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There was some back-and-forth yesterday about Kier Simmons‘ timid approach to covering a G20 demonstration for NBC (“What Kind Of Pussy Reporter Wears A Crash Helmet?“). One of the comments mentioned that notorious scene at the beginning of Thunderball when Sean Connery wore a jetpack helmet. Connery had that Scottish machismo thing down just fine in Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. But it all collapsed when he put that pussy helmet on. From that point on there was something vaguely deballed about the guy. The advertising team obviously agreed — the Thunderball posters showed Connery flying the jet pack without the helmet.

No argument about having to wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle around town (although I’d be happier if the helmet law was optional) and I understand the need to wear yellow hard hats on a construction site, but otherwise helmets are for eunuchs. I’ve never worn one of those pinko-pansy bicycle helmets in my life, and I never will.

It was announced today that Ava DuVernay will write and direct a five-episode Netflix series about the Central Park jogger case of ’89. I don’t know, man. Ken and Sarah Burns‘ The Central Park Five, a 2012 documentary, was one thing (i.e., not without problems but compelling). But a dramatic miniseries will be a whole ‘nother challenge.

The case was about the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a female stockbroker, in Manhattan’s Central Park on 4.19.89. Five young black dudes — Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam — were wrongly prosecuted and falsely imprisoned, only to be exonerated and freed several years later. A flat-out expression of racist hysteria and institutional corruption.

Duvernay is facing two significant problems in terms of her main characters — the five alleged assailants and Meili. If DuVernay fudges, sidesteps or fabricates (as she did with her depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in Selma), she’s going to run into trouble.

Problem #1: The teenagers who were unjustly prosecuted and imprisoned put their necks in a noose when they stupidly confessed to the crime during police interrogation. They were coerced, yes, but with the assent of parents and/or guardians. Their apparent motive in confessing was that they were tired and wanted to go home.

How do you dramatize this without the audience saying “what the fuck is wrong with these guys…have they ever heard of ‘you can hassle me all you want but I didn’t do it’ or, better yet, ‘I’m not saying anything until I talk to an attorney’?”

Problem #2: The victim’s decision to jog in the vicinity of 102nd street on a dark road inside the park around 10:30 pm was almost as stupid. I lived in New York City in the early ’80s so don’t tell me — what Meili did was flat-out insane. Nobody of any gender or size with a vestige of common sense should’ve jogged in Central Park after dusk back then (and especially in the late ’80s when racial relations were volatile and Manhattan ‘was a completely schizophrenic and divided city’), much less above 96th street and much less above friggin’ 100th street. Everybody knows you don’t tempt fate like that. Any kid who’s read Grimm Fairy Tales knows that wolves lurk in the forest at night.

How do you dramatize Meili’s late-night jogging without the audience thinking “wait…is she an idiot?

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Either you’re intrigued and excited by the idea of a spooky but essentially non-scary ghost movie, or you’re not. Or you’re able to embrace the idea of a silent and passive ghost under a bedsheet, or not. 90% if not 95% of ticket-buyers prefer the dead-obvious kind of ghost flick (i.e. anything in the vein of the Conjuring series) and maybe 5% or 10% (if that) have a place in their heads for smarter, subtler variations. Which is one way of acknowledging that David Lowery‘s A Ghost Story, which opens tonight, probably won’t be setting any box-office records. But man, it sure rang my bell at Sundance last January.

Please…if you’re smarter than a fencepost and can think outside the box, give it a looksee this weekend.

I’m not the first one to say this, but it could be argued that the scariest thing about A Ghost Story is Lowery himself.

From Madison + Vine’s Jake Coyle: “A Ghost Story is what it says it is, and it may well haunt you. It won’t scare you; it doesn’t even say ‘boo.’ But glowing light and ghostly soulfulness linger on like a quiet, scratching presence that won’t leave you.”

Posted last month: Apologies to David Lowery and A24 for forgetting to include A Ghost Story in my recent rundown of the best 2017 flicks thus far. It belongs and then some. I’m putting A Ghost Story just below The Square but above Get Out, which was in sixth place until a few minutes ago but is now in seventh.

The new ranking: (1) Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name, (2) Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick (Lionsgate/Amazon, 6.23), (3) Matt Reeves‘ War For The Planet of the Apes, (4) Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, (5) Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square, (6) Lowery’s A Ghost Story and (7) Jordan Peele‘s Get Out.

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My heart went pitty-pat this morning when I read the following comment from HE reader GoToSleep: “I’m not sure what the tracking is for Spider-Man: Homecoming and of course this is anecdotal as fuck, but it was way too easy to get tickets at my Brooklyn Alamo theater. The 3D screenings, as of 11AM Thursday, are wide open for seats, and you can still get tickets for most of the 2D screenings.”

I’m presuming that the jaded-Brooklyn-hipster mentality is behind the “too easy” availability of Alamo ducats. Variety is forecasting $85 to $100 million this weekend. I for one would feel a slight surge of satisfaction or even comfort if the about-to-pop Sony release would under-perform to some extent. This would indicate a higher degree of franchise fatigue than the trades are currently detecting…please!

If you and your friends believe in fairies, you have to communicate to the dark empire that (a) you’re sick of the endless MCU and D.C. sequels, revisitings and reboots, and (b) you want more semi-original, Baby Driver-type fare (even if the wheels fall off Edgar Wright‘s action-musical during the final 15 minutes). Yes, I’m dreaming. Yes, I’m nursing a dead fantasy that the corporate-think poisoning of megaplex fare could perhaps be diluted or even turn a corner.

To me, the heartache of Aura’s sudden passing meant getting another kitten right away. I’ll never stop feeling sad about Aura’s cruel fate (she died after only eight years and a couple of weeks) but you have to get back on the horse. This morning I bought a five-week-old bluepoint Siamese kitten, whom we quickly named Anya. She’s a baby — being fed special young-kitten formula out of a bottle, crying a lot, likes to be constantly held or to sit next to a warm human body. But she’s smart and spirited and very emotionally responsive, like all Siamese. Yes, I know that kittens should stay with their mom until eight or ten weeks of age, but the guy was selling and she only cost $250 so I wasn’t about to school him or look a gift-horse in the mouth.

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I don’t expect much from Janus Metz Pedersen‘s Borg vs. McEnroe as a whole, but I want to see it. The hot-tempered, possibly wackadoodle Shia Labeouf playing John McEnroe, the ’70s and ’80s tennis champ known for his emotional tirades and disputes with judges…perfect. Plus I always liked the way McEnroe would emit that combination cry-groan thing with every serve. I expect a classic expletive performance. Hair-trigger McEnroe was beaten by the cool and dispassionate Bjorn Borg at the conclusion of the 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, but he had his revenge two months later, beating Borg in the five-set final of the 1980 U.S. Open.

This is strictly second-hand but I heard something today that upset my apple cart. It comes from the periphery of the Woody Allen camp.  The talk (and please understand this is just “talk” as in “not necessarily bankable”) is that Woody, who will be 82 in December, has muttered something along the lines of “the movie I make in 2019 might be my last.” He’s currently casting his 2018 film, which he’ll shoot either later this year or early next year, and then see to the promotion and publicity, and then he’ll make his 2019 film. And once that’s done it may be “adios muchachos.” Because, I’ve been told, Woody suspects he may not have any juice left after the ’19 flick, that he’ll be “done.”

Wells response: Here are my definitions of Allen being “done.” One, he’s just dropped dead on Fifth Avenue while directing his latest film. Two, he’s been found been slumped over in bed, his yellow writing pad at his side. Or three, he’s become one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who might wander into a cafeteria with a shopping bag, screaming about socialism.

Even if Allen recently did mutter something about hanging it up, a new good idea could change everything in an instant…right? What would Woody do with himself if he stopped writing and directing? True, he’ll turn 84 in ’19, which would mean that over half of his life will have gone by. By the Clint Eastwood standard (i.e., 87 and is still cranking ’em out), Woody is far from done.

I hate the hyphen, for one thing. I hate that they’re rebooting Spider-Man for the second damn time. I hate the idea of paying to see a film that is entirely about drooling corporate hunger. I hate the obliging whore instinct that played a part in the current 94% RT score. What’s in it for me to sit through this thing? Maybe a little amusement or diversion, but how long is this Marvel Comic Universe shit going to continue? You know the answer. Until people start saying “Fuck Kevin Feige…I’m bored and I’m done.” I just don’t want to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. I really, really don’t. Who’s with me? That was a joke. The studios crank out another and the herd comes right over and starts slurping. I’ve loved a few Marvel flicks but c’mon, man…enough. Okay, I’ll come back for Ant Man 2 if Peyton Reed directs, and for Black Panther. But you know even Black Panther is gonna be more or less the same old slop in the trough.

Weddings are often described as joyous, touching, festive, life-affirming and maybe a bit nerve-wracking, at least in terms of pre-ceremonial jitters. But yesterday’s ceremony at La Piedra state beach — Tatyana, myself and wedding maestro Chris Robinson of oficiantguy.com — was mostly peaceful. We just did it, no prob. Smiles and serenity. The sea, blue skies, bright sun and mild breezes cooperated perfectly. We didn’t actually do the deed until 4 pm. Traffic from Sunset and PCH to central Malibu was beyond ridiculous, and the way down to the beach wasn’t a path as much as a challenge for mountain goats. But man, it was perfect. The post-nuptial celebration (including my son Jett, Svetlana and David, longtime attorney pally Mark Kane) happened at The Little Door.

