Back in the old days movies (dramas, comedies, thrillers) used to occasionally include semi-nude scenes. Which were exploitive, of course, but also half-cool in their own way. Not nude scenes, which we still have from time to time, but semi-nude scenes, which were arguably hotter than franker depictions of whatever because of the inherent clash of values and sensibilities (commercially lewd intentions vs. prudish social instincts) behind them. The brand-name actresses who performed in these dopey scenes would always half-cover themselves with a bedsheet or a towel, not because such cover-ups even began to reflect actual human behavior but because of clauses in contracts that sought to limit exposure. It was this climate of disputing and negotiating and pleading and adamant refusals that led to these mostly ridiculous moments, like this one from Go Naked In The World. Yes, a mainstream film was actually called that.

Why would Christopher Steele, a respected investigator and former MI6 agent, a guy with a family and a mortgage and bills to pay, work for weeks without salary? Probably because he was convinced that the project he’d been working on (and which not enough people had paid sufficient attention to) was bigger than himself, bigger than just a job.

This Independent article by Kim Sengupta adds that “it is believed that a colleague of Mr. Steele in Washington, Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who runs the firm Fusion GPS, felt the same way and, at the end also continued with the Trump case without being paid.”

Barry Levinson‘s The Wizard of Lies, an HBO flick about despised ponzie-schemer Bernie Madoff, will premiere on HBO in May. Robert De Niro as the #1 motherfucker, Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff, Alessandro Nivola as Mark Madoff + Nathan Darrow, Kristen Connolly, Lily Rabe and Hank Azaria. Madoff now resides in a federal pen in Butner, North Carolina. His projected release date is November 14, 2139, at which point Bernie will be 201 years old.

It’s not a rumor nor subject to debate — Peter Berg‘s Patriots Day (which opened on over 3000 screens this weekend) is a fleet, punchy docudrama that totally kills in the second act and is generally an A-level thing. (The only problem is that “Boston, fuck yeah!” tribute section at the very end.) So why isn’t it playing as well as expected?

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allesandro says that a projected three-day tally of only $14.2 million is “an upset, [especially] considering that many box office analysts thought this movie had a shot at No. 1 with a $20 million-plus four-day” — the Martin Luther King holiday falls on Monday — “juiced by some of the flyover state American Sniper crowd.”

To some extent the $14.2 million argues with Patriots Day‘s A+ CinemaScore, which suggests that good word of mouth is out there and should gradually kick in. D’Allesandro reminds that an A+ grade (which is relatively rare) usually results “in a 4.8 multiple off 3-day openings which means Patriots Day could get close to $60 million.”

I figured that Patriots Day would sell itself. I thought it was better than just a magnet for the hinterland crowd (i.e., beefy, beer-chugging, flannel-shirt-wearing Trump voters) — I thought it would play all over, for everyone — but that $14.2 million suggests that even the primitives weren’t as enthused as they might have been. Why, I wonder?

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allessandro is projecting that Hidden Figures, expected to win the weekend and just shy last night of a $40 million gross, will come in only 14% lower than last weekend’s three-day tally. That’s a phenomenal hold.

A couple of months ago I would predicted that among African-American films Fences would be the humdinger and that Hidden Figures looked like a maybe. I was wrong. Hidden Figures is actually “crushing Fences‘ core audience,” says D’Allesandro, adding that the Denzel Washington flick is “actually set to decline 42% [this weekend] with $3.4 million, for a total cume of $46.6 million.”

What’s the Hidden Figures verdict from HE regulars? The stellar performances aside, my view is that it’s a smart, reality-based confection that aims to please, and does that efficiently. Not that there’s anything wrong with pleasing audiences, but Fences is a heavier, deeper, more high-level thing.

Last night I caught a screening of Bullitt at the American Cinematheque Egyptian. I was fearful when I read it would be shown in 35mm, but the print was fairly pristine. (If a wee bit faded.) And I was especiallly pleased that it was being shown in 1.66:1 — the finest non-Scope aspect ratio, the a.r. of the Godz, HE’s own, etc.

If one of the leading 1.85 fascists had been there with me (Bob Furmanek, say, or Pete Apruzzese), they would’ve sat bolt upright and said “whoa, wait a minute…theatres projected mainstream non-Scope studio films exclusively in 1.85 starting in mid-1953, and Bullitt was released in ’68 or 15 years after the big aspect ratio changeover so what is this?”

