I recognize that Wicked‘s appeal is primarily to under-40 women (right?), but what kind of box-office is it likely to earn? I’m sensing it’s going to connect big-time but what do I know?

@thedejonreid Replying to @shhhhhh Happy Halloween Eve ‍♀️ #wicked #movie #fyp #theatre #play #halloween #arianagrande #cynthiaerivo #viral #trending #xyzbca #popular #debate #film #wizardofoz #greenscreen #greenscreenvideo ♬ Love You So – The King Khan & BBQ Show

I just figured this out. For weeks THR‘s Scott Feinberg has been heavily in the tank for Tim Fehlbaum‘s praise-worthy and respectable September 5, but not just because of the Israel empathy factor, but also because of Feinberg’s physical resemblance to costar John Magaro, who was born in ‘83.

Feinberg and Magarao are about the same height. Similar eyes, same dark hair (though not the same length), same semi-stocky build. They don’t quite look like brothers, but they could be cousins.

For the last couple of months, THR hotshot columnist Scott Feinberg has been insisting that Tim Fehlbaum‘s September 5 (Paramount, 11.29) is the Best Picture contender to beat…a claim that has triggered quizzical responses here and there.

I’ve never thrown the least amount of shade at September 5 — it’s a reasonably sturdy, more-than-moderately-engaging TV journalism film — I just don’t share Scott’s conviction that it’s a Best Picture Oscar winner waiting to hqppen….it’s good but not holy-shit, cartwheels-in-the-lobby good.

Last night an industry friendo saw September 5 on the Paramount lot (thumbs up), and during the lavish post-screening reception he spoke to Fehlbaum, who directed and co-wrote the script with Moritz Binder and Alex David.

Friendo: “Fehlbaum said that Paramount only started to take the film seriously AFTER Scott Feinberg’s raves. He said ‘I would not be here were it not for the Hollywood Reporter declaring the film as their top contender’…the gist being that “once the Feinberg prediction came out it seemed that suddenly Paramount mounted a campaign.”

“Nonetheless there was a poor turnout of Academy members at the half-full screening and reception,” friendo goes on.  “A huge number of vacant seats for the film, which has to battle the Gaza of it all. And needs much more careful handling than Paramount has given it thus far.

“The friends I invited as my plus-one all said they’d never heard of the film. Paramount needs to quickly up their game.”

What filmmakers have declared that support from this or that Oscar-season handicapper was an important or crucial factor in their award-season strategies? It happens from time to time but not routinely.

I think some bought into the idea that my praise for Errol Morris‘s The Fog of War (‘03) made a slight positive difference. A decade ago I was told by a colleague of Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky that he felt that my excitement over Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan was influential within the industry. I know that after I did somersaults over Alfonso Cuaron‘s Children of Men (’06), I suddenly seemed to become one of Alfonso’s journo bruhs. I know that several weeks after I raved about Carey Mulligan‘s career-making performance in An Education after the film’s Sundance ’09 debut, she sent me a hand-written, snail-mail “thank you” note.

The new Gate Crashers poll has finally been tabulated and assembled, and the situation hasn’t really changed. Sean Baker‘s Anora continues to dominate the race in four Oscar categories — Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (the brilliant and volcanic Mikey Madison) and Best Original Screenplay. Edward Berger‘s Conclave is nipping at Baker’s heels, Best Picture-wise, and it’s pleasing to report that Ralph Fiennes is still leading the pack as a prospective Best Actor nominee; Berger’s film is also ahead in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Dune Part Two is in the lead for Best Cinematography.

Roughly seven months after debuting in Cannes, Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada (Kino Lorber, 12.6) will open theatrically in select urban locations…three weeks hence.

Richard Gere plays Leonard Fife, a dying, pissed-off documentary filmmaker who left the U.S. for a Canaadian exile during the Vietnam War. The film is about a no-holds-barred interview that Fife gives to a pair of filmmakers (Michael Imperioli, Victoria Hill)…an encounter that may or may not be ruthlessly honest, at least on Gere’s part.

Uma Thurman play Fife’s wife. Jacob Elordi, who’s way too tall and lanky to be playing a young Gere, plays a young Gere. They don’t even vaguely resemble each other.

Oh, Canada isn’t as good as First Reformed, but it’s definitely better than the last two (The Card Counter, Master Gardener), and it surprises a bit by reaching inward and letting go.

Fife submits to the interview in order to shake it all off and confess (or maybe imagine) as much as possible.

It’s basically a cut-the-crap, take-it-or-leave it, taking-stock-of-the-boomer-legacy film, and kind of an an old-school thing in a good way…very earnest and solemn, carefully and cleanly written, and it gets sadder as it goes along.

