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I’m disappointed. Make that damn disappointed. What semi-intelligent, fair-minded person wouldn’t be?

It seems to me that in observing the precise letter of the law and drilling only into possible proof of an actual, real-deal conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election by colluding with Russian operatives, Robert Mueller has seemingly sidestepped the basic overall, which is that President Trump is a malignant narcissist, an amoral sociopath and the head of a New York crime family, and that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything other than his own empowerment and/or his mushroom dick being sucked. And that before and after 1.20.17 he’s acted this way to the detriment of the country and that portion of the population (i.e., a two-thirds majority) that respects the law and various concepts of human decency.

Michael, a N.Y. Times commenter, posted a few minutes ago: “I’m not surprised absent a written directive from Trump, a recorded phone call, or someone close to the president willing to tell the truth under oath, that Mueller could not prove obstruction of justice or criminal conspiracy inside the campaign.

“However, as Barr and Mueller state, this does not exonerate him. There is too much circumstantial and incriminating evidence surrounding the president’s firing of Comey, the many meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, to say ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’

“It was a huge mistake not to interview Trump under oath. I believe after the full report is issued, Congress needs to continue its oversight role that has only just barely begun. Important facts are waiting to be uncovered.

“This isn’t about optics — it’s about determining the integrity and/or duplicity of the man holding the highest office in the land.”

Laura, another Times commenter: “I’m just shocked. There’s no other word for it. As an avid follower of this whole sprawling Russia story over the last 2 years, I just don’t see how this is possible.

“There is just so much wrongdoing is plain sight — how can this be the outcome?

What about the Trump Tower meeting? And Kushner wanting to establish a back channel to Russia so US intelligence couldn’t listen to their conversations? And Trump trying to fire Sessions for not recusing himself? And the dozens of other examples of things just as corrupt, suspicious, and possibly illegal??

“Is Barr covering up for Trump? I don’t really think that, but it’s sort of the best idea I can come up with at the moment of why this is happening.

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Hollywood Elsewhere offers sorrow and condolences to the friends, fans and colleagues of the great Larry Cohen, who died last night at age 77.

I first heard that Larry’s health was declining about three years ago, maybe four. I felt badly but when your number’s up, that’s it. All hail one of the nerviest screenwriters and greatest indie lowball exploitation filmmakers of the late 20th Century.

All aspiring Cohen-heads who haven’t yet seen Steve Mitchell‘s King Cohen need to do so right away.

I’m one of many critics and journalists who had a kind of chummy party-schmooze friend-o thing going with Cohen all through the ’80s, ’90s, aughts and teens…call it 35 years. Larry was on the screening-and-after-party circuit, and every time I ran into him it was always Larry and Laurene Landon, whom he’d had cast and directed in Full Moon High, I, the Jury and The Stuff. Larry and Laurene, Larry and Laurene, Larry and Laurene…years on end.

I called Laurene a couple of hours ago, looking to offer condolences. Her message box was at capacity.

I first met Cohen back in ’81, when I did a Film Journal article about how he’d been fired as director of I, The Jury, which starred Armand Assante. Written by Cohen, pic was a Manhattan-based adaptation of the famous Mickey Spillane novel. The story went that Cohen had openly questioned whether the producers (including Robert Solo) had the dough to finish the film; they apparently canned him out of anger and revenge.

A few weeks later Cohen was back at work on Q: The Winged Serpent, which turned out to be one of his loosest and most amusing…what, genre satires?

I became an arms-length admirer of Cohen in the mid ’70s. I didn’t get him at first. My first impression was that he was making low-budget exploitation schlock, It’s Alive (’74) and God Told Me To (’76) being my first two samplings. Clever stuff but not what anyone would call “serious.”

I finally got him after seeing Q, The Winged Serpent. It suddenly hit me that Cohen might be making dry exploitation film satires — that he might be playing it straight for the sake of his investors but was also “in on the joke.” Or something like that. Michael Moriarty descending into fits of giddy giggling as the serpent eats one of the bad guys….”Eat ‘um, eat’ um, eat ‘um!”.

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Like many others I’ve been thinking about a seismic event happening tomorrow, which is basically the end of 20th Century Fox as we’ve known it for so many decades. It’s officially being absorbed (i.e., swallowed whole if being strategically maintained as a separate unit) by Disney on 3.20.19. By any measure a sad end of an era.

But of course, the 20th Century Fox brand had been eroding and diminishing for a long time. Which regime presided over the most bountiful or influential Fox heyday? The Daryl F. Zanuck era (20 years from the mid ’30s to mid ’50s)? The Alan Ladd, Jr. era of the early to late ‘70s? Or Bill Mechanic‘s reign (’94 to ’00)? The standard answer is to point to Zanuck’s as the greatest, but I have a special respect and affection for the Mechanic reign, perhaps because I personally lived through it as a covering journalist.

Mechanic-wise, most people would point to the following highlights: Titanic, Bulworth, Fight Club, Independence Day, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Mrs. Doubtfire, Speed, True Lies, Braveheart (co-production with Paramount), Cast Away, Boys Don’t Cry, There’s Something About Mary, Ice Age, X-Men, The Full Monty, Boys Don’t Cry and Moulin Rouge. Most of these were high concept, yes, but many were masterfully written, high-craft efforts about actual people and real-life capturings, which happened from time to time in those balmy days before the superhero plague.

Laddie highlights include Star Wars (’77) , The Empire Strikes Back (’80), Alien (’79), Julia (’77), The Towering Inferno (’74), The Omen (’76), Young Frankenstein (’74), Breaking Away (’79), Norma Rae, The Boys from Brazil (’78), The Turning Point (’77), An Unmarried Woman (’78), All That Jazz (’79), Silver Streak (’76), The Rose (’79), 9 to 5 (’80) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (’75).

The Zanuck films were primarily regarded as serious, socially reflective takes on the states of American being. Sone of the highlights included The Grapes of Wrath (’40), Song Of Bernadette (’43), The Ox-Bow Incident (’43), Laura (’44), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (’45), Gentleman’s Agreement (’47), A Letter to Three Wives (’49), Twelve O’Clock High (’49), Pinky (’49), All About Eve (’50), Twelve O’Clock High (’49), Viva Zapata (’52), The Robe (’53), Demetrius and the Gladiators (’54). Which others?

The TCM Classic Film Festival is hosting a special tribute to Fox’s fabled history on Saturday, 4.13. The copy doesn’t even allude to the fact that Fox has been eaten by Disney.

Mechanic remarks: “As with any studio, there were peaks and valleys. The Zanuck films were obviously distinctive within their realm. I thought Laddy left behind a good legacy, and felt that we restored some of the luster.

Not sure I have much more to say than what I already have. [Rupert] Murdoch never liked movies, and never cared to build the studio into anything other than a supply line for TV/cable (much like the streamers are doing), and thus dumped all the history unceremoniously and without a tinge of regret.”

The below frame capture is from a new trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Warner Bros., 5.3). I’ve posted two or three times previously about the fat Godzilla factor (the last one, “Reptilian Sumo Wrestler“, appeared on 12.10.18) but this is the first time I’ve seen a profile shot of the titular character in which you can literally spot a huge beer gut on the guy.

In the long history of monster movies, reaching all the way back to Harry Hoyt and Willis O’Brien‘s The Lost World, there’s never been a monster with a massive pot belly…never.

So I have to spell it out? On some level Godzilla: King of the Monsters is self-portraiture. Somebody on the team is projecting about contemporary American culture and how a significant portion of Millennials have become huge over the last 10, 15 years. Look at the original 1954 Godzilla — a monster who ate right and worked out.

John Ford‘s The Informer was my first wake-up film — the first adult drama that showed me movies could reach right inside and get you where it hurts or haunts, and could be about more, a lot more, than just laughs, excitement, color and spectacle.

It was my first heavy-duty, moral-undertow drama, all about grimness and guilt and poverty and downish atmospheres — the very first that presented a pathetic main character (Victor McLaglen‘s Gypo Nolan) and said, “Yes, obviously this guy’s a child, a drunk, a blunderer, not in the least bit clever…but can you find it in your heart to forgive him? Or are you the hard, judgmental type?”

I was nine or ten when I first saw The Informer, and my response was pretty much “well, yeah, I feel sorry for Gypo, I guess…but forgiveness is a bridge too far. How do you forgive a guy for betraying Frankie McPhillip, a friend, in exchange for a lousy 20 pounds?”

