Yes, another Blue Velvet of sorts, right?…another take on the dark underbelly of an idyllic American picket-fence domesticity?…a midwestern Diary of a Mad Housewife? Obviously something in that realm. Older white male = perverse-to-the-max bad guy…shocker!

The folks at Amazon MGM are presenting. Nicole Kidman, Gael García Bernal, Matthew Macfadyen (whose Succession performance landed him this role), Jude Hill, Rachel Sennott.

Debuting before the South by Southwest whores in 3.9.25 (Austin cineastes will heartily shriek over anything), followed by some kind of release on 3.27.25.

An excerpt from Nicolas Niarchos‘ reaction (i.e., not really a “review”) to Michael Wolff‘s just-published “ALL OR NOTHING: How Trump Recaptured America“:

I don’t know where to begin a loose-shoe study of the likeliest 2025 hotties (critically approved, Oscar-nominated), but you have to start somewhere…anywhere.

Right now this is a very half-assed rundown, but I’ll build it as the comments come in and things move along. Call this HE’s first half-assed stab. I’ll begin to fix it up tonight. Step by step.

I’ve no interest in likely 2025 money-makers. This is strictly about the films that people may feel riveted, disturbed, challenged, gobsmacked or turned on by, or might even feel compelled to give awards to.

Which films appear to be the weak sisters, and which are the serious heavyweights? Which should be highlighted and which should be wait-and-see’d?

Darren Aronofsky‘s Caught Stealing (Sony, 8.29). “Burned-out ex-baseball player Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), forced to navigate a treacherous underworld he never imagined”…too wordy. Costarring Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Will Brill, Bad Bunny, Griffin Dunne, Vincent D’Onofrio.

Scott Cooper‘s Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century, sometime in the fall). Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in another boomer nostalgia pic, focusing on the recording of Nebraska (’82). Costarring Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron.

Edward Berger‘s The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix). Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation,” blah blah. Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen

Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (Paramount, 5.23).

Joseph Kosinski‘s F1 (Warner Bros., 6.27). Brad Pitt, Damson Idris (black dudes can’t die!), Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Shea Whigham.

Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (Universal. 10.3.25). Reportedly sanitized life of the late Michael Jackson. Jaafar Jackson, Juliano Krue Valdi, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier.

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another (Warner Bros., 8.25). Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Benicio del Toro.

Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt (Amazon MGM, 10.10.25). An academic setting obviously indicates some kind of anti-wokester, anti-Zoomer drama…right? Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny.

Josh Safdie‘s Marty Supreme (A24, 12.25). Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, Odessa A’zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard.

Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest (remake of Akira Kurosawa‘s High and Low, a kidnapping-ransom drama that I’ve never liked). (No date, A24 / Apple TV+)Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky.

Ari Aster‘s Eddington (A24). A “contemporary western with a darkly comedic attitude.” Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr.

Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein (Netflix, November)….again? Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen.

I’m not including James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century, 12.19) as it’s just another episode in the Avatar series, and is solely about selling tickets.

Will Nia DaCosta‘s Hedda, a “reimagining” of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 stage play, be shot as a Victorian period drama or as a contemporary thing? Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nina Hoss, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch.

Kenneth Branagh‘s The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde…as an ardent non-fan of Branagh’s Belfast, I feel very concerned about any film that he’s directed and written. Jodie Comer, Patricia Arquette, Michael Sheen, Tom Bateman, Vicky McClure, Michael Balogun.

Celine Song‘s Materialists (A24, no date). “A Manhattan matchmaker’s lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a toxic love triangle that threatens her clients,” blah blah. Beware!!! Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Zoe Winters, Dasha Nekrasova, Louisa Jacobson.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony, 5.9) appears to be a serving of guaranteed agony. The words “American romantic fantasy” are death to me. Directed by Kogonada from a screenplay by Seth Reiss. Starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, w/ Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon.

Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia (Focus Features, 11.7)….aaaggghhh! “Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company (Emma Stone), convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying the earth. Costarring Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone.

