To me, Real Time with Bill Maher is comfort therapy. As a fellow New Jerseyan (I was painfully raised in Westfield — Maher grew up in River Vale) I understand Maher’s Irish Catholic imprint and sardonic world view. And I’m often fortified by his “New Rules” sermons. And yet, between seasons, I have to do without the show for weeks at a time. Which is distressing. It’s not the laughter but the hometown comfort factor. Season 19 kicks off on 1.15.21.

As much as I respected and went with Steve McQueen‘s Lovers Rock (Amazon Prime, 11.20), it was obvious early on that it was basically a spirited mood piece — a 68-minute film about a house party in 1980s West London…love (mainly the current between Micheal Ward and Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn), lulling vibes, singing, throbbing raggae, spicy food, etc. No story, no narrative…an agreeable “hang”.

And then I saw McQueen’s Mangrove, a gripping, well-throttled political drama which echoes and parallels Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7. I knew soon enough I was watching something utterly transporting and first-rate — a fact-based, racist-cops-vs.-neighborhood-activists drama set in late ’60s and early ’70s London, and about as fully satisfying as something like this (concluding with a courtroom drama) could be.

I decided the next day that Mangrove was my favorite 2020 film, even though Amazon has decided that it’s not an Oscar contender (although it should be).

And then I read the just-posted Sight & Sound roster of the 50 best films of 2020, and of course they’ve got Lovers Rock in the #1 slot and Mangrove at #13…naturally!

Garrett Bradley‘s Time (Amazon Prime, now streaming), an 81-minute doc about a wife fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband, serving a 60-year sentence for bank robbery, was ranked at #2. Kelly Reichardt‘s First Cow has the #3 position, Charlie Kaufman‘s I’m Thinking of Ending Things is #4, and Rose Glass‘s Saint Maud is ranked fifth.

You can always rely on the Sight & Sound fraternity to convey dweeb values.

Here’s the full 50.

News excerpt: “On its first high-altitude flight, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded the moment it hit the ground. Musk had said it was unlikely that Starship serial number 8 (SN8) would land safely — and the billionaire was quite correct.

The giant rocket took off from the firm’s Boca Chica, Texas testing facility at 5:45 pm ET, igniting its Raptor engines and soaring into the sky to successfully hit its goal of reaching an elevation of 7.8 miles (41,000 feet).”

And if Woody Allen‘s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (’66) had a space-rocket sequence, it would’ve looked a lot like this Musk-supplied video.

With Rudy Giuliani flashing a thumbs-up after being released from a hospital following two days of rich-guy treatment for Covid-19, how much trouble could Ellen DeGeneres, also Covid-diagnosed, be in?

If she’s smart Ellen will shoot up with Regeneron, Remdesivir and all the other wealthy person nutrients and cocktails. Ellen’s show is on hiatus until January but everything is obviously fine.

Touch-and-go situations abound, I’m sure, but Herman Cain aside, Covid doesn’t seem to kill wealthy people. This much seems clear.

Steven Soderbergh‘s Let Them All Talk begins streaming today on HBO Max. In my 12.3 review, I called it “a smart, reasonably engrossing, better-than-mezzo-mezzo character study that largely takes place aboard the Queen Mary 2 during an Atlantic crossing.”

I explained that it’s “primarily about Alice, a moderately famous, sternly self-regarding novelist (Meryl Streep) and her somewhat brittle relationship with two old college friends, Susan and Roberta (Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen), whom she’s invited along on a New York-to-Southhampton voyage, courtesy of her publisher.

Tagging along are Tyler (Lucas Hedges), Alice’s 20something nephew, and Karen (Gemma Chan), an anxious book editor whom Tyler takes an unfortunate shine to. Also aboard is a David Baldacci-like airport novelist (Dan Algrant) whose books Roberta and Susan adore, and who’s far more engaging and emotionally secure than Alice any day of the week.”

Bergen’s performance, I said, is “definitely a Best Supporting Actress nominee waiting to happen.” I’d really like to hear if there’s any agreement on this point.

The following story (dated 12.10) has been reported by Rich Kirby for the Wilton, Connecticut version of patch.com:

Police are seeking the public’s assistance in their search for Michael Tannheimer, age 41. Tannheimer is white, with brown eyes and hair, [standing] 5’10” and [weighing] 170 pounds. He was last seen in Danbury wearing a blue t-shirt and tan pants.”

In mid December? It’s currently 46 degrees in Danbury, but yesterday it was much colder with snow flurries here and there.

Rolling Stone‘s David Browne reported on Tuesday that the cost of Universal Music Publishing’s acquisition of Bob Dylan’s song catalogue (roughly 600 songs) is “rumored to be around $400 million.” Others are speculating that the figure is closer to $300 million.

The buy also includes all the songs on “Music From Big Pink, The Band‘s 1968 debut album.

This allows me to re-post “Music From Big Rosey Beige,” tapped out six years ago:

During yesterday’s visit to Saugerties I stopped by the fabled “big pink” house to pay respects and take a couple of snaps. I’m speaking, of course, of the legendary abode where Bob Dylan and The Band recorded the Basement Tapes in ’67 and from which The Band’s “Music From Big Pink” album sprung in ’68.

And I must report the truth, which is that “big pink” is a lie — it’s not pink but a mild rose mixed with beige.

Pink is pink — an eyesore color for girly-girls. Shocking pink, punk-hair pink, pink underwear, Angelyne‘s pink Corvette, Elvis‘s soft pink Cadillac from the late ’50s. There’s also the realm of rose, which is a gentler, somewhat earthier, more natural shade. Mix rose with a bit of fleshy soft biege from the women’s make-up counter at Bloomingdale’s and you’ve got the color of “big pink.”

I understand that “big pink” sounds better than “big rosey beige” and that’s cool, but someone had to tell the truth and I guess it had to be me.

I missed Tuesday evening’s press-streaming window for George Clooney‘s The Midnight Sky. Then again it pops on Netflix tomorrow (Friday, 12.11) so…you know, all things in their own time.

I’m also feeling a certain measure of sorrow that the film has flunked with the aggregates — a dispiriting 58% on Rotten Tomatoes and a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God Metacritic rating of 54.

Clooney has described his film as The Revenant meets Gravity. My sense from the initial get-go (initial descriptions, stills, first trailer) has been doom meets gloom meets graybeard solemnity.

“…that everything’s gonna change now. That movie theatres are gonna become art houses and that the films that you and I make will only be seen on streaming. I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

“For 4000 years, nothing has replaced the experience of being part of an audience. That experience, being in the same place when the lights go down, everybody laughing at the same time, gasping at the same time, [sharing] silence at the same time…” — The Trial of the Chicago 7 director-writer Aaron Sorkin in a 12.9 Variety chat with Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins.

As much as I personally believe and trust in Sorkin’s view, I strongly suspect that this age-old belief in the unique and unreplacable theatrical experience may be largely sentimental. Left to their own devices, people can be incredibly lazy and sloth-like. Not just during the last ten months, but eternally. I’m obviously talking about the under-40s.

In a 12.10 chat with N.Y. Times chatcaster Kara Swisher, Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar has insisted that at least for the time being, the just-announced plan to stream all Warner Bros films on HBO Max is not locked in beyond 2021. And if you believe that one…

Honest viewpoint: Kilar is a smart guy. He’s certainly riding the back of the tiger, and he laughs from the heart. But he also laughs (and this bothers me) like a fraternity guy.

Back to Sorkin: If you had asked me yesterday when theatre began I would’ve said around 2500 years ago, with the birth of Athenian tragedy, or sometime during the 6th century B.C. This is when theatre became a “thing,” certainly in terms of specific creative visions.

I’ll tell you what it means. It means that the April 2021 Oscar telecast is not going to be some kind of downmarket, dumbbell, Vegas-friendly, Alan Carr-ish thing. It’s going to be smart, sleek, Soderberghian, sophisticated, economical, tailored to X-factor sensibilities, forward-looking, less-is-more-ish. It means that sorta kinda clueless Hollywood Blvd. tourists will not be invited into the Dolby auditorium because nobody wants to watch a bunch of jerks shooting the proceedings with their smartphones. It means that…I don’t actually know anything but with Soderbergh calling (some of) the shots, you know it’ll be some kind of Mr. Smartypants thang.