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I was never into Playstation and I certainly didn’t pay attention to Spyro the Dragon, a 1998 platform game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. (25 years ago!) But during a word game a few years ago my chronic hearing problem resulted in my sincere mispronouncing of the name as “Spyro the Jacket.”

The kids laughed at me and still bring it up on occasion, but let me explain something. Nonsensical as it sounds, Spyro the Jacket is better than Spyro the Dragon. A meme that makes no sense but at the same time transcends and in fact leapfrogs over the original.

Sometimes life flips on its side and bingo You have to be able to say “of course! and turn on a dime. Odd accidents sometimes open the doors of opportunity.

Spyro the Jacket isn’t just “better” than that Clinton-era Playstation game — it’s 10 to 15 times better. If I could afford it I would create a logo and manufacture “Spyro the Jacket” T-shirts and, yes, jackets.

The expression on Mark Ruffalo‘s face in this Zodiac interrogation scene…his expression alone in this 5 minute, 48-second scene is ten to fifteen times better than his whole performance in Poor Things. Better in that it conveys an immense amount of information…he doesn’t move a muscle but his face is quaking with emotion and arousal and implication.

And that vaguely moaning, faintly growling sound we hear as the suspicion factor begins to build…fascinating. And the watch.

My God, what a brilliant film Zodiac is! All four guys in this scene are note perfect — Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Elias Koteas, John Carroll Lynch.

Plus Ruffalo is at least 20 to 25 pounds lighter in Zodiac than he is in Poor Things so there’s that also.

In Steven Soderbergh‘s The Limey (’99), the “King Midas” montage rules (:09 to 1:09). All hail The Hollies when Graham Nash was front and center.

Peter Fonda (1940-2019) was an easy guy to talk to…interviewed him a couple of times, talked to him at parties, etc. Terry Valentine was by far his most interesting and layered role, more so than Easy Rider‘s Wyatt or the guy who dropped LSD in The Trip…pick of the litter.

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Ruben Ostlund‘s Force Majeure (’14) is a better film than Nat Faxon and Jim Rash‘s remake titled Downhill (1.20). But the latter isn’t half bad, and it’s a half-hour shorter, and it ends well. And so I’ve decided to re-watch Downhill this evening rather than Ostlund’s original.

Downhill, which opened almost exactly four years ago, struck me as better than decent — adult, well measured, emotionally frank, well acted and cunningly written. (Faxon and Rash shared screenplay credit with Jesse Armstrong.)

It’s not a burn, it’s not about a “black and white situation” (as one of the less perceptive characters puts it) and it provides ample food for thought and discussion.

Both films conclude that a father running from an impending disaster (i.e., a huge avalanche) without trying to save or protect his wife and kids is a bad look. Which of course it is. Obviously.

Both films condemn the dad in question (Will Ferrell in the American version, Johannes Bah Kuhnke in Ostlund’s version) and more or less agree with the furious wives (Julia Louis Dreyfus, Lisa Loven Kongsli) that dad should have (a) super-heroically yanked the wife and kids out of their seats and hauled them inside in a blink of an eye or (b) hugged them before the avalanche hit so they could all suffocate together.

Hollywood Elsewhere says “yes, it’s ignoble for a dad to run for cover without thinking of his wife or kids,” but I also believe that instinct takes over when death is suddenly hovering. I also feel that Dreyfus and the two kids acted like toadstools by just sitting there on the outdoor deck and hoping for the best.

Question for Dreyfus and sons: A huge terrifying avalanche is getting closer and closer and you just sit there? I mean, you do have legs and leg muscles at your disposal. A massive wall of death is about to terminate your future and your reaction is “oh, look at that…nothing to do except watch and wait and hope for the best”?

Both films film basically ask “who are we deep down?” They both suggest that some of the noble qualities we all try to project aren’t necessarily there. But Rash and Faxon’s film also says “hey, we’re all imperfect and yes, some of us will react instinctually when facing possible imminent death. So maybe take a breath and don’t be so viciously judgmental, and maybe consider the fact that tomorrow is promised to no one so just live and let live.”