Gere’s white-haired, worn-down appearance and performance are riveting and a little startling, especially if you think back to his sexy-cat beauty and swagger in Schrader’s American Gigolo (’80).

Full respect and 90% satisfaction are felt from this corner. Pic hopscotches all over the place but always feel somber, reflective, sincere…a respectable clean-out-the-cobwebs, stop-lying-to-yourself movie for grown-ups.

Excellent supporting performances are given by Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman and Michael Imperioli.

Start the press conference at the 20-minute mark…

Otto Kruger‘s story about a deposed tyrant who was cheered upon his return to Athens by average citizens. Ring a bell?

The enhanced, un-muddied, cleaned-up sound is terrific (love the bass tones!), the black-and-white footage looks like new. and the editing is obviously first-rate.

Posted on 10.14.24:

…HE regulars are hereby required to post opinions about it, and to especially opine whether they believe Karla Sofia Gascon is (a) playing a lead or supporting role (Netflix has decided that she’s not supporting), and (b) whether or not Gascon deserves to beat out Anora‘e Mikey Madison for the Oscar.

Here’s an opinion shared this morniny by an HE friendo: “It’s a really audacious film –a trans musical romance set in the world of Mexican cartels. Very stylishly directed by Jacques Audiard, and the three female leads are uniformly excellent. I wasn’t bored for a second, but after a while I started to feel that this film was having an identity crisis, that it didn’t really know what it wanted to be: a musical? A trans romance? A cartel tale set to music? And that violent ending seemed really out of place, something from another film entirely.

“It’s a very offbeat, interesting work, but missed its opportunity to be a great one.

“There’s a very powerful musical number in the middle of the film, ‘Aqui Estoy’ (Here I am), sung by people searching for their loved ones. It shows what Emilia Perez’ could have been if it had gone full cartel tragedy, and avoided any romantic issues.”

HE to friendo: “Okay, but Emilia Perez is definitely not ‘set in the world of Mexican cartels.’ We don’t see any of the ugly nitty-gritty…we don’t see anyone or anything involved in drug trafficking, murders, flamboyant millionaire lifestyles, bribes, torture, bodies hanging from freeway overpasses, evading the authorities, digging tunnels in and out of jails, etc.”

HE-posted last August:

(1) Emilia Perez is nothing if not audacious but there’s no believing the central conceit (i.e., that a macho cartel king would want to transition into womanhood in order to escape his violent world) and so it falls short of being a knockout musical masterpiece, as some have called it, and…

(2) Karla Sofia Gascon, who plays the titular character, gives a striking supporting performance. If she campaigns for a Best Actress Oscar, fine, but it won’t result in a win. Identity campaigns (like Lily Gladstone’s) get a lot of attention from wokester journos, but rank-and-file industry types are less taken with the razzmatazz.

“Which comes about due to the lack, often, of a coherent vision. On top of which Hollywood has a real attitude about masculinity. Masculinity unblurred or untrammelled by Hollywood writers who are aloof toward or simply not aware enough of the proclivities and frames of reference of mainstream men…proclivities that have a certain itch or menace, and when that is brought forth in films like No Country For Old Men or There Will Be Blood, it radiates through the screen.

“Having sci-fi or adventure shows or films with bland iterations of masculinity and cast with gender interchangibility and lack of distinction creates a flatness of tone. male characters 3ho are frustratingly unrelatable and increasingly unrecognizable.” — Echo Chamberlain.

John Krasinski is a nice-looking, well-tended guy as far as it goes, but he’s always seemed a little bit nerdy with those brown, marble-sized eyes and the slightly swollen Polish-prole nose and grubby beard stubble.

And his tepid response to HE and Richard Brody’s Quiet Place social theory (i.e., the brown spider monsters are metaphors for wokesters pouncing on anyone who says the wrong thing) indicated that he might be intellectually lazy or, you know, stunted.

So he really can’t qualify as People’s Sexiest Man Alive. He seems pleasant enough but he just doesn’t have that supreme alpha-dude thing going on. He’s far from “Warren Beatty in the 70s” pretty, and is just this side of schlumpie…due respect. Agreeable, nice-guy vibes but no cigar.

Okay, if he’d paid lip service to the Quiet Place theory I might feel differently…

Donald Trump‘s announced cabinet nominees are wackazoid…nominated by The Beast in order to troll the mainstream Washington establishment….that and the notion of blind Beast loyalty…surreal but at the same time real.

“Trump’s selection of Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general, along with his selection of Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, shows that Trump did mean what he said. He is going to govern with a sense of vengeance, and personal loyalty really is the coin of his realm.” — David French, N.Y. Times columnist, 11.13.24.

Except there’s obviously no THE in the title…

HE-posted on 8.31.24: