I was happy this morning at 6:50 am, researching and Twittering on the soft living-room couch with the hazy morning light just starting to give way to sunshine. The world felt calm and settled and even serene, at least from my vantage point. And then all of a sudden this happened. A baseball-cap-wearing Latino guy with a gas-powered leaf blower! Then my mood turned foul and rancid. Me and hundreds of thousands of other Los Angelenos.

Ten minutes later I read a USA Today story about Tesla CEO Elon Musk having announced yesterday on Twitter that his company will “develop a quiet, electric leaf blower.” Musk sent a follow-up tweet: “Tesla blows.”

USA Today‘s Dalvin Brown reported that “electric leaf blowers already exist” — they do? “But a Tesla version of the silent petal-blowing contraption may actually happen.”

The key question, of course, is whether or not electric leaf blowers will be as affordable as the noisy kind. We all know the answer.

Update: Yesterday the brainiacs in the Academy’s p.r. office issued a statement that the 2020 Oscars would begin televising at 3:30 pm Pacific. Now I’m told that they more or less lied — the actual show, I’m hearing, will apparently begin at 5 pm. So the following riff is more or less moot:

A shocker among the 2020 Oscar night changes announced by the Academy: “The 92nd Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT.”

The Oscars are now a mid-afternoon thing? In order to…what, mollify the east coasters who’ve always complained about the show, which starts at 8:30 pm in their zone, going past midnight? Now it’ll be warm and sunny in Los Angeles with blue skies above, hikers humping it up Runyon Canyon trails and birds chirping in the Jacaranda trees, and the Oscars will be going on inside the dark-ass Dolby? Which means that the red carpet parade will start around…what, 1 or 1:30 pm?

The Academy statement in question, issued by p.r. department.

That’s uncivilized, bruh. It’s desperate and common and shows a lack of respect for tradition. It totally demystifies.

There’s always been and always will be a certain mystique about an “evening event”. The swells put on their tuxes and gowns and climb into their rented limos to attend a big event that begins in the early evening (okay, early dusk or 5:30 pm). But the aura dissipates if the Big Swanky Event in question starts in the middle of the damn afternoon.

Would Irving Berlin have written “Top Hat” (and would Fred Astaire have sung it) if the lyrics were about putting on a top hat, white tie and tails in order to attend an event that begins at three-fucking-thirty in the afternoon while the sun is glaring down and little kids are playing in the parks?

So now New Yorkers can start watching the Oscars at 6:30 pm and be done with them by 9:30 or 10 pm — terrific. But how does this benefit the rest of the planet? Londoners will begin watching at 11:30 pm, and Parisians at 12:30 am. How does that help their situation?

HE’s better idea: Begin the Oscar telecast at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm eastern and 10 pm London time. That way the east coasters can really get their beauty sleep, and the Europeans can crash just after 1:30 am. Or how about 11:30 am? Start the red carpet bright and early at 9:30 am — caterers can serve champagne cocktails with Eggs Benedict. The Oscars would begin at 2:30 pm in New York, 7:30 pm in London and 8:30 pm in Paris. Now we’re talking efficiency and maximized ratings!

I guess I’m okay with the Foreign Language Film category name being changed to International Feature Film, mainly because the term “foreign language” sounds xenophobic. A preferable or more precise description would be “Non-English Speaking”…no?

Steven Spielberg isn’t exactly Terrence Malick-like in his dealings with the press, but he does like to keep his distance and generally restrict access. Which creates a vacuum, and out of that a lack of clarity and specificity from time to time. Let’s call this “the furrowed-brow Beardo effect.”

The most recent manifestation of this was a notion that Spielberg was supposed be this big enemy of streaming films being eligible for Oscars, which obviously lent itself to “Spielberg vs. Netflix.” The presumption was that Spielberg would propose and argue for a rule change at last night’s AMPAS board meeting that would exclude Netflix and others from Oscar consideration. A subhead on a 4.19 Anne Thompson Indiewire story proclaimed that “the upcoming [Spielberg. vs. Netflix] rules meeting at the Academy should be a doozy.”

Well, guess what? Spielberg didn’t show up (he was in New York, working on West Side Story rehearsals) and the notion of an anti-Netflix rule was either side-stepped or ignored by Academy hotshots. “Motion pictures released in nontheatrical media on or after the first day of their Los Angeles County theatrical qualifying run remain eligible,” the Academy said in a statement late Tuesday night.

Now it turns out that while “Beardo” worships the communal, church-like atmosphere of the theatrical experience and wants to see it thrive (as do most of us), he’s not really a Netflix opponent.

A 4.23 N.Y. Times Brooks Barnes story reports that “Spielberg’s animosity toward Netflix appears to have been acutely overstated.

Spielberg to Barnes: “I want people to find their entertainment in any form or fashion that suits them. Big screen, small screen — what really matters to me is a great story and everyone should have access to great stories.

“However, I feel people need to have the opportunity to leave the safe and familiar of their lives and go to a place where they can sit in the company of others and have a shared experience — cry together, laugh together, be afraid together — so that when it’s over they might feel a little less like strangers. I want to see the survival of movie theaters. I want the theatrical experience to remain relevant in our culture.”

Apologies for not posting the exciting news about Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse playing under the Directors’ Fortnight banner in Cannes next month. Eggers’ last film, The Witch, is among the five greatest elevated horror films of the 21st Century; The Lighthouse, shot on 35mm black-and-white film and costarring Robert (“RPatz”) Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, is also elevated horror.

A24 calls it a “fantasy horror story set in the world of old sea-faring myths.”

Hollywood Elsewhere is presuming that the source of the horror will never be seen. If it’s shown it’ll be a goblin, ghost or sea creature of some kind. I’m personally leaning toward a sea creature — something without hands or feet, something slick and slithery like a seal, something that squeals. It’s a safe bet that it won’t resemble Guillermo del Toro‘s Creature From the Love Lagoon.

Tweet #1: “I hate admitting this, considering my partly (mostly) negative history with MCU, but Avengers: Endgame is pretty damn decent. A lot better than I thought it would be. Not just a geek-out. And yes, it DOES get you emotionally. I didn’t choke up, but I get why others have.”

Tweet #2: “I guess I could go farther than ‘pretty damn decent’. It’s an expert blend of high-end mythology, ultra-clever writing & breathtaking, super-swanky escapism by way of the Movie Godz. Endgame has definitely joined my MCU pantheon along with Ant Man, the first two Captain America installments, etc.”

“Yes, Avengers: Endgame is the most expansive film yet, and yes, it strives to provide emotional catharses for several of fans’ favorite characters. It’s even safe to say that Endgame shifts the focus from extravagant, effects-driven displays of universe-saving — manifold though they remain — to the more human cost of heroism, which comes at great personal sacrifice.

“That said, readers should also be warned that Avengers: Endgame hinges on the most frustrating of narrative tricks, and that no meaningful analysis of the film can take place without delving into some of the choices made by the Russo brothers and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

“If Infinity War was billed as a must-see event for all moviegoers, whether or not they’d attended a single Marvel movie prior, then Endgame is the ultimate fan-service follow-up, so densely packed with pay-offs to relationships established in the previous films that it all but demands that audiences put in the homework of watching (or re-watching) a dozen earlier movies to appreciate the sense of closure it offers the series’ most popular characters.” — from Peter Debruge‘s Variety review, posted at 3 pm today.

Seriously and without checking, the top-of-my-head contenders are Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, probably Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Mean-To-Her-Subordinates, Julian Castro…that’s all I can think of. Eleven. Wait, John Hickenlooper for twelve!

Okay, now I’m looking it up and finding the names of Andrew Yang, Tim Ryan, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swallwell, Wayne Messam, Seth Moulton, Jay Inslee, Mike Gravel, John Delaney. A total of 21.

Ten months from now only five will be standing: Buttigieg, Sanders, Harris, O’Rourke and Biden. If and when Harris can’t cut the mustard (and I’m only saying she might not prevail), the #TimesUp and #MeToo genderists will freak out and throw around charges of a patriarchal conspiracy.

Biden, I predict, will gaffe himself to death and withdraw after the California primary. Sanders is a total pain in the ass, and his followers are worse…how to get rid of him?

Name the Seven Dwarves without checking: Dopey, Sleazy, Doc, Bashful, Grumpy…I’m stuck.

A semi-novel action genre concept — an older assassin confronts his younger hit-man self — in 3D HFR (60 or 120 frames per second) along with, I’m presuming, a standard 24-frame 3D version, as most people (including most critics) out there have resisted HFR. But not Hollywood Elsewhere! I eat that shit up.

“Semi”-novel because Rian Johnson sorta kinda got there first. In Looper, it was Young Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) vs. Old Joe (Bruce Willis), but their face-time meetings happened through time travel. In Ang Lee and Jerry Bruckheimer‘s Gemini Man (Paramount, 10.11), Will Smith‘s Henry Brogen, a salt-and-pepper assassin, confronts “Junior” (also played by Smith), a genetic copy with a younger cell structure.

One of the Gemini Man differences is that the older and younger versions seem to actually deal with the heavy-ness of their situation (not to mention the gobsmacking irony and wisdom-perspective stuff), while Looper pretty much kept things tactical.

From “Looper Dooper,” posted on 9.6.12: “The biggest disappointment, for me, is that the great haunting concept of an older guy (Bruce Willis) being able to give counsel to his younger, stupider, less wise self (Joseph Gordon Levitt) has been almost completely ignored, and that’s really a shame.

“On top of which Levitt’s made-up, CG-fortified Willis face is weirdly unformed and gets in the way of any potential investment. We all know what Willis looked like when he was costarring in Moonlighting and their faces, his and Levitt’s, just don’t match or seem even vaguely from the same family or country, even. The effect doesn’t work. Johnson should have cast Willis in both roles and CG’ed and de-aged him for his younger-self scenes.”

Keep in mind that Gemini Man was stuck in development hell for 14 or 15 years before Looper came along. Wiki excerpt: “Originally conceived in 1997, the film went through development hell for nearly 20 years. Several directors, including Tony Scott, Curtis Hanson and Joe Carnahan, were all attached at some point and numerous actors, including Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery, were set to star.”

No thumbs-up hosannahs or celebrations until Hollywood Elsewhere sits through Avengers Endgame later today. You’ve read about fans sniffling here and there? Sincere pledge: If and when a scene even slightly nudges in the direction of lump-in-the-throat, I will say so without skipping a beat. My heart tingles at the thought of watching all these suited-up, handsomely compensated, impossibly smug actors ACTING with their patented dry-ironic deliveries. And oh, the Thanos pushback.

Down on my knees, begging. Just kill Robert Downey Jr.-slash-Tony Stark and shut him up for good. Forever. Until the end of time. Is that so much to ask?

Only Hollywood Elsewhere delivers the straight ramrod truth about the MCU. Ant Man forever, the first two Captain America installments (especially Joe Johnston‘s original), the first Iron Man and that’s pretty much all she wrote. Remember all the girly Black Panther whooping and cheering? But after it premiered and press-screened the clamor all settled down. Good spiritual Marvel film as far as it went (at least during the final hour), but everyone gradually calmed down. Same deal every time.

In a week-old essay, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman expressed a profound lack of faith in Sam Mendes’ ability to make a satisfying quartet of Beatles movies, one about each of the Fab Four, using the individual pespectives of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

My initial reaction (posted on 2.28.24) was that “nobody and I mean nobody can ‘play’ Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr. No matter who Mendes chooses to hire, it simply won’t work. Their faces and voices are too deeply embedded in every corner of our minds to convincingly replicate or even half-replicate in a narrative format.”

I’m nonetheless intrigued by the ambition behind the Mendes-Beatles project, particularly the idea of releasing all four films in tandem in 2027. You can’t accuse Mendes and Sony chief Tom Rothman of undue caution or timidity.

The Gleiberman piece triggered me, however, when he said he got “swept up” by Nowhere Boy, Sam Taylor Johnson‘s 2009 biopic of the teenaged John Lennon. Dear God in heaven, I hated that film so much!

I was actually too generous in calling it “a marginally effective, vaguely muffled chick-flick account of Lennon’s teenage years in Liverpool, circa 1956 to ’60.

“I’m not calling it dull, exactly, but Nowhere Boy‘s somewhat feminized, all-he-needs-is-love story just didn’t turn me on.

“Matt Greenhalgh‘s script is based on a memoir called ‘Imagine This‘ by Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird.

“I understand that this love and rejection were key issues in Lennon’s youth, but the film didn’t sell me on this. It seemed to be frittering away its time by focusing on it. Lennon’s anguish was primal enough (‘Mother, you had me but I never had you’) but my reaction all through it was, ‘Okay, but can we get to the musical stuff, please?’

“Nowhere Boy boasts a relatively decent lead performance by Aaron Johnson. He doesn’t overdo the mimicry and keeps his Liverpudlian accent in check. And yet it’s a somewhat overly sensitive, touchy-feely rendering of a rock ‘n’ roll legend who was known, after all, for his nervy, impudent and sometimes caustic manner, at least in his early incarnations.

“I didn’t believe the hurting look in Johnson’s eyes. All those looking-for-love feelings he shows are too much about ‘acting,’ and hurt-puppy-dog expressions don’t blend with the legend of the young Lennon (as passed along by biographies, articles, A Hard Day’s Night etc.) Emotionally troubled young guys tend to get crusty and defensive when there’s hurt inside, and this was certainly Lennon’s deal early on.