I was especially taken by Downhill‘s spot-on philosophical ending (i.e., “all we have is today”). Seriously, it really works. I came to scoff at this film (due to the less-than-ecstatic Sundance buzz) but came away converted.

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Last night I re-watched George Pal and Rudolph Mate’s When Worlds Collide (‘51), an ambitious if under-budgeted sci-fi disaster flick. Early on I was intrigued by (i.e., fantasizing about) 23 year-old costar Barbara Rush, whom I’d never paid much attention to (and who is still with us, by the way, at age 97).

She was unquestionably front and center during the ‘50s, but my most vivid memory of Rush is from Warren Beatty and Hal Ashby’s Shampoo (‘75).

There’s a scene in which Beatty’s Beverly Hills hairdresser (i.e., George Roundy) is trying to persuade a bank officer (George Furth) to give him a loan to start his own hair salon with. When asked about collateral, Roundy tries to explain that his business value is largely based upon celebrity client loyalty. “I have the heads…I do Barbara Rush,” he states. Alas, this isn’t enough for the bank officer.

Married to Jeffrey Hunter from ‘50 to ‘55, Rush was very fetching in her 20s, but augmented this with a certain interior, deep-drill quality that seemed rooted in good character and basic values. Call her the trustworthy, on-the-conservative-side, guilt-trippy type. This was especially evident in 1958’s The Young Lions and ‘59’s The Young Philadelphians.

It was this sense of duty and restraint plus a corresponding low-flame quality when it came to hints of sultry sensuousness that probably limited Rush’s appeal as she got into her 30s. Wikipage: “She was often cast as a willful woman of means or a polished, high-society doyenne.”

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Within the Best Actress race, Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone is flirting with the idea of a surprise win for Nyad’s Annette Bening.

NYC gabbermouth Bill McCuddy: “Most younger members will vote for Gladstone and Stone, and this could cancel them out. The Old Guard will ALL vote for oft-nominated Bening.”

Suggested Jimmy Kimmel joke, written by McCuddy: “It’s ironic now that both Bening and Beatty are known for their breast strokes.”

Deadline’s Pete Hammond:

HE just wants the Best Actress Oscar to go to an actress who delivered a performance of serious merit — Stone, Bening, Huller or Mulligan. I’m fine with any of these guys winning.

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Best Adapted Screenplay. America Ferrrara for Best Supporting Actress.

One of the reasons that the domestic earnings of Godzilla Minus One have surpassed those of Parasite is that the 2023 Japanese monster film didn’t have a scene in which a fired maid was allowed into the home of the drunken hero, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), during a rainstorm.

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We’re all familiar with the cinematic simulation of a punch by having an actor pretend to punch the camera lens. The best-known examples of this technique are in Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest (’59), first when a South Dakota state trooper decks Cary Grant at the end of Act Two, and then 15 minutes later when James Mason does the same to Martin Landau.

It’s been asserted, however, that Samuel Fuller trail-blazed this effect in I Shot Jesse James (’49). It happens when a barroom brawler delivers a right cross at the camera. Jean-Luc Godard reportedly once referred to this visual device as “cinema-fist.”

The problem is that I’ve never seen I Shot Jesse Jamesall the way through. I tried watching the first 10 minutes and gave up. I tried a few years later…ditto. Has anyone?

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It wasn’t just members of the AMPAS Directors Branch who blew off Barbie or didn’t feel super-enthused about Greta Gerwig‘s direction. Hillary Clinton has publicly sympathized with Gerwig and Margot Robbie over the snub, but if Barack Obama had done the same he would have looked like a hypocrite.

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Doug Liman’s Roadhouse (Amazon, 3.21) is, of course, a remake of that 1989 Patrick Swayze original, directed by Rowdy Herrington and produced by Joel Silver. (Yes, I’m aware that it’s actually spelled Road House but I don’t like that spelling. Some people spell screenplay as Screen Play, and I don’t like that either.)

The 2024 Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday morning. But instead of predicting which films and performances will be included or snubbed, let’s try a different angle of approach. Best Picture-wise most Academy members vote for the usual political or social-pressure motives (DEI and merit being the top two) but the bottom line is that movies are voted for or approved of for deep-down emotional reasons.

