Remember that ridiculous, two-year-old story about Brendan Fraser boycotting the 2023 Golden Globe telecast because Phillip Berk, the HFPA’s former president, had not only gently groped Fraser’s ass but may have even stuck his finger between the cheeks and attempted God knows what…remember what a wuss Fraser seemed to be after this story broke?…”I’ve been molested and it kinda made me cry” or words to that effect…what a fucking little baby.

When I was 15 or 16 I was groped on at least two separate occasions by a couple of middle-aged queers on 42nd Street. I would be walking east towards Times Square and the creepies would “accidentally” bump into me and furtively pat my schlong. You think I whined or cried about this? You think I went to the cops and reported sexual assault? No — I was Lee fucking Marvin. I just pushed on and ignored it.

Yesterday it was reported that Apprentice director Ali Abbasi had left CAA and Management 360 over his having patted or slapped the ass of an actor whom he knew and had hung out with previously. The ass-patting happened at a CAA Golden Globes after-party.

“I want to address the recent articles about me directly and openly,” Abbasi wrote on X. “I fully understand that my action made someone uncomfortable, regardless of my intent, and for that, I am truly sorry.”

“I had spent time with the person concerned on multiple occasions and had reason to think we had a friendly relationship. When I saw him at the Golden Globes party, I was excited to reconnect. I made an over-familiar gesture — a slap on the rear — which I intended as playful and not in any sexual way whatsoever. I quickly realized I had misjudged the situation. I apologized to him on the spot, and the following day I made sure my apology was reiterated through my representatives.”

Offended actor to Abassi after the Golden Globes ass-slapping: “My God, Ali…what did you just do?”

Abassi to offended actor: “Did I do something….? Jesus, calm down, man.”

Offended actor to Abassi: “‘Calm down’? Are you kidding? You’ve just destroyed your career and I’m going to be your executioner! Because you fucking patted my ass just like those gay guys patted Jeffrey Wells‘ package on 42nd Street and like Phillip Berk patted Brendan Fraser‘s ass and probably like Kevin Spacey patted Guy Pearce‘s ass on the set of L.A. Confidential, and nobody gets away with that shit! You’re a dead man!”

Abassi to offended actor: “It was a reckless, half-assed gesture of affection…God! Sorry to rile you but…wow. Did I poke my finger into your anus? No. Did I grab your cock? No. Did I cup one of your ass cheeks in my hand? No. But now I have to die? What kind of a world are we living in? What kind of a man are you?”

Offended actor to Abassi: “Good God, I’m weeping over this….can’t you see the tears streaming down my cheeks? I’m crying because emotionally I’m basically a three-year-old girl. Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo….you slapped my little baby bottom! Waaahhhhh! And you’re going to pay! Hell hath no fury like an actor whose ass has been patted by a noteworthy director. I will get you, Abassi! By the time this is over you’ll be lucky if you wind up wearing the uniform of a bloody toilet attendant.”

Variety‘s Jack Dunn: “Abbasi will still be in attendance at Saturday’s Indie Spirit Awards despite the controversy.”

If I could attend the Spirits I’d go right up to the Apprentice table and bend over next to Abassi and ask for a nice gropey ass-massage. Give it to me, Ali…take me to ass-massage heaven. And then I’d go over to the actor who complained and say, “Did you see that, ya little punk? I’ve half a mind to do the same to you, fuckhead. You really need to be bitch-slapped.”

The “Free the Menendez Brothers” wokeys believed that that alleged sexual abuse of Erik Menendez by his murdered father Jose Menendez…the wokeys and their chief advocates, former Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon along with Kim Kardashian and Monsters producer Ryan Murphy, should have changed the game.

The wokeys were basically saying the brothers probably wouldn’t have killed Jose and and their mother Kitty if Jose hadn’t severely traumatized Eric by fucking him in the ass a few times. So what the hell…let bygones be bygones and allow the boys to (heh-heh) slide, so to speak.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there”, current DA Nathan Hochman said on Thursday, 2.21. “Jose may or may not have fucked Eric in the ass,” Hochman more or less said, “but Eric and his brother Lyle still shotgunned their parents to death in 1989, plus they’re proven liars and hucksters so fuck the wokey rationale — these guys aren’t going anywhere…they’re going to stew in jail for decades to come, and the wokeys who wanted the brothers to be paroled are fucking ass-wack sickos.”