Even then I was having trouble with Gypo or more precisely drunks, and I barely knew anything. Well, my paternal grandfather had a mild drinking problem, but it wasn’t that noticable until his wife died.

I saw The Informer again sometime in the early aughts, and this time I felt even more annoyed by Gypo’s behavior. He doesn’t even have the discipline to hide his shame. Instead he goes straight into a pub and starts buying drinks for everyone, which immediately ignites the suspicions of the Irish Republican Army guys (Joe Sawyer, Preston Foster).

Eventually he’s found out, tried and marked for execution, and I’m telling you I agreed with the IRA. There’s no room for a big dumb oaf in an urban warfare situation. Gypo’s too much of a stumbling-around lush to be trusted. Kill him and be done with it.

But that final scene after he’s been shot in the gut, bleeding to death…that scene still gets me. When Gypo stumbles into a church and finds Frankie’s mother and says with that pleading, wounded-ox voice, “Twas I who informed on your son, Mrs. McPhillip…forgive me.” And the poor woman does for some reason, and then comforts him with “you didn’t know what you were doin’.” Gypo clutches his side, calls out to the dead Frankie, drops to the church floor and dies.

If I’d been Mrs. McPhillip I would have said, “You’ll get no forgiveness from me, Gypo. And from the looks of you, you won’t be needing any soon. Just let go…just let go. There’s nothin’ more for it, Gypo. Just go to sleep.”

I’m totally serious about Beto O’Rourke having to Pete Buttigieg up and totally shape-shift into that mentality and attitude within 30 to 60 days, and preferably 30.

I love Buttigieg — I just decided this morning that he’s my second favorite candidate after Beto, with Kamala Harris running a close third. But you know that while PB has everyone’s respect and admiration, he’ll never pass muster with the hinterland bumblefuck pudgeballs. I hate even touching this, but I fear that the combination of his sexual orientation plus the first syllable in his unspellable, unpronounceable last name…I’m sorry but this is how older, beer-gutty straight males think. That plus a lack of a commanding alpha-male vibe — Buttigieg is 37 but looks 30, and hasn’t a gray hair on his head, and looks school-kiddy. Plus his head is too small. Plus he’s not quite tall enough — only around 5′ 9″, if that. And don’t get me started on the last-name pronunciation.

PB would clearly be an excellent vice-presidential running mate. In fact, the prospect of his debating the staunchly Christian and notoriously homophobic Mike Pence is too delicious for words. But if Beto or Biden land the nomination you know they’ll have to choose Kamala as vp. Not much choice in the matter.

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35 years ago Taylor Hackford‘s remake of Jacques Tourneur‘s Out of the Past was retitled Against All Odds — a classic Hollywood dumb-down move. The thinking was “why confuse audiences with a spooky-sounding title about dark, enveloping fate when you can sell an alternate that might refer to a tough football game or some kind of mission impossible?”

Yesterday David Chase‘s Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark, was retitled as just plain, dumb-as-a-rock, stick-your-thumb-up-your-ass Newark.

What was so bad about the Many Saints title? It had a ring. Newark sounds like it’s another Detroit, right?

The Warner Bros. execs behind the title change probably tested The Many Saints of Newark with a focus group, and the group probably expressed confusion or irritation. “What kind of saints?” “I don’t get it.” “Is this about a football team?” “Whoever heard of saints residing in Newark?”

Let’s revise some titles of some famous Sopranos episodes with the same reductionist approach. I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano is now Jeannie. The Knight in White Satin Armor is now called Armor. Pine Barrens will henceforth be known as Fucking Freezin’ Out Here. Long Term Parking will hereafter be called She Dies.

The 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination is burning a little brighter this morning…new runner, new feeling…does it sound overly partisan to say fresh goose bumps?…bang.

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I can just tell this is good…I can sense it, smell it, feel it.

From Eric Kohn’s 3.11 SXSW review: “The teen party movie has been done and redone so many times it may as well be an algorithm, so every new movie that rises to the challenge faces heavier expectations. Booksmart, yet another buddy movie about one wild night at the end of high school, confronts these odds with a savage wit that never slows down.”

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

Last weekend David Fincher visited South by Southwest to talk about Love, Death and Robots (Netflix, 3.15), an “anthology animated short series made by different artists from around the world” blah blah.

