An excellent article about great casting feats was posted four years ago (1.14.20) on passionweiss,com. The title was “Creating and Awarding the Last 20 Years of ‘Best Casting Director’ Oscars”, and the author was Abe Beame (no relation to the New York City mayor of the mid ’70s).

Beame says one of the best-ever jobs of casting was Gail Levin‘s casting of Almost Famous. Levin is a Cameron Crowe homie from way back (We Bought a Zoo, Elizabethtown, Mean Girls, Vanilla Sky, Jerry Maguire, Empire Records, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape).

…to the version that began to peek out 20 years ago…Birth (’04), Under the Skin (’13) and The Zone of Interest (’23).

Eight days ago my heart sank when it was announced that Justin Chang, a Millennial wokester with a particular focus on ethnic representation, will be elbowing aside New Yorker critic Anthony Lane, a young boomer whose writings have never seemed to follow woke doctrine.

I almost wept this morning when I re-read Lane’s 23-year-old review of Jonathan Glazer‘s Sexy Beast. It’s very sad to consider that this kind of writing (aloof wit, verve, panache) is, in a sense, being put out to pasture, at least within The New Yorker‘s movie realm…I just feel gutted.

Lane‘s “Exiles,” posted on 6.19.21: “You will be relieved to learn that the title of Jonathan Glazer‘s Sexy Beast is dripping with irony. How could it be otherwise, given that the movie hails from England? Take Gal (Ray Winstone), charring himself like a fat salmon beside his Spanish pool. Gal used to be a London crook, and his wife, Deedee (Amanda Redman), used to be big in porno. These days, they have nothing to do but drink and dine with their good friends Aitch (Cavan Kendall) and Jackie (Julianne White), who share the leathery look of those who have weathered enough for one lifetime.

“But here comes trouble, in a neat, fast package: Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), a man whose mere name, like that of Keyser Söze, is enough to bring any civilized company to a lurching halt.

“Don wants Gal to return to London for the sake of one more job. You would think that the heist itself, a raid on a safe-deposit vault, would be the core of the plot. Not so. What rouses Sexy Beast, against all expectations, is the central, Iago-like act of persuasion: one scene after another, in which Don sits or stalks around Gal’s villa and rails away at him, as if to show not that Gal’s defenses are breachable but that they were hardly defenses in the first place…just patches of softness, the pressure points of a sad slacker. The trailer now showing in theatres presents Sexy Beast as a thriller, which means that moviegoers may be heading for a surprise; what they are about to witness resembles nothing so much as Harold Pinter in a really foul mood.

Obviously the Supremes are much more focused on the potential fallout from the highest court agreeing with the Colorado Supreme Court. They’re not even addressing the fundamental preventative reason that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was adopted in the first place, way back in 1868.

LIVE: Supreme Court hears Donald Trump’s appeal on Colorado ballot disqualification | REUTERS

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments in former President Donald Trump‘s fight to prevent being kicked off state presidential ballots for his actions involving the 2021 Capitol attack.

Last weekend’s Oscar Poker podcast was postponed due to Sasha being under the weather (cough, scratchy voice)….apologies. We recorded the current one (“Suspended Animation”) yesterday. Here’s the link.

Without an agenda or any sense of urgency, Sasha and Jeff acknowledge that there’s nothing to discuss about the Oscars other than the Best Actress situation (i.e., Emma Stone vs. Lily Gladstone) and that nothing will be finally and absolutely known until the SAG Awards on 2.24, which is two and a half weeks hence. (Good God.)

Sasha believes that the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and BAFTA awards are next-to-meaningless and that only when the big guilds are heard from we understand what the real sentiments are.

Sasha also mentions that now is the time for the various campaigners to turn up the heat and also for whisper campaigns, and Jeff asks “who is whispering anything about Gladstone?” because no one (and I mean NO ONE) has whispered a damn word. Because they don’t dare.

Again, the link.

Today (2.7) The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jordan Hoffman posted a story about illegal streamings and at least one recent peek-out viewing of Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance in Manhattan.

Hoffman doesn’t mention last April’s private screening that was attended by resturateur Keith McNally and Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman, but he does acknowledge Will Sloan’s 1.15 Letterbox review.

Hoffman also mentions “a bar/event space in New York’s East Village [that] recently hosted an underground ‘NYC Premiér’ of Coup de Chance.” Maybe that’s how Sloan happened to see it?

In paragraph #5, however, Hoffman states that distribution-wise “nothing is in the works for Coup de Chance.”

I’m sorry but my understanding is that Hoffman is dead wrong about this. A distribution deal has been hammered out (at the very least involving streaming and possibly even a touch of theatrical). I was recently told that an announcement about same would happen sometime this week.

Hoffman also fails to report that Coup de Chance is currently streaming on illegal torrent sites.

Hoffman has, on the other hand, seen Allen’s new film (as I have), and has written the following: “This viewer is ready to declare common wisdom correct and say it is far better than Allen’s recent output.

“The lead performance by French actress Lou de Laâge is particularly good. Had this been a U.S.-based production in a parallel timeline, someone like Dakota Johnson would be getting accolades for it.

“The movie is similar in tone to Match Point or Irrational Man in its treatment of happenstance leading to life-altering experiences, the decision to commit murder, and the random distribution of justice.

“[So] it’s an interesting movie worthy of conversation given the importance Allen has in cinema. Maybe someday people in North America who would like to see it will be able to without sneaking around.”

She may not know if Madame Web will be any good, but Dakota Johnson is certain that today’s streaming distributors are not ony scared of their own shadows but slow on the pickup.

“It’s Spelled Daddy-o,” posted on 9.10.23:

The more I read about Christy Hall‘s Daddio, the sorrier I am that I ducked it in Telluride. I was especially persuaded by Todd McCarthy’s Deadline review. I’m very much looking forward to the next viewing opportunity.

Pic is a two-hander about a grizzled New York City cab driver named Clark (Sean Penn) covering the verbal and cultural waterfront with his blonde 30something passenger (Dakota Johnson).

I should admit there was a specific reason why I didn’t see Daddio last week. It was because of the dopey Millennial spelling. If it had been spelled right I would have gone in a heartbeat.

Daddy-o is a beatnik anachronism. The root term (duhh) is “daddy” with a “y”. Daddio is for dingleberries.

…when I was 12 or 13. Like Truman Capote I also was more into movies, reading books and drawing stuff than girls (the hound-dogging didn’t start until I was 23), sports or, God forbid, school studies.

When I was 16 or 17 I was putting much more time and energy into typing a socially satirical hand-out (circulated among my ruffian friends) than doing homework. I surely could have refined my writing skills by attending journalism school in my late teens or early 20s, but I’ve always been a do-it-yourself type.

As we speak there’s only one copy selling on EBay, but there are quite a few more available in Russia.

Posted on 4.2.20:

The great John Waters on the nonbinary sexual revolution, as reported last week by the Desert Sun’s Ema Sasic: