I honestly believe that Avengers: Endgame is one of the most engaging time-travel movies ever made. I’ve never bought into such a wildly absurd, head-spinning fantasy as this, but I submitted with pleasure because it’s so planted and propulsive and convincing — because it believes in itself without blinking an eye.

I’m not sure if it’s the best time-travel flick ever, but it’s certainly among the top three or four. I haven’t decided yet. I’ll figure it out as I go along. Right now I have 20 goodies and 2 baddies.

Best: 1. Back To The Future; 2. Edge of Tomorrow / Live Die, Repeat; 3. Avengers: Endgame; 4. Terminator 2: Judgment Day; 5. Somewhere In Time; 6. Contact; 7. The Terminator; 8. The Time Machine; 9. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; 10. Time After Time; 11. “Walking Distance,” 1959 Twilight Zone episode; 12. “A Stop at Willoughby,” 1960 Twilight Zone episode; 13. X-Men: Days of Future Past; 14. Planet of the Apes; 15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; 16. 12 Monkeys; 17. Sleeper; 18. Looper; 19. The Final Countdown / The Philadelphia Experiment; 20. Captain Marvel.

Worst: 1. Interstellar; 2. Arrival.

Obviously Sean Connery was still hanging in there, hair-wise, when he appeared on What’s My Line? in October ’65. (Sidney Lumet‘s The Hill has about to open stateside while Connery was shooting A Fine Madness.) His thatch was thinning or receding a bit, but not to the extent that anyone outside of Harry Saltzman or Cubby Broccoli would call “a problem.” It shows you how rigid the machismo standards were back then. Anything less than a full head of thick hair would reflect badly on 007’s manliness, or something like that. To the best of my knowledge Connery appeared with his own hair in Dr. No and From Russia With Love, but became a rug-man with the shooting of Goldfinger.

HE to readership: Before reading this article, you may want to read two reviews of Avengers: Endgame — Anthony Lane‘s New Yorker assessment and another by The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw. Consider their descriptions of Chris Hemsworth‘s currently-conceived Thor, and consider that if these guys are going there then so are hundreds of others. In other words, Hollywood Elsewhere isn’t guilty of spoiling anything. Once you’ve done this and thought things through, feel free to read on.

Beginning of “Fat Thor” essay: Positively or questionably, healthily or otherwise, films and TV shows have been doing their part to normalize obesity over the last…oh, decade or so. Shrugging it off, Jabbas are no biggie, they deserve dignity like anyone else.

In the old days Hollywood would cast portly types in order to nudge the funny bone. (In Michael Curtiz‘s Robin Hood there’s a whole scene devoted to Errol Flynn and his band of Sherwood Forest rascals making fun of the overfed physique of Alan Hale, who was merely stocky at the time.) But over the last decade the message has been “no judgment, no shaming, all sizes are cool and obesity is just…well, just another way of living and being.”

The first time I noticed Hollywood’s fat-friendly mindset was the appearance of “Russell,” the obese Asian-American boy scout in Pete Doctor‘s Up (’09).

Four years later Nebraska‘s Alexander Payne did his part by having Will Forte‘s David ask a plus-sized ex-girlfriend (Missy Doty, who also played the tons-of-fun waitress whom Thomas Hayden Church seduces in Sideways) if they can have sex.

In 2014 Mark Duplass played Melissa McCarthy‘s flirtatious love interest in Tammy.

The same year I took note of Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed‘s Feast, which is basically a charming corporate advertisement for the joys of junk food.

Not to mention the obvious conveyances from Amy Schumer‘s performance in I Feel Pretty, Danielle Macdonald‘s in Patti Cake$, Chrissy Metz‘s mom in Breakthrough, Rebel Wilson in Isn’t It Romantic, etc.

SPOILER: So it means something, I think, that Avengers: Endgame has (a) decided to have a few laughs by making Thor into a beer-drinking lardbucket with a walrus belly, but also (b) delivered a concurrent message that reckless eating and drinking habits aren’t all that cool, and that in the actual world putting on 40 or 50 pounds is a definite indication of depression, loser-tude and sloth.

In other words, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are saying to the fatasses watching their film with large tubs of buttered popcorn in their laps…they’re saying “yo, we’re talking about you, bruh!” (At my Disney lot screening there were three or four fanboys who were much bigger than Thor.)

In short, Endgame is not only going against the Hollywood narrative of the last ten years but risking the wrath of plus-sized advocates.

