Voting among members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, arguably the flakiest and most whimsically oddball major critics group in the country, is expected to begin at 10 ayem. Or somewhere in that vicinity. HE readers know the LAFCA drill. They’ll vote on five or six categories in the late morning, and then take a 45-minute brunch break, and then return to vote on the last four or five or whatever, including the Best Picture prize.

Posted on 12.9.18: The year-end awards decided by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association are almost always outside the box. When they champion a film or a performance that I happen to share admiration for, I go ‘yay.’ But more often my reaction to their left-field picks is (a) ‘huh, really?…okay” or (b) ‘what the fuck?’ I will therefore signal my reactions today with either (Yay), (HRO) or (WTF).” Same deal today. Naturally I’m hoping for at least a few yays, but you know LAFCA.

I’m not saying LAFCA isn’t dedicated to celebrating quality (I was elated when they gave last year’s Best Actor award to First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke), but they have to do that LAFCA thing, that “hey, look at us, we’re nervy and different” between bites of bagels and lox and cream cheese and small chunks of fruit. Deciding to award some kind of arbitrary, socially progressive notion or belief scheme of the moment, I mean. A choice that will feel like the right kind of politically correct fulfillment or projection — a choice that will point the way and incidentally defy the Gold Derby-ites.

Outside the Amazon holiday party — Saturday, 12.7, 9:25 pm.

Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, which everyone saw a year or so ago and then flushed out of their heads after the 2.24.19 Oscar telecast, is back in the news. The arch period comedy has won three big trophies at the 32nd European Film Awards — Best Film, Best Comedy and Best Actress for Olivia Colman‘s portrayal of Queen Anne.

The other Best Film nominees were Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor and Roman Polanski’s An Officer and A Spy. It was nearly a foregone conclusion that Polanski’s film wouldn’t win anything because of the recent #MeToo Paris protests, so the race was basically between Pedro, Marco and Yorgos.

Pain and Glory‘s Antonio Banderas, who won the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actor award last May, won EFA’s Best Actor award.

Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables, which won the jury prize at Cannes and is representing France at the Oscars, won the European Discovery award.

Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire won the European Screenwriter prize.

I’m having trouble finding the author of the below tweet, but for legibility’s sake it states the following: “A Streetcar Named Desire is about an abusive relationship that has been glorified as a passionate romance for decades. [Marlon] Brando‘s character is abusive to both his love interest and her sister, and when I first saw it in my twenties I was stunned that it’s lauded as this great film. No thanks.”

Does everyone understand that a very similar complaint could have been voiced by an enforcer of Mao Zedong‘s Great Cultural Revolution of the ’60s and ’70s?

The Social Network‘s David Fincher obviously should have won the Best Director Oscar and not The King’s Speech helmer Tom Hooper. God, what were people thinking back then? If not Fincher then either The Fighter‘s David O. Russell or Black Swan‘s Darren Aronofsky should have taken it.

I accepted the Best Director nom corralled by True Grit‘s Joel and Ethan Coen, but I never felt the enthusiasm. I would’ve felt better about The Ghost Writer‘s Roman Polanski being nominated instead.

The triumph of The King’s Speech was one of the most depressing events of my Oscar-handicapping life. Almost as bad as when Best Picture Oscars went to The Artist (again — what were people thinking?) and Chicago, and on the same level of awful as the Best Picture wins by The Greatest Show on Earth (’52) and Around The World in Eighty Days (’56).

While surfing around yesterday for clips of the late, lamented Ron Leibman, I came upon this HE YouTube clip from The Hot Rock. Robert Redford is no comedian, but his expression after saying “Afghanistan Bananistan” is one the funniest moments in 20th Century cinema, right up there with Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot. I’m posting this to explain to delusionals that he’s not saying “Afghanistan Banana Stand.”

Because of black twitter antagonism towards the 97% honorable, brilliant and pragmatically positive Pete Buttigieg, Democrats will almost certainly be stuck with Joe Biden as the ’20 nominee.

I grind my teeth about this every day. Speaking as a generally fair-minded white-ass liberal with a cosmic undercurrent, I haven’t felt this kind of eye-rolling alienation — alienation bordering on antagonism — toward the black community since the day of the O.J. Simpson not-guilty verdict (10.3.95).

I know how certain wokesters will respond to this, but as an American citizen I’m allowed to say what I feel on a bone-marrow level. I hate the idea of Biden being the nominee. I’ve no choice but to accept it, but I really, really hate it. This is like hearing from the rank-and-file that Stuart Symington is sure to defeat Jack Kennedy in the ’60 Democratic primary race, except Symington was 59 in ’60 and Biden is 77…yeesh.

The late Ron Leibman was as much of a TV and stage actor as a film guy. My first impression was that he was brilliant at playing funny eccentrics.

For me his first three film roles were the keepers. Sidney Hocheiser, the brother of George Segal‘s Gordon Hocheiser, in Carl Reiner‘s Where’s Poppa? (’70). Murch, the exuberant car enthusiast and helicopter pilot in Peter Yates‘ The Hot Rock (’72). And the resentful, pissed off Paul Lazzaro in George Roy Hill‘s Slaughterhouse Five (’72).

These and the role of labor organizer Reuben Warshowsky in Martin Ritt‘s Norma Rae (’70) for a solid fourth.

Leibman won a Tony and Drama Desk Award for playing Roy Cohn in Angels in America. He snagged an Emmy Award for playing the lead in a short-lived crime drama series Kaz. Leibman is allegedly best known for playing Jennifer Aniston‘s “rich, short-tempered” father on Friends.

