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Every year Hollywood Elsewhere subjects the leading Best Picture contenders to the Howard Hawks grading system. The legendary director is famed for having said that a good movie (or a formidable Oscar-seeker) always has “three great scenes and no bad ones.”

Hawks also defined a good director as “someone who doesn’t annoy you.” I don’t want to sound unduly harsh or dismissive but I’m afraid that the Daniels’ direction of Everything Everywhere All at Once…’nuff said.

How do the leading 2023 Best Picture contender films (numbering ten) rate on the Hawks chart? Here we go…

1. Edward Berger‘s All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix): I’m thinking of several good or very good scenes that happen during the last 20 or 25 minutes, but no great ones. Paul (Felix Kammerer) and Kat (Albrecht Schuch) steal a goose from a farm they’d stolen from earlier, but Kat is shot by the farmer’s young son and dies. General Friedrichs (Devid Striesow) maliciously orders an attack to start 15 minutes before the 11 am ceasefire. And during the final battle Paul is killed with a bayonet, only a little before 11 am. AQOWF is indisputably urgent and compelling and often jarring, but I can’t honestly say that it contains a great scene, much less three of themk.

2. James Cameron‘s Avatar: The Way of Water (Disney): The climactic 45-minute battle aboard the sinking bad-guy craft — I think it’s fair to call this a great scene. But that’s the only one. Everything in this film is highly involving and proficient and certainly eye-filling, but emotionally and thematically it doesn’t really stay with you. Hawks shakes his head.

3. Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight): It has a few weird scenes and a couple that stand out in a certain off-kilter way, but none that really sink in — not in a way that really kicks up the dust and feels great. If you disagree please tell me what I’m missing or have forgotten. The cute little donkey choking to death on one of Brendan Gleeson‘s stubby fingers? That was just weird. Kerry Condon gently rejecting Barry Keoghan‘s proposal to become Mrs. Village Idiot…kind of a gulp moment. Condon’s dialogue aside, everything said in this film is eccentric and moody and nhilist. And yet it stays with you after it’s over. How many great scenes? I’m sorry but none.

4. Baz Luhrman‘s Elvis (Warner Bros.): The first very good scene is when Colonel Parker (Tom Hanks) realizes that the unknown Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) is perfect rocket-fuel — a white guy who sings black, and who also has an intense sexual rapport with the girls in the audience. The second keeper is Presley’s 1968 NBC comeback special. The third is when fat Elvis sings “Unchained Melody” at the very end. These are certainly standout scenes, but I can’t honestly call them great. Hawks is underwhelmed.

5. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert‘s Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24): This alternate-universe hellscape subjects viewers to cruel and unusual punishment, regardless of whichever universe it may be happening in. For this is a 139-minute excursion into mind-boggling, brain-taffy torture. And yet it has one excellent scene, which happens inside Jamie Lee Curtis‘s IRS office at the end. Michelle Yeoh‘s Evelyn briefly slips into a daydream about her alternate selves and the multiverse blah blah, and when Deirdre asks if she’s paying attention Evelyn says, “I’m sorry…were you saying something?” Perfect! This is the only great scene though.

6. Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans (Universal): Three strong scenes — Sammy giving direction to a young actor prior to shooting Nazis vs. good guys war footage, Judd Hirsch delivering his bedroom rant about destiny, and Sammy explaining to his dad that he created a muzzle-flash effect by sticking pins into certain frames in the celluloid. The one great scene is when blustery and cantakerous John Ford barks at Sammy about what constitutes interesting vs. shit-level horizon lines. Overall The Fabelmans isn’t a bad film, but it flunks the Hawks test.

7. Todd Field‘s Tár (Focus Features): One great scene: at Juilliard Lydia (Cate Blanchett) exchanges challenging, brittle words with Max (Zethphan Smith-Gneist) about his disdain for white cisgender composers like Johann Sebastian Bach. Intriguing creepy scene #1: Running through a Berlin park, Lydia is startled by a woman screaming in the woods, but she never explores what happened or who it was or anything. Intriguing creepy scene #2: While searching around in a dank basement of a rundown Berlin apartment building, Lydia is freaked by the sight of a huge black dog, or maybe a timber wolf. She runs up the concrete stairs and falls on her face. Shocking scene: The dismissed Lydia slips into a live performance of Mahler’s Fifth and violently assaults her replacement, Eliot (Mark Strong). Alas, Tar‘s one great scene equals a failing grade.

8. Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer‘s Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount): In a way the entire film is filled with “great” scenes, if you accept the idea that Maverick is perfectly fused and calculated — every scene is part of a single unpretentious, super-glammy, crowd-pleasing whole. Okay, it has no great scenes but is filled with dozens of good and very good ones. TG:M is the most satisfying, least problematic film of the year, plus it earned a shitload of dough.

9. Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness (Neon): An ascerbic social satire that has a few stand-out moments, but no great scenes…sorry.

10. Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking (UA Releasing): It’s a decent dialogue-driven film that should have been called Decision To Leave, but it has no great scenes…sorry. I don’t even think it has any extra-good ones. It’s just a sturdy, workmanlike thing with good performances all around.

In sum, not one of the ten Best Picture nominees satisfies the Hawks definition of a really good film. But of the ten, Top Gun: Maverick is easily the “best”.

The woke take on the Danielle Deadwyler-Viola Davis-Gina-Prince Blythewood shut-out narrative is summed up in two articles — a 2.7.23 Hollywood Reporter piece by Woman King director Gina Prince-Blythewood and Rebecca Keegan, and a day-old BBC.com article by Steven McIntosh, based on a Deadwyler interview.

Friendo #1: “I don’t have a lot of skin in this game. I haven’t seen either Till or To Leslie. But I do have two thoughts regarding this issue.

“1. If anyone bumped Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler out of the five Best Actress slots, it was Michelle Williams. I don’t know a single person who likes her performance, and quite a few think she’s downright terrible in The Fabelmans, (I personally think she’s basically ‘meh’ in the film). So when I saw she was nominated, I was totally gobsmacked.

“2. The fact that an Asian woman (Michelle Yeoh) and a Latina (Ana de Armas) were nominated means 40% of the nominees in the Best Actress category are minorities. The fact that Gina Prince-Blythewood and Danielle Deadwyler are now accusing the Academy of being ‘so white’ again says to me that the people following this path are showing that they have little or no solidarity with other minorities and people of color. It’s not a good look, and I don’t think will gain them a lot of sympathy.”

Friendo #2: “In the grand scheme of things, who cares if Dave Karger interviews you onstage at the Santa Barbara Film Festival? And I do think that Riseborough had something to lose. The woke ‘take’ on this (I put take in quotes because I think the take is insane — absolutely psychotic) is that there was something racist in what went down. Who wants to show up for an interview, even with Dave ‘Softball’ Karger, and confront a hint of that kind of energy in the room? Riseborough was totally right to sidestep the whole thing until the ‘racist’ taint blows over.”

Friendo #3: “The Michelle Williams theory is dumb. She was ALWAYS a presumptive nominee. These Fabelmans haters really have a hard time with certain aspects of reality, and her performance is exactly what it’s meant to be.

“I certainly agree it wasn’t Riseborough’s intent to push Deadwyler out. But that’s the perception of what happened, and with Prince-Blythewood weighing in and all the other factors, the hurt feelings and accusations of systemic racism are gonna continue.

“And if people like Prince-Blythewood keep making simplistic gender and race-reversed stuff like The Woman King with the expectation that Hollywood is just gonna reflexively give them awards for them, the whole mess is only gonna get worse. Miss me with that nonsense.

“And yeah, if I were Deadwyler’s rep, I’d absolutely say ‘if Riseborough comes to Santa Barbara, we’re out.’

“It’s equally plausible that Santa Barbara honchos saw the writing on the wall and exercised prior restraint.”

Friendo #4: “Perhaps Deadwyler did’t push hard enough. She may have figured that she had a significant boxcheck in her favor — a woman of color playing a grieving mother of a victim on a hate crime — and that wasn’t enough. As far as the Santa Barbara thing goes, it’s a shame that there’s not going to be an intelligent discussion or maybe even a debate between Deadwyler and Riseborough…not a Maury Povich-Geraldo Rivera knock-0down, drag-out brawl but an elevated mutually respected woman-to-woman discussion about what they both did and how this has all played out.”

The following suggestions are exercises in Orwellian neuter-speak, and Jeremiah Owyang, CMO of @rlynetworkassoc (advisor, speaker), is exactly the kind of fellow that I never, ever want to be or even get close to.

If you have any affection at all for vivid, arresting, semi-flavorful language or ripe figures of speech…please. Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, William Styron, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Parker, Studs Terkel, Charles Bukowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O’Neil, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote…they’d all be appalled.

Friendo: “Might as well just hand it all over to ChatGPT or whatever that open AI system is. I hate what has happened to the left.”

“I am delighted to be your cousin, but I’m still voting for Sal Mineo.”

With these 14 words, which appeared in a Variety ad sometime in early ’61, Groucho Marx killed any chance that Chill Wills‘ nomination for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, earned for his performance as “Beekeeper” in John Wayne‘s The Alamo (’60), might result in a win.

Marx did more than that actually — he articulated a general industry feeling that Wills had gauchely overplayed his hand by running trade-paper ads that promoted his performance, and thereby solidified Wills’ reputation as a craven hustler for the rest of his life.

