I just watched the below out of respect for the recently departed Sean Connery and Alex Trebek. They left our earthly realm only nine days apart (10.31 and 11.8). I laughed out loud five or six times, which is more than I’ve laughed out loud at anything on SNL over the last two or three years.

In a 11.10 column titled “Amy Adams and Glenn Close’s Oscar Chances Try to Stand Above ‘Hillbilly Elegy‘”, Variety‘s Clayton Davis begins with the following sentence:

“In a time where the world is as polarized as ever, there seems to be a yearning to show oppression in all cultures. With Black Lives Matter gaining significant traction, a film about a Caucasian venture capitalist’s upbringing doesn’t feel exactly well-timed in our climate.”

HE translation: “At a time of peak wokeness in Hollywood — a time in which we’re all trying to rejuvenate if not overturn the old order and introduce a new political and social heirarchy that celebrates diversity and strong women and LGBTQs — forward-thinking Hollywood professionals would be wise to think twice about liking this film, mainly because it focuses on scurvy low-rent rurals in overalls, and nobody wants to celebrate this kind of thing at this point in time…right?”

All along I’d been nursing similar thoughts about Hillbilly Elegy. How could I sympathize with people whose views and politics I consider to be totally vile if not anti-Democratic, considering their unwavering support for an authoritarian Mussolini?

But the strangest thing happened when I finally saw Ron Howard‘s film. I stopped thinking of it as a journey into a nightmare filled with no-good polecat varmint Trump supporters, and instead as a portrait of stressed-out, hardscrabble, low-income types who feel stuck and unable to escape their lives. In short I felt twinges of sympathy and even compassion from time to time.

But that’s me.

“I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly. How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”– Joe Biden speaking earlier today about Trump’s refusal to concede or approve the traditional transition process.

“”There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, earlier today.

There’s no disputing that Glenn Close‘s snippy and snarly performance as “Mamaw” in Ron Howard‘s Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix, 11.11) will snag a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. It’ll happen. Definitely. And for three reasons.

One, because the conviction she brings to her character, the brillo-haired grandmother of main protagonist J.D. Vance — the real-life author of the 2016 book that the film is based upon, and who’s played as a young adult by Gabriel Basso and as a pudgy teenager by Owen Asztalos — feels raw and real.

Two, because “Mamaw” is pretty much the hero of the film — the blunt-spoken, tough-love butch boss who saves Vance from the horrific influence of his angry, drug-dependent mom (Amy Adams).

And three, because Close is now oh-for-seven in terms of Oscar wins (her first nomination happened 37 years ago for her Jenny performance in The World According to Garp), and everyone knows this narrative can’t be left hanging in the air.

As for the film itself, well…it’s well-crafted. And earnest. It has some good portions, some decent currents. If you’re fair-minded enough to ease up and cut it a little slack, you could give Hillbilly Elegy a passing grade. I certainly didn’t come away from it saying, “well, that stunk!” I came away saying “okay, it may not be a personal top-tenner, but it is what it is and does what it sets out to do.”

Several weeks ago I began hearing that Hillbilly Elegy was a problem, but when I finally saw it I couldn’t help but say “okay, it has issues and Adams’ downswirling mom is a terrible person to hang with, but the story is the story — how J.D. escaped from Southern Ohio and learned to walk his own path despite a dysfunctional family upbringing and dispiriting cultural influences…so at the end of the day it’s not that bad, or not by my standards.”

The other day I called it a “familiar-feeling people movie” — a personal-struggle thing that lets the audience know right away that things will work out for poor J.D. How do we know this? Because of Hans Zimmer and David Fleming‘s score. It tells you “this movie is going to behave in a certain way…it’s going to observe certain boundaries and deliver certain emotional satisfactions.” And that it does.

Said satisfactions are also rooted in the mellowish story-telling instincts of director Ron Howard. His films have always had a considerate, carefully measured quality. Despite the Hammer horror current generated by Adams’ Beverly Vance character (which drives and occupies most of the narrative) Hillbilly Elegy ends up in a place of assurance and stability.

I can’t think of anything more to say, to be honest. I’ll add to this if something comes to mind.

