Just over 100 reputable critics have submitted their Best of 2020 lists to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy. The topper, no surprise, is Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland with 49 votes. Here’s the list along with some HE comments. My own personal preferences are after the jump:

1) Nomadland (49 votes) / HE: Yowsah.
2) First Cow (41) / HE: Good film but not this good…c’mon.
3) Never Rarely Sometimes Always (40) / HE: Somber, touching film about tural teens getting a NYC abortion, but doesn’t hold a candle to Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days.
4) Da 5 Bloods (35) / HE: Deserving of respect but all that ’60s montage stuff was just thrown in to augment a so-so essence.
5) Minari (34) / HE: Good, earnest film.
6) I’m Thinking About Ending Things (32) / HE: Creepy but fascinating. Grows on you. The Oklahoma! stage performance sections + Agnes DeMille choreography.
7) Lovers Rock (29) / HE: Still haven’t seen it.
8) The Invisible Man (26) / / HE: Ranked higher than Tenet? Ludicrous.
9) Trial of the Chicago 7 (25) / HE: Yup.
10) Mank (21) / HE: Deserves higher placement.

11) Bacurau (21) / HE: Brazilian social-clash Peckinpah-Jodorowsky…hated it.
12) David Byrne’s American Utopia (21) / HE: Haven’t seen it.
13) Palm Springs (20) / HE: No way. Ridiculous. Mostly hated it. Sundancey.
14) Tenet (19) / HE: Should be among the top ten.
15) Dick Johnson Is Dead (19) / HE: Still haven’t seen it.
16) Bad Education (18) / HE: Agreed…a sharply observed docudrama.
17) Time (17)
18) The Assistant (17) / HE: Nope.
19) Vitalina Varela (16)
20) Pixar’s Soul (15) / HE: Bothersome, underwhelming, doesn’t make sense.

Everyone understands that dual pronoun use is currently in fashion among certain non-binary persons to express the complexities of their gender identity in different contexts and social settings…right?

I just want to apologize in advance to the gender-fluid, vague-pronoun crowd that I am, always have been and always will be a “he”, as in dude, guy, male-ish, rumblehog rider, baseball mitt owner, etc.

Although I’ve identified as metrosexual for years and have long abhorred certain aspects of macho posturing, I will never be a “he/she/whatever” and I’m definitely not a “they.”

I can’t be a “they” because I’m just, you know, a single person with a single past. Am I missing something? Do I need to shoot myself with a Sig Sauer? Or should I split my head open with a sharp axe?

My name is Jeff, I live in West Hollywood, and I only use “he/him” pronouns. I know that’s kind of an uncool or anti-social thing these days, but I’m obstinate, I guess.

Speaker #1: “Hey, where’d they go?” Speaker #2: “Who?” Speaker #1: “They were just here a few minutes ago.” Speaker #2: “Jeff was just here. He’s down at Kinkos picking up an order.” Speaker #1: “They’re at Kinkos?” Speaker #2: “No, he is…Jeff is.” Speaker #1: “I’m just trying to use cautious terminology. You don’t have to be disrespectful about it.” Speaker #2: “Who’s being disrespectful? I’m just saying plain and straight like Walter Brennan on horseback might say in a John Ford western, ‘He’s down at Kinkos’…period.”

The daughter of an occasional friend (i.e., one who sometimes ignores me but not always) recently insisted upon dual pronouns when they spoke about a female friend she was planning to meet in another city. “And so we had to navigate these awkward conversations,” the friend reports. “’How are they?’ ‘Oh, they’re fine.’ ‘I’m going to be seeing them later.’ If I were to point out how utterly bizarre this is [my daughter] would get angry.”

“What it actually satisfies is a need to be something other than Cis,” she interpreted. Cis is bad — cis is asshole males, must to avoid. Plus, she said, “It’s a way of getting attention from peers. Simplistic, yes. A few writers believe it is a kind of contagious hysteria, like anorexia.”

Actual friendo reply: “I still don’t get how an individual person can be a ‘they.’ Doesn’t that, like, break the basic rules of grammar? I mean, I don’t even get what it means.

“I know they mean well and I know this is what people want to hear about and I know it’s meant to be progress, but I just feel exhausted. She/Her/Hers. Does it have to be both Her and Hers? Aren’t they the same thing?”

Let Them All Talk (HBO Max, 12.10) is a smart, reasonably engrossing, better-than-mezzo-mezzo character study that largely takes place aboard the Queen Mary 2 during an Atlantic crossing.

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.

Also 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.

Working from a script by Deborah Eisenberg and literally shot during a seven-day crossing in 2019, Let Them All Talk features Soderbergh in standard three-hat mode — director, cinematographer (as Peter Andrews) and editor. All I can say without spoiling is that he manages to keep things sharp, interesting and slicey-dicey for the most part. Streep is playing an aloof, mostly unlikable character, Hedges a somewhat gullible one, and Algrant the most amiable.

But Bergen’s Roberta, who’s fallen upon difficult economic times due to a divorce, is the most interesting character by far. It affords Bergen an opportunity to give her best performance in I don’t know how many years. Since Gandhi or even Carnal Knowledge?

Roberta is a frustrated boomer-aged woman who works in lingerie retail and who wants more money in her life. Alas, she hasn’t any economic opportunities to speak of and hasn’t a prayer of landing a rich boyfriend or husband because she’s “old meat” (all the eligible 60something guys, it seems, have 20something girlfriends) and far from svelte. And yet she’s on her game at all times, attuned and thinking and assessing. Plus she has a testy, unresolved relationship with Alice, who years ago used Rebecca’s ruptured marriage as raw material for her biggest-selling book, “You Always/You Never.”

And then her big opportunity comes when something happens that I can’t disclose, and Roberta…let’s just say her life takes a potential turn for the better.

I’m presuming that Let Them All Talk is regarded as a theatrical feature that had to accept an HBO Max debut because of the pandemic, and therefore Oscar-qualifying. If so, Bergen is definitely a Best Supporting Actress nominee waiting to happen. I just wish she’d somehow held onto her Murphy Brown-ish appearance. I only know that when she turned up in Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply, my first reaction was “wait…who’s that? I know her but I can’t place her.”

I really liked Algrant’s novelist. A very sharp, no bullshit, calmly transactional character. Savvy, frank, classy. Somewhat resentful, Alice looks down her nose at him but he’s a pro with a good gig and no pretensions.

Question: If a book isn’t working out, what kind of writer would wipe it off his/her hard drive and throw away a printed manuscript? Writers don’t do that. They hold onto the material and use it for something else down the road. Sometimes you can find a new way in…nobody throws half-written books away.

Chan has a good scene in which she tells the story of her long engagement suddenly falling apart. And another when Tyler (Hedges) places his emotional cards face up on the table.

Honestly: How could this highly intelligent 20something even fantasize that Chan would be interested in him romantically? He’s supposed to be, what, 24 or 25? And he thinks that a 30something editor whose job is on the line, who’s trying to keep tabs on Alice…he thinks that this woman might be interested in a little trans-Atlantic boning?

A few days ago I read about Eric Clapton, 75, recording an anti-lockdown song (“Stand and Deliver”) and supporting Van Morrison‘s anti-lockdown campaign to bring back live concerts. Damn the facts, damn reasonable preventive measures, damn the torpedos. So God Clapton is a political bedfellow to, say, Alain Delon? I somehow never glimpsed that possibility until three or four days ago.

Clapton is currently residing in the woke shithouse, I gather. My loathing of wokester fanatics temporarily aside, I agree with whatever Twitter shamings and other punitive measures that have been taken against Clapton. Influential people need to understand that venting thoughtless, selfish opinions about irresponsible pandemic behavior is a no-go.

Excerpt from an 11.27 Wrap piece by Jeremy Fuster:

“Jeffrey St. Clair, editor for news and commentary site CounterPunch, said that news of the song ‘confirms everything I’ve ever thought about Clapton, a musician who has spent his entire career appropriating black music and now records his first protest’= song against meager restrictions to slow a disease that is ravaging black communities.”

“’What the fuck is wrong with these rich assholes?’ asked The Mountain Goats, the band behind the pandemic anthem “This Year.” ‘I ask this as a Van Morrison fan.’

