With four days to go before the big night, we’re looking at exactly two Oscar quandaries — (1) will Denzel Washington steal the Best Actor Oscar from Casey Affleck? and (2) which awards won’t be won by Team La La? Excitement levels couldn’t be higher. On top of which Hollywood Elsewhere has been besieged by invites to hot Oscar-week parties. Well, five or six. I won’t be attending tonight’s La La Land dinner thrown by Vanity Fair and Barney’s New York; ditto the VF and Lancome party celebrating VF’s Hollywood Issue. But I’m good for JJ Abrams‘ annual Oscar Wilde bash at Bad Robot on Thursday evening and…uhhm, maybe Friday’s Hidden Figures soiree at Spago. Not to mention the big-tent Spirit Awards on Saturday, an Amazon/Manchester By The Sea viewing and after-party on Oscar night followed by a Lionsgate La La after-party at Soho House. That’s enough, I think.

“I really want you to see Moonlight in the Ozarks. Because it’s a bit of a miracle.

“The sad truth is, films like this don’t get made anymore. It is a film about a rural white boy from southern Missouri navigating his burgeoning homosexuality while simultaneously trying to overcome the perils of being raised by his conservative-minded, oxycontin-addicted single mother. It has no movie stars. It is unabashedly honest and unapologetically runs against the tide of what is commonly considered to be commercial cinema.

“It is impossible to get a movie like this made in today’s indie film ecosystem. And yet the film exists. Somehow, it got made. And thank God.

“Because this is my favorite film of the last 10 years.” — Alternative Mark Duplass letter to the Academy, contemplated and expressed in a realm that probably wouldn’t have manifested if Moonlight in the Ozarks had been made.

For the magic-hour dance scene in La La Land, choreographer Mandy Moore lifted some steps from a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers routine from Top Hat (’35). Ryan Gosling‘s dancing is spry, lithe and graceful, but I have to say (and I’m not trying to sound like an asshole) that Astaire was better at it. I love the way he briefly stops on a dime and balances on one foot, just for a second. Emma Stone and Rogers are more evenly matched.

This afternoon I was cruising through the WeHo Pavilions parking lot in search of rest. I always feel guilty about taking a full-size space as I can fit in almost anywhere, but there was nothing to be had. Just like that two spots appeared to open up. I was behind two guys. I drove past one as another swerved into a spot, and suddenly I noticed what seemed to be a third spot on the right.

I pulled in, shut the bike off.  Two or three seconds later one of the guys I had passed was honking. The honks meant “hey, I wanted that spot! It was mine — I decided that 15 seconds ago…I had dibbsees!”

Me to Angry Honker, shrugging gesture, smile: “Law of the jungle, dude. Sorry!”
Angry Honker (crew-cutted Latino guy with girlfriend/wife riding shotgun): “You’re an asshole!”
Me to Angry Honker: “Okay!”

Update from disappointed colleague (2.21, 11:30 pm): “It’s Oscar week, dude! You don’t have anything better to write about than parking at Pavilions?”

Me: “It happened, I wrote it up. But I also wrote seven article-riffs earlier today — the bludgeoning of Milo Yiannopoulos, Feud: Bette and Joan, Michael Schulman‘s New Yorker piece on the Oscar games, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Wadsworth’s forest primeval in Franklin Canyon, et. al.”

We’re all expected to despise Milo Yiannopoulos for his Breitbart-endorsed opinions and antagonistic attitude toward Lena Dunham-like feminists but — honestly? — I just couldn’t work up the animus as I watched his Bill Maher interview last weekend.

Some (many?) of his views have a cruel, obnoxious taint but Milo himself (it has to be admitted) is mildly likable. He just lost his Simon & Schuster book deal and resigned from Breitbart because of a recently surfaced video in which he said that sexual relationships between older guys and young boys occasionally have their upsides. Milo says this stuff to provoke, of course, but a big-league film director once shared the same thing with me — i.e., that he began having sex with men when he was 10 or 11, and that it wasn’t such a bad thing.

I just think that the suppression of a controversial person’s views, however odious they may seem, doesn’t reflect well on the p.c. brownshirt brigade.

From a 2.15 Publisher’s Weekly piece by Thomas Flannery, Jr.: “Milo is provocative and charismatic, which has put a huge target on his back. His book is called ‘Dangerous’ because, to many people, a gay Jew who doesn’t kowtow to the party line, jeopardizes long-held beliefs that liberals are the party of inclusion, and the other guys are the party of hatred.

“This disruption of the status quo has left many feeling threatened. When protesters try to silence Milo, when they show up to his events and physically threaten him, or scream and smear fake blood all over themselves, or riot and destroy property, they are using tactics I, as a self-described progressive, have always chided others for using. I won’t stand for it when religious groups try to silence transgender supporters, and I won’t stand for it when so-called progressives try to silence conservative voices.

The way various films over the decades have handled the tragic tale of King Arthur, Guinevere and Sir Lancelot is an episodic tragedy in itself — from Richard Thorpe‘s workmanlike Knights of the Round Table (’54) to Joshua Logan‘s sugar-coated musical Camelot (’67), from Robert Bresson‘s Lancelot du Lac (’74 — one of the best) to John Boorman‘s Excalibur (’81 – my personal favorite), from Jerry Zucker‘s First Knight (’95 — the first to flaunt modernism in the face of classical tradition) to Antoine Fuqua‘s flat-out shitty King Arthur (’04).

And now the lowest of the low, the ultimate sword in the heart, a King Arthur-vs.-Lancelot flick partially scored by Led Zeppelin (at least in the trailer) and toplined by the leaden, lemme-outta-here presence of Charlie Hunnam — Guy Ritchie‘s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Warner Bros., 5.12).

The influence of Game of Thrones has been all but devastating. We will never again see a big-budget drama about medieval sturm und drang without being poked in the brain by this HBO series.

Two grabbers in Michael Schulman’s 2.27 New Yorker piece about political strategies in the Oscar race (“Shakeup At The Oscars“):

(1) Condolences to longstanding, influential, hard-working Oscar strategist Tony Angelotti for being referred to in Schulman’s piece as “an awards consultant named Tony Angellotti” while the NY-based Cynthia Swartz and the LA-based Lisa Taback are described as “the queens of East and West.” Imagine if Schulman had described Angelotti as “a veteran Oscar strategist” while mentioning “an awards consultant named Lisa Taback.” Both are technically accurate statements, but the blowback would have been significant.

(2) “[Last] June the Academy released a list of six hundred and eighty-three new members — a record number; forty-six per cent of them were female and forty-one per cent were nonwhite, representing 59 different countries. They included the actors John Boyega, America Ferrera, Ice Cube, Idris Elba, Daniel Dae Kim and Gabrielle Union; the directors Ryan Coogler (Creed), Marjane Satrapi and the Wachowski siblings; and three Wayans brothers, Damon, Marlon and Keenen.”

But Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs‘ “mini-purge” — an attempt to get rid of the Academy deadwood that was first announced in January ’16 — “ended up affecting less than one per cent of the membership, or about seventy people.” That’s all?

Posted on 2.2.16 (“If The Academy Had Only Followed My Weighted Ballot Suggestion…”): “A lot of older Academy members have expressed outrage about losing their voting privilege because they haven’t worked or been ‘active’ within the last ten years. (Along with the Academy’s vague suggestion that their advanced age means they’re probably racist on some level.) If the Academy had only listened to my suggestion to the deadwood problem, nobody would be upset and the community would be more or less at peace.

“Should the Oscar acceptance speeches be political? What I’m saying is that anyone with something political to say should feel free to say it. Here’s the opportunity that Oscar winners are given: a brief moment with a global audience. It’s a small statuette, but the first time you hold it, you’re surprised by how heavy it is. What might feel heavier to Oscar winners, this year, is that we do represent (however fleetingly) a community of artists. In our community, tolerance of intolerance is unacceptable. President Trump’s intolerance is glaring. Trump isn’t worrying about presidential protocol.” — author-screenwriter John Irving (The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules) in a 2.20 Hollywood Reporter op-ed piece.

Yesterday the S.R.O. (Significant Russian Other) and I took a mountain-trail hike in the foggy wilderness of the Santa Monica mountains. A good three and a half hours, screaming calf muscles and half soaked by the mist. We began at Coldwater Canyon Park, went up Beverly Drive and took a right on Franklin Canyon Drive (which suddenly turns into the wilds of Colorado or Vietnam even) and then hung a sharp right south onto Lake Drive down to Franklin Canyon Park. The grand finale was a steep ascent of Hastain Trail, which eventually hooks up with Royalton Drive and then Coldwater Canyon Drive, and finally a 1.75 mile hike back to C.C. Park. The most exciting incident was coming upon fresh mud prints of a mid-sized animal — I compared Google images of puma and coyote prints and couldn’t decide which. We found a not-too-ripe apple lying on the path during the final third — it seemed like one of the most delicious apples I’ve ever bitten into in my entire life.

Halfway up Hastain Trail, north of Franklin Canyon Park. The misty fog was so dense it was like being in the middle of a cloud.

My first thought was that this paw print belonged to a mountain lion but maybe not — maybe a large coyote.

As far as interactive Oscar ballots go, the Vanity Fair guys could’ve done worse. Incidentally: I always perk up when I hear a film described as “not half bad,” because to me it means “not without an issue or two but more than I expected and a better-than-average film overall.” In other words, an honest, non-bullshitty thumbs-up. And yet I’ve NEVER seen “not half bad” on a movie poster. The marketing exec with the balls to run such a quote would become an instant legend.

The knockdown, drag-out bitch brawl between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the making of Robert Aldrich‘s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (’62)? You betcha! Especially with the legendary Jessica Lange as Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Davis, not to mention Alfred Molina as Aldrich, Stanley Tucci as Jack L. Warner, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland, Sarah Paulson as Geraldine Page and Dominic Burgess as Victor Buono? This is (probably) going to be GRRRREAT! Ryan Murphy‘s Feud: Bette and Joan premieres just under two weeks hence (3.5) on FX. Not a single one-off but an eight-episode season. Produced by Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam, Lange and Sarandon. One question: The Wikipage says Murphy “developed” the mini but who actually directed Bette and Joan?

In no particular order, off the top of my head — the 27 Best Picture winners that have aged the best, still hold up, not necessarily the best of their respective years but entirely respectable: Spotlight (’15), Birdman (’14), 12 Years A Slave (’13), The Hurt Locker (’09), No Country For Old Men (’07), The Departed (’06), Schindler’s List (’93), The Silence of the Lambs (’91), Platoon (’86), Terms of Endearment (’83), Ordinary People (’80), Annie Hall (’77), The Godfather, Part II (’74), The Godfather (’72), The French Connection (’71), Patton (’70), Midnight Cowboy (’69), A Man For All Seasons (’66), Lawrence of Arabia (’62), The Apartment (’60), The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57), On The Waterfront (’54), From Here To Eternity (’53), All About Eve (’50), All The King’s Men (’49), The Best Years of Our Lives (’46), Casablanca (’43).