How’s the Warner Archive Bluray of Howard Hawks‘ Thing From Another World? The four-word response is “sufficient, acceptable, no worries.” But it doesn’t deliver what I’m always hoping for, which is a Bluray “bump”.

Most of it looks as good as can be expected, I suppose — it certainly looks better than the 2005 DVD — but it didn’t blow me away. I wanted it to look as good as Warner Archives’ Out of the Past Bluray, but it doesn’t even come close to that.

I’m glad I own the Thing Bluray, but the greatest satisfaction I got from the whole package was the needle-sharp menu photo of Robert Cornthwaite, Dewey Martin, Douglas Spencer and the gang inspecting the directional stabilizer of the alien spacecraft. That’s the only image that really and truly got me off.

I’ve always been bothered by the casual cold-weather gear worn by the various Thing characters. They’re coping with brutal North Pole temps (anywhere from minus-20 to minus-50 fahrenheit) and yet they’re dressed more for standard January or February temps in Massachusetts or Maine (i.e., 20s or teens) — standard parka hoodies, overcoats, skullcaps and galoshes. For the North Pole you’d need a lot more bundling up — thermal underwear, goggles, layers upon layers of protective clothing, etc.

I’ll be seeing Clint Eastwood‘s The Mule early this evening, and I sorta kinda can’t wait. I don’t know Carmen Tse but for the sake of discussion let’s presume he/she is an actual Letterboxed person and not a plant. I love the “one of the funniest movies of the year” remark, whatever it actually means.

I love the split sensibilities of the San Diego Film Critics Society. On one hand they gave their Best Picture trophy to Debra Granik‘s Leave No Trace, but their runner-up favorite is Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book. These two films — a subdued, Hollywood-averse, tension-free indie vs. a somewhat old-fashioned, Hollywood-convention-embracing, racially-stamped buddy film — don’t just represent different filmmaking approaches but separate aesthetic continents.

The SDFCS is vigorously applauded for handing its Best Actor prize to First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke. There’s no stopping Hawke now. A sizable portion of the Gold Derby gang — mostly finger-to-the-wind sheep who wouldn’t recognize a strong aesthetic conviction if it came up and bit them in the ass — have recently caved in their months-long resistance to Hawke and are now including him in their top-five Best Actor projection rosters. SAG and Academy voters are almost sure to follow.

You know what would have been really great? As in “wow, I can’t believe they had the artistic conviction to man up and actually do this” audacious? If the furniture and clothing in Raleigh Studios’ Roma exhibit were to be presented in monochrome facsimiles. If they were to somehow recreate all the clothing in black, white and silvery gray-weave, and then artfully (and I mean very carefully) paint the furniture in silvery gray, black and white with just a touch of grain. I would be down on my knees with admiration. It would be totally next-realm magnifico.

If only Lisa Taback had come to me first and said, “Jeff? We’re about to present a Roma exhibit at Raleigh — photos, props, clothing. What can we do to give it a feeling of artistic integrity…something that would deliver a snap-crackle-pop vibe…you know, something extra-level?”

Remember my ’90s idea of manufacturing real, smokable Red Apple cigarettes? And creating a pop-up Big Kahuna burger restaurant that would allow people to literally order Big Kahuna burgers?

ROMA, in living color, on the Raleigh Studios lot pic.twitter.com/YdswDvlPkl

— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) December 10, 2018

I don’t see how any person of patience or one who appreciates real-deal authenticity can watch Roma and not think “wow.” But I’m wondering if anyone in the HE community has seen it with a nonpro. Just asking.

There’s a short film in the Jamestown Post-Journal embarassment that surfaced two days ago (Saturday,12.8). The original AP story headline: “Julia Roberts finds life (and her roles) get better with age.” Melissa McCarthy could play the editor — stressed, frazzled, over-worked. An underling mistypes the AP headline. McCarthy is initially confused, then rationalizes that “holes get better with age”…nope, doesn’t make sense, must be an error. Then one of McCarthy’s kids suffers some kind of medical emergency and she has to leave before the paper is put to bed. As she’s heading out the door she hurriedly tells an associate editor to fix the Roberts headline, but the editor mishears, thinking McCarthy has told her to “six” the headline or otherwise stand behind it.

According to a 12.5 Long Beach Press-Telegram story, the nutty-nuns-gambling-in-Las Vegas embezzlement story wasn’t as completely crazy it sounds. Former teacher Sister Lana Chang and former principal Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper pilfered the $500K over the last decade, or the sum of $50K per year. If they travelled to Vegas twice annually they spent $25K per trip; thrice annually they went through an average of $16.5K. That’s not all that exorbitant. They probably kept going back in the hope of recouping their previous losses so they could pay back the missing funds. Questions: (a) did the nuns ever come out ahead?, (b) did they ever experience a George Segal-Elliot Gould California Split finale?, (c) what were their favorite games?, (c) did either of them count cards? Adam McKay needs to direct and write; Melissa McCarthy and Michelle Yeoh as as Kreuper and Chang.

(l.) Margaret Kreuper; (r.) Lana Chang.

It means something when an LQTM type like myself laughs out loud.

