In my view Spike Lee‘s best film ever was Malcolm X (’92), and if industry consciousness had been where it should have damn well been back then, Malcolm X might well have won the Best Picture Oscar. Who knows?

As Spike Lee celebrates his first Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, I'm reminded of the 1989 Oscars, when presenter Kim Basinger went off-book to blast the Academy for snubbing Spike's DO THE RIGHT THING pic.twitter.com/JXEMwhaBdd

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) January 22, 2019

At 7:22 am, Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh posted “Oscar Nominations: The 15 Biggest Snubs and Surprises.” Hollywood Elsewhere, currently waiting for a McCarran Airport flight to Salt Lake City, respectfully differs with some of Setoodeh’s assessments.

Snub #1: Bradley Cooper‘s direction of A Star is Born fails to land a nomination.

Setoodeh: “Cooper got Afflecked. The Academy director’s branch is notorious for snubbing actors who step into the director’s chair. Cooper was considered a lock for A Star Is Born, has now joined the ranks of Barbra Streisand (Yentl), Ben Affleck (Argo) and Angelina Jolie (Unbroken), as actors-directors who failed to receive their proper due.”

HE: One, Cooper got shafted in part because he’s perceived in some quarters as aloof and self-absorbed. Two, A Star Is Born was over-hyped by celeb-filmmaker endorsements (Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro, Barbra Streisand) followed by Kris Tapley‘s notorious pre-Toronto testimonial piece in Variety. Three, it was obvious from the first screening that Unbroken was a whiff. Why should Jolie have been Best Director-nominated for delivering Japanese POW camp torture porn with a weird Christian undercurrent?

Snub #2: A no-go for Beautiful Boy‘s Timothee Chalamet.

Setoodeh: The star of Call Me By Your Name and the forthcoming Dune was “due” a nomination for playing a drug addict, blah blah.

HE: No, he wasn’t — he wasn’t effing “due” because his meth-head performance was (a) all strenuous “acting”, and (b) it didn’t emotionally connect with anyone. Plus the film was torture to sit through, and was doubly painful for Steve Carell‘s mope-a-dope dad character. Only now can it be said: Beautiful Boy blew chunks when it opened in Toronto, and it still does. Plus Chalamet hasn’t yet paid off the piper for throwing Woody Allen under the bus when the matter of his guilt has never been close to conclusive, and is actually doubtful if you read Moses Farrow‘s essay.

Snub #3: John David Washington in BlackKklansman.

Setoodeh: “While Spike Lee’s drama picked up six Oscar nominations, Washington somehow failed to crack the best actor category for playing real-life police officer Ron Stallworth.”

HE: Washington’s performance was okay, but he was the weak link in that film. Why? His face is uninteresting, opaque. Look into his eyes and there’s nothing burning or churning underneath. He’s just good looking, and that’s never enough.

Snub #4: Academy shafts Ethan Hawke‘s award-showered performance in First Reformed.

Setoodeh offers no thoughts so allow me. A sufficient number of voters simply didn’t like the idea of a pastor strapping on a suicide vest as a way of addressing environmental pollution. Plus they didn’t like a bare-chested Hawke bloodying himself with barbed wire, and they didn’t much care for the drinking and the cancer threat. And they strongly disliked the cruel way Hawke’s character treated that mousey middle-aged woman who cared for him. News flash: Academy voters aren’t especially deep or thoughtful.

Snub #5: Michael B. Jordan‘s Black Panther performance gets the go-by.

Setoodeh: “Not a single actor in its cast was recognized, [not even] Jordan as Erik Killmonger, for playing the best villain in the genre since Heath Ledger as the Joker.”

HE: Setoodeh had to have been kidding when he wrote this. If you’re playing a guy whose last name is Killmonger, you’re automatically and instantly disqualified from any sort of awards consideration.

Snub #6: Nicole Kidman passed over for Destroyer and Boy Erased.

Setoodeh: “In a less competitive year for actress, Kidman who have added her fifth (and maybe sixth) career nominations for Destroyer or Boy Erased. In the former film, playing a Los Angeles detective, she disappeared onscreen with a limp and facial prosthetics. And out of Toronto, there was a lot of buzz for her supporting role as the Baptist mother who took her son to gay conversion therapy.”

HE: Out of Toronto there was NO BUZZ AT ALL for Kidman’s Boy Erased performance…none, zero, zipposky. The reaction I heard was that Kidman wasn’t bad but that guys like Setoodeh need to calm down. As for Destroyer, Kidman’s nomination was a no-go from the start because you can only occasionally understand what she’s saying, what with her raspy, scratchy Clint Eastwood-like delivery. The makeup people who turned her Erin Bell character into a George Romero zombie should have been nominated, but they were also shafted.

