A Guy Who Knew From Cricket Bats
November 30, 2025
When "The Indian Fighter" Opened at Mayfair in 1955...
November 29, 2025
Persistence of 42 Year Old "Betrayal"
November 17, 2025
…and derive a half-decent living from it while getting to know and laugh and trade insights with all kinds of top-tier creatives, hangers-on, wise guys, dazzling intellects, flamboyant fellows, gifted pretenders, crusty seen-it-alls, ruthless studio suits, seducers, flunkies, critics, screenwriters, Fast Eddie opportunists, soul-less sharpies, gimlet-eyed poker players, gladhanders, cool cats…at least I was able to bask in all this while savoring the glamour and the history while drinking from the trough. 40-plus years of this!
For years Sean Combs repeatedly told himself (a) “my schlong wants what it wants and that’s the bottom line” and (b) “they can’t touch me for this shit…of course I can skate…that’s what being loaded is all about”. And now the chickens have come home.
Full disclosure: I’ve never sat down and actually watched D.W Griffith‘s The Birth of a Nation (1915).
I’ve watched clips, of course, and I’ve been reading all my life, of course, that aside from its landmark status as the first epic-sized movie ever produced, Birth is almost certainly the most reprehensibly racist film ever made, first and foremost from its ugly depictions of African Americans plus the glorifying of The Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force that “protects white women and maintains white supremacy”.
Truly rancid stuff, complete acceptance, no question.
I’m therefore not in a position to authoritatively agree with or dispute John Nolte‘s Breitbart.com review of One Battle After Another, in which he calls it a grand inverse of Griffith’s film with PTA’s Antifa-like resistance depicted in the same semi-glorious, semi-heroic terms used by Griffith to portray the KKK.
Note has trudged his way through Griffith’s film so he’s ahead of me in this respect.
Is this a fair comparison? Or a less-than-fair one? Either way it’s certainly worth kicking around.
“One Battle After Another is basically an inverted remake of D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation.
[HE interjection] Militant reps of one race of people (in Battle’s case, the white race) are (back to Nolte) “portrayed as inferior — stupid or pure evil. Militant reps of another race — i.e., black female reps who command the French 76 — are portrayed as moral, brave, capable, and on a righteous mission to save America from that inferior race.
“Battle’s central plot is even the same as Birth of a Nation’s: saving an innocent girl from possible harm by ugly reps of the inferior race.
“The comparisons do not end there.
“Both movies are too long. Both have great moments. Both are brought to us by master filmmakers of their era. Both exalt and legitimize terrorism. Both are indefensible and amoral.
“Nevertheless, One Battle After Another is something of a comeback for writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, his first decent movie since 2007’s There Will Be Blood.
“After the incredible winning streak of Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson dropped four self-indulgent hard-sits in a row: The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2017), and Licorice Pizza (2021). Those first five, I can watch again and again (and have). One watch was more than enough with the final four.
“For all of its moral and storytelling flaws, One Battle After Another moves and entertains, at least in certain stretches.
“Battle is definitely a woke movie: full of black girlbosses and white guys who are either hapless sitcom dads or virulent racists. The legions of villains (all white) are obvious stand-ins for [HE-redacted] the ICE brigade. The good guys are violent, leftist Antifa-style revolutionaries.
“Battle opens 16 years ago, when the French 75 (i.e. Antifa) were on a bombing rampage. “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun, aka Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a jumpy, over-excited, immature explosives expert who takes orders from the brave, competent, and stoic black women who really run things. This includes Bob’s lover, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor).
“A French 75 raid to liberate a California ICE facility introduces Perfida to Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). He’s a racist, but her sexuality immediately warps him. She also finds herself attracted to him. They end up having something like an affair. One of the movie’s flaws is that you feel no connection between Perfidia and Lockjaw or Perfidia and Bob.
“Sixteen years later, Perfidia has disappeared, and Bob is a useless stoner hiding out in California with his 16-year-old mixed-race daughter, the smart, mature, and capable Willa (Chase Infiniti). Meanwhile, the insecure Lockjaw is desperate to feel special, appreciated, and respected by something called the Christmas Adventurers Club — a secret group of super-wealthy, influential, and dangerous white supremacists.