Tweeted by novelist Hari Kunzru: “Last time Clapton weighed in on politics they had to start Rock Against Racism. Clapton is the worst. He has always been the worst. He was even the worst member of Cream. Van Morrison is also the worst.”

What does it mean to be “the worst member of Cream”? Surely not the worst musician or the least famous. Does it means Clapton did the most drugs? Or was the least progressive or something?

Among Entertainment Weekly contributors in the ’90s, the general rule was that a trend story needs three examples. Find three and you’re good. Hence a trio of 2020 and ’21 award-season contenders — Paul Greengrass‘s News of the World (Universal 12.25), George Clooney‘s The Midnight Sky (Netflix, 12.23) and Eduardo Ponti‘s The Life Ahead (Netflix, now streaming) — sharing a basic character-plot strategy.

A crusty, grizzled protagonist of advanced years and pracarious positioning (Clooney’s Augustine Lofthouse, Tom Hanks‘ Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, Sophia Loren‘s Madame Rosa) is suddenly responsible for the well-being of an anxious, distant, shell-shocked youth who needs someone to provide comfort and direction and a bit of love.

The three kids, respectively, are played by Caoilinn Springall, Helena Zengel and Ibrahima Gueye.

From “How Francis Ford Coppola Got Pulled Back In to Make The Godfather, Coda“, a 12.2.20 N.Y. Times piece by Dave Itzkoff:

“Where The Godfather, Part III (’90) ended famously — some might say notoriously — with the elderly Michael slumping in his chair and falling dead to the ground, Coda shows him old and alive as the scene fades to black and a series of title cards appear. They read, ‘When the Sicilians wish you ‘Cent’anni’, it means ‘for long life’…and a Sicilian never forgets.’”

Despite Coppola’s forthcoming new Bluray version being titled Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, Al Pacino‘s gray and withered paterfamilias no longer croaks.

That’s right — he lives and lives and lives.

“In fact, for his sins, he has a death worse than death,” Coppola tells Itzkoff. “He may have lived many, many years past this terrible conclusion. But he never forgot what he paid for it.”

Opinions?

From Richard Rushfield’s latest chapter of The Ankler: “What makes Chappelle’s slow-burn rumination so unusual is that you’ve got here a performer at the peak of his powers, publicly outing the business practices of a pillar of the corporate community, and there is nothing they can do to him. Not a thing.

“This dust-up will only enhance [Chappelle’s] status with his audience and, given his prominence, any streamer would still kill to be in business with him.

“But again, this shows why Netflix continues to run circles around Hollywood as a matter of pure adroitness. Just as Chappelle refers to, having someone who wasn’t there 20 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, who isn’t deeply, culturally at the DNA level resistant to fighting tooth and nail any change to The Way We Do Business, allows them to pick up the phone and say, Yeah, we don’t like that. Take it down.

“There was a time when if an actor on one studio’s payroll made a fuss about his contract of yore at another studio, his current employer would’ve taken him aside and had a little conversation about how things work around here and why are you jeopardizing the launch of your new season carrying on about your personal, etc etc. Netflix does not play that game. And now it’s going to be a lot harder for anyone else to either.”

“This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made,” the Whiny Little Bitch begins. And then, a day after his very own attorney general stooge announced that election fraud wasn’t enough of a factor to alter the election outcome, Trump goes into the crazy (i.e., “tremendous and horrible fraud” in battleground states, Dominion rigged the election) for 42 or 43 minutes before summing up with…nothing.

I thought he was going to say “they’re going to have to drag me out of the White House because the winner never surrenders what is rightfully his. ” Or “I’m hereby announcing a counter-inauguration event to celebrate America and deplore widespread voter fraud” or something in that vein.

In yesterday’s “Evolving Prom Thread” I mentioned that Some Like It Hot is one of my favorite musicals.

Obviously it’s not a traditional song-and-dancer, but if you accept that performative musicals are legitimate permutations and that A Hard Day’s Night and Cabaret are two prime examples, you have to allow that Some Like It Hot also qualifies.

We all understand that classic integrated musicals are about characters breaking into song to express deep-down emotions. But musicals can also be defined as films in which the emotional states of major characters pop through as musical numbers. The key is that separate songs have to be heard three times.

