As I don’t “do” kiddie movies for the most part, Juan Antonio Bayona‘s A Monster Calls (Focus, 12.23) just isn’t for me. If the family trade decides to love it and spread the word, great…knock yourselves out. But it made me feel as if a little mosquito virus had gotten into my brain. I was thinking about sneaking out less than half-hour in.

Patrick Ness‘s 2011 novel is a respected fable about a young lad (Lewis MacDougall) with a sick mom (Felicity Jones) who gets to know a friendly tree giant whom no one else can see, at least not initially. The giant, of course, is a metaphor for the fervent imagination of a boy coping with grief and the cruel pestering of classmates. And after the tree giant tells three tales, the lad must stand up and tell his own…I’m sorry, where was I?

If only the gifted Bayona hadn’t decided to ignore the kind of subtle, tingly approach that made The Orphanage (’07), which he directed with the alliance of producer Guillermo del Toro, such a brilliant classic. But he has. It’s like Bayona’s Spanish-speaking self directed The Orphanage and his wily, opportunistic, Hollywood-fellating twin brother flew to the States and directed A Monster Calls.

Clearly aimed at the easily impressed, A Monster Calls is expensively CG-ed but grossly unsubtle — it insists on spelling out every little plot turn and implication in underlined boldface. I’m sorry but any film that starts off by immersing the viewer in a seriously nightmarish scenario only to show the main protagonist suddenly waking up from said nightmare, sweat-soaked and hyperventilating…well, that’s a cliche.  And so the film must be automatically dismissed. I’m sorry but that’s a hard and fast rule.

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President Barack Obama is a wise, dignified, intelligent man who believes in process and mutual respect whenever possible, but I’m feeling nauseous just looking at Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office. Really — I feel sick. Slightly more American voters voted for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday than for Trump — just remember that. And remember how many women voted for Trump, and how many African-Americans and Hispanics. You forehead-slapping morons. One more thing: We’re about to inaugurate a President with the biggest pot belly since William Howard Taft. (Lyndon Johnson was a large, full-bodied man, but his stomach didn’t bulge out like Trump’s.)

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The two biggest seismic political events to happen over the last 18 months were the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and that’s because they both were tapping into the same fundamental rage that beaten-down middle-class schlubs were feeling, and talking about serious overhaul. Hillary Clinton beat Sanders and took the Democratic nomination, but she was, is and always will be a moderate-centrist status quo poll-watcher with an attitude of whatever-works accommodation. Her voice lacked Sanders’ conviction and authenticity. It was obvious that Hillary was 15 or 20 times better than Trump, and so I voted for her. But too many millions didn’t like or trust her. Sasha told me the other night that our friendship is over because I helped to defeat Hillary by complaining about her eye bags and braying voice and whatnot, and that’s fine if she wants to play it that way. But this post-election riff by The Young Turks‘ Jordan Chariton, who’s nearly the same age as Jett, strikes me as intelligent, wise and highly perceptive. I’m sorry but I’m more with Chariton than with Stone. Things have changed.

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This Frontline report has been fully absorbed and chewed over, but Donald Trump almost certainly decided to run for president after President Obama kicked him around — okay, humiliated him — during a 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman, told Frontline (or somebody) this was what did it. From this point on Trump was determined to have revenge. Those present at the event said Trump “looked furious” as Obama sliced and diced him. New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik said, “His head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him. There was not a trace of feigned good humor.” Please — watch the first six minutes. Just the first six. (Thanks to producer-editor David Scott Smith for calling attention.)

This is what Young Americans are really good at. Coast to coast howls. I feel so proud right now. So much better than grief. No peace, no quarter, no reprieve. Street action in NYC, Boston, Portland, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. Me? I was watching Robert Zemeckis‘s Allied in Westwood. Better than what I expected — a fine, crafty, old-fashioned suspenser. Great integrated FX. A gold standard movie-movie. Will there be anti-Trump L.A. protest tomorrow night? I’m there.

Huge paper-mache Trump heads burns in downtown Los Angeles — Wednesday, 11.9, early evening.

“The overpasses were packed. This is the on-ramp to the 101 freeway. Behind me protesters milled through traffic as the police slowly moved in to stymie the expanding mob. The protesters put their hands over their heads, chanting ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot.'” — HE’s own Vladimir Cvetko who filed that Syrian refugee piece last April.

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Today is all about mourning for lefties. I just tried to persuade two female industry pallies (a producer, a cinematographer) to join me for an industry screening of Robert Zemeckis‘s Allied, and they both said they feel too devastated, too depressed to attend. The dp’s voice sounded hoarse and crackly, like she’d just talked herself out of dropping a handful of seconals. The producer sounded more spirited, but she couldn’t rouse herself. Sitting through an entertaining World War II thriller seemed a bridge too far. So there are a lot of depressed people in this town. And I’m wondering how, if at all, this will affect the response to Allied? Hundreds of people who’ve just come from a funeral, sitting in a theatre and staring at a big screen. Their minds elsewhere. Zombies.

1:15 pm Update: “Things change,” Variety‘s Kris Tapley has just reported. “Paramount is now planning to screen Martin Scorsese‘s Silence for members of the National Board of Review on 11.19 and members of the New York Film Critics Circle on 11.30.” What about the Broadcast Film Critics Association then? If the NBR gets to see Silence on 11.19, the film could surely be shown to the BFCA before the balloting deadline of 11.28. I know that BFCA honcho Joey Berlin was talking to Paramount earlier today.

Andrew Garfield in Martin Scorsese’s Silence.

Earlier: When Variety‘s Kris Tapley reported yesterday morning that Martin Scorsese‘s Silence wouldn’t be screening for critics until sometime in December, the assumption was that Scorsese needed more time to fine-tune his period epic. Because to screen it in time for the NYFCC, LAFCA, National Board of Review and the Broadcast Film Critics Association voting deadlines, Silence would have had to be finished and screenable by around Thanksgiving, but Scorsese, one assumed after reading Tapley’s story, needed an extra week or two.

Then I reported this morning that NYFCC members were invited on 10.31 to an 11.30 screening of Silence, which would have at least fit within the NYFCC voting schedule. I assumed after reading Paramount’s invitation that Scorsese had recently changed his mind about the film’s post-production schedule and that the 11.30 screening would no longer be possible.

But an hour ago an Indiewire piece said that that Silence will be screened to 400 Jesuit priests in Rome sometime in late November. So it’ll obviously be finished and screenable later this month. Why, then, are Paramount and Scorsese declining to screen it for critics until sometime in December? It’s apparently not a logistical decision but one based on….you tell me. This is an odd way to play their hand.

Yesterday’s election was not an “intramural scrimmage.” It was a grotesque smothering of hope. There is no earthly reason to expect that Donald Trump‘s inability to focus on anything for more than a couple of minutes will suddenly change. There’s no reason to expect that he’ll approach the Presidency with anything approaching curiosity, much less competency. What is absolutely certain at this stage is that the Clinton loyalists within the Democratic National Committee have to be jettisoned. Here’s to the mid-terms and a seriously progressive Democratic candidate running for president in 2020.

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If Joe Biden had won the Democratic presidential nomination last summer, he’d be president-elect this morning. I’m even telling myself that if Bernie had won the nomination he might have prevailed because at least he was addressing the same anger that Trump managed to exploit so well. The liberal instinct right now is to lower our voices, show a little tenderness, easy does it. The wife of a journalist colleague told me this morning to be extra-gentle with over-45 women today (i.e., don’t be an asshole). Thanks, wife of journalist colleague! But I can sense the mood as well as she can. Whatever grief is being felt this morning by over-45 women, I feel it also. Not “theirs” but “ours.” The fact is that too many Democrats and Millenials stayed home. The bumblefucks didn’t exactly say “no” to a would-be woman president, but they sure as hell said “no” to Hillary.

"The terrorists have won." — Keith Olbermann pic.twitter.com/CCrbWRDCxa

— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) November 9, 2016

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On 7.31 The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur predicted a Trump win by nearly the same electoral college margin that he actually won by. Michael Moore was predicting the same around the same time, actually a bit earlier. Oh, and by the way? Nate Silver needs to get out of town and hide out in the hills of western Massachusetts until things calm down.

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Early this morning HE commenter “Bad Hat Harry” addressed big-city liberal-progressive types about last night’s election result: “I hope you’ve set aside a health does of hate for yourself because you share AT LEAST as much blame for President Trump as anyone who voted for him — your party and policies created the necessary conditions for his ascendency. But of course instead of rational self-examination and reflection, you’ll demonize your opponents and call them names and misrepresent their motives. Easier to let yourself off the hook that way.”

To which I responded: “This is what some voices were saying in the wake of the ’00 and ’04 elections — respect the Bubba vote, respect their motives and concerns. On top of which Bush is a nicer, more personable guy than Gore or Kerry — a guy you can have a beer with. And he’ll stand up to terrorism!

“I was never super-delighted with Hillary Clinton either, but my God…what have they done? The bumblefucks have just taken a giant, self-pitying, anti-progressive shit on this country. They have guaranteed the continuance of Citizen’s United, hastened the demise of the planet through climate change, ensured the rightwing leanings of the Supreme Court and all but stabbed the progressive movement in the heart. They can’t see beyond their own myopic mythology, their own chosen blindness. May their lives only get worse. Much, much worse. May fresh poison flow through their veins. If I could clap my hands three times to ensure this, I would clap my hands three times.”