Bruce Springsteen‘s “Western Stars” (6.13) is his first all-new album in seven years.

Posted this morning by Pitchfork’s Sam Sodomsky: “This is where the country opens up and things get a little weird,” Springsteen writes in his memoir about a pivotal road trip out west. It was the early ’80s and he was learning, for the first time, how to cope with depression in a real way. “As Sisyphus can count on the rock,” he writes. “I can always count on the road, the music, and the miles for whatever ails me.”

Here is the implicit promise of his music, presented with all the burdens and hard consequences attached. The door is open but the ride ain’t free.

His gorgeous new song “Hello Sunshine” takes place somewhere on the journey. Its friendly, country arrangement sits within a long lineage of radio classics: “Everybody’s Talkin,’” “Gentle on My Mind,” “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues,” all songs borne from quiet barrooms in the early hours of the morning. As if to prove his place among them, Springsteen spends an entire verse humming along, strings guiding the way like light from a jukebox. Amid the glow, he’s surrounded by pedal steel raining on the windows, a hushed honky-tonk piano in the corner, a brush-stroked rhythm section that feels like running in place on a soft dirt road.

Bold but lived-in, it’s the most vivid his music has sounded in at least two decades.

The words are sparse but important. The road is “empty”, not “open.” Sunshine is a passing stranger not an absent friend. “You walk too far, you walk away,” he cautions in a low, weathered croon. As the first single from an album that’s been sidelined for the better part of the decade — first for an Obama-era protest statement, later for a jubilant if backward-looking E Street Band tour, and most recently for a one-man Broadway show that turned the span of his songbook into a seemingly complete narrative with a (mostly) happy ending — its pulse feels particularly inspired. It’s a song about changing your ways while there are still miles left to travel, sung by someone with the landscape etched into his heart.

I’m sorry but the trailer for The Poison Rose (5.24, theatres and VOD) indicates that the feature is somewhere between second-tier, private-eye sludge and Ross MacDonald-Elmore Leonard wannabe material. John Travolta as a p.i. with a drinking problem, a second-tier wig and a wolfman beard borrowed from Lon Chaney, Jr.

It also feels top-heavy with questionable Italians — the last names of the three screenwriters (Francesco Cinquemani, Richard Salvatore, Luca Giliberto) and three of the four producers (Oscar Generale, Andrea Iervolino, Richard Salvatore) end in vowels. Even more curiously, Cinquemani and Gilberto share directing credit with veteran director-writer George Gallo (Midnight Run), who’s been writing and directing for 30-plus years. Did George drop the ball or was he ganged up on?

The biggest impression is the appearance of the Orson Welles-sized Brendan Fraser, who just turned 50. The second “whoa” is Famke Janseen, who’s obviously had some work done or has been CG-youthified. Or both.

I’ve only seen three of the eight episodes that constitute Fosse/Verdon (FX, 4.9) so I’m obliged to restrain myself. But I know it when all the main elements (editing/montage, screenwriting, pitch-perfect performances, exactly the right rhythm and tone, cinematography) have come together in just the right away.

I’m telling you that Fosse/Verdon — the decades-spanning story of legendary director, choreogrqpher and more-than-slightly-flawed human being Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and his longtime wife, lover, best friend and trusted creative colleague Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams) — is really, really top-drawer.

I actually think it’s masterful.

In All That Jazz, Roy Scheider‘s Joe Gideon was all this and more. The difference between Jazz, which presented a Verdon-like character (played by Ann Reinking) as a peripheral figure, and Fosse/Verdon is that Verdon is just as essential and deeply-dug-in as Fosse, if not more so. This may be the best performance Williams has ever given. Seriously.

Largely directed by Keaton Kail (five of the eight episodes) and written by Steven Levenson (and based upon Sam Wasson‘s “Fosse“), this is one pizazzy, well-seasoned, theatrically-staged saga of a louche genius who was touched by the dancing godz and who also knew how to direct films, and a wonderfully gifted, spirited and emotionally buoyant dancer-singer who put up with a ton of shit until she left him (even though they never divorced), and the truly great stuff they created for the Broadway stage (as well as their collaboration on the Oscar-winning Cabaret).

