Bannon to Maher: “You’ve had three years to solve this problem, and now you’re divided.”

For the second time Republicans and Russia are going to “play” the Bernie bruhs like violins, and when Bernie captures the Democratic nomination (which appears likely)…well, most of us understand what will happen.

Bernie voters “had a bellyful of Clinton” in ’16, and so a significant percentage wound up sitting on their hands and/or voting for Trump, etc.

HE lament: The nightmare that we’re currently entangled in just keeps getting worse…growing and spreading like cancer.

Bernie can’t win.

Politically and culturally the N.Y. Times has lately become even more “Woke Central” than Indiewire, particularly, it seems, in recent coverage of the Oscars and the film industry.

They’ve been agitating for woke advancement and urging powerful white people to recognize that, more than anything else, whiteness represents an essentially evil and corrupt mindset as well as a soiled and heinous history (The 1619 Project) and is therefore burdened in the eyes of God and history with completely appropriate guilt — a stain that can never be washed out but can at least be atoned for by white people hanging their heads in shame and perhaps even hiding their faces from public view for the foreseeable future.

There can only be one way forward, and that is to keep the doors open to all gifted and worthy people of color (African American, Latino, Asian) while continuing to guilt-trip white people over under sideways down. Forget proportionality in terms of the industry workforce or general population demographics. The bottom line is that whiteness is believed to be deeply flawed and corrupt, particularly in the matter of older white males, and that the term “older white male” has become, in fact, an epithet. For some time now. Obviously.

And if you say anything other than “what’s happening today is obviously a necessary and approvable thing in terms of redressing the sins and injustices of the past”, you are not only an intransigent racist but part of the problem and therefore a prime candidate for possible cancellation. And so the smart move is to simply shut up.

Just to be on the safe side, Hollywood Elsewhere is taking this opportunity to reiterate its strong support of keeping doors open to all non-Anglo movers and shakers, and to reiterate my belief in the constant channelling of appropriate shame about my white heritage, and to never forget the ugly things that white people have been responsible for in decades and centuries past. I know I sound facetious to some extent, but at the same time I’m being 100% sincere — anyone who would deny the dark legacy of paleface rule in this country is living under a rock.

At the same time this is why Trump is going to win next November. Because a certain under-educated portion of 60.7% of the U.S. population doesn’t want to be guilt-tripped and finger-wagged over and over. They’re angry about the p.c. Torquemadas, and they’d rather live under an ugly rightwing monster who will leave them alone (i.e., won’t lambast them for their endemic failings) than deal with constant accusations and shaming and outrage-venting from the progressive left.

Ask any Average Joe to choose a present-day political analogy for “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” the old Twilight Zone episode. Seven or eight out of ten will point to wokesters.

The fact that Little Women has crested $100 million domestic and $64 million internationally shows that the right female-angled film can connect. This is especially noteworthy given that Greta Gerwig‘s historical film is infused with contemporary attitudes about female independence, empowerment and wokeness.

Alas, Cathy Yan and Margot Robbie’s Birds of Prey, which also draws upon these currents, is a shortfaller. Variety is reporting that it’s performing “well below forecasts, with about $34 million at 4,236 North American sites” or about $10 to $20 million short of the $45 million to $55 million it was projected to earn domestically. (Warner Bros. had been projecting a conservative $45 million.) Birds earned $4 million last night.

For what it’s worth the 8:30 pm Grove screening that I attended last night had about 15 or 20 people. The well-reviewed Birds of Prey cost a reported $80 million to make.

Interior Trump dialogue: “That motherfucker is out…get him out! Nobody fucks with me like this. Cut him off at the knees.”

Congressman to Vindman: “You realize that when you came forward, you were putting yourself up against the President of the United States?” Vindman: “My father worried about my speaking out. He deeply worried about it. [But] This is America. The country I’ve served and defended. And that all my brothers have served. And here, right matters.”

N.Y. Times: The White House on Friday dismissed Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, whose testimony in the House impeachment hearings infuriated President Trump and his allies, escorting him out of the complex just days after the Senate trial ended in acquittal, his lawyer said.

“’There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House,’ David Pressman, the lawyer, said in a statement. ‘Lt. Col. Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.'”

