Matthew Miele‘s Alan Pakula: Going For Truth, a 98-minute doc about the director of the “paranoid trilogy” (Klute, The Parallax View and All The President’s Men) as well as Starting Over, The Sterile Cuckoo, Sophie’s Choice, Presumed Innocent, The Pelican Brief and The Devil’s Own, just finished screening at the Hamptons Film Festival.

Scott Feinberg tweet: “A tight/interesting authorized profile of a great filmmaker gone way too soon, with huge participation from key people related to his life including Streep, Redford, Fonda, Ford, Roberts, Hoffman, Bridges, Woodward & Bernstein.”

Straight superficial bullshit…hold your nose and cash the paycheck…pure posturing emptiness. Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott or Ella Balinska might be in great shape and they might have learned some cool moves from a choreographer, but when push comes to shove I don’t believe they can “take” any midsize guy (5’10” tall, 170 pounds or more) who’s in reasonably good shape. I wouldn’t be afraid if I ran into any of them in a dark alley. I don’t believe that short hardbody girls are a threat and neither do they…be honest.

Journo pally: “I distrust the influence of Wes Anderson. Because it seems to be everywhere, and it’s fascinating. One of my colleagues has been teaching film classes at college level, and the #1 filmmaker all the seniors want to be is Wes. Ari Aster is a case in point. He’s got the worst of Wes’s fussiness but none of his narrative gifts, and is just as ham-handed with his performances. Midsommar, though, is not as badly acted as Hereditary.”

Comment from HE reader “JD”, posted 12 years ago: “His movies have a child-like surface because that makes for a more potent, dynamic juxtaposition with the films’ darker undercurrents. His films are subversive for precisely this reason: the characters (like Anderson himself…and possibly his audience) are trying to hide from their very real, adult pain in the surface comforts and curiosities of childhood…but it doesn’t work. In all of his films, Anderson calls himself on his love of all things innocent and youthful, creating a conflict of substance and style that’s tremendously rich and rewarding.

“In essence, he makes children’s movies and/or fairy tales for adults with an interest in art films, literature, and rock ‘n’ roll. If you ask me, that’s an incredibly bold and original approach and one that is certainly worth revisiting in different genres/narrative contexts.”

“Some people think they’re born born better than others. I’m trying to prove it’s the way you’re raised that counts. Even a monkey brought up in the right surroundings can learn the meaning of decency and honesty.” — Professor Peter Boyd (Ronald Reagan) to Jane (Diana Lynn) in Fred DeCordova‘s Bedtime for Bonzo (’51).

THR‘s Scott Feinberg posted this yet-to-see list the other day. I’ve seen Ad Astra, of course. It’s just Richard Jewell now…an AFI Fest thing. I’m presuming but don’t know for a fact that 1917 will also debut at that November festival. Bombshell peeks out tomorrow (Sunday, 10.12). The first Little Women screening is slated for Wednesday, 10.23. I’m finally seeing The Painted Bird on 10.15. My first Knives Out experience will happen at the Middleburg Film Festival (which starts on Thursday, 10.17). I don’t know what’s up with Dark Waters, but expectations are fairly high. Catching the highly regarded Peanut Butter Falcon (that title!) this weekend. Queen and Slim has been seen and praised. JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker won’t happen for a while yet. Cats? I tingle with anticipation. I don’t know from The Good Liar. Seeing Zombieland: Double Tap on Tuesday, 10.15.

I began to be friendly with the amiable Robert Forster 22 years ago, or just after I’d seen Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown. I was with People at the time, and had wrangled an interview with the 56 year-old actor because I absolutely knew (and had convinced People‘s bureau chief Jack Kelly) that Forster’s career, which had been slumping since the late ’80s, was about to take off again.

Because his low-key, straight-from-the-shoulder performance as bail bondsman Max Cherry was a perfectly assured mellow-vibe thing. Right in the pocket. It landed Forster a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and he was suddenly back in the game.

Forster worked steadily after that, and in 2011 he scored again as George Clooney‘s cranky father-in-law in The Descendants. I interviewed him right after seeing Alexander Payne‘s film at Telluride. Forster sure knew how to play pissy.

Both interviews happened at West Hollywood’s Silver Spoon cafe, which was Forster’s favorite haunt for many years. It closed on 12.31.11, and I distinctly recall Forster telling me that he was pretty broken up about this. (A seafood place, Connie and Ted’s, opened in the same spot two years later.)

And now he’s gone, dear fellow. I must have run into Forster at two or three hundred industry gatherings over the last 20-odd years. “Hey, Bob,” “Hi, Jeff,” small-talk, sound byte….”later.”

I’m very sorry that he’s left the room. Really. Only 78 — old not that old. Brain cancer.

When death comes knocking, you can hide in the cellar or duck into a closet and sometimes it’ll go away and forget about you. For a while. But if your number’s up, it’s up. Ask Warren Beatty‘s Joe Pendleton. Or Robert Redford‘s wounded cop character in that famous Twilight Zone episode, “Nothing in the Dark.”

In my book Forster made only four really good films and two pretty good ones: Medium Cool, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Don Is Dead, Jackie Browne, The Descendants, What They Had.

Shepard Smith, whose penchant for truth-telling and lie-lamenting made him the only honorable Fox News anchor, is out the door. President Trump despised him, which was very good. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were no friends either.

N.Y. Times: “The internal tensions [at Fox] had frustrated Mr. Smith, 55, who was dismayed at the disconnect between some of the pro-Trump cheerleading in prime-time and the reporting produced by the network’s newsroom, according to two people close to the anchor who requested anonymity to share his private observations.

“Mr. Smith had been considering an exit from Fox News for several weeks, [sources] said.”

Tatyana is in shock — before today she’d never once purchased a car. Because Russian princesses don’t buy cars — their wealthy, adoring husbands buy cars for them as a birthday gift, or their employers give them snazzy, spotless, brand-new vehicles to drive as a business perk. It’s important for Tatyana to project a certain flush, well-tended aura, you see. Which I understand, knowing her Russian attitude and all. Me? I’ve always been a rumblehog type of guy, and always will be. Best way…hell, the only way to get around.

Tatyana’s car hunt, in any event, is why I didn’t post much today. We started early this morning — all the papers had been signed by 3 pm.

Tatyana bought her 2016 black VW Beetle convertible earlier today at Hawthorne Square (11646 Prairie Ave., Hawthorne, CA 90250). As it happens this is only five or six blocks from the Beach Boys memorial (3701 W. 119th Street), or where the home of Murry and Audree Wilson (parents of Brian, Dennis and Carl) stood before it was demolished by the construction of the 105 Freeway in the mid ’80s. I visited the site while test-driving the Beetle.

Nothing lasts. Asphalt and concrete cover everything. Especially in the Los Angeles area.

The difference between myself and Jane Fonda as far as political protest and civil disobedience are concerned is that I’ve never been arrested and led away by the bulls. I’m too fleet of foot or, to put it more bluntly, too chickenshit. Jane is now living in Washington D.C. (temporarily) and intending to get arrested each and every Friday (“Fire Drill Friday”) in the vicinity of the Capitol steps, all in the name of climate change and the grotesque refusal of the Trump administration to even acknowledge that the clock is ticking, much less trying to do something about it.

So Emily Blunt‘s Lily Houghton is basically Indiana Jones — a smart-assed, two-fisted, kick-boxing Jackie Chan-like scientist searching for a tree’s magical cure a la Medicine Man. And Dwayne Johnson‘s Frank is a smirking, Hawaiian-born body builder who has tried and failed to model himself on Humphrey Bogart‘s Charlie Allnut.

For what it’s worth, Dwayne’s river boat is much cooler than Allnut’s African Queen. Jungle Cruise opens on 7.24.20. Director Jaume Collet-Serra is shameless, but then you knew that.