It’s been revealed that the late Elizabeth Pena (La Bamba, Rush Hour), whose recent passing was attributed to “natural causes after a brief illness” by her manager Gina Rugolo, died of alcohol abuse. A death certificate obtained by CNN says the actress died from “cardiopulmonary arrest, cardiogenic shock, acute gastrointestinal bleeding, and cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol.” Pena, who recently played Sofia Vergara‘s mom on Modern Family, succumbed on 10.14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. When I questioned the curious initial explanation, I was trashed by HE commenters Dave Strot and Herr Plop, among others.

Those Fort Hood guys had no balls except for that “play with my balls” guy. All they did was monkey-chat after Interstellar screened there four days ago. And forget last night’s elite industry screening at the California Science Center. It’s not in the DNA of “talent” — actors, directors, writers — to share anything but effusive, damp-love comments. No, the only thing that matters are the opinions of the tough guys (journalists, critics, columnists) who are about to see Interstellar in Manhattan, and who will see it in Los Angeles starting at 6:30 pm Pacific. It’s now 6:05 pm back there. Chris Nolan‘s film begins at 6:30 pm, and with the film running 169 minutes (2 hours and 49 minutes) it will break around…oh, roughly 9:20 pm or 6:20 pm Pacific. The first tweets will start about 20 or 25 minutes after that. Obviously the L.A. gang won’t start tweeting until 9:40 or 9:45 pm Pacific.

William F. Buckley‘s loathing of the late ’60s counter culture was delicious. In his mind the word “hippie” was nearly inseparable from “fecal matter.” It wasn’t an act — Buckley really felt and meant it deep down. On top of which you could almost take pleasure in that velvety purring daddy voice without considering his words. He seemed to also hate queers (or so Gore Vidal believed) or at the very least had little tolerance for them. I don’t know from Yablonsky but the murky alcoholic gloom of Jack Kerouac (“I’ve lost the entire train of thought”)…yeesh. Ed Sanders (Village Fugs, “The Family“) was obviously a fairly sharp guy. But Buckley’s snooty patrician vibes…that’s entertainment.

Is there any Steven Spielberg film apart from Schindler’s List that has truly aged well? Or, to put it another way, that seems better now than it did when it first opened? Or that hindsight hasn’t exposed as improbable and manipulative and always pitched to the cheap seats? Be honest. Spielberg has often made great high-craft, flash-in-the-pan popcorn movies, but no major director of the 20th Century will (trust me) be more disparaged by the passage of time. I don’t even know if I can stand to watch E.T. again, and I loved it 32 years ago. Who today talks with real admiration about Cecil B. DeMille? Spielberg is regarded as a big wheel because he’s a multi-billionaire and his films are tremendously popular. Except popularity is the slutty cousin of prestige. The one film in this Bluray collection that I’d like to see on Bluray? 1941. Stanley Kubrick allegedly once suggested that Spielberg make it as a drama. When Kubrick saw the finished film, he told Spielberg (according to Spielberg at Kubrick’s wake in ’99), “This is a very well-made film…it’s not funny but it’s very well made.”

For my money, the Grateful Dead was a clumsy doobie-toke garage band that had…what, two or three hit singles, okay, but their greatness was in their sloppy extended jam improvs that sometimes (I emphasize that word) resulted in some amazing passages. The Dead could be awful or certainly tedious one night and then inspired or even cosmically transcendent the next. For me their peak was the “Live/Dead” album, which was recorded at the Fillmore West and other venues in early ’69 and released in the fall of that year. (Rock critic Robert Christgau allegedly wrote that side two of the double album “contains the finest rock improvisation ever recorded.”) Jerry Garcia‘s sometimes beautiful, sometimes barely sufficient playing between the two- and three-minute mark in the “Turn On Your Love Light”…if you can get this portion, you’ll have a place in your heart for the Dead. Stoned, immaculate…Captain Trips. But it’ll always help if you have a little weed. In any event Amir Bar-Lev (Happy Valley, The Tillman Story) will direct a definitive Grateful Dead doc with Martin Scorsese producing. The doc, out next year, will celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary.

In Contention‘s Kris Tapley knows there are only two Best Supporting Actor contenders with any real shot at winning — Birdman‘s Edward Norton and Whiplash‘s J.K. Simmons. It’s strictly a mano e mano between these guys. Tapley knows that, I know that, you know that, your average 68 year-old Academy member knows that, the guy who works at Astroburgers on Santa Monica Blvd. knows that. But for the sake of stroking the other contenders (five will be selected) Tapley kicked around some names in a piece that posted yesterday afternoon. Tyler Perry in Gone Girl — locked. I’m in favor of Albert Brooks being nominated for A Most Violent Year because (a) you know he’ll be really good (he always is) and (b) the Academy having ignored his Drive performance means he’s “owed”. Josh Brolin could be nominated for playing Bigfoot in Inherent Vice, but the loathing for this film is going to be intense once it starts screening. (If anyVice actor has a serious shot, it’s Martin Short but his part is too small.) Ethan Hawke could be nominated for Boyhood — I could see that.

With an apparently straight face, MCN’s David Poland has stated that Interstellar‘s Matthew McConaughey has a shot (i.e., “not so long a shot”) at being nominated for Best Actor. What is it about the words “forget it” that Poland doesn’t understand? Love Is Strange‘s John Lithgow has a better shot at being nominated than McConaughey. People just want McConaughey to back off. The more he weeps about missing his children in Interstellar, the worse it’ll be. Zip it.

But Poland is just getting warmed up. His next statement comes close to dismissing this aspect of the Oscar tea-leaf perceptions of In Contention‘s Kris Tapley. “I don’t buy into the idea — at all — that there are four locked places in Best Actor,” Poland says. “That doesn’t mean that I think that four of the current five frontrunners won’t end up making it,” he explains. “That could well happen. But the only actor I consider cemented into a nomination is Michael Keaton. Great performance, great story, super-strong movie. In.

Minutes after the Gotham Independent Film Award nominations were revealed this morning, the Hollywood Elsewhere Gotham Award winners were announced.

Best Feature: Why did we have to choose between Birdman and Boyhood? Why couldn’t the HE Gothams split the difference and give a Best Soulful If Abusive Family Film With a Time-Gimmick Award to Boyhood and Best Middle-Aged Creative Anguish Floating Steadicam Dark Comedy Award to Birdman? Why does it have to be an either-or? Okay, fine….Birdman.

Best Documentary: Sorry, Steve James, but it has to go to Citizenfour. I’m not being facile because I really am sorry, hombre, but…you know. The Academy pudgheheads (some of whom, trust me, are shrugging their shoulders as some of them always do whenever a truly momentous doc comes along) have to be instructed that Citizenfour is an instant classic. I’d like to say there was a lot of anguish and deliberation involved in deciding this but there wasn’t. Honest, non-hostile question: Why wasn’t Rory Kennedy‘s Last Days in Vietnam at least nominated? Is it because she’s a West Coast gal?

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award: Dear White People‘s Justin Simien, not because the film is anything special (I barely got through my viewing at Sundance ’14) but because every critic on the face of the globe thought it was great and because Simien is cappucino and…well, you know, we don’t want to make the wrong call. My real choice is Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy for delivering a seriously clean, sharp and malignant melodrama, and for creating the most original monster of the year in Jake Gyllenhaal‘s video-hound Lou. HE’s Runner-up award goes to Coherence‘s James Ward Byrkit, a good fellow who made a highly gripping, zero-FX horror film.

Best: Do you ever sit back on the couch after Thanksgiving and unbutton your pants and slap your chest and go “awwww boy!”? Second Best: Hitler. Third best: Suntan question. Fourth best: Furry.

I decided not to post this yesterday as a general statement of protest and disdain, but then I figured I could get a fair amount of honorable attention by posting it with the above headline.

“Look, I’m no purist — there are good superhero films and there are bad ones. Movies started out as an extension of a magic trick so making a spectacle is part of the game. I had a lot of fun designing a huge fucking metal eagle to attack New York City. It’s just that we’ve been overwhelmed by these movies now. They keep taking up room that could be going to smaller films. [Not] art films…I fucking hate that term. No, films about human beings. Those aren’t art films. They should just be called ‘films.'” — Birdman director Alejandro G. Inarritu speaking to Rolling Stone‘s David Fear.