It’s 1991 and Robert Harris‘s initial restored version of Spartacus is starting to be screened for press and industry types. Imagine a 37 year-old F.X. Feeney sitting in the 10th row at a certain Academy screening (which I happened to attend myself), and then imagine a voice coming into Feeney’s head as he sits and waits for Alex North’s overture to begin:

“I want you to receive this news calmly — please don’t freak — but you and Kirk Douglas will move onto the next realm within 24 hours of each other. You will live a very full life, F.X., and you certainly won’t die young or middle-aged, but when the moment happens people will be speaking about the passing of Douglas and Feeney in the same breath. Don’t let the fact that Douglas [born in 1916] is now 75 throw you. He’s a very hearty fellow. You’ll both be around for decades to come. On top of which, as you well know, quality is far more valuable than quantity.”

If the Academy had a heart as big as Feeney’s, he would be included in Sunday’s “death reel” segment on the Oscar telecast.

From David Frum‘s “Bernie Can’t Win,” posted on The Atlantic site on 1.27.20:

For his second Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot transcription, THR‘s Scott Feinberg spoke to a dispirited, somewhat insensitive, over-the-hill producer.

Of all the Best Picture contenders this guy only likes Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and JoJo Rabbit, but his real favorite was Danny Boyle‘s Yesterday. Jesus wept! Plus I have no respect for anyone who would call Casino better than The Irishman. That’s just a silly estimation. Everyone regards Casino as good but grating (especially due to Sharon Stone‘s performance) and certainly underwhelming compared to Goodfellas, and not nearly as satisfying as The Departed. But at least he’s entertaining:

“My favorite film of the year didn’t even get a nomination. I’m embarrassed to admit it because a lot of people hated it, but it was Yesterday. That movie made me feel fucking great.

“Two movies that I really hated were Ford v Ferrari and Little Women. The director [of Ford, James Mangold] knows nothing about racing, and admitted as much at the q & a after it screened at the Academy — you don’t have someone putting on their goggles once they’re already driving or staring longingly at the guy in the next car as he passes him! [The 1966 film] Grand Prix had class and style and knew what it was about.

THR article art by Skip Sterling.

“With Little Women, the timeline was ridiculous. I was really confused sometimes, and I know I’m not the only one. Thank God [Saoirse Ronan] cut her hair, because that at least gave me a bit of a reference point.

“As for Marriage Story, I needed to care for the kid, and I didn’t. And I know that those two actors [Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson] poured their souls into those roles, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to care about entitled people’s marital relationships. It wouldn’t have been that hard to say, ‘I’ll stay in New York, you go to LA and work for a while,’ stay married, hook up when you can and be bicoastal.” HE interjection: I agree with this criticism.

“The Irishman, as much as I loved it and its performances, is not Casino. After Hoffa was dead, the movie was done for me, my ass was sore and I wanted to get the fuck out of there.” HE to producer: What is wrong with you, man? The last 35 minutes of The Irishman [after Hoffa is dead] is the big melancholy karma-kickback payoff, Frank Sheeran looking at death in the face, buying the coffin, talking to the priest, “leave the door open a little bit,” etc. You, sir, are a half-filled Coke bottle.

“I love Parasite — super-smart, brilliant director [Bong Joon Ho], the movie looks great and the whole look into class struggle was terrific — but once the murdering started happening they lost me.

“Joker was excellent, but it’s not a best picture.

“1917 was great but gimmicky, and rang a little hollow for me in the same way that Dunkirk rang a little hollow for me.

“Once it got down to Jojo Rabbit and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it was hard for me. I wish I could have voted for them both. Once I realized it was okay to laugh at Jojo, it was great — so funny and so applicable to where we are today.

“But Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gave me real escape at a time when I wanted nothing more. I don’t jump up and down for [Quentin] Tarantino movies — the last movie of his that I liked before this one was Jackie Brown, but this movie made me feel good. We all have our ups and downs in this business. I’m not at the high point of my career right now, so I could identify very much with the characters, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gave me hope.

“And it leaves you thinking about what could have been in a better world: what would Sharon Tate‘s life have been if this hadn’t happened? What would [Roman] Polanski‘s life have been?! It puts tears in my eyes when I think about it.”