A couple of months ago Kumail Nanjiani passed along a story to N.Y. Times carpetbagger Kyle Buchanan about 20somethings not being into movies as a rule, and watching them sporadically at best. The quote is pasted below. It would seem that Nanjiani’s “friend who directs big movies” is onto something. Here is HE’s reply to the vast Millennial and GenZ multitudes who are represented by the girl Nanjiani and his friend spoke to, the one who said “I don’t watch movies and neither do my friends…not really.”

So you guys are basically saying “later with watching carefully compressed and craftily written, acted-out stories about the human experience on big screens in theatres”…you’re blowing that off because narrative tales seem more effective or absorbing in longform cable and because movies aren’t YouTubey enough and they don’t deliver the goods, according to your standards and demands. Right? You’ll watch an occasional film from time to time, sure, but not out of habit or any sense of loyalty to the form.

Do you guys understand that dramatic or comedic movies have been delivering craftily written, acted-out stories about the human experience for a little over a century? First with silent movies and then with soundtracks starting in the late ’20s? And that until you guys came along no generation has ever said “no offense but fuck the theatrical communal ritual of watching craftily written, acted-out stories about the human experience”? You realize that, right? You guys are the first!

Did you also know that before the advent of movies there were things called “plays” that did roughly the same thing (i.e., presented craftily written, acted-out stories about the human experience)? And that the writing and presentation of plays first began some 2700 years ago, all the way back to ancient Greece in 700 b.c.?

So let’s sum up, shall we? You guys are the first generation to blow off a century-old tradition of people gathering in a theatre to watch movies of a semi-aspirational nature. And in a certain sense you’re also blowing off 2700 years of theatre, or more precisely the tradition of submitting to that…in a way you’re the very first humans in 2700 years to say “sorry but our attention spans can’t handle the ordeal of concentrating on a two-hour (and sometimes three-hour) dramatic or comedic presentation”?

I realize you guys watch craftily written, acted-out stories about the human experience at home, but you’re doing this while texting and multi-tasking and feeding the dogs and preparing meals or paying the pizza-delivery guy and folding laundry. The spirit of focus and concentration and generally submitting to a sustained two-hour drama or comedy is going away, and you guys are the pioneers! You’re definitely making yourselves heard and shaping the saga of human history.

From Snap Galleries copy about Don Hunstein’s Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan photos of Dylan and (then squeeze) Suze Rotolo on West Fourth Street: “This beautiful, evocative portrait was taken on a freezing cold afternoon in February 1963. Bob and Suze curving towards each other trying to keep warm, Bob dead center, the vanishing point disappearing off into the distance behind him, with the lines of the rooftops, the cars, and the VW van pulling your eyes towards the centre and heightening the sense of perspective. Look at the buildings with their copper-blue tone and the way they blend into the sky, seemingly scorched by the sun.”

Consider something else that has bothered me for decades. The weather was “freezing cold” with the couple “curving towards each other trying to keep warm”, and yet Dylan and Rotolo seem to be in different weather realms. Rotolo is bundled in a heavy winter coat while Dylan is wearing only a blue workshirt and a slender-looking suede or deerskin jacket — an outfit more suited to a mild fall day in October.

Why has Dylan dressed with blatant disregard for the sub-arctic conditions with slushy snow everywhere? I’ll tell you why. Because he looks cooler in a casual deerskin jacket than, say, in some bulky-ass tweed overcoat or Navy pea coat.

This is who and what Dylan was back then — simultaneously the real thing as well as an actor “playing the part” of the scruffy poet, and in fact a guy who was very invested into projecting a certain commercial persona. Hustein: “Dylan was by then already quite image conscious and self-assured, and he knew how to play to the camera.”

We all have a tendency to favor candidates who’ve already amassed a fair amount of support, and to correspondingly shun outliers. As much as I’ve liked Rep. Tulsi Gabbard from the get-go, I’ve tended to think of her as an outlier. But that impression has now changed, due to Gabbard having gone after Sen. Kamala Harris the other night.

My shallow opinion is that I like Gabbard’s speaking voice more than Harris’s, which sometimes has a shrill, snappy, agitated tone. Gabbard’s occupies a lower register and she has a vibe of steady composure. Plus — this is where things get really superficial on my part — Gabbard is 5’8″ and Harris is a munchkin-sized 5’2″. Plus Gabbard is Mayor Pete‘s age — 37 — and I’d rather live in a world governed by younger heads of state rather than old farts with decades of experience.

So presentation-wise my order of preference among the female Democratic candidates is, frankly, Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Substance-wise I lean towards Warren, but that’s not the whole game because of my willingness to be swayed by gut impressions.

In a two-year-old interview with CBS News, Kelly Dawn Knight Craft, Donald Trump‘s Ambassador to the United Nations, said the following about climate change: “I believe there are scientists on both sides that are accurate…I think that both sides have their own results from their studies, and I appreciate and respect both sides of the science.” Translation: “I’ve chosen to deny or at the very least question the majority opinion among climate-change scientists because questioning serves my immediate financial and political interests.”

