Source: The Numbers, market chart section.

The great Marcia Nasatir, a brilliant, pioneering producer who nudged her way into the chauvinistic Hollywood culture of the ’70s and became, in ’74, the first female vp production at a major Hollywood studio (United Artists), has passed at age 95.

Nasatir’s proudest producing achievement, certainly the one for which she’s best known, was Lawrence Kasdan‘s The Big Chill (’83).

At UA Nasatir also had a hand in finessing and/or guiding along One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Carrie, Coming Home, Three Days of the Condor, Rocky and Carrie. She moved to Orion in ’78, and then to Carson Productions, where she exec produced The Big Chill. As an independent producer, Nasatir oversaw and otherwise nurtured Hamburger Hill, Ironweed and Vertical Limit.

I knew Marcia to shmooze with at parties in the ’90s and aughts — always gracious, always witty and wise. And I loved “The Real Geezers,” her video movie-review series with Lorenzo Semple that ran in the mid to late aughts.

Please consider watching Anne Goursaud‘s A Classy Broad: Marcia’s Adventures in Hollywood, a 2014 documentary.

In the wake of a damning 165-page report about NY governor Andrew Cuomo‘s allegedly intimidating behavior with certain women, announced this morning by New York State attorney general Letitia James, the governor has issued a video response that basically says “I’m sorry that these women reacted as they did but that wasn’t where I was coming from.”

No resignation, no quarter, same deflection.

We can all sense or read into what probably happened during these various alleged episodes, but Cuomo is going to sidestep them regardless.

N.Y. Times summary of one episode: “A few days later, Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant to Mr. Cuomo, told The New York Times that the governor made comments that she took as sexual overtures while they were alone in his Albany office last year. Ms. Bennett said Mr. Cuomo said he was looking for a girlfriend and asked her whether she was monogamous and had sex with older men.”

Born in 1970, Matt Damon was raised in Cambridge, which can be a rough and brutish culture as far as old-school Boston machismo is concerned. He eventually moved up and out of Cambridge, of course, but you can never entirely rid yourself of the old ‘hood. Pieces and shards of your upbringing have a way of sticking to your skin, and there’s no washing them off completely.

Hence the difficulty Damon has gotten himself into after telling the UK Sunday Times‘ Jonathan Dean that “he only stopped using the “f-slur for a homosexual” months ago.

Damon clarification: “I have never called anyone ‘f****t’ in my personal life…I do not use slurs of any kind. I have learned that eradicating prejudice requires active movement toward justice rather than finding passive comfort in imagining myself ‘one of the good guys.’ And given that open hostility against the LGBTQ+ community is still not uncommon, I understand why my statement led many to assume the worst. To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community.”

Tens of millions of young straight guys who rocked and bopped around in the early to mid ’70s…they were all familiar with certain derogatory terms for gay guys. As urban culture evolved they learned, of course, that failing to jettison those terms…hell, even thinking with such terms would hurt them socially and professionally, and so most of them adapted. But with others the old attitudes hide in the shadows.

Warren Beatty is one of the most socially sensitive and political-minded fellows I’ve ever spoken to — he’s very, very careful with what he says and always uses the most oblique terminology he can think of. And yet even Beatty, in the person of George Roundy, used the “f” epithet in this scene with Carrie Fisher in Shampoo (’75), which was released when Damon was five years old. If Beatty and the Shampoo guys (Hal Ashby, Robert Towne) were okay with using the term, you can be damn sure that the world did back then and that it wasn’t a big deal to anyone. [The passage I’m referring to starts at the seven-second mark, and the epithet is repeated by Fisher at the 37-second mark and again at 1:02.]

Over the last few years progressive Hollywood has been doing everything it can to “Black up” Academy membership and by extension the Oscar Awards, and obviously that’s been happening, result-wise and nomination-wise, in the acting categories. But in the broader Best Picture category most voters will tend to support movies that tap into some kind of common cultural current…subjects and stories that reflect the “all” of human experience.

