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You just gotta know how Ben Affleck closed that door resulted in a massive fight pic.twitter.com/4zZf5WkEHh

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) May 10, 2023

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We all understand that Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer (Universal 7.21) will primarily focus on the Manhattan Project and particularly J. Robert Oppenheimer‘s recruitment by the U.S. government in the early ’40s to run the Los Alamos Laboratory, which ultimately resulted in the climactic Trinity explosion — the first-ever nuclear blammo on 7.16.45.

We also know that the film will focus on the Oppenheimer security hearing of 1954, and how the mercurial physicist came under fire for allegedly harboring ambiguous or disloyal attitudes regarding the development of advanced nuclear devices, and how he was more or less broken by the scorn of this investigation.

I was thinking yesterday that it will seem strange if not anti-climactic if the dropping of atomic bombs upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (8.6.45) and Nagasaki (8.9.45) is not also dramatized. And yet the word around the campfire is that Nolan’s movie doesn’t depict the Japanese maelstroms.

We also understand that the Los Alamos team wasn’t diverse. To the best of my knowledge no people of color were involved. Will wokesters bitterly complain that Oppenheimer is unacceptably white and therefore racist, or will they exude smug satisfaction by saying “obviously this is what white people are best at…causing terrible death and destruction and mass murder,” etc.

This morning Kino Lorber announced a new Bluray of Mark Robson‘s The Bridges at Toko Ri (’54); ditto a forthcoming 4K Bluray of John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62). I immediately wrote KL’s Frank Tarzi, who became a true HE hero nine years ago after releasing a boxy (1.37:1) Bluray of Delbert Mann‘s Marty, and asked him what the aspect ratios would be.

Tarzi’s reply broke my heart.

Despite a wonderfully boxy, extremely handsome version of Toko Ri having streamed on Vudu for several years, Kino Lorber’s forthcoming Bluray will be presented at the dreaded 1.85. Hearing this was like getting stabbed in the chest with a ballpoint pen. As one who greatly respected Tarzi’s decision to release that boxy Marty Bluray, I was naturally hoping that KL’s Toko Ri Bluray would be issued at 1.37 or at the very least 1.66. Aaagghh!

The Manchurian Candidate was mastered at 1.66 for many years, and then, for no reason whatsoever, was slightly cleavered down to 1.75:1 by Criterion when they issued their Bluray in late 2015.

Tarzi: “KL’s Bridges at Toko Ri, The Manchurian Candidate, 12 Angry Men and Night of the Hunter are all presented at 1.85:1. That’s how they played in theaters. We have the needed documentations for all.

“Kino’s Marty re-release (’22) included both 1.37 and 1.85 versions.

“As far as Juggernaut is concerned, the master is the same 1.85 master we had previously released. The packaging had said 1.66, but that was a typo. It’s the same transfer but encoded at a higher bit rate and on a dual-layered BD50 disc, giving the feature 30mbps or more. So it should look better than the previous release that was on a BD25 single layered disc. We also added a TV Spot.”

HE reply: “Frank, you’ve broken my heart. 12 Angry Men was shown at 1.85 in theatres in ‘57, you say? So the Criterion guys who cropped it at 1.66 are…what, improvising or irresponsible?

“Manchurian began its home video life with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Then Criterion whacked it down to 1.75. Now Kino has chopped it down further to 1.85. Terrific.

“Toko Ri is drop-dead beautiful at 1.37. You’ve decided to eliminate…what, 30% or 35% of that 1.37 image?

“What can I say, Frank? I thought you were a bro, at least as far as that 1.37 Marty Bluray was concerned. Now, it appears, you’ve gone over to the dark side. You’ve apparently been Bob Furmanek’ed.

“It really doesn’t matter what aspect ratio panicked theatrical distributors went with in 1954 or ‘57. All that matters is how good and true the film looks by today’s whatever-works standard. We can choose any aspect ratio that seems right and pleasing to our eyes, as you did with Marty.

“It is my conviction that Bob Furmanek is a sworn enemy of HE’s concept of pictorial big-screen beauty. He only cares about what distribs we’re scared of…about uncovering historical documentation that shows they were projecting with 1.85 aperture plates.