Two days ago the Senate confirmed the nomination of this sociopath by 56 to 34.

I guess in some bizarre corner of my mind I wanted Bjorn Andresen, the teenaged lust object in Luchino Visconti‘s Death in Venice (’71), to stay the same, like a statue of some kind. I felt gutslammed when I read this morning that he was doddering old geezer who jumped to his death in Midsommar.

I’d be grateful if someone could please send me (a) a PDF of Eric Roth‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is Martin Scorsese‘s next project (and which will costar Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro); and (b) a PDF of Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story. Thank you. No worries.

In a 7.31 interview with Indiewire‘s Kate Erbland, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood costar Margaret Qualley explains her preparation for playing “Pussycat,” a Manson family member. The 24 year-old actress tells Erbland that director-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino “loaded [her] up with some rare Manson Family documentaries — ‘very strange ones that you can’t find yourself’ — from his own DVD collection.”

Then comes the stunner: In a parenthetical, Erbland states that “Qualley had to buy a DVD player just to watch them.”

First, who would buy a DVD player? The thing to get, obviously, would be a Bluray player (they all play DVDs) with streaming options. But the bigger question is, who doesn’t own a player of some kind to begin with?

I understand an actress in her mid 20s not owning physical media and just streaming this or that when the mood strikes. But everybody in the world has a remote player that streams stuff…right? Yes, I realize that most 1080 and 4K TVs come with streaming apps but only a couple…right? And they don’t allow users to add apps, or so I understand.

It just seems weird that an actress wouldn’t own a disc player of some kind. Role preparation these days always involves looking at classic or cult films with stand-out performances, and that almost always means watching DVDs or Blurays that a director has urged an actor to watch.

For this reason alone, an actor not owning a disc player is almost like a baseball player not owning a mitt. Not to mention the Movie Catholicism aspect. If you’re an actor of any sincerity you have to be a believer in the Church of Cinema, which means you have to care enough about image quality and having the right film-fanatic apps (Criterion Channel) and the freedom and wherewithal to pop in an occasional classic disc. If you’re an Orthodox Jew you keep a yamaka (or kippa) in your bedroom bureau. It goes with the faith.

No one remembers or cares about Carol Reed‘s The Running Man, but the poster reminds that there’s nothing worse than for a lead actor known for a full head of intensely dark hair to suddenly dye it blonde.

Some actors have gotten away with this, I suppose, but it was certainly a terrible thing for Laurence Harvey to have done.

Yeah, I know…Laurence who? The poor man died 46 years ago, but he really had the lightning for a six-year period. His hot streak began with Room at the Top (’59) and continued with Expresso Bongo, The Alamo, Butterfield 8, Summer and Smoke, Walk on the Wild Side, The Manchurian Candidate, The Running Man (which wasn’t half bad if you ignored Harvey’s dye job), Of Human Bondage, Darling, The Outrage and Life at the Top (’65). His career didn’t die from that point on but it sort of withered. The fire began to flicker, and the quality of his films declined.

Wiki excerpt: “A heavy smoker and drinker, Harvey died at the age of 45 from stomach cancer in Hampstead, London, on Sunday, 11.25.73. His daughter Domino, who later became a bounty hunter, was only four years old at the time; she died at age 35 in 2005 after overdosing on painkillers. They are buried together in Santa Barbara Cemetery in Santa Barbara, California.”

Born in Lithuania in 1928, Harvey’s given name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne.

Brad Pitt is the Once Upon A Time in Hollywood guy who deserves an Oscar nomination. Supporting, of course. Because his Cliff Booth is Mr. Cool and because, unlike Leo, Pitt doesn’t strenuously “act” all over the place. (Plus he doesn’t talk like Clem Kadiddlehopper.) He just is.

Was Pitt 10 to 12 times better in Moneyball? Yeah, but Billy Beane was a better written role. But this is Pitt’s moment…right here, right now. age 55, summer of ’19, prime of his life.

I’m not saying Pitt would necessarily win, but not nominating him would be, in my view, unconscionable. Because he da man.

Paul Schrader suggested this last night, and I agree. Key phrase: “When I mentioned the pantheon I didn’t mean the great actors. I meant the GODS.”

Obviously a lot will change after the top four fall festivals weigh in — Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York. This is the last HE assessment before those festivals unspool.

Likely upsetters to come: Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story, Marielle Heller‘s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Harper‘s The Aeronauts, Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat, Fernando Mereilles‘ The Two Popes, Edward Norton‘s Motherless Brooklyn, Todd Phillips‘ Joker, Pablo Larrain‘s Ema, James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari, etc.

1. Kent Jones‘ Diane / “All Hail Diane — 2019’s Best Film So Far“, filed on 3.27.19.

2. Lulu Wang‘s The Farewell / “The Farewell Is Among Year’s Best,” filed on 7.3.19.

3. Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse / “This Way Lies Madness,” filed on 5.19.19.

4. Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete / “All Hail Dragged Across Concrete,” filed on 3.21.19.

5. FX’s Fosse/Verdon / “Fosse/Verdon — Theatrical, Exquisite, Pizazzy, Deep Blue,” filed on 4.25.19.

6. A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name / “Crosby Doc Hurts Real Good,” filed on 1.27.19.

7. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood / “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Is…‘, filed on 5.21.19.

8. Russo Brothers‘ Avengers: Endgame / “Okay With Nominating Endgame For Best Picture Oscar,” filed on 5.4.19.

9. Ari Aster‘s Midsommar / “Midsommar Inevitability,” filed on 6.25.19.

10. Martin Scorsese‘s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story / “Rolling Along With Scorsese/Dylan” filed on 6.10.19.

12. Olivia Wilde‘s Booksmart / “This Time SXSW Hype Was Genuine“, filed on 4.25.19.

13. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.

14. Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland / “After Tomorrow, Jackson’s Name Will Be Mud“, filed on 3.2.19.

15. Mads Brugger‘s Cold Case Hammarskjöld / “Riveting, Occasionally Oddball Cold Case”, posted on 1.29.19.

I somehow missed the recent intel about Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat being a comedy. Okay, but hold a sec. Soderbergh might have made a quietly hilarious satire in his usual underplayed or deadpan sense (I’ve been told that the “s” word definitely applies), but he doesn’t do hah-hah comedy. Or at least, not the bottom-feeder kind. He never has. This doesn’t mean his comic material or attitude isn’t funny — it’s just not aimed at your Melissa McCarthy megaplex crowd.

Example: Out of Sight was often funny as shit, but it never put on a red Clarabelle the Clown nose and squirted seltzer water. Remember when Dennis Farina chided Michael Keaton‘s Ray Nicolette for wearing an FBI T-shirt — “Hey, Ray, do you have a T-shirt that says ‘undercover‘?” I laughed at that line for days but it probably went over a lot of heads. Remember when that fat guy slipped on the stairs and accidentally shot himself in the head? A shocking moment, but kind of “funny” in a dry Soderberghian way.

Meryl Streep as Ellen Martin in Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat.

Wiki boilerplate: “Plot follows Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep), whose dream vacation takes a wrong turn and leads her down a rabbit hole of shady dealings that can all be traced to one Panama City law firm, run by seductive partners Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas).

“She soon learns that her minor predicament is only a drop in the bucket, one of millions of files linking an off-shore tax scheme to the world’s richest and most powerful political leaders.”

The titular term refers to Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. The umbrella term for the scandal was and is the Panama papers.

Update: In the midst of horrific World War I battle, a British soldier is ordered to deliver a message to commanders of a neighboring battalion to call off a planned attack. If the message isn’t delivered, 1600 men will die. (Remember Mark Lee‘s Archy Hamilton in Gallipoli? Also a messenger.) The above-mentioned soldier is so ordered, apparently, because his brother is a member of this battalion. Do I understand no one else is willing to deliver the message because the mission seems suicidal? But since when is soldiering a matter of willingness? If I was an officer looking to save 1600 men I would send three messengers, which would increase the odds of at least one getting through.

Previous: A trailer for Sam Mendes‘ 1917 (Universal 12.25), which has been described as “Birdman meets the carnage of World War I”, surfaced today.

Co-written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, 1917 will follow “two young soldiers” — George MacKay‘s Schofield and Dean-Charles Chapman‘s “Blake” — as they struggle to survive the bullets, shrapnel and generally harsh conditions. Costarring Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Madden and Andrew Scott.

Pic has allegedly been shot as one long continuous take by the great Roger Deakins, hence the Birdman analogy. 1:30 pm Update: Apparently not so much.

Filming began on 4.1.19, and ended only about ten days ago, I’ve read. Filming mostly happened in Wiltshire, Hankley Common and Govan, Scotland, as well as at Shepperton Studios.

The purpose of the trailer, obviously, is to say “hey, Academy members and award-season handicappers, don’t forget that we’ll be in the Best Picture race as much as anyone else, even though we won’t open until Christmas….save the date!”

Mendes has been on hiatus from the auteurist heavy-hitter award-seeking game for just over a decade. Revolutionary Road (’08) was his last would-be Best Picture contender. (I’m sorry but Away We Go didn’t count.) Twice over the last seven years Mendes became a Bond director for hire — on Skyfall (’12) and then Spectre (’15).

Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory, which opened 62 years ago, is still the high-water mark for intense, you-are-there World War I verisimiitude. 1917 will have to beat Kubrick’s attack-on-the-anthill sequence, and if it doesn’t it’ll be rough sledding. I’m just being honest.