Cecil B. DeMille was a pious hypocrite. The theme of his Biblical-era films was spiritual salvation through the Bible, but no other studio-era filmmaker shovelled sex, female flesh, big muscles, debauchery and blood with more relish. On top of which he was a Republican who believed in the blacklisting practices of the late ’40s and early ’50s. But he had a fairly decent eye for balance and composition — almost as good as John Ford‘s. He knew how to fill the frame, and his films were handsomely dressed and designed. Samson and Delilah (’49) is swill, of course. The dialogue by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. and Fredric M. Frank is agony. But George Barnes’ Technicolor cinematography is ripe and richly toned. The Bluray streets in early March.

New York snowfalls never last. The weather is constantly shifting and mooding out. A snowfall always turns to slush within a day or less. It’s 27 degrees now but the melting will begin tomorrow when the temperature hits 35, and then Sunday’s rain will wash it all away.

The Dissolve is running a “psychedelic” poster inspired by Spring Breakers. It was designed by Sam Smith. My first thought was “this conveys nothing of what the film actually is or feels like…nothing about it from the rosey greenish tones to the suggestion of familial bonding and the sublime, settled-down feeling that a sunset shares…Harmony Korine‘s film has so little of these elements that it’s barely worth commenting upon. Oh, I get it…Smith was tripping when he created it?”

Two nights ago I watched the Criterion Bluray of Robert Altman‘s Nashville (’75). And guess what? It doesn’t hold up. It’s earnestly dislikable. I wanted to shut it off after the first half-hour.

It’s a typical Altmanesque grab-bag of this and that, but it’s mainly a social criticism piece about Middle-American politics, patriotism, pettiness and celebrity. The specific focus is the banal eccentricities and pretensions of the country-music industry, but for the most part the film is snide and misanthropic. Sorry, but I’m removing it from my Altman pantheon. I loved it in ’75 but I’m pretty sure I’ll never watch Nashville again. It’s failed the test of time.

In basic construction terms Nashville is about a troupe of eccentric, improvising actor-hipsters leaning on their default Left Coast impressions of Nashville’s sophisticated-hick culture and dispensing variations on a single dismissive theme: “These people are small and petty and lame and delusional.”

The late Gwen Welles plays a short-order waitress and a completely untalented would-be singer. I’ve known a few mediocre performers in my life (actors, singers…I was one myself when I tried to be a drummer) and the common characteristic is that they’re somewhat talented but not talented enough. But Welles’ bad singing is a patronizing “bit” — an actress pretending to be God-awful. In actuality a singer with a voice this tone-deaf wouldn’t dream of trying to become a performer. But try she does.

Welles’ big scene arrives when she tries singing at a club and fails so miserably that the crowd hurls cruel taunts and insults. Welles is so deflated by the response that she goes numb. Her eyes space out and she starts disrobing because some drunken asshole has yelled “show us yer tits!” or something in that vein. She ends up naked and humiliated, but I, sitting in my living room 38 years later, was appalled. I felt sick. I haven’t watched a scene this ugly in a long, long time.

David O. Russell‘s American Hustle opened in six theatres yesterday to the tune of $211,000, and now’s the time for the HE community to weigh in. It’s one of the year’s best but…where do I start? I’m from New Jersey and the Jersey-based characters in American Hustle aren’t from my gene pool. I felt for Jeremy Renner‘s Elvis-pompadoured mayor of Camden but even he’s not right for me — too ethnic, too many kids, too much food at the table. Yeah, I got a kick out of Jennifer Lawrence‘s spunky, braying housewife but I avoid women like her when I see them in real life. They’re nice deep down but they’re horrible to deal with on practical matters.

(l. to r.) Adams, Cooper, Renner, Bale, Lawrence.

Hustle is improvisationally alive and crackling and knowingly tacky, but for all the enjoyment it gave me and all the award-season action it’s getting, it doesn’t quite…what? Deliver my kind of emotional through-line? I didn’t quite see myself in this thing, not really. I’m one of the few New Jersey guys who writes a daily movie column that movie stars read so don’t tell me. But it’s a good film. Better than good. It’s nervy and anxious and always up to something. It might be better than I realize.

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My first thought as I clicked on this teaser for Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar? I’m a bit tired of Matthew McConaughey starring or costarring in everything. (The first stirrings of this began with that Martin Scorsese Dolce & Gabbana ad that he costarred in with Scarlett Johansson.) My second reaction was that his accent bothers me — “To break bayhhrriers, to reach for the stahhhrrs.” My third & final thought: What the eff is McConaughey saying at the very end? I’ve listened five times on earphones and this is what I’m hearing: “Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us…’cause ahh guessee…ayhs bahss.”

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I suspect that Saving Mr. Banks might have trouble landing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Maybe. It certainly can’t win at this stage. But Hollywood Reporter award-season analyst Scott Feinberg believes it might still be a contender for a nomination. Maybe he’s right. A seasoned industry guy told me this afternoon that “it might squeak in.” But here’s what I wrote Feinberg earlier today:

“Your post boils down to a line that says ‘since 2001, 17 of the 240 acting Oscar nominees — or 7 percent — received neither a SAG nor Globe nom en route to the Big Show.’ In other words, since ’01 less than 10% of Oscar nominees weren’t first nominated by SAG or HFPA. But more more than 90% of the time, people who weren’t nominated by SAG or HFOA didn’t land an Oscar nomination. Correct?

