In my eyes, Christopher Plummer‘s absolute peak performance was his bite-your-head-off Mike Wallace in The Insider (’99). (Key line: “No, that’s fame…fame has a 15 minute half-life…infamy lasts a little longer”). His J. Paul Getty in All The Money in the World was fairly terrific also. Previous highlights do not include The Sound of Music….sorry. But they do include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Waterloo, The Man Who Would Be King (as Rudyard Kipling), The Silent Partner (creepy bad guy opposite Elliot Gould, Susannah York), Somewhere in Time, Dolores Claiborne, A Beautiful Mind, The New World, Beginners, Knives Out. I never once saw Plummer on stage — very sorry for that. He was 91 years old.

“The House on Thursday took the extraordinary step of ousting a lawmaker from two congressional committees, exiling Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia for endorsing the executions of Democrats and spreading dangerous and bigoted misinformation even as her fellow Republicans rallied around her.

“In a move without precedent in the modern Congress, the House voted 230 to 199 — over near-unanimous Republican opposition — to remove Ms. Greene from the Education and Budget Committees.

“The move effectively stripped Ms. Greene of her influence in Congress by banishing her from committees critical to advancing legislation and conducting oversight. Party leaders traditionally control the membership of the panels, and while Democrats and Republicans have occasionally moved to punish their own members by stripping them of assignments, the majority has never in modern times moved to do so to a lawmaker in the other party.” — N.Y. Times, reported by Catie Edmondson, Nicholas Fandos and Thomas Kaplan.

Rob Lowe to Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton about achieving sobriety: “Nothing can make you get sober except you wanting to do it. The threat of losing a marriage, losing a job, incarceration — you name the threat, it will not be enough to do it. It’s got to be in you. The reason that people don’t get sober 100% of the time when they go into programs is that people aren’t ready when they go to use the tools.”

HE to Lowe: It’s true that no threat will make you get sober. You have to want it for yourself, for your very own reasons. But nothing will make you want to get sober like gazing at close-up photos of your own puffy face.

It was the middle of March in 2012, and I was talking to Prague’s Esthe Plastika about having some touch-up work on my eyelids, eye bags and neck wattle. I explained what I wanted, and they asked me to take some close-ups of my face and neck area and send them along. So I did, and when I looked at those horrific snaps I went into catatonic shock. I was looking at the features of a bloated wine-drinking manatee.

The first thought that hit me was ‘okay, that’s it for the evening sips of Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc…I’m done.’ The shock of those photos was so great that I stopped that very night. I haven’t touched a drop since.

My nine-year anniversary will be celebrated on 3.20.21.

I’ve been visiting movie sets for 40-odd years. I’ve never worked on a feature or TV series on a day-to-day basis so I’m no authority. But over the years I’ve noticed over and over that sets are generally pleasant environments — caring attitudes, consideration for others, no hostility or temper tantrums to speak of.

On the other hand there’s always tension between directors of exceptional vision and eccentricity, and those who hate innovation and new ideas — who prefer to shoot films and TV shows in the usual way.

I remember reading that Brian DePalma once said that he was suspicious of happy sets because that indicated (to him) that people were goofing off. Back in the early ’80s an actor friend told me that director David Ward regarded the making of Cannery Row as a “constant war” with meddling studio execs and a crew that often resisted various outside-the-box ideas or ways of getting things done.

Today I was struck by a recollection from Booksmart director Olivia Wilde, which she passed along to Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell in a Variety video chat.

Wilde: “A very established actor and director in this industry” — two separate people, she apparently means — “gave me really terrible advice that was helpful, because I just knew I had to do the opposite. They said, ‘Listen, the way to get respect on a set, you have to have three arguments a day…three big arguments that reinstate your power, remind everyone who’s in charge, be the predator.’ That is the opposite of my process. And I want none of that.”

Wilde expands: “I think that it is an unfortunate part of the kind of the paradigm, that has been created over the last 100 years…the idea that great art has to come from a place of discomfort and anxiety. That the pressure cooker has to get to a point where it can be something intense and valuable in that way.

“I do think it may be a uniquely female instinct to say, ‘Look, we can be nurturing. And we can multitask.’ It doesn’t mean that anyone needs to be uncomfortable. And it doesn’t mean that I have to constantly remind you of my my position, because I don’t think anyone on a set has ever forgotten who’s in charge. It’s in fact, an incredibly hierarchical system.

“If anything, I think we’d all benefit to sort of remove the hero narrative from that structure, and to acknowledge that a director is a sum of all these parts, that we have the opportunity to delegate to all these incredible people that we’ve asked to come on board.

Fennell: “This idea of having three arguments a day…where do you differentiate between something that really important, and something that isn’t? I think that there are moments necessarily where you do have to be sort of fairly strict or straightforward to get things back on the rails.