If there’s been one steady-drumbeat message that has thundered across the Twitterverse for several weeks now, it’s that Pete Docter‘s Soul (Disney, 12.25) is a truly exceptional animated feature…a half-emotional, half-philosophical, jazz-embroidered film so rich and resonant and full-hearted that it deserves to be in Best Picture contention. (Which of course will never happen as far as the Academy is concerned because, being animated, it belongs in Best Animated Feature contention.)

And then along comes Variety‘s award-season handicapper, a guy more or less required to not dwell on negative currents (that’s Owen Gleiberman or Peter Debruge‘s job, if and when the situation warrants) and to celebrate the celebrational and be as turn-the-other-cheeky as possible…along comes Clayton Davis with the first significant anti-Soul opinion to come down the pike.

Davis tweeted this morning that as much as he “wanted to love it”, he was unable to. Because “there’s a disconnect between story and character“, and because it feels like an Inside Out ripoff that doesn’t quite land where it’s supposed to.”

Clea DuVall‘s Happiest Season (Hulu, 11.25) seems cheery and harmless enough, but a gay couple hiding the truth from their parents and in-laws seems kinda Birdcage-y…no? I don’t know why exactly but the trailer also vaguely reminds me of the tone of Frank Oz‘s In & Out.

It’s okay to rework or refresh a certain kind of comic situation (the script was written by DuVall and Mary Holland) that was first explored nearly a quarter-century ago. You can always make a familiar idea feel like something new if you do it well enough, I suppose. It’s just that certain kinds of family comedies work best when they hit at exactly the right cultural moment, which is to say slightly ahead of the curve.

The ever-fickle Tatiana had never seen Roman Polanski‘s Repulsion, so we watched it the night before last. It was like seeing it for the first time in a way as she was hooked from the start, despite the increasingly unsettled jagged-edge quality.

For like all great films, Repulsion isn’t so much about the destination as the ride…about a brilliant, increasingly disturbing blend of sharp observational details of mid ’60s Londön + Catherine Deneuve‘s blond hair and vacant eyes + an acute dread of sexuality + a gathering psychosis leading to a psychological meltdown (ticking clock, rape nightmares, cracks in a wall, a punctured cuticle, a rotting rabbit, arms pushing through walls, two male victims).

Shot in Löndon’s South Kensington district and at Twickenham Studios in the summer or early fall of ’64, Repulsion premiered at Cannes ’65 and opened stateside in late ’65 and early ’66.

Polanski has always been a highly exacting and demanding director, but because of Repulsion‘s extra-scrimpy budget (65,000 British pounds or roughly 1.5 million pounds today) he regards it as his “shoddiest” film, and the special effects as “sloppy.” And yet everyone regards Repulsion as a pantheon effort. It still holds me every time.

For whatever reason I’d never watched the making-of doc, David Gregory‘s A British Horror Film (’03), but I finally did on Saturday. A candid, penetrating, wholly fascinating look at a landmark slasher flick, the doc was featured on the Criterion Bluray, which popped on 7.28.09.

Small quibble: The world has confirmed over and over that Repulsion was projected in 1.66, and yet the Criterion web page says the aspect ratio is 1.85.

Polanski quote at the very beginning: “You can [interpret the film] as you want — it’s a free country. But don’t ask me to explain any of my pictures.”

Mitch McConnell is going along with Trump’s theatrical refusal to accept Biden’s electoral victory, which is basically a show for the cult. McConnell isn’t stupid. He knows there’s nothing of substance to look into, but is saying nonetheless that Trump is entitled to humiliate himself and look like an obstinate fool.

With 97% of the Arizona votes counted, Joe Biden is only 15,000 votes ahead of Donald Trump — 1,645,000 vs. 1,630,339. It’s possible, I suppose, that Trump will very slightly nudge ahead as the last 3% is counted. Georgia is even tighter with Biden ahead of Trump by only 11K votes — 2,467,870 (49.5%) vs. 2,456,275 (49.3%). It won’t actually matter, of course, if Biden loses both states. I doubt that he will. Okay, maybe Arizona but not Georgia.

I was a Cub Scout but never a Boy Scout…no thanks! Even in my tweener years I had vaguely sensed that the BSA was a kind of Hitler Youth for middle-class, white-picket-fence American values and autocratic paternalism. Old-fashioned judgments, tough requirements, strict regimentation.

I didn’t have the sharpness of mind or powers of articulation that I have now, but even when I was ten I’d come to suspect that the BSA didn’t get the American bop-shoo-wop thing — an idea that the viewpoints and lifestyles of kids and parents who weren’t rigid straight-arrow types and who were open to a slightly less conventional or even a more subversive approach to American life could be afforded a certain lattitude and respect.

Things have changed, to put it mildly. The last time I checked the Boy Scouts of America had filed for bankruptcy protection after being hit by a deluge of sexual assault lawsuits. Because, according to evidence, adult Scoutmasters had apparently been fiddling around in the manner of Catholic priests.

And now I’m reading that the BSA’s opposite number, the Girl Scouts of the USA, has gone full woke in terms of gender identity issues.

The institutional instinct is obviously to protect girls or girl-identified youths from any kind of negative social climate, and that’s obviously a good thing. Why, then, am I detecting the same kind of Hitler Youth mindset that I sensed decades ago, only this time by way of a whiff of forced woke regimentation?

I’m guessing or presuming that a significant portion of those who didn’t vote for Biden-Harris on 11.3 feel a bit unsettled about wokester mandates, and that this is the kind of thing they felt (however ignorantly) they were voting against.

It was reported three and a half years ago that Boy Scouts would allow transgender children into programs — cool. And I’ve just come upon GSA guidelines for respecting and accepting gender non-conforming, gender creative or non-binary norms, and which apparently have been recently announced.

It follows that what’s good for the goose is presumably good for the gander, and so there should be, I gather, a corresponding policy endorsed by the Boy Scouts of America. Meaning that it would read like the GSA statement, but with adjustments:

“Our Boy Scout program is for any boy-identified youth, including cisgender boys and transgender boys. Each child and family is in charge of how they identify and their genders may change over time. For example, if a boy who has previously been a Boy Scout begins to identify as gender non-conforming, gender creative or non-binary, he/she will continue to be welcomed by the Boy Scouts of America.”

It’s not only unfair but vaguely repressive to mention this, I realize, but a certain question is hovering in the back of my mind — what would Fred MacMurray say?

In the wake of Pfizer’s announcement that their experimental COVID-19 vaccine (co-developed with the German drugmaker BioNTech) is 90% effective and will be distributed in early ’21, Donald Trump, Jr. has tweeted a suspicion that Pfizer deliberately withheld the good news so as not to benefit the Trump administration before the 11.3 election.

A consensus among certain reporters and Big Pharma sources is that Don Jr.’s theory is highly questionable if not rooted in out-and-out fantasy. And yet if (and I say “if”) it can be eventually proven or verified that Pfizer did hold back the news in order to benefit Biden-Harris…good! Smart chess move! Hollywood Elsewhere approves! Whoo-hoo!

President-elect Biden pledged last month that the vaccine (which requires a double dose for effectiveness) will be free to everyone. The U.S. has so far paid $1.95 billion for 100 million initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Pfizer expects to have up to 50 million doses available by the end of 2020. Hollywood Elsewhere expects to be double-dosed by January or February.

Excerpt from 11.9 N.Y. Times report:

“Wide distribution of Pfizer’s vaccine will be a logistical challenge. Because it is made with mRNA, the doses will need to be kept at ultra cold temperatures. While Pfizer has developed a special cooler to transport the vaccine, equipped with GPS-enabled thermal sensors, it remains unclear where people will receive the shots, and what role the government will play in distribution.

“Adding to the challenge, people will need to return three weeks later for a second dose to complete the immunization.

“Most experts say the world will need many treatments and vaccines to bring an end to the pandemic.”

In other words a double dose of the Pfizer vaccine isn’t expected to last more than a year or two…is that it? That in order to really vanquish Covid everyone will have to keep getting re-vaccinated for years on end?