“Loyal Griggs’ Toko Ri cinematography was clearly framed or protected for 1.37. Paramount was a 1.66:1 studio in ‘54, as you know. If you had to whack it down, you could have at least held yourself to 1.66. But cropping it to 1.85 is unconscionable.”

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Now that the HE wokerati have properly condemned Laurence Olivier, Pauline Kael and Richard Dreyfuss to an eternity of excruciating pain for directing, acting in or speaking positively about Oliver’s Othello, it’s time to address Paul Newman‘s performance in Martin Ritt‘s The Outrage (’64).

The trailer speaks for…makes that chokes on itself. Newman’s Mexican character, Juan Carrasco (whose last name should have been changed to Tabasco), is nothing short of breathtaking — a greasy-haired, makeup-covered, gravely-voiced rapist from the ninth circle of Anglo casting hell.

The film, based on Akira Kurosawa‘s Rashomon (’50), was a stinker, but that doesn’t make Newman’s performance any less criminal. HE is proposing that Newman be permanently cancelled in absentia…his reputation needs to be tarnished from here to eternity. For his lack of sensitivity and all the pain that he’s caused, Newman needs to be forgotten entirely, I mean…his name should be wiped clean from the pages of film history. Somebody needs to immediately inform Ethan Hawke, and if he squawks, cancel him too.

Ritt needs to be cancelled also; ditto any critics who gave a good review to The Outrage. Lash and then hang ’em all.

HE nominates Jeremy Fassler and Eric M. Byrne to co-chair the board of inquiry into all major white guy casting crimes of the last 85 to 90 years.

It goes without saying that Orson Welles‘ Othello (also black-faced in his 1951 film version) needs extreme condemnation. Ditto Marlon Brando for playing Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata (’52) and Sakini, an Okinawan translator, in Teahouse of the August Moon (’56). Ditto Sean Connery for playing a Moroccan bandit-warrior in The Wind and the Lion (’75) and a Saudi Arabian character, Khalil Abdul Muhsen, in Richard Sarafian‘s The Next Man (’76). Ditto Alec Guinness for his dark-skinned ethnic performances in Lawrence of Arabia and A Passage to India. Ditto Fisher Stevens for playing an Indian engineer, Ben Jabituya, in Short Circuit (’86). Ditto white-assed Willem Dafoe for playing the Hebrew-born Jesus in Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ (’88). Ditto Al Pacino for playing a Puerto Rican in Carlito’s Way. Ditto Angelina Jolie for playing an Afro-Cuban woman in A Mighty Heart (’07). Ditto Johnny Depp for playing Tonto in The Lone Ranger (’13). The list goes on and on.

18-month-old Sutton Wells recently encountered a professional photographer…the first of many such sessions, I’m presuming.

Directed by Eva Longoria and written by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette (who based their script on “A Boy, a Burrito and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive“), Flamin’ Hot (Hulu/Disney+) tells the rags-to-riches story of Richard Montanez, the onetime janitor who allegedly invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Alas, Montanez’s claim was called into question by Sam Dean’s 5.16.21 L.A.Times article, “The Man Who Didn’t Invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.” An internal investigation at Frito-Lay supported this argument. So let’s bend over backward and allow that Montanez may have had something to do with the 1992 launch of the Latino-friendly product. Okay, a little more than something. His initiative was co-owned — put it that way.

Montanez is played by Jesse Garcia. Costars include Annie Gonzalez, Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shalhoub, Emilio Rivera and Matt Walsh.

A crackpot is a person whose views and philosophy are regarded as way too eccentric or fantastical to be taken seriously. A crankpot, according to Manhattan gadfly and all-around smartass Bill McCuddy, is a fellow who’s regarded as overly influenced by a skeptical sourpuss attitude about life and movies and whatever else — i.e., too Andy Rooney-ish.

Which, of course, is nowhere close to being a fair description of yours truly. For years I have claimed with a certain degree of sincerity to be a 21st Century incarnation of Klaus Kinski’s anti-Bolshevik in Dr. Zhivago — “the only free man on this train.” Okay, perhaps that’s putting it too strongly but it’s a reasonably close assessment, especially considering the general fanaticism out there.

