At the end of The Grey, Liam Neeson is alone, surrounded, out-fanged. He knows he’s finished. The only thing left is do as much damage as he can to the big black CG wolves before they overwhelm and kill him. In actuality, Neeson doesn’t face career death as much as a likely period of temporary retirement — a Gibson-like shunning. Lasting perhaps a year or two. Probably not longer. The SJWs want Neeson dead, of course, but they’d like to de-employ a lot of people. That’s their ongoing, full-time dream.

This isn’t especially newsworthy or interesting, I’ll admit, but the Santa Barbara Inn (901 East Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara, CA 93103) is about 17 times nicer than the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort (633 E. Cabrillo). Make that 18 times. Being a practiced moocher, I immediately wrote the SBIFF staffers and asked if there was any way I could remain at the SBI rather than return to the much-lower-on-the-totem-pole Hilton. I knew what their answer would be — I had to ask anyway.

Hollywood Elsewhere drove back to Santa Barbara this morning. Left around 11 am, arrived at 12:15 pm. The Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort (formerly Fess Parker) is temporarily booting some of the guests of the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Those affected have to move into the Santa Barbara Inn for a day, and back into the HSBBR tomorrow.

Tonight’s big SBIFF event is the Virtuosos Award. Honorees include Yalitza Aparicio (Roma), Sam Elliott (A Star is Born), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Claire Foy (First Man), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace),John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) and Steven Yeun (Burning).

“Ash Is Purest White, Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke’s most serious foray into the gangster genre since A Touch of Sin, is a winding tale of love, disillusionment and survival that again represents his vision of his country’s spiritual trajectory.

“More expository and down-to-earth than usual, Jia delves deep into the protagonists’ most vulnerable feelings as they pay dearly for both sin and honor.

“At 141 minutes, the work has its intellectually ponderous moments but is ultimately saved by Jia’s muse and wife, Zhao Tao, who surpasses herself in a role of mesmerizing complexity.” — from Maggie Lee‘s 5.11.18 Variety review.

Cohen Media Group will open the film in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on Friday, 3.15, followed by a national roll-out.

Public candor about private failings is not a wise policy in our current situation. You can’t say “I once succumbed to an urge to practice witchcraft back in the ’70s.” To the Cotton Mather crowd that’s like saying you might put a hex on someone tomorrow.

But actors have emotionally expansive, compulsively honest natures, and so poor, impetuous Liam Neeson is going to have to face suspicions and charges of witchcraft for the rest of his life. Hell, they might come for him today and haul his ass over to the nearest lake and dunk him a few times.

Neeson has admitted that 40 years ago, when he was in his mid to late 20s, he experienced an illogical, enraged, tribal reaction to a friend having been raped by a person of color. He told an interviewer that he would have felt the same gut-level animosity “if she had said an Irish or a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian [had raped her]…[it] would have had the same effect. I was trying to show honor, to stand up for my dear friend in this terribly medieval fashion.”

Neeson offered the recollection during an interview that was posted yesterday in The Independent. He was promoting Cold Pursuit (Summit, 2.8), his latest revenge thriller. On a certain level Neeson was brave to admit that he was briefly seized by an ugly and bigoted impulse in his presumably intemperate, immoderate youth, but look at what’s happened.

This morning he attempted some damage control in a chat with ABC’s Robin Roberts. “We all pretend we’re all politically correct in this country…in mine, too,” Neeson said. “You sometimes just scratch the surface and you discover this racism and bigotry, and it’s there.”

I’ve mentioned witch-dunking in a satiric vein, but maybe this is actually the best way to handle the Neeson thing. Put him into a burlap bag, drive him out to Malibu pier, dunk him in the Pacific a few times. If he’s still breathing after the fifth or sixth submersion, he’ll be forgiven and allowed to work again. If he doesn’t make it, then at least the world will have one less suspected witch to deal with.

I’ve finally watched Tatyana Antropova‘s televised acting debut. She appears in a protestors-and-placards scene in The Rookie (season 1, episode 11, titled “Redwood“). She’s observed chanting, holding up a sign, being told to disperse, reacting with disgust when a protestor throws up, etc. Shot in downtown Los Angeles on 11.5.18. No biggie but noteworthy.

She’s also performed in episodes of For All Mankind, Veronica Mars, Lethal Weapon, Criminal Minds, The Affair, Games Divas Play (in an S & M club scene) and This Is Us.

Update: I would have said “HE’s own Tatyana Antropova” but it made the sentence structure feel awkward — i.e., possessive of a possessive.

Passerby to Tatyana: “Whaddaya protestin’, blondie?” Tatyana to passerby: “Whaddaya got?”

Posted eight months ago: A Twitter challenge from the Filmstruck gang — define yourself with four films, two reflecting the basic emotional reality of things and two about wishful thinking.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s emotional definers are (1) Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory (’57) because it reminds that life is unfair and in fact horrid for the grunts, and when the shit hits the fan it’s better to be Kirk Douglas than Ralph Meeker, Joe Turkel or Timothy Carey, and (2) Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon, which says that fair-weather friends are a dime a dozen, that most people are cowards or at the very least don’t mean what they say, and that when the chips are down there’s only person you can really count on — yourself. And even then you’ll need a certain amount of luck to make it through the gauntlet.

HE’s wishful thinking movies are (3) Billy Wilder‘s The Spirit of St. Louis (’57) because it says that life is about the big challenge and the long haul, and that despite all indications that God is an empty myth, a caring, compassionate entity can nonetheless lend a hand at a crucial moment, and (4) the first half of David Lean‘s Lawrence of Arabia (’62) because it reminds that intrepid adventurers can manage the near-impossible if determination is truly with them.

Julie Adams, the Creature From The Black Lagoon scream queen, has passed at age 92. Adams was 26 or 27 when the Universal cheapie was shot in mid or late 1953. It was released in early ’54.

Adams’ best role was opposite James Stewart in Anthony Mann‘s Bend of the River (’52), but after that she was stuck in mostly B movies — The Lawless Breed, The Mississippi Gambler, The Man from the Alamo, The Private War of Major Benson, The Gun. She also costarred in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (’57), a semi-respectable, late-period film noir with Richard Egan.

Last August I saw Dennis Hopper‘s The Last Movie (’71) at the Metrograph, and lo and behold there was Adams, playing some sort of lady of leisure whom Hopper hits on.

I realize that red is often used as a design element in black-and-white films as it photographs well, but Gill Man looks fairly ridiculous with bright red lips.

I’ve woken up with my glasses on…I can’t say exactly but at least 15 or 20 times. It’s not a good thing. I sleep deeply as a rule (i.e., bottom of the pond) but reading glasses naturally interfere with true slumber. Especially my bright red reading glasses, which are a bit too small and therefore apply a slight pressure to my temples. This happens because I have a habit of twittering myself to sleep with my iPhone. I sleep with the damn thing like it’s my pet cat. I’ll be reading a story and suddenly drop off. I’ll awake the next morning at 6:30 am and…damn, never took my glasses of. I don’t know what to do about this.

A veteran film critic and I were discussing Sundance ’19 and the general wokester atmosphere. At one point I offered my usual-usual, which boils down to (a) “I really and truly believe we are in the midst of a kind of woke McCarthyism,” (b) “The current political-cultural revolution is good and necessary and overdue, but there has also been spillage and over-reach, just as their was during the Robespierre ‘terror’ following the French revolution,” and (c) “My press pass withdrawal was blacklisting, plain and simple, and for what? For having passionate opinions?”

In response to which he wrote, “Oh, absolutely. During the festival I overheard someone talking about your situation, saying that some female honcho at Sundance gave a speech recently in which she forcefully endorsed dropping journos who weren’t on board with the program. It would be easy to find out who that was.”

My guess would be Sundance exec director Keri Putnam, who announced at the festival’s opening press conference that she had noticed “a disturbing blind spot” in the press credential process, which resulted in admitting “mostly white male critics.” Which she and her colleagues then “decided to do something about.”

Veteran critic: “I’ve been reading all your stuff about your predicament and feel that the Robespierre comparison is dead-on. I have no doubt at all that the denial of your pass is a direct result of all this. I also have a suspicion that this is why Redford has basically kicked himself upstairs, so as not to have to address or deal with this stuff. He’s above and beyond at this point.”