It doesn’t matter if the musical numbers are integrated or performative (a la Some Like It Hot, A Hard Day’s Night and Cabaret). The point is that the songs are (a) telling the audience how this or that main character is feeling, or (b) conveying some aspect of the social milieu, or (c) both.

There are four songs performed in Some Like It Hot — “Runnin’ Wild”, “By The Sea”, “I Wanna Be Loved By You” and “I’m Through With Love.” They convey the successive moods of Marilyn Monroe‘s Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk (and to a lesser extent those of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon‘s Joe and Jerry) as the story moves from Chicago to Miami and as Sugar falls for (and then temporarily loses) “Junior”, the phony Shell Oil heir played by Curtis’s Joe.

The four songs also embroider SLIH in a Cabaret-like way with a fizzy reflection of the late 1920s (jazz bands, madcap attitudes, Chicago gangsters, flappers with great gams, pint flasks, pre-stock market crash hedonism).

Earlier today HE’s “filmklassik” wrote that it’s “absurd” to describe Billy Wilder‘s 1959 classic as a musical. “The emotional state of major characters pops through big-time during the ‘La Marseillaise’ scene in Casablanca,” he wrote. “[By that token] do you consider Casablanca a musical?”

HE reply: No, because (a) the playing of “La Marseillaise” is Casablanca‘s only big number, and a performative musical needs a minimum of three (3) songs. Plus (b) ‘La Marseillaise’ expresses a communal emotion or mood rather than an individual one, or one shared by lovers or close friends.

Just For Variety‘s Mark Malkin is reporting that Chris Nolan‘s Tenet, which has never played Los Angeles theatres due to the pandemic, will play at a central Hollywood drive-in from 12.5 through 12.16. The venue is the Hollywood Theater Legion Drive-In at Post 43 (2035 N Highland Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90068, just south of the Hollywood Bowl). The booking is a warm-up for the 12.15 release of the Tenet Bluray.

There are three problems. One, watching a big-event, large-format film like Tenet from inside your car is a waste of time as only a modest fraction of the total intended impact would be absorbed.** (I saw Tenet three months ago at a Flagstaff Harkins plex, and it was heaven.) Two, the per-car admission is $65 (including drinks, candy and popcorn for the whole family or posse). And three, seeing the film without subtitles guarantees you’ll miss most of the story particulars, due to Nolan’s notorious sound-mix aesthetic.

I’ll be waiting until the subtitled 4K Bluray comes along, thanks. I’m actually excited to watch it this way.

Posted last September: “My theatrical viewing of Tenet in a Flagstaff Harkins plex was a great thundering high. Big screen, booming sound, small buttered popcorn, extra-comfy rocking chair, first indoor viewing experience in over six months…mother!”

I for one admire the seething tone of voice that came out of Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling earlier today. I like the ballsy way he verbally bitchslapped President Trump and his goons for failing to condemn threats of violence against people overseeing the voting system.

“It has to stop,” Sterling said at a press conference at the Atlanta state Capitol, his voice vibrating with rage. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. “This is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much.”

A gray-haired Republican, Sterling is Georgia’s voting system implementation manager.

Trump, he says, needs to “step up” and say “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt…get shot, get killed. And it’s not right.”

Having announced a new trans status, Elliot Page (the former Ellen Page) is now a dude in what sense exactly? Does this mean…how should I put this? I’ve been in the Army and I know that drill instructors will sometimes yell “I want every swinging dick to be standing in formation by 6 am.” Could one say that Elliot Page is now part of this fraternity?

Or is Elliot trans in the sense that he’s merely chosen to regard himself as non-binary or male-ish as an idea or some kind of vague emotional commitment with the door left open for whatever, or has he actually “taken steps” to transition out of biological womanhood?

Because nobody ever seems to discuss specifics. Hormone shots, I presume, but maybe not. Who knows?

Page made an official announcement earlier today so inquiries are allowed. What’s clear is that right now and henceforth Page is a he/him.

Why are media outlets terrified of posting the name “Ellen Page”? Jordan Ruimy has scanned two or three dozen articles and reports that only UPI has mentioned “Ellen Page” in their headline.