…are not necessarily tragedies. They become tragedies only when the warning signs are ignored and reality checks are strenuously avoided.

To go by a just-posted Variety story (“Tiffany Haddish Bombs on New Year’s Eve, Fans Walk Out of Comedy Show”) and a recently-posted Instagram video, Tiffany Haddish may have to take certain steps (perhaps as many as 12 of them) in order to straighten things out. Maybe. Seems that way. Ciroc vodka, etc.

michfonte@luislucien: “It was horrible. She came out at 11, she was obviously wasted and just couldn’t put it together. It was honestly obvious she was unprepared and then she has the audacity to say that this won’t happen again, [and] that she’ll be prepared next time. How about this time?”

Yesterday seven Indiewire contributors riffed on twenty 2019 films that may, in some cases, excite woke-ish or avant-garde sensibilities…who knows?

In alphabetical order: James Gray‘s Ad Astra, Harmony Korine‘s Beach Bum, Mia Hansen Love‘s Bergman Island, Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Taika Waititi‘s Jojo Rabbit, Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out, Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted, Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse, Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women, Noah Hawley‘s Lucy in the Sky, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite, Melina Matsoukas‘ Queen & Slim, Josephine Decker‘s Shirley, Kore-eda Hirokazu‘s The Truth, Benny & Josh Safdie‘s Uncut Gems, Jordan Peele‘s Us, Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy and Janicza Bravo‘s Zola.

Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

Around 9 am this morning Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn posted an analysis piece titled “Audiences Aren’t Getting Dumber, They’re Just Overwhelmed.” No offense to Eric, but I found a comment thread riff by a guy named “Jasper” (a nom de plume inspired by Chinatown‘s “Jasper Lamar Crabb“?) to be slightly more interesting.

“We’re living in oversaturated media times and it will only get worse, because everybody will [eventually] be a filmmaker, a studio and a distributor at the same time. All technology is going into this direction. Moving images will eventually be an ‘extension of man’ that Marshall McLuhan didn’t dare to dream of.

“Entertainment will always matter because life is actually pretty boring: Children are boring, jobs are boring, everything will bore you after a while…even sex. But cinema never gets boring, because it constantly re-invents itself and is open for new content.

“Moving Images are also a technique of creating ‘proof’ and to communicate your experience. For example take a look at “Camino-One feature length selfie” (2019).

“To see films on smartphones is okay if the films were made for smartphones to begin with. There are other films, of course, that were not intended to be seen this way. Perhaps they could carry a warning’ at the beginning or a ‘plan’ how to watch and show them?

“First Reformed should definitely be seen in a dark, big cinema full of people, otherwise it probably doesn’t work as intended.”

HE to Jasper Lamar Crabb: Good movies are about real life with the boring parts removed. Your job may be boring (sorry if that’s the case) but writing never is. Plus I’ve never found young kids to be boring. You know what’s vaguely boring? That short hiking film that you linked to.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s smackdown essay about Barack Obama‘s Best of 2018 roster (“What Barack Obama’s Year-End Movie List Reveals About Him“):

Excerpt #1: “I found it dispiriting — an example of caution masquerading as daring. The critically approved good taste that Obama displays in his list of favorite films is so impeccable that I kept combing through the list in search of a flaw in the diamond, a micro-glimmer of vulgarity or surprise, or just something a little offbeat, a dollop of idiosyncrasy that might tell us a bit more about who Barack Obama is, apart from someone with a platonically perfect record of movie fanship.”

Excerpt #2: “His taste in movies is so good that it’s too good for its own good.”

Excerpt #3: “It’s a bit strange to peruse Obama’s list for a glimpse of what’s inside his heart and mind, only to be confronted by the hive mind of the cinephile-industrial complex. Maybe that’s just who he is, but if you accept the list as Obama’s own, what it reveals about him is that he’s a man who instinctively focus groups his own taste to within an inch of its life.”

Excerpt #4: “Obama entitled his list ‘My favorite movies of 2018,’ but did he choose the movies he loved or did he get with the program? The most telling thing about his list is that there may be no difference.”

Posted on HE, 12.28.18: “Barack Obama‘s list of his favorite 2018 films reflect his sophisticated-cineaste sense of taste (he knows the turf) and eye for quality. It’s a list that Eric Kohn, Alison Willmore, Justin Chang or any scholastically correct, Sight and Sound-approved critic might have assembled.

“And yet I’m sensing that Obama chose these films very carefully, which is to say with a partial eye toward what the cool kidz on Twitter (i.e., the SJWs, the woke fascists) might say. Which is to say his list doesn’t seem entirely, real-deal honest.

“Obama’s list is partly ‘this is who I am’ and partly ‘these are the films that I know are the most critically approved and therefore the safest for me to include.'”

On this, the first day of 2019, a reminder that in choosing the best of the year and especially Best Picture, Academy and guild members are obliged to vote according to four criteria or lines of thought — (a) honoring unfettered quality, (b) voting in solidarity with megaplex ticket-buyers, (c) serving or following the industry’s woke political agenda, or (d) voting in order to tell the politically correct, beaver-hat-wearing lefty commissars to shove it for the sheer pleasure of saying that.

One, Academy and guild members can vote for the best or boldest or most affecting artistic achievement, which in today’s context would be Roma — let’s be honest. Or Cold War, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Favourite, Vice or Green Book. Or, if you’re into the slavish Wong Kar Wai tribute aesthetic, If Beale Street Could Talk.

