I was particularly annoyed by the second-to-last scene when Wombat wouldn’t let Indy “stay in Syracuse,” so to speak, and thereby separated the poor old guy from what he really and truly wanted (“All my life,” he said). And then she slugs him and suddenly they’re back in his New York apartment, and his heart is completely broken. So was mine.

In what realm is old, aching Indy rekindling things with old, withered Marion (Karen Allen) better than Indy hanging out with Archimedes and possibly managing to save his life from that Roman solder who slew him in actuality?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny doesn’t end on anyone’s idea of a happy, vigorous or triumphant note, but Indy and “Arky” joining forces as they explore an array of scientific possibilities as well as the physical ancient world? Are you kidding? That’s a glorious ending. It would be like being reborn.

Who remembers Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? A trifle, 45 years ago, barely recalled but a catchy title. Right now it’s nonsensically coming to mind because the burning question of the moment is “who or what is behind the departures of all those DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) executives?”

Four have ankled over the last ten days or so, and three since last Wednesday.

Disney’s chief diversity officer and senior vp Latondra Newton, hired in 2017, exited on 6.20 to pursue “other endeavors.” A symbolic beheading over the somewhat disappointing returns on Disney’s The Little Mermaid (especially in China and South Korea), which could arguably be blamed on the casting of Halle Bailey? Or is that a reach?

Eight days later (6.28) the ankling of Vernā Myers, Netflix’s chief of inclusion strategy since 2018, was announced. She’ll apparently remain as an advisor to Netflix as she focuses her attention on her consulting company, The Vernā Myers Company.

Two more diversity execs flew or otherwise exited the coop on Friday, 6.30. Karen Horne, Warner Bros. Discovery’s SVP of diversity, equity and inclusion since March 2020, was laid off, and the contributions of Jeanell English, EVP of Impact and Inclusion with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since July 2022, came to a sudden and mysterious end.

You can call this activity a coincidence and maybe it is, but if this was a thriller of some sort you’d be saying to yourself “something seems to be up.” A case for a latter-day Hercule Poirot a la Clayton Davis with a long pointy moustache?

From Bari Weiss’s 7.1 Free Press interview with Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie:

“And particularly to females 35 and under” — from Pamela McLintock’s 6.29 THR box–office report about the 7.21-to-7.23 weekend, which foresees Greta Gerwig’s social-metaphor comedy trouncing Chris Nolan’s historical horror film about the A-bomb by at least $25 to $30 million.

Congrats to Team Barbie for achieving a successful sell, even as they privately acknowledge what I’ve been saying all along, which is that Barbie’s mostly Millennial and Zoomer female fans will be lining up “for the wrong reasons,” or certainly going in.

Media types (critics, editors, bloggers, podcasters) love to perform for each other whenever they congregate, which mostly tends to be at all-media screenings. A lot of them live lonely, concentrated lives in front of screens (myself included), and so the emotional spigots tend to flow when they all get together, and boy oh boy, do they turn on the personality and the charm and do what they can to wow each other!

If you’re sitting solo but not too far from the crowd, you’ve no choice but to listen to all the jokes and repartee and sage witticisms and smart-ass cracks, etc. Very few of these guys are into quiet murmurings or sharing thoughts of an earnest nature. They’re all “on-stage” in a sense, and listening to them is…I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon but listening to them can feel like a faint form of hell. The only cure is to have a conversation of your own, which is probably what I should have done, looking back.

Chickenshit Budweiser execs pretended like Dylan Mulvaney didn’t exist when the shit hit the fan. They should have reached out, maybe offered a little cover or protection or a warm word or two…something. I feel badly about what Dylan went through, and the blonde hair, by the way, works better than the dark.

[Filed this morning at 8:05 am] Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro on modest box-office fate of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny:

I never saw Alan Arkin in Enter Laughing or Luv on the Broadway stage, but for me he was the king of fickle neuroticism and glum irreverence for decades and decades, and for decades and decades I loved him like few others. And now the journey has ended. He was 89.

If I had to pick my favorite Arkin performances in descending order, I would restrict my list to four. I would begin with his grumpy but compassionate, heroin-snorting grandpa in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘s Little Miss Sunshine (’06). In second place is Captain John Yossarian, the numbed-out pacifist Air Force bombardier in Catch 22 (’70). Third is his wonderfully anxious ands panicky dentist in Arthur Hiller‘s The In-Laws (’79), Fourth but not least is his moustachioed Russian submarine captain in Norman Jewison‘s The Russians Are Coming (’66).

Everyone remembers a concluding line in a certain Catch 22 conversation between Lt. Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight) and Cpt. Yossarian. It wasn’t written by original novel author Joseph Heller but Buck Henry. Heller reportedly approved.

Minderbinder: “Nately died a wealthy man, Yossarian. He had over sixty shares in the syndicate.”

Yossarian: “What difference does that make? He’s dead.”

Minderbinder: “Then his family will get it.”

Yossarian: “He didn’t have time to have a family.”

Minderbinder: “Then his parents will get it.”

Yossarian: “They don’t need it, they’re rich.”

Minderbinder: (beat) “Then they’ll understand.”