Eight months ago I was told that Josh Gad was “more or less on-board” (i.e., not contractually but emotionally and intentionally) to play Roger Ebert in Russ & Roger Go Beyond, a fact-based comedy about the making of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. Today The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit reported that Gad’s people and the Russ & Roger guys have finally “closed the deal.” Terrific, guys — it only took two-thirds of a year!

I still maintain that Jonah Hill, who knows from erudite and whipsmart and intellectual confidence, would have been a much better choice to play the late critic.

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“You need to see Justin Kurzel‘s Macbeth (Weinstein Co., 12.4) to savor the smoke and the chill and the dampness, the treeless topography, the ash-smeared faces and gooey blood drippings and Michael Fassbender‘s dirty fingernails. The emphasis, no question, is on blood, venality, gray skies, gunk, grime, authentic Scottish locations and general grimness — the basic Game of Thrones-meets-300 elements that, for me, always result in two reactions: (a) ‘This again?’ and (b) ‘Let me outta here.’

“If the grimy, toenail-fungus, sweat-covered scrotum approach turns you on, great…have at it. But I have a lifelong affection for Shakespeare’s poetry, you see, as well as a general love for the English language, especially when spoken by RADA-trained actors with stirring elocutionary skills. Which is not what you get from Kurzel’s Macbeth, which runs 113 minutes compared to the 140-minute length of Roman Polanski’s 1971 version, which Variety‘s Guy Lodge has patronizingly described as ‘tortured.’ (Lodge to Polanski: “If you only could have somehow put aside those feelings in your system due to your wife’s unfortunate murder…”)

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Eddie Redmayne in drag is half-appealing even to straights, so when he succumbs to the feeling of womanhood when holding that dress he seems vulnerable, sincere, genuine. And that’s a big reason why The Danish Girl feels (to go by this trailer) like a smooth and classy stroll through a rarified 1920s realm. It’s clearly made for mainstreamers like myself and not, perish the thought, for the transgender community, which will probably complain about it. But you can feel the delicacy, the sensitivity, the tenderness. Not just in the acting but in the dreamy movie score (piano, strings) by Alexandre Desplat. SAG and the Academy will nominate Redmayne for Best Actor, of course, but I suspect he won’t win. But the film will hit the sweet spot with cultivated viewers.

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Just to keep things amusing I’ve decided to pop out a weekly HE newsletter sheet called Little Yellow Pill. HE regulars don’t need reminders but I’m looking to send ’em out anyway. What the hell, punch up traffic, sell ad space, etc. An award-season thing. I’ve got a list of 10,000 email addresses but we’re looking to keep it real by encouraging everyone to sign up so no one feels pestered. Here’s to the entire HE community — hardcores, filmmakers, lurkers, window-gazers, ubers, casuals, the Irish, Australians, mentally-challenged haters from Twitter, early adopters and intrigued newcomers. Click the “subscribe” tab above or just click on this.

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There’s an old, old joke (referenced 34 years ago by N.Y. Times columnist Russell Baker) about the difference between above-the-credit-block and below it. “When Ronald Reagan-for-President talk first started,” Baker wrote, “Jack Warner, one of Mr. Reagan’s Warner Bros. employers, is said to have replied, ‘No, Jimmy Stewart for President — Ronald Reagan for his best friend.'”

Jason Sudekis, Alison Brie doing Sundance publicity for Sleeping with Other People.

There are some people, Warner meant, that just don’t have that marquee quality. And I am telling you that according to my Jack Warner-like standards, Alison Brie, the costar of Sleeping With Other People (IFC Films, 9.11), is best friend material. Which is not a bad thing. It’s fine. But it is what it is.

Brie is Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore. If you were to ask Junior Soprano he would say “she’s definitely not Angie Dickinson.” She has an agreeably perky vibe and is pleasantly attractive as far as it goes, but she’s “indie.” When I was watching the film, which by the way is a better-than-decent Manhattan romcom, I kept wanting someone hotter to be playing her part. Something in her eyes just dials it down for me.

Yeah, I know — who am I to talk because I’m older and not the fetching guy with the .400 batting average that I was back in the day? But some people have that “you can’t fuck me because I’m too hot for you” quality and some don’t.

