she’s got it bad for her — a confession that Stewart obviously doesn’t want to hear, much less deal with.

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Who would be ideally cast as Lana Turner, Johnny Stompanato, Cheryl Crane and Jerry Giesler?

Do Millennials and Zoomers have the faintest clue about any of the players in this sordid, 60-year-old saga? I doubt it.

Terrence Winter (Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street) has presumably written the screenplay, and would produce.

…Nikki Haley would be the Republican frontrunner, and you know what would almost certainly happen in a one-on-one against President Joe Biden? Haley would win.

[Originally posted on 4.6.20]

“Height is to men what breasts are to women,” an HE commenter said three years ago. To some extent yes, but not necessarily. Or not entirely. Tall or tallish guys enjoy an obvious pecking-order advantage, but towering fellows (6’5″ and up) can seem gangly and galumphy. Or even a tad freakish.

The bottom line is that broad shoulders are the real bodacious ta-tas in the XY realm. I came into broad shoulders when I turned 13 or 14, and believe me I know about the benefits. Ask anyone who’s been lucky by way of genetic inheritance. If you have broad-ass shoulders, you’re halfway home in terms of general estimates, job interviews, receptive women, etc.

By the same token narrow, rounded shoulders are generally not a good look. There’s never been a rounded, narrow-shouldered guy in the history of the planet who’s ever said “man, I am so lucky that I don’t have broad shoulders!” I see a fellow with narrow shoulders and I think “well, okay, I’m sorry…he’s obviously had his share of struggles.”

From “Physical Dominance vs. Psychological Security,” posted on 6.19.19: “I was in love with Alan Ladd and I went to a party at Romanoff’s. I’m 5’7” but in heels I’m 5’9” or 5’10”. They said, ‘Shirley, your favorite actor is here…come and meet him.’ I turned around. He was there and I went, ‘Oh hi, Mr. Ladd.’ He was about 4’9” and all my admiration disappeared literally in the dust.” — attributed to Shirley MacLaine but who knows?

Ladd was notoriously insecure about his height, which (to go by most accounts) was somewhere between 5’5″ and 5’6″. For his entire professional life this psychological albatross was draped around the poor guy’s neck. On the other hand James Cagney was roughly the same size (5’6″ or thereabouts) and he never squawked about it. He spent his whole adult life playing tough urban guys who slapped, punched or psychologically dominated other fellows, and nobody ever said “Jeez, he’s kinda short.” They said, “Shit, here comes Cagney…watch out.”

In short (pun), a good part of life is about owning the right kind of psychology — about feeling secure and confident about who you are and what you look like. It’s about planting your feet, looking the other guy in the eye and saying “take or or leave it but this is me…got a problem with that? Because I don’t.”

On the other hand I understand the Shirley MacLaine mindset. I’ve been a tall, slender, broad-shouldered guy with fairly good hair (augmented by Prague-installed follicles when I got older) all my life. I’ve been that guy since I was 11 or 12, and by the time I hit my early 20s I was feeling pretty cool about it. I know my looks helped in my hound-dog days in the ’70s and early ’80s.

But I’ve always had this unfair or prejudiced attitude about short guys, and I mean going back to when I was nine or ten. I’ve always had this belief that guys need to be 5’8″ or taller, and if they’re not…well, not a problem for me personally but they will have a certain gauntlet to contend with on a daily basis. Life is unfair and often cruel.

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[Originally posted on 12.31.22] She likes strong, dominant men and you, ya putz…you’re too smooth and mushy to qualify. Plus she’s sexier and better looking than you. It would be one thing if you were gym-toned with big broad shoulders to match her large breasts, but you’re not. Plus she’s much more powerful than you (economically, fame-wise) and she’ll soon be punishing you for these shortcomings — trust me. Plus she’ll eventually humiliate you when a more suitable lover comes along. And you’ll never really recover from this. You’ve fucked yourself. If only you’d stayed with Debbie Reynolds…

Here comes the snark and the cruelty…

(1) “I’ve never seen a picture of Taylor in a bikini before. Recall reading somewhere that she was self-conscious about her legs. Clearly her standards were higher than mine. Eddie Fisher ‘knew’ Debbie, Liz and Connie Stevens. So despite his rep as a feckless wastrel, I don’t feel I’m in a position to badmouth him.”

