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I know one thing — JLaw needs to save herself from what’s been happening for the last seven or eight years. (Longer?)

Read this 10.31.22 Script Shadow review of the No Hard Feelings screenplay (co-written by John Phillips and director Gene Stupnitsky) and then watch the trailer and tell me what you think. Sony will open No Hard Feelings on 6.23.23.

Will ya look at what Scott Menzel wrote? Loony tunes. A kid is 9 years old — a 19 year-old is a man or close enough. Jesus. Try watching Murmur of the Heart or Beau Pere, Scott. Live a little.

The most unforgettable and unforgivable “death reel” in the long history of the Academy Awards, or at least since “in memoriam” film tributes became a regular staple of that show, happened during the 77th Oscar telecast, which aired on 2.27.05.

For on that night the biggest tribute to a fallen star was for the beloved Johnny Carson, whose relationship to movies was nil but who’d hosted the Oscar telecast several times. Emcee Chris Rock delivered a special Carson tribue along with (I think) a medley of clips. I’m not sure how long the Carson memoriam lasted but it was no in-and-out quickie. Nothing the least bit wrong with this — Carson (who passed on 1.23.05) was a luminous talent and a legendary entertainer.

But with all due respect, there is still a little bugger called proportionality, not to mention a tiny matter of iconic movie greatness, and the appalling fact is that the 77th Oscar telecast producer, the lamentable Gil Cates, decided to give Carson much more affection and attention that night than the great Marlon Brando, arguably the greatest and most influential actor of the 20th Century, who passed at age 80 on 7.1.04.

Cates decided against a special Brando tribute, and slipped him into the end of the standard death reel, affording his memory roughly 14 seconds, give or take. (2:53 to 3:06). A special tribute for Carson; 14 seconds for Brando. Basically because Cates liked Carson and didn’t like Brando.

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Steve McQueen‘s first attention-grabbing feature performance was as a cool gunslinger in John Sturges‘ The Magnificent Seven (’60), and his first real breakout effort, of course, was as “cooler king” Virgil Hilts in Sturges’ The Great Escape (’63).

But the first lead turn in which he commanded and totally dealt a trademark “Steve McQueen” performance — a stoic, steely-eyed, minimal-emotion type — and indeed the first film in which he played the guy that he would play for the rest of his career…that film was Don Siegel‘s Hell Is For Heroes (’62).

The hardscrabble, low-budget war film, shot in suffocating heat in Northern California, was a turbulent one to make, and McQueen was unpopular among his costars and collaborators. But when you watch the film now, McQueen burns through as the hard-ass hero. He’s essentially giving the same performance he would later give as Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles — a frosty, alienated loner but indispensable when the chips are down in a combat situation.

Wiki excerpt: “Columnist James Bacon visited the set and said that McQueen ‘is his own worst enemy’. Costar Bobby Darin overheard the remark and replied, “Not while I’m still alive.” McQueen and Siegel were continuously at odds during the production, with the two nearly coming to blows several times. In one scene, when McQueen was unable to cry while on camera, Siegel resorted to slapping him hard and blowing onion juice into his face, before administering eye drops that ran down the actor’s face.”

Kino Lorber’s Hell Is For Heroes Bluray pops on 4.11.23.

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What was Boris Karloff‘s finest film of the second half of his career, in which he arguably gave his finest-ever performance?

His two most iconic films (containing his most iconic performances) were the original Frankenstein (’31) and Bride of Frankenstein (’35). His most interesting supporting roles were in Howard Hawks‘ The Criminal Code (’31) and Scarface (’32), as a Christian fanatic in John Ford‘s The Lost Patrol (’34), and as a cruel-hearted examiner in Val Lewton‘s Bedlam (’46).

And he was reputedly wonderful as serial killer Jonathan Brewster in the Broadway stage version of Arsenic and Old Lace — Jonathan was the older brother of Mortimer Brewster (played by Cary Grant in the 1944 Frank Capra film version) who was enraged when people said he resembled Boris Karloff.

But the grand old actor’s fullest performance was as himself (a Karloffian horror star named “Byron Orlok”) in Peter Bogdanovich‘s Targets (’68), which is certainly among his all-time best and arguably his best since Bride of Frankenstein.

What’s great about Karloff in Targets is that he finally played his own actual self — a kindly, well-dressed and impeccably-mannered English gentleman. And above all a fellow of dignity and refinement.

There’s a great little moment when Orlok is being driven from one Los Angeles location to another, sitting in the back seat and gazing out at the ugly billboards, used-car lots, taco stands and tacky mini-malls. He sighs, shakes his head and says, “This used to be such a lovely city” or words to that effect.

Directed and written by Bogdanovich, Targets is about the elderly Orlok agreeing to make a promotional appearance of The Terror (’62) at a Los Angeles drive-in theatre and also (concurrently) about a Charles Whitman-like psycho who murders his family, picks off several innocent drivers on the 405 freeway, and ends up being thrashed by Orlok as he’s about to shoot patrons at the same drive-in.

At long last, the white-haired, 80 year-old Karloff was no longer sinister but a hero and vanquisher!

Tall sultry blonde foxes don’t get married to hobbits (i.e., Peter Jackson lookalikes) as a rule.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/890054525582016?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw

Leaning on a recent Ipsos poll, a 3.8 USA Today article by Susan Page contends that “most” Americans — 56% — regard “woke” as a positive term, or a characterization of people who are aware of social inequities and attuned to social justice.

HE doesn’t believe this survey as it sharply argues with a 10.10.18 Atlantic article by Yascha Mounk that claims most Americans despise wokeness, which is almost invariably accompanied by notions of p.c. beratings and condemnations.

Last night the USA Today piece provoked a debate between myself and a journalist friendo.

Friendo: The Atlantic poll is over four years old. The USA Today poll is recent. Maybe things have changed.

HE: Bullshit. Average Americans loathe and despise the cancel culture crowd.

Friendo: Are you prepared to critique the methodology of the poll? If not, it’s just your opinion.

HE: The 56% in the USA Today Ipsos poll who regard the term favorably are defining it, somewhat Pollyanically, as attuned to social fairness, aware of inequities, focused on decency and justice, etc. In other words, they were misled or boondoggled by a dishonest definition provided by dishonest Ipsos pollsters. Wokeness is a cult religion focused on purist p.c. ideals, revolutionary social correction and punitive measures for those who aren’t sold on it. As Quentin Tarantino once wrote, “Sell that bullshit to the tourists.”

Friendo: The definition of woke is “alert to injustice and discrimination in society.” That seens to be what the pollsters [are running] with.

HE: That’s an evasive definition, to put it politely. In the realm of actual social reality it’s a lying bullshit definition, and the pollsters know that. And so do you.

Friendo: Straight out of the dictionary, my friend.

HE: The people behind the dictionary definition are sidestepping the truth of the matter. Another way of putting it is that they’re being willfully oblivious.

Friendo: A dictionary is apolitical. You want a political definition, go somewhere else.

HE: Beginning in the early 1950s, American anti-Communist activists were dedicated to protecting this country from internal subversion, and their efforts to keep Hollywood films free of this socialist influence were honorable and vigilant. If you want a political definition, search elsewhere.

Friendo #2: The USA Today poll was probably skewed more towards Democrats-leaning voters — that’s a demographic that would overwhelmingly be pro-woke. No surprise that the article states that almost 80% of Democrat respondents said they were pro-woke. I mean, are you surprised?

I didn’t get lucky until I was 18 or so, and so the very first time that my teenage eyes feasted upon a live, buck-naked woman (and a ginger at that, if memory serves) was in a summer sketching class at the Silvermine Art Center, a short drive from our home in woodsy Wilton, Connecticut. I was 16, and you can imagine the internal combustion factor.

