A Beatles B-side track, “Ask Me Why” was recorded on 11.26.62. Drummer Ringo Starr had replaced Pete Best three months earlier. “Please Please Me“, the A-side hit, was recorded the same day.

35 years ago, these were the best of the best…no boxoffice considerations…no likey-likey popcorn faves…no “pretty goods but no Cuban cigar”…just the films that shine the strongest and brightest according to HE’s smarthouse standards of 2025.

I’m not saying these are the absolute pick of the litter, but they’re definitely the 1990 films have have stayed in my head.

But before assembling the list, I need to acknowledge upfront that I don’t even remember (a) Karel Reisz and Arthur Miller‘s Everybody Wins, (b) Curtis Hanson‘s Bad Influence, (c) John Boorman‘s Where The Heart Is, (d) Uli Edel‘s Last Exit to Brooklyn or (e) Lawrence Kasdan‘s I Love You to Death. I don’t recall a single scene or line or standout performance from any of these…nothing.

I haven’t listed my 25 picks in order of preference. I’ve just dropped them in by release date.

1. Tony Scott‘s Revenge.

2. George Armitage‘s Miami Blues.

3. John McNaughton‘s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

4. Mike Figgis‘s Internal Affairs.

5. Ron Underwood‘s Tremors.

6. Alan Rudolph‘s Love at Large.

7. Sidney Lumet‘s Q & A.

8. James Toback‘s The Big Bang.

9. Norman René and Craig Lucas‘s Longtime Companion.

10. Denys Arcand‘s Jesus of Montreal.

11. Warren Beatty‘s Dick Tracy.

12. Whit Stillman‘s Metropolitan.

13. Roger Spottiswode‘s Air America.

14. Allan Moyle‘s Pump Up The Volume.

15. Mike Nichols‘ Postcards From The Edge.

16. Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas.

17. Abel Ferrara‘s King of New York.

!8. Barry Levinson‘s Avalon.

19. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Miller’s Crossing.

20. Barbet Schroeder‘s Reversal of Fortune.

21. Kevin Costner‘s Dances With Wolves.

22. Stephen Frears‘ The Grifters.

23. Bernardo Bertolucci‘s The Sheltering Sky.

24. Ivan Reitman‘s Kindergarten Cop.

25. Woody Allen‘s Alice.

What to do, say or think when a raging super-fire strikes like Godzilla, destroying hundreds of homes and displacing untold thousands and just spreading horror all over?

The thing that’s sticking in my mind right now is that Moonshadows Malibu has been destroyed. I visited Moonshadows five years ago and didn’t have many nice things to say, granted, but right now I feel very badly for everyone and anyone who ever worked there or had a few good times there…anyone who’s gotten drunk there (including Mel Gibson)…anyone carrying around any kind of good-vibe association with the place.

What’s happening right now is horrific.

More sanity from the SAG nominations! The selection of certain Golden Globe winners were, I feel, deranged, in no small part because they ignored Anora and they over-awarded The Brutalist…eff those Penske-selected international journalists…ignore these chumps.

The five nominees for the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture award — SAG’s equivalent of a Best Picture trophy — are A Complete Unkown, Anora, Conclave, Emilia Perez (if SAG voters were to ignore Perez they’d be accused of transphobia so I understand) and Wicked. In short, SAG voters have gloriously blown off The Brutalist…yes!!!…oh, yes!!! Also blown off: Dune: Part Two, The Substance, Babygirl, A Real Pain, Sing Sing…sorry for Babygirl.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: The Brutalist‘s Adrien Brody (please, God…not again!), A Complete Unknown‘s Timothee Chalamet (HE’s chosen courduroy prince!), Queer‘s Daniel Craig (superb, emotionally vulnerable, rock-solid performance!), Sing Sing‘s Colman Domingo (not happpening, bruh…you’ve been nominated because SAG voters are cautiously playing their DEI cards, but mainly because nobody saw Sing Sing…nobody!), and Conclave‘s (if magnificent Ralph beats astonishing Timothee, so be it…but the important thing is to make sure Adrien Brody loses…please!)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Anora‘s Mikey Madison gave a searing, vulnerable, guns-blazing, ball-of-fire hellion performance…vote her in! Mikey’s competition is The Substance‘s Demi Moore (she had her big moment at the Golden Globes last Sunday…that’ll suffice), Wicked‘s Cynthia Erivo (too green, too pixie-sized, too bald plus those eight-inch-long fingernaile), Emilia Perez‘s Karla Sofia Gascon (somebody tell Netflix marketers that identity campaigns are yesterday’s news), and The Last Showgirl‘s Pamela Anderson (nominated because she isn’t wearing any makeup these days).

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: A Real Pain‘s Kieran Culkin will probably win again, but HE’s two favorite sons are Anora‘s Yura Borisov and The Apprentice‘s Jeremy Strong. I also loved Edward Norton‘s Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown. HE to Wicked‘s Jonathan Bailey: Not happenin’, man…sorry.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: SAG voters need to punish Emilia Perez‘s Zoe Saldana for crying too much and going on too long during her Golden Globe acceptance speech last weekend. HE supports A Complegte Unknown‘s Monica Barbaro (i.e., Joan Baez). Forget Wicked‘s Ariana Grande (too tiny), The Piano Lesson‘s Danielle Deadwyler (sorehead) and The Last Showgirl‘s Jamie Lee Curtis (not a chance).

A semblance of sanity (and therefore an aesthetic challenge to last Sunday’s Golden Globe awards) was conveyed by today’s DGA nominations for the feature film directing award — Sean Baker for Anora (whoo-hoo!), James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (yeaaahhh!), Edward Berger for Conclave (yowsah!), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (baaahhh!) and Jacques Audiard for the overpraised Emilia Perez.

So who got stiffed? Who got the shaft? The Substance‘s Coralie Fargeat, Wicked‘s Jon M. Chiu, A Real Pain‘s Jesse Eisenberg, The Apprentice‘s Ali Abbasi, Dune: Part Two‘s Denis Villeneuve, Babygirl‘s Halina Reijn.

The 77th Annual DGA Awards ceremony will be held on Saturday, February 8.

The Palisades fire is raging and spreading and obviously dangerous, but what got my attention while watching this clip was the fact that a Millennial KTLA reporter didn’t recognize 66-year-old Steve Guttenberg. Poor guy…imagine the feeling in Guttenberg’s chest when the reporter asked for his name.

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All hail fond memories of Peter, Paul and Mary as we lament the passing of Peter Yarrow, who had a gentle spirit within him. Or so I always felt.

Peter, Paul and Mary peaked for roughly a decade — between the early to late ’60s. But they’re regarded as a classic evergreen act, or they were for a long while.

Peter had the gentle soul, the late Mary Travers had great pipes and the blonde folkie hottie glamour thing until (I’m sorry but there’s no sidestepping this) she turned into a whale, and Paul Stookey had the folkie smartass thing.

When I think of Yarrow I think of “Puff, The Magic Dragon” (’62), which he wrote based on a Leonard Lipton poem. And when I think of Mary I think of her excellent 1969 recording of “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane”, which was written by John Denver. And when I think of Paul I think of “I Dig Rock ‘n’ Roll Music” (’67), which he co-authored.

I don’t like admitting this, but when I look at YouTubes of Peter, Paul and Mary, I vastly prefer videos recorded when they were young, slender and attractive. Old bald Peter is okay because his kind-heartedness comes through at any age, but I still prefer the guy he was in the ’60s. But I really don’t like looking at…uhm, I prefer looking at videos of young, rail-thin Mary.

Here’s a slightly less articulate version of HE’s post-Golden Globes complaint (2.6, 10:30 am) about Emilia Perez beating Anora in the comedy-musical category.

@emmasamanthaaa GOODBYE #fyp #fypシ #anora #snub #emiliaperez #movie #goldenglobes ♬ original sound – emma

John Ford’s The Searchers, which is back in the stream of things with a brand-new 4K restoration, is not the greatest American movie or even the greatest American western.

It goes on and on and on. Episode after episode after episode. Runs 119 minutes, but feels like 150 minutes if not three hours.

The visual compositions are magnificent start to finish and the iconic John Wayne is excellent in a caustic and ferocious way, but oh, God, the story and the supporting performances drive you crazy

Jeffrey Hunter’s over-acting is deeply painful (I’m sitting there begging him to effing tone it down); ditto Vera Miles.

Hunter’s Martin Pawley writes Miles’ Laurie Jorgensen ONE non-romantic letter over a five-year period and is surprised that she gets engaged to someone else?


The over-spirited Ford ensemble celebration scenes amount to a kind of cornball endurance test. Hank Worden‘s acting as village idiot Mose Harper is silly and cartoonish.

The simplistic racist depictions of Comanches as mere bloodthirsty savages, not to mention that poor overweight Indian woman who is treated like garbage and then killed by U.S. troops and especially the wailing delirium of those white women who had been kidnapped and raised by Native Americans…all deeply repulsive.

The film offers no explanation why Natalie Wood’s Debbie has no children by Henry Brandon’s Scar, who has been fertilizing her for years on end and probably prior to puberty as Lana Wood was eight or nine when she played adolescent Debbie at the time of her abduction.

Ethan Edwards’ last-minute abandonment of racist fanaticism is just thrown in there without rhyme or reason — his character arc is basicallly “Indian hate and revenge, hate and revenge, hate and revenge, hate and revenge…hate, hate, hate” and then “let’s go home, Debbie.”

Ford’s The Horse Soldiers (‘59) is much more realistic and just as sad and even poetic and far less arduous.

From Reid Rosefelt‘s admiring, strongly written, no-holds-barred Facebook review of A Complete Unknown, posted this morning:

And this…

It’s utterly miserable out there. Nothing but frosty, biting, stinging pain when you step outside. It’s mostly the wind chill. North Pole agony.

Earlier this evening I finally watched the new 4K Searchers. No more complaints. Among the most beautiful VistaVision restorations ever created, and certainly equal to the recently released North by Northwest 4K disc. All hail the great Winton C. Hoch. The 70mm projected version I saw last summer at the MoMI in Astoria was nothing compared to this. Wowsah. Yowsah.