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There are several Hollywood landmarks we’ve all heard of or peeked at — John Barrymore‘s Bella Vista, Beachwood Canyon’s Wolf’s Lair, the beige-pink Godfather compound (i.e., Jack Woltz‘s horse’s head home) on No. Beverly Drive, Guillermo del Toro‘s “Bleak House,” the Double Indemnity house.

And now, at the northeast corner of Fairfax Ave. and Wilshire Blvd., there’s a new one — “Woke House” or, if you will, “Inclusion and Equity House,” otherwise known as the Academy Museum.

It’s the Temple of Hollywood Redefined — the emphasis being partly on Hollywood lore and glamour, but mostly about identity and inclusivity and progressive cultural ideals and the Academy’s commitment to fulfilling same. About how Hollywood is a much better industry now than it used to be, and how we should all celebrate that fact. (But not too much!) The past is represented, of course, but the museum is mainly about doing the right thing for people who used to be benched on the sidelines or were made to wait in line out in the parking lot.

Welcome, film lovers, and thank you for your $25 ticket purchases, but never forget that you’re now in a place of wokester instruction.

Among the museum’s “guiding principles” is to always remember the sometimes sordid, colorful past, and to always be mindful of the Jonathan Shields legend (i.e., sometimes the best films are made by heartless sons of bitches) in The Bad and the Beautiful, and to remember that making great films has always been a grueling, uphill struggle…to never forget the scandals and suicides and cover-ups, and to recall that after seeing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer huffily told Billy Wilder than he had bitten the hand that fed him, and that Wilder’s immediate response was to tell Mayer to go fuck himself…to remember that during the ’50s the industry looked the other way as several honorable screenwriters were blacklisted and forced to work in Europe…to never forget that Jack L. Warner hated Bonnie and Clyde, and that producer-star Warren Beatty had to beg him to re-release it, and only then was it celebrated…that in the late ’50s Sidney Poitier was unable to rent a Beverly Hills home due to racist real estate agents, and that he was at least able to stay at the Chateau Marmont…that 20th Century Fox boss Daryl F. Zanuck used to carnally impale aspiring actresses every afternoon in his 20th Century Fox office…that local men and women of color were hired to portray Skull Island natives in King Kong, and that they were probably glad to get the work, even though it meant wearing bone necklaces and grass skirts….to never forget the endless oppressions and exploitations and greedy conflicts and deviant devotions that have always been at the heart of Hollywood creativity…oh, wait, I’m sorry…this is from an old Graveline Tours pamphlet.

The museum’s actual guiding principles are (a) Illuminate the Past, Present, and Possible Futures of Motion Pictures and the Academy, (b) Embrace Diversity and Be Radically Inclusive, and (c) Educate, Provide Inspiration, and Encourage Discovery.

The Embrace Diversity thing has a drop-down menu, and one of the mission statements says that the museum intends to “foster an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and anti-sexist culture built on transparency and accountability that ensures that all staff, communities, audiences, and partners are treated with respect.”

Jesus H. Christ already!…I feel I’m being scolded and swatted on the hand with rulers by woke nuns!

From Sasha Stone‘s “No Time (for Movie Theaters) to Die”: “But I see where the Academy is coming from. They are trying to address the needs of people who have been left out for far too long, [and] they can afford to depict themselves and their story any way they want to.

“For instance, when Sacheen Littlefeather accepted the Best Actor award for Marlon Brando in 1973, she was booed. The stunt was mocked and derided back then for bringing politics into the awards. It was embarrassing for the Academy. But all of these years later, she is celebrated in the Academy Museum as a point of pride. And indeed, when you watch her speech now she seems like a time traveler from 2021.”

