And therefore it’s finally recognized, a decade after the fact and to the voting Academy’s eternal shame, that the 2011 Best Picture Oscar shouldn’t have gone to The Fucking Artist With a Cute Little Dog but to Bennett Miller‘s wise, seasoned and spiritually humming sports saga, Moneyball.

I knew the truth of things back then, but the mob was in love with Michel Hazanavicius’ black-and-white gimmick film and there was no talking them out of it.

Moneyball, Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants and Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris are the only 2011 Best Pic nominees that have stood the test of time. The Artist sure as hell hasn’t. And Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, The Tree of Life, War Horse…no need to re-bash but they weren’t good enough.

Ask any film lover about the guy whose head was sliced off by a plate of glass in The Omen, and they’ll say “of course…yes.” Ask about the man who played Jack the Ripper in Time After Time…the guy who noted that in Victorian-era London he was a freak but in late ’70s San Francisco he’s an amateur…and the film lover will say “yup, definitely….I know that guy.” Or Spicer Lovejoy, the snooty manservant and bodyguard of Billy Zane‘s Caledon Hockley in Titanic.

But very few will name the actor who played these characters — David Warner.

For me the seminal Warner impression will always be Henry Niles in Sam Peckinpah‘s Straw Dogs (’71), although I could never figure out several things about Niles, whom one of the tough-guy characters calls “you bloody pervert.” Which Niles was, in a sense. Or at the very least a creep. He even tried to sexually attack Susan George during the climax, but it stopped when Dustin Hoffman grabs him by the shoulders, looks in Niles’ watery eyes and shakes his head in a stern no-no fashion.

The great David Warner, who was also an excellent stage actor, has expired at age 81.

“I had a difference of opinion with a woman I’m working with. I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way.” — Bill Murray to CNBC on or about 5.21.22.

Murray might have been referring to Being Mortal costar Keke Palmer, but there was another woman costar on that Aziz Ansari film — Christina Lanoux. But what are the odds that Lanoux, a woman with only one previous feature credit (Straight Outta Compton) from 2015, would throw a huge hissy fit and thereby halt production? What are the odds that Murray had any kind of substantial back-and-forth relationship with Lanoux during filming of Being Mortal? Ask yourself that.

Friendo to HE: “A studio wag says that Murray dropping out of Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City over Covid is a convenient excuse, and that he’s heard that Murray isn’t insurable due to Being Mortal not restarting based on whatever antics he pulled.”

HE to friendo: “Murray suddenly isn’t ‘insurable’? Murray is known for behaving curiously and sometimes obnoxiously during filming, but he’s been that way for at least 40 years. A bit of an odd duck, but I know him a tiny bit (press junkets, party chats, watched him work during filming of Monuments Men in Germany) and he’s just colorful Bill. He likes to goof off and have fun but he doesn’t suffer fools.

“What do you do when you can sense that a certain actor (not Murray) is a defensive piece of work and a temperamental Millennial time bomb who’s ready to over-react to any identity-related issue at the drop of a hat?”

Friendo to HE: “In these agitated times a diva’s weaponry can possibly deliver an unfair kill shot, thanks to the fear caused in suites inhabited by invertebrate corporate hacks. Would another studio allow a filmmaker to hire Murray with the last film shut down and not restarted due to his supposed on-set conduct? They’re risk averse.”

HE to Tar director-screenwriter-producer Todd Field:

“That Tar teaser I just watched is one of the best movie teasers I’ve ever seen IN MY FUCKING LIFE…no lie, straight cards, on my knees.

“It’s so good that I wonder if or how the film itself can live up to the promise, but let’s be optimistic and presume as much. But it really is the shit, man…I LOVE THIS EARTH-SHAKING TEASER.

“I fully expect to see Tar in Telluride…caaannn’t wait.”

Posted on 9.17.21:

Wait…they gave The Black Phone, which is absolutely substandard, a B-plus? They gave the abysmal Jurassic World Dominion an A-minus? Do they ever give anything a C or a D, or at least a B-minus?

Last night I managed to stream Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Notre Dame On Fire, which opened in France last March and in England two days ago, and will apparently play on U.S. IMAX screens before long.

It’s just a workmanlike docudrama — a this-is-how-it-happened disaster flick that summarizes the events of 4.15.19, when a fire almost destroyed the 800-year-old Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The first half is pretty good as far as this kind of thing goes (the blending of recreated moments along with genuine footage is perfect), and the second half — when things got heavy and scary and a few heroic firemen had to step in and save the day within a 15-minute window — is excellent. Seriously, the last half-hour is worth the price of admission in itself.

I’m thinking I’d like to see it again in IMAX — last night’s viewing was on the 65″ Sony, and in 720p.

There’s a little too much sentimental attention paid to the cathedral’s spiritual aura as well as rescuing priceless artifacts (including, we’re told, the original crown of thorns worn by Jesus on his day of crucifixion and even a vial of his blood) and there are infuriating passages when key players are stuck in Paris traffic (get out of the car and hop on a motorcycle) but this is life when tragedy strikes — mistakes are made, banal stuff gets in the way, etc.

In some ways it’s similar to John Guillermin and Irwin Allen‘s The Towering Inferno (’74). There’s no Richard Chamberlain villain who creates conditions that lead to disaster, but the fire is initially ignored by way of carelessness and laziness, as it is in Inferno. No characters are emotionally conflicted and no one (thank fortune) falls to their deaths, but there’s a kind of Paul Newman-type architect character who knows the cathedral and saves the crown of thorns, and there’s definitely a couple of Steve McQueen-type firemen heroes who climb up and into the twin bell towers and manage to finally put the fire out with only a few minutes to spare. Which is what McQueen and Newman accomplished in the final stretch of Inferno.

Plus there’s footage of French president Emmanuel Macron, not speaking but obviously “playing” himself.

Donald Trump is made fun of for tweeting that helicopters should dump water on the burning church from the air, but that’s exactly what I was thinking when it happened. Vacuum water from the Seine into tanks, and then fly over the cathedral and releases dozens or even hundreds of gallons at a pop. Perhaps that kind of drenching might have threatened the Notre Dame structure, but it seemed to make sense at the time.