(2) “Eddie was a nice Jewish boy from Philly who got to bang Liz Taylor. Seems like nothing to sneer at.”

(3) “I never understood what any women saw in him, much less Liz. Big schlong, maybe? I’m always amused, when watching Laugh-In reruns, how many Eddie Fisher jokes they did.”

(4) “If you ever get a chance to see the Bright Lights documentary you’ll get a chance to see just how bad things got for Eddie. Even though he abandoned Carrie and Todd (and obviously Debbie) Carrie continued to care for him and in one final bit of footage…well, I’ve never seen a live human being look as dead as Eddie did then. Huge payback from a disgruntled fate…or something.”

(5) “Yeah, I don’t know much about the guy, but I did read that his life pretty much unraveled after he took up with Liz.”

(6) “If Satan came to me and said I can be married to Elizabeth Taylor in her 20s but only for three years, my reply would be, ‘Where do I sign?’

(7) “Not a single reference to camel toe. I’m beginning to lose faith.”

(8) “She was a shrill drunkard who liked to fight. Best to walk away.”

(9) “None of Taylor’s husbands were much to look at. Richard Burton had nice eyes but his face looked like the surface of the moon and his physique was worse than Fisher’s.”

Early in the evening of Tuesday, 10.3, I chatted with respected Hollywood historian and biographer Joseph McBride about Billy Wilder‘s Stalag 17 (’53), and more particularly about Joe’s commentary track for Kino Lorber’s upcoming 4K Bluray version (out 11.21).

I haven’t seen the 4K Stalag 17 but…well, let’s wait for it. I own an older Bluray version which I’m happy with, but I’m always hot to own the latest upgrade.

McBride’s book on Wilder (“Dancing on the Edge“) came out in September ’21. He’s also written authoritative studies on John Ford, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, the Coen Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, etc.

Here’s part one of our discussion (roughly 29 minutes)…

And here’s part two (around 27 minutes):

It’s very easy to talk to Joe about Hollywood histories and backstories and just kick it all around. It was generally a fine, wide-ranging discussion, not just about the genesis and the making of Stalag 17 but about William Holden, Wilder, John Ford…everyone and everything. McBride can chew this kind of fat for hours on end without breaking stride.

Please forgive the occasional intrusions of purring and meowing Katya.

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…sometime in the fall of ’97, or so I recall. 26 years ago, and you know what? I could feel the lingering spirits of Joseph Cotten, Theresa Wright, Hume Cronyn, MacDonald Carey and Thornton Wilder.

No daily movie columnist has visited more famous movie houses than yours truly. Okay, I don’t know that for a fact but probably. The John Robie / To Catch A Thief house in St. Jeannet. The Jack Woltz horse’s head house in Beverly Hills. Phyllis Dietrichson’s Double Indemnity house. Plus the private abodes of Robert Evans, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty…all the classic-era hotshots. Not to mention North by Northwest‘s cropduster junction. I could tell stories all night long.

The Victoria-styled Shadow home is at 904 McDonald Ave in Santa Rosa, only a couple of blocks from the main commercial drag (4th Street).

Julia Ormond, the 58 year-old English actress who peaked between the early and mid ’90s (Young Catherine, Stalin, Legends of the Fall, First Knight, Sabrina, Smilla’s Sense of Snow), is suing Harvey Weinstein, CAA, The Walt Disney Company and Miramax over a sexual assault that allegedly happened in 1995.

Harvey has been fair legal game since numerous sexual allegations and charges were made against him in ’17. I realize that it’s unusual for accusers like Ormond to go after alleged enablers, but why did Ormond want until late ’23?

Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister: “In a lawsuit filed Wednesday morning in New York Supreme Court, Ormond claims that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1995 after a business dinner when he lured her into giving him a massage, climbed on top of her, masturbated and forced her to give him oral sex.

“After the alleged assault, Ormond informed her agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane what had happened with Weinstein, according to the lawsuit, which states that the CAA agents cautioned her from speaking out and did not protect her. (Lourd and Huvane, who today are co-chairmen of CAA, are not named as defendants, but are frequently mentioned throughout Ormond’s suit as her representatives at the time.)

“Ormond is suing CAA for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.”