I’ve been unpacking boxes and moving things around, and a couple of days ago I came across this birth announcement. I sent it out to 40 or 50 friends nearly 31 years ago. I forget where I had it assembled, pasted down and duplicated but it was a bit of a project. Something like this today would take two or three hours to write and design on a Macbook Pro, and copies on any kind of paper stock could be handled at any Kinkos. In an odd sort of way it was more satisfying to do stuff like this when it was harder and took more of your time.

Jett became an excellent fellow all around. He’s smarter than me in some ways, and generally more of an adult. He got married a year and a half ago; he and Cait live in Jersey City with Joey (a pit bull) and Luna (a kind of beagle). I don’t see enough of him, but I’m probably not the only father who feels this way.

I became acquainted with actor-director Demian Bichir during the 2011-’12 Oscar season, or roughly seven and a half years ago. I was one of the more passionate supporters of his lead performance in Chris Weitz‘s A Better Life. Bichir wound up being Oscar-nominated for same. We became friendly acquaintances during this period (saw each other at a few Oscar-season events, exchanged messages) and have kept in occasional touch since.

In 2011 Bichir was going with model-actress Stefanie Sherk, who at the time was 37 years old. I never spoke with her outside the usual party chatter. She and Demian later married, although I’m not sure exactly when. They lived together in Sherman Oaks.

Yesterday Bichir announced on Instagram that Sherk, 43, had died on 4.20. It’s been reported that Sherk was found dead at the bottom of the couple’s swimming pool on 4.12. It was reported today that Sherk died by her own hand. The Daily Mail‘s Lauren Freun and Jabeen Waheed reported that the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has ruled her death a suicidal drowning.

I’ve been in touch with Demian; I hope and trust he’ll get through this horrible, impossibly sad episode.

Netflix will begin streaming Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese on 6.12. I’m naturally presuming that the concert-tour doc will be more or less in the vein of Scorsese’s The Last Waltz or Shine A Light. Netflix copy: “Part documentary, part concert film and part fever dream, Scorsese’s film captures the troubled spirit of America in 1975 and the joyous music that Dylan performed during the fall of that year” and describes it as “part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream.” The night before the official release (or on 6.11), Netflix will screen the film around the globe on a one-night-only basis — London, Paris, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Portland, Tulsa, Tempe, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Bologna and Sydney. The film will also screen in New York and Los Angeles, but on an extended basis.

In the comment thread of my 4.24 Long Shot review, “AuggieBenDoggie” noted the basic premise — dorky, blunt-spoken journalist (Seth Rogen) falls for a dishy Secretary of State (Charlize Theron) who’s way, way out of his league — and asked if it isn’t the same basic idea behind Continental Divide (’81), in which John Belushi played a stocky reporter who tumbled for Blair Brown‘s Rocky Mountain scientist.

In both films the women reciprocate the feelings of the male journalists and actually invite them into their beds. Except that the Belushi-Brown pairing is a lot less of a stretch than the Rogen-Theron romance, which has struck some as fairly ridiculous.

HE reply: Yes, there’s a rough similarity between Long Shot and Continental Divide, but the latter — directed by Michael Apted, written by Lawrence Kasdan — is a much more grown-up, more emotionally earnest comedy — a galaxy apart from Long Shot. As in “actually tethered to a semblance of the real world.” Compared to Long Shot, Continental Divide is a Lubitsch film. And Belushi isn’t half bad as the tough, Mike Royko-like Chicago journalist.

By the way: Here’s a striking photo of Belushi’s sheet-wrapped body being rolled out of the Chateau Marmont in front of a journalist wolf-pack. It kind of reminds me of the last moments of Sunset Boulevard — the same mix of pity, sadness and lurid headlines. The photo is part of a Hollywood Reporter excerpt from Shawn Levy‘s “The Castle on Sunset” (Doubleday, 5.7), which I’ve read and highly approve of.

The unofficial new title of Bond 25 is Jamaica, Mon…Dig It. Daniel Craig vs. Rami Malek as the bad guy. Caretaker producer Barbara Broccoli: “Bond is not on active service when the film starts. He is enjoying himself in Jamaica. We consider Jamaica Bond’s spiritual home. He starts his journey here.” Director Cary Fukunaga is saying with an apparently straight face that “Daniel is my favorite Bond”….bullshit! The 1962 model of Sean Connery is everyone’s favorite Bond, and I don’t want to hear any more about this. Back for more are costars Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Rory Kinnear and Lea Seydoux.

Jamaica, Mon…Dig It will open in theaters on 4.8.20.