“And Johnson is needlessly compromised, I feel, by a curious decision on Taylor-Wood’s part to create her own, reality-defying physical version of Lennon. She ignores the fact that he had light brown, honey-colored hair by allowing Johnson to keep his own dark-brown, nearly-jet-black hair. Nor did she have Johnson wear a prosthetic nose — one of the oldest and easiest tricks in the book — in order to replicate Lennon’s distinctive English honker. Where would the harm have been if they’d tried to make Johnson look more like the real McCoy?”

HE commenter #1: “This portrait of Lennon seems to be far too cuddly to be credible. From what I’ve read, he had a mile-wide cruel streak, was more than a bit of a brawler and, if Albert Goldman is to be believed, almost beat another man to death for making a pass at him.

HE commenter #2: “Actually I think the movie makes Lennon look like the world’s biggest twat. Which he may have been, but when you remove all the context of who he becomes, then it’s just an annoying, unpleasant watch. There’s very few redeeming qualities about this film, and Johnson’s noxious portrayal didn’t help things.”

Now that Sam Taylor-Wood‘s Nowhere Boy (Icon/Weinstein, 10.8) is finally opening, here’s an abridged recap of my original 10.29.09 review. I called it “a marginally effective, vaguely muffled chick-flick account of John Lennon‘s teenage years in Liverpool, circa 1956 to ’60. I’m not calling it dull, exactly, but Nowhere Boy‘s somewhat feminized, all-he-needs-is-love story just didn’t turn me on.

“Matt Greenhalgh‘s script is based on a memoir called ‘Imagine This‘ by Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird. I understand that this was the key issue of Lennon’s youth, but the film didn’t sell me on this, and in fact seemed to be frittering away its time by focusing on it. Lennon’s anguish was primal enough (‘Mother, you had me but I never had you,’ etc.) but my reaction all through it was, ‘Okay, but can we get to the musical stuff, please?’

“Nowhere Boy boasts a relatively decent lead performance by Aaron Johnson. He doesn’t overdo the mimicry and keeps his Liverpudlian accent in check. And yet it’s a somewhat overly sensitive, touchy-feely rendering of a rock ‘n’ roll legend who was known, after all, for his nervy, impudent and sometimes caustic manner, at least in his early incarnations.

“I didn’t believe the hurting look in Johnson’s eyes. All those looking-for-love feelings he shows are too much about ‘acting,’ and hurt-puppy-dog expressions don’t blend with the legend of the young Lennon (as passed along by biographies, articles, A Hard Day’s Night etc.) Emotionally troubled young guys tend to get crusty and defensive when there’s hurt inside, and this was certainly Lennon’s deal early on.

“And Johnson is needlessly compromised, I feel, by a curious decision on Taylor-Wood’s part to create her own, reality-defying physical version of Lennon. She ignores the fact that he had light brown, honey-colored hair by allowing Johnson to keep his own dark-brown, nearly-jet-black hair. Nor did she have Johnson wear a prosthetic nose — one of the oldest and easiest tricks in the book — in order to replicate Lennon’s distinctive English honker. Where would the harm have been if they’d tried to make Johnson look more like the real McCoy?”

Rachel Lears‘ Knock Down The House (Netflix, 5.1) isn’t just an AOC thing; it also focuses on three other upstart progressive candidates — West Virginia’s Paula Jean Swearengin, St. Louis nurse Cori Bush, and Nevada’s Amy Vilela.

But as Variety‘s Amy Nicholson wrote last January, “You can’t blame [the film] for seizing on its good fortune to have begun following Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign even before the 28-year-old waitress earned her name on the ballot.

“AOC needed slightly more than 1,000 signatures to qualify; she gathered 10,000, under the assumption that the election board — all of whom, she notes, were appointed by Crowley — would toss out as many as possible. Overperformance is her mantra. ‘For every 10 rejections, you get one acceptance, and that’s how you win everything,’ she insists to her niece as they hand out flyers on the sidewalk.

“Lears’ access to Ocasio-Cortez’s six month campaign is incredible. “Knock Down the House is there as she puts on her makeup, lugs ice at her day job (where she appears to fix a mean margarita), frets that her voice goes up an octave when she gets nervous, and sighs that male candidates need only two outfits: a suit or a shirt with rolled-up sleeves. [And] Lears is there in the cramped, sloppy apartment Ocasio-Cortez shares with her supportive boyfriend, and at that first debate with Crowley where he didn’t even bother to show up.

“As Crowley’s proxy fumblingly defends his vote for the Iraq War, Ocasio-Cortez rallies the crowd to her side, and afterward they crush around her with their individual concerns as though no one’s bothered to listen to them for years. Crowley shows up for the second and third debates, where Lears observes a comedy payoff: The veteran representative, realizing this young woman is winning over the room, anxiously rolls up his sleeves.”