Senior White House strategist and alt-right nationalist Steven K. Bannon has been cut loose. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

As far as Hollywood Elsewhere is able to ascertain, Bannon was dismissed because of increasing complaints that his bloated face and diseased-looking skin had disturbed too many people. Bannon’s face is the very portrait of soul rot. He looks like an angry compulsive boozer — swollen schnozz, grey pallor, spots and blemishes, puffy eye bags. I’ve seen Bannon-style faces in bars all across America, and in Ireland too. I’ve seen them in diners, trailer parks, VFW halls and bus stops so don’t tell me.

Other reasons for Bannon’s dismissal: (a) too toxic and self-aggrandizing, (b) too much of a media attention whore, (c) combative bad-mouther, (d) clashed with Jared Kushner, etc. We all knew Bannon would go sooner or later, right? No biggie.

With Justin Chadwick‘s Tulip Fever (Weinstein Co., 9.1) finally opening after nearly three years of test screenings, re-edits and release-date shifts, Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan has attributed the shoddy treatment to the 17th Century historical drama being a tweener — i.e., neither award-worthy nor juicy enough.

If you ask me the avoidance is due to three factors: (1) the word “tulip” in the title, which implies a certain painterly stillness or lack of narrative propulsion, (2) the casting of runt-sized Dane DeHaan as Alicia Vikander‘s romantic suitor and (3) Christoph Waltz as her cuckolded husband. Nobody wants to hang with those guys in this context…nobody.

From “Skeptical, A Certain Distance,” posted on 4.29.16:

“You can tell Tulip Fever is a carefully honed, well-crafted thing. The cinematography by Eigl Bryld (In Bruges) is obviously handsome; ditto the production design. It’s probably safe to assume that the screenplay by Tom Stoppard, based on a book by Deborah Moggach, will have a certain rhyme.

On Friday morning I’ll be doing a MEET THE MOVIE PRESS discussion wth The Tracking Board‘s Jeff Sneider. I don’t want to converse in that rat-a-tat-tat, Mexican-jumping-bean fashion that everyone always defaults to. Then I’ll be catching a special pre-TIFF screening of Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. Among the topics I’d like to kick around with Sneider: New releases (Logan Lucky, Patti Cake$, Crown Heights), HE’s Oscar Spitball chart, Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler, John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick going to Toronto, the expected $50 million appeal of It, and the curious persistence of Get Out in the Best Picture conversation.

A day after HE’s Oscar Spitball Best Picture chart appeared, I was told that Woody Allen‘s Wonder Wheel (Amazon, 12.1) is allegedly “great.” Until then my impression had been that Kate Winslet‘s performance, which New York Film Festival honcho Kent Jones has called “startlingly brave” and “powerhouse,” would be the big magnet. But maybe there’s more to it. We all process festival hyperbole with a grain of salt, but now I’m thinking that Jones description of Wonder Wheel — “a bracing and truly surprising movie experience” — might be on the up-and-up.

Wonder Wheel will close the NYFF on Sunday, 10.15, or six weeks before Amazon’s nationwide opening. My NYFF press pass is good but I can’t afford to be in NYC for more than a couple of days following Jett’s 9.22 wedding — maybe a concurrent LA screening?

What does Tony Schwartz know, and how does he know it? The ghostwriter of “Trump: The Art of the Deal” and longtime bete noire of the 45th President, tweeted on Wednesday that President Trump “is going to resign and declare victory before Mueller and Congress leave him no choice…the circle is closing at blinding speed…Trump’s presidency is effectively over…would be amazed if he survives till end of the year…more likely resigns by fall, if not sooner.” Isn’t that a little optimistic? At best Trump is gone in 2019, and only if the Democrats win bigtime in both chambers in ’18, and who knows if that’s assured?

The early trailers suggested that Doug Liman‘s American Made was a cut-loose acting opportunity for Tom Cruise, but that the film would be wild, lurchy and lunge-y. All kinds of pumped and razmatazz. The reviews are more or less saying the same thing. THR‘s Leslie Felperin: “As much fun as all this laughing at the past is, it all starts to feel a bit superficial and vaguely monotonous as Barry gets into scrape after scrape but always escapes with a quick line of patter and a smile. As a character, he lacks depth and flavor.”

There’s a Twilight Time Sayonara Bluray arriving within a month or two. Based on a 1954 novel by James Michener, which stemmed from Michener’s experiences during the American occupation of Japan in the mid to late ’40s, Sayonara was an exercise in enlightened liberal portraiture — a tale of racial bigotry and interracial love, and particularly the prevailing attitudes about same during the mid-Eisenhower era. Obviously tame and even a bit so-what-ish in today’s p.c. climate. Plus I’ve never liked Marlon Brando‘s affected, high-pitched Southern accent. And yet — this is very weird — I’ve used his character’s last name, “gruver“, as my email handle for 20 years now. Sayonara was shot in Technirama (large format images created from 35mm film running sideways through the camera). If the new Bluray actually uses the original Technirama materials, it could be something to behold. But there’s no changing the fact that this Joshua Logan drama is slow, talky and a little too preachy. Franz Waxman‘s score is probably the single best element.

There’s a certain kind of Hollywood journalist who gets very, very excited by big box-office earnings. You can almost hear the panting as the probable first-weekend earnings, per-screen averages and total domestic grosses are reported. You could be forgiven, in fact, for presuming that the author owns stock in the distribution company behind the hit-to-be, and that a fat dividend check will soon be deposited in his/her account. If you’re that kind of trade reporter or tabulator, the projected earnings for Andres Muschietti and Stephen King‘s It — a first-weekend haul of at least $50 million, according to tracking — will do the trick.

Another way to feel the excitement is to feign indifference to grosses and just concentrate on the film, as I was doing a few months ago, and ask whether director Andres “Andy” Muschietti would deliver the same kind of carefully measured, less-is-more chills that Mama, his last film, had in spades.

Posted on 5.11.17: “Yes, it looks like a retread, a Stand By Me ensemble threatened by a demonic Clarabelle. But something tells me that It (9.8.17, Warner Bros., New Line) may be up to something good. I’m basing this suspicion partly on the last two-thirds of the new trailer, and partly on the fact that it might be Son of Mama. Or more preciselt Son of Mama meets Stephen King.

More than a few writers and publications have posted articles about the 40th anniversary of Elvis Presley‘s death (8.16.77). Of all the Presley milestones worth pondering, the least is surely the poor man’s death from the combination of an enlarged heart and having 14 drugs in his system. Want a great Elvis anniversary? How about September 9th, or the 1956 date of Presley’s first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show — a telecast seen by 60 million viewers or 82.6% of the TV audience. Or July 5th, the day in 1954 when Presley and Sun Records honcho Sam Phillips, after some false starts, happened upon the right Elvis sound — quasi-rockabilly by way of white channeling of what was then regarded as “black” music, but with a frisky, jumpin’-and-shufflin’ tempo. Or simply EP’s birthday — 1.8.35. Two days ago Variety‘s Joe Leydon listed Presley’s “10 Greatest Films.” First of all Presley never made any films that could be called “great.” But the best of the bunch were obviously King Creole, Flaming Star, Jailhouse Rock, Loving You, Love Me Tender and Wild in the Country. I’m not counting the concert films, but feel free.

“China’s new favorite action hero single-handedly routs pirates off the African coast in undersea combat. He wakes up fit to fight after nearly dying from a flesh-eating plague. He wields guns galore, poison arrows and a tank to wipe out the mercenaries led by the villainous Big Daddy, a swaggering, sneering American soldier of fortune. But in the end, what saves the hero of Wolf Warrior 2, China’s most popular movie ever, is a Chinese flag wrapped around his arm.” — from Chris Buckley‘s 8.16 N.Y. Times story, “In China, an Action Hero Beats Box Office Records (and Arrogant Westerners).”

High-testosterone action garbage cinema by any other name…later.

“As of last Wednesday, Wolf Warrior 2 had earned $722 million in ticket sales in three weeks, easily surpassing The Mermaid, a romantic fantasy released last year, as the top-grossing film of all time in China.

“The success of the two-hour film, featuring a red-tinged Rambo named Leng Feng, is being seen in China as a pointer to the national mood after almost five years under Xi Jinping, the president. Mr. Xi has promoted a spirit of hawkish patriotism and warned that Western forces want to bully China into submission.

“’Whoever offends the Chinese will be wiped out no matter how far away,’ goes an ancient phrase used to promote Leng Feng in two movies so far.”

When it comes to older black-and-white films, Criterion has shown a tendency to make them appear darker and inkier than in previous home-video manifestations (Rebecca, His Girl Friday, Only Angels Have Wings). Will they dim the lights for their restored, 4K-scanned Bluray of George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (due on 11.7), or will they surprise us all and not do this?

Sony’s forthcoming Ultra HD Bluray of David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai may be the very first instance of a classic-era Hollywood Oscar-winner being released in 4K. It’s due on 10.3.17. A few more 4K releases in this vein and I might actually spring for a 4K Bluray player. Yes, I purchased a very good-looking Ultra HD streaming version of Kwai three or four months ago, but streaming, I’m told, doesn’t deliver a true 4K image.

I’ve been waiting to see Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, a doc based on Scotty Bowers and Lionel Friedberg‘s “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” for a long time. I first heard about Tyrnauer trying to pull it together…what, back in ’13 or ’14? It’s taken forever, but now, finally, a special pre-Toronto Film Festival screening is happening later this week.

The official TIFF debut of Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood will happen on Saturday, September 9th.

“Reliable Source,” posted on 6.18.16: “Last night I ran into Scotty Bowers, the 92 year-old co-author of “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” which popped in early 2012. (Here’s my review.) It happened at a nearby Whole Foods (Fairfax & Santa Monica Blvd.), and for a guy who will turn 93 in less than two weeks he’s very charming, alert and well-spoken.

“The only other over-90 fellow I’ve spoken to who has the same classy manner and mental acuity is Norman Lloyd, whom I first interviewed in ’05 and who’s now 101.