By the way: Setoodeh says that Willem Dafoe “managed to sneak into the Best Actor race” for his Vincent Van Gogh performance in At Eternity’s Gate. That’s Setoodeh-speak for “I didn’t much care for the film or Dafoe’s performance.” Dafoe was in fact masterful in Julian Schnabel‘s film. Setoodeh believes that BlackKklansman‘s John David Washington was more deserving of a nomination. He really thinks that.

Hollywood Elsewhere never once yelped or cried out during this morning’s read-off of the 2018/19 Oscar nominations. I sat at my writing table, sober as a judge and going “hold on, hold on…I’m not seeing any shockers here…was there a shocker? Oh, yes, one…Bradley Cooper getting stiffed.” Nonetheless a few stand-out moments:

(a) I wouldn’t have blinked if Bradley Cooper had been Best Director-nominated for A Star Is Born as he did a first-rate job, but it didn’t happen — what say ye to this development, Kris Tapley? You said ASIB would land ten noms…not quite!;

(b) Three completely deserved nominations for Cold War — Best Foreign Language Feature, Pawel Pawlikowski for Best Director, Lukasz Zal for Best Cinematography;

(c) There’s absolutely no question that Cold War‘s Joanna Kulig deserved to be Best Actress-nominated this morning — I knew it wouldn’t happen but she should have been;

(d) Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma and Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite landed 10 Oscar nominations each (congrats to Lisa Taback and 20th Century Fox publicists!), and A Star Is Born received a totally respectable eight nominations, as did Vice;

(e) Since Telluride I’ve been an advocate of Roma‘s Marina de Tavira landing a Best Supporting Actress nomination, and today it happened!;

(f) All of those Vice nominations tell me Christian Bale is more or less locked for a Best Actor win (40% acting, 30% weight gain, 30% makeup) and…what else?

(g) Black Panther became the first superhero flick to be nominated for Best Picture — expected, appropriate, not exactly a shocker. The real triumph was/is the $1.3 billion worldwide earnings, which completely shattered the notion that predominantly black casts are financially risky propositions by the measures of international audiences.

(h) More snubs: No Best Director nom for Green Book‘s Peter Farrelly, almost certainly due to that hit piece. No Best Musical Score nomination for First Man‘s Justin Hurwitz — incorrect call!; No Best Doc nom for Won’t You Be My Neighbor?; no noms for Mary Poppins Return‘s Emily Blunt or Beautiful Boy‘s Timothee Chalamet; no makeup nomination for turning Nicole Kidman into a zombie/vampire in Destroyer.

The Oscar telecast will happen on Sunday, 2.24 on ABC.

Best Picture:

“Black Panther”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“The Favourite”
“Green Book”
“Roma”
“A Star Is Born”
“Vice”

Best Director:

Spike Lee, “BlacKkKlansman”
Pawel Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Favourite”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Adam McKay, “Vice”

Best Actor:

Christian Bale, “Vice”
Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”
Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate”
Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Viggo Mortensen, “Green Book”

Best Actress:

Yalitza Aparicio, “Roma”
Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”
Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”
Melissa McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Without getting into whys and wherefores I’m temporarily upset and stressed about things, so I’m posting these photos in order to self-anesthetize or otherwise calm myself down. Nothing to it beyond that.

Shot in Manarola in Cinque Terre, on 6.5.17.

Went hiking in the West Hollywood hills yesterday afternoon. From late ’87 to the early fall of ’89 I lived at 8682 Franklin with my then-wife Maggie. The upstairs portion, I mean. Two bedrooms, killer view, tall ceilings, $1400 per month. Our landlord was Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

You can never trust a trailer about anything, but Elizabeth Vogler‘s Paris Is Us looks pretty good. Why isn’t it playing in the World Cinema section of Sundance ’19? The original French title, Paris es une fete, translates as Paris Is A Feast, which sounds slightly better. Exceptional cinematography, editing. Noemie Schmidt, Gregoire Isvarine, Marie Mottet, Lou Castel. Arriving on Netflix on 2.22.19.

I’ve read over Kris Tapley‘s predictions for the 91st Academy Awards, which are more or less the same that everyone else is mentioning. I don’t have any significant disputes — I just want to see my favorites (Roma, Green Book, Cold War, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Vice) do well. If A Star Is Born collects 10 nominations, great — it still won’t win Best Picture.

I’ll have to pack sometime later today or this evening, and then arise at 4:45 am. I’ll have an hour or so (5:45 am to 7 am) to bang out a reaction piece before leaving for Burbank Airport.

Big Sick auteur and Silicon Valley costar Kumail Nanjiani and Black-ish costar Tracee Ellis Ross will announce the nominees. An inner voice is telling me that Ross will pronounce the names of foreign-born nominees better than Tiffany Haddish did last year.