Paul Greengrass‘s The Lost Bus (Apple TV+). “A bus driver has to navigate a bus carrying children and their teacher to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest fire in California history,” etc. Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Spencer Watson, Danny McCarthy.

Wes Anderson‘s The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features, 5.30). “Dark tale of espionage following a strained father-daughter relationship within a family business beset by morally gray choices”…that’s a mouthful!. Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston.

Bong Joon-ho‘s Mickey 17 (Warner Bros., 3.7.25). HE has long had a problem with Bong Joon-ho, and we’ve all heard about the prolonged release-date delays — originally slated for 3.29.24. Critics will cream over it, no matter how problematic it may or might not be.

John M. Chu‘s Wicked: For Good (Universal, 11.21.25). Same crew as before — Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, etc.

Andre Gaines‘ The Dutchman (no distrib — debuting at SXSW on 3.8). Sexual intrigue between harried black businessman (Andre Holland) and whitey-white chick (Kara Mara). Co-adapted by Gaines and Qasim Basir, based on same-titled 1964 play by Amiri Baraka.

Mimi Cave‘s Holland (no distrib — opened at SXSW on 3.9) Small town Michigan woman (Nicole Kidman) suspects husband (Matthew Macfadyen) may be living a double life. Costarring Gael García Bernal, Jude Hill, Rachel Sennott.

Julian Schnabel‘s In The Hand of Dante. Synopsis of Nick Tosches‘ same-titled 2002 book: “An interweaving of two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily.” Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches / Dante Alighieri, w/ Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Martin Scorsese.

Jonathan Kent‘s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Ed Harris, Jessica Lange, Ben Foster, Colin Morgan, Ericka Roe.

Jonah Hill‘s Outcome (Apple TV+). Black comic satire about social-media harpooning of big movie star (Keanu Reeves). Costarring Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Susan Lucci, David Spade, Laverne Cox.

Steven Soderbergh‘s Black Bag (Focus Features, 3.14). London-shot cloak and dagger with dry Soderbergh attitude….right?

Michel Franco‘s Dreams. Rich Anerican socialite Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) blows off, fucks over her younger Mexican ballet dancer boyfriend (Isaac Hernández)

Richard Linklater‘s Blue Moon (Sony Classics, May ’25) — The last few months in the life of composer Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke). Depression, alcoholism, closeted sexuality. Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale. Debuting in Berlin on 2.18.

Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Focus Features, no date) — Fictional tale about Mr. and Mrs. William Shakespeare coping with the death of their son. Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson.

Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Bride! (Warner Bros., 9.26). Feminist take on James Whale‘s The Bride of Frankenstein. All men are scheming, wounding pigs! Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening.

Ethan Coen‘s Honey Don’t (Focus Features, May ’25). Another lesbian caper flick a la Drive Away Dolls. Set in Bakersfield, pic focuses on a private investigator (Margaret Qualley), a cult leader (Chris Evans), and a “mystery woman” (Aubrey Plaza).

I’m thinking about writing a Hollywood book about the deranged and hysterical media war against Peter Farrelly’s Green Book (‘18), but also about something bigger and broader — how the Green Book maelstrom launched the not-fully-concluded era of the woke baddie-waddies —- the censorious, ultra-sensitive identity fanatics who all but suffocated the film business during the woke terror era (2016 to 2024).

With the winds currently shifting and woke mentalism beating a retreat like Napoleon out of Russia, it’s now okay, I’m thinking, to write a book that recounts an honest history about how extreme progressive scolds tried like hell to murder one of the gentlest and most unassuming stories (and a fact-based one at that) about racial reckonings and journeys of self-discovery ever created within the Hollywood realm, and yet how the pissheads couldn’t quite deliver the death blow.

A book (which Sasha Stone was going to co-write with me…now she feels that we’re too far apart on the Trump factor) about how the uglies tried to bludgeon a good, modest little film…how they did everything they could to kill its chances in the Oscar race, and how they wound up failing…tough shit, assholes!

