Yesterday Andrei Konchalovsky‘s Dear Comrades (Dorohgie Tovarischi) won the Venice Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize. With Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland and Michael Franco‘s New Order taking the Golden and Silver Lion prizes, Konchalovsky’s film, an emotionally intense capturing of the 1962 Novocherkassk massacre, basically came in third.

I didn’t see Franco’s film, but it my humble view the Konchalovsky is even-steven with the Zhao. It’s really quite stunning in its own severe but ravishing fashion, captured in bracing black-and-white and pushed along by the engine of Julia_Vysotskaya‘s lead performance, which is fierce and blistering.

This infamous atrocity, which happened under the reign of Nikita Kruschev, was about the Russian military murdering 26 Russian citizens and the wounding 87 others in an effort to discourage angry protests over increased work quotas and food prices.

The 83 year-old Konchalovsky tells the story of this massacre through the eyes of Vysotskaya’s Lyuda Syomina, a prominent communist official and true believer whose loyalties are suddenly divided when daughter Svetka (Yuliya Burova) joins the strike and then turns up missing. Naturally she freaks out and does everything she can to find out what happened.

As it turns out the most critical ally in Lyuda’s search for her daughter is not her boyfriend (Vladislav Komarov) or father (Sergei Erlish) but a low-key, taciturn KGB agent named Viktor (Andrey Gusev) who drives her around and helps sidestep some of the bureaucratic red tape, partly, it seems, because he has the mild hots for her. To describe Viktor as an unusual KGB agent is an understatement. “Ambiguous” comes to mind.

I can only emphasize how fully and completely Dear Comrades grabbed me by the throat. With a couple of minutes I was sitting up in my seat, 100% certain that I was about to see one of 2020’s finest films. I just knew. Two hours later this was confirmed.

Vysotskaya, who was actually born in Novocherkassk in ’73 (one year earlier than Tatiana), is Konchalovsky’s fifth wife. They were married 22 years ago and have two sons.

The idea behind Andrey Naydenov‘s boxy monochrome capturings was to “scrupulously” reproduce 1960s Russia, or more precisely the atmosphere of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under Nikita Krsuschev.

Tatiana: “Dear Comrades is a beautiful representation of the contrast between three generations of Russians.

“Lyuda’s daughter belongs to a younger generation, born right after WWII in the USSR and raised with certain beliefs and ideas in a happy socialistic future and democracy but also believing you have to raise your voice and fight for justice.

“Lyuda represents a generation born after the Revolution in 1917, and who witnessed Stalin’s rule and believed in that kind of strong dictatorial power. She mentions several times, ‘If Stalin is here, he would enforce order immediately.’

“And the grandfather represents an older generation who experienced the Tsar, Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev. He’s the only one who truly believes in God. The scene when he takes out a very powerful Russian icon out of the chest is absolutely fascinating.”

Starting in late July pro-Trump gatherings have been happening on Saturday afternoons at Beverly Gardens Park (Santa Monica Blvd. between Beverly and Canon). I knew something was up when I saw a cluster of American flags from a block away. Then I got a bit closer and saw the banners and MAGA hats.

I looked over while idling at the Beverly Drive stoplight, muttering “Jesus” under my breath. One of the lunatics (a tallish 30something guy in red shorts) caught my eye and shouted eagerly, “Hey, man…are you with Trump?” I frowned, shook my head, thumbs-down gesture. “Why not?”, he said. If I’d been a person of character and consequence I might have said, “Because he’s a sociopathic criminal moron who caused the needless deaths of tens of thousands by lying about Covid.” But I just scowled and waited for the light to change.

“Really, why not?”, he asked again. I said,”I’m not gonna engage with you.” Because really, what’s the point? A couple of other red-hat guys pointed at my Bernie ‘16 and Pete Buttigieg bumper stickers and chortled a bit (“Whoa, a libtard”). The light turned green and I drove off.