Dear Sundance Press Office (Emily, Chrissy, Jason, Janine & Spencer),

As I prepare to leave for Park City, I’m asking again that you reconsider your decision to deny me press credentials for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Hollywood Elsewhere is one of the best-known daily columns in the film industry. I’ve been tapping out an online movie column since October 1998 — 20 years plus. Before then I wrote for the L.A. Times Syndicate (’94 to ’99), People, Entertainment Weekly, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, N.Y, Daily News, etc.

I’ve been a steady Sundance press person for 25 years, going back to ’94. Over the last quarter-century I’ve done a great deal to bring praise and heated attention to dozens upon dozens of Sundance premieres. I would be honored to be able to continue to do that. Everyone else has press-credentialed me for many, many years — Telluride, Toronto, Cannes, Berlin, New York, Santa Barbara, etc.

I’ve tried apologizing for whatever it is that you’ve apparently disapproved of in my recent (the last couple of years) of coverage. I’ve tried asking you and yours to please let bygones be bygones and turn the other cheek. And I’ve written to John Cooper and, more recently, to Robert Redford about this issue.

Whatever your response I’ll be humping it around town and attending whatever I can by the good graces of publicist and filmmaker friends.

But a press pass would make things so much less complicated. Please reconsider your decision.

Regards,

Jeffrey Wells, HE

My Southwest flight to Salt Lake City and the Sundance Film Festival leaves tomorrow morning around 9 am, but due to a longish Las Vegas layover I won’t arrive at the Park Regency condo until 5 pm or so. Like last year, Hollywood Elsewhere is bunking at the Park Regency with World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy and seasoned film journo and festival guy Robert Koehler.

My first Sundance in 25…now 26 years without a press pass! I have a sacred duty to fulfill, of course. A duty to myself, the general “never say die” esprit de journalism and the intrepid tradition of Hollywood Elsewhere to fly my ass up there, put on the overcoat and the black cowboy hat, tromp through the snow (Park City is currently at 27 degrees and besieged by winter storm “Indra”) and see everything I can.

I’ve been asking filmmaker and publicist friends to please help with public-screening tickets, and I know I’ll be getting into a fair number of films. Maybe 15 or so. Gavin Hood‘s Official Secrets. The Steven Soderbergh basketball flick at Slamdance, for sure. (Not to mention other Slamdance films, which I’m credentialed to see.) Dan Gilroy‘s Velvet Buzzsaw. The Harvey Weinstein, Mike Wallace, David Crosby and Roy Cohn docs, certainly. Not to mention the accusatory four-hour Michael Jackson doc and the origins of Ridley Scott‘s Alien doc, MEMORY. Whatever I can see.

Some of the alleged hotties: Shia LaBeouf‘s Honey Boy, Nisha Ganatra‘s Late Night, Scott Z. Burns‘ The Report, JD Dillard‘s Sweetheart (if there’s a way to see it without actually attending a midnight screening), Rashid Johnson‘s Native Son, Tomorrow Man (recently sold to Sony Pictures Classics) costarring John Lithgow and Blythe Danner.

Word around the campfire is that Rhys Ernst‘s Adam, Chewitel Ejiofor‘s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and Pippa Bianco‘s Share are a tad underwhelming, at least according to one Boy Scout. Joe Berlinger‘s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the Zac Efron-as-Ted Bundy pic, is said to be strikingly performed but “dramatically flat.”

Sonya — The White Swan, a Sonja Henie biopic, has been screened in Los Angeles but I’ve heard nothing. Ditto Bart Freundlich‘s After The Wedding, which is opening the festival on Thursday night.

Will audiences be treated to another Manchester By The Sea, a Call me By Your Name, a Big Sick? I would deeply love to experience this kind of thing but I’m not hearing about films of this calibre in the wings. Is anyone?

A typical Sundance-credentialed journo sees 20 to 25 films over this ten-day gathering. But outside the documentaries Sundance ’19 is looking (and it breaks my heart to say this) like it might be just as meh-level “woke” as last year — alternate lifestyles, afflictions, LGBTQ and POC agenda sagas, women in transition, this or that personal issue, healings, buried pain, social maladies, etc.

We all know what Aaron Sorkin meant three days ago when he said (a) he really likes “the new crop of young people who were just elected to Congress”, but (b) “they now need to stop acting like young people, okay? It’s time to do that.” We know what he meant.

Sorkin meant that Democrats have to start conveying to Middle American bumblefucks that they’re not entirely about advancing the agendas of POCs, LGBTQs and Twitter lefties, and that they don’t necessarily believe that “white person” is an epithet, and that whiteys are not necessarily evil on a genetic basis.

