For quite a few years I felt genuinely excited when the Vanity Fair Oscar issue came out, which was always in early February. For the reading, I mean. It was really quite the thing to read in a nice warm cafe somewhere. Especially in the ’90s and early aughts. There was always (or more often than not) some kind of tangy, well-researched Peter Biskind article about some highly combustible collaboration that resulted in a great or a terribly-gone-wrong film. I’ll always love the Annie Lebovitz portraits (the JLaw/Jane Fonda portrait is worth the price of the current issue in itself) but the magazine…oy. Where the editors’ heads are at, I mean. Over the last four or five years the articles have seemed more and more disposable, more angled at under-educated lightweights. Question: I understand Lupita Nyong’o being among these 2015 super-women (she gave the most intriguing performance in Stars Wars: The Force Awakens) but what did Diane Keaton recently do to merit inclusion?

At this precise moment the Hollywood Elsewhere realm is divided into three camps — those who instantly recognize this as a capture from Jean-Luc Godard‘s Weekend (’67), those who went “Hmm, maybe if I google ‘Hermes hand bag car crash’ something’ll come up” and those who said to themselves “uhm…whatever.”

A lot of film sophistos talk a hip game, but if you press them they’ll admit they’ve never seen Expresso Bongo (’59), which actually began as a stage musical the year before. The BFI Bluray pops on 4.18.16. Synopsis: “Val Guest‘s 1959 London-shot Brit Beat classic is a sharp satire on the music industry. Aspiring musician Bert Rudge (Cliff Richard) stands little chance in the music business but is propelled to major stardom after being discovered in an expresso coffee shop by sleazy Soho agent Johnny (Laurence Harvey). In quick succession Rudge changes his name to Bongo Herbert, gets a record deal and strikes up a relationship with an aging American singing sensation (Sylvia Sims).” Honestly? I’ve never seen Expresso Bongo.

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It’s a toss-up as to whether Donald Trump‘s loss to Ted Cruz or the Bernie-Hillary tie was last night’s biggest surprise, but I was so convinced Trump had it won and that Hillary would edge out Bernie that I didn’t even check the results until 10 pm or thereabouts. But all Bernie supporters should enjoy the moment; ditto his New Hampshire victory next week. Because it’s going to get a lot tougher for him when African-American voters start weighing in. (I was beaten up yesterday for trying to explain why black voters overwhelmingly prefer Hillary to Bernie, according to surveys. Is it okay to say that polls strongly indicate this, or should I just ignore this factor altogether for fear of angering the bullshit brigade?) N.Y. Times reporter Amy Chozick has written about the psychological wounding that the Clinton campaign experienced last night while “Upshot” analyst Nate Cohn argued a “virtual tie” in Iowa is better for Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders.

A month ago I wrote that I’d been allowed to see the first six episodes of The People vs. O.J. Simpson, the ten-part “American Crime Story” miniseries (exec produced and co-written by HE pallies Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and directed/co-produced by Ryan Murphy) that debuts tomorrow night — Tuesday, February 2nd — on FX. Let me repeat what everyone has been saying, which is that this it gets everything right except for one awful casting choice. Otherwise this is one of the most arresting true-crime miniseries I’ve ever seen. Bracing. Crackerjack up and down, and really well acted. Sharp writing, tightly cut, keeps the ball in the air. There are even a couple of jokes about the brassy young daughters of O.J. friend and counsel Robert Kardashian…love it!

Cheers to Alexander and Karaszewski for having written an on-target, carefully-measured, sometimes hilarious script, and to Murphy for delivering the whole thing with a completely realistic and recognizable tone.

To a very large extent almost all of the actors strikingly resemble their counterparts — especially John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Courtney Vance as Johnnie Cochran (great!), Robert Morse as Vanity Fair reporter Dominick Dunne, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, Kenneth Choi as Judge Lance Ito, Billy Magnussen as Kato Kaelin, Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, Bruce Greenwood as Gil Garcetti and Rob Morrow as Barry Scheck. The whole resemblance + dead-on performance dynamic is quite enjoyable. Total approval on this end.

Except for the casting of Cuba Gooding as O.J. Simpson.

In a 2.1 Indiewire/Thompson on Hollywood review of American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, a ten-part miniseries which debuts tomorrow night, Matt Brennan offers one of the most absurd and wimpiest conclusions about the O.J. Simpson case ever published outside the African-American community, certainly in this century. In a sentence that calls the FX miniseries “brilliant”, Brennan states that “we may never know for certain what happened in Brentwood on the night of June 12, 1994.” In other words, Brennan is saying that a final, definitive determination of O.J. Simpson’s guilt in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman is beyond the scope of the evidence.

I’m sorry but Brennan and his Indiewire editor[s] have, with the above clause, shown themselves to be gutless p.c. swine.

The phrase “we may never know for certain” is a bend-over-backwards allowance on Brennan’s part. He’s basically saying (a) there are many people in the African-American community who continue to believe that racist rogues within the L.A. police department (led by Mark Fuhrman) attempted to frame Simpson with planted evidence, and (b) “hey, who knows for sure?” By what logical or evidentiary basis could Brennan, a USC grad and a New Orleans resident who has also written for L.A. Weekly, Slant and Deadspin, have even thought about writing such a thing? The answer is “none.” There’s “on the other hand” and then there is flat-out delusion. Brennan wrote that line to appease the “O.J. may have been framed” crowd, plain and simple.

For over 20 years the pyhsical evidence showing that Simpson is/was guilty has been flat-out irrefutable. I’ve linked before to a legendary mid ’90s Spy piece called 1001 Reasons why the OJ Trial is the Most Absurd Event in the History of America“, but here are two relevant portions:

Two and a half weeks ago a Quinnipiac University poll reported that 49% of likely Democratic Iowa caucus voters supported Bernie Sanders vs. 44% for Hillary Clinton. And yet in mid-December the same Iowa poll had Clinton ahead of Sanders 51-42. But now Bernie has apparently stalled. Last weekend the latest Des Moines Register poll reported that Clinton is leading Sanders, 45 to 42. Which doesn’t mean Iowa is unwinnable for Sanders given previous errors of 5 or even 10 percentage points in the caucuses, but it feels like it might be Hillary’s moment. Maybe. Donald Trump will, of course, defeat Ted Cruz (the DMR poll gave him a 28-to-23 edge), with Marco Rubio bringing up the rear at 15%.

Bernie will trounce Hillary in New Hampshire, of course, but she’ll take him in South Carolina because of the sage reasoning of African-American voters down there. Polls indicate that most are persuaded that Bernie is not on their team.

Girl-crazy swabbies about to ship out and already feeling the pain. Although it’s on the level of a musical parody routine from The Carol Burnett Show, this is nonetheless one of the most winning moments from Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail, Caesar! (Universal, 2.5). “There Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Dame” from South Pacific plus imaginary routines from Anchors Aweigh and Hit The Deck (i.e., Channing Tatum as Gene Kelly or Tony Martin). It’s almost perfect except for two things: (a) as Hail Cesar! is happening around 1950 or ’51, the aspect ratio should have been 1.37:1, and (b) when Tatum yanks his sailor hat off his hair gets mussed. (It happens at the 31-second mark.) Trust me — Gene Kelly would have never allowed his toupee to get mussed. Layers upon layers of super-hold spray — simple. Such things never happened during the Hollywood Dream Factory’s heyday. I hate to say it, but the Coens allowing Tatum’s hair mistake seems almost surreal. Coen Bros. films are nothing if not super-meticulous, so how did this happen?

Sunday’s Oscar Poker chat runs a fast 35 minutes. It began with Sasha Stone and I discussing Spotlight‘s big ensemble win at the conclusion of Saturday night’s SAG Awards. Before that happened The Big Short was looking like the hottest Best Picture winner. Not so much now. Until next weekend’s DGA awards Spotlight is a hot ticket again. “What kind of mind is this? An empty shell, a lonely cell. In which an empty heart must dwell. What kind of clown am I? What do I know of life?” Again, the mp3.

A day or two ago a Sundance-attending journalist friend who’d seen Deadpool told me he really liked it, etc. Me: “Really? But the tone is so arch…it’s obviously a huge meta thing.” Sundance-attending journalist friend: “That’s what all the superhero films are doing these days.” This trailer has convinced me that I’ll hate it no matter what, and so I’ve no concerns about missing Thursday’s Los Angeles all-media screening as I’ll be attending the Santa Barbara Film Festival starting on Wednesday. Maybe I’ll pay to see it up there.

The winners of last night’s jury and audience awards for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival bore only an incidental relationship to what the festival actually boiled down to for many if not most of the attendees. 

The only serious home run was Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester-By-The-Sea, but it wasn’t award-eligible as it was shown in the premiere section.

Before anyone had even seen Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation it was all but assured an award from the jury or the audience or both. Everyone felt the clamor and knew that Birth was the movie to support in order to demonstrate their humanism and compassion, and to proclaim that they weren’t in league with the OscarsSoWhite crowd back in Los Angeles. Yes, Parker tried very hard and put his heart into every shot and frame, but at best it’s an okay, at times mediocre film, hindered by an idealized attitude about Nat Turner and too much paint on the canvas.

As BBC.com’s Owen Gleiberman noted a couple of days ago, The Birth of a Nation is basically an Ed Zwick or a Ron Howard film, but it wouldn’t have won at Sundance if Zwick or Howard had actually directed it.