HE commenters “RossoVeneziano” and “Mr. F.,” myself, Mark David Chapman and Variety editor Steven Gaydos on the crash-and-burn scenario of Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born, a justly admired and relentlessly promoted Warner Bros. release film that is now completely finished as a Best Picture contender, and the key role that Variety‘s Kris Tapley may have arguably played in helping to bring about its demise (i.e., in a water-poisoning, long-game sense).

RossoVeneziano: “ASIB officially being out of the BP race even before nominations are announced is something no one saw coming. Whatever you think of the movie I feel sorry for Cooper — biggest loser of the season.”

Mr. F.: “Warners is now frantically working through the weekend to finish drawing up their ‘DO IT FOR BRADLEY’ campaign.”

Jeffrey Wells: “A Star Is Born’s loss is Hollywood Elsewhere’s joy, partly because many in the industry listened to (or agreed with) my sensible advice that you can’t hand a Best Picture Oscar to a well-handled but formulaic remake of a remake of a remake. Good film, made lots of money, and that was enough.

“If you ask me the other big loser in this morning-after realm is Variety’s Kris Tapley, whose ‘stand back because here comes a big multi-Oscar nominee!’ drumbeat article that ran before Toronto…if you ask me that piece poisoned the water with an aura of arrogance and entitlement — a Tapley trumpeting (WB publicists have shown me this knockout film early and I’ve been given permission to pass along the wonderful news) that proclaimed Bradley Cooper as the new king.

“Not so fast, Kris!

“HE was the only site anywhere that stood up to the WB hype machine with a piece that was bluntly headlined ‘Due Respect But ASIB Must Be Stopped.” Bobby Peru huffed and puffed, but thank God the industry mostly agreed with my view of things. Sometimes (not often but sometimes) things work out for the better.”

Steven Gaydos: “OK, let’s put this one to rest once for all. (I know, I know, in the obsessive-compulsive world of Jeff ‘Roma Man’ Wells, that never happens, but I’ll forge on anyway.) Here’s what my Variety colleague Kris Tapley ACTUALLY wrote a month before A Star is Born opened in theaters:

“‘Including best picture and director, where are we now? Nine nominations? A Star Is Born is an across-the-board Oscar contender. More than that, and assuming this is even still possible in the modern era, it has the muscle to achieve what only three films in movie history ever have: Win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay.’

“If you read his observations on Awards Season, which you, like Mark Chapman studying ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and winding up in front of the Dakota, you clearly do, Kris clearly loves Roma as much as you do and he also loves Star is Born and he loves First Man and he loves Minding the Gap, etc.

“So he does what you’ve said a thousand times here that you believe should be done: he doesn’t mask his enthusiasm for the films he’s passionate about. But he also does something you should consider matching: he generally checks that passion at the door when it comes time for wisely, fairly and accurately surveying the Awards Season scene.

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Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book has won the Producer’s Guild of America’s Daryl F. Zanuck award. Remember when I urged everyone to vote for Green Book as a royal fuck-you gesture to the p.c. haters? Well, that’s what happened tonight….yes! “Hate begats hate,” etc. Green Book and Roma are now neck-and-neck for the Best Picture Oscar. (Right?) I think it’s also very safe to say that A Star Is Born is now finished as a Best Picture contender — no wins from the PGA, Golden Globes or the BFCA, over and out. It’s been a good night for Hollywood Elsewhere.

Two days ago Tatyana was looking at some photos on my Macbook Pro. When she saw the one below she said, “And who is this woman?” HE: “What woman?” Tatyana: “This woman, the brown hair.” HE: “But she has sideburns.” Tatyana: “Where? I don’t see.” HE: “This woman is me.” Tatyana: “This is you?” HE: “But that’s cool. I like being mistaken for a woman.”

The shot was taken by my dad during a visit to Paris, aboard one of the Bateaux Mouches boats, summer of ’76.

From the get-go I was down with Damien Chazelle‘s First Man. I regarded it as a serious, ambitious film that deserved all good things that might come its way. But then it got drop-kicked by Joe Popcorn, and was soon after dismissed by the Oscar-season handicappers. Yes, me included. I didn’t change my mind or stop admiring it — I just candy-assed out when the box-office collapsed. What do you want me to do? Stand against gale-force winds?

Filed from Telluride on 9.1.18: First Man is an intense, unconventional, psychologically penetrating take on the experience of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his wife, Janet Shearon (freckly-skinned Claire Foy, whom I last saw in Steven Soderberg‘s Unsane) from the early to late ’60s, culminating in the historic moon-landing mission of July 1969.

It’s no Ron Howard movie, that’s for sure — jarring, louder, lonelier, scarier, and well removed from that emotionally familiar, somewhat jingoistic universe of dramatic ups and downs that we all recall from Apollo 13.

I was seriously impressed with First Man because it’s really quite different — a kind of 16mm art film approach to an epic journey, an intimate, indie-styled, deeply personal movie writ large and loud with a rumbling, super-vibrating soundtrack.

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It would be entirely fitting and appropriately respectful if the Academy would include the late Leonard Klady in the forthcoming Oscar telecast “death reel”. It really would. For Len was as much a part of the soul and the fabric of Hollywood output and hoo-hah over the last 40 years as anyone else. As a storied Variety guy, LAFCA member and Movie City News box-office guru, Klady was right there, knee-deep in the trenches…absorbing, interviewing, tabulating and commenting every step of the way. The death reel always includes a few non-celebs — Klady’s life warrants this modest tribute and then some.

My first trip to the Cannes Film Festival was in 1992, and I owe the success of that adventure to Klady in part. He told me one night that the festival was too overwhelming for a first-timer — that there were too many angles and trap doors and necessary buttons to push, and that I didn’t have a prayer in hell of keeping up. As a result I doubled-down on my research and preparation, working extra hard at making the right calls and sending out letters to everyone, and as it turned out I did pretty well on my maiden voyage.

Seasoned Film Guy: “I love re-reading Len Klady‘s Cinefile columns in Variety, or his name on pieces like the Filmex tribute to the Garys in 1993 and that mention of his chat with Marcello Mastroianni in Palm Springs. Because they remind that he was doing what we all love best: being part of the greatness of film via these schmooze opportunities with the greats and [generally being] part of the hip Los Angeles film lover contingent, along with Len’s wife Beverly Walker. You know she’s the person who put Two Lane Blacktop on the cover of Esquire along with THE ENTIRE SCRIPT back in 19frickin71??? She’s a wonderful lady — so informed and passionate about cinema. All we need is film love.”

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This three-day-old essay examines the way things were 20 years ago — Harvey Weinstein, Shakespeare in Love, Gwynneth Paltrow. Hollywood values and how HW aggressively rewrote the book on Oscar campaigning. It runs almost 20 minutes but is wisely judged, astutely written and nicely edited. Kudos to the maestro of Be Kind Rewind, whose name (unmentioned in the “About” section) is unknown to me. I attended the Miramax Beverly Hills hotel after-party after Harvey’s big Shakespeare in Love triumph. It was in the Polo Lounge and in an adjacent outdoor area. I was actually following behind Harvey as he entered the soiree…garlands to the conqueror! Every heavy-hitter in town was there. Quite the night.

“To me, the real lesson on this government shutdown is that we found out that federal workers — [holders of] quintessential middle-class jobs — can’t afford to miss one paycheck. When did it get this desperate? This shutdown is not about the wall — it’s about the wallet. And it’s more proof that the great American middle-class is disappearing faster than R. Kelly‘s Facebook friends. All ‘middle-class’ means now is that you’re poor but you don’t do meth. Sorry but it’s not ‘middle-class’ when your retirement plan is a Lotto ticket. And that’s just how the Koch Brothers like it.”

Perfect analogy: “Vulture capitalism has done to the middle-class what airlines have done to their customers. Because we didn’t lose the comfort of being middle-class all at once. They took it away an inch at a time. Like legroom.”

After many years of mystifying delay, a Bluray of This Gun For Hire will finally “street” on 4.9.19. The Amazon page indicates that the Shout Factory release will offer no supplements.

Posted on 8.26.18: Frank Tuttle‘s This Gun For Hire (’42) is a violent thriller, but with flavor. A combination of frostiness and vulnerability in Alan Ladd‘s Raven, a professional assassin, feeds into a vibe of brusque empathy and existential despair.

Released two years before Billy Wilder‘s Double Indemnity, I’ve always regarded This Gun For Hire as the first high-impact film noir. Which puts it into the pantheon of 1940s releases. Pretty much every film-loving dweeb subscribes to this view.

For some odd reason Universal has never released a Bluray or streamed it in HD. Here we are in 2018, and the only way to watch this still engrossing, hard-boiled drama is on that same shitty DVD Universal released 14 years ago.

Why don’t they get the lead out and remaster it? It would be fairly criminal to just let it remain a 480p experience.

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I swooned over New York, I Love You and Paris, Je’taime, and I’ll almost certainly love Berlin, I Love You. (Which wouldn’t have the same ring if it were called Berlin, Ich Liebe Dich.) I’m more of a laid-back Munich guy than a Berlin lover, but I’ve been to the latter city three times (in ’12, ’13 and ’14) and I understand the charm, history, layout, transportation system and atmosphere. I especially love the neighborhood of Charlottenberg.

Directors: Dianna Agron, Peter Chelsom, Fernando Eimbcke, Justin Franklin, Dennis Gansel, Dani Levy, Daniel Lwowski, Josef Rusnak, Til Schweiger, Massy Tadjedin, Gabriela Tscherniak. (What’s happening with Mostly Martha‘s Sandra Nettlebeck?) Cast: Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Luke Wilson, Mickey Rourke, Jim Sturgess, Dianna Agron, Diego Luna, Iwan Rheon, Charlotte Le Bon, Sibel Kekilli, Emily Beecham, Jenna Dewan, Hayden Panettiere, Rafaelle Cohen.

Quick — the name of the river that flows through Berlin’s center? You had to look it up, right?

In other words, is there enough Netflix animus among the PGA membership to turn the tide? Or will most of them decide to give the Daryl F. Zanuck award to, you know, the Best Film — i.e., Roma? As opposed to the one that sold the most tickets? Meaning a split vote between A Star Is Born and Black Panther? In the words of Paul Newman‘s Butch Cassidy, “Who are these guys?” What do they care about? What matters to them?

Journo pal: “Who are they? Very Oscar predictive and first whiff of industry sentiment. I would be shocked if Roma wins. More likely Green Book, Star Is Born or Bohemian Rhapsody, which has the best ‘producer’ story of the lot. But who knows? They ARE the only group that chooses Best Pic with the same weighted system of votes that AMPAS does.”