And you know what? I just put my neck in a noose for saying that. Put me on the rack and throw me in jail. Because anyone with eyes knows that Alison Brie, best known for her Annie Edison role on NBC’s Community, is a vision of Venus and absolute thermometer-busting hotness second to none.

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As I suspected/projected earlier this month, Fox Searchlight has given Luca Guadignino‘s A Bigger Splash a spring ’16 release date — May 13th, to be precise, or right in the middle of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival (5.11 to 5.22). And yet this relationship melodrama costarring Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Ralph Fiennes and Matthias Schoenaerts, a remake of Jacques Deray‘s La Piscine (’69) and set on a Mediterranean island, will debut in a few days at the Venice Film Festival, and then will open theatrically in England in October. (And in Germany on 3.31.16.) But U.S. of A. critics not covering Venice may have to wait seven or eight months to see it.

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I was working at People when Diana, the former Princess of Wales, started seeing Dodi Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to search around, make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man. And yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she died.

In short she essentially orchestrated her demise due to choosing a profligate immature asshole for a boyfriend. Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way.

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After playing nothing but sardonic twerps, sexual hounds and domestic dolts for the last six or seven years in Hall Pass, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, Horrible Bosses, The Campaign, Drinking Buddies, We’re the Millers and Horrible Bosses 2, Jason Sudekis has suddenly turned over a new leaf and shifted into “heartthrob territory” in Sleeping With Other People (IFC Films, 9.11).

That’s the basic notion, at least, contained in yesterday’s 8.30 N.Y. Times profile of Sudekis by Kathryn Shattuck.

I’ve seen and had a pretty good time with Sleeping With Other People. There’s no question that Sudekis does a fine job of playing his best-written character yet — a smart, sensitive 30something sex-addict named Jake. A guy who seems relatively mature and balanced and open to the moment, and who knows how to treat a lady with kindness and tact. And who definitely knows what to do with his fingers.

I muttered to myself right away, “Okay, for once Sudekis is playing a guy who’s not only tolerable but somebody I can identify with.”

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I don’t care if this video is a year old. I watched this about 15 times last weekend and I can’t get it out of my head. Look at that poor little girl’s expression when this godawful harridan takes the ball from her. And then the pixie-cut thief celebrates her triumph! Has she been flown to Syria and handed over to ISIS yet? Has anyone ever confronted her on the street and accused her of being one the worst people to walk the planet ever? I’ll bet even Heinrich Himmler never did this to a kid.

In a just-posted Cowboys & Indians piece called “Quentin Tarantino: Rebel Filmmaker?”, Variety critic Joe Leydon has noted several similarities between the basic plot bones of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (Weinstein Co., 12.25) and an episode from the Nick Adams western series The Rebel (’59 to ’61) called “Fair Game.” The episode, written by Richard Newman, premiered on 3.27.60 as one of 33 Rebel episodes directed by Irvin (The Empire Strikes Back) Kershner.

I’ve read a draft of the Hateful Eight script and to go by Leydon’s synopsis of “Fair Game”, there are quite a few plot points shared by the two. If you’re willing to supply your credit card information (which I’m not — fuck these guys) “Fair Game” is watchable right here.

Leydon is quick to say that he’s “not accusing Quentin Tarantino of plagiarism.” He notes that everybody stole from everybody else back in the old TV days, and that Tarantino has already admitted to Deadline‘s Michael Fleming that he drew inspiration for The Hateful Eight “from such fondly remembered series as Bonanza and The Virginian.” QT to Fleming: “What if I did a movie starring no heroes, no Michael Landons? Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.”

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“I have found a disease that no one has ever seen.” In Peter Landesman‘s Concussion (Columbia, 12.25), Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian-Born, real-life forensic pathologist who 13 years ago discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE — a then-new disease affecting football players. When he revealed his findings the NFL naturally did everything they could to discredit him. What else were they going to do?

You can sense right away that Smith’s Nigerian accent feels right, and this alone may put him into the Best Actor conversation. Because it feels like “acting,” and a lot of folks eat that shit up.

As things now stand Concussion is one of five award-season contenders due to open on 12.25 — this plus The Revenant, Snowden, Joy and The Hateful Eight. That’s a lot of Christmas Day competition. The only semi-uplifting film in the bunch is Joy. I’m guessing that at least one of others will blink and move their date to early December or perhaps even late November.

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