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I just landed at JFK, and the first blast out of the phone was the death of the great Stephen Sondheim, age 91. Shattering. All my life his songs and scores have been casting spells — wonderful, mesmerizing, heart-melting poetry…complex, urbane, delicate and sophisticated. And just before the opening of Steven Spielberg’s screen version of West Side Story, which Sondheim (along with Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins) co-created 64 or 65 years ago. I’m very, very sorry. Then again 91 years, and many of them rhapsodic or historic or at least ebullient.

“Stephen Sondheim: The Last Word,” N.Y. Times. 11.26.

Three years and eight months seems like a long time ago in this context. It’s kind of startling to consider how so many people were convinced that Jordan Peele‘s Get Out was the absolute shit, and that it looked like a Best Picture Oscar winner. Imagine. Time sure does change perceptions. Woke-think had only begun to flex its muscles a few months earlier.

Posted on 2.26.18: Yesterday on Facebook HE’s own Jordan Ruimy again predicted that Jordan Peele‘s Get Out will win the Best Picture Oscar. Then he doubled-down on Twitter this morning.

What he means is that Get Out, a half creepy, half satiric, racially-stamped Stepford Wives, will slipslide into a win because a huge number of Academy members have it down as their #2 or #3 choice, and that the “kooky” preferential ballot will do the rest.

Hollywood Elsewhere says no way. I’m not even sure that Get Out will win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, which will most likely be won by Three Billboards‘ Martin McDonagh. It might win in this category, but forget Best Picture — the apparent momentum of the last week has all been with Three Billboards with everyone assuming that The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro will take Best Director.

I’ll say this much: One thing favoring Get Out is that the people who love it really love it, while the Three Billboards and Shape of Water crowd is more composed of likers and accomodationists.

HE arguments & agreements with Facebook comments:

“That would be great but I doubt it” — Alex Conn. HE: “What exactly would be ‘great’ about Get Out winning Best Picture? Great in what way? And how likely is this? A clever, financially successful genre film that says upscale liberal whites are just as odious as Charlottesville racists — who in AcademyLand really believes that?”

“It’s a good movie but not Oscar-worthy. The academy will give it the old ‘good effort, good try’ treatment come Oscar time. My money is on Three Billboards.” — Trexis Griffin. HE to Griffin: “But that’s the new thing — a significant portion of the new membership does consider genre fare like Get Out to be Oscar-worthy.”

“Nah. Too genre for Oscar. This one screams Best Original Screenplay.” — Tim Fuglei. HE comment: And possibly not even that.

“Jordan, will you eat a bug if wrong?” — Jay Smith. HE to Ruimy: Seriously — what act of contrition will you actually perform if you’re wrong?

“It’s Get Out or Three Billboards. There are good and bad reasons for both. Three Billboards is actor-driven and actors dominate [in the voting]. Get Out could win, but you have to wonder how the BAFTAs had the option of choosing it to win Best Picture but went with Three Billboards for both Best Picture and Best British film? Between that and having no SAG ensemble nom is why I am not predicting Get Out to win, but it is one of three that could. I have no idea what will win.” — Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone.

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Hollywood Elsewhere’s LAX-JFK flight leaves at 1:40 pm Pacific, arrives at 9 pm eastern. I’m presuming I’ll be online during the flight. NYC/NJ/CT temps in the low 40s as we speak, probably in 30s when I land. Every time I fly back east, the same question hovers in my mind — do I take the cowboy hat or not? If the weather was extra cold, mid 20s or below, I’d say yeah. The 10-day forecast says it won’t drop below 35.

“In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Christopher Columbus flew Jet Blue…”

…about Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (20th Century, 12.7) are the occasionally creaky song lyrics, particularly in a pair of Jets tunes — “Gee, Officer Krupke” (“With all the marijuana, they won’t give me a puff,” “leapin’ lizards”) and “Be Cool” (“Daddy-o,” “go man go”). I can’t imagine these James Dean-era expressions not sounding wrong to Millennial and Zoomer ears.

Then again those demos aren’t expected to attend in great numbers. Or do I have that wrong?

Another thing: Gang-wise, the WSS narrative obviously favors (i.e., identifies with) Jets over Sharks. Two Jets-huddle songs — one reviewing their dysfunctional, low-rent upbringing, another their post-rumble anxieties — but none for the Puerto Rican Sharks indicates ethnic bias. If Romeo and Juliet were to be adapted today into a street-gang musical, an absolute even-steven approach — no favoring the Montagues over Capulets — would be the rule.

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HE has never been a fan of Pablo Larrain and Kristen Stewart’s Spencer. On 11.8 I reported that Joe and Jane Popcorn had given it a shitty 51% RT rating; now it’s down to 50%. Again — does this hurt Stewart’s Best Actress campaign? You tell me.

The material is nothing special but for me, the Get Back Beatles playing Chuck Berry‘s “Rock and Roll Music” is easily the most rousing performance. It happens during episode #1 of Peter Jackson‘s 468-minute documentary, which premieres today on Disney+.

“The moments of inspiration and interest are marooned amid acres of desultory chit-chat (‘aimless rambling’, as Lennon rightly puts it) and repetition. There is a point, about five hours in, when the prospect of hearing another ramshackle version of ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ becomes an active threat to the viewer’s sanity.

“That is doubtless what recording an album is like, but for an onlooker it is — to use the language of 1969 — a real drag. Much opprobrium has been cast at Yoko Ono for her constant presence at Beatles’ recording sessions, but, after this, you marvel at her fortitude for sitting through them.” — The Guardian‘s Alex Petridis, posted on 11.25.

As I wrote this morning, just glancing at this album art gives me the willies. What villain designed it**? Peter effing Max, that’s who.

This fall of ‘67 album was conceived and recorded under the influence of spiritual psychedelic enlightenment and Maharishi meditation.

What was happening within was Godly and cosmic (or do I mean cosmic and Godly?), but what emerged were lightweight McCartney anthems like “The Fool on the Hill”, “Hello Goodbye” and “Your Mother Should Know” plus “Blue Jay Way,” another of Harrison’s draggy, downish scold songs. I’ve avoided this album like the plague for many decades, although “Baby You’re a Rich Man” and Lennon’s “I Am The Walrus” (“Everybody’s fucked up”) are keepers.

Friendo: “MMT is the worst Beatle album? It has ‘Strawberry Fields’, ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’…the whole second side is great.”

HE to Friendo: “’Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields’ were hatched in early ‘67 — pre-“Pepper” singles. The creative fires were crackling hot at that time. Not so much in the late summer and fall of ’67.”

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This falls under the heading of “vulgar performative egoism” — our private lives, marriages and pregnancy announcements transformed into a major live-stadium crowd event + a worldwide celebration of fame and performative happiness as a social media statement, endlessly shared and liked.

SURPRISE: A man was left stunned after the Orlando Magic basketball team helped his wife tell him the news that she is pregnant during their game’s “Kiss Cam” interlude on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/aTmiCXInkf

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 25, 2021