Specific social-agenda movies (going all the way back to I Am A Prisoner From a Chain Gang, They Won’t Forget, The Ox-Bow Incident and Gentleman’s Agreement) are almost always honored and respected, but snagging the big trophy is another equation.

We all understand that the Oscars are no longer the Oscars — they’ve become the Progressive Left Coast Tony Awards, addressing and reflecting the myopic industry culture and the general fear of wokesters on Twitter, etc. Which is why Joe and Jane Popcorn (not to mention Millennials and especially Zoomers) feel estranged if not divested, to put it mildly. Last April’s Steven Soderbergh Oscar show, a calamity by any yardstick, all but drove a stake through the brand.

Earlier today Sasha Stone and I spitballed the most likely 2022 Best Picture contenders, and there are only two one or two Black contenders that might have a shot — Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard (Warner Bros., 11.19 — obviously a Best Actor nomination waiting to happen for Will Smith) and Denzel Washington‘s A Journal for Jordan (Sony, 12.10).

The rest of the likelies are all white-centric, so even if the word goes out that King Richard and A Journal for Jordan have to be nominated to ensure at least a semi-significant Black presence, you’re still taking eight white films vs. two reflecting the POC experience.

The ten likeliest Best Picture contenders, from a pure-gut, finger-to-the-wind, eliminate-the-negatives perspective:

(1) Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Soggy Bottom (PTA films have never been Oscar-friendly as a rule, but SB is set in the ’70s and has something to do with the industry, or at least with Jon Peters) (UA Releasing, 11.26)

(2) Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up (satire about planetary destruction careening toward earth and the limitless human capacity for denial) (Netflix, mid to late fall)

(3) Clint Eastwood‘s Cry Macho (Warner Bros., 9.17)

(4) Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (11.24, UA Releasing)

(5) Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel (20th Century, 10.15)

(6) Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard (Warner Bros., 11.19)

(7) Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner‘s West Side Story (20th Century, 12.10)

(8) Michael Showalter‘s The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight, 9.17)

(9) Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos (Amazon, late 2021)

(10) Denzel Washington‘s A Journal for Jordan (Sony, 12.10).

Probably won’t make the cut for this and that reason (17): Dune, The French Dispatch, Nightmare Alley, In The Heights, No Time to Die, Passing, The Power of the Dog, Respect, Tick Tick Boom, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Pig, The Card Counter, Belfast, C’mon, C’mon, CODA, Cyrano, Stillwater.

Hollywood Elsewhere sympathizes with the disappointment expressed by Patricia Gucci, author of “In The Name of Gucci“, over the casting os Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci in Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (11.24, UA Releasing).

Aldo, who died five years before the 1995 events depicted in the film, was a handsome, elegantly dressed, silver-haired smoothie. (In his middle-aged to 70ish prime, I mean.) No offense, but it can be fairly noted that gnomish Pacino isn’t much of a physical match for the late Gucci executive at this stage in his life. Pacino was cast for his name and box-office-magnet factor, not for his resemblance to Aldo.

The Gucci family is naturally hoping that Scott’s film will depict them as glamorous and attractive, etc. I understand their frustration.

If Scott was somehow motivated to direct a film based on my own exciting, up-and-down life and decided to cast, say, Rob Schneider, I would be very, very upset. I would be outraged. Ditto if he were to cast Will Ferrell or John C. Reilly…the list goes on. The only person who could play the young version of me would be Chris Walken as he appeared in The Dogs of War and Next Stop, Greenwich Village. The only person who could play the current version would be me.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony, 9.24) has been directed by Andy Serkis, who has never (and will never) bring subtlety or exceptional finesse to anything. His creative instincts are almost always about pouring it on. (One exception: Serkis’s performance as serial killer Ian Brady in Tom Hooper‘s Longford.) Carnage stars Tom Hardy (bend-over paycheck gig) with Michelle Williams (good God), Naomie Harris (Jesus), Reid Scott, Stephen Graham and Woody Harrelson.

the #dontlookup teaser for anyone that missed (sorry for the quality) pic.twitter.com/gSaYCmaUeK

— ☁️ (@caladanarrakis) August 1, 2021