And 100% proud of having crafted this identity or calling card or however you want to describe it.

Will RFK, Jr.’s reported independent presidential candidacy siphon away more votes from Trump or Biden? That is the question. Let there be no doubt that RFK’s alleged plan to become the new Ralph Nader or Ross Perot is a total dick move. Odious, self-aggrandizing, shameful.

I don’t regard most of moviedom’s stand-out female villains as odious or reprehensible. Because most of those that come to mind are cartoonish — broadly drawn, lacking any semblance of realism or subtlety…fiendish stereotypes, outlandish behavior, etc.

Glenn Close‘s Cruella DeVille, Margaret Hamilton‘s Wicked With of the West, Angelina Jolie‘s Maleficent are histrionic, flamboyantly written comic-book figures…satirical cliches, basically created for children.

In Get Out, I didn’t believe Alison Williams‘ evil racist girlfriend for one single millisecond. Kathy Bates‘ “Annie Wilkes” from Misery (’90) is another over-the-top fanatic. Even Louise Fletcher‘s Nurse Ratched isn’t “real” — she’s more of a personification of a drab and repressive system that stifles the human spirit.

If you eliminate the third-act murder of Neil Patrick Harris, Rosamund Pike‘s “Amy Dune” from Gone Girl is slightly more real-worldish; ditto Close’s Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction, although Alex isn’t demonic as much as tragically demented.

Honestly? When you tabulate all the thousands of films I’ve seen, the female character I’ve despised the most in terms of actual life-resembling behavior is Diane Venora‘s “Liane” Wigand, the spineless wife of Russell Crowe‘s Jeffrey Wigand in Michael Mann‘s The Insider.

The 1999 drama depicts Liane as a shallow, insulated security queen who leaves the embattled Wigand, taking their kids with her, when the going gets too tough.

Sidenote: Liane is a fictional creation — 23 years ago the ex-wife of the actual whistleblower, named Lucretia Nimocks, told N.Y. Post journalist Jeane MacIntosh “that’s not the way it happened at all.”

Liane is at the top of my list because I regard cowardice and disloyalty as the most abhorrent human qualities on the planet earth.

Bradley Cooper‘s Maestro (Netflix, 11.22) is an even-steven two-hander about the occasionally turbulent marriage between conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). Both are obviously playing leads.

I still haven’t seen it, but performance-wise the buzz since Venice has been that Mulligan decisively outpoints Cooper.

Netflix’s Maestro one-sheet clearly states that Mulligan owns the spotlight.

It sounds as if IndieWire‘s Ryan Lattanzio has seen the film, given that he’s written that “the show is stolen from Cooper by Mulligan.”

And yet two days ago Variety‘s Clayton Davis sugggested that Mulligan should go for Best Supporting Actress. This is advisable, he feels, because the competition from Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Lily Gladstone is too formidable.

Davis doesn’t mention, of course, that Gladstone’s campaign is pretty much about the woke identity militia, and that her actual performance is no more than sufficient. She certainly has no “big” moments. I could even call it an underwhelming performance (i.e., she mainly just seethes and glowers and lies in bed during the film’s second half) but the woke mob would resort to their usual inferences.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a prominent veteran of California politics for over half a century, has died at age 90.

A Democrat and strong activist liberal from San Francisco, six terms as a U.S. Senator and the state’s senior senator since ’93, three terms as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 (she succeeded Mayor George Moscone after his 1978 murder) to 1988, etc.

More recently (and certainly within the last five or so years) Feinstein became not only a symbol of age diminishment but of the same kind of obstinate refusal to accept reality that we’ve recently seen from Sen. Mitch McConnell and which we may see down the road from President Joe Biden.

Big-time politicians never, ever resign over aging issues. They either get voted out or die — there’s no third way.

Who will Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint to serve out Feinstein’s term? Will he choose a caretaker or one of the three announced candidates for Feinstein’s seat — Adam Schiff, Congressperson Barbara Lee, and Rep. Katie Porter?

If Newsom picks one of these three, he’ll be giving that person a huge leg-up in the ’24 primary.

No sociopaths allowed. George was warned to leave Kristi Coulter alone. He went right ahead and slagged her anyway. That’s it — game over.

Here’s what did it:

It’s been 15 days years since Revolucian‘s Christian Bale temper tantrum mixtape — sourced from the set of Terminator Salvation in ’08. I really love it as a piece of music. It’s a masterpiece. I especially love playing it while driving, writing, getting dressed.

YouTube guy #1: “When I’m angry, I blast this song and dance-rage the tension out.”

YouTube guy #2: “This has been on my gym playlist for 10 years. Still makes me laugh.”

HE: “When I think of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things (\Searchlight, 12.8), I think of a one-two effect. First I think of Frankenstein’s sexually vigorous daughter, and then a back-from-the-grave woman whose worldview evolves from wide-eyed wonderment into critical male-shirking wokeness. I also believe that Emma Stone has the Best Actress Oscar in the bag.”

Friendo: “When I think of Poor Things, I first think of a lurching, amusing and sometimes audacious [effort] that feels second-rate-ish at the end of the day. Then I think of the in-your-face woke design (Ms. Barbie Frankenstein in a world of angry, damaged, predatory men!), then I think of all that sex and how it’s really kind of gratuitous (unless this were 1972) but wow, it sure is going to help sell the movie!”

Posted on 9.9.23: