I don’t see a beastly figure in the bathroom mirror. I see a healthy, relatively trim, moderately attractive hombre who bears…well, a certain resemblance to the guy I used to be. (Last night Glenn Kenny tweeted that I had marionette hair — a resentful observation if I ever heard one.) But whatever limited solace or comfort I get from my reflection, it all vanishes when someone snaps a photo. Once in a blue moon I’ll be okay with an iPhone image of myself, but the ratio of “oh my God, please delete that” to acceptable or semi-acceptable (from my perspective) is about 75 to 1.

Myself and the SRO, snapped sometime in March. Mask was bought in Venice, and in the same shop that supplied Stanley Kubrick with all his gargoyle masks for that orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.

For years I’ve been moaning and groaning about the James Gray cabal — a fraternity of elite critics, cultureburg foo-foos and film festival staffers who’ve sworn by Gray‘s films for years, and for reasons that to me have always seemed thin or specious. It’s not Gray’s films that have gotten in my craw as much as the constant overpraise.

James Gray (safari hat, beard, earphones) directing The Lost City of Z with Charlie Hunnam. Why isn’t Gray rocking the short sleeve T-shirted look that the crew guy is wearing? He looks like a tourist who’s been asked to step off the Jungle Safari boat in Disneyland, especially with that fanny pack and those long khaki sleeves. If you’re going to wear a safari hat you need to go cowboy style (i.e., Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now). And if not that, a standard-issue director’s baseball cap.

I was actually okay with (i.e., not disturbed or offended by) Gray’s New York-centric films for nearly 20 years — Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own The Night, Two Lovers and Blood Ties (a fraternal crime thriller written by Gray but directed by Guillaume Canet).

But The Immigrant was mostly a drag (“A well-made, respectably authentic period drama, but the pace is slow and the story ho-hums…I must have looked at my watch six or seven times”) and The Lost City Of Z was, I felt, all but impossible. I wanted to escape less than 30 minutes in but I was with a paying audience at Alice Tully Hall and felt I had to stick it out. It was hell.

Yesterday MCN’s David Poland filed a piece largely in league with my views, not just about his frustrations with Gray but also the cabal.

Excerpt #1: “I don’t get it. And now, six features into James Gray’s directing career, I think I am done apologizing for it. My experience of Gray’s films has been, consistently, ‘great acting…why doesn’t the story work?’ And yet, some of the smartest critics I know are true devotees of everything Gray does. They must be hip to something that I’m not seeing, right?”

I place a lot more trust in Jeff Sneider‘s snap judgment on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (Disney, 5.5.) than all the Marvel-fellating twitter whores combined. Do you think it’s some kind of ringing endorsement when Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn says it plays “exactly as advertised”? He’s calling it Marvel assembly-line flotsam. You have to expect a certain amount of spurious reactions from attention-seeking trolls, but you can’t dismiss Kohn and Sneider.

Ralph Bellamy (speaking to Lee Marvin about Burt Lancaster in Act One of The Professionals): “But is he trustworthy? Can he be relied upon?” Marvin: “I trust him.”

How did Luke Skywalker, whose voice was so chirpy and Tom Sawyer-ish when young, manage to grow this raspy, grizzled sound without drinking Jack Daniels and smoking unfiltered Gitanes for 40 years? I think I’m done with Skellig Michael, no offense — too many shots of those green craggy cliffs. Rey and Luke in training. “What do you see?” Luke asks. “Light…darkness..the same old visionary Jedi mumbo jumbo razmatazz.” Luke’s kicker: “It’s time for the Jedi…to end.” Meaning exactly what, asshole? You can’t arbitrarily “end” a fraternity of souls with the ability to harness wondrous magical energy that always was and will be. Same old running, jumping and standing still. Same old hundreds of spacecraft swarming through the heavens in close proximity. Same old explosions. Same old Disney paycheck motivations. I’m down with Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron, but The Force Awakens told us that there’s no reason whatsoever for Adam Driver‘s Kylo Ren to wear a Vader-like mask…none!

Reminder: All serious filmmakers understand that they’re prohibited from using one of those “abrupt shocking wakeup followed by hyperventilating” moments. Just as they’re forbidden to use a “lead actor in CG-driven action-fantasy film does swan dive off a skyscraper or a tall cliff” shot.

There’s no question that Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name (Sony Pictures Classics, 11.24), which premiered two and a half months ago at Sundance and then screened at the Berlinale, will be regarded as a major Best Picture contender once the 2017 award season begins around Labor Day.

But how aggressively will SPC push it, especially given the fact that Call Me By Your Name appears to have an excellent shot at reaping nominations in several categories. Should they perhaps consider breaking tradition by working with a major-league Oscar strategist? Seems warranted.

SPC is renowned for supporting their award-calibre films in a committed, dutiful fashion. But they’ve never gone “full Harvey” when it comes to this or that contender. They never seem to really pull out all the stops, being frugal-minded to begin with (as all good businesspersons must be) and having long ago adopted a “favored nations” philosophy — equal treatment across the board — when it comes to award-season promotions.

By this standard SPC would this year be plugging Happy End, their Michael Haneke drama that will probably debut next month in Cannes, and the sexually repressed period drama Novitiate with as much fervor as Call Me By Your Name.

But Call Me By Your Name is different. It’s a moving, brilliantly composed, once-in-a decade relationship film that has 100% and 98% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. And it could easily become a leading contender in five or six or even more categories. Here’s one of my rave posts from last January; here’s another.

Definitely Best Picture and Best Director, a shot at some Best Actor action for young Timothy Chalumee, a Best Adapted Screenplay nom (Guadagnino, James Ivory, Walter Fasano), and WITHOUT QUESTION a Best Supporting Actor nom for Michael Stuhlbarg for that last scene alone.

Not to mention Best Cinematography, Production Design, and maybe even a Best Original Song nom for Sufjan Stevens.

What female villains have you completely believed in, and why? I could go on and on about my faves, but the key element is that you believed they weren’t just “playing” villainy but living in caves of their own choosing or creation.

In no particular order: Barbara Stanwyck‘s Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Meryl Streep‘s Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Jane Greer‘s Kathy Moffet in Out of the Past, Margaret Hamilton‘s Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, Kathy Bates‘ Annie Wilkes in Misery, Louise Fletcher‘s Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Sharon Stone‘s Catherine Trammell in Basic Instinct, Bette Davis‘s Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, etc.

I didn’t believe in Margot Robbie‘s Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad) at all. Her performance was all about extreme-playdough mannerisms, posturing, makeup and wardrobe. All I believed was that Robbie had been hired because she’s hot.

I’ll tell you who I believed in 110% — Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. The capsule definition of Alex Forrest was that of a manic, lion-haired feminist banshee who tried to leverage a single night of mad, passionate sex with Michael Douglas into a knife or a bomb that would detonate his marriage. But I didn’t really believe in that — that’s what the research-screening audiences saw. What I believed in was Alex’s instability and emotional desperation, and that made her scary. The scariest thing she said was “I won’t be ignored, Dan!”