Most film sites point to general audience enthusiasm (vigorous box-office, social-media mentions, what their friends are tweeting) and say “wow, isn’t this great? Let’s talk about this, get into it…commercial success is such a joyous and fascinating thing! And it brings a little money into our own pockets if we show the right kind of enthusiasm.”

Other sites say “okay but wait…this or that film isn’t very good…in fact it’s mostly a drag so who cares if the popcorn inhalers are paying to see it in sizable numbers? They’re lemmings, pigs at the trough, no taste.” Or “this film is so well done, so on-the-stick, so world-class….why is it limping along at the box-office?”

Same thing with Oscar prognostication. Four years ago I did a couple of podcast threesomes with Sasha Stone and Awards Watch‘s Eric Anderson, and Anderson had this pet theme that he kept repeating over and over, to wit: THEY (the Gold Derby and Gurus of Gold know-it-alls plus his own Awards Watch community) like this movie for Best Picture or this actor for Best Actress or whatever, and so the odds favor a win.

And I would say from time to time, “Okay, but this alleged Best Picture favorite isn’t very good or is actually pretty bad…why are we pointing out over and over that it’s highly ranked by the usual suspects, the award-season sheep? All they know is which way the wind is blowing. Except their sense of wind direction is nothing more sage than that of a local TV news weather guy. Yappity-yap-yap-yap-yappy.”

Anderson finally got sick of me and excused himself from all podcasts that I was part of, but I was right then and I’m right now. Listening to the go-alongs will sap your soul.

The thing to listen to now as we head into Halloween are the societal undercurrents and profound cultural weather patterns. “Popularity” among the baah-ing critics, prognosticators, guild and Academy members has obviously been a deciding factor in many if not most races, but never forget those surprising turnarounds. Never forget the Roman Polanski and Ronald Harwood Pianist wins and the look of quiet smiling terror on the face of Harvey Weinstein when it seemed as if the Best Picture Oscar for Chicago might not happen after all.

And never forget the gulf between Manohla Dargis’ rave review of A Star Is Born and last night ‘s tweet by Jonathan Katz.

Yesterday I was once again taken to task about having left a film before it was over — around the 90-minute mark. When I’m in terrible pain that’s about how long I last. I usually know I’m going to hate a film five or ten minutes in, and so I endure about 80 minutes worth before I can’t stand it any longer. Here’s a rationale that I posted early this morning:

“My impressions of the first 90 minutes of any film count for quite a lot. Name me one universally praised film in which the general richness of appeal and absorption levels (narrative, stylistic, thematic) aren’t 100% obvious during the first 90 minutes. At the 90-minute mark of a first-rate film you’re always saying ‘this is really good…please let me stay until the finish…in fact I never want it to end.’ With a gnarly, punishing film you’re looking at your watch every 10 or 15 and forcing yourself to tough it out, or you’re saying to yourself, ‘This is agony, life is short, I’m bailing.’ That’s the difference.”

23 years ago I was sitting right next to Jack Nicholson when he bailed on Showgirls, so don’t tell me.

Exactly two months before I had that 12.8.15 chat with Kurt Russell during a Hateful Eight junket, I experienced a “yes!” moment with a 10.5 Salon piece about guns by Amanda Marcotte. It contained one of the cleanest and most concise explanations of why the right is so adamant about the holiness of guns (i.e., refusing to regulate their use like the government regulates cars and drivers):

“Conservatives aren’t lying when they say they need guns to feel protected. But it’s increasingly clear that they aren’t seeking protection from crime or even from the mythical jackbooted government goons come to kick in your door. No, the real threat is existential. Guns are a totemic shield against the fear that they are losing dominance as the country becomes more liberal and diverse and, well, modern.” (“Diverse’, of course, being a code word for fewer whites calling the shots.)

“For liberals, the discussion about guns is about public health and crime prevention. For conservatives, hanging onto guns is a way to symbolically hang onto the cultural dominance they feel slipping from their hands.”

In the comment thread I explained that “50 years ago this country was more or less run by WASP whitebreads + Irish and Italian Catholics, etc. Blacks were seen as a minority, most gays were closeted and women worked the kitchen and tended to the kids. Those days are over and old-fart rural conservatives know it. That’s what the guns are about. To give them a sense of power in times of increasing powerlessness.”

The last time I posted the final scene from Martin Ritt‘s Hud, some low-level attorney (or some low-level attorney software) swooped right in and told me to remove it. But you see, my devotion to legendary movie finales is greater than my compliance with copyright protocol. And besides, who else in the blogosphere is hailing this 1963 film or has made such a big deal, year after year, about the ending? Unregenerate shits who don’t reform, don’t have second thoughts, don’t reconsider, don’t relent…love it.

First, any article, editor or journalist who mentions the word “pressure” in the context of a celebrity profile is a hack. If I’ve listened to one unctuous junket whore ask an actor “how much pressure did you have to cope with?” and blah blah, I’ve listened to it 700 or 800 times. Second, until I glanced at this THR cover I wasn’t even thinking about The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Sony, 11.9)…not even a blip on the screen. Third, now that I’m mulling it over I’m asking myself if I even want to sit through it. Fourth, the last time I checked Foy’s performance as Neil Armstrong‘s hand-wringing wife (Janet Shearon) stood a reasonable chance of being nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but no mention of First Man in the cover copy? Fifth, I respect the fact that Foy’s freckly alabaster skin is a signature that she embraces, but if I were her I would steer clear of black nail polish.

To go by Peter Avellino’s Twitter feed, Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood has returned to Hollywood Blvd.

Excerpts from my 9.1.18 Telluride review of Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer: “I’ve been in and out on director Karyn Kusama — loved Girlfight, hated Aeon Flux, loathed Jennifer’s Body but found The Invitation a truly fascinating creepout. And now Destroyer.

“This is a complex L.A. crime tale about Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman), a wasted, walking-dead Los Angeles detective trying to settle some bad business and save her daughter from a life of crime and misery. It unfolds through a complex, pain-in-the-ass flashback structure, and is punctuated by all kinds of nihilistic, hard-boiled behavior by the mostly criminal flotsam characters.

“Destroyer has guns, uniformed cops, blood, a scene in the Westwood Federal building cafeteria, purple ink, ugly asshole criminals with sickening haircuts, drugs, a handjob given to a dying criminal slob, a bank shootout. Everything in this well-made if godforsaken film is scuzzy in a just-so way. Everyone and everything is covered in the stuff. Even I felt scuzzed out from my seat in the tenth row of the Herzog.

“Destroyer is mostly about the way Kidman looks, like a combination vampire-zombie with dark eye bags and a complexion that suggests a heroin habit mixed with twice-daily injections of embalming fluid. Plus a Desolation Row, gray-streaked hair style. It’s also about the whispery way in which she speaks. I swear to God I missed over half of her dialogue.

The dream of bountiful 4K libraries in all genres being offered by the major streamers still isn’t happening. Have the majors thrown in the 4K towel? I checked Amazon’s 4K streaming library this morning and found only 166 titles. What the hell are they waiting for?

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

Until today I’d honestly never seen this SNL skit before. Aired on 5.29.76 — three and a half years before the 12.7.79 debut of Robert Wise‘s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Don’t SNL skits run about four or five minutes these days?

Obama: “Remember those hearings when members of Congress were asking Mark Zuckerberg questions, like they’d never used the internet before? That’s because they haven’t. Here’s your chance to vote for people who actually know what the internet is. And by the way, you wouldn’t let your grandparents pick you a playlist. Why would you let them pick your representative who’s going to determine your future?”

Millennials No-Accounts: “Okay, whatever…pass the Fritos, bruh. I have to work on my pot belly.”