Around 1:45 pm I visited the Hollywood DMV office on Cole Avenue to once again, for the third time, try to pass my written motorcycle test. 12 or so multiple choice questions (I think), and all you need to do to pass is get nine of them right. I got four wrong and failed. So I renewed my temporary car driver’s license in the main room (I’m trying to get a combination car and motorcycle license) and went back into the Alcove of Agony and took the written test again. I failed it for the fourth time. But consider one of their fucking questions. They show you an overhead drawing of a motorcycle cruising alongside three or four parked cars, and I mean parked really close together, 9 or 12 inches between bumpers. Question: “Which possibility is the most dangerous to a motorcycle operator? (a) one of the cars pulling out, (b) a pedestrian walking between the cars and into the street? or (c) a car door suddenly opening?”

Julianne Moore deserves to win her all-but-guaranteed Best Actress Oscar for her bravura performance in David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, and not so much for her earnestly skillful turn in Still Alice, which is basically slow-drip cyanide. Does anyone remember Maps? It broke last May in Cannes, played again in Toronto and then was kind of forgotten about. It shouldn’t be. This is apparently the first U.S. trailer for the Focus World release (opening on 2.27).

For what it’s worth (and I know this will surely fall on deaf ears as far as you-know-who is concerned) but despite last night’s Selma shutout in the BAFTA nominations….well, that’s a pretty bad sign, isn’t it? Not even a Brits-need-to-stick-together nomination for Best Actor contender David Oyelowo? That doesn’t seem….uhm, fair. Oyelowo’s MLK performance is definitely accomplished enough for Oscar consideration. Anyway I really wouldn’t mind at all if Selma manages to score a Best Picture nom…honestly. And the way this might happen is from a sympathy that AMPAS voters might feel over the numerous attacks upon its historical veracity. Selma has become a punching bag, and once that kind of thing reaches critical mass people sometimes say to themselves “okay, enough already…historical filmmakers always distort and this was no different…cut the poor film a break.” Is there any chance of this happening?

I am one of the biggest softies when it comes to offering forgiveness. Selma has been taken out to the woodshed. Director-uncredited cowriter Ava DuVernay has, I would presume, learned her lesson. At the end of the day Selma is good enough to warrant a Best Picture nomination. It can’t win and is no one’s idea of monumental cinema, but it’s gotten enough right and stirred enough people in the right way to deserve this honor.

“There is no room for the idea that Kyle might have been a good soldier but a bad guy; or a mediocre guy doing a difficult job badly; or a complex guy in a bad war who convinced himself he loved killing to cope with an impossible situation; or a straight-up serial killer exploiting an oppressive system that, yes, also employs lots of well-meaning, often impoverished, non-serial-killer people to do oppressive things over which they have no control. Or that Iraqis might be fully realized human beings with complex inner lives who find joy in food and sunshine and family, and anguish in the murders of their children. Or that you can support your country while thinking critically about its actions and its citizenry. Or that many truths can be true at once.” — from Lindy West’s 12.6 Guardian piece about the real Chris Kyle, the late sniper portrayed by Bradley Cooper in Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper, which a fair number of Academy people are apparently liking and intending to vote for, or so I’m told.

On some level I feel regretful that yet another “Selma has distorted history” piece has been posted. It surfaced late yesterday afternoon in the New York Review of Books, and has been written by regular contributor Elizabeth Drew (author of “Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall”), and I know I’m going to be blamed for pointing to it. I’d like to take this opportunity to personally apologize to Paramount Pictures, Ava DuVernay, Sasha Stone, Craig Kennedy and anyone else who is either irked by links to these articles and/or believes it’s unfair, anti-progressive or even subliminally racist to do so. But I think it’s a significant piece given the sterling reputation of the New York Review of Books. I personally let the Selma thing go a few days ago — the point has been made — but you can’t turn away when a mainstream media outlet of this stature stands and delivers.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre bad guys, Said and Cherif Kouachi, were killed two or three hours ago by French police. A hostage crisis at a kosher supermarket in Paris is also reported as having concluded with one nutter and four hostages dead. Yet another conclusion to a standard urban-terrorists-killed-by-law-enforcement scenario, directed by the somewhat younger John Frankenheimer. I know that the aftermath video footage I’m seeing is right near the Porte de Vincennes metro station, which I’m quite familiar with as a visual staple of my Paris metro experiences.