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The Greatest Showman (20th Century Fox, 12.25), a traditionally-styled musical biopic of P.T. Barnum, obviously isn’t attempting to deliver anything close to historical realism. It’s clearly a big, brassy, up-spirited musical — aimed at the ticket-buyers, full of feeling, going for the gold and the glory.

In a 6.28 Playlist piece, Greg Ellwood floated several 2017 Best Picture candidates, breaking them down into likely contenders vs. potential nominees. Here’s a fast assessment of the first category with some titles dismissed because of some hair-trigger, highly subjective, highly personal rationale or perception. 22 films are assessed here; Ellwood has more on his lists:

Ellwood’s Likely Contenders (alphabetical order):

1. Denis Villenueve‘s Blade Runner 2049 / HE says nope — high-end sci-fi stuff walks — that test-screening report about Harrison Ford not showing up until the very end doesn’t help matters.
2. Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name / HE says you bet your booty.
3. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon‘s The Current War / HE says nope — smells dicey — Benedict Cumberbatch delivering another eccentric genius scientist performance in the wake of The Imitation Game? — Ben-Hur director Timur Bekmambetov having produced (along with Basil Iwanyk and Steven Zaillian) implies trouble.
4. Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour / Gary Oldman will obviously compete for the Best Actor Oscar, but no one has a line on the film itself.
5. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Detroit / HE says you bet your booty, especially with those raised eyebrows over that August 4th release date having recently been lowered.
6. Alexander Payne‘s Downsizing / HE says probably, most likely …remember that Payne’s Cinemacon product reel sold everyone on this puppy…darkly funny while delivering an allegory that the dumbest popcorn-muncher will get…audacious concept, first-rate VFX, etc.
7. Christopher Nolan‘s Dunkirk / HE says senses uncertainty at this stage…post-production rumblings about it being more of a grand technical exercise than anything else….curious history lesson (“they got their asses kicked but they did it together, as a nation!”) mixed with knockout IMAX visuals.
8. Sean Baker‘s The Florida Project / HE says strictly Gotham and Spirit Awards.
9. Jordan Peele‘s Get Out / HE has been saying all along that this clever, racially attuned horror comedy, the kind of thing that John Carpenter might have directed in the ’70s or ’80s, has been way overhyped. Will this stop Academy members from nominating it for Best Picture? If you have to ask this, you don’t know the Academy kowtows.

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Yesterday Page Six reported that Daniel Day Lewis‘s post-Phantom Thread game plan is to become a dressmaker or, you know, possibly a dress designer of some sort. The 60 year-old actor fell for the art of making women’s dresses while researching haute couture fashion in preparation for playing the legendary Charles James. James is the focus of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, which Focus Features will open on 12.25. It’s about James’ high-time career in the ’50s. While James operated out of New York City during that decade, Phantom Thread is strangely set in London.

DDL’s career-switch decision makes perfect sense, of course. Instead of building upon a brilliant body of work as a universally admired actor of unquestioned genius, he will henceforth devote himself to dressmaking, a notoriously fickle and demanding profession that only a relative few have truly excelled at, and as a journeyman at that.

Question: From my moron perspective I’m presuming that dressmaking is more or less about literally constructing dresses on your hands and knees with sewing needles between your teeth, and that dress designing is where the inspirational part comes in…right? And that DDL has opted to be a grunt who handles the material and thread and whatnot? Or is he looking to design dresses as James did? I’m presuming he’s intending to primarily design but also roll up his sleeves when the occasion demands and literally cut and stitch the damn things together. I don’t know anything. I love high-end men’s fashion (particularly shoes) but I never cared about women’s stuff. What straight guy does?

Who said Lewis is particularly gifted as a designer? Who has told him “you have promise, young man…you should develop your skills!” Where are DDL’s original designs so we, the popcorn-munching audience, can assess whether he’s just as talented in this new calling as he is at acting? I respect Lewis’s willingness to explore new terrain at an advanced age, but c’mon, dude…what are the odds that you’re the new Yves Saint Laurent or Christian Dior or Stella McCartney?

John Malkovich has a suit-designing business.

Boil it down and this is the latest what-the-fuck?, should-he-stay-with-the-same-medication-or-see-a new-doctor? move from an actor known for his mercurial eccentricity.

Remember that Lewis quit acting for five years in the 1990s to become a Florence-based shoemaker under the tutelage of Stefano Bemer.