The wokeys, in short, basically believed that if you’ve been sexually abused you’re almost not guilty of murdering your abuser[s]. Or, you know, that your guilt has been mitigated by the trauma of being ass-fucked. They believed that Erik and Lyle having done 25 or 30 years in jail…well, that was enough.

…for paying off his college loan for those four years at Syracuse.

From “​The World Is There for the Carving,” a N.Y. Times discussion about the trump administration’s rogue foreign-policy initiatives featuring Patrick Healy, M. Gessen and Bret Stephens:

Stephens: “It might be premature to draw firm conclusions. But, for now, I’d say the word ‘realignment’ feels much too weak. ‘Reversal‘ comes closer to the mark. A reversal in our vision of who counts as a democrat or a dictator. A reversal in who counts as a friend or an adversary. A reversal in our approach to the domestic politics of allied states. A reversal in the overall direction of our post-World War II foreign policy, which was about supporting embattled or enfeebled allies, promoting economic liberalization, embracing democracy or at least nontotalitarian states, favoring open societies over closed ones. It’s a world turned upside down.

“Another thing: It feels that Trump is seeking to turn America into a predatory state. The casual demand that Denmark relinquish Greenland. The not-so-casual demand that Ukraine hand over much of its mineral wealth. The surly threats to Panama, whose president is as pro-American as they come. The deal to return desperate Venezuelan refugees to the socialist dictatorship from which they fled in hunger and desperation. The joking — or not — about turning Canada into a 51st state. The unilateral and unprovoked trampling of trade agreements, like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement he negotiated in his first term as a replacement for NAFTA.

“There are, in fact, spots where I find myself agreeing with the administration, particularly its tough stance on Hamas and Iran. I don’t want to lose sight of that. But on the whole, I find myself returning to the same word: nauseating. In fact, it’s actually worse: emetic.

Healy: “What you’re describing, Bret, I’ve come to think of as a new Trump doctrine: coercive conquest. And what’s extraordinary is that we now have a president of the United States who subscribes to the same worldview of coercive conquest as the president of Russia. Are you surprised that Trump is going in this predatory direction?

Stephens: “Surprised? The reason I voted for Kamala Harris, despite my millions of reservations about her competence and ideas, is that I feared something like this. Still, it is breathtaking to experience these policy shifts in real time. Also astonishing, in that some of these positions will be politically ruinous for Trump if he really follows through with them. If, for instance, Zelensky is deposed and a Russian puppet government in the mold of Belarus is somehow installed in Kyiv, it will be as politically disastrous for Trump as the swift fall of Kabul was for Joe Biden. To use Trump’s preferred epithet, it will look very weak.

M. Gessen: “Putin has been saying for years, in many different ways, that what he really wants — and feels he deserves — is to return to 1945, when the leaders of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. and Britain sat down in Yalta and carved up Europe. This idea is fundamental to Putin’s understanding of the world as it should be. He feels that Russia was cheated out of what it had won, fair and square, both in terms of land and in terms of influence. The war he unleashed in Ukraine was — and he made this explicit — had as its goal the recapture of power and land in accordance with this vision.

“So it’s not about Ukraine, has never been about Ukraine. And what he is proposing to Trump as they start talking — we are seeing this in the readouts of their first, 1.5-hour phone conversation and in the hypercharged tweets of Aleksandr Dugin, Putin’s favorite so-called intellectual — is to sit down and carve up the world.”

The Demi Moore Best Actress bandwagon was slowing down anyway (partially due to my own takedown riffs as well as the eloquent Jennifer Sey), but it stopped dead when Anora‘s Mikey Madison won the Best Actress award at the BAFTAs.

People have seen through the phony-baloney “Moore had to sublimate her artistic ambitions” narrative, and now Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and The Contending‘s Clarence Moye and Mark Johnson are agreeing that Madison has the scent of a winner.

Madison! Mikey Madison! Old Academy males always vote for the hotties! Maddy isn’t 100% locked but as HAL said when Dave Bowman was disconnecting his brain, “I can feel it…I can feel it.”

Moore might win anyway, I realize, as the same older-women crowd that voted for Jamie Lee Curtis‘s atrociously broad performance in EEAAO…they’re also in Moore’s corner. No accounting for taste.

@bobbydotube Substance starring Demi Moore possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life! It made absolutely no sense whats so ever! Waste of money and time on top of that? Nobody knew who Debbie Moore was and after this movie, I wish I didn’t know her either you should be ashamed of yourself, Demi Moore.! ##substance##demimoore##worstmovieever ♬ original sound – Bobby DoTube

At the John Golden Theatre (52 W 45th St., New York, NY 10036) on 3.25.84. And it was opening night as all the big-gun critics were there (including Frank Rich). The voltage in the room seemed to augment the play’s impact. I was in heaven.

Directed by Gregory Mosher, and starring Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum, Robert Prosky, Lane Smith, James Tolkan, Jack Wallace and J. T. Walsh. And it was beautiful, brilliant, electifying, mesmerizing, historic.

Particularly Mantegna as Rick Roma — he owned that role the way Marlon Brando owned Stanley Kowalski and Humphrey Bogart owned Duke Mantee.

And the Alec Baldwin character wasn’t even in it…no Cadillac Eldorado, no set of steak knives as a second prize, no “third prize is you’re fired”….none of that.

I’m flirting with trying to see the new limited-run version with Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr. I know it can’t measure up to the original but maybe. I’ll play it by ear.

Joe Mantegna to N.Y.Times: “I’m reading this script — about leads and all this stuff — I didn’t know what the hell Mamet was even talking about. But the guy’s name is Ricky Roma. My name’s Joe Mantegna. He’s an Italian-American. He’s from Chicago. I certainly knew hustlers. I just had to fill in the blanks. When I walked on that stage, my feeling was: I am that matador. And I’m gonna kill every bull that comes into the arena.”

Originally posted on 8.12.10, or just shy of 15 years ago: “Eat Pray Love is less about the Elizabeth Gilbert book than about director Ryan Murphy being Julia Roberts‘ bitch and kissing her ass in ever shot and scene — okay, yes.

“But it’s a carefully crafted, nicely-made movie that at least aspires to some kind of character-based transcendence. It only works in spots, agreed, but the ambition alone contains a certain value. I’m giving it a C for overall delivery but an A- for effort.

“Speaking as a former LSD Hindu, it’s impossible for me to condemn a movie that tries to convey spiritual matters on some level or in some fashion. It also deserves credit for its conveying the simple enjoyment of things, and its grappling with how difficult it can be to forgive yourself for stupid mistakes and to show vulnerability and openness when faced with the possibility of a bountiful new relationship, and all that jazz.

“Does it feel nonetheless like a somewhat superficial Conde Naste Traveller thing, a taste of this and that spiritual hors d’oeuvre? Yeah, it pretty much does. But it’s reaching for more than what typical formulaic chick flicks provide. At least it’s making a stab.

“I didn’t ‘like’ a lot of Eat Pray Love, and I confess to checking my watch about six or seven times, but I at least respect what it tried to do, and I know that anyone who says it doesn’t handle at least some things fairly well is just not being fair.

“You can make fun of the fact that EPL has the general look, aroma, sound and vibe of a first-class ride made by the Ryan Murphy’s and Amy Pascal‘s of the world — people who live high on the hog and who have enlightened liberal attitudes about self-discovery. You can say that’s not enough and that the film is actually selling a kind of elitist elixir, but the song choices are nice (Neil Young!) and some of the dissolves and transitions are exceptional, and it has at least one exquisite scene about the eating of a sublime dish of fresh tomato pasta.

“And it has a great line about how guys never complain that much if the naked lady they’re making love to has a bit of a paunch.

Eat Pray Love can be a bothersome thing to sit through in certain…okay, more than a few ways. It’s tidy, shallow and ‘pretty’ when it needs to be darker and quirkier and more exposing in terms of the unsavory or unappealing qualities that we all share. But it’s well cut and luminous and even shimmering at times, and — even the haters have to admit this — very well performed for the most part.