Rod Taylor always seemed to me like some kind of cultivated Irishman, but of course he was Australian. He had a classy, well-bred vibe during his peak leading-man period, which lasted…well, really only about six or seven years. Or from the time he was 30 until 36 or 37. If you want to be strict about it Taylor had two big starring roles, H.G. Wells in The Time Machine (’60) and the slightly rakish Mitch Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (’63)…and that was pretty much it in terms of class-A movies I can remember. He played a character roughly based on playwright Sean O’Casey in Jack Cardiff and John Ford‘s Young Cassidy (’65)…which I’ve never seen. Taylor was also in a lot of crap — A Gathering of Eagles (1963), The V.I.P.s (1963), Sunday in New York (1963), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), 36 Hours (1965), The Liquidator (1965), Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) Hotel (1967). The last good thing he did during his peak theatrical period was play a slick businessman in Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Zabriskie Point (1970). He mostly worked on the tube in the ’70s and ’80s. What counts is that he made it big, mattered for a while, enjoyed the ride and made a fine, robust impression. And now that he’s gone people are thinking about him…all over the world.

Ondi Timoner‘s BRAND: A Second Coming, a doc about Russell Brand that was largely shot by HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko (Red Army, Inside Job), will be the opening night film at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival (3.13-21). Also showing during the nine-day fest will be Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (w/ Oscar Isaac) and Michael Showalter’s Hello, My Name is Doris w/ Sally Field. I wasn’t totally delighted with my SXSW experience three or four years ago, but maybe I’ll give it another shot. The tab will be in the vicinity of $1500, I’m guessing. More? It’s cheaper now that I don’t drink.

During filming of BRAND: A Second Coming — (l. to r.) dp Svetlana Cvetko, Russell Brand, some guy, director Ondi Timoner.

In a 1.5 piece titled “11 Movies To Watch Out For In 2015: The Non-Blockbuster Must-See Features Of The Year,” Esquire‘s Nick Schager has included Cameron Crowe‘s Son of Deep Tiki (Columbia, 5.29). Three possible factors: (1) Schager didn’t put two and two together when the film (otherwise known as “Untitled Cameron Crowe Project“) was bumped out of a 12.25.14 opening and into May 2015, (2) he didn’t get the December memo about Sony chief Amy Pascal’s displeasure with the film, or (3) he’s just a Crowe fan from way back and has decided against letting Elizabethtown and We Bought A Zoo get in the way of that. And that’s fine.

Seriously, I’m not trying to be an asshole here. I’ll always admire Crowe’s work throughout the ’90s and up until Almost Famous with…okay, a certain respect for Vanilla Sky. I’m sorry that things haven’t worked out that well over the last decade, but tomorrow is another day. So why doesn’t Crowe just shut down the heckling section by giving his upcoming film a title, for God’s sake? How hard can that be? If he were to actually call it Son of Deep Tiki (because the original version that had its plug pulled during pre-production was called Deep Tiki), it wouldn’t be all that bad. My point is that nothing says “watch out!” like a movie that hasn’t had a title for eons and still doesn’t have one less than five months before opening.

At last night’s Chateau Marmont Boyhood party I said hi to an L.A.-based female journalist who shall not be named or described. I mentioned that I’d just read something about one of the Charlie Hebdo killers having surrendered with the other two still at large. She looked at me with a friendly but uncertain expression. It was like she was saying “and…?” I could have been talking about fishing in a mountain stream near Yosemite. Her eyes shifted slightly, looking for a way to politely disengage. I should have known better than to talk about something that was of absolutely no interest to her, particularly at a party for Boyhood. I didn’t want to make it worse by saying something like “oh, sorry…I thought you might have a passing interest in discussing the murder of several French journalists” so I just smiled and said as little as possible. I’m sure that right after this she made her way over to where Patricia Arquette was sitting.

Illustration from the pen of Dutch political cartoonist Ruben L. Oppenheimer

Here are some of the winners from last night’s People’s Choice Awards. I too drank from the cup of cluelessness when I was 15, but I had at least some respect for certain actors and movies that had a little subversion going on…a little something that offered more than just the usual crap. Favorite Movie: Malificient; Favorite Movie Actor: Robert Downey Jr.; Favorite Movie Actress: Jennifer Lawrence; Favorite Movie Duo: Shailene Woodley & Theo James in Divergent; Favorite Action Movie: Divergent. Favorite Action Movie Actor: Chris Evans (okay, I’ll buy that); Favorite Action Movie Actress: Jennifer Lawrence; Favorite Comedic Movie: 22 Jump Street; Favorite Comedic Movie Actor: Adam Sandler (!!!); Favorite Comedic Movie Actress: Melissa McCarthy; Favorite Dramatic Movie: The Fault in Our Stars; Favorite Dramatic Movie Actor: Robert Downey Jr.; Favorite Family Movie: Maleficent.