“At this point, about an hour in, the plot finally came to life. To become a Christmas Adventurer, Lockjaw must cover up his interracial affair with Perfidia, so he begins to hunt down Bob and Willa.
“With the hunt on, there’s action and humor, and the characters begin to form into something more than social, racial, and political symbols. And so, by the time the lights come up, you end up sympathizing with the characters, especially (and surprisingly) Penn’s Lockjaw.
“Battle’s MVP is unquestionably Benicio del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos, a martial arts instructor who smuggles illegals into America (the movie never explains why anyone who cares about Mexicans would smuggle Mexicans into a country run by fascists and racists). Del Toro’s quiet and subdued (but still hilarious) Ying to DiCaprio’s neurotic and incompetent Yang lifts Battle into something special. Ocean waves. Ocean waves.
“Although it dragged at times, for the last two hours, the story was mostly engaging. What I hated was the plunking piano score and an ending that celebrated the terrorism of Antifa. Until then, the story had been on the road to redemption as a family story, so buttoning things up on this amoral note left a sour, Birth of a Nation-ish taste.
“One Battle After Another desperately wants to earn comparisons to the 1966 leftist masterpiece The Battle of Algiers, director Gillo Pontecorvo’s stunner about a real-life revolution against the French government. Anderson is so self-consciously desperate for this comparison, we watch DiCaprio get high and watch the movie.
“[But] if Anderson were honest, he would’ve had DiCaprio’s character get high watching Birth of a Nation. That’s a legitimate comparison. Battle’s plot, racial politics, and exalting of terrorism are as grotesque as Birth’s.
“From a pure storytelling point of view, OBAA is a failure. Because once you crack Battle’s racial code, there are no surprises.
“Nevertheless, both Battle and Birth have their moments, and it would be dishonest not to say so.
Post–script (Nolte to HE) — “When I say in the review that once you crack the racial code it becomes predictable, one example is that I knew, because he wasn’t white, that the older, heavy-set Native American guy with the wise, patient expression [name?] would try to save Willa.
“Plus that ending with Leo handling an iPhone like a retarded ape while strong, confident, brave Willa leaves for Oakland to fight alongside Antifa as the film closes with Tom Petty‘s ‘American Girl’ as accompaniment. Man alive!…”
Democrats haven’t even begun to acknowledge that average voters not only hate their woke attitudes and sensibilities, but want to punish them for years to come for trying to impose this lunatic theology upon the U.S.A.
Only a sensible left-center male (i.e., Newsom or Emanuel) has a chance of landing the 2028 Democratic nomination and defeating J.D. Vance, and that’s an optimistic belief.
Dead End: Paranormal Park was a 2022 Netflix animated trans-propaganda series for kids. It concerned a 17-year-old gay and transgender Jewish American boy who runs away to the theme park because of a “complicated” relationship with his family.
It ran for two seasons, launching on 6.16.22 and ending on 10.13.22. The show was canceled by Netflix in January 2023. Creator Hamish Steele confirmed the news on social media after the second season aired in October 2022.
I might dismissively, grudgingly accept Sinners winning the compensation prize of a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, despite the fact that such a win would be ridiculous, of course.
Weapons over Sinners, Weapons over Sinners, Weapons over Sinners.
Noms but no wins for the absurdly overpraised, identity-propelled & deeply schlocky Sinners — noms but no wins for the absurdly overpraised, identity-propelled & deeply schlocky Sinners — noms but no wins for the absurdly overpraised, identity-propelled & deeply schlocky Sinners.
I am ready and willing to die on this hill. I would feel radiantly blessed and fulfilled if a lightning bolt would strike me down on a hilly golf course for this. Kill me, kill me, kill me. For I am the lamb.
Let every voter and every nation know that Hollywood Elsewhere is THEdefaultworldwidetakedownsiteforSinners. For this effing movie is blood-soaked, fang-toothed, ground-up mulch…a ludicrously bloody Samuel Z. Arkoff vampire cunnilingus programmer…Oscar diminishment to it, Oscar diminishment to it, Oscar diminishment to it.