Mainly because these movies have said something truthful and fundamental about life as we know it. Assessments which many of us have recognized or agreed with, and which have dramatized certain human behaviors which some of us may not approve of but are reluctantly acknowledged to be pervasive and on a certain level profound.

Here’s what the major Best Picture contenders are saying, more or less…

1. Oppenheimer — It’s magnificent to be a super-brainy genius and to apply your gift to the creation of something important or earth-changing, but don’t get so stuck on your particular vision of things that you wind up ignoring basic political realities and thereby self-destructing. And for God’s sake don’t behave like a crybaby when you’re in the Oval Office with the President of the United States.

Basic message: Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t put it back in. Take responsibility for your actions, be a man, play your cards carefully, no whining.

2. Poor Things — Bella Baxter calls ’em like she sees ’em, but there has to be more to life than just furious jumping, unless of course you disagree. Don’t take Yorgos Lanthimos‘s weird imaginings too literally. There aren’t enough films that really invest in wackazoid fantasies. Enjoy them when they happen, and please ignore the last 15 minutes.

Basic message: Weirdness can be wonderful.

3. The Holdovers — Life has always been difficult and occasionally punishing, but at least there weren’t any woke fascists or social-media guillotines back in 1970. It takes a lot of work and energy to be a haughty and dismissive scold all the time, and sooner or later you’ll have to give that shit up. Listen to your heart from time to time and maybe things will open up for you…maybe.

Basic message: Don’t be a crabby asshole.

4. Killers of the Flower Moon — 100 years ago Oklahoma white men were very greedy and very foul, and we need to learn from the example of their century-old evil so we can be better people today. In line with this, it would have been very bad to tell a story of Oklahoma genocide with a white FBI agent in the lead role. To have done so would have been obviously wrong and racist. Plus it doesn’t matter if Eric Roth‘s original 153-page script was far superior to the film that Martin Scorsese ultimately made (“who didn’t do it?”). What matters is that Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to play an idiot, and he did that.

Basic message: Don’t be a greedy, homicidal Midwestern white guy.

5. Barbie — Pink is beautiful, misandrist social satire is delicious and all men are pathetic and boastful infants who can be easily manipulated if women are smart about it. Plus (a) it was glorious to wear pink to Barbie screenings last summer, and (b) hooray for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig making all that dough.

Basic message: Is there one?

6. Past Lives — If a Korean-born woman has been in love with a very special Korean-born man since childhood, it makes perfect sense to try and bring it all together when the guy flies all the way from Seoul to pay her a visit in New York City. And it doesn’t matter (or shouldn’t matter) if the woman speaks Korean to the boyfriend in the presence of her American husband. And a movie about this odd triangle doesn’t have to wrap things up or provide any emotional closure. It just has to speak softly.

Basic message: Don’t marry for friendship, convenience and comfort — you’ll be sorry down the road.

7. American Fiction — White upscale book readers are suckers for street cred and Black authenticity. If you’re a smart writer of color you’ll exploit the shit out of this market, and you won’t sweat the particulars. Unless you’re a man of conscience, in which case you will sweat them.

Basic message: Don’t worry about dumb white consumers.

8. Anatomy of a Fall — Brilliant female writers living in Grenoble need to watch themselves. Because if a certain hetero husband dies from a fall, the legal esablishment will automatically assume that the wife (Sandra Huller) pushed him and try to convict her of this, especially if she’s had a few same-sex affairs on the side.

Basic message: Beware of local male prosecutors with tennis-ball haircuts and cruel faces.

9. The Zone of Interest — The furtherance of evil has always seemed banal on this or that level, and the Nazis were no exception in this regard and especially in the ghastly matter of concentration camps.

Basic message: Read the writings of Hannah Arendt.

10. Maestro — Leonard Bernstein was a gay man who needed a beard marriage to prosper, and yet he cared deeply for his wife of many years, Felicia Montealegre. His intense devotion to music (conducting, composing) resulted in fame, adoration and great fulfillment all around, but what occupied his life and certainly affected his marriage were his relationships with young fellas.

Basic message: Don’t hurt your loved ones by “getting sloppy.”