A book about a now-seven-year-old film that didn’t mine as much as gently explore a relatively dark and indecent era in American culture as far as the racial divide was concerned, and yet a film that played its cards just so…deftly, I mean…a film that fair-minded movie lovers fell for and which wound up snagging a Best Picture Oscar.

I’m talking about a film that made Manohla Dargis, Spike Lee, Inkoo Kang, Richard Brody, David Ehrlich and a whole army of progressive haters see red…a movie that led to a thousand cursings and spit-takes.

I’m thinking of a book would examine on a deep-dish, inside-the-beltway basis the blow-by-blow wokester campaign to disembowel Green Book, starting with the big ecstatic debut at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2018 and ending with Peter Farrelly’s film taking the Best Picture Oscar on 2.24.19, not to mention Mahershala Ali snagging Best Supporting Actor (traitor!).

Augmented, of course, by the usual backstory and perspective reporting — (a) a history of previous takedown campaigns, (b) the eruption of pernicious wokeism itself in ’16 or 17 or thereabouts, (c) a history of the actual 1962 Green Book road trip, (d) a history of the Green Book project. and the various participants, how it all came together, the initial marketing, how the woke resistance formulated, and so on…whizzing bullet by whizzing bullet, grenade by grenade,

I’ve already written a good portion of this saga in Hollywood Elsewhere…I must have tapped out 10 or 12 adversarial columns at the very least.

And yet the hysteria that swirled around Green Book during the last four months of 2018 and the first two months of ‘19 is not a story many people know. [Sasha wrote the next three or four paragraphs.] You’d have to be on the inside of the insular bubble that the Oscars and Hollywood have become….a political climate that began with the emergence of this warm-hearted, crowd-pleasing flick about friendship and tolerance, and yet ironically resulted in one of the screenwriters being banned from the ceremony, the film’s director persecuted on phony sexual assault charges, one of the actors called a racist and a general upending of the way the Academy votes on Best Picture.

The shock of the 2016 Donald Trump election sent Hollywood reeling, but the combination of rising activism and woke ideology collided with old-fashioned storytelling to create a firestorm that the film awards industry still hasn’t recovered from.

The trouble began to brew the year after Trump won the presidency, when La La Land was deemed “racist” and lost to Moonlight. It intensified the following year when Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was knocked out of completion because it, too, was deemed “racist.”

Green Book was the film that ignited a guerilla movement of woke scolding, instruction, obstruction and correction. 

Note: As the following article partly focuses on the financial earnings of Anora, any and all comments by HE commenter “This Is Heavy, Doc“, a relentless Anora buzzkiller and piss-sprayer, will be instantly deleted.

A friend reminded me yesterday that despite its overwhelming popularity with both critics and ticket-buyers, Sean Baker‘s Anora (Neon), which opened semi-wide in early November after a couple of weeks in select urban venues, managed to tally only $14,554,317 domestically and $15,699,037 internationally.

A $30 million haul is far from disastrous for a modestly-budgeted indie, of course, and Anora will continue to thrive on streaming platforms, especially if it snags several Oscar nominations (i.e., all but guaranteed).

But it struck me as odd or at least curious that Halina Reijn‘s Babygirl (A24), which opened on 12.25 but has sparked much less enthusiasm among critics as well as Joe and Jane Popcorn, has managed to bring in $21,738,200 in two and a half weeks of domestic theatrical play.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s great that Babygirl (of which I’m an ardent fan) has connected (it needs to make $50 million to break even) but given the fact that ticket-buyers are far less taken with it than Anora, what accounts for it having made more money?

That’s a simplistic, dumb-guy question, I realize. My first thought is that ticket-buyers were too lazy and stupid to have vigorously embraced Anora in November and early December because of Neon’s less-than-overwhelming promotion plus the no-star cast. Plus Babygirl‘s Christmas opening along with the name-brand attraction of Nicole Kidman obviously counted for something.

