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World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has reviewed selections from a fair number of anonymous Oscar ballots (he includes links to 13 but claims there are seven more piggy-backed or bunched in).

Ruimy reports that Penelope Cruz is the far-and-away favorite in the Best Actress realm, being the top-poller in 15 ballots (or something like that). The next closest contender, he says, is Kristen Stewart with 5 votes; Jessica Chastain has 3 votes.

Obviously this is a non-scientific count and far from comprehensive, but within this small sub-section Cruz is the hottie.

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From Wikipedia fragging page:

Posted on 5.17.17: “A 20something guy sat next to me during yesterday’s train trip from Gare de Lyon to Cannes. About 90 minutes after departure he got up and went to the food car, an all-metal enclosure on the upper deck, mostly serving McDonald’s-like eats and drinks. But instead of wolfing his food up there, the guy brought it back to our first-class haven.

“Right away the smell of microwaved cheese, pickles and burger meat filled the air. And then he opened the wrappers and it was even worse. I knew that giving this animal two or three stink-eye glances wouldn’t matter, but I did it anyway.

“It would be one thing if he returned with an apple or a cappuccino or a cold sandwich, but subjecting travellers to toxic fast food fumes is only a step away from cutting a series of elephant farts.

“On top of which the guy darted outdoors every time we stopped at a big city (Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles) to smoke a cigarette, and when he returned the putrid aroma of nicotine and cheap tobacco was nearly as bad as the cheeseburger.

“Did it occur to this three-toed sloth that that his fratboy aromas were a problem? Naaah. One of the key traits of assholes worldwide is not being even faintly aware that they might be irritating others. The thought never even occurs.”

During that arriving-in-America moment in The Godfather, Part II, and as Francis Coppola’s camera tracks along the deck of the Mosholu, we see twins standing only three or four feet apart — short, full-faced, middle-aged men with the same eyes, nose and mouth. Wait…is that a second set of younger, taller twins standing behind them?

Six and a half weeks ago the 2022 Oscar nominations were announced, and to everyone’s surprise Parallel Mothers star Penelope Cruz, whom every handicapper had written off weeks earlier, landed a Best Actress nomination. And now, people are saying, she appears to be surging and may even win the Oscar come Sunday.

Maybe.

I’d love to see this happen, of course. As everyone knows (and as I reminded on 2.8.22) Hollywood Elsewhere stood by Cruz for weeks and weeks, alone and resolute against the stiff winds of seeming indifference…the only name-brand columnist who waved weekly flags for her deeply rooted performance.

All the other award-season Yodas were either Doubting Thomases or cautious fence-sitters…damp-finger-to-the-wind equivocators. If you want to make it in this business you have to have heart.

Penélope Cruz:

-Didn’t get a Golden Globe nod
-Didn’t get a Critics Choice nod
-Didn’t get a SAG nod
-Didn’t even make the BAFTA *LONGLIST*

And she STILL got the Oscar nom.

Legend behavior, your faves could never, etc etc etc. pic.twitter.com/hOMOx9LSra

— Zach Gilbert (@zachbgilbert) February 8, 2022

It’s not a secret that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is an arch-conservative, Trump-supporting wacko. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, therefore, that Thomas texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows numerous times on 1.6.21, calling Joe Biden’s election victory “the greatest heist of our history” and declaring that then-President Donald Trump “should not concede….this is a fight of good vs. evil.”

Obviously Mrs. Thomas should be subpeonaed to testify, as should Judge Thomas. Will this power couple be subpeonaed? It’s my personal opinion that the leaders of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6h on the U.S. Capitol are, no offense, slow-moving pussies so I guess we’ll see what happens.

It was presumptuous of Bill McCuddy to say that “we” have all voted for Jessica Chastain for the Most Makeup Best Actress Oscar, or that we’re at least rooting for her to win. I’m not saying she won’t win, mind — her Tammy Faye Bakker was a pretty good performance, all things considered — but I didn’t care for McCuddy’s tone.