Here’s HE’s latest rundown of the 2025 films that really deliver the goods vs. the ones that shouldn’t in all fairness be regarded as even semi-heavyweight, because they’re not.
The sturdy, real-deal films that certainly (or in two cases reportedly) deserve top rankings, in part because they deliver (or are said to deliver) serious emotion:
1. Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value (generates honest current, nails it, gets nothing wrong)
2. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another (except it’s against the vibe shift and isn’t exactly stirring the pots of the red-state bumblefucks)
3. Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (except it was overpraised in Telluride, and I know at least one critic who’s sorta kinda frowning)
4. Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? (won’t see it for another week or so, but I have a gut feeling…)
5. Zach Cregger‘s Weapons
6. Kaouther Ben Hania‘s The Voice of Hind Rajib
7. Craig Brewer‘s Song Sung Blue (gut feeling)
8. Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake (brilliant, transporting)
9. KentJones‘ LateFame
10. Kathryn Bigelow‘s A House of Dynamite
11. Noah Baumbach‘s Jay Kelly.
12. (Special Feature Documentary Stand-Out) DavidKittredge‘s BoormanandtheDevil.
Complete Unknowns (haven’t seen ’em, totally clueless):
1. Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
2. Benny Safdie‘s Marty Supreme
3. Scott Cooper‘s Deliver Me From Nowhere
HE’s Takedown List (i.e., get outta town, don’t even ask to come back until mid ’26):
1. Sinners (ballgame’s over, nominations but no wins, overpraised by TikTokers…sorry, Coogler!)
2. Wicked: For Good (forget it, get outta here)
3. It Was Just An Accident (way overpraised in Cannes)
4. Avatar: Fire and Ash (not a chance)
5. Frankenstein (forget it)
6, No Other Choice (Park Chan Wook‘s best days are behind him)
7. The Secret Agent (way overpraised in Cannes)
Every so often I’ll find myself shaking my head and sometimes even shuddering at the terrible, awful finality of bullets and disease. Some people have given up the spirit long before the final chapter, but others are generators of such verve and beauty and brilliance that the word “tragic” isn’t enough when finality intervenes. When I think of the crackling, incandescent spirit of John Lennon, and how all of that was obliterated in a matter of minutes on the evening of 12.8.80…words fail.
James Dean died in a head-on car crash exactly 70 years ago — 9.30.55. Broken neck, crushed chest, damn near instantly. Hollywood Elsewhere has twice visited the California death site (the intersection of route 46 and route 41, near Cholame). The first time was in early ’98, right around the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I took this photo, obviously with a mildly shitty camera:
Posted 20 and 1/2 years ago — 2.17.05: I’ve visited the Dean death site a couple of times, standing right next to the spot where Dean’s spirit left his body. I’ve taken it all in and felt vague stirrings of what I’ve told myself is probably some kind of historical after-vibe.
Every time I re-watch a Dean flick I’m still seriously impressed by those amazingly delicate chops of his, and how he managed to deliver that aching vulnerable thing with just the right amount of finesse.
But does Dean mean all that much to GenXers and GenYers? How many under-35s have seen and really enjoyed East of Eden or Rebel Without a Cause? These are great works (nobody cares much about Giant, a slow-moving, relatively dull film), but does the Dean legend/mystique pack that much of a punch these days?
Warner Home Video will release a brand-new Dean DVD package on 5.31.05 — remastered, double-disc, extra-heavy presentations of East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, plus a new documentary, James Dean: Forever Young, with previously unseen footage of Dean’s TV work. The doc will debut at the ’05 Cannes Film Festival, along with screenings of the three features, which have all been digitally restored.
Plus they’re organizing “Dean Fest,” a big three-day media festival happening in Dean’s home towns of Fairmont and Marion, Indiana (he was born in Marion, raised during his teen years in Fairmont by his aunt and uncle) from June 3rd to 5th.