We’re living in such an insane, loop-dee-loop world right now that the previous half-sentence (beginning with “they” and ending with “basis”) will, in the minds of some, be taken as proof that I’m a bad person. In fact I just don’t believe in necessarily demonizing Anglo Saxons as Satan’s emissaries on earth, which is pretty much what the SJW twitter wing of the Democratic party has come to accept as a given.

“I think there’s a great opportunity here, now more than ever, for Dems to be the non-stupid party, to point out the difference,” Sorkin said. “”We [have to convey that we] haven’t forgotten the economic anxiety of the middle class, but we’re going to be smart about this. We’re not going to be mean about it.”

From “Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture,” an October 2018 Atlantic article by the Harvard-affiliated Yascha Mounk: “On social media, the country seems to divide into two neat camps: Call them the woke and the resentful.

“Team Resentment is manned — pun very much intended — by people who are predominantly older and almost exclusively white. Team Woke is young, likely to be female, and predominantly black, brown, or Asian (though white ‘allies’ do their dutiful part). These teams are roughly equal in number, and they disagree most vehemently, as well as most routinely, about the catchall known as political correctness.

“Reality is nothing like this. As scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres and Tim Dixon argue in a report published Wednesday, ‘Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,’ most Americans don’t fit into either of these camps. They also share more common ground than the daily fights on social media might suggest — including a general aversion to PC culture.”

Kamala Harris‘s presidential candidacy was announced today. I have admired her for a long, long time, principally for her confirmation hearing grillings, which have been second only to former Sen. Al Franken‘s. Harris is a tough, principled Bay Area liberal who doesn’t take any shit, and I would vote for her in a second. She’s going to make the most of her 2020 Presidential run (certainly in the primaries) and generally kick ass, and all power to her.

Harris is heavily favored by women of color, and “it’s hard to find a more important primary group than [these],” says CNN’s Harry Enten. “They are by far the most Democratic-aligned major demographic group. Women of color powered Hillary Clinton‘s sweep of the Southeast in the 2016 primary. Just last year, they were the base for Democrat Doug Jones‘s shocking victory in the Alabama special Senate election.”

But we all know the odds are against Harris. Not in the primaries, but in the general election. The bottom-line opposition portrayal will be “too flinty, too strident, too prosecutorial, too lefty California.” This impression alone will scare the living shit out of white Middle American pudgebods. Most Americans despise President Trump, but they’ll probably feel better about handing the White House over to a warmer, less p.c., more alpha-vibey candidate (Uncle Joe, Beto O’Rourke).

Harris is a clear and profound expression of where Democrats are at right now — mixed ethnic, female, humanist progressive. But she doesn’t have the organic “feelies” that O’Rourke has.

Producer Andy Vajna, the very model of a swaggering, cigar-smoking, Rolls Royce-owning, high-falutin’ producer during his ’80s and ’90s heyday, has passed at age 74. That’s kinda young to check out (was it the cigars?), but you can’t say the Hungarian-born Vajna didn’t live a full and robust life.

In a certain sense I “worked” for Vajna in ’85 as an employee of partnered publicists Bobby Zarem and Dick Delson. (We also worked for Sylvester Stallone). I was a bit surprised to learn that year that the bearded, barrel-chested Vajna, who looked like a guy in his early ’50s, was just shy of 40. He was nothing if not decisive, charming, tough, pugnacious. He was no pushover, and he never let you forget that he was Mr. King Shit.

As a distributor, producer or financier, Vajna (allied for a long period with Carolco partner Mario Kassar before starting Cinergi) enjoyed a 14-year flush period that began with First Blood in ’82 and ended with Evita in ’96. Vajna mostly made loud, high-impact audience movies, although he backed four prestige films — Evita, Jacob’s Ladder, Angel Heart and Nixon.

During the heyday Vajna produced or exec produced Rambo: First Blood Part II, Extreme Prejudice, Rambo III, Red Heat, Music Box, Total Recall, Air America,, Medicine Man, Tombstone, Renaissance Man, Color of Night, Die Hard with a Vengeance and Judge Dredd.

Here’s a tough article about Vajna and Kassar on Hungarian Spectrum.

Vajna quit Hollywood in 2010 to move back to Hungary, where “he took over the country’s moribund film industry and made Budapest a destination for international film crews.”

A 2016 USA Today story (“Big Hollywood producer reaches for the stars in Hungary”) reported that “much of the action in Hungary’s movie industry can be traced to Vajna’s influence. Vajna was claimed that “foreign film expenditures in Hungary grew from $5 million five years ago to $280 million now.” Which wasn’t an empty boast — Hungary really did bloom as a production center due to his stewardship.

Vajna and Kassar in ’82 or thereabouts, in the wake of the huge success of First Blood