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It would be one thing if WHE’s forthcoming 4K UHD Bluray of Full Metal Jacket (out 9.21) offered the 1.37:1 boxy version as well as the standard 1.85. But it doesn’t.

Please understand there is only one way to re-experience this 1987 war classic, and that’s via the HD boxy version on HBO Max. (Which I happened to watch a portion of only a day or two ago.) It is absolutely the most visually pleasing version anyone will ever see. Perfectly framed. The head room is transporting. Nothing is cleavered or trimmed. Exactly the way Kubrick wanted it.

Same deal with Universal’s forthcoming 4K Psycho — no boxy version, no buy.

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I’ve been debating a text buddy as to which recent rant — Nick Cave decrying the “bad religion” of cancel culture and the Khmer Rouge or Bill Maher’s “cancel Jesus” riff — is more worthy of furrowed-brow contemplation.

10:02 am update: Where does Nic Cage stand on these topics?

Friendo: Cave’s article is important and eloquent.
HE: He’s just saying what many others have said, and will continue to say. A cutting-edge musician is repulsed by the Khmer Rouge — shocker.
Friendo: But in general you’re not posting remarks by people from the cool tribe. This will shame guys like Pete Meisel. There is no one cooler in the cool tribe than Nick Cave.
HE: Bill Maher’s “cancel Jesus when he returns” has my attention at the moment.
Friendo: Nobody in the cool tribe cares about Maher. Cave will shame them. To them Maher is an angry man yelling at clouds. The MSM won’t touch the Cave thing. Social media doesn’t touch anything that doesn’t align so you will at least amplify his message. Better than posting about Pink’s Hot Dogs.
HE: I happened to visit Pink’s late yesterday and decided to post photos on the spot. Plus Pink’s is an important, much beloved cultural landmark in this town. And age-ism is just as stupid and ugly and rancid as racism.
Friendo: Cave’s piece is a pie in the face for all of those assholes on your site who say there is no problem here. His entire essay on it is a beautiful thing. I should not have to be convincing you to do this.
HE: Okay, but there is no greater HE asshole commenter than “Jimmy Porter.” You can smell the dogshit on his shoes.

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On this, the 121st anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock‘s birth, my revised list of his 12 most enjoyable and finely crafted films: (1) Notorious, (2) Vertigo, (3) North by Northwest, (4) Psycho, (5) Strangers on a Train, (6) Rear Window, (7) Lifeboat (propelled by Tallulah Bankhead and Walter Slezak), (8) To Catch A Thief, (9) The Man Who Knew Too Much (’56 version, and despite the agonizing, overly emotional performance by Doris Day), (10) Shadow of a Doubt, (11) I Confess and (12) Foreign Correspondent.

I couldn’t include The Birds (despite my love for the Bodega Bay diner scene) because of the ghastly performances by those awful school kids. I’m sorry but Suspicion (horrible ending), The 39 Steps and Rope have also been wilting on the vine.

And don’t even mention Marnie — The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody and a few equally perverse fans of this 1964 film had their fun a few years ago, but that vogue is over.

One of the greatest HE thread comments of all time, from “brenkilco”, stated that Brody’s determined fraternity of admirers is “insidious and frightening…they’re just like ISIS except instead of beheading people they like Marnie.”

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The three hottest attractions of the forthcoming, COVID-threatened NY Film Festival (Friday, 9.25 thru Sunday, 10.11) aren’t exactly award-season rocket fuel — be honest.

The opening night attraction is Steve McQueen‘s Lover’s Rock, an ’80s-era film about a blend of young lovers (Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Michael Ward) and music at a blues party…whatever that suggests or amounts to.

Lover’s Rock (apparently the strange apostrophe placement is correct) was cowritten by McQueen and Courttia Newland. Rock is one of three films from McQueen’s Small Axe anthology that will screen at NYFF. The other two are Mangrove, about an actual 1970 clash between black activists and London fuzz, and Red, White, and Blue, based on the story of Leroy Logan (John Boyega) who joined the police force after seeing his father assaulted by cops.

The centerpiece attraction, as previously reported, is Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland, a sad-eyed-lady-of-the-highway film with Frances McDormand.

The closing-night attraction is Azazel Jacobs‘ French Exit, an allegedly surreal comedy about “a close-to-penniless widow moving to Paris with her son and cat, who also happens to be her reincarnated husband.” Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, Tracy Letts, Danielle Macdonald and Imogen Poots costar.

from Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland — the pink dusky sky and the brightly glowing lantern are ravishing.

Michelle Peiffer, Lucas Hedges in French Exit, which was only PARTLY filmed in Paris with the remainder in Montreal.

I haven’t received my Kindle review copy of Glenn Kenny‘s “Made Men” (Hanover Square Press, 9.15.20), a 400-page history of the making of Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas (’90).

Critic and book author Shawn Levy (“Rat Pack Confidential”, “The Castle on Sunset”), whom I’ve known for years, has called Kenny’s book “impeccably researched, fluently written, and infused with insight, wit and mastery…exactly what you want from a making-of-your-favorite-movie book. From mob stories to the nuts-and-bolts business of crafting a masterpiece, it’s all here…you’d have to be a real schnook not to read it.”

I don’t want to make a big deal about this but I was little perplexed about the book’s front cover, which shows the rear half of a bullet-riddled pink Cadillac.

The allusion, of course, is to the pink Caddy bought by Frank Pellegrino‘s Johnny Dio (aka “Johnny Roastbeef”) with a wad of stolen Lufthansa loot. Robert De Niro‘s Jimmy Conway, the Lufthansa heist ringleader, is infuriated that Johnny bought the damn thing after being warned not to spend money on anything flashy.

Johnny tries to explain it away (“It’s in my mother’s name”), offers a soft apology (“Sorry, Jimmy”), etc. Nonetheless three or four scenes later he and his blonde wife end up whacked in the front seat of the Caddy.

The problem is that Johnny Roastbeef’s pink Caddy is a 1979 model with a white top, and the caddy on the book cover is a ’63 or ’64 model with mild fins and no white top. Plus the color of movie version is ripe and loud while the book-cover version is pinkish beige.

This is not a capital crime on the part of the book-cover designer, but why not use the caddy we all saw in the movie? Obviously it’s an easy get — a no-brainer. I’m just not understanding the ’63 or ’64. The snafu doesn’t hurt anyone or get in the way of the actual content (i.e., Kenny’s research, reporting and seductive prose style) but again…why?

Rear section of a 1963 or ’64 pink Cadillac.

Johnny Roastbeef’s 1979 pink Caddy as shown in Goodfellas.

So an early-ish cut of Andrew Dominik’s Blonde (Netflix), a fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe’s life by way of Joyce Carol Oates’ book, has been seen and praised by Oates.

It was announced last May that Blonde, which stars Ana de Armas, had been bumped into ‘21 due to pandemic pressures. But the 2020 Oscar calendar has also been extended into 2.28.21, which is six and a half months hence.

For a film that began shooting a year ago and has now, according to Oates, been assembled into a striking, satisfying whole, what could be the problem with releasing it before the late February deadline?

In the long history of movie moustaches, only four have seriously enhanced an actor’s aura — Clark Gable‘s pencil-thin, career-long ‘stache (a 27-year stretch from ’33 to ’60), Robert Redford‘s in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (’69), Burt Reynolds‘ “Smokey” ‘stache and Billy Crudup‘s upper-lip growth in Almost Famous.

I guess I could bend over backwards and admit that Billy De Williams‘ Lando moustache in Episode #5 and #6 of the Star Wars saga was cool. And okay, Sam Elliott‘s handlebar in The Big Lebowski had a certain folksy authenticity. I’ll also allow that Daniel Day Lewis‘s Bill the Butcher ‘stache completed the satanic aura. Plus [thanks to HE commenters] David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., Ronald Colman, William Powell, Errol Flynn, Lee Van Cleef, Vincent Price, Groucho Marx and Ernie Kovacs.

But otherwise moustaches are generally annoying and almost always a mistake. Certainly in a present-day context. And not just on-screen.

Moustaches are a machismo thing, of course. We’ve all read about rock stars stuffing toilet paper into their underwear before going on stage. I’m not saying each and every wearer of a moustache is coming from the same place, but they’re definitely looking to flaunt their masculinity.

It’s my personal theory that the moustaches worn by Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in Mike Nichols‘ The Fortune caused that film to tank, or were certainly a decisive factor in that regard.

From Gunfighter Wiki page: “20th Century Fox hated Gregory Peck‘s authentic period mustache in The Gunfighter (’50). In fact, the head of production at Fox, Spyros P. Skouras, was out of town when production began. By the time he got back, so much of the film had been shot that it was too late to order Peck to shave it off and re-shoot. After the film did not do well at the box-office, Skouras ran into Peck and reportedly said, ‘That mustache cost us millions.'”

I bailed on HBO’s Perry Mason five or six weeks ago. Right after episode #2. Too icky, muddy, smokey, gunky and grimly desaturated. Plus Matthew Rhys, the 45 year-old actor with the lined, Elmer’s Glue-All, beard-stubbled complexion, is too long of tooth to be playing a World War I veteran in 1931, particularly one who’s still trying to come into his own as an attorney.

“No way,” I told myself. “I will not sit through eight episodes of this shit. Life is too short.”

Perry Mason ended last night, and the general complaint is that it didn’t pay off, much less deliver a socko finish.

Rolling Stone‘s Alan Sepinwall: “If there’s a fictional character whose most famous gimmick, by far, is that he puts the real criminal on the witness stand and talks them into confessing, and you decide to not have him do that in your version? Well, you’d better come up with something really spectacular to do in its place. And the HBO series’ first-season finale utterly failed to do that.

The ending, says Sepinwall, is “cynical and extremely underwhelming. Previous Mason stories certainly leaned toward wish-fulfillment fantasy — tales of a man so noble, and so smart, that he needs only his wits to talk killers and other criminals into going against their own self-interest and admitting their guilt — but this feels like edgelord-style revisionism.

“It’s as if the HBO show’s writers couldn’t imagine Erle Stanley Gardner’s pure-hearted and persuasive creation existing in a more “realistic” world, so they had their guy cheat. But in not having Andrew Howard‘s Joe Ennis character take the stand at all — not even for Perry to try and fail to get him to confess — there’s no real drama at all to the season’s climax. It feels like both Mason and the show simply run out of ideas by the end, and just hope things will work out anyway.”

Peacock, the NBCUniversal streamer that launched on 7.15, has ordered 11 episodes of a weekly late-night Larry Wilmore show. Yes, once a week. Like Real Time with Bill Maher. Maher is an established brand but once-weekly isn’t how things work now. Way back in the Mr. Showbiz and Reel.com days (’98 to ’04) Hollywood Elsewhere was a twice-weekly column. I shifted into the daily bloggy-blog format in April ’06. Imagine a columnist launching a new column these days that refreshes twice weekly….nope! That said, it’s good to have Wilmore back in the saddle.

Tatiana had never seen Contagion so we watched it last night — my fourth or fifth time, but God, such a brilliant film, and so far ahead of the curve it wasn’t funny. It did fairly well financially, but it failed to catch on as a Best Picture contender. It should have. It didn’t predict the future — it knew it cold. This message appears at the very end of the credits:

“Contagion Reboot,” posted on 11.19.11: Last night Warner Bros. publicity made a spirited, gung-ho attempt to re-launch Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion among award-season cognoscenti and to put it into “the conversation,” so to speak. They invited journos like myself to a pleasant, talent-populated soiree (Soderbergh, Benicio del Toro, Garry Shandling, Contagion producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, screenwriter Scott Burns) inside the Clarity lobby-rotunda, and followed this with a screening of the film.