Six years ago Marshall Fine’s Robert Klein Still Can’t Stop His Leg, a fascinating, highly engaging doc about one of the greatest anguished Jewish comics of all time, disappeared into the maw of the Weinstein Co. bankruptcy of 2017.

Lo and behold, Fine’s Robert Klein doc is now available to stream on multiple platforms for the first time ever.

Roughly a year before the Weinstein envelopment, I saw Robert Klein Still Can’t Stop His Leg, and fully concurred with all the then-current praise.

From “Speaking As An Honorary Anguished Jew, I Relate To Smart Docs About Authentic Specimens,” posted on 4.24.16: “Yes, I’ve been friends with Fine for a long time and yes, I’ve admired Klein since I was a kid but this is a fine (sorry) doc that imparts wisdom, feeling, perspective and smarts.”

“It serves as not just a personal look at Klein, but as something larger,” Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman wrote on 4.20.16. “It’s a real piece of history. What Fine and Klein have done here is make an excellent companion piece to the very good Joan Rivers doc of a few years ago, A Piece of Work. Since Alan King died rather young and abruptly, and nothing’s been done on Stiller and Meara, there is very little documentary record of the great Jewish comics who launched from the Ed Sullivan Show era.

“The doc is also very funny. Klein is incredibly endearing and corny, while at the same time maintaining an edge. That’s why he made 40 appearances on Letterman. I hope The Weinstein Company can give Still Can’t Stop His Leg a good release in major markets before VOD or Netflix. Like a Robert Klein show, the film is intimate and hilarious.”

In the late ’70s a smart Jewish friend and fellow cineaste told me I had more Jewish guilt than he. That was the beginning of my honorary Jewhood, which thrives to this day.

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After less than three hours of deliberation, a Manhattan jury has found Donald Trump guilty in the E. Jean Carroll civil lawsuit trial — not of clinical rape (which they felt had not been proved) but of (a) battery by way of sexual abuse and (b) lying on Truth Social that Carroll’s accusations about having been assaulted by Trump inside a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in early 1996 and therefore defaming her by calling her charge “a complete con job” and “a hoax and a lie.”

No, the jury said — Trump is the would-be con artist, not Carroll. And so they’ve awarded Carroll $5 million in damages, which Trump will presumably have to cough up.

The country (including MAGA voters) has long believed that Trump is an arrogant sexual opportunist and conquistador and has behaved that way for quite some time. But a jury specifically finding him guilty of sexual battery in a civil trial and declaring that he’ll have to shell out $5 million in damages…this is an excellent thing.

And the best prosecutions (i.e., Trump and pallies conniving to fix the Georgia vote and Trump inciting the MAGA faithful to attack the Capitol building on 1.6.21 in an attempt to stop the electoral college affirmation of Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 election) are yet to come. In the words of the late Ricky Nelson, “I got a feeling” that things are starting to pan out against this diseased sociopath, and that everything’s starting to “come up roses”, so to speak. The beast is clearly taking serious hits, and if nothing else his actions and karma are finally starting to catch up with him in a legalistic courtroom sense.

Like any stable, decent, caring parent, Marcia Gay Harden, 63, recently emphasized her support of her three kids, and particularly their orientation or persuasion or however you want to put it.

Last weekend the Oscar-winning actress, 63, explained during a telethon for “Drag Isn’t Dangerous: A Digital Fundraiser” that (a) her three kids are “all queer” and (b) “they teach me every day.”

This is what I would say if my kids had chosen this path. Compassionate, fair-minded parents have no choice but to embrace their children and show respect for their preferred orientation and/or identities.

Harden: “My eldest child is non-binary, my son is gay [and] my youngest is fluid.”

Harden’s Wiki bio reports that daughter Eulala Grace Scheel (born September 1998) is her eldest, and that twins Hudson Harden Scheel (born a bio-male) and Julitta Dee Scheel (born bio-female) were born on 4.22.04. Harden and the kids’ father, prop master Thaddaeus Scheel, divorced in February 2012.

All queer, in short, and yet Harden seems to be drawing distinctions between non-binary, gay and fluid. I honestly wouldn’t know how to define those distinctions.