Everyone presumably recalls the fat Godzilla dust-up of 2014. Director Gareth Edwards insisted that Godzilla wasn’t fat but “big-boned”…bullshit. Now the question is whether Michael Dougherty‘s fire-breathing reptile in the forthcoming Godzilla, King of the Monsters (5.31.19) will follow suit. The teaser that popped last summer didn’t suggest anything, but the new trailer makes it clear Goddy is still a fatty. In fact, he might even have put on a couple of tons since his last appearance.

The fact that Godzilla, King of the Monsters has been directed and co-written by Michael Dougherty (Trick r Treat, Krampus) should give all potential viewers pause. The Warner Bros. release is about conflict between Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and the three-headed King Ghidorah.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s BFCA Nominating Ballot…submitted over the weekend:

BEST PICTURE
1. Green Book
2. Roma
3. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
4. A Star Is Born
5. Vice

BEST ACTOR – name AND film
1. Christian Bale, Vice
2. Ethan Hawke, First Reformed
3. Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

BEST ACTRESS – name AND film
1. Melissa McCarthy, Can you Ever Forgive Me?
2. Olivia Colman, The Favourite
3. Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – name AND film
1. Mahershala Ali, Green Book
2. Richard E Grant, Can you Ever Forgive Me?
3. Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – name AND film
1. Amy Adams, Vice
2. Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
3. Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Wait…The Favourite is suddenly the most likely winner of the Best Picture Oscar?

The Critics’ Choice Awards, which in the movie realm are voted upon by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, have been the most accurate predictor of Academy Award nominations. There’s something about the non-elitist, emotional-pocket-drop BFCA mindset that seems to synch with the Academy. Remember when Spotlight was apparently losing steam in the 2015-2016 Best Picture race, and then to everyone’s surprise it won the BFCA’s Best Picture trophy? Spotlight won the Best Picture Oscar a few weeks later. I’m not saying that the Critics Choice and Oscar awards have always reflected each other, but BFCA and Academy members do seem to park their cars in the same garage.

If you go by the legend that the most nominated films tend to win the Best Picture Oscar, the fact that Fox Searchlight’s The Favourite corralled 14 Critics Choice nominations this morning — Best Picture, Best Comedy, Best Director (Yorgos Lanthimos), Olivia Colman for Best Actress and Best Actress in a Comedy, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz for Best Supporting Actress, Best Acting Ensemble, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay (Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara), Best Cinematography (Robbie Ryan), Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Hair and Makeup — suggests that The Favourite might also turn out to be the most Oscar-nominated feature, and therefore (if you go by odds and tradition) the Best Picture Oscar winner.

All I can tell you is that this hit me in the stomach when I read the Critics Choice tally last night. Because as much as I admire The Favourite and as impressed as I am by Olivia Colman‘s brilliant performance as Queen Anne (not to mention the “supporting” performances by Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone), I don’t think The Favourite is slam-dunk Best Picture material, largely because the third-act doesn’t pivot or deepen the stakes of the story, let alone maintain the tension of the first two acts.

And because I’m more of a Roma, Green Book, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, First Man and First Reformed type of guy.

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther was the second most nominated film with 12 Critics Choice nominations. Damien Chazelle’s First Man accumulated ten nominations. Adam McKay‘s Vice, Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born and Rob Marshall‘s Mary Poppins Returns tallied nine nominations each while Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma — which has seemed to many like the most esteemed and most arthouse-credentialed Best Picture contender — managed to assemble only eight nominations.

Slightly more dispiriting is the fact that Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book, seemingly the most beloved Best Picture contender (if you step outside of lefty fascist p.c.-scold circles) and easily one of the best acted and most finely crafted mainstream features of the year, ended up with only seven nominations.

Green Book is one of the year-end hotties, for sure, but a little man in my chest is saying “what’s going on here? Why are the films and performances that we know are the best of the year…why are they not faring as well as they should?”

HE approves of Ethan Hawke landing a Best Actor nomination for his First Reformed performance; ditto Paul Schrader for his Best Original Screenplay nomination. But the film itself should have been Best Picture nominated; ditto Alexander Dynan‘s 1.37:1 cinematography.

I’m seriously offended by the BFCA not having nominated Marielle Heller‘s Can You Ever Forgive Me? as Best Picture, or Heller for Best Director. At least they nominated Melissa McCarthy for Best Actress and Richard E. Grant for Best Supporting Actor, as they should have.

Viola Davis should have definitely been nominated for her lead performance in Steve McQueen’s Widows, but she wasn’t.

You can sense a riveting, well-textured quality in J.C. Chandor‘s Triple Frontier (Netflix). And an atmosphere of grit and sweat and heavy tropical air. A “rob the drug lords” plot may suggest the realm of an elevated programmer, but it feels like the first really exciting ride of 2019.

J.C. Chandor (All Is Lost, A Most Violent Year) is a first-rate director, and the Mark Boal script, which dates back to ’09, is tense and tightly constructed., or so I recall. Chandor has a co-writing credit. Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund. I want to see this in a theatre. It feels formidable.

Eight years ago Tom Hanks signed to do an earlier version of Triple Frontier under director Kathryn Bigelow. Johnny Depp was also attached or at least interested. There was talk at the time of changing the title to Sleeping Dogs. In late ’12 it was reported that Bigelow and Boal had put the project aside. Hanks would have played Affleck’s role.