The pitch was basically “this is an undeniably gripping, highly intelligent, superbly-made socio-political-scientific thriller“” — no argument from me — “so why isn’t it being mentioned a bit more in terms of awards chatter, best-of-the-year lists and so on?”

The best response I can think of is that Contagion is going on a best-of-2011 list…mine, I mean. My second response is that with Contagion having made about $75 million domestic, what’s the beef? And my third response is that it’s about a subject — social devastation caused by a pathogen — that unsettles people on a very deep level, perhaps more than they know going in, and so I’m guessing they’d rather just leave it at that and not revisit the Contagion reality any more, thanks.

I mean, I was scratching my face all through last night’s screening, and half-wondering if there was something wrong with me because of this, absurd as that sounds. I don’t mind seeing Gwynneth Paltrow die horribly, but I don’t want to go the same way…please.

On top of which Warner Bros. decided to open Contagion in early September. This conveyed to all that (a) they were going for the money (and a $75 million haul is nothing to sneeze at) and (b) the studio felt it was good enough to release in a quality-friendly portion of the calendar but that it wasn’t necessarily an awards contender or they would have opened it in late October or November or December.

There are three other factors: (1) Contagion is an intellectual-technical chiller (as opposed to an emotional drama of some kind) and is therefore regarded as a kind of “genre” film, and that kind of distinction rarely leads to awards chatter; (2) To some extent Contagion is, let’s face it, emotionally dry or reserved, like many of Soderbergh’s films (a quality I’ve always rather enjoyed and in fact praised); and (3) It doesn’t contain one of those thematic echoes or undercurrents that Oscar-season films tend to have, nor does it deliver some basic recognizable truth.

Yes, it says that “it’s entirely possible that millions of us might suddenly die some day due to a runaway virus” but that’s not a basic recognizable truth. If it happens, that would be an anecdotal fact.

Here’s my early September review. I love Contagion. It’s going on my best-of-the-year list, no question. And I especially loved the performances by Jennifer Ehle (her bedside scene with her ailing dad is one of the few genuinely affecting emotional moments), Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould and Laurence Fisburne. And I can’t wait for the Bluray, and I wish it would be longer when it comes out in that format.

The forthcoming Hulu series Woke is about a mild-mannered African American cartoonist (“keep it light”) who becomes ultra-attuned to systemic racism after he gets beaten up by cops. Everywhere he looks and everything he hears tells him that the world is not what it seems and that “the fix is in” against people of color. Or something close to that.

This is a righteous concept, but it’s a bit out-of-time to call the series Woke because black-dude woke was a thing about…what, eight or ten years ago? We all know that since Trump’s election in late ’16 “woke” stopped alluding to hip-black-guy consciousness and became a “white progressives committed to destroying the careers of non-wokesters in order to stop the twin scourges of racism and sexism” thang…Khmer Rouge, cancel culture, Left Twitter, resurrecting the legacy of Maximilien Robespierre, the New McCarthyism in academia, etc.

So I’m sorry but Woke is out of step with the times. I’m not saying that hip African Americans embracing a “woke” perspective isn’t valid. Obviously it is. I’m saying that the term “woke” began to be co-opted by the white lunatic progressive left four years ago.

Woke arrives on Hulu on September 9. Lamorne Morris plays Keef, the lead character. Sasheer Zamata, Blake Anderson and T. Murph costar.

I had some lenses left over and the only frames that fit them are made by RayBan. I wanted bright blue frames but they aren’t available, the eyeglass guy said. All he had were lavender or greenish-yellow frames, so I went with lavender. I’ve been wearing semi-flashy socks and eyeglasses for a long time now so no biggie.