Bullitt in 1.66:1 as projected last night at the American Cinematheque Egyptian.

Same scene at 1.78:1 as presented on the Warner Home Video Bluray — the richer Bluray colors are par for the course.

I went to the lobby and asked to speak to the projectionist. The manager declined (there must be some ironclad rule about protecting projectionists from the rabble) so I asked if he’d ask the projectionist himself if Bullitt was indeed being shown at 1.66, and if so, why not the allegedly uniform standard of 1.85? I didn’t say “the 1.85 fascist cause hangs in the balance” but that’s what I was thinking. Nor did I say “Bob Furmanek and Pete Apruzzese are going to be very upset if you come back with the wrong answer.”

The manager returned three minutes later and said the projectionist wasn’t in the booth. So I went up to the balcony and noticed an older, cool-looking guy standing near the booth. “Are you the projectionist?” I whispered. ‘Yeah,” he said. “I think it’s really great that you’re showing this in 1.66,” I said. He said that 1.66 was a suggested format or that it looked best that way or something like that. I wanted to give him a hug. Every hateful emotion I’ve felt over the years while dealing with Furmanek, Apruzzese and the rest of those Home Theatre Forum fascists just flew away and were replaced by a feeling of warmth and comradeship.

There’s a reason filmgoers have always believed that Marlon Brando‘s Terry Malloy was once a serious boxer. When Brando explains to crime commission investigator Leif Erickson that he let his opponent “tag me for a couple of rounds,” he starts performing the moment with that deflection thing, twice jerking his head and neck just so. You knew Brando had done at least some training in the ring, and that was what sold it.

Criterion’s just-released Bluray of Howard Hawks‘ His Girl Friday (’40) is a slight disappointment, I’m afraid. It looks reasonably decent — strong blacks, nice detail here and there, good monaural sound — but I didn’t get a satisfying Bluray “bump” feeling, which is what Hollywood Elsewhere always requires from Blurays of classic films.

An HE “bump” is a significant improvement from the last upgrade in whatever format, and for me the last time the resolution of His Girl Friday really popped my eyeballs was when I watched a “Columbia Classics” DVD from 16 years ago. (Released on 11.21.00, it contained a superb commentary track from Hawks biographer Todd McCarthy.) I had watched Friday on laser disc, VHS, broadcast TV and once or twice in a Manhattan repertory cinema, but this Columbia DVD made it look richer, crisper and cleaner than ever before.

I’m sorry but the Criterion Bluray really doesn’t look that much better than the way the DVD did 16 years ago on my old 480p Sony flatscreen. Yes, it’s a higher-quality transfer (if you project it on a big screen it’ll look much better than the DVD) but it’s completely smothered in digital grain mosquitos. I kept thinking to myself “poor Ralph Bellamy, playing that poor dope from Albany and having to sit there and suffer as those billions of mosquitoes crawl all over his head and neck and hair, not to mention Cary Grant and Rosaland Russell and all the rest besieged by the same swarm.”

For comparison’s sake I rented an Amazon high-def streaming version, and the main difference is that it looks a bit brighter than the Criterion, which has a saturated inky look. The sound and the image sharpness seemed relatively similar.

You can watch a high-def version of Richard Lester‘s Petulia via Amazon streaming, but Warner Bros. still won’t cough up a Bluray. They’ve probably figured that it’s not worth the candle, but man, what a wonderfully fresh, alive-at-a-critical-moment film this is — a window into LBJ-era San Francisco, and right smack dab in the middle of the summer and fall of ’67.

Posted two and 1/3 years ago: Richard Lester‘s Petulia is a chilly, emotionally distant film about a relationship that doesn’t quite come together, and yet there’s something very infectious and fizzy about it. I think it’s the combination of Lester’s dry ironic detachment and the odd atmospheric stirrings of what was happening in San Francisco when he shot it in the late summer and fall of 1967. There are snatches of music and marijuana and Haight-Ashbury in the periphery, but this is a film about being lonely and adrift…about wealth and comfort and social dance steps and two people who want out.

It’s about a 40ish doctor (George C. Scott) who’s bored to death by almost everything in his life and a dishy, spacey rich girl (Julie Christie) who gets it in her head that Scott is some kind of cure for whatever might be ailing her.

Petulia, which I return to every four or five years when I don’t feel like watching anything else, is composed of thousands of slices and fragments of everything and anything that was “happening” back then…sounds, whispers, glances. It’s somewhere between a tapestry and a jumble of pieces that don’t seem to fit, and yet they do when you step back. I think it’s one of the sharpest cultural time-capsule films Hollywood has ever churned out, and at the same time a curiously affecting love story.

Reaction #1: If I was a movie star and Lynn Hirschberg asked me to sing “I Will Survive” on-camera, I’d tell her to forget it. I don’t sing girly disco-beat songs that I can’t stand, for one thing. Even in the shower I don’t reach for the high notes or, you know, belt stuff out. I only sing within my range, so if you really want me to perform I’ll sing “Be-Bop Baby“, “Your Smiling Face” or “Nice ‘n’ Easy.” Reaction #2: Why do these guys seem averse to actually hitting notes? Reaction #3: I love it when someone cracks a joke on the Charlie Rose Show and genuine laughter ensues, but I really hate these goof-off, make-a-fool-of-yourself, farewell-my-dignity prank interviews that everyone submits to these days. I blame MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz for starting this loathsome trend. If Horowitz were to interview me for whatever reason I’d fight him at every turn. My attitude would be “no offense but fuck you, Josh, and your stupid-shit goofball questions.” I guess Jimmy “Trump hair muss” Fallon is the main perpetrator in this realm now.

The contestants: Emma Stone, Natalie Portman, Greta Gerwig, Anya Taylor Joy, Amy Adams, Chris Pine, Hailee Steinfeld, Felicity Jones, Taraji P. Henson. (I omitted Matthew McConaughey because I really hate his performance in Gold, and so he’s in the HE doghouse.)

According to Tatiana Siegel‘s 1.12 Hollywood Reporter interview with Jon Peters, the absentee producer and former mogul goes to bed each night at 7:30 pm and wakes up at 5:30 am. The guy is 71 and he crashes each night before the European dinner hour and stays under for 10 hours? That’s the pattern of a typical 92 year-old. If Kirk Douglas (100) or Norman Lloyd (101) want to bag ten hours per night, fine. But someone Peters’ age?

Jon Peters as pictured in Tatiana Siegel’s Hollywood Reporter interview.

You don’t want to sleep too much. Eight hours will more than suffice. Who wants to miss those sublime late-hour activities (book-reading, movie-watching, Real Time with Bill Maher, evening walks, hanging with your cat)? Plus you don’t want to sacrifice too much in the way of wide-awake consciousness because one day you’ll be going to sleep permanently, and that, trust me, will be very, very restful. What is Peters doing, rehearsing for that moment?

Also: There’s nothing that looks stupider than a long-haired guy walking around with his hair pulled into a tight bun and a little pony tail. If you want to wear your hair like Fabio, fine. If you want to wear it a bit shorter, cool. It’s even okay if you want to do a tennisball-head thing…actually, that’s not okay on second thought but we’ll let that go for now. But pony tails look ridiculous. (Are you listening, Casey Affleck?)

This is yesterday’s news but in the below clip Nicole Kidman cancelled her coolness cred in one swift stroke, and I mean possibly for the rest of her life. By saying “we need to support Donald Trump” because “he’s now elected [and] that’s what the country’s based on,” she murdered any notions that might have been floating around about her being a member of the committed-and-connected Meryl Streep Club of Resistance to the Monster.

Kidman sounded to me like a profoundly unthoughtful middle-aged wife of a Wall Street broker from suburban Greenwich or Fairfield, a woman who shops a lot and owns a cute dog and belongs to a bridge club.

Full death quote: “I just say…he’s now elected and we as a country need to support whosever the president, because that’s what the country’s based on. Whatever, however that happened…he’s there and let’s go. I’m always reticent to start commenting politically. I’ve never done it in terms of America or Australia. I’m issue-based. I also do an enormous amount of fundraising for breast and ovarian cancer, because that’s something that’s affected my family deeply.”

That’s it — she’s dead to me. Okay, if she sees the light one day and becomes “woke,” I might consider cutting her a break.