Who’s kidding whom? At best HE dabbles in broadcast/cable/streaming. In a word, I’m a dilletante. Meaning that I see what I have time for, but (a) don’t push me and (b) I tend to avoid comedies. I’m basically a movie, Bluray and 4K streaming guy in search of comfort zones. (Remember movies?) I live on Amazon, Netflix, HBO Max, Vudu and Criterion Channel. I’m nonetheless an educated human being with feelings, opinions, passions, etc. And so I decided to post this. Where’s the harm?

HE preferences are in boldface; random comments inserted. All hail Cate Blanchett, Tracey Ullman and the Mrs. America team.

Best Drama Series

“Better Call Saul” (AMC)…sure.
“The Crown” (Netflix)
“The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu)…nope.
“Killing Eve” (BBC America/AMC)
“The Mandalorian” (Disney Plus)…no!
“Ozark” (Netflix)
“Stranger Things” (Netflix)
“Succession” (HBO)

Comedy Series

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)…HE-styled humor, close to home.
“Dead to Me” (Netflix)
“The Good Place” (NBC)
“Insecure” (HBO)
“The Kominsky Method” (Netflix)
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon Prime Video)
“Schitt’s Creek” (Pop TV)
“What We Do in the Shadows” (FX)

Limited Series

“Little Fires Everywhere” (Hulu)
“Mrs. America” (Hulu)…loved this series.
“Unbelievable” (Netflix)
“Unorthodox” (Netflix)
“Watchmen” (HBO)

Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Jeremy Irons (“Watchmen”)
Hugh Jackman (“Bad Education”)
Paul Mescal (“Normal People”)
Jeremy Pope (“Hollywood”)
Mark Ruffalo (“I Know This Much Is True”)

Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Cate Blanchett (“Mrs. America”)
Shira Haas (“Unorthodox”)
Regina King (“Watchmen”)
Octavia Spencer (“Self Made”)
Kerry Washington (“Little Fires Everywhere”)

Games, DHS goons, screams, smoke, street theatre. Tackled woman protestor: “Get the fuck offa me!” Goon tackler: “Fuckin’ coward!”…Trump’s storm troopers have provoked and the demonstrators have played right along. And to what end? Trump has simply collected good material for campaign ads.

Obviously the anonymous Department of Home Security goons have inflamed things, and yet street lefties in Portland and Seattle appear to be doing everything they can to persuade those who might otherwise vote for Joe Biden to hold their noses and, hating themselves, vote for The Beast. People will sympathize with political disturbances for a week or two, but they’re generally spooked by violent disorder, and are now sick of this repetitive crap and just want it to end already.

Remove the goons and it’ll all taper off. But of course, Trump and Attorney General William Barr want this horseshit to continue so the goons stay.

Favorite clip: Protestor peeing on a lamppost.

Our extravagant, suitable-for-Kim Kardashian pad in San Felipe. We drove back to WeHo in 7 hours and 15 minutes, including a 45-minute (possibly an hour) wait at the Mexicali border crossing.

In a 7.26 Medium article, Michael Tracey notes how mainstream media types have in many cases under-reported if not ignored the destruction to small businesses and lower-income nabes caused by the George Floyd protest riots.

I for one am horrified by a certain clip from the new trailer for Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are (HBO series, eight episodes). I’m referring to the moment when Jack Dylan Grazer (It, Shazam) appears to be laughingly on the verge of shearing off Jordan Kristine Seamon‘s hair. They’re both loving the moment….the fuck? (HE to Guadagnino: Head-shaving is never, ever a laughing matter.) Grazer plays an introverted mid-teen from New York who’s just arrived at an Italian military base with his gay moms, played by Chloe Sevigny and Alice Braga. Seamon plays Caitlin, a settled teenager who has lived on the base for several years.

Chloé Zhao‘s Nomadland (Searchlight) will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival on the same date — September 11, 2020. It will also screen at the New York Film Festival, or so the press release says.

It should be noted that Nomadland is a potential Best Picture contender with no apparent politically correct demerits — Frances McDormand starring, directed and written by Zhao, based on Jessica Bruder‘s book, compassion for disenfranchised people, white male currents subordinate.

The wokesters will be down with it, and old-school males will want to vote for it in order to convey their support for women filmmakers and to show they’re in the swing of things.

The Venice debut will apparently be physically real and theatrical; the Toronto debut will be digital. Who knows if the NYFF showing will happen with a live audience? Here’s hoping.

Pre-dawn (5:35 am) in San Felipe (7.27.20) vs. similar vista used for opening credits of Mike Nichols’ Catch–22 (sequence shot in Guaymas, Mexico), which opened on 6.21.70.

Around noon we walked into town along the blazing white beach, and the heat (99 or 100 degrees) was so intense I began to feel like Gasim gasping for air and close to collapsing in the Nefud desert. I almost couldn’t see for the perspiration. I lost around seven pounds in the space of 60 minutes.

Posted from lounge chair on outdoor patio in 94-degree heat, and with shitty wifi to boot:

Four essential performances were given by the late, great Olivia de Havilland: (a) Maid Marian in Michael Curtiz’s Robin Hood (‘37) , (b) Melanie Wilkes in Gone With The Wind (‘39), (c) the disturbed victim in Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit (‘48). and (d) the vaguely gullible woman-of-means in William Wyler’s The Heiress (‘49).

There were other sturdy performances, but these four were the keepers. Have I seen every noteworthy Olivia de Havilland performance? No. The truth is that I found her virtuousness (which was always a central eiement) deflating and…I’ll leave it at that.

Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine.

She was a fine, classy, top-tier thesp, for sure, but I gradually chose to regard OdH as more of a maidly vibe or a classic chastity brand than an actress for all moods and seasons — the intrepid woman of Paris, pushing on, the never-say-die trooper, sometimes riding her bicycle and occasionally speaking with THR’s Scott Feinberg.

This may sound like a putdown, but she never conveyed even the faintest hint of eroticism…not the slightest sniff. This is what almost all leading actors and actresses do, after all — they invite you to sense the aroma. Nor could you imagine her sister, Joan Fontaine, succumbing to any such impulse. Okay, perhaps Joan occasionally thought about intimacy but that’s all. My sense is that Olivia, by the measure of her screen performances, never even did that.

OdH passed this morning (or last night) at age 104. Sweet dreams, gentle waters.

Regis Philbin, John Saxon, Olivia de Havilland — the trilogy is complete.