I don’t know how worshipping at the altar of Dean’s memory is supposed to amount to three meaningful days for anyone of any age, but I guess the Warner folks will try and make that dog hunt.
Why am I writing about this now? Because Warner Home Video threw a press event yesterday morning at the Grove to announce the Dean bandwagon, and I had nothing else to do. All right, I was vaguely interested.
They got Pete Hammond to be the master of ceremonies. A parade of corporate suits took turns at the mike, blah-blahing about Dean’s rebel spirit and lasting influence. Some pals and colleagues of Dean’s from the old days shared some recollections. Martin Sheen (who played Dean in a TV movie about 25 years ago) showed up also, paying tribute to Dean’s profound effect upon actors, etc.
There was no trace of Dean’s old pal Dennis Hopper, though. There should have been.
I was told the whole presentation would last a little more than an hour. I stayed for the first 90 minutes, at which point the screen presentations had completed and Hammond had introduced and interviewed six or seven of Dean’s former friends, co-workers and/or associates.
If Dean had lived he’d be 74 today — Clint Eastwood’s age. But I don’t think it was in the cards for Dean to reach a ripe old age.
Photographer Phil Stern, easily the morning’s most caustic and honest speaker, said Dean was reckless about driving and was probably nursing some kind of urge to self-destruct.
Stern recalled that one day in early ’55 he was driving west on Sunset Blvd. near the corner of Crescent Heights Blvd., and that he nearly slammed into Dean after the latter ran a red light.
“Dean was very prescient because he structured his career in such a way that he passed away, which I believe was inevitable, in a way that precluded the possibility of people seeing him as a pot-bellied bald man,” Stern remarked.
There was something odd about friends and contemporaries of a guy known as the most influential troubled teenager in movie history…the proverbial `50s youth with a turned-up hood…there was something disorienting about Dean’s contemporaries looking so old and crochety and bent over.
Corey Allen, 70, the actor who played Buzz in Rebel Without a Cause (i.e., the one Dean had a knife fight with, and who went over the cliff in the car) was white haired and bearded and carrying a cane and apparently suffering from Parkinson’s, or something like that. He seemed okay attitude-wise.
You came out of this corporate presentation knowing two things: time sure as shit marches on, and getting old is a sonuvabitch.
As long as I’m breathing I’ll always love Leonard Rosenman’s scores for both East of Eden (especially the overture and main title pieces) and Rebel Without a Cause.
But there was something seriously odious about all these bottom-line corporate suit types paying tribute to Dean’s earning potential as a brand name, but not necessarily (or at least, not believably) paying tribute to who he actually was.
There’s a line in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in which Max von Sydow’s grumpy artist character says that if Jesus Christ were to come back to earth and see what is going on today in his name, “he would never stop throwing up.”
I was wondering what Dean would have thought of Tuesday morning’s presentation. I like to think he would have been amused in some way, shape or form. I was also imagining his ghost sitting in the seats yesterday and throwing ectoplasmic spitballs.
The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield (10.1.): “This morning Jane Fonda — legendary actress, producer, activist and Oscar-winner — announced the re-launch of The Committee for the First Amendment, a group once led by her father, Henry Fonda, among other A-list Golden Age stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.”
“The Committee’s reformation was announced with the release of a statement signed by over 550 artists” — Bill Maher included! — “and members of the Hollywood community.”
The reformed Committee is, of course, a pushback against Donald Trump‘s autocratic bully-boy regime, and especially, one presumes, his recent quashing (through surrogates) of his late-night talk-show critics, Stephen Colbert and (for a few days) Jimmy Kimmel. Who’s next?
And yet Fonda’s committee did a little quashing of its own last year when THR‘s Rebecca Keegan posted that Sasha Stone hit piece — an article that seemed to pretty much torpedo Stone’s award-season ad income, although she’s since bounced back to some extent.
Here’s what Stone posted this morning in response to Rushfield’s piece:
It probaby wasn’t Fonda herself who said “get rid of Sasha Stone!” But it might have been Robin Morgan, co-founder of the Women’s Media Center.
