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If “Killers of the Flower Moon” Shows Up

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…then I’ll find a way to scrounge my way over there. Ditto if Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers plays there, although I doubt it will. All the hotshot publicists agreed long ago that presumed award-season headliners (which The Holdovers is definitely said to be — ditto Killers of the3 Flower Moon) are not helped by even a glorious reception in Cannes, as they’ll just have to start the engine all over again when the early fall festivals launch. Who knows? Playing it by ear.

Here’s Jordan Ruimy’s latest Cannes ’23 spitball.

Maybe “Cabin” Stinks But…

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…Variety critic Peter Debruge is dead wrong in calling M. Night Shyamalan‘s Signs a “letdown.” (Which he does in the subhead of his Knock at the Cabin review.)

At age 12, my younger son Dylan was so scared by Signs that he left his seat and went out to the lobby to calm down. I’ll never forget that — Westwood all-media, August ’02, 20 and 1/2 years ago.

I didn’t care about the religious symbolism in Signs and all the rest of that crap — I tuned that stuff out and just focused on the aliens.

So far Knock at the Cabin has a 72% rating, and you know what that means. It means that the whores are giving it a pass, and if weren’t for the whores it would have a failing grade.

When Wills Screwed The Pooch

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“I am delighted to be your cousin, but I’m still voting for Sal Mineo.”

With these 14 words, which appeared in a Variety ad sometime in early ’61, Groucho Marx killed any chance that Chill Wills‘ nomination for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, earned for his performance as “Beekeeper” in John Wayne‘s The Alamo (’60), might result in a win.

Marx did more than that actually — he articulated a general industry feeling that Wills had gauchely overplayed his hand by running trade-paper ads that promoted his performance, and thereby solidified Wills’ reputation as a craven hustler for the rest of his life.

On Oscar night (4.17.61) Bob Hope cracked “I didn’t know there was any campaigning until I saw my maid wearing a Chill Wills button.” Peter Ustinov‘s witty Spartacus performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, beating out Wills, Mineo (Israeli freedom fighter in Exodus), Peter Falk (gangster in Murder, Inc.) and Jack Kruschen (Jack Lemmon‘s friendly doctor-neighbor in The Apartment).

How could Wills have drunkenly imagined he had even the slightest chance against Ustinov or the excellent Kruschen, who played the voice of moral conscience in The Apartment (“Be a mensch, Baxter…a human being!”).

So Wills’ self-promotion was ill-advised, but to err is human. An avid poker player and a rabid Republican who supported George Wallace’s 1968 third-party campaign for President, Wills passed in 1978 at the age of 76.

Here’s the odd part: As someone who’s watched The Alamo at least two or three times, I can honestly say I can’t remember Wills doing or saying anything in that 1960 film that really stood out. I’ll go farther than that: I don’t remember Wills at all in that film. Really.

In the 21st Century realm Wills is known for one line at best, and that was spoken in George Stevens Giant, in reference to James Dean‘s Jett Rink**: “Vic, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.”

** My son Jett was named after Jett Rink. The idea actually came from publicist Bruce Feldman.

When She Was Hot

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I’m not sure if Myrna Loy (1905-1993) ever gave a great performance. She shares a great “welcome home” scene with Fredric March in The Best Years of Our Lives (‘46), and is dryly amusing in a somewhat stiff-necked way in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (‘47). But she was certainly in full command of a sexy exotic vibe in her late 20s and early 30s. She also gave great vibe in the Thin Man series.

Previously unreported fact: I stood five feet from the still curiously radiant Loy at a National Board of Review awards ceremony in late ‘81 or early ‘82. Ragtime costar James Cagney was also there; ditto Warren Beatty, who said something flattering about Loy — something about her beauty still making his pulse race a bit.

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That Newtime Religion

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Please absorb the basics of (a) the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, (b) Stanley Kramer‘s Inherit the Wind (’60), and (c) the small-town Christian zealots who condemn the sensible, scientific-minded Bertram Cates (Dick York), his defense counsel Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and especially Baltimore Herald journalist E.K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly).

In damn near every scene, the holy-rolling Bible-thumpers are positively throbbing with the spirit, completely convinced of their God-given righteousness, and unwavering in their conviction that Cates, Drummond and Hornbeck deserve to suffer the pains of hell and then some.

Now remove yourself from this small Tennessee town (i.e., Hillsboro) of nearly a century ago, and ask yourself if these Old Testament wackazoids remind you of any particular group or social movement today. Think about it. Take your time.

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Glengarry Glen Weinberg

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From HE commenter “joshsleeps” (opsted last night): BREAKING: TRANSCRIPT OF JASON WEINBERG‘S SECRET MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH LEAKED [wee below]:

“Alright, you fucksticks. Kate, Edward, Charlize, Jennifer, Amy, Susan…if you ever want another nomination you’d better get your asses in line and start tweeting about Andrea right effing now.

“Oh, what’s that? I don’t give a shit if you haven’t seen the movie. As far as you’re concerned this is the greatest female performance of all time. I’m talking all day, e’ryday — I wanna see tweets and grams.

“Jamie Lee! Put. That. Coffee. DOWN. Oh, you think I’m fucking with you? I assure you, I am not fucking with you. Who do you think bought your nod this year? I’ll take it back faster than you can say ‘It’s an honor just to be nominated.’

“Katie, honey, you want Avatar 5? You better sign up to host a screening right fucking now.

