Tonight I happened upon a semi-famous episode on Boris Karloff‘s Thriller called “The Cheaters.” A creepy tale about hidden faces and agendas — about magic glasses that show what people are really thinking and feeling inside. It ends with an egotistic writer putting them on and seeing a monster in a mirror, and then howling and clawing his face.

Directed by John Braham, written by Donald Sanford and based on a story of the same name by Robert Bloch (author of the original “Psycho” novel), it first aired on 12.27.60.

Life is a constant series of games — fibs, feints, dodges, mild deceptions. Is anyone ever 100% honest about anything? Yes, your pets are. And, if you’re fortunate, a close friends or two. (At least sometimes.) Otherwise you’re on your own. People are always putting a gloss on what they think and really feel. Allusions, not declarations. Maybe that’s how it should be. If you can’t say anything nice, go on Twitter.

Yesterday’s box-office tallies for Rambo: Last Blood and Ad Astra aren’t far apart. Playing on 3618 screens, Rambo earned $7,170,000 while Ad Astra, on 3460 situations, brought in $7,161,000. But on CinemaScore, Ad Astra earned a lousy B-minus vs. Rambo‘s slightly better B. Which film is better in the eyes of the Movie Godz? You have to ask?

But the most telling measure is the contrast between critic and readers reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Rambo is doing great with the hoi polloi (84% positive) but not great with critics (30%); Ad Astra is supported by four out of five critics (82%) while the public has given it a failing grade (47%).

Here are links to actual RT reader comments for Rambo vs. Ad Astra.

I’ve had my differences with a few Twitter jackals (and I’m talking about people who deserve to be chained in medieval dungeons on bread-and-water diets), but they don’t understand who I am in the eyes of Anya. I am her lover, parent and care-giver, and she’s my brilliant daughter — as smart as any Jack Russell, fickle, curious, emotionally demanding and 24/7 affectionate.

Outside of family and my marriage to Tatyana, I’ve never been in a more emotionally open, nurturing and trustworthy relationship than the one I’ve had with Anya for the last two and a half years. I’m sure Tatyana feels the same way. The three of us.

Anya was born in a Playa del Rey home in May 2017, and may she remain with us until…well, sometime in the mid 2030s. Siamese cats are extra in all kinds of ways.

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“American Dharma is certainly a story about a man who lives in a strange fantasy world. Early Christianity, John Ford movies, nationalist ideologies…an incoherent mess, in my opinion.” — — Errol Morris, director of American Dharma, an exploration of the mind and ideology of Steve Bannon, during a 2018 Toronto Film Festival q & a.

In other words, Morris is no admirer of former Trump administration svengali Steve Bannon, and so American Dharma casts significant doubt upon Bannon’s overthrow-the-deep-state, hooray-for-the-red-hats bullshit. But at the same time it does a curious thing — it presents Bannon as a half-mythical figure, a man of steel and conviction, tough-minded but thoughtful.

If you have a semi-developed brain and at least some analytical abilities, you’re going to recoil in quiet horror at what Bannon is advocating here, but at the same time you’re going to be half-impressed by the way he comes off as a cinematic figure, as a fellow who’s part of a fraternity of strong, square-jawed honey badgers (including Gregory Peck in Twelve O’Clock High, Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai) who don’t give a shit but are determined to get the job done.

Right-wingers may feel conflicted about American Dharma (as I do) but they’re not going to flat-out hate it. Because there’s something faintly (emphasis on the “f” word) attractive about the way Bannon is portrayed.

I agree almost entirely with Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 11/9, but American Dharma, troubling as it is, is a more transporting film, certainly in a visual sense.

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HE’s 8.29.19 Telluride Film Festival review, and a 9.10.19 follow-up:

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I’m sorry but I get a chalk-on-the-blackboard feeling whenever someone uses the word “amazing”. It used to be a semi-legit, non-abrasive term, but over the last decade or so it’s been used and abused and over-used by too many showbiz phonies and wannabes. Especially by actors, producers and directors when they appear on talk shows and podcasts. Especially actors. “Such an amazing experience”…an amazing performer…an amazing film.”

I’m hating “amazing” so much that I’m starting to irrationally flash hostile vibes at people who say it. I don’t hate it as much as people who throw their heads back and laugh loudly in restaurants and bars, but it’s getting up there.

I also hate hearing the words “awesome”, “incredible”, “unbelievable” and “marvelous” (the latter being an elderly person’s word for the most part).

I guess what I’m really saying is that I happen to be at a place in my life in which sycophants who routinely drop to their knees and breathlessly gush over the ecstatic wonder, drop-dead genius and rapturous super-glow of certain people they know and movies and plays they’ve seen and books they’ve read and exotic places they’ve visited…my tolerance for this kind of exuberance is getting lower and lower.

The pornography of praise is something we’re stuck with, of course, especially if you’re hanging with teens and 20somethings, but people need to use alternatives. Next time you feel the urge, go with “startling”, “crazy-good”, “meltdownish”, “throttling”, “mesmerizing”, “totally outside the box”, “bracingly different”, “a singular talent”, “fiercely original”, “exceptional”, “next-level good”, “transportational”, “levitational,” “brilliant”, “expert”, “stunning”, “genius brushstrokes”, etc. But don’t use the word “genius” alone. That’s another baddie.

