For what it’s worth (probably not much), I agree with Michelle Wolf that the recent decision by the White House Correspondents’ Association to not invite a comedian to next April’s event is craven and cowardly. Author Ron Chernow has been invited to be the featured speaker. The WHCA honchos are plainly sucking up to the Trump administration, and probably hoping to persuade the President, who hasn’t attended since assuming office, to drop by. Which will increase ratings and drive sales.

The family of the late William Goldman is hosting a celebration of his life a week and a half from now. In midtown Manhattan. I’m mentioning this because the invite reads “please let us know if you would like us to share this invitation with anyone else who should receive it.” Meaning that their roster of Bill’s soulmates, respected colleagues and fond acquaintances is less than complete. If you and he had some kind of profound give-and-take at one point or another, write me and I’ll pass your information along.

Late last night Paul Schrader described the traditional role of the U.S. President as a “global puncher…we make things happen.” His follow-up was “what happens when an insecure someone who sees himself as a counter-puncher rather then a puncher is put in this position?”

In response Jon Jost wrote that the U.S. role “has been that of empire builder, extortionist and military monster getting its way. After WW2 we were left standing while everyone else was wasted, so we rigged the global economy to run on U.S. [spending and investments], and enjoyed military dominance. Ever since we have used economic blackmail backed with military force to get our way, which seldom was in the locals’ interest, although we had a major propaganda system (including Hollywood) to convince the world that we wore the white hat.

“In reality we were just plain greedy and evil, and a survey of, oh, Central America, South America, Africa and much of Asia proves the point. We are rapists and murderers.”

Edward Havens reply: “So no other civilization in the history world ever conquered the known world and used their power to get their way? America simply perfected what Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Genghis Khan and King James I could only dream of doing. And like every other empire, the American empire will fall…if the descent hasn’t started already.”

Don McLaren reply: “As diabolical as the U.S. has been at times, we were still probably the most benevolent hegemon in history.”

I’ve long felt that people who use exclamation points in any context (letters, essays, reviews, policy statements) are to be regarded askance. Exclamation points should be used very sparingly, if at all. Their prominent use tends to indicate a lack of education and refinement. The only time it’s cool to use exclamation points is when you’re leaving post-it notes for your spouse or kids or cohabitants, telling them not to forget this or that (“gas up before leaving!”) or not to eat this or that. A post-it note on a carton of eggs, for instance, that you don’t want them to break open and scramble because you bought them and they’re yours — “No!”

…there’s really and truly something wrong with you. As in deficient, arrested, underdeveloped. This will be the last mention of Aquaman on this site.

I hate to admit this, but I’m not so sure that President Obama, if he was currently serving, would jettison the alleged $400 billion in Saudi revenue on moral grounds, based on the CIA’s belief that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, ordered the murder of Jamal Kashoggi.

Obama would of course talk a different game in public. He would condemn the Saudis with righteous indignation, as any decent head of state would. He would certainly rattle his moral sabre. But I’m not sure that he would reject Saudi investments and/or diplomatically cut ties, certainly in a back-channel sense.

Kay Adams: “Michael, Senators don’t have people killed!” Michael Corleone: “Really? Now who’s being naive, Kay?”

.@Acosta: ”Are you letting the Saudis get away with murder, murdering a journalist?"

President Trump: “No. This is about America First. They’re paying us $400 billion plus to purchase and invest in our country.” https://t.co/fCTCd1cFyV pic.twitter.com/O9URVX1HkW

— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) November 20, 2018

Big-time, been-around director to HE (received yesterday): “Green Book — hard to beat. And Bohemian Rhapsody severely underrated by critics.”

So Steve McQueen’s Widows underperformed last weekend. On 11.15 The Hollywood Reporter‘s Pamela McClintock wrote that Widows was “tracking to bring in between $12 million and $18 million in its domestic launch.” It wound up making $12.3 million in 2803 theatres for a per-screen average of $4388, or something close to that. If it earns triple that amount in domestic theatres it’ll wind up with $37 million and change. It cost $42 million to make, not to mention the marketing.

I’ve said a few times that Widows is one of the best heist films I’ve ever seen and that Viola Davis delivers an award-calibre performance. But those numbers are disappointing. Who saw it last weekend, and what was the takeaway?

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy and I spoke for roughly an hour earlier today. Otto Bathurst‘s Robin Hood. (That’s what we’re talking about as the mp3 begins.) The attack upon poor Green Book by p.c. assassins (i.e., “How dare Peter Farrelly make a compassionate, racially-themed period film about a road saga that actually happened! He’s allowed to make racial-commentary films that reflect the politically correct current of 2018, and that’s all! 1962 is out!”). We also discussed the death of Steve McQueen‘s Widows, the views about Netflix and Roma, Ben Stiller‘s Escape at Dannemora, the Best Actress race (Ruimy thinks it’s basically Lady Gaga vs. Glenn Close) and Melissa McCarthy in particular. Again, the mp3.