“Gwynnie, you wanna keep that sweet sweet Goop cash and avoid an IRS audit, you’ll ‘gram that Andrea deserves all the awards — even the ones that haven’t been invented yet! Yes, I’m dead fucking serious.

“Howard! Don’t think your washed-up ass is exempt from any of this. Next time I’m in gridlock on the 405 and trapped with your shit radio show, I’d better hear nothing but Andrea’s name comin’ out your mouth.

“Are we clear, dipshits? It’s fuck or walk, post or host. Guy doesn’t come to a special screening ‘less he wants to vote. You can’t close him, you can’t close shit, you are shit, hit the bricks, pal! Cuz you are finished.

“I have no sympathy for you. Close this nomination, the world is yours. But I don’t hear Andrea’s name come Tuesday morning, you’ll all be shining my shoes. And you know what you’ll be saying? Buncha losers sitting around a bar, ‘Oh, I used to be an actor, tough racket.’

“You’ve been warned. Now go out and make this happen. For Andrea. For me. For you. Or else.”

Slight Slap On Wrist

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Team Riseborough (i.e., Andrea and homies) has been more or less given a pass by the Academy. Okay, Academy CEO Bill Kramer has mildly snorted but declared there will be no punitive measures.

HE friendo: “Thank God. Now she wins. Maybe.

“What Andrea really needs right now is Danielle Deadwyler going classy by telling Clayton Davis to siddown and shut up while proclaiming that Riseborough ‘shouldn’t suffer because of over-zealous friends…hell, she’s got my vote.’

“Sadly, the safest choice at this stage of the game is Michelle Yeoh. Sadly, the great Cate Blanchett has probably lost the Best Actress Oscar, and certainly her momentum.

“And that’s fine with me. I hated that film but this is is a year when older voters will turn off Everything Everywhere 20 minutes in and STILL vote for Yeoh. They can separate the two.

“Okay, ‘hated’ is a little too strong. I admired that it tried to do something unique. I applaud that in fact. I think it’s just The Emperor’s New Movie. Older voters who don’t want to be seen as dust think it’s hip.”

More Friendo: “I definitely wouldn’t have seen To Leslie without all of this happening. I’m positive I’m in the majority on that.

“What kind of stuns me is that Alison Janney and especially Marc Maron didn’t do more to push their own legitimately worthy little movie. Especially Maron whose WTF podcast has a huge following. Apologies to him if he did that but I missed it if so.

“Ironically speaking, I wouldn’t be surprised if Riseborough herself is drinking heavily these days. I would be.”

Tankbod Ripplehead Emerges From Woods

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I’m sorry but that’s a likely no-go on M. Night Shyamalan‘s A Knock At The Cabin (Universal, 2.3).

Bullshit premise: “A family is abruptly held hostage by strangers while vacationing in a woodsy cabin…’one of you must die in order to avert the apocalypse'”…bullshit. Then again this situation is one of the few instances that would seem to justify owning a Glock.

I would be delighted if M. Night could somehow re-ignite or rediscover what he had going 20 years ago (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), but you can’t go home again. Filmmaker-auteurs only have so much psychic essence. Once the well runs dry, there’s no refilling it as a rule.

Dave Bautusta: “[My character] is this giant child. Which is actually his role in the film…a child” Not sure if Mr. Tankbod Ripplehead is being literal; if so this feels like a reveal.

“Something Happening Here…”

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I was just as surprised by the Andrea Riseborough thing as anyone else, but to paraphrase Stephen Stills, “There’s something happening here.” Paul Schrader, Marc Maron, Rod Lurie…something has snapped.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is just trying to placate the Riseborough conversation — we all understand that, no worries — but there’s an early groundswell thing happening regardless. Right here, right now.

What we’re all witnessing or at least sensing is the very early beginnings of the end of woke tyranny.

I am the groundhog — Hollywood Elsewhere is the groundhog.

Obviously the Riseborough thing (which is partially driven by the “hey, what happened to Danielle Deadwyler?” thing) and the climate of fear within film festivals are separate concerns. But they’re also linked in a certain oblique way.

When Eric Kohn, of all people, is noting that goose-stepping woke groupthink is inhibiting artistic freedom, you know something’s up.

Go ahead and chortle if you want, but I think we’re witnessing the nascent beginnings of a Spartacus moment. It’s some kind of boiling-water, bursting-tea-kettle thing — a combination of a lot of triggers (and not all them contributing to an articulate whole) but it’s some kind of emotional socio-political catharsis that boils down to “we’re tired of this Big Brother-esque, guilt-tripping, Great Cultural Revolution, Twitter tyranny shit and we’re not gonna take it any more…fuck you!”

Remember Kirk Douglas, John Ireland, Harold J. Stone and the others yelling “aahhggh!!” as they attacked the Roman guards inside Peter Ustinov’s gladiator school in Capua?

IndieWire’s Eric Kohn, one of the original woke commissars who once challenged me about the validity of the word “woke” — he suggested it was arguably an imaginary construct used by righties — Kohn actually posted the following paragraph on 1.29.23, and this definitely means something…it means that all the cowards who raise their damp fingers to the wind before saying anything…the cowards are now asking themselves if woke fascism might need to be walked back a bit.

Journalist to Jounalist: “Can you imagine how a movie like Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men, which premiered at Sundance in 1997, would be received today?” Such a film (a blistering critique of misogyny) wouldn’t be shown today, of course. And that’s what’s the matter.