I’m a stone worshipper of Mindhunter, the 2017 series that Fincher produced and partly directed (and which will re-launch with a second season later this year), and I definitely enjoyed the Fincher-produced House of Cards for the first couple of seasons. But I wouldn’t watch Love, Death and Robots with a knife at my back. Because in my mind an “anthology animation short” series is Otto Ludwig Piffle…take-it-or-leave-it esoterica for animation oddballs and navel gazers and guys who avoid sunlight and regular pedicures, and who look and behave like Pete Davidson and wear skeleton-feet sneakers.

Remember the old David Fincher? The guy who was one of the most dynamic, innovative, forward-reaching directors of narrative features (on the level of Soderbergh, Cuaron, Inarritu and Kubrick) and who was slugging it out in the boxing ring and at least trying to make stuff that really mattered? That Fincher has now retreated into a kind of Netflix cave. He hasn’t made a theatrical feature in over four years, close to five. The good but vaguely underwhelming Gone Girl (’14) was his last theatrical effort.

If you ignore Alien 3 (which I advise everyone to do), Fincher was on the feature-film stick for 19 years, and made four world-class knockouts — Seven (’95), Fight Club (’99), Zodiac (’07) and The Social Network (’10). He also made four above-average, stylistically-striking popcorn films — The Game, Panic Room, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. I’m not calling The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a stinker, but I’ll never, ever watch it again.

Why is Fincher more or less hiding in his little Netflix cave? He’s following his heart and his muse, and I’m sure that’s a satisfying place to be, but what about the devout fan base (i.e., persons like myself?) It’s like Fincher has decided he can’t be “David Fincher” any more…like that was a phase and now he’s past it.

He obviously no longer believes in theatrical narratives. Because Hollywood itself no longer believes in same, and because the zombie executives won’t greenlight anything even remotely original, and because Fincher won’t make formulaic crap. And so he’s operating out of his own little creative bunker. He’s not even doing a Soderbergh — making modest but original features, working with Netflix but exploring new distribution schemes, shooting on iPhones, etc. He’s working and living in a realm that allows for creative freedom, but the absence of the old Fincher breaks my heart.

If Fincher is trying to get anything made in the realm of narrative features, I haven’t heard of it. Has he totally bailed or is there something he’s developing that might actually become something? I’m asking.

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The slogan on those Long Shot posters reads “unlikely but not impossible.” Obviously the marketers behind this political-minded Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron romantic comedy (Lionsgate, 5.3) know they have a tough sell on their hands.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, a 40ish Secretary of State planning a run for the White House, and Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a political journalist whom Theron hires to be her speechwriter, in part because she babysat for him “20 years earlier,” according to one review.

You think? In real life Rogen is 37 going on 55. He didn’t need a babysitter when he was 17 — Theron more likely babysat him 25 or 30 years ago, when he was 12 or 7. A quarter century ago Theron was 18 — a perfect babysitting age.

Long Shot screened last night at South by Southwest. Sight unseen, Hollywood Elsewhere agrees with Peter Debruge’s skepticism about this bizarre romantic pairing.

Debruge: “There are two high-concept male fantasies operating here: There’s the one in which a man-child finally gets to seduce the sexy babysitter, interwoven with another about the chances that the country’s most gorgeous/powerful woman — ‘I dreamed I was president in my Maidenform bra’ — might risk it all to be with someone like Flarsky.

“The odds? The movie’s new title says it all.

“More creepy than romantic, more chauvinist than empowered — and in all fairness, funnier and more entertaining than any comedy in months — Long Shot serves up the far-fetched wish-fulfillment fantasy of how, for one lucky underdog, pursuing your first love could wind up making you first man.

“Granted, society’s notion of what kind of romances are deemed acceptable is shifting awfully fast, so I could be wrong about this.. [But] there’s an alarming disconnect [in] whatever unconventional sex appeal Field sees in [Flarsky].

“If the sexes were reversed, Rogen would be the dumpy girl with curly hair and glasses waiting for his mid-movie makeover. But because Flarsky’s a dude, he doesn’t have to change at all; it’s Field who has to make all the concessions to be with him — which would surely be a point of contention in a properly engaged satire.”

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