David Poland has written a frank recollection of the long, brutal, bruising relationship he had for years with the late Nikki Finke. It strikes me as one of the best columns he’s ever written.

And she wasn’t. But she was tough and tenacious, and she certainly left her journalistic mark in the ‘90s and aughts. Give the devil her due.

There’s more to the trials and tribulations of life than just being liked or disliked. Most people would dispute this, and I wouldn’t argue with them. Human warmth (friends, family, strangers) is worth its weight in gold, but a bit more credit is arguably due to to gifted hustlers, obstinate renegades, generals, pathfinders, pyramid builders, geniuses, inventors, etc.

That said, Finke was my idea of a very harsh and vindictive person. A serpent, a meanie. I’m not exaggerating.

“We’re here and then we’re not here. Somewhere else…maybe.” — Terrence Stamp’s “Willie Parker” in Stephen Frears The Hit (‘84).

Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman (filed at 12:54 pm):

East Coast Friendo: “My wife and I went to see Bros at our local multiplex; 4pm show on a weekday, so there were fewer than five other people. We thought it was very funny, smart and moving.

“As I was thinking about why it’s been such a box-office flop, I think the idea that it feels too woke and preachy misses the mark. When you get right down to it, it was so obviously gay that I understand why it didn’t find a mass audience.

“It’s one thing for Will & Grace, essentially the minstrel version of gay people, to be popular. But I don’t think most moviegoers are ready to watch men kissing, simulating sex and making jokes about ‘your gigantic penis and my tiny little anus.’ I laughed, but I think it would make many people in the flyover squirm.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a mainstream Hollywood film which included an explicit romantic sex scene w/men having face-to-face intercourse while lying down (something you see in hetero romcoms all the time). I’ve also never seen one in which the role of ‘the bottom’ is as explicitly laid out as it is here, where the top says, ‘I want you to fuck me tonight.’

“I would imagine there are a lot of people who are interested in the film but wouldn’t want to be seen attending it or even be known to have watched it. So maybe it will find its audience when it streams and moves to the other platforms.”

West Coast Friendo: “You don’t see much sex in romcoms either. That’s the point. They’re basically grown up fairy tales for heterosexual women. The genre is called ROMANTIC comedy, not sex romp. Thrillers tended to have more sex in them, although even that has been purged.

“No romcom would have Tom Hanks with his hands on Meg Ryan’s boobs or ass on the poster.

“Bros. should have been put on Streaming or HBO where it would have been devoured by its target demo.

“Why didn’t it debut on streaming? Because it’s a missionary movie — its aim is not entertainment but conversion.

“I couldn’t even get a black gay friend to see it with me. ‘It looks stupid,’ he said.”

HE to East Coast Friendo: “Ahh, the joys of gay sex! You brought up Bros sex so allow me to continue the thread…

“What about the fat gay guy telling Eichner that some guy peed on another guy? Did you find that bit amusing or even appealing?

“I rolled with the graphic sexual behavior depictions in Bros, but I can’t honestly say they were particularly welcome.

“Like I said in one of my riffs, at times the depictions almost approached the graphic levels of Frank Ripploh’s Taxi Zum Klo.

“40-plus years ago Eddie Murphy’s ‘Mr. T in a gay bar’ routine was hilarious FOR A REASON. Apart from Murphy’s unfortnate use of the “f” word, it’s still funny. And the funniest line? Mr. T growling ‘I want you to come on over here, and fuck me in the ass.’

Hilarious then, but if you so much as snicker at such a scenario now you’re probably a homophobe and (who knows?) a possible candidate for cancellation.

Robert S. Bader and Dick Cavett‘s Groucho & Cavett (PBS American Masters, 12.27) was shown yesterday or the day before at the Hamptons Int’l Film Festival.

Excerpt: “Cavett, a writer for Jack Parr on The Tonight Show, met Marx at the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman in 1961. When Cavett made the transition from writer to comedian in 1965, he was encouraged and mentored by Marx. In 1968, Cavett became the host of his own talk show and Marx became a frequent guest, capturing what Cavett calls ‘the last of Groucho’s greatness.’

“Groucho & Cavett chronicles the pair’s relationship through new interviews with Cavett, footage from Marx’s visits to The Dick Cavett Show and other rare recordings.”

I’ve always heard about Groucho’s off-color and in some cases delightfully vulgar sense of humor, which he only shared in private or during commercial breaks on talk shows. Why do I have this feeling that Groucho & Cavett, obliged to defer to PBS decorum and gentility, won’t share any of this?

Start listening at the 6:20 mark…good goading between Maher and Christie…whether to offer an off-ramp option for Putin, or no off-ramp?

If you want to get on this injury-recovery train with Jennifer Lawrence and then write about what a great emotional release it is…fine. Go with God.

But I can see what this film is…a Jennifer Lawrence-bearing-the-weight-of-the-cross movie…her character is numb and banged-up and not very communicative, and then she gradually loosens up and responds to the Brian Tyree Henry love and so on. And at the risk of sounding heartless, I really don’t have a great interest in seeing this film. Sorry but what do you want me to do, lie?

Who in the HE community has given David O. Russell‘s Amsterdam a shot, and what are the reactions?

It left me heartbroken, almost in tears. On 9.28 I called it “a very busy and antsy period movie about an arcane, who-cares? bumblebee plot (something to do with ascendant U.S. fascism in the early 1930s) that won’t stop lurching to and fro and buzzing all around, and is totally irksome for that.

“It’s all plot and exposition, plot and exposition, plot and exposition…jabber jabber, talk talk…over and over and over. No subtext, no heart, no downshifting, no “things that are there but not said.” I was having serious trouble trying to understand who was who and what was happening for the first hour. Only when Robert De Niro‘s character (“General Gil Dillenbeck”) comes along at the 100-minute mark does the rubber begin to meet the road.

Posted this morning by Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro: “Amsterdam is still DOA with $2.6M Friday, including previews, and an estimated $6.9M third place debut. The Russell fans who showed up gave the movie a B CinemaScore (Russell’s Oscar nominated all-star American Hustle earned a B+) and harsher reactions on PostTrak at 3 Stars and 72%. Pic skewed toward men at 56%, with the largest demo being 25-34 at 37%. Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, 17% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black, and 14% Asian/other. Men over 25 at 47% and women over 25 at 37% gave Amsterdam its best response at 75%. But the rest of the audience wasn’t on board, i.e. men and women under 25, who each showed up at 9% respectively and gave the movie a 61% and 55% grade.”

My sight-unseen enthusiasm for Maria Schrader‘s She Said (Universal, 11.18) was unfettered around three months ago. The trailer for the investigative journalism drama, which is basically the story of how N.Y Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey nailed Harvey Weinstein, seemed smart and sure-footed, and I figured that it had to at least rank as a respected cousin of Spotlight or perhaps even All The President’s Men.

But it didn’t appear at the big three festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto) and the buzz began to gradually simmer down. Now it’s only days from peeking out at the New York Film Festival. The first public showing happens on Thursday, 10.13.

Last week a guy I know passed along a friend’s reaction to a relatively recent research screening. “Intriguing and important, but somewhat formulaic in its story,” he said. “None of the performances stand out enough for traction in the awards race but apparently it’s a good ensemble piece, from what I’ve heard.”

On 9.27 THR‘s Scott Feinberg posted a list of likely Best Picture contenders, and placed She Said in seventh place, presumably based on a viewing. He put it behind the fifth-ranked Women Talking, the so-so Elvis and the sixth-ranked The Woman King. What does that tell you?

Reaction posted by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy: “Better than a TV movie. Not sure about Best Picture, but Samantha Morton and Carey Mulligan are the MVPs. Very intelligently made and well-directed. They smartly show the effect of the abuse. Victims go back to the hotel rooms, reenact what happened in the bed and shower, but with their clothes on. It’s very Spotlight, maybe too much so. It also has a fantastic ending. We never get to see Weinstein’s face, only see his back and hear his voice.”

We’ll know soon enough.

Some might regard me as an irritating asshole now, but I was a much more irritating asshole when I was 15 and 16.

Here’s an example of my behavior: A friend (Jack) and I were in a diner near the Jersey shore on a hot day, and we thought it would be be hilarious to slam one of those soft plastic mustard dispensers on the table top while simultaneously squeezing it. This sent little micro globs of mustard flying into the air, you see, and the goal was to hit the ceiling with a glob or two. We were red-faced with suppressed laughter. I hadn’t laughed like that in years, and that meant something at my age.

Things got even more hilarious when we both simultaneously realized that a white golf shirt worn by a middle-aged guy sitting in a booth behind ours…we split an even bigger gut when we saw that his shirt had been hit by five or six globs. The guy’s wife or son eventually noticed what had happened (or the waitress had told him or something) and he stood up, purple-faced and fuming and threatening to beat the shit out of us. His wife or son begged him not to get violent as Jack and I bolted out of there. A few minutes later Jack and I had decided that despite the trauma the episode was worth it for the laughs.

It was this episode that led me to title a short, decade-old riff “Mustard Droplets.” It was about the various names of a rock band that I’d drummed with. I was a mediocre drummer of the first order. Here’s the 4.23.12 item:

As I mentioned the other day, I once tried to play drums (i.e., none too successfully) in a semi-conflicted Connecticut blues band. It was fun but I was the weak link. The band had five names at different stages of the game — the Golden Rockets (which I hated), the Sludge Brothers, Blind Pig Sweat, Amos Bouldcox and Dog Breath. My problem wasn’t a lack of joie de percussion, but that I was obliged to bang it out on a conventional drum set when my true gift was in the realm of thigh-slapping and coin-jingling and simulating bass riffs in my throat. Today we have sensitive-enough microphones that would permit me to do that.

Following last night’s Academy screening of Todd Field‘s TAR, Cate Blanchett and costars Nina Hoss and Sophie Kauer joined The Frame‘s John Horn for an on-stage discussion.

The immediate reaction in the room was “what’s with Blanchett and Hoss wearing identical Mondrian outfits?” But according to an HE friendo who attended, Horn never even mentioned the identical outfits, much less asked what was behind the coordination.