“As much as I dislike who Roberts seems to be and my problems over the years with her affected acting style, she isn’t half bad in the Gilbert role. This may be the most genuine and deeply felt performance of her life. God, it almost physically hurt to say that!

“As Roberts’ settled-down romantic interest (i.e., once she arrives in Bali), Javier Bardem stands and shuffles around on rock-solid terra firma, and shows serious heart and vulnerability. In one fell stroke he’s completely counter-balanced his No Country for Old Men bad guy.

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One of the reasons Evita works as well as it does (in my book it’s a great movie musical) is the editing, which really follows and fortifies the music. The late Gerry Hambling (1926-2013), a longtime collaborator with director Alan Parker, understands the cadence and discipline that goes into good cutting. Apply the Parker-Hambling aesthetic to the cinematography by Darius Khondji, and the result is just about perfect.

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From David Rooney’s THR Berlinale review of Michel Franco‘s Dreams, which costars Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández:

“Franco’s story could easily have been the skeleton for a lurid erotic thriller about a possessive rich American woman claiming ownership of a Mexican boy toy a decade or more younger than her. But the director and his actors play it with neither sensationalism nor melodrama. Instead, it’s a laser-focused study of the shifting calibrations in an uneven power dynamic, in which Jennifer is unwilling to concede the upper hand, ultimately becoming ruthless when the tables are turned.

“When Fernando’s talent gets him a foot in the door at the prestigious San Francisco Ballet without her help, she’s rankled. Though not so much that she doesn’t resume the relationship and set him up as a teacher at the new studio. The desire between them is palpable when he returns to her home and is welcomed back with a steamy session on the stairs. But when first Jake and then her father figure out what’s going on, Jennifer takes steps to protect her position in both the family and the well-heeled arts community.

“The strict boundaries put in place by wealthy benefactors are evident in Michael’s cautionary chat with his daughter, carefully worded to address what he views as a distasteful situation: ‘I’m happy that you help immigrants. But there are limits. You know what I’m trying to say.’

“Dramatic events abruptly end Fernando’s ascent at SFB, landing him back in Mexico City, where a still intoxicated Jennifer soon follows. But the harmony between them is broken, notably after an eye-opening revelation that prompts Fernando to take drastic steps. That in turn leads to decisive retaliation from Jennifer, who does not respond well to humiliation.

“The escalating tension of that final act is as shocking and violent and viciously cold as anything in Franco’s filmography, which has seldom shied away from stark depictions of human cruelty — whether intimate in scale, like After Lucia, or encompassing explosive societal conflict, like New Order.

“As terrific as Chastain was in Memory, she’s arguably even better here playing a manipulative woman whose passion for Fernando is genuine — unbridled on the physical side and probably even sincere on a deeper emotional level, albeit with guardrails in place. It’s easy to see why the actress was eager to work with Franco again.

“She makes Jennifer’s impulsive final decision as startling as an execution sentence, though it strikes a blow that will cause more lasting pain. Her cut-glass cheekbones could draw blood.

“As an embodiment of a white person cushioned by money and privilege putting an upstart in his place, she’s chilling, even if she’s clearly also hurting herself.”

Other than the usual financial incentives, there’s one and only one reason to keep making semi-traditional James Bond films. That motive would be to trumpet a message of rogue defiance to the wokeys and woke go-alongers (Tomris Laffly, Justin Chang, Kathy Kennedy, Chalamet-like girlymen) that good old Bond shit — macho exceptionalism, subtle arrogance, shades of impudence and homicidal dispatch when necessary — still counts or matters on some level, at least in a nostalgic sense.

Do audiences of the mid 2020s have an active interest in seeing more Bond flicks? Good question.

25 Bondies have been released since 1962’s Dr. No. I happen to feel that Dr. No and From Russia With Love are still the best of the bunch — certainly the most freewheeling and least encumbered with the terrible burden of fortifying a major franchise. I regard the Daniel Craig Bonds as better than decent, but I’ve generally preferred the Mission: Impossible films overall. I wouldn’t be hugely distraught if the 007 franchise just gave it up and shut the fuck down. I’m not invested. I don’t really care anymore.