It was eerie talking with actual live specimens. It might have been my imagination but I was sensing something beastly about them — some kind of mad gleam in their eyes. The last time I’d spoken with a Trumpster was at Burbank Airport about four years ago, on my way to Telluride ‘16.

Culturally and landmark-wise, the eye-catchy, partly neon sign at Astro Burgers (7475 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, NE corner of Gardner and S.M. Blvd.) is one of my favorite spots in this town. Because it conveys an old-time feeling of 1950s and ’60s kitsch, and Lord knows there’s damn little of that left. As I said a couple of weeks ago, it would be that much cooler if they re-named the place Mojo Burger. I’m sorry but Mojo kicks Astro’s ass.

The only wrinkle is that the joint is less than…actually I’m not sure how old it is. 35 or 40 years? Less? An Astro Burger opened at 5601 Melrose in ’74, but who knows when the WeHo site launched? The original Astro Burger, a Greek-style operation (“Cheeesburger! Cheeseburger!), was launched in Salt Lake City in ’82 by John and Soula Lyhnakis. I’m not really sure if the WeHo outlet is contractually descended from the Utah operation. The website says that John and Soula’s three sons, Vasili, George and Michael, grew up in the business and helped their parents open two more stores, one in South Jordan in 2002 and another in Draper in 2006. For all I know Roger Durling (aka “Nick the Greek”) owns the WeHo branch.

Astro Burger is the only WeHo place where you can get a decent-tasting hot dog. (Pink’s is technically not in West Hollywood.) Or at least the only one I know about.

From “The Oscars’ New Diversity Rules Won’t Change Who Wins Best Picture,” by reason.com’s Kat Rosenfield: “On its own, the conflation of diversity with quality raises interesting questions; under these standards, the massive Fast & Furious franchise would be Oscar eligible, but Martin Scorcese’s entire library would struggle to make the cut.

“[The impact of the new Academy Standards] will be felt most by indie directors, who work on shoestring budgets, with limited resources and no guarantee of being picked up by a distributor with adequately diverse executive leadership. For them, it becomes a choice: sacrifice their shot at the industry’s highest honor (with all the career-boosting benefits an Oscar nomination entails), or conform.

“Some may shrug at that, or even see it as a net positive in a world where too many movies already exist about straight white dudes.

“On the other hand, the list of movies that would be shut out from Oscar contention under the ‘Representation’ standard is pretty, well, diverse. The Hurt Locker; Boyhood; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Birdman; The Lighthouse; 1917; Gladiator; Gone Girl: All would fail to make the cut.”

Imagine being at last night’s Rose Bowl drive-in screening of Nomadland. Imagine all the usual distractions — small-looking screen if you were parked in the middle section, not-bright-enough image, people roaming around, ambient sounds.

Now add a guy parked in front of you who decided to watch the film with his air-conditioning on, which of course meant keeping his engine on for two hours straight and thereby bothering nearby viewers with (a) his bright red parking lights (i.e., the drive-in equivalent of twitter-surfing during a theatrical screening) and also (b) the gentle spewing of exhaust. Thanks, homey! The temperature was around 70 so no real need for a.c. Alas, some people want what they want when they want it.

I heard William S. Burroughs say “some people are shits” during a Madison Square Garden appearance about 40 years ago. It always stayed with me.

Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland is a moody, mesmerizing bulls-eye — a 21st Century Grapes of Wrath minus the simmering anger of Tom Joad and the villainy of random predators.  Like John Ford and John Steinbeck‘s 1940 classic, Zhao’s film is pure Americana, set against a backdrop of brusque fate and heartless capitalism, shaded with angst and no shortage of adversity and yet sustained by a certain persistence of spirit, both in front of and behind the camera. 

It’s a masterful, painterly portrayal of the American dispossessed, and a fascinating, character-rich study of a roaming vagabond and a constantly evolving community of weathered, mostly retirement-age homeless victims of a cruel economy (it’s set in the wake of the ’09 recession). 

I respected Zhao’s previous film, The Rider, which, like Nomadland, is about a sympathetic character who’s stuck in a tough situation with no apparent way out.  But I didn’t love it for the rigid scheme and an ending that was mostly about resignation.

Nomadland is on another level.  Within five minutes I knew it was a much better, more ambitious film — quietly somber and yet grander in scope, gentler, sadder.

A Best Actress nomination is absolutely locked and loaded for Frances McDormand and her performance as Fern, a sturdy 60something, widowed and close to broke and living out of a van and with no interest in settling. She’s an iron-willed survivor coping with extreme vulnerability; amiable and attentive and yet closed off or at least resistant to emotional attentions on a certain level, self-described as “house-less” as opposed to homeless, moving from job to job, camp to camp, parking lot to parking lot.  Inscrutable and yet scrutable. 

Nomadland, trust me, is going to be Best Picture nominated.  Obviously. Zhao will be Best Director nominated.  Joshua James Richard‘s magic-hour cinematography will also lasso a nom. But not, I’m told, Ludovico Einaudi‘s haunting piano score, because it wasn’t composed for the film.

A friend told me that Nomadland, which he felt had shortchanged him due to a lack of some of the usual usuals (carefully-plotted story, second-act pivot, decisive ending), would’ve been better as a half-hour short.  I strongly disagree due to the incontestable fact that it grows and deepens and adds more detail with each and every scene.  It’s a portrait piece.  

By the end you’re left with a full understanding of an industrious but somewhat closed-off woman who doesn’t want to invest in anything but her own discipline, and is curiously resistant to any overtures that verge on the intimate.  She can only live in the unstable now, in her own hard but not quite miserable life.

Thank fortune for Fern as well as the audience that Nomadland is full of humanist grace notes…charity, kindness, confessions, helping hands.

Shot in 2.39:1 (which none of the critics so far have even mentioned), it’s all character and atmosphere and mood — “tone poem” is the most favored term thus far.  The enhancements are, in this order, (a) McDormand McDormand McDormand, (b) a winning supporting turn by David Straitharn as a kindly, would-be romantic partner, (c) a steady supply of brief turns by real homeless folk, (c) the painterly images…gently dusky and soft and glowing, (d) Zhao’s crisp, urgent editing and especially (e) Einaudi’s score, which pulls you in you right away and captures exactly the right meditative tone.

I wasn’t able to attend Friday night’s special drive-in screening of Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland. Don’t ask. But I’ll figure something out. Right now I have to stream a couple of films of some importance. Tomorrow is another day.

I was sitting at my desk about 25 minutes ago when I heard five or six shots fired. Bam-bam-bam-bam!…loud. I ignored it. Then six or seven shots followed — bam, bam, bam, bam bam bam! I walked outside to see what’s what, and saw there were cops everywhere (eight to ten cars, lights flashing) with guns drawn at the corner of Melrose and Huntley. I wanted to take photos but was told twice to get back inside for my safety. Two or three African American guys plus a caucasian blonde woman. Hands up, raise your T-shirt, drop to your knees. A loudspeaker telling someone to drop their weapon and get down. A couple of choppers flying overhead.

I’ve noted twice before that Variety‘s Clayton Davis has called Regina King‘s One Night In Miami “the first solid Oscar contender to drop in the fall festival circuit.”

But hold upski a second. Because in the other corner we have The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg declaring that Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland is “the first across-the-board Oscar contender of the unusual 2020-2021 season.”

Didn’t Feinberg see One Night in Miami? He probably did. It’s been streaming around since its Venice Film Festival debut. So why didn’t he call Regina King‘s film the first serious Oscar contender and Chloe Zhao‘s the second?

Feinberg: “Adapted by Zhao from Jessica Bruder‘s acclaimed 2017 non-fiction book of the same name, Nomadland paints a beautiful and haunting portrait of the ways in which many older Americans have been impacted by the Great Recession. And it features a leading turn by a never-better Frances McDormand that could well result in her becoming only the second person to accumulate as many as three best actress Oscars, after Katharine Hepburn, who won four.