HE to friendo: Tar is a fascinating if infuriating film, and Average Joes and Janes are going to find it mystifying and irksome. It refuses to tip its hand or lay its cards on the table. It’s a high-toned tease.

The almost uniformly rave reviews for this elegant but annoyingly oblique film are why people don’t trust critics.

I was totally shattered when I saw it in Telluride. I was expecting to be turned on and perhaps illuminated or even levitated, but it was so reluctant to offer specific comprehensions and tie it all together for the sake of the dumb-asses that it damn near broke my heart.

It’s going to die when it opens wide.

Friendo to HE: I was transported by the paranoia. Totally had me in fear.

HE to friendo: That was excellent, I agree. A very palpable sense of paranoia. But what had actually happened with the girl who [redacted]? Who had rejected whom?

Friendo to HE: The trailer was completely a lie.

HE to friendo: In what sense a lie?

Friendo to HE: It sold a completely different film experience. Bald-faced lie.

HE to Friendo: But it looked and felt so ravishing…the flush autumnal vibes of Berlin and New York were intoxicating.

Friendo to HE: But I loved the film.

HE to friendo: What was with the big black dog? And the attractive Russian cello player wasn’t even attracted to Lydia, and who ate her lunch like a peasant?

Friendo to HE: The dog was her paranoia. She knew she’d done stuff that was going to catch up to her.

HE to friendo: Not one single erotic scene. Not so much as a slight hint of sex. In that sense a curiously barren experience.

Friendo to HE: Lydia was clearly grooming her.

HE to friendo: But to no avail. So who cares? It was a blind alley, a dead end.

Friendo to HE: I cared. Because there would be another Lydia + young woman relationship.

HE to friendo: Nearly ever powerful person in world history, especially the creatively powerful and world-famous, has used his or her power to persuade attractive young people to fuck or pleasure them or serve as arm-candy. They’ve all done it. Lydia Tar is no different. Way of the big, bad, grown-up world. And after you turn 20 you have to figure that stuff out.

Friendo to HE: Except now those powerful seducers will be destroyed by the New Puritanism.

HE to friendo: Lydia was a brilliant, arrogant, egoistic handful but she didn’t deserve career ruination.

Friendo to HE: The film is an anti-woke manifesto.

HE to friendo: It actually seemed to hesitate on that front. I thought it might be anti-woke but it held back.

Friendo to HE: Not sure it held back.

HE to friendo: Respectful disagreement.

Friendo to HE: It only held back because Lydia was as much a catalyst as a victim.

HE to friendo: Loved Blanchett, of course. But desiring various sexual conquests often goes hand in hand with being a genius or a powerful person. Geniuses want what they want, and they often get it. It’s been the way of the world for centuries.

Friendo to HE: It WAS the way of the world.

HE to friendo: So we’re all going to trudge through the freezing snow of the woke gulag for the rest of our lives? Terrific.

Friend to HE: It will pass with the nuclear winter.

HE to friendo: You think Mozart didn’t have his way? You think Leonard Bernstein didn’t go there? You think Isadora Duncan and Picasso and Tallulah Bankhead weren’t total hounds? You think Marlene Dietrich didn’t use her fame and power to seduce women and men left and right?

Friendo to HE: Of course. But this is now.

From “Reminder” thread, posted this morning(10.8.22):

HE: “Thomas Alva Edison is not wrong, and many billions of earthlings have found the idea of lights-out finality intolerable and terrifying and have therefore constructed comforting mythologies to fend off the sense of devastation that many philosophers have used to describe contemplations of The Big Sleep. And yet…

“I experienced a seminal and transformative LSD trip when I was 19, and at that moment and forever after I knew that as indifferent and scientific or mathematical as the universe could be defined in the minds of your average wannabe Albert Einsteins out there, it was nonetheless magnificent and unified and sublime and finally spellbinding in the George Harrison lotus position sense of that term.

“I knew that an eternal hum of profound cosmic perfection hovered above, within and without my mortal coil.

“Einstein himself spoke endearingly of a sense of soul-soothing tranquility that permeated when he, without dropping a tab of Orange Wedge or sipping from a ground-up Carlos Casteneda broth of peyote buttons and whatever else, had sailed into the mystic. He wasn’t expecting to flutter around on angel wings or hover over the earth like Dave Bowman at the end of 2001, but he felt profoundly settled and comforted by the infinite eternal-ness of it all.”

Franny P to HE: “What the heck are you saying? Sounds like you’re still on LSD.”

HE to Franny: “That’s because when you finally slip into the mystical, it never leaves you. So in a sense I am still on LSD, or swimming in the spiritual waters that my long-ago LSD awakening introduced me to.

“I’m saying that the eternal perfection of the cosmic scheme of things has been in place for eons and will remain in place for eons, and if you, Franny P., don’t want to tune into the altogether because it doesn’t interest you or because you feel too constrained by logical rules and regulations, then that’s on you and go with God. I’m okay and you’re okay.

“Travelling into the mystic means giving up thought and reason and boilerplate logic and just ‘letting it in.’ Read the Bhagavad Gita or listen to ‘Tomorrow Never Knows‘….it’s all there.”