Jay Silverheels’ Tonto to Clayton Moore‘s Lone Ranger, “What you mean ‘we’?”

A week ago I reported that I’d seen the first five episodes of Elizabeth Meriwether‘s The Dropout, and that as good as Amanda Seyfried‘s performance as the discredited tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes was and is, “I kept asking myself ‘who would be stupid enough to go into business with this creepy character…a woman who, had she been born in the 1940s, could have played an alien on The Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’? Or Ray Walston‘s alien girlfriend in My Favorite Martian?”

“Meriwether’s dialogue is reasonably pro-level for the most part,” I said, “but I can only reiterate that I couldn’t believe in the story because I found it impossible to believe in Seyfried’s Holmes. She’s just too looney-tunes, too ‘off the planet.'”

I’ve since moved past that reaction. I saw episode #6 last night and now I’m mesmerized. I have to admit that the prospect of seeing this bizarre performance artist finally receive her just desserts over the final two episodes (“Heroes“, airing on 3.31 and “Lizzy“, 4.7) seems incredibly delicious. I can’t wait to see her go down, and yet five minutes ago I was afraid to admit this for fear of accused of being accused of harboring misogynist feelings. So just to be safe, I’m going to say…uhm, how should I put this?

You have to give Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter credit for ruling this particular roost — maternally speaking it’s easily the most despairing and melancholy of the 11 films in question. It’s the first semi-mainstream film to say “some women just don’t have kid-friendly instincts” or “some women are just too caught up in their creative struggles to make room for mundane mothering.” [Chart created by Vulture.]

According to a 6.1.20 article in the Daily Nexus (the paper of the University of California Santa Barbara), hotshot elevated horror helmer Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary) offered a brief description of his next film. It was in the script stage back then but is now completed, I’ve read, and titled Disappointment Blvd.. A24 will release it later this year.

Aster: “All I know is that it’s gonna be four hours long, and [span] 17 years.” Aster has also also called it a “nightmare comedy” or “horror comedy” or words to that effect.

The presumably deceptive logline describes Disappointment Blvd. as “an intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.” being played by Joaquin Phoenix.

For most of us, the words “starring Joaquin Phoenix” means a film about some kind of obsessive, extreme psychology or behavior…something intriguingly weird and a bit wackazoid. Phoenix used to have the ability to play normal guys but that’s gone — he’s almost a Nic Cage-like figure in the sense of being consumed by his own persona.

Disappointment Blvd.-wise, the odds strongly favor that Phoenix will play a guy who’s so internal and ultra-sensitive that he’s become paranoid and removed from the Average Joe community…this is who Joaquin is, what he’s become…a guy who plays alien locoweeds.

I’m mentioning Disappointment Blvd. because yesterday World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy reported that Aster’s film is (a) “ready” and (b) “now a possibility for Cannes Film Festival competition.” If this happens, great — you know it’ll be an insane film that everyone will have fun with, and that Phoenix (if and when the film appears) will be a prime contender for the festival’s Best Actor award. Let’s just hope that Aster has somehow whittled Disappointment Blvd. down to three hours instead of four. Or better yet, two and a half. hours.

Ruimy adds that A24 might make also bring Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up to Cannes as a competition title. Another potential A24 title, he adds, could be Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter.

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Tom Hagen at Jack Woltz‘s dinner table — the 2008 Robert Harris-Gordon Willis version on top, the 2022 4K “restoration” version below. There’s nothing particularly “wrong” with preferring the 2022 version — the oranges, candles, pale amber lampshade and carved wood panelling have good color, but Hagen’s skin tone is a little pinkish…sunburn, sweat. In the 2008 version his skin has a warmer shade. More importantly, it blends in with the general color scheme of the frame. This is why I stand with the 2008 version, which Mr. Willis helped to create anyway so where’s the argument?