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There’s no disputing that this Vogue cover shot of Greta Gerwig and her son Harold, shot by Annie Leibovitz, is kind of ravishing, and that her moss green, semi-transparent Valentino dress is quite the visual component, blending perfectly with the grass and soil and all. Whoever chose the dress did the right thing.

I guess the only question I have is what exactly makes Greta a Hollywood “heroine”? A standard definition says that she’s “a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” Well, she’s co-written some fine films with partner Noah Baumbach, directed one very good film (Lady Bird) as well as a follow-up that’s seriously loved in certain many quarters of the industry (Little Women), and she’s arguably the leading 30something woman director right now, and that ain’t hay. I’m just not certain that “heroine”…well, I don’t want to argue.

Just to put things on a fair and equal basis, which male director right now could fairly be described as being on Gerwig’s level — i.e., heroic?

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No bullshit, no hesitations, no side glances — here are Hollywood Elsewhere’s 20 favorite films of the year without regard to awards handicapping and in order of preference — included because I responded on a pure gut-engagement level.

1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, which I’ve seen four times and could easily watch another couple of times without breaking a sweat.

2. Ladj Ly‘s Les Miserables — “Start to finish Les Miserables is rough, riveting, incendiary — written by Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti and brilliantly shot by Julien Poupard. It generally feels like a rough-and-tumble Antoine Fuqua film, using the basic dynamic of Training Day (but with three cops instead of two) plus a little Do The Right Thing plus a dash of the anxious urban energy of William Freidkin‘s The French Connection.” — posted on 5.15.19.

3. Todd Phillips‘ Joker — “I don’t know how or why Warner Bros. got behind a film as nutso radical as Todd Phillips, Scott Silver and Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker (10.4), but this is not corporate product. Make no mistake about the fact that this 122-minute film is propelled by misery, loneliness, alienation, despair, ennui, delusion and general social malevolence and madness. And it doesn’t back off from that.” — from “Genuine Art, Serious Madness, Real Anarchy,” posted on 9.29.19.

4. Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe‘s Queen & Slim — “Driven by predatory racism and sporadic violence, but essentially a feel-good film about kindness and charity and black togetherness, sans gun battles or car chases.” — from “Cop Killers With Kind Hearts…Really,” posted on 10.7.19.

5. Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins‘ 1917 — “A landmark war film with a single, continuous-shot approach that delivers an intense, knockout-level, ‘you are there’ slaughterhouse experience…an emotional hellscape that primarily struck me as a technical exercise, although blended with humanism, humor, sadness, brotherly compassion and even a moment of domestic tenderness.” — posted on 11.24.19.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13. Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story — “In and of itself Marriage Story is a very fine, emotionally open-hearted film. Impressively acted, written, paced and sung. But it could have been Shampoo or Rules of the Game if Baumbach had wanted to go there. The fact that he didn’t is fine with me.” — from “Marriage Story Could Have Been Shampoo,” posted on 11.11.19.

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

15. 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.

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

17. Todd Douglas Miller‘s Apollo 11 / Just because I forgot to review this Neon/CNN Films doc doesn’t mean it doesn’t deliver a profound IMAX charge. I love that it offers no narration or talking heads.

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

19. Trey Edward Shults‘s Waves — “One measure of a gripping Telluride film, for me, is catching a 10:30 pm showing (and they always start late) and maintaining an absolute drill-bit focus on each and every aspect for 135 minutes, and then muttering to myself ‘yeah, that was something else’ as I walked back to the pad in near total darkness (using an iPhone flashlight app to see where I was walking) around 1 am. This is what happened last night between myself and Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves.”

20. Sebastien Lelio‘s Gloria Bell / “Moore May Snag Best Actress Nom for Gloria Bell,” filed on 9.13.18.

Through some magical process that I’d rather not disclose, I’ve managed to watch the first 30 to 40 minutes of Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York — a film that will never play theatrically or even stream in this country because of something I’m tired of explaining or even referencing.

It’s obviously a witty, smoothly assembled, handsomely captured and perfectly harmless relationship comedy. It unfolds in a realm that typical 20somethings would never recognize in the world of 2019, and yet it’s mildly clever and easy to watch and go along with. I’m.sorry but I don’t see the problem. I was amused at times and actually laughed out loud twice, and that means something from a half-sourpuss, half-LQTM type like myself.

A Rainy Day in Manhattan feels like some kind of self-satirizing spoof — a “sophisticated”, old-fashioned, Allen-esque satire that could have been made 30 or 40 years ago, and in fact seems to be happening in some kind of weird time vacuum but so what?

Some critics have said it doesn’t work because it’s all taking place in Woody World (i.e., bucks-up Manhattan and the same kind of tony locales that Allen has used since the days of Annie Hall and Manhattan) and that the younger lead actors (Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez) clearly don’t belong in it — they would never talk like naive young snobs or make witty Allen-esque cracks about this or that.

But it’s amusing in a kind of goofball way because they’re all pretending that Woody World is an actual place and so they’re all playing a kind of dress-up and just cruising through and acting nonchalant, like it’s all a masquerade and they’re chuckling as they go through the notions.

And I really like the way Chalamet handles himself in this milieu. He’ll probably never ever behave this way in another movie ever again, and it’s fascinating to watch him pretend to be an Allen kind of guy (flush, entitled, smart-assy, tweed jackets) with casual confidence and just submitting to the unreality of it all.

And at the same time the movie is fine as a whole (or at least it seems to be at the 35-minute mark) — it shuffles along and seems to enjoy itself with an occasional wink at the camera. It doesn’t offend because it’s just gliding along…who cares? You’d have to be a real asshole to pan this without mercy. You’d have to have a fairly thick broomstick up your ass to begin with.

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