On Oscar night (4.17.61) Bob Hope cracked “I didn’t know there was any campaigning until I saw my maid wearing a Chill Wills button.” Peter Ustinov‘s witty Spartacus performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, beating out Wills, Mineo (Israeli freedom fighter in Exodus), Peter Falk (gangster in Murder, Inc.) and Jack Kruschen (Jack Lemmon‘s friendly doctor-neighbor in The Apartment).

How could Wills have drunkenly imagined he had even the slightest chance against Ustinov or the excellent Kruschen, who played the voice of moral conscience in The Apartment (“Be a mensch, Baxter…a human being!”).

So Wills’ self-promotion was ill-advised, but to err is human. An avid poker player and a rabid Republican who supported George Wallace’s 1968 third-party campaign for President, Wills passed in 1978 at the age of 76.

Here’s the odd part: As someone who’s watched The Alamo at least two or three times, I can honestly say I can’t remember Wills doing or saying anything in that 1960 film that really stood out. I’ll go farther than that: I don’t remember Wills at all in that film. Really.

In the 21st Century realm Wills is known for one line at best, and that was spoken in George Stevens Giant, in reference to James Dean‘s Jett Rink**: “Vic, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.”

** My son Jett was named after Jett Rink. The idea actually came from publicist Bruce Feldman.

I’m not sure if Myrna Loy (1905-1993) ever gave a great performance. She shares a great “welcome home” scene with Fredric March in The Best Years of Our Lives (‘46), and is dryly amusing in a somewhat stiff-necked way in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (‘47). But she was certainly in full command of a sexy exotic vibe in her late 20s and early 30s. She also gave great vibe in the Thin Man series.

Previously unreported fact: I stood five feet from the still curiously radiant Loy at a National Board of Review awards ceremony in late ‘81 or early ‘82. Ragtime costar James Cagney was also there; ditto Warren Beatty, who said something flattering about Loy — something about her beauty still making his pulse race a bit.

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If Hollywood Elsewhere had Roger Durling‘s job as director of the Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival, right now I’d be doing everything I could to add Andrea Riseborough to the SBIFF Virtuosos panel. She has to be included…no debate!

The current Virtuosos lineup includes Austin Butler (Elvis), Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Nina Hoss (Tár), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Jeremy Pope (The Inspection), Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once), and Jeremy Strong (Armageddon Time).

The Academy’s statement, by the way, is merely about straddling the gulf between (a) ass-covering and (b) placating the conversation.

Read Pete Hammond’s excellent “Much Ado About Nothing” assessment.

The only February ’23 releases I’m vaguely looking forward to are M. Night Shyamalan‘s Knock at the Cabin (2.3), Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2,10) and Elizabeth Banks‘ Cocaine Bear (2.24), although the premise of the latter seems repulsive — deriving laughs and thrills from the accidental torture murder of an innocent bear, which actually happened in the ’80s.

I’m told that Benjamin Caron‘s Sharper might be worth a watch. I’m not looking forward to Neil Jordan‘s Marlowe (2.3), as it allegedly stinks, but I’ll see it regardless.

We’ve all been touched by that haunting Citizen Kane moment when the elderly Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane) recalls glimpsing a beautiful young lass in a white dress on the Staten Island ferry. No conversation or eye contact — just a glancing whatever when Bernstein saw her and melted, and then the ferry pulled out and that was it…”I only saw her for one second and she didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”

Being the impressionable type and certainly a lot more impressionable than Bernstein, I’ve experienced several such moments over the decades. Probably dozens. But there was one in particular…oh, man. Early Clinton era, ’93 or ’94…yours truly inside West Hollywood’s Monkey Bar (8225 Beverly Blvd.), a highly magnetized, hard-to-get-into joint that had opened in October ’92 with a general understanding that Jack Nicholson liked to drop by now and then…probably the hottest place in California or maybe even the world that night. How do you calculate this stuff?

And suddenly my gaze fell upon actress Joan Severance, a total smoke show and a reasonably decent actress who was known for Red Shoe Diaries and Lake Consequence…around 35 at the time. Severance had risen from her seat at a well-located table and was staring at something or someone across the room, and my first thought was “she’s standing there because she knows everyone is looking at her and she loves the attention, and who can blame her?”

But my God, the beauty…those eyes, the cheekbones and that mouth, that exquisite jawline and the perfect hair and tanned skin…nothing happened and she certainly didn’t notice my marginal journalistic ass, standing at the bar some 30 or 40 feet away. But here we are 30 years later and this moment is a memory tattoo.

One reason I want to see Frances O’Connor‘s Emily is because of Emma Mackey, who has a bit of that Severance thing going on. She plays the titular role of “Wuthering Heights” author Emily Bronte.

