The other day Patti Lupone dismissed Madonna‘s performance as Evita Peron in Alan Parker’s 1996 film adaptation (which I’ve always enjoyed and admired). “Madonna is a movie killer,” Lupone said. “She’s dead behind the eyes. She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be on film or on stage. She’s a wonderful, you know, performer for what she does, but she is not an actress.” (Lupone’s performance as Evita in the original 1979 Broadway production is commonly regarded as the best.)

No one would argue Lupone’s point, but Madonna was never better than she was in Parker’s film. She wasn’t brilliant or staggering, but she gave it everything she had and this, coupled with the fact that Evita itself was an above-average musical, makes her performance an honorable, good-enough thing. Madonna wasn’t the best choice, agreed, but she was reasonably decent in the role, at least to the extent that she didn’t get in the way.

The lesson is that with God’s grace, even moderately talented, less-than-genius-level actors can briefly rise to the heights. Simply by being lucky enough to find the right role in the right film at the right time. Justin Timberlake in The Social Network. Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love. Sly Stallone in Rocky. What others?

Sidenote: I don’t agree about Hayden Christensen‘s performance in Shattered Glass being a high-water mark. I found his manner in that film oppressively phony and cloying, making it impossible to believe that Stephen Glass‘s coworkers at the New Republic would buy into his bullshit.

I’ve been waiting and waiting for the Russia-Trump election interference story to become the New Watergate. I was elated by the Comey firing because it seemed as if this, finally, would launch this story into orbit. It was Nixon firing Cox all over again…great! But I was also brought down yesterday by a Nate Silver/538 story about how the Russia thing has failed to ignite so far.

Silver: “It’s also possible that Comey’s firing is just the latest in a series of short, exciting bursts of activity that don’t ultimately produce any lasting momentum or do all that much to undermine Trump. This has mostly been the pattern of these Trump-Russia stories so far.” Three spikes — the British pee-pee tape dossier last January, the MNichael Flynn reisgnation in February and now the Comey firing.

Silver’s bottom line: “These [news] spikes have been relatively short-lived, and there has been no long-term increase in public attention to the story.”

Having missed Monday night’s Manhattan all-media of Snatched, the Amy Schumer-Goldie Hawn comedy, I’m thinking of catching a 7 pm show at the Regal Battery Park Stadium. I can only see 90 minutes’ worth as I have to leave for JFK at 8:30 pm (the Paris flight leaves at 11:30 pm) but it’s a flunk — 36% Rotten Tomatoes, 47% Metacritic. The word’s been out on this puppy for months.

From David Poland’s 5.10 review: “The biggest problem is that Schumer is playing dumb…perhaps stupid. And she takes it to a level that doesn’t serve her well. It’s kind of like, ‘If you loved Amy in Trainwreck as a smart but insecure early 30s woman with a fear of commitment who finally gets it together, you’ll REALLY LOVE Amy as a self-indulgent woman/child with a clinging, enabling mother who really learns nothing through the course of the movie and keeps us from seeing her mother fully blossom because she is taking up all the screen time.”

It would be quite a thing if Dwayne Johnson was to somehow land the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024, and find himself running against Democratic Presidential candidate Cory Booker. It would be the first time in U.S. history that opposing Presidential candidates would so closely resemble each other. Who would be more likely to win? It pains me to admit that Johnson would probably do better with low-information types. I’m thinking about Booker because the other day a friend mentioned that he’s probably the hottest contender right now for the 2020 Democratic nomination. He also mentioned that he’s mostly persuaded, based on what he’s heard, that the rumors are true. I hate admitting this also as I couldn’t be less interested in such matters, but the Democratic powers-that-be are probably concerned along these lines.

Yesterday I had a brief chat with Amir Bar-Lev, the highly respected director of My Kid Could Paint That, Trouble the Water, The Tillman Story, Happy Valley and, most triumphantly, Long Strange Trip (Amazon, 5.25). I’m a huge fan of this 241-minute doc, which more than justifies its length and winds up really bringing it during the second half. I went in as a marginal Grateful Dead fan and came out the other end as something of a devotee.

I’m sorry I won’t be in the States when Long Strange Trip has a one-night-only nationwide premiere on 5.25, but I’ll definitely be snagging the three-disc soundtrack CD. Amazon wil begin streaming the doc in 220 countries beginning on 6.2. Here, again, is the mp3. Here are some ABR excerpts from our discussion:

Long Strange Trip director Amir Bar-lev — Tuesday, 5.9, 12:35 pm.

Excerpt #1: “The film is not for fans…it’s for people who are not Dead fans. It’s meant to serve as a kind of marriage counselor between people who loved the band and people who never got them. Very few people are indifferent…this film is meant for people who never really understood the whole thing.”

Excerpt #2: “I’m not ready to start another film now. I’m tired. This one took a lot out of me. I remember being asked ‘if you could make any film, what would it be?’ And I said ‘I’ve just made it. This is the film I’m really the most proud of.'”

Excerpt #3: “The original idea was to make a 90-minute doc that would come out on the 50th anniversary of the start of the Grateful Dead‘s beginning, or two years ago. Everything doubled…the length, the budget, everything. It was meant to be a theatrical film, and then I couldn’t cut it down. I couldn’t cut it down. We fine-cut out way through it from the beginning, and [then] we had a working cut that was two hours long, which took the story up to 1974.”

HE review excerpt: “This is a first-rate chronicle of a great, historic American band. Don’t let the four-hour running time stop you because this time the length fits the scale of the tale. It’s one sprawling, Olympian, deeply-dug-into achievement, largely because it focuses on the story instead of the historical bullet points, and because it takes the time to explain the appeal of Grateful Dead music and the whole Deadhead ’80s culture thing, which I paid no attention to when it was happening.

“The first half is a good, comprehensive mid-to-late-’60s history lesson — efficient, amusing, well-honed and sometimes great. But Act Two (or the last two hours) really brings it home. This is where the heart is, what turned the light on — the thing that told me what Amir Bar-Lev is really up to.”

Longtime HE readers will recall the Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio contretemps that happened six years ago. Lyndon costar and longtime Stanley Kubrick assistant Leon Vitali, retained by Warner Home Video as a technical consultant on a spate of Kubrick Blurays, has insisted that the Lyndon Bluray be issued at 1.77:1 rather than 1.66:1, an a.r. previously adopted when WHV released the 1975 classic on laser disc. I hit the roof when I read about this. I argued, howled, seethed.

Then Glenn Kenny posted a 12.8.75 “smoking gun” letter written by Kubrick and sent to U.S. exhibitors. It stated that Barry Lyndon had been shot in 1.66 and should ideally be projected this way.

Now there’s a documentary about Vitali, Filmworker, that will show in a few days time at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, under the Cannes Classics subsection. The director is Tony Zierra.

Synopsis: “It’s a rare person who would give up fame and fortune to toil in obscurity for someone else’s creative vision. But that’s exactly what Leon Vitali did after his acclaimed performance as ‘Lord Bullingdon” in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. The young actor surrendered his thriving career to become Kubrick’s loyal right-hand man. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work.

Without saying anything about War Machine one way or the other, I can at least mention that a pop-through supporting performance is given by Keith Stanfield. I’ve been paying attention to this 25 year-old actor for three years — Jimmie Lee Jackson in Selma, “Bug” in Dope, Snoop Dog in Straight Outta Compton and especially that creeped-ut guy passing along those weird vibes to Daniel Kaluuya during that backyard party scene in Get Out. Stanfield plays another haunted type in War Machine, an Army Corporal serving in Afghanistan who’s having trouble understanding Brad Pitt‘s convoluted strategy, and who also carries a climactic battle moment in Act Three. I’m just saying that Stanfield is the guy you’re talking about when it’s over. His character brings a couple of reality-check moments that stick.

A writer never plans or knows anything in advance. He/she just lives, roams around, listens, watches. And then suddenly you’re “called.” You hear that whisper or feel a little tap on the shoulder, and either you decide that you’ve just heard something worth exploring or you don’t. The thing about good ideas (i.e., inspiration) is that they never shake you by the lapels or announce themselves like Roman trumpets. They’re like those tonal sounds that elevators make when they arrive on a certain floor….poon. Like the vibration of a phone that’s had the sound turned off. Whether or not you answer and listen is up to you.

I had a Tom Hanks-style exasperation moment inside Tribeca Cleaners this morning. I gave the guy some items (jeans, light green chinos, 2 T-shirts, pair of socks), adding that I need them by 5 or 6 pm tomorrow. He held up the socks and asked if I wanted them dry-cleaned.

Me: “Socks? No, I don’t want them dry-cleaned. In fact, I don’t want anything dry-cleaned. Don’t you guys offer laundry service?” Guy: “Yes, but most people want dry cleaning.” Me: “These are washables. Who wants jeans and T-shirts dry-cleaned?” Guy: “Most people. They want their jeans smooth.” Me: “Why? They’re just jeans.” Guy: “They don’t want any wrinkles.” Me: “Jeans don’t wrinkle. You wash them and you put them on. That’s what jeans are about…you know, the rugged authenticity thing.”

This tells you what kind of people are living in Tribeca these days. Phonies. Pod people. 21st Century Marie Antoinettes. People who would’ve run screaming from Tribeca if they’d come down here in the ’70s or ’80s.

It’s been announced that as of next year, Netflix releases will not be screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Unless, that is, the straight-to-streaming service changes its attitude about theatrical playdates. Amazon, Netflix’s biggest online competitor, has declared an intention to open films theatrically before going to streaming; Netflix has been fairly adamant about not doing that. French exhibitors have recently been venting much anger about this.

Official Cannes statement, released this morning: “A rumor has recently spread about a possible exclusion of the Official Selection of Noah Baumbach‘s The Meyerowitz Stories and Bong Joon Ho‘s Okja, which have been largely financed by Netflix. The Festival de Cannes does reiterate that, as announced on April 13th, these two films will be presented in Official Selection and in Competition.

“The Festival de Cannes is aware of the anxiety aroused by the absence of the release in theaters of those films in France. The Festival de Cannes asked Netflix in vain to accept that these two films could reach the audience of French movie theaters and not only its subscribers. Hence the Festival regrets that no agreement has been reached.

“The Festival is pleased to welcome a new operator which has decided to invest in cinema but wants to reiterate its support to the traditional mode of exhibition of cinema in France and in the world. Consequently, and after consulting its Members of the Board, the Festival de Cannes has decided to adapt its rules to this unseen situation until now: any film that wishes to compete in Competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theaters. This new measure will apply from the 2018 edition of the Festival International du Film de Cannes onwards.”

Does HE’s menu icon (three dots, three dashes) resemble a hamburger? I don’t see it but that’s the slang term used by code dweebs. I’m mentioning this because today HE consultant Dominic Eardley added three options to HE’s menu bar — Twitter, Facebook and Search. Just saying.

Opening graph of today’s N.Y. Times story about President Trump shit-canning former FBI director James Comey: “President Trump has fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, the White House said on Tuesday.”

I seriously doubt that the reason for Trump’s action was about Comey’s handing of the Clinton email inquiry. I don’t think Trump gives one infinitesimal shit about that. I think the firing is an attempt to restrict or otherwise control the FBI’s investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the ’16 election.

Comey was guiding or overseeing that investigation. I’m presuming that Comey’s replacement will be chosen based on his or her skepticism about the Russia/Trump thing, and/or a less-then-ardent interest in pursuing the matter.

In short I think it’s a Nixon-firing-Cox episode all over again. Thoughts?

“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Mr. Trump said in a letter to Mr. Comey dated Tuesday. “It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission,” Mr. Trump wrote.