12 days hence HE will fly to Los Angeles for the Santa Barbara Film Festival (2.4 thru 2.15), and in so doing will enjoy a glorious respite from sub-Arctic Connecticut weather.

I’ll do roughly a week’s worth (2.5 through 2.12). As many films as I can fit in plus the 2.7 SBIFF screening of Kevin Costner‘s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2 plus the Writers and Directors panels (2.8) plus Arlington events for Angelina Jolie (2.5), Ralph Fiennes (2.6), the 2025 Virtuosos (Kieran Culkin, Harris Dickinson, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez Ariana Grande, Clarence Maclin, Mikey Madison, John Magaro) plus Outstanding Directors panel (2.10) plus Timothee Chalamet (2.11) plus whatever else shakes loose.

Perhaps unwittingly, idiot arsonists probably started the Pacific Palisades fire. I know nothing, but a voice in the back of my mind is whispering that the new Hughes fire was almost certainly ignited by one or more sociopaths. The only way this really stops is a decent rain, but are the odds? Let’s not even think about the possibility of more Ventura County fires causing havoc in Fillmore, Santa Paula, Camarillo, etc.

President Trump having pardoned all of the 1.6.21 animal hooligans..the low-life assaulters, window-smashers and defecating slimeballs who invaded the U.S. Capitol a little more than four years ago…it doesn’t get much more reprehensible than this. Ditto the righty legislators and commentators who’ve stated their approval of same. Mad militias, political goon squads, vigilante mob rule…go for it, guys!

In a 1.16.25 Protect Democracy poll, it was reported that (a) 73% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of assaulting Capitol Police officers, including 54% of Republicans, (b) 56% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of organizing and directing violence on January 6th; and (c) 55% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of crimes by a federal court. And Trump has decided to let them all skate.

In the wake of Sebastian Stan being Best Actor-nominated for his Donald Trump performance in The Apprentice, new critical light is being shed on “those small-minded, quarter-inch-deep publicists who forbade their clients from participating in a Variety ‘Actors on Actors’ segment with Stan” last November.

Stan: “I had an offer to do Variety‘s Actors on Actors, [but] I couldn’t find another actor to do it with me. [I’m] not pointing at anyone specific, but we couldn’t get past the publicists or the people representing them because they were too afraid to talk about this movie.”

Paul Schrader once told me in an interview that “cowardice doesn’t require a conspiracy“…meaning that cowardice springs up naturally on its own…it’s a trait that’s built into people or certainly built into the less secure.

It goes without saying that none of the twitchy reps who kept their clients from chatting with Stan for the proposed ‘Actors on Actors’ segment will ever admit to having done so, and even if exposed they sure as hell won’t explain what exactly their thinking may have been at the time.

But if just one of these publicists were to come forward and make a clean breast of things by admitting to having wimped out, I would take my hat off in respect. What are the odds of this happening? Zilch.

From HE’s “Apprentice Is Pure Pleasure,” posted from Cannes on 5.20.24:

“‘All hail Sebastian Stan‘s Trump, a note-perfect capturing of this amiable, malevolent psychopath, who apparently exuded a certain naivete and behaved in a semi-understandable fashion and may have been half-human when he was working in a senior capacity for his father’s real-estate company in the ’70s.’

“Last May Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel quoted an ‘insider’ saying that ‘audiences may find The Apprentice to be an oddly humanizing portrait’ of Trump. Excuse me? Young Trump seems like a semi-tolerable fellow at first, but he gradually morphs into a fuckhead…a killer. The truth is that Abassi’s film is an oddly humanizing portrait of Cohn as it invites the audience to share Cohn’s sense of betrayal…you actually feel sorry for this icon of evil when Trump gives him the cold shoulder.

“Strong’s Cohn is magnificent — he should definitely win the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actor prize, the size of the role be damned. Cohn to Trump at film’s halfway point: ‘You’ve got a fat ass. You should do something about that.’ Strong is wonderful!”

8:48 am: Sebastian Stan‘s Donald Trump performance has also been nominated for Best Actor! A triumphant Apprentice moment, and shame on those small-minded, quarter-inch-deep publicists who forbade their clients from participating in a Variety “Actors on Actors” segment with Stan.

Stop Emilia Perez and Karla Sofia Gascon, stop Emilia Perez and Karla Sofia Gascon, Stop Emilia Perez and Karla Sofia Gascon, etc.

HE strongly approves of Conclave‘s Isabella Rossellini being nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

What happened to Hard Truths’ Marianne Jean-Baptiste snagging a Best Actress nom? I’ll tell ya what happened. One, nobody saw it. Two, Jean-Baptiste’s character was too pissed off, too hardcore, too Donna Downer.

HE strongly disapproves of Queer‘s Daniel Craig having been elbowed aside by Sing Sing‘s Colman Domingo in the Best Actor category. Nobody saw or much liked Sing Sing (be honest), and Domingo was nominated mainly because of (a) the widely-agreed-upon necessity of nominating at least one person of color in major categories, if at all viable, and (b) that sensitive-watery-eyes thing that Domingo uses all the time.

Stan and Strong aside, the morning’s big wow is Walter Salles‘ I’m Still Here being nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best International Film.

The Best Director nomination that went to The Substance‘s Coralie Fergeat (gender tokenism) apparently bumped the entirely deserved and 100% necessary Best Director nomination for Conclave‘s Edward Berger. Stern disapproval. Gender tokenism would not have been a factor if Babygirl‘s Halina Reijn has been Best Director nominated — it would have simply been deserved.

A Real Pain obviously should have been among the ten Best Picture nominees. Yes, Pain‘s Kieran Culkin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but this was locked in several months ago.

We all knew Angelina Jolie‘s bad personal karma (i.e., encouraging court-mandated hostility against Brad Pitt) had eliminated any chance of her Maria Callas performance landing a Best Oscar nom, but now, glory be to God, this is an official, AMPAS-certified reality.

…in the HE commentariat’s own version of “Box Office Poison,” the Tim Robey book that I just bought this afternoon?

Let’s say there are 20 or 24 chapters highlighting the same number of films. Which cinematic calamities should be fully examined for posterity’s sake? Not the obvious ones (Heaven’s Gate) but the most interesting, the least deserving, the most unfairly dismissed?

All I want from tomorrow morning’s reciting of the 2025 Oscar nominations is a couple of shocking omissions or unexpeceted inclusions…please. At least give me that.

I’d greatly appreciate The Apprentice‘s Sebastian Stan winding up with a Best Actor nomination; ditto Jeremy Strong for Best Supporting Actor.

And Queer‘s Daniel Craig…please! Oh, wait…such an outcome would first require that many if most Academy members have actually sat down and seen Luca Guadagnino‘s trippy period film.

Anora‘s Mikey Madison is in for Best Actress, of course, but how about including Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths?

I know Conclave‘s Stanley Tucci won’t make the Best Supporting Actor cut (a shame) but Anora‘s Yura Borisov…well, of course!

Here’s hoping for slightly fewer Emilia Perez and Brutalist nominations than generally anticipated. Too bad the Brutalist AI controversy didn’t break a couple of weeks earlier.

Any serious surprises at all will suffice. Thank you.

Here are the Gatecrashers predictions on a category-by-category basis.

And here are mine, which of course aren’t predictions but personal choices.

Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live, Wicked) and Rachel Sennott (Saturday Night, The Idol) will announce the nominations live on Thursday at 8:30 am Eastern / 5:30 am Pacific.

[5:30 am NYC update: The Los Angeles-based Yang and Sennott are almost certainly asleep at this moment in separate locations. Their smartphone alarms are most likely set for 3 am, although Sennott’s hair and makeup team are almost certainly up and preparing as we speak.]

Should I post some kind of live-blog reactions? On the fence about this. I don’t think there’s all that much of an edge-of-the-seat vibe out there.

Arguably the greatest sound-stage recreation of hurricane-force seas in motion picture history. The pitching of the ship, the frothy sea waves slamming against the hull, the howling winds, etc.

…create the slightest cultural tremor, I’ll be hugely surprised. Not that I wouldn’t welcome a new Sundance film that’s as good as, say, last year’s A Real Pain, but what are the odds of a myopic, more-or-less moribund festival like Sundance giving birth to a film that anyone’s going to actually care about or stream down the road?

By all outward appearances Sundance has no fresh, socially vital cards to play these days — fringe stuff, this or that gay character, gender fluidity, hip horror, this or that form of progressive perversity.

Example #1: Jimpa, a family “dramedy” about a mom (Olivia Colman) and her non-binary teen (Aud Mason-Hyde) traveling to Amsterdam to visit with the kid’s gay grandfather (John Lithgow). Fucking hell!

Max Walker-Silverman‘s Rebuilding, about the aftermath of a forest fire inside a FEMA camp, might add up to something. It’ll surely be interesting to see Josh O’Connor play a hinterland guy in a cowboy hat (i.e., an actual human being). Meghann Fahy, Kali “cheek stud” Reis and Amy Madigan costar. Caveat emptor: Walker-Silverman is a well-educated rich kid who grew up in Telluride, went to Stanford and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Bill Condon‘s Kiss of the Spider Woman remake….okay, maybe.

Sundance ’25 starts tomorrow (Thursday, 1.23) and wraps 11 days hence (Sunday, 2.2).

Temps below 20 degrees make me miserable. They darken my attitude, lead me into feelings of gloom and nihilism. The blacktop roads turn frosty gray at night, and it just makes you feel godawful.

This is weather that could theoretically kill you. At least it’s not windy…small comfort.

I’d rather be bike riding in Key West or, better yet, Turks and Caicos. Or in Dr. No Jamaica, mon. Or in Montserrat.

Herewith is a spirited chat I had with the cooking-with-gas, bell-bottom-wearing, hippie-haired John Carpenter in either late 1979 or very early ‘80 to promote The Fog (Avco Embassy), which opened on 2.1.80.

It should be noted for posterity’s sake that when I recorded this interview at the Sherry Netherland (I’m fairly certain it wasn’t the Carlyle or Waldorf Astoria) that IndieWire’s Anne Thompson, then a PMK publicist, monitored the conversation.

Sometime in late ’79 I did a sit-down with a youngish Paul Schrader, director-writer of the yet-to-open American Gigolo (Paramount, 2.1.80). It happened in some kind of office or cafe space right next to the old Paramount building, adjacent to Columbus Circle.

We kicked it around for 45 or 50 minutes. A week or so later I transcribed the discussion on my humming IBM Selectric in my West Village apartment. The final, pared-down version didn’t appear in the glossy, compact pages of Films in Review until sometime in the late winter or early spring.