…but he could really turn on the warmth and humanity when called upon, and he had the kindest and gentlest eyes of all the classic marquee-brand actors of his generation. Which is why I’m disappointed with the Kino jacket art for a forthcoming 4K Bluray of 12 Angry Men. I’m sorry but those Fonda peepers are nowhere to be found. They belong to someone else.

I’m delighted with my Criterion Bluray version, and can’t imagine how a 4K bump (out on 3.28.23) could make that much of a difference. I sound like a broken record but still.

[Note: I’m aware that stories about dental matters can be distasteful. Please feel free to ignore.]

Getting older unfortunately means having to cope with our teeth getting gradually smaller due to grinding and whatnot. I have reasonably decent dental insurance but it doesn’t cover cosmetic stuff, and I can’t afford to shell out $15K or $20K for a set of new crowns (top and bottom). So last summer I decided to try the Instasmile veneer guys. Top and bottom veneers for around $700 and change. Not a massive amount of dough for an experiment that might turn out.

The veneers arrived two days ago. Instasmile offers a warranty agreement that allows for a re-do if there’s a problem. Here’s what I wrote to a customer rep named Autumn:

The basic problems are these: (a) They fit, but they don’t fit snugly enough. The bottom teeth especially. They generally feel a bit bulky. I feel as if I’m wearing HORSE TEETH — like I’m Mr. Ed. Plus they actually hinder my ability to handle consonants.

I’d hoped they would slip right on without issue. Except they feel a tiny bit large (especially on the bottom ridge), and seem a little too big. (b) There’s a saber tooth on the top left bridge that makes me look like a fecking VAMPIRE. It’s ridiculous and embarassing. The vampire tooth has to be ground down and eliminated. It makes me look like Christopher Lee in The Horror of Dracula (’58).

Generally speaking the feeling of looking like a hybrid species (half HORSE and half VAMPIRE) is not pleasant or welcome.

I need veneers that are delicate and generally lighter — ones that fit snugly but are a tiny but smaller on the bottom ridge. And the ridiculous VAMPIRE TOOTH has to be eliminated. I am a human being — I do not sink my fangs into the virginal necks of fair young maidens. Nor am I a HORSE — I don’t whinny or trot or eat oats or gallop around the horse track. To paraphrase F. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, I am a human fecking being.

SUMMARY: I need dentures that feel lighter and which fit more snugly without hindering my ability to speak clearly. Veneers, in short, that don’t make me look and feel like a HORSE, especially due to an overly large and bulky lower bridge. And you really need to eliminate the upper left VAMPIRE tooth. (I realize that I have a large upper left saber tooth but the Instasmile dentures make me look RIDICULOUS, like a drooling vampire.)

In short, your tech team needs to try again and do a better job. Sorry but that’s the situation, — Jeffrey Wells, HE

There’s something terribly somber and sobering in the idea of the David Crosby dynamo being silent and still, above and beyond the fact of a life having run its course and come to a natural end. I don’t like finality as a rule. I prefer the idea of fluidity, of a beating pulse and the constant search for action and opportunity. I don’t like it when a store closes and is all emptied out and boarded up with “for lease” signs pasted on the windows. Keep it going, sweep the floors, stock the shelves, pay the bills. All things must pass, of course, but not now…later.

Incidentally: On 1.19.23 NPR’s David Westervelt posted a Crosby tribute piece, and in the fifth paragraph he wrote the following: “Crosby, Stills & Nash at times would soar with electric jams. But their foundation was a unique California sound built on harmonies, acoustic guitars and a dose of self-awareness often missing in rock lyrics. Exactly where in LA’s Laurel Canyon Crosby, Stills & Nash first sang together is still debated, lost in a smoky haze.”

Actually, it’s not debated. In A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name (’19), Crosby says the very first time they sang together and knew they really had something was in Joni Mitchell‘s kitchen, inside her modest-sized home at 8217 Lookout Mountain. Crosby says this to the camera while standing in front of Michell’s former pad. Who has ever claimed otherwise?

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“Whenever it’s a damp, drizzly November in my soul…whenever some pain-in-the-ass HE commenter (Renaissance, Vic Lizzy, Jeremy Fassler) posts something prickly or ugly…whenever I feel like stepping into the street and knocking people’s hats off, then it’s high time to pop an Oxy and stream a comfort flick…Charley Varrick, Fear Strikes Out or any black-and-white VistaVision title, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Horse Soldiers….that line of country.”

Thanks again to Mark Frenden, HE’s go-to guy for any kind of visual tweak or manipulation….fast turnaround, never fails. I realize that I need to be weathered up to fit in…working on it.