“Inside the ‘Blood Sport’ of Oscars Campaigns,” a N.Y. Times piece by Irina Aleksander, appeared this morning at 10:55 am.

It covers a realm that HE is deeply familiar with, but rather than post a sweeping assessment here are four or five stand-out portions of the article, and in most instances my reactions to same:

1. End of the 2nd paragraph: “The [Andrea Riseborough] campaign was described as organic and grass roots, but some celebrities had posted suspiciously identical language, describing “To Leslie” as “a small film with a giant heart.” That Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) were not nominated despite predictions to the contrary made it look as if a bunch of actors campaigned on behalf of a white actress, leading to the exclusion of Black actresses.”

HE reaction: This is the same old “sore loser” response that Davis, Deadwyler and the directors of their films, Till‘s Chinonye Chukwu and The Woman King‘s Gina Prince-Bythewood, voiced in the wake of the Oscar nominatons.

From “Andrea Riseborough + Duelling Concepts of Meritocracy vs. Equity,” posted on 2.15.23: “In their minds they all got blanked by embedded white elitism or misogynoir or some other racist variant.

“In response Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s Michelle Yeoh, a Best Actress nominee, suggested that they should cool their jets and wait their turn.

“Prince-Blythewood: ‘There is no groundswell from privileged people with enormous social capital to get behind Black women. There never has been.’ Deadwyler: ‘We’re talking about misogynoir. It comes in all kinds of ways. Whether it’s direct or indirect, it impacts who we are.’

“The essence of the lament seemed to be ‘we’re looking for some equity here and we haven’t received it…progressive Academy members know that the BIPOC narrative is about giving us the respect and adulation that is our due for the work but also in a payback sense, considering the decades upon decades of racist exclusion in this industry…we know we delivered first-rate work and yet we got shut out…some of you won’t say what happened but we can smell it in the wind…Andrea Riseborough‘s white supporters pushed her though but perhaps at our expense, or so it seems.”

2. Bottom of the third paragraph, also about the Riseborough campaign: “’I don’t believe academy members should be posting about how they’re going to vote,’ Oscar strategist Cynthia Swartz said, ‘or urging others to vote in a certain way.’ Tony Angellotti, a consultant on The Fabelmans, put it less mildly. ‘There are very specific rules about direct outreach…clearly, here, those rules were broken.’

“Neither To Leslie‘s director [Michael Morris] nor his wife [Mary McCormack] are members of the academy. But consultants I spoke to said it didn’t matter. A couple joked that it was a little like the Jan. 6 insurrection: President Donald Trump may not have personally stormed the Capitol, but he encouraged others to do so.”

HE reaction: Though smirk-worthy, offering an analogy between the Riseborough campaign and the Jan. 6th uprising is somewhere between absurd and slanderous, and it further establishes that the Times, a woke-minded, POC advocacy newspaper if there ever was one, strongly sympathizes with the sore losers.

3. Top of the ninth paragraph: “Negative narratives are usually attributed to the diabolical workings of rival strategists: the stories about abusive directors, overblown budgets, whether the real people behind biopics should really be celebrated. (See: A Beautiful Mind.) ‘They try to change someone else’s narrative by adding dirt to the layer,’ Angellotti told me, citing the old rumor that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck didn’t really write Good Will Hunting.”

HE reaction: I was involved in that Good Will Hunting rumor right up to my neck, and the rumor wasn’t as Angelotti describes — i.e., that Matt and Ben didn’t really write it. The rumor was that the late William Goldman has done a polish of their screenplay. Nobody was whispering Matt and Ben didn’t write it, only that Goldman spritzed it up. I was the one, in fact, who passed the rumor along to Goldman, and he in turn called the Good Will Hunting team and said, “Hey, this rumor is making the rounds…I just heard it from Jeff Wells.”

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The “Tucker Carlson actually despised Trump while pretending otherwise during his show” story has been making the rounds since yesterday. Here’s one summary from N.Y. Times reporter Katie Robertson, posted today (3.8) at 12:30 pm.