There’s a large room in the museum that celebrates Oscar recipients, and Littlefeather’s speech is one of the highlights. Flatscreens show various winners celebrating their big moment, but not that many. You’d think that acceptance speeches by world-famous Oscar winners would be front and center. But for the most part the room focuses on people of color and historic moments of inclusivity. Sidney Potier, Rita Moreno, Gone With The Wind‘s Hattie McDaniel, Sayonara‘s Miyoshi Umeki, etc. (Where’s the Minari grandma, Youn Yuh-jung?) Plus Dimitri Tiomkin accepting an Oscar for his High and the Mighty score, Tatum O’Neal accepting a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Paper Moon, etc.

Yes, I covered the same turf in “Please Don’t Call It The Death Star” (9.21).

According to Jay Lund‘s californiawaterblog.com, 2021 is the third driest year in more than 100 years of official tabulating. And 2020 was the 9th driest year. I can’t recall the last time Los Angelenos were seriously rain-soaked, and I doubt if anyone else can. But try to imagine heavy precipitation hitting Los Angeles for three days straight. Not a prayer, right? But it happened during the historic L.A. snowfall of January 1949. Excerpt: “Snow began falling on Los Angeles around noon on Monday, 1.10.49.** L.A.’s beaches were blanketed for the first time since January 1932, and the last time it snowed more in San Bernardino was 1882.”

** In ’90 I read a draft of Robert Towne‘s The Two Jakes, which, under Jack Nicholson‘s direction, lacked the haunting vibe of Chinatown and wasn’t much good in other respects. But the script ended beautifully with two or three shots of Raymond Chandler‘s mean streets covered in snow.

I despise spoiler whiners, especially when it concerns a huge, mindlessly insincere corporate franchise that has no bearing whatsoever on the reality of anything.

There’s no substantive difference between the crafting of certain corporate entertainments and mass servings of McDonald’s Sausage McMuffins. Talk to anyone who knows anything at all about life or movies or the art of creating fine narrative tension, and particularly those who respect the craft and submission and devotion that goes into making something (a real, actual movie, I mean) actually work.

It’s not the ending but the journey that matters. Any film lover over the age of 11 or 12 will tell you that, but I was so gobsmacked by an ending of a certain upcoming film that I couldn’t imagine that it would be kept a secret. It’s a huge, HUGE thing, and not just in terms of the film but in terms of a personified motion picture brand that has endured for nearly 60 years straight.

Because this ending isn’t about a decision to end a certain film but a decision to symbolically terminate a certain mindset or attitude or mentality or set of assumptions that lie at the heart of a character…a fictional attitude of (describe it however you like) solemn grit, ironic machismo, smug aloofness, wry amusement…a certain “heroic” male mindset mixed with blithe disregard that has been a cultural constant — a “thing” — since the JFK administration.

And…wait, hold on…the universal reaction to this decision is “mum’s the word?” Big news is big news. You can’t smother it, and yet many insisted it had to be. And they cried like babies.

If I had been the reader and not the writer, and had read what I wrote I would have been fascinated and looking forward to seeing how it plays out in story terms. I’m not an infant and I don’t care about the latest corporate hamburger product, or what kind of special sauce they’ve put on it. But a lot of people out there do.

What I know for sure is that what happened today is TRULY HISTORICAL, and by my way of thinking you don’t sit on something like this. It was a 7.5 earthquake and the community said, “Did you feel a slight tremor? Naah, probably nothing. And even if it was something, don’t say it happened.”

Pssst, did you hear about JFK? Somebody shot him in Dallas. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I know some people will be upset to hear this but it’s better to keep it under wraps. At least for the next few days. But wow, what a thing.

I realize that it’s not uncommon for some kids to gain an understanding of their own sexual leanings or gender identity as early as six or seven. I was definitely into photos of naked women when I was eight or thereabouts. Then again some kids don’t tap into this stuff until they hit puberty. 13, 14…that’s when it all comes alive. But I think it’s heinous and horrible to prod a toddler into thinking about his/her gender identity when they’re two or three years old.