Just avoid the Terrible Five for starters — amazing, awesome, incredible, unbelievable and, even on an ironic Billy Crystal basis, marvelous.

Along with everyone else, Hollywood Elsewhere attended last night’s Judy premiere at the Academy. Renee Zellweger, Rupert Goold, Jessie Buckley, Rufus Sewell and the gang. Full house, unmistakable emotional reactions, cheers and applause, great after-party.

For what it’s worth both the film and particularly Zellweger’s performance, all but locked for a Best Actress nomination, sank in a bit deeper than during my first viewing in Telluride. Not just the sadness and humor but the vigor of it. I was studying her more closely, and enjoying the flicky facial tics and raised eyebrows and hair-trigger grins all the more. RZ slams a homer!

But in all fairness and as much as Zellweger channels Garland in the final year of her life with remarkable conveyance, we all need to take a moment to remember the great Jim Bailey (1938-2015). His Garland voice, look and mannerisms were more accurate than Garland’s own. Consider the below video. The ’70s and ’80s were Bailey’s peak decades.

Roadside will open Judy on 9.27.

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I want to revel in the ongoing whistleblower story (Ukraine, Donald Trump, alleged dirt of Joe Biden, Rudy Guiliani, withholding of foreign aid). I want to jump into it like a swimming pool and go “wheee!” I want to splash around in this story like a toddler in a mud puddle. But it’s a little vague.

Trump was apparently just doing his usual ruthless gangster miasma whatever. No rules, no ethics, shoot from the hip, muscle whomever he feels like muscling. He wanted dirt on Joe Biden, which apparently had something to do with Joe Biden, Jr. Which he could use in the 2020 campaign. But the story hasn’t been phrased in a clear, concise, “talk to me like I’m an idiot” sort of way.

Trump is an animal and a criminal, but we knew that going in. And he wanted something he could use against Biden, fine. But he does this kind of dirty finagling all the time.

Summary from a friend: “Trump has been withholding $250 million in aid to the Ukraine. He told the new PM on a phone call that PM couldn’t have the money until he delivered some dirt on Biden’s son Hunter, who’s had some business there.”

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Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson “loved” Ad Astra? You can’t say that. You can like Ad Astra. You can respect it. You can salute the ambition and the FX (except for the refusal of Brad Pitt‘s tears to float around his face). But you can’t say you “love” Ad Astra. Well, you can, but that’s an awfully perverse thing to say. It’s just not that kind of film…c’mon.

She also asserts that Brad Pitt‘s performance as Major Roy McBride is an Oscar-worthy thing. It might be worthy but it’s not going to register with the Gold Derby gang, trust me. Especially after Ad Astra tanks at the box-office.

I for one am….well, surprised that Sasha Stone has sided with the “whoo-hoo!” crowd on JoJo Rabbit, which she saw yesterday on the 20th Century Fox lot. This is a film, remember, that has a 53% rating on Metacritic.

Eric Kohn on Jojo Rabbit and the split between critics and the squealing throngs who gave it the Toronto People’s Choice Award: “The characters of the Nazis are not particularly meaningful…the satire with really broad charicature…consistent work from Watiti…it’s accomplished or risky but not necessarily successful….I’ll be curious to see how Jojo fares as more and more critics see it…Jojo was not a movie that all critics didn’t like…it’s divided…it’s around 50% on Metacritic…on a Bohemian Rhapsody scale of quality, Jojo Rabbit is basically Citizen Kane…I still think that [for a Holocaust comedy] it’s taking some incredibly advanced tonal swings.”

I realize that Clemency won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize at Sundance last January, but how did Alfre Woodard‘s Bernadine Williams, a death-row prison warden, get the job in the first place if she’s the emotionally conflicted type? Don’t prison bureaus usually hire flinty hard-asses for a job like this? People who aren’t inclined to entertain second thoughts as a rule?

Supervising the execution of condemned inmates is not something that most people would want to do. Or could do. Or should do.

I’ll be seeing Clemency sometimes soon, although I don’t like death-row row dramas as a rule. They creep me out. I squirmed through Dead Man Walking, and I hated The Green Mile.

Clemency is being released by Neon on 12.27.19.

Now this is dynamic reporting! Nine days ago (or on 9.10) Peter Bodganovich‘s Paper Moon (’73) was celebrated at a private event at WeHo’s San Vicente Bungalows. Bogdanovich and Paper Moon star Tatum O’Neal, now 55, attended a screening and then a q & a hosted by director David O. Russell.

The basic scheme of Paper Moon (and the basic appeal) is that Tatum’s Addie Pray is at least five times wiser, smarter and shrewder than her ostensible father, Moses Pray (Ryan O’Neal). In the facing of every situation, every challenge and every problem, Addie knows what to do and Moses…well, sometimes he has good instincts but other times she’s way ahead of him. He’s just not that bright and his junior partner is the opposite. You know Moses is a dumb-ass because it never dawns upon him that Addie is the real brains of the outfit, and that if he wanted to really clean up…aahh, forget it.

The Bible-selling clip with the widow and her five or six daughters is probably the best scene in the whole film.

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