It’s just odd that despite a mixed or disappointed reception Babygirl has earned $21M in less than three weeks while Anora managed to earn only two-thirds of that amount over a five or six-week period. Younger urban audiences have flocked to it, but your suburban and rural slowboats…not so much.

I’ve stood next to Sharon Stone a couple of times, and she’s no statue-esque Sigourney Weaver, I can tell you…she was 5’8 when younger, and is probably closer to 5’7″ now.

Cynthia Erivo and Sharon Stone sharing a moment on the Palm Springs International Film Awards red carpet pic.twitter.com/hBpyOPBjai

— Ema Sasic (@ema_sasic) January 4, 2025

Ariana Grande & Nicole Kidman at the Palm Springs Film Festival Awards.

(via: @THR)
pic.twitter.com/HomCOOte9F

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 4, 2025

Since opening three days ago Babygirl has been faring rather poorly with Joe and Jane Popcorn, but it’s not the fault of director-writer Halina Riijn, who’s made a brilliant, riveting film about compulsive sexual behavior.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies with A24’s marketing team, which has insisted on selling the Nicole Kidman-Harris Dickinson film as an “erotic thriller.” Erotic it certainly is, but no one in their right mind would call it a thriller.

Friendo: “Don’t you think marketing this film as an ‘80s & ‘90s-style ‘erotic thriller’ a la Body Heat, Basic Instinct and Sea of Love may have been a SERIOUS miscalculation?”

HE: “Yes. Applying the ‘thriller’ label is completely ridiculous.”

Friendo: “This is how the producers or the releasing company were promoting the film: As a goddamn ‘erotic thriller.’ Which it most certainly is not. And those of us (like me) who believed the hype, were expecting — and YEARNING FOR — that kind of experience. Instead we got a bait & switch.”

From Owen Gleiberman‘s “Could Babygirl Have Been Made by a Male Director?’, posted in Variety earlier today:

“Babygirl is a film about someone” — Nicole Kidman‘s CEO character — “who feels, and believes, that her deepest desires are wrong.

“It’s important to recognize what a common sensation that is. There’s an old saying that goes, ‘Sex isn’t good unless it’s dirty,” and I think what that expresses is that it’s intrinsic to the nature of human sexuality that people are drawn, in the erotic arena, to acting out things that feel ‘naughty’ or ‘bad’ or whatever. It’s whatever floats your boat. And it’s why we have porn, which Kidman’s character in Babygirl is addicted to. That’s the realm where her libidinous imagination can roam free.”

HE’s answer: No male filmmaker would DARE to try and make such a film, as this would be politically suicidal. And the mob that would lash and eviscerate this guy would, of course, be progressive women.

Woke female mission statement: “We’ve reached a position of power that allows Halina Reijn to make this kind of film, but woebetide any dude who would be stupid enough to try and make such a film himself.”

Gleiberman: “What if a man had made Babygirl You could certainly say it would be more controversial.

“[But] the real answer is: A male director would not and could not have made Babygirl the way that Halina Reijn made it.

“It’s not just about the cultural identity politics. It’s about how the film’s power emerges from a hard-wired female consciousness. Kidman’s performance is extraordinary (the best by a female actor this year, in my opinion), but part of what makes acting like this possible is that the role is conceived with an intimacy that renders Romy’s gaze more potent than ours. She’s gazing into the sadomasochistic abyss of her own longing.”

In HE’s judgment, the decision of the Critics Choice members to ignore the obviously superior Babygirl in the Best Picture category, not to mention failing to nominate Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in their respective acting categories, is a bad thing.

It is, in fact, conclusive proof that they’re mostly a congregation of prissy little status quo cowards ….subservient suck-ups, I mean, who haven’t the character or courage to stand up for a film that really and truly excites and provokes.

“Americans get the willies when it comes to strong sexual content,” a friend remarks. People like this are what’s wrong with the film world.

Conclave and Wicked landed 11 nominations each, and Anora — clearly the best of the bunch — only landed four noms.