Should little boys be urged to play with swords and Star Wars stun guns and wear tyke-sized football helmets? Or urged to consider wearing tights and maybe playing with dolls and watching movies about Rudolf Nureyev? My experience is that boys tend to reach for swords and stun guns on their own. (Mine certainly did.) Kids, I feel, should be graciously allowed to find their way into their own sexual feelings and gender identities at their own pace, and in their own way. Some get there sooner; others later.

But parents who try to gently muscle their tykes into considering non-binary identities and consider their possibly fluid sexuality are deranged. They’re doing so out of fear, out of not wanting to seem transphobic. But the parents and “woke” educators who are urging this are, no offense, soft-spoken monsters.

It’s stuff like this that may result in trouble for Democrats in next year’s midterms. Some voters focus more on cultural than political issues, and this is exactly the kind of thing that some people despise about progressive lefties.

Consider the perceptions of Abigail Shrier, author of “Irreversible Damage.”

This is so sad. Poor kid pic.twitter.com/6xAjs0YwOp

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) September 27, 2021

…have driven on a rural road and passed small families of unsupervised cattle strolling together on the shoulder? Until March 2016 I hadn’t driven by unsupervised cattle walking on a paved road anywhere, ever. Not in Switzerland. rural France, Vermont, upper New York State…nowhere on earth until I visited rural Vietnam.

Friendo: Have you heard anything about whether the new Bond is good?

HE: “Good”? As in the opposite of “bad”? Do people even think of Bond films in black or white terms? Bond films deliver safety, comfort and corporate assurance. They’ve been machine-tooled products since at least the Brosnan era.

Carey Fukunaga isn’t going to do anything wild or eccentric with No Time To Die. He’s just going to do the thing that he was hired to do.

I have two favorite phases — the first two Bonds (the wonderfully bare-bones Dr. No and From Russia With Love) and the goofy, half-crazy, raised-eyebrow Bonds directed by Lewis Gilbert (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker). Many Bond films have shown a certain flair or pizazz or irreverence, but the corporate assurance factor has been locked in since the ’80s.

Okay, not For Your Eyes Only (’82) — that was a stab at returning to a stripped-down, less-is-more approach.

The most concise, honest and dead-on assessment of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Phantom Thread ever written. Because all the effete, high-falutin’, dingle-dangle, ostrich-feather bullshit that you get from so many critics has been boiled out of it, and all that’s left is the truth.

My own review, “Paul Thomas Anderson’s Howl,” posted on 12.7.17.

In 1975 a merger of Creative Management Associates (the agency that Manhattan-based talent agent Sidney Pollack worked for in Tootsie) and International Famous Agency formed ICM, a talent and literary agency. To many of us Jeff Berg was the face of ICM for many years. In 2012, the agency completed a management buyout and formed a partnership with a new name, ICM Partners. Now it’s been eaten by CAA, and I honestly don’t care all that much. Okay, somewhat. It’s an “historic” event if you’re Matt Belloni or Richard Rushfield or Kim Masters, but average folks are shrugging their shoulders nationwide.

Tatiana wanted to go out for dessert and coffee, and the Bel Air Hotel is one of her favorite haunts. We arrived sometime around 8 pm, and right away it felt wrong. As we walked over the stone bridge there was a huge outdoor dinner party (90 or 100 guests) happening to our left with sparkly white lights, and a live four-piece band playing obnoxious Middle-Eastern or Turkish music. It was awful, and you could just sense that the general clientele weren’t casual X-factor types like myself (I was wearing jeans, my brown leather motorcycle jacket and black-and-white saddle shoes) but Kardashian wannabes with something to prove.