“[But] I agree completely with what you say, I think there’s a sort of idea that being a tormented artist is the route to genius. I really do think, as I’ve sort of gotten older, it is just a mask for a lot of fear and anxiety. It’s kind of a sort of synonym for bullying.”

Question to production veterans: Have you ever worked under a three-argument-per-day director, and if so, how was the experience? Have you ever worked for alpha-lion types or persistent arguers who turned out to be really good, or is the general rule of thumb that the gentlest directors tend to be more effective?”

…and weasels never ripped it.

Anonymous source who’s “close to [Armie] Hammer“, speaking to Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister: “[Armie has] never eaten human flesh, he has never drank blood, he has never cut off a toe, he has never locked anybody in a cage, or whatever else is in these crazy messages.

“These messages definitely shouldn’t be taken literally — even if he did text them. Anyone can say what they want and solicit craziness on Instagram or TikTok or Clubhouse. People think that kinky sex is weird and taboo, and maybe it is to most people, but clearly there are adults who engage in it and enjoy it.”

This is what I’ve been saying all along about the cannibal thing. Hammer describing himself in a text message as a “cannibal” didn’t literally allude to the eating of flesh, for heaven’s sake, but to the idea of cunnilingus cannibalism — voraciously tongue-bathing a certain area of a woman’s anatomy with exceptional vigor.

Can you imagine if Glenn Close finally wins her Oscar… for HILLBILLY ELEGY? pic.twitter.com/JWtjSQ0LQl

— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) February 4, 2021

Posted by HE on 11.10.20.

Ex-President Donald Trump resigned today from the Screen Actors Guild after learning that the union’s Disciplinary Committee was planning to give him the boot.

Excerpt: “I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares! Because I quit! In fact, why don’t you guys fly down to Palm Beach, come upstairs, put on blindfolds, drop to your knees and take turns doing the unspeakable?”

Trump didn’t actually write that last sentence, and the second-to-last sentence reads “this is to inform you of my immediate resignation from SAG/AFTRA.” Same difference.

The SAG Ensemble Award (Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture) is somewhat akin to a Best Picture Oscar nomination, at least as far as SAG/AFTRA membership is concerned. So congrats to Spike Lee‘s Da 5 Bloods, Regina King‘s One Night in Miami and George C. King‘s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — a trio of historical films about the black experience — for snagging SAG Best Ensemble noms. And congrats to Netflix for producing all three.

Another attaboy back-pat for Lee Isaac Chung‘s Minari, a 1980s drama about a South Karean family attempting to settle in Arkansas. Hearty congrats are also offered to Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is set a half-century ago in Chicago and which principally deals with a ragtag group of fair-skinned ’60s radicals and their attorneys.

So the five best films of the year, in the view of SAG/AFTRA, are all history flicks — one set in the late 1920s, one in the mid ’60s, two in the late ’60s and one in the mid ’80s. On top of which Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove, HE’s choice for the best feature film of the year, is also set in the late ’60s — a trifecta.

It would have been interesting if at least one nominated film had some connection with the 21st Century, but that wasn’t on the table this year. A chief priority was the politics of representation, and I think it’s fair to say that this concern has been well represented today.

The most disturbing SAG/AFTRA announcement, IMHO, was the failure of members to nominate Sound of Metal‘s Paul Raci in the Best Supporting Actor category, and at the same time giving a nomination to Jared Leto for his psycho-hippie weirdo performance in The Little Things.

The second most unsettling thing was Mank‘s Amanda Seyfried, whose performance as Marion Davies was praised by everyone, being blown off while Mank topliner Gary Oldman was nominated for Best Actor, which in itself is fine.

In addition to handing Da 5 Bloods a Best Ensemble nom, the SAGsters also handed a Best Supporting Actor nom to the late Chadwick Boseman as well as a Best Stunt Ensemble nom to Lee’s film. Bloods costar Delroy Lindo, who was stiffed yesterday by the HFPA, was blown off again today.

The SAG awards will air on the evening of Sunday, April 4, at 6 pm Pacific (TNT/TBS).

Here’s a partial SAG rundown; HE picks are in boldface:

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture / “Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix); “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (Netflix); “Minari” (A24); “One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios); “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role / Amy Adams (“Hillbilly Elegy”); Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”); Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”);Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”) / Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”).

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role / Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”); Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”); Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”); Gary Oldman (“Mank”); Steven Yeun (“Minari”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role / Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”); Glenn Close (“Hillbilly Elegy”); Olivia Colman (“The Father”); Youn Yuh-Jung (“Minari”); Helena Zengel (“News of the World”).

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role / Chadwick Boseman (“Da 5 Bloods”); Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”); Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”); Jared Leto (“The Little Things”); Leslie Odom, Jr. (“One Night in Miami”)

Scott Feinberg thought: “For performers overlooked by both groups — folks like Sophia Loren, Zendaya, The Way Back‘s Ben Affleck, News of the World‘s Tom Hanks, Malcolm & Marie‘s John David Washington, Ammonite‘s Kate Winslet” — yes! — “and Saoirse Ronan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always‘ Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder, Sound of Metal‘s Paul Raci and Olivia Cooke, Nomadland‘s David Strathairn and Meryl Streep of both Let Them All Talk and The Prom — is it time to pack it in, or to double-down?”

HE to Feinberg: Raci should push on by all means — ignoring him is a grievous oversight by the HFPA and SAG/AFTRA….what’s wrong with you guys?

Friendo: “They’re going to blame all the Lindo snubs on racism .”

Yes, I’m still a sentimental physical-media fool. The ardor has cooled over the last five years, but I’m still inclined to plunk down $20 on almost any decently remastered 4K Bluray of a respected, large-scale ’50s film. The key issue is whether or not it was shot in the VistaVision process. Which The Ten Commandments (’56) definitely was. How much better can it look? Will it deliver a significant bump over the 2011 Bluray version? My head tells me “maybe” but my gut says “naahh, probably not that much…okay, maybe a bit.”

Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest and To Catch A Thief were shot in VistaVision — what’s the hold-up? And what about the legendary Ben-Hur (’59), which was shot in Camera 65**? I’ve been “hearing” about a 4K version of William Wyler‘s multi-Oscar winner for several years now. The 60-year anniversary came and went two years ago.

A couple of websites that post rock-song lyrics don’t understand what the female chorus is singing in Sting‘s “We’ll Be Together.” But I do, and I think it’s genius because it makes up its own and runs with it. Like in The Wizard of Oz, for example, when Ray Bolger‘s scarecrow sings “I’d unravel every riddle / for any individdle / in trouble or in pain.” Or the Cowardly lion rhyming “rhinoceros” and “impoceros.”

The second verse of Sting’s 1987 song goes as follows: “To have you with me I would swim the seven seas / I need you as my guide and my light / My love is a flame that burns in your name / we’ll be together / we’ll be together tonight.”

And then, according to genius.com, the chorus chimes in with “we’ll be together…yeah!”

That’s definitely not what they’re singing. They’re repeating Sting’s love mantra (as in “tell it to her, Gordon…shout it from the rooftops”), but abbreviated. They’re not singing “together” and certainly not “we’ll be together” — way too many syllables. They’re singing “togaahhhh” — as in “together” but with the last four letters abandoned and the middle “e” changed into an “aahh.”

When Sting and the chorus singers were rehearsing, he said “you’ll be repeating my central pledge but three syllables kills it, so just sing ‘togaahhh‘ and give it everything you’ve got.”

Hollywood Elsewhere saw Sian Heder ‘s much-adored, Sundance award-showered CODA this morning. It’s moderately appealing and nicely made for the most part. Understand, however, that it’s an “audience movie” — aimed at folks who like feel-good stories with heart, humor, romance and charm.

It’s about a shy Gloucester high-school girl named Ruby (Emilia Jones) with a decent if less than phenomenal singing voice. She’d rather attend Boston’s Berklee College of Music than work for her deaf family’s fishing business, we’re told. The film is about the hurdles and complications that she has to deal with in order to realize this dream.

CODA is one of those “real people struggling with life’s changes and challenges” flicks, but given the fishing-off-the-Massachusetts-coast aspect it’s fair to say it’s no Manchester By The Sea — trust me. It’s a wee bit simplistic and schticky and formulaic -— okay, more than a bit — and contains a fair amount of “acting.”

Emilia Jones in Sian Heder’s CODA.

For my money Jones overplays the quiet, withdrawn, still-waters-run-deep stuff, but it’s an honest performance as far as it goes — she has an appealing, unpretentious rapport with the camera. Eugenio Derbez‘s performance as an eccentric, Mexican-born music teacher is probably the film’s best single element. Bearded, baggy-eyed Troy Kotsur and 54 year-old Marlee Matlin are engaging as Ruby’s live-wire parents.

Matlin and Kotsur are the source, actually, of some clunky sexual humor (frisky parents noisily going at it during the late afternoon, randy Kotsur urging chaste Ruby to make her boyfriend wear “a helmet” during coitus, that line of country). Except the jokes don’t really land, or at least they didn’t with me.

In a phrase, CODA is not a Guy Lodge film.

But CODA is an okay film. It works here and there. It didn’t give me a headache. I can understand why some are enthusiastic about it. It deserves a mild pass. Heder is a better-than-decent director.

Friendo: “It’s a by-the-numbers family romcom with an added progressive-minded openness for the deaf.”

(Posted from iPhone while waiting in line at the Tijuana border, heading back into the States.)