Wicked is fine — I felt agreeably rocked when I caught the NYC all-media — but please don’t drop to your knees and give this YA girl fantasy the top prize…no!

The CC empties nominated The Substance for Best Picture but blew off The Apprentice? We all love Hugh Grant but nominating his Heretic performance while blanking Sebastian Stan‘s Donald Trump, not to mention Jeremy Strong‘s Roy Cohn in the supporting category? C’mon!

…in a way that totally contradicts or negates or at least counter-balances the way Paul Mescal is uncool. Look at Harris Dickinson barely holding his contempt for red-carpet journos in check.

And at 6’2″, he’s significantly taller than the 5’11” Mescal, who will play Paul McCartney to Dickinson’s John Lennon in Sam Mendes‘ extremely scary-sounding quartet of Beatle movies. Lennon and McCartney were roughly the same height, or in the general vicinity of 5’10”.

Harris Dickinson at the ‘BABYGIRL’ premiere. pic.twitter.com/UiiP2b3aIc

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) December 12, 2024

20 minutes into last night’s viewing of Babygirl, I texted a friend who’d seen it a while back.

HE to friendo: “Babygirl is pretty good!”
Friendo to HE: “Kidman amazing.”
HE to friendo: “Halina Reijn is a really good director!”
Friend to HE: “And Reijn wrote it too. Kidman heard about the script and sought it out. The trouble is that Americans have problems with sexual situations in movies.”
HE to friendo: “It’s wild!!! I felt lit up inside….crazy, slurpy, over-the-waterfall sexual films are still being made. George Michael‘s ‘Father Figure’, INXS‘s ‘Never Tear Us Apart’…man! When sex is really good, it constitutes a form of madness. Babygirl doesn’t feel histrionic…it feels real and conversationally casual and verite…but at the same time it’s so highly charged during the sex scenes that I forgot about Nicole’s juvoderm injections…totally forgot about that.”
Friendo to HE: “Nicole had a nicer, larger, more luscious ass in Eyes Wide Shut.”
HE to friendo: “And your package is just as wang-schlongy as it was when you were 28? She’s doing just fine for 58.”
Friendo to HE: “And poor Antonio Banderas.”
HE to friendo: “When you get older and you’ve been with someone for 20 or 25 years, the hormonal magic just isn’t there anymore, and if your wife or partner is one of those ‘okay, I’m here so service me and no moody, half-staff erections’ types, sex can feel Sisyphusian…like digging ditches.”
Friendo to HE: “When the husband confronts the extra-marital lover, it’s time to rassle!”

I’d forgotten how effective the finale of To Die For is, and what a collossal dumbass Nicole Kidman‘s Pamela Smart** was depicted as. And especially what a blood-chilling vibe David Cronenberg had. That voice, those executive duds, that smile.

For me the second all-time creepiest movie assassin is that burly, 60ish, working-class Crimes and Misdemeanors guy from New Orleans who knocks on Anjelica Huston‘s Manhattan apartment door and says “flowers!”

Director Gus Van Sant was peaking like a sonuvabtich when TDF opened in October 1995. His greatest ever film, Drugstore Cowboy, which Gus directed at age 36 and cowrote with Daniel Yost, had opened six years earlier. And then came the totally gay My Own Private Idaho (’91). Let’s forget Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (’93), but two years after To Die For Gus directed Good Will Hunting (’97), another major score in terms of box-office and awards.

Let’s forget the misbegotten Psycho remake (’98) and the altogether dreadful Finding Forrester (David Poland loved it!).

But soon after came the brilliant bare-bones trilogy of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days. Paranoid Park was pretty good, I felt, although Gus’s Milk (’08) couldn’t hold a candle to Rob Epstein‘s The Times of Harvey Milk (’84). I never thought Sean Penn was the right guy to play Harvey — he’s way too short for one thing.

So Gus’s peak period lasted just shy of 20 years…commendable.

** The real Pamela Smart wasn’t murdered by a smooth assassin. She’s serving a life sentence inside the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.