Click here to jump past HE Sink-In

If Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood winds up taking the Best Picture Oscar on 2.9.20, it’ll be for a simple, sensible reason. Everybody likes it. I haven’t spoken to anyone who’s had anything negative to say about it. Not the slightest, most insignificant thing…zip. I shared a few mild gripes after catching it during last May’s Cannes Film Festival, but they’ve all pretty much evaporated. I’ve seen it three or four times since. I’ve become a follower.

To paraphrase the late Samuel Goldwyn, “If people like a movie, you can’t stop ’em.”

A Once Upon A Time in Hollywood win would also be an historical achievement of sorts. It would be the first time that an amiable, relatively plot-free, character-driven, laid-back attitude flick wins the big prize. Or, to put it more simply and given the fact that Tarantino’s film is about the B-movie realm of 1969 Hollywood, it would be the first “drive-in movie” to win this honor.

SPECIAL HE ADVERTORIAL:

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is not highly poised. It’s not “okay boomer” or high falutin’. It’s not a Stanley Kramer or Tom Hooper or a Baz Luhrman film. It’s a hang movie about nervous cats vs. psycho cats plus one supremely cool cat. It’s almost Cormanesque.

The Academy is a different deliberative body than it was ten or even five years ago. The New Academy Kidz, or the more diverse members who were invited to join the Academy over the last three years and who constitute roughly 20% of the present membership, are much more supportive of genre-type films (Get Out, The Shape of Water). This sensibility is a door-opener in terms of OUATIH‘s Best Picture worthiness.

The other fundamental thing is that Once (as some prefer to call it) probably wouldn’t be a Best Picture contender if it was entirely about Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Rick Dalton, an insecure, downswirling TV actor who’s terrified that his career on the verge of flatlining. He’s all nerves and cigarettes and too many slurps of booze.

The joy of this film, in fact, is all about Brad Pitt‘s Cliff Booth, the Zen counterweight who slips the film into cruising gear. Cliff is Mr. Alpha Cool. His mantra is “I got this, don’t sweat it.” Unlike Leo, Pitt doesn’t strenuously “act” all over the place. His is a very settled and relaxing and old-fashioned vibe, and Once is Pitt’s moment…right here, right now, age 55, prime of his life. He’s gone beyond acting at this stage. He’s become a kind of…I don’t know, mystical presence or something. You don’t say “Brad Pitt” — you hum it.

One of the reasons Pitt is going to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar is because the Academy membership understands that it needs to offer a make-up for not giving him the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Moneyball. Pitt’s performance as Billy Beane was easily the best of the five nominated performances from 2011, and…I don’t want to talk about who won. But it was wrong.

A Reddit guy called “The HeyHey Man” has cracked the “why did Booksmart underperform?” code. He’s explained it clearly and succinctly. He’s gone where various sage industry analysts (such as the Indiewire gang) have feared to tred. And he waited almost eight full months to share.

In a nutshell, Olivia Wilde’s film failed to connect in a Superbad way because it wasn’t relatable enough for average middle-classers who live outside of the flush realms of politically correct, sexually ambiguous Los Angeles-for-teens. The elite high-school world in which Beanie Feldstein‘s Molly and Kaitlyn Dever‘s Amy operated was too tart, too wealthy, too swimming pooled, too Bloomingdaled, too Shangrila’ed, too fantasy’ed, too entitled.

HeyHey: “[After Booksmart opened] critics and film journalists/bloggers were wondering why the movie hadn’t reached a larger audience. I believe it’s the fact that Booksmart may as well be happening on another planet.

“How are we the audience supposed to place ourselves in the shoes of these characters when the vast majority of us have not, for example, frequented a posh house party in a mansion in an upscale LA neighborhood?

“I grew up as an upper middle classer and have never been to a house party like the one depicted in Booksmart. Not once. I’ve never stripped down to my underwear and jumped into a gorgeous backyard pool surrounded by palm trees with a bunch of other beautiful, scantily clad people. My parents never gave me or let me drive a $70k SUV. My high school didn’t look like some sort of modern art institute.

“All power to you if you grew up in this Hollywood fantasy world but I’m fairly certain 99% of us did not. And Hollywood wants to know why these movies aren’t hitting with audiences? Seems fairly obvious to me.

“Why did Superbad succeed when Booksmart did not? Why did it become a cultural phenomenon? Because the characters were relatable, and the situations, although exaggerated, also were.

“Ever been underage at a party in a strange house with older people you didn’t really know, and found yourself in an awkward situation? Oh, yeah. Tried to score booze with a fake ID? I never had one but a buddy did and it was always nerve wracking. Played videogames with friends in a basement and drinking the parents’ booze. Raises hand again. The things in that movie also all happened in relatively average middle class environments. Boom, people relate, and word of mouth is strong.

“Booksmart was fine but it wasn’t the comedic masterpiece I was led to believe it was by critics and journalists. The girls were great and the best moments in the movie were the intimate and honest moments between them but I couldn’t place myself really in any of the situations they found themselves in. It’s time for Hollywood to realize there is a whole lot of country, culture, and class out there. They need to figure this shit out.”

HE postscript: Of all the relatable elements that Superbad had and Booksmart lacked, “The HeyHey Man” didn’t mention one particular thing that he probably didn’t feel a profound kinship with or understanding of. You know what I mean. I’m reluctant to say it because the Stalinist commissars will raise their eyebrows if I do. Okay, I’ll spit it out. HeyHey didn’t relate to the sappho.

Every second represents a small explosion, a slight turn of the wheel, a possible change of direction. Ditto every minute, hour, day, week and month. The sun rises and falls each day, and the earth continues to spin while the train clatters along the track. There are more cosmic truths contained on the sharp tip of a sewing needle than anything Anderson Cooper could possibly dispense as he hosts the New Year’s Eve celebration telecast. The only people who genuinely believe that New Year’s Eve is some kind of meaningful hoo-hah that’s worthy of contemplation or celebration or anything along those lines are…I’m very sorry but I’m forced to say these folks are on the shallow, less thoughtful side of the equation. They’re celebrating with each other because they’re scared of the onrush of time. If there’s one international celebration that’s worth ignoring in this or that creative way (meditating, lighting an aroma candle, strolling along a Mulholland bike path, watching a restored ’50s film on 4K, crashing early), it’s New Year’s Eve.

Twitter has permanently darkened our understanding of ourselves. At no time in history have the witch-hunt instincts and predatory wolf-pack tendencies of nominally civilized human beings been so evident. For centuries people expressed, conversed and communicated in the usual pre-21st Century ways, but then…well, I’ve said it. What a wonderful party Twitter is. The coming 2020 elections are going to be brutal, bruising. (Especially within Camp Woke, and doubly so among the Pete haters.) And Twitter convos are going to win the Congressional Medal of Ugly. What’s the point of kidding ourselves?

I wish there could be a site that that specializes in compressing features into five-minute featurettes. Gene Fowler, Jr.’s I Married A Monster From Outer Space is probably a tedious sit (I’ve only seen portions), but I found this version engrossing as far as it went. Wiki anecdote: Principal photography began on April 21 and ended in early May 1958.” In other words, principal lasted for two weeks, three at the outside.) “The film premiered in Los Angeles on 9.10.58, followed by a U. S. and Canadian theatrical release in October.

Hollywood Elsewhere is anticipating a different kind of New Year’s Eve celebration. It’s basically a Parasite thang at Mama Lion (601 So. Western). It’ll be hosted by Miky Lee, exec producer of Bong Joon-ho‘s Oscar contender as well as vice chairwoman of CJ Group. (Lee is in charge of the overall strategic direction and management of CJ Group’s entertainment and media division.)

The gathering will be co-hosted by actress, producer and social queen bee Colleen Camp, who threw the greatest award-season party of 2018/’19 Oscar season for Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War. (It happened on 1.12.19.)

Tatyana and I are going to politely sidestep an 8pm Parasite screening (I’ve seen it twice) and just hit the party.

The evening will include a musical performance by A.C.E., a South Korean boy band. K-pop and J-pop (as in Japanese synth pop) are pretty much indistinguishable. The last time I was in Hanoi there was a V-pop band (Vietnamese) playing at an outdoor venue. Due respect but anything “pop” isn’t my cup. When it comes to New Year’s Eve sounds, I’m more of a boogie jazz cat Mose Allison type.

Lost in the general holiday zone-out, obscured by the bombing of Cats and out-shone by the respectable box-office hauls of Little Women ($33.5M domestic) and Uncut Gems ($22.7M) is the curious foundering of Jay Roach‘s Bombshell.

It isn’t tanking exactly, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting either.

After two and a half weekends in wide release (1,480 situations) the R-rated #MeToo dramedy is currently looking at a $17M domestic total. That’s bad news for a film that cost $33 million to make, not counting marketing. The Rotten Tomatoes rating was 67%, but the audience score is a not bad 83. The IMDB rating is 6.6.

I don’t know if this lack of b.o. energy will penetrate the industry membrane by way of diminished support for Charlize Theron‘s Best Actress chances, but I’m sensing that it might.

A few weeks back one or two HE commenters predicted that Bombshell would fizzle. I thought it would do a lot better than it has. It’s a crafty, well-made film with an urgent theme, but for whatever reason (creeping #MeToo fatigue?) Joe and Jane Popcorn seem to be only half-attentive. I’m sorry about this. At the very least I thought Bombshell would develop legs.

Ten years ago fake Criterion covers were…well, not ubiquitous but fairly noteworthy in terms of occasional online amusement. With the gradual passing of physical media FCCs have also done a kind of fade. I miss them. I’d love to see some covers of recent titles. No, not Uncut Gems.

Riding the flying Triumph over the barbed wire is the Steve McQueen moment everyone remembers**, but his stardom was officially sanctified with his return to Stalag Luft III. The whole camp came to a standstill. With everyone — German commanders, guards, inmates — staring at Cpt. Virgil Hilts and hanging on his every utterance, director John Sturges was telling the audience that McQueen was the King of Cool and that further attention would be paid. There but for the awful grace of God went Rick Dalton.

Shortly before his 1980 murder, John Lennon spoke about the difference between his 17-year-old son Julian Lennon and his five-year-old son Sean Lennon.

Quoted by U.K. Express, posted on 12.24.19: “Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don’t love Julian any less as a child. He’s still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn’t have pills in those days. He’s here, he belongs to me and he always will.”

He added that John-Julian relations were in a nascent stage at the moment: “Julian and I will have a relationship in the future.”

There is only now.

I didn’t see this George and Harrison deepfake thing when it popped on 12.24. The next day we drove up to San Francisco, etc. Caught up with it only this morning. I honestly think it’s brilliant in spurts. The voices, the wigs, the stoned stuff (“I know what you’re up to, on that ranch”), “McClunkey,” etc. Best Collider thing ever. But it should have been trimmed. Four, five minutes tops.

This morning I finally read the 12.29 N.Y. Times story (reported by Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman and Mark Mazzetti) about Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to Ukraine, and particularly the 8.16 Oval office meeting in which National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper pleaded with Trump to lift the military funding freeze, to no avail.

Moscow Mitch’s intention to blow off any pretense of a fair and thorough Senate impeachment trial is locked down, of course. He will continue to coordinate with the White House in order to facilitate a whitewash, etc.

Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (posted on 12.31): “In objecting to a fixed trial with rules dictated by President Trump, you have distinguished yourself as someone willing to place country and Constitution above party.

“You alone cannot stop a grievous injury to our Constitution, but with several Republican colleagues (might I suggest Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, retiring senators and those senators whose constituents will run them out of town on a rail for going along with a rigged trial), you have the ability to stop a travesty that would bring dishonor on the Senate, prevent a full accounting of the president’s conduct and result in a verdict lacking credibility with the American people