But if more Bond films are going to be made, as Amazon is apparently intending to do in the wake of having booted longtime Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson off the bus with a lavish “go away” payment, they should be made with conviction and honest cynicism and maybe even a touch of reverence. No more apologies or equivocations. Own the Bond mythology like Mel Gibson owns Jesus of Nazareth.

This is highly unlikely, of course, with Amazon honcho Jennifer Salke, a feminist wokey who’s no fan of 007 (she is believed to have been the voice behind an incendiary quote — “I don’t think James Bond is a hero” — in a 12.19.24 Wall Street Journal article) and has allegedly not even seen any pre-Daniel Craig Bond films

It was announced earlier today that Amazon MGM Studios will gain creative control of the James Bond franchise, while Wilson and Broccoli will remain co-owners of the 60-year-old property.”

Eric Schwartzel and Jessica Toonkel‘s Wall Street Journal piece reported two months ago that a lack of movement on greenlighting a new Bond film had been caused by an “ideological split” between Salke on one side and Broccoli and Wilson on the other. I called it a “feminist wokey vs. semi-traditionalist Mexican standoff.”

Here’s what happened in the aftermath of that WSJ piece, says a guy wih an ear to the ground:

“Salke is an idiot, and she basically got herself into hot water over this having become a public spat. Her boss Jeff Bezos is a Bond junkie, however, and to get things moving he paid off Broccoli and Wilson with all the money in the world. Salke still gets to call the shots, but she’s bracketed by film pros and under more scrutiny from Bezos.”

Daily Mail, 12.20.24: “Broccoli has told friends that the people at Amazon are ‘fucking idiots.’ Salke is “reportedly demanding ideas for new Bond movies, although Broccoli has seemingly no interest in making them with the studio.”

Broccoli has told telling colleagues she doesn’t trust “temporary people to make permanent decisions”, according to Schwartzel and Toonkel.

For the last two days I’ve been preparing for an unpleasant invasive procedure that I’m not going to describe. The 24-hours-before prep is awful. I don’t want to think about it, but the bitter-licorice-tasting liquid you have to drink is nauseating.

The procedure happened today around noon. I was out for 90 or 100 minutes, and the after-effect of the knock-out sedative is still with me, like a Percocet blanket. When I returned home at 2:30 pm, I just flopped and dropped off.

Plus for the last three or four days I’ve been coping with a cough, sneezing and a runny nose. My voice is significantly deeper and more nasally as we speak. I wish I could sound like this all the time. I almost sound like Lee Marvin in The Professionals.

My health, in short, is at a low ebb, although I did receive good news from the attending physician. Don’t ask.

In Tomris Laffly’s mind, Kevin Spacey should once again be hunted down by villagers and peppered with woke buckshot…condemned, hoisted, lashed and repeatedly dunked in a lake for longer and longer periods until he, like, drowns.

If Curtis Hanson had cast me as Detective Ed Exley in L.A. Confidential, and if, during filming, Kevin Spacey (i.e., Detective Jack Vincennes) had fallen into the habit of patting my ass or whatever, I would have eventually taken him aside, looked him in the eye and said in a friendly, no-big-deal way…

“Look, Kevin…you need to let this go…nobody’s offended and we’re both cool but, you know, you aren’t going to wind up fucking me in the ass. I’m an adult and so are you but stop with the discreet overtures, okay? I’m into fucking girls in the ass, kapeesh? You can handle it, bro. Just pounce on some other dude.”

And if I had paid Spacey a visit in Savannah while he was shooting Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a few months later, I would have re-explained things.

HE to Spacey: “I know it seems weird that I’m here in Savannah after I told you point blank that I’m not going to be your Crisco bitch, but the same deal still applies. No bending over and squealing like a pig, and I’m saying this as one who was approached at age 18 in the West Village by a 30something guy in a jacket and tie and asked ‘have you ever had your ass sucked?’ I said ‘no thanks’ then and I’m saying it again now. And it’s not a problem.”

Laffly, deep down, pines for the Joe Biden era of instant cancellation and sending offenders straight to the guillotine. Five years (‘19 through ‘23) that sent jolts of fear through the systems of arrogant conquistadors all over…she would have that time again.