In an 11.19 Criterion essay on Some Like It Hot, Sam Wasson writes that director-cowriter Billy Wilder had relatively simple things on his mind. “[He] thought cross-dressing was funny. He thought Americans, dizzy in the rat race, were funny.” Like when Tony Curtis says to Jack Lemmon, “You’re a guy, and why would a guy want to marry a guy? and Lemmon answers “Security.”

“That’s Wilder capitalism speaking,” says Wasson. “Not love or lust or even man or woman.”

But then Wasson screws up. “Some Like It Hot isn’t Tootsie,” he declares. “It’s not interested in how the experience of being a woman can make men better men.” Nope — exactly wrong.

Curtis’s Joe is a rake and a cad — a “love ’em and leave ’em” type, a nookie hound, literally the kind of guy who might borrow money from a girlfriend in order to bet on horses.

Then, dressed as “Josephine”, he meets Marilyn Monroe‘s Sugar Kowalczyk on the train, and she tells him about her run of bad boyfriends, and how one threw cole slaw in her face and left her with a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste.

Undaunted, a couple of days later Joe cons Sugar into falling for him by pretending to be an oil millionaire (i.e., “Junior”). Another notch on the bedpost.

But when Joe and Jack Lemmon‘s Jerry are forced to lam it (Spats Columbo!), Joe feels badly about lowering the boom. He gives Sugar the diamond bracelet that Joe E. Browne‘s Osgood had given to “Daphne.” A couple of hours later Joe (dressed as Josephine) sees Sugar singing “I’m Through With Love” on the bandstand, and the guilt sinks in. Wilder’s camera holds a very long shot of Curtis feeling quite badly about breaking Sugar’s heart. So badly that he risks his life by walking up on stage and kissing her goodbye.

Saxophone Joe would’ve never risked his neck for a dame, but “Josephine” does. After playing the field and treating women like shit he’s seen “how the other half lives,” and becomes, you’d better believe, a better man for that.

HE to Wasson: Sydney Pollack got the above-referenced idea for Tootsie from Some Like It Hot.

In The Front Runner, Hugh Jackman‘s Gary Hart is a smart, decent, amiable politician whose life suddenly blows up. He gets walloped by the news media over a private matter, and he just can’t believe it. He can’t accept that reporters would want to make hay over indications that he might have been intimate with someone other than his wife.

Are you shitting me? Who cares? What the hell does that have to do with being President?

Hart gets indignant — his back arches — but he gradually slumps. He turns stern and despondent, solemn and anguished. It’s painful to accept the death of a dream, but that’s what Hart was forced to do in the space of two or three days. His life and career were in tatters, and over relatively nothing. A high hard one and a willing recipient…pheh!

And Jackman takes you through this. Peak to crevasse. Don’t kid yourself — it’s one of the best performances of the year. I’ve been saying this all along.

Last night Jackman received the Kirk Douglas Award Excellence in Film award from the Santa Barbara Film Festival, or more precisely from Roger “Nick the Greek” Durling, who knows how to pick ’em. Joining in the celebration were J.K. Simmons, Front Runner director Jason Reitman and longtime friend Ben Mendelsohn.

Jackman began by saying that “the best part about this evening not being televised, [is that] there’s no music to rush me off the stage. I’m going to do everything wrong in speechmaking. This is going to be long and I’m going to thank everyone. Just warning you.”

So far Otto Bathurst‘s Robin Hood (Lionsgate, 11.21) has a 33% Metascore. The critics are sounding a warning. They’re saying “don’t see it…it’s rancid…you’ll get indigestion…see Green Book instead,” etc.

“So from the evidence it must be assumed this film has forsworn, and arguably sneered at, the sort of delight that has heretofore been associated with Robin Hood and his brethren onscreen, all the way from Douglas Fairbanks 96 years ago to Errol Flynn, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner and even Mel Brooks along with many, many others (perhaps not so much a paunchy Russell Crowe a few seasons back).

“The only way to read this kind of arrogant dismissal of past pleasures is that the current filmmakers think they know better, that kids today want something fast and furious and senseless and don’t care about the old jolly-but-musty stuff. This may be true to a certain extent, but it doesn’t prevent the public from smelling a rat when it really and truly is stinking up the joint.” — from Todd McCarthy‘s Hollywood Reporter 11.20 review.