Two, they can vote for popcorn-with-extra-butter megaplex movies, or films that have simply connected with the peon class (which Hollywood Elsewhere understands and feels a certain bond with) — A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book and BlacKkKlansman (partly a serious drama about America’s racial past but primarily a popcorn movie about a police caper).

Three, they can vote for films that embody or reflect upon Hollywood’s political-social merit badge mentality, and which also reflect favorably on the voters’ own socially progressive convictions. The recipients of these films would be Black Panther (which is also the only film in contention that qualifies as a Hollywood historical benchmark breakout flick, and is also a worldwide hit), If Beale Street Could Talk and BlacKkKlansman.

And four, they can rally behind Green Book as a protest vote against the lefty woke thought-police scolds who, outside of the entirely necessary and long-time-coming movement to push back against sexual predators as well as discrimination in all its forms, are trying to muscle everyone and push them around and tell them how to think and talk and in so doing are generally ushering in a climate of politically correct terror that is beginning to rival the ’50s Commie-witch-hunt days and has already summoned parallels to the French terror of the late 1700s,…the idea is to take the “woke” criticism of Green Book and turn the tables by telling those Stalinist goose-stepping SJW assholes to sorta kinda GO FUCK THEMSELVES. In a polite, jovial, fraternal way, of course.

Los Angeles is easily the dullest, most lackluster city in the world for celebrating New Year’s Eve. Give me Paris, Moscow….even New York City in the rain.

Late Sunday afternoon: Drove northwest on Los Felix Blvd., took left on Catalina Street, parked the car at the corner of Catalina and Glencairn, hiked up to the top of the neighborhood and then onto the path to the Griffith Park Observatory. Spent 15 minutes looking at the view, taking pics, etc. Too crowded, too many commoners. And then back down the trail.

Offering a hearty Hollywood Elsewhere thanks to everyone who gave their support this year (spirited reader opinion, general visitorship, HE-plus, etc.). Plus all the words of support regarding the Sundance ’19 blacklisting by the p.c. comintern. Hoping that most of you will enjoy a healthy, prosperous, generally happy 2019; hoping also that good luck and good fortune will smile upon many of you from time to time. Here are some images that have stirred the soup in years past:

Forming an “exploratory committee” that will seek to determine or fortify what? We all know Senator Elizabeth Warren is running for president in 2020 so why doesn’t she just say “yeah, you’re right, I am”?

I love Warren’s progressive compassionate agenda but (a) I still resent her decision not to run against Hillary “my favorite all-time film is Casablanca” Clinton in ’16 — if she’d beaten Hillary in the primaries (Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have run if Warren had jumped in) we probably wouldn’t have President Trump now, and (b) I’m honestly worried about whether she’s scrappy and two-fisted enough to run against El Cheeto, who will campaign day in and day out on “Pocahantas, Pocahantas, Pocahantas.” Plus I’m concerned about her ability to win over rural independent-minded pudgebods. Plus she’s a boomer, and I think the anti-Trump majority generally wants someone younger — heir apparent Beto O’Rourke or maybe Kamala Harris.

Every person in America should be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules, & take care of themselves & the people they love. That’s what I’m fighting for, & that’s why I’m launching an exploratory committee for president. I need you with me: https://t.co/BNl2I1m8OX pic.twitter.com/uXXtp94EvY

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) December 31, 2018

Three days ago Bill Wyman posted a homicidal hypothetical on Facebook: “If you could murder one fictional character (a character, not the author or actor in quick and painless fashion, who would it be?”

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

From HE reader “Melendey”: I have an advanced copy of the new “Sopranos Sessions” book (out January 8th) written by Matt Seitz and Alan Sepinwall. It includes an extensive interview with series creator David Chase, who accidentally lets it slip that Tony dies and even curses at Alan and Matt for making him cough this up.

Chase is asked when he first thought about how he was going to end the show:

Chase: “I think I had that death scene around two years before the end. I remember talking with Mitch Burgess about it, but it was slightly different. Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan and it was going to black there, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting. But we didn’t do that.”

Matt Seitz: “You realize you just referred to that as a death scene?” [a long pause follows]

Chase: “Fuck you guys” [Matt and Alan explode with laughter after a moment Chase joins in for a good thirty seconds]. But I changed my mind over time. I didn’t want to do a straight death scene. I didn’t want you to feel like ‘Oh, he’s meeting with Johnny Sack and he’s going to get killed.'”

From “Tony Soprano Still Dead,” posted on 8.27.14: “Tony Soprano sleeps with the fishes. He took one in the right temple and probably two more in the back of the head. He was clipped by that Italian-looking guy in that Members Only jacket…you know, that guy who was eyeballing him and then went into the bathroom and then came out. Thunk! Thunk, thunk!

“The cut to black was Tony’s abrupt loss of consciousness as the bullets slammed into his head. In my humble view Chase’s strategy would have worked better if he’d used a Tony-POV shot of Meadow entering the restaurant before the cut-to-black. Carmela freaked and screamed; Anthony, Jr. probably tried some kind of tough-guy shit which the Members Only guy…who knows, maybe he clipped Anthony also. Then he went out the back exit. That’s what happened, trust me.”