“It’s hard to imagine a film that could better capture the zeitgeist — often a major consideration for members of the film Academy, conscious or not — than this portrait of mournful and weary resilience, which begs the question: is this really what has happened to America, the land of promise, and the American dream? It is set during the Obama years, but is just as much a comment on the Trump years, so it won’t be easy for either side to politicize it.

“The closest comparison that I can think of is the 1940 classic The Grapes of Wrath, which was adapted from John Steinbeck‘s story of people hit by hard times but passing by or surrounded by people in the same boat and therefore, perhaps, maintaining their dignity and their strength to carry on.”

Feinberg won’t say it, but I will. The ’20/’21 Oscar race is going to be strongly influenced by women, people of color and wokeness in general. The ideal Best Picture Oscar winner will ideally be directed by a woman (preferably by a woman of color like Zhao), and the least likely contenders for the Best Picture Oscar will probably be, unfair as it sounds, films primarily about white-guy realms. I suspect that Mank, a mostly-white-guy period film, may run into resistance because of this. If this doesn’t happen, great. But the wind is the wind.

Variety award-season columnist Clayton Davis was apparently floating on a cloud while writing his review of Regina King‘s One Night In Miami, calling it “the first solid Oscar contender to drop in the fall festival circuit.”

Okay, maybe it is, especially given the current woke criteria and all. But I saw it last night and I’m here to say “yep, good film in a disciplined and concentrated sort of way, but calm down.”

I don’t know how to explain it in so many words, but I somehow expected that a film about a February 1964 meeting between Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a Miami hotel room would amount to something more than what this movie conveys.

.One Night in Miami is a respectably decent translation of a good, thoughtful play about African American identity in the ’60s. But it’s not a great film or even a brilliant one. But it’s good enough in terms of observational fibre and social relevance, or at least the second half is. But the fact that it was directed by Regina King doesn’t make it any more or less than it actually is.

And for a film that largely (65% or 70%) takes place in a single hotel room, it visually underwhelms. Tami Reiker‘s cinematography doesn’t match the high water marks of Boris Kaufman‘s one-room lensing of 12 Angry Men or Glen MacWilliams‘ cinematography for Hitchcock’s Lifeboat.

Denzel Washington’s titular performance in Spike Lee‘s Malcolm X was a tougher and more resolute dude than Kingsley Ben-Adir‘s version. Malcolm won’t stop beating up on poor Sam Cooke, and he seems weak when he asks Cassius (“Cass”) to join him in breaking with Elijah Muhammad. And he weeps! Just not the solemn, heroic figure that I’ve been reading about all these years. And wasn’t he wearing that carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard in ‘64?

Good moment: When Cooke criticizes Malcolm for reacting in a cold, racially dismissive way when JFK was murdered (“The chickens coming home to roost”). Cooke says his mother cried over the news, and Clay says his momma cried too.

Leslie Odom, Jr. is quite good as Cooke, but I didn’t believe an early scene at the Copacabana in which the snooty white clientele reacts to Cooke’s singing with derision and rudeness. In ’64 Cook was known all over as a major-league crooner who had released a cavalcade of hits going back to ‘57. No way would an audience of uptown swells treat him like that. Even if they didn’t like his act, the middle-class politeness instinct is too embedded.

I felt the same contemptuous attitude toward whiteys in the Copa scene that Ava DuVernay showed when she invented that Selma scenario in which LBJ told J. Edgar Hoover to tape-record MLK’s sexual motel encounters in order to pressure him into not pushing for the Voting Rights Act. You’ll recall how Joseph Califano called b.s. on that.

The postscript reminds that Malcolm X was murdered by gunfire a year later, but it ignores Cooke’s death in Los Angeles less than a year later. That tells you that King is a bit of a spinner — she didn’t want to leave the audience with a downish, mystifying epilogue. But it happened.

Repeating: Clayton Davis did One Night in .Miami no favors by calling it Oscar-worthy.