The low-lit bar area has some nice mini-sofa seating, but the Wolfgang Puck dessert menu…I don’t know why I’m complaining given the locale and pretensions, but something in me recoiled when I saw they were charging $18 for a single chocolate chip cookie and a gluten-free snickerdoodle. I was muttering to myself, “I will not order an $18 cookie and this is not my scene…I don’t need to do this. I’ve hung loose in some of the coolest, most casual-vibe cafes and bistros in the world…Paris, Rome, London, Hanoi, Berlin, Belize, Savannah, San Francisco, Cannes, Munich, Prague and lower Manhattan…and the Bel Air Hotel just isn’t cool…everyone is trying too hard and the vibe feels like that of an overpriced hotel in Dubai. And that godawful music from the dinner party wouldn’t quit.

Hell is other people, particularly those wearing black designer sweat suits and white designer-label sneakers.

A couple of nights ago I was chatting with a New York journalist friend at Enzo’s Pizzeria in Westwiood, and it was 15 times cooler and more enjoyable because the place has character and personality and nobody gave a shit.

In the comment thread about yesterday’s Hustler post (“Pay The Man Again, Fats“), “Bentrane” wrote that he re-watched Robert Rossen‘s 1961 classic just last week, and that he couldn’t think of a single thing wrong with it. “One of the greatest films of the ’60s,” he said, “and a terrific morality tale about the things people will do for money, power and fame, and the people they step on along the way.”

HE to Bentrane: “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. Piper Laurie’s Sara is what’s wrong with it.

“In Louisville Eddie angrily tells boozy, delicate Sara (‘We have a contract with depravity’) to stop bugging him and just let him play Murray Hamilton’s Findlay, the mint julep rich guy. Playing Findlay for big dough is the WHOLE REASON she, Eddie and Bert have visited Louisville in the first place (and on Bert’s dime). Are they in Louisville to murder someone or rob a bank or sell drugs to school kids? No, and yet Sara says ‘don’t do it, Eddie…you’re better than this.’

“Then, feeling deflated and rejected, Sara somehow allows Bert (George C. Scott) to seduce her, and then commits suicide. She’s so depressed about Eddie having told her to butt out and then having had bizarre drunken sex with Scott (and WHY would she do that?) (and why would Bert do that to a guy who will make a lot of money for him if he keeps him sweet?)…Sara is so despairing that she slits her wrists? Is she eight years old? Has she escaped from a mental institution?

“Sara knows Eddie is a gifted pool player (‘Some men never get to feel that way about anything’) and has no other marketable skill, and she doesn’t want him to win big money doing the one thing that he’s great at because she despises Bert and his chilly, flinty, cut-and-dried manner? He’s not a warm or kind fellow, obviously, but so what? The world is full of flinty guys with gimlet eyes. Sara should’ve stayed in New York and spared herself the angst and heartbreak and confusion.

“The whole Sara thing is more than a little crazy.”

“Cinefan35” responds: “Well, I think the film makes it clear that Sara is psychologically unbalanced but, with Eddie, she sincerely believes (not wrongly) that he is too talented to be a small-time pool hustler for the rest of his life and should aspire to be the next great pool player (i.e., the next Fats).

“And I would also say that she is proven quite right by the end of the film, both with Eddie getting his hands broken while attempting a small-time pool hustle, and with him soundly drubbing Fats in pool repeatedly at the end of the film after his hand has healed.”

“Childerolandusa“: “I think it’s more the obsession with money and winning at all costs that Sara is upset with, more than anything else. Considering how Eddie dumps on Charlie in Act Two, Charlie’s got good reason to be upset about that also.”

HE to “Childerolandusa“: “Myron McCormick‘s Charlie is fundamentally intimidated by the big time. He’s fine with Eddie hustling guys for relatively modest amounts of cash in small towns, but he doesn’t like the big-city realm of Minnesota Fats and Bert Gordon. He’s getting old, Charlie admits. He’s starting to think about maybe owning a small regional pool parlor with a little handbook on the side. He and Eddie are on fundamentally different trajectories. Charlie’s on the way down, and Eddie, who’s more about the transcendent art of pool than the money, wants to see how high he can go. Life works that way at times. Often, in fact.”

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