HE not yet having seen The Whale is entirely on A24 and their reps, who are totally playing “hide the ball” from certain viewers. The idea of seeing it in the city this weekend is an option, of course, but a conversation I had this morning with three friends gave me pause:

Friendo #1: “The Whale is very bad.”
Friendo #2: “It’s a tough sit, but I was sobbing at the very end.”
Friendo #1: “The Whale begins with Brendan Fraser jerking off to gay porn.”
HE: “Is that how the play version began?”
Friendo #1: “I didn’t see the play.”
HE: “Jerking off? Please tell me [Darren] Aronofsky‘s camera shows restraint.”
Friendo #1: “And then somebody walks in on him.”
Friendo #3: “I missed the first minute at my Toronto screening. I got in when he was naked in the shower. I didn’t notice any jerking off. Maybe I missed it.”
Friendo #1: “I don’t remember a shower scene, but the first scene definitely shows him jerking off, bro,”
Friendo #4: “Yes! That’s how it starts!”
HE: “Aaaggghh.”

I have always been an ardent fan of Mr. Aronofsky’s, but saying that I am genuinely fearful of seeing The Whale is putting it mildly.

Performance capture shooting on Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar 3 began simultaneously in late September of 2017 — five and one-third years ago. Live-action photography “with the principal performance capture cast” began in early ’18 and ended in November ’18 — just over four years ago. Then came live-action filming in New Zealand, beginning in the spring of ’19 and concluding on 11.29.19. On 3.17.20 shooting was postponed due to Covid; it resumed on 6.16.20 and ended sometime during September ’20. The film was really, finally, no-foolin’ completed on 11.23.22.

I’m resigned to Avatar 3 (it’s done either way) but who really wants to see Avatar 4?

Cameron on Avatar 4: “I can’t tell you the details, but all I can say is that when I turned in the script for [The Way of Water], the studio gave me three pages of notes. And when I turned in the script for 3, they gave me a page of notes, so I was getting better. When I turned in the script for 4, the studio executive, the creative executive over the films, wrote me an email that said, ‘Holy fuck.’ And I said, ‘Well, where are the notes?’ And she said, ‘Those are the notes.’ Because it kind of goes nuts in a good way, right?”

The centrist Arizona Senator, 46, is looking to avoid being primaried in ’24 by a more staunchly leftist candidate. If she’s no longer in the Democratic Party (and let’s restate the obvious, which is that she’s never been an actual Democrat) she can’t be primaried — simple.

A Joe Manchin-like obstructionist and attention whore, Sinema believes that if she swings purple it will save her from a tough re-election bid. “Arizona values”…bullshit. She’s trying to sell leaving the Democratic camp as a matter of principle (i.e, more fruitful collaborations with both sides of aisle) and is fooling no one — this is clearly about Sinema trying to improve the chances of her own survival

Would the AMC Lincoln Square management have the arrogance to show trailers and whatnot to viewers of next Friday’s 1:30 am show of Avatar 2: The Way of Water? Even if they start exactly on time (which theatres never do) the film would end at 4:40 am. If I emerged from this Upper West Side plex at that hour I would head over to an all-night diner and order breakfast (scrambled eggs, home fries, wheat toast, bowl of fruit). And then I’d head home and pop an Ambien.

Sasha Stone and I have leapt back into the podcast fray — Oscar Poker, Part Deux. A weekly thing with occasional extras and detours. But on Substack this time. The usual strategy applies — free at first and then paywalled. And not just anti-woke rants and whatnot.

We spoke for an hour earlier today — (a) Avatar 2 vs. other Best Picture contenders that haven’t much chance. (b) how many more years will the woke plague endure?, (c) kicking around Nat’l Board of Review winners (what happened to Tar?), (d) this weekend’s White Lotus finale, etc.

Please join us in daring to give a shit. How can Sasha and I be a little different? Is there anyone in Media/Journo/Hunger Land who isn’t podcasting?

From Ann Hornaday‘s Washington post review, posted on 12.7.22: “Empire of Light is a soothingly beautiful film — visually pleasing, emotionally rich, and authentically touching when it comes to Hilary and Stephen’s” — Olivia Colman and Michael Ward‘s — “evolving relationship. A shot early in the film, in which Hilary tends to the box office alone, exudes a Hopper-esque tone of elegiac solitude. With this bittersweet gem of a film, Mendes has given spectators a modest but profound gift: the reminder that, at their best, movies offer us not just a refuge, but a way to join the thrum of life, in all its pain and ungovernable glory.”

From Peter Bradshaw’s 9.12.22 Guardian review, filed from the Toronto Film Festival: “In his first solo outing as a writer as well as director, Sam Mendes has [made] an engrossing, poignantly observed and beautifully acted drama about love, life and the fragile art of moviegoing. And he does it with all the more urgency now that cinema is under threat again after Covid. This film takes something from the tenderness and sadness of movies like The Smallest Show on Earth or Cinema Paradiso or The Last Picture Show. But Mendes brings his own distinctive sense of personal drama, his adroit handling of actors and his sweet tooth for catchy jukebox slams, a style I remember from his American Beauty. Here we get invigorating blasts of Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ and Joni Mitchell’s ‘You Turn Me on I’m a Radio.'”

From Leah Greenblatt‘s Entertainment Weekly review, posted on 9.4.22: “Olivia Colman, her eyes darting between hope and devastation, is so lit-up and specific (and funny, a quality that doesn’t seem to get mentioned enough) that she lifts nearly every scene in Empire of Light. And Michael Ward, a 24-year-old newcomer who looks a bit like Sidney Poitier at that age, is remarkably warm and grounded in a part that could easily have been swallowed by the Oscar winner playing across from him. The legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins — who last won an Oscar for Mendes’ 1917 — gives their beach trips and late-night bus rides a suffused glow. Even in a movie as modest as Empire, Mendes fills out the corners of his story with carefully observed details and eccentric characters, weaving them into a sort of sweetly self-contained whole.”

From Richard Lawson‘s Vanity Fair review, posted on 9.14.22: “[This is] an achingly lovely film — the best Mendes has yet made…humane and nourishing, a picture of rare thoughtfulness and decency.”