“Are you going to sit there and tell me that Saving Mr. Banks is doing fine as a Best Picture nominee? It’s been a bit of a weak sister all along, and after the shut-out by SAG and HFPA plus that Amy Nicholson slam piece in the L.A. Weekly, I think it’s dead. Thompson and Hanks are fine as acting contenders, but the movie is finished. It might barely earn a nomination but…

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Nobody believes the official explanation of the death of publicist Ronni Chasen…nobody. The Beverly Hills fuzz decided that a no-account African-American felon named Harold Martin Smith had pedalled seven miles on a bicycle, all the way from a flophouse on the 5600 block of Santa Monica Blvd. to the corner of Sunset Blvd, and Whittier Drive in Beverly Hills, where he allegedly shot Chasen, who was driving her black Mercedes, with four bullets. On a bicycle? As part of an alleged robbery attempt? What idiot believes he could successfully rob a person who’s locked in a car while he’s sitting on or pedalling a bicycle?

(l.) The late Ronni Chasen; (r.) the late Harold Martin Smith.

Deadline‘s Anita Busch has written an intelligent analysis of the Chasen investigation in lieu of a just-released LA County Coroner’s report. It says that a police officer reported that an “unknown vehicle” had pulled up alongside Chasen’s car [before] “someone fired approximately four gunshots into her vehicle.” The eyebrow-raiser is that the “unknown vehicle” may refer to something other than Smith’s bicycle.

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It took me over an hour to fill out the ballot for the 19th Annual Critics Choice Awards. The tallies (noms or winners, I forget which) will be announced next Monday. The pain-in-the-ass minor categories (Best Female Action Star, etc.) are what caused all the trouble. I don’t care if my picks are consistent with previously posted preferences — I go with my moods. You don’t get bonus points for voting for the favorites, although there are some people who actually vote that way.

BEST PICTURE: 1. Wolf of Wall Street; 2. 12 Years A Slave; 3. Inside Llewyn Davis; 4. Her; 5. American Hustle.

BEST ACTOR: 1. Robert Redford, All Is Lost; 2. Joaquin Phoenix, Her; 3. Leonardo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street.

BEST ACTRESS: 1. Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue Is The Warmest Color; 2. Julie Delpy, Before Midnight; 3. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: 1. Jonah Hill, Wolf of Wall Street; 2. Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer’s Club; 3. Josh Brolin, Labor Day.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: 1. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years A Slave; 2. Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle; 3. Jennifer Garner, Dallas Buyer’s Club.

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I saw Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount, 12.25) for the second time last night, and it felt just as wild and manic as it did the first time. (And without an ounce of fat — it’s very tightly constructed.) And yet it’s a highly moral film…mostly. Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and all the rest are never really “in the room” with these depraved Stratton Oakmont brokers. They’re obviously juiced with the spirit of play-acting and pumping the film up and revving their engines, but each and every scene has an invisible subtitle that says “do you see get what kind of sick diseased fucks these guys were?…do you understand that Jordan Belfort‘s exploits redefined the term ‘asshole’ for all time?”

Why, then, did I say that Wolf is “mostly” moral? Because there’s a subcurrent that revels in the bacchanalian exploits of Belfort and his homies. It broadly satirizes Roman-orgy behavior while winking at it. (Or half-winking.) Unlike the Queens-residing goombahs in Goodfellas, whom he obviously feels a mixed affection for, Scorsese clearly doesn’t like or relate to the Stratton Oakmont guys. But the 71 year-old director also knows first-hand how enjoyable drug-abuse can be for cocky Type-A personalities in groups, and he conveys this in spades.

Wolf is clearly “personal” for Scorsese. Like everyone else who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, he is believed to have “indulged” to some extent. (Whatever the truth of it, 1977’s New York, New York has long been regarded as a huge cocaine movie.) One presumes that Scorsese is living a sensible and relatively healthy life these days, but boy, does he remember!

And it hit me last night that The Wolf of Wall Street is going to be enjoyed by audiences as a rollicking memory-lane drug party. Anyone who lived any kind of Caligula-type life in their late teens and 20s is going to get off on it. Because as deplorable and outrageous as the film’s party behavior seems, it’s also oddly infectious.

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Earlier this year I marathoned through all 13 episodes of Season 1 of House of Cards. I intend to do the same with Season 2 when House of Cards re-launches on 2.14.14.

My “smart movie-guy friend” just told me that the “phantom-like Oscar oddsmaker” who was predicting only a week ago that Saving Mr. Banks looked like the most likely Best Picture winner…this same guy spoke today to my movie pal and reversed himself: “Banks is done,” he allegedly said. “Over. Won’t win. Not nominated for SAG or Golden Globes. Stick a fork in it.”