@siennahubertross Everyone deserves a chance to fly #arianagrande #wicked #comedy @caroline ♬ original sound – Sienna Hubert-Ross

“I said the sheriff is near!”

If you’ve ever felt humbled or blown away by a woman’s beauty (we’ve all been there), the way to play it is to not stare at her like she’s a warm apple pie just out of the oven and you haven’t eaten in three days. The way to play it is the young Warren Beatty way — one, express more interest in her personality and especially her mind than her looks, and two, behave as if you’re the beautiful one.

Volvo posted a 3 minute and 46 second ad on Instagram, shot by Hoyte Van Hoytema, the cinematographer of Interstellar and Oppenheimer.

It goes against every single rule you can think about as a social lead. Length. Format. Over-produced.

Every comment under the ad said it… pic.twitter.com/wkmghuP4ye

— Guillaume Huin (@HuinGuillaume) November 21, 2024

Director: @marcusibanez
Iconic CD: @larissabechtold
Prod. Co.: @newland.tv
DoP: Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC
EP: Erik Torell
Producer: @martenmelinder
Production Manager: Erik Amberntsson
Director’s Assistant: @felixscheynius

…but as the late George Harrison…WHAT?

Sam Mendes has reportedly tapped the 30-year-old Quinn (A Quiet Place: Day One, Gladiator II, Stranger Things) to play the quiet, mystical, sardonic George in his forthcoming Beatles quartet, which won’t be seen until,.,,what is it, 2027? The problem, obviously, is that Quinn doesn’t even remotely resemble Harrison.

First and foremost the late Beatles guitarist had rich brown hair and certainly wasn’t a ginger, which Quinn obviously is. Quinn and Harrison share the same color eyes (brown), but Harrison’s were big and round with a playful glint.

Again…Quinn as Ginger Baker? Fine. But the Harrison casting, if true, is horrifying.

From Jeff “insneider” Sneider:

…but you can’t trust most of the people who’ve posted opinions thus far, and I mean especially Clayton Davis. I’ll accept the praisings of Scott Menzel, fine, but I’m still trying to figure out what David Poland thinks of James Mangold‘s film, except that he needs to see it again, which he says about almost everything.

You can always trust HE as I have no hidden agendas. (I have put the Mangold episode of 2009 into a sealed box.) I’ll be catching A Complete Unknown on Monday evening (11.25).

Poland: “A Complete Unknown manages to tell us everything about Bob Dylan while telling us almost nothing about Bob Dylan.” HE: What the fuck does that mean? Poland: “The movie is ultimately about the power of the individual and talent and how what we all want can turn on a dime, repeatedly.” HE: What the fuck does that mean?

Poland: “Chalamet brings enormous power to this portrait of a man who just keeps leaving but then also keeps delivering surprises. Edward Norton’s turn is perfectly true to Seeger. Monica Barbaro delivers a Baez of many facets, from fire to ice. And Elle Fanning is destined to be underrated in a complex turn as ;the first NY girlfriend.’ I really need to see it again to fully negotiate all that is there and all that is not there by design.” HE to Poland: Spit it out!

Chris Gore: “Two friends who grow up to become enemies….I’ve seen the play four times, and it respected the original Wizard of Oz…Elphaba is Trump, and the Wizard is Biden…it’s very gay in a sense, but it’s mainly about female friendship….Elphaba and Galinda…having said all of that, in the backdrop of Shiz University’s diversity…gay, drag queens, straight…guys in skirts…Bowen Yang…the gayness of the film is in the background…this movie is very gay, and if you’re looking for that, you’re gonna see it. But if you kind of ignore this, it’s a beautiful story.”

The trolliest of Donald Trump‘s troll nominations has dropped out. Trump’s intention in nominating ludicrous, laughably unqualified people for cabinet posts was to say “bitches, bow!” to Capitol Hill Republicans. Gaetz’s withdrawal exposes a strategic stumble, to put it mildly.

Early this morniny this DOOMSCROLL discussion between host Josh Citarella and musician Matty Healy (the 1975) ate up two hours of my life. Fascinating. Posted on Posted on 10.22.24.,

But you know something? I really hate living in an alleged movie culture that can’t be bothered to support a film as brilliant, vibrant and super-charged as Sean Baker‘s Anora. It’s sold a fair amount of tickets so far ($10,971,651 domestic, $20,809,023 worldwide) but last Saturday night I dropped by a Westport AMC just before a 9:30 pm showing, and I counted eight or nine people in the theatre.

Dammit, what’s wrong with you guys? Anora is a firecracker standout — it’s dealing the real, live-wire goods like few other films have this year — and you can’t be bothered to catch a Saturday night showing? It would have been one thing if there were 25 or 30 patrons at the 9:30 pm screening, but eight or nine?

How abominable is the crime of sexually molesting minors? In a certain light, portions of the Hollywood community appear divided on the answer.

In the view of celebrities who’d like to see convicted parent-killers Erik and Lyle Menendez released from jail, the sexual abuse of minors is so heinous that it’s a semi-justifiable thing for sexual predators to suffer violent death as punishment.

The basic rationale on the part of famous Menendez friendos (including Kim Kardashian, Sonny Hostin, Rosie O’Donnell, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Cooper Koch) is that Erik and Lyle’e shotgun slaying of their late dad, music industry hotshot Jose Menendez and his wife Kitty, is semi-excusable because Jose repeatedly molested Erik, or so Erik has alleged.

At the very least the victims of such acts (Erik and Lyle) deserve a measure of leniency, the thinking goes, especially after having served almost 30 years in the slam.

Outgoing Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon: “I do believe that the brothers was subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and [from] molestation.”

On the other hand if we’re talking about a deceased child molester named Michael Jackson, a dynamic, iconic, hugely popular rock star who ruled during the ’80s and ’90s, perhaps diddling young boys wasn’t such a terrible thing. Or perhaps this alleged diddling might not have been as nakedly predatory or cut-and-dried as it seemed.

It was reported last March by Variety‘s Adam B. Vary that the makers of the biopic Michael (Lionsgate, 10.3.25) — principally director Antoine Fuqua, producer Graham King and screenwriter John Logan — are adopting a light-fingered, less-than-damning approach in the matter of multiple allegations that Jackson used his fame and power to groom prepubescent boys for sexual activity.

So which is it? An alleged sexual molester half-deserved to be shotgunned to death by his sons, or a world-famous sexual molester was such a great singer-dancer and pop-music God that a movie about his life can depict reported predatory behavior in a go-easy, turn-the-other-cheek, half-forgiving way?

All hail Paul Walter Hauser for supporting Sebastian Stan by agreeing to do an “Actors on Actors” discussion with him for Variety.

Stan delivers a brilliant performance as Donald Trump in The Apprentice (ditto Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn), but various chickenshit publicists wouldn’t allow their clients to chat with Stan out of fear that they might be stained by some kind of vague Trump association.

Stan: “I couldn’t find another actor to do it with me, because their publicists were too afraid to sit down and talk about this movie.”

But now good guy Hauser has stepped up to the plate.