Mr. Scorsese Dropped The Ball

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A fair and honest portrayal of Martin Scorsese’s life and career would acknowledge that Killers of the Flower Moon is arguably his worst film (yes, even worse than Hugo and Kundun) .

I’ve explained this numerous times, but this is because (a) KOTFM was driven by an all-but-total capitulation to glum woke theology, which meant that (b) Lily Gladstone’s Molly Burkhart had to be portrayed as not only gloriously imbued with God’s radiant and rhapsodic light but as a deeply fascinating character (not).

Scorsese had a great Eric Roth adaptation of David Grann’s 2017 novel to work with, but he and Leonardo DiCaprio were too afraid of offending the DEI fanatics by making Texas Ranger Tom White the central character.

KOTFM was therefore, Robbie Robertson’s haunting music aside, the least Scorsese–esque film to ever bear his name. It was about Marty dropping to his knees and showing obeisance to the early 2020s power of woke fanaticism.

Does Rebecca Miller’s Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV+, 10.17) acknowledge this? I haven’t seen it, but it sure as hell sounds like she doesn’t.

Carroll vs. Trump Doc Hailed at Hamptons Film Fest

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A bulletin from Hamptons resident and HE friendo Bill McCuddy…

“After debuting at Telluride on 8.30, Ivy Meeropol‘s Ask E. Jean had a big hot-ticket screening at the Hamptons Film Festival on Saturday, 10.4.

Carroll to McCuddy: “This is a film about how to beat Donald Trump, and that’s basically what my director Ivy Meeropol has done…she reveals what it will take to stop what’s going on today.”

Will Carroll ever see a dime of the nearly $90 million smackers the President owes her? “Oh yeah…have you met Robbie Kaplan?” she asked, referring to her pitbull lawyer and one of the documentary’s headliners.

“FUCK, yeah,” chimed in pal Ellen Barkin, standing by Carroll’s side. “Look at her lawyer.”

Barkin’s not in the film — she was just there for support and said, jokingly, “I’m playing E. Jean in an afterschool special so I have to really embrace her.”

Barkin then got serious about the gravity of Carroll’s lawsuits, the admission that J.C. hasn’t had sex since the attack, and how the film has affected the women’s movement.

Barkin: “It’s only the most important thing that’s happened, for me, since civil rights. The 70’s riots. This comes next for me.”

A number of familiar scenes played well (i.e., Trump identifying Carroll as Marla Maples in a photo). It also reveals the two people E. Jean confided in after the attack — newscaster Carol Martin and ‘Preppy Handbook’ journalist Lisa Bernbach. Other talking heads in the 91-minute film include Bill Boggs, Geraldo Rivera, and the entire Carroll legal team.

Trump’s deposition, considered ‘fair use’ footage because it was part of the trial, was “ripped from YouTube” according to the director. When someone from the audience asked if the Trump appeals — he has one left, according to the film — will be settled while The Beast is still in office, Kaplan said “Yes, I believe so.”

McCuddy worked with the Elle magazine author during the time of the assault in the mid 90s. She and he were both picked by Roger Ailes to host television shows on the now defunct NBC channel “America’s Talking.” She had the advice show “Ask E. Jean” and McCuddy had the afternoon talk show right before hers called “Break A Leg.”

McCuddy: “Carroll and I have kept in touch with social media and via an off-Broadway show I did before COVID that she came to see. She gave me a big hug on the red carpet for the HFF premiere. Pic is still looking for a distributor and gets a second viewing on Sunday.”

“The Smashing Machine” Is Dead, Dead, Deader Than Dead

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As I posted from Venice on 9.1, Benny Safdie‘s The Smashing Machine (A24) is a reasonably decent, at times almost refreshingly offbeat film because it doesn’t deliver the usual formulaic cowflop that Dwayne Johnson movies have been shoveling for too many years.

On top of which Johnson’s lead performance as Mark Kerr is earnest, dug-in, totally respectable.

So why did Smashing make only a lousy $6M this weekend? My guess is that Joe and Jane Popcorn took one quick look at Johnson’s black curly wig and said “nope, no way.” Just a hunch.

Queer-Shaming in Bad Old Days

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William Wyler‘s The Children’s Hour (’61) is a thoroughly suffocating drama and, for my money, a stone drag to sit through. Eeeeeekk!…lesbians! The alarmed expressions in the trailer alone are borderline comical.

It began life as a 1934 Hellman play about the hounding of two schoolteachers over rumors of a suspected gay relationship.

In 1936 Wyler sheepishly adapted a watered-down screen version of Hellman’s play (Hellman herself wrote the screenplay), having scrubbed it of lesbian allusions and re-titled it as These Three.

Even Wyler’s 1961 version, which finally allowed allusions to a lesbian relationship between the schoolteachers (Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine), unfolds in overly timid terms. Hellman “adapted” it, although screenplay credit went to John Michael Hayes.

James Garner and Joel MacCrea played the same role in the ’61 and ’34 versions, an alarmed doctor named Joe Cardin who basically wants to mate with Audrey Hepburn and Merle Oberon, respectively.

Yes, Virginia — even in 1961 the notion of a possibly gay relationship between two women was quite an alarming thing, strange as this may sound today. Wyler’s Kennedy-era film was derided as being overly skittish and chicken-hearted.

This was the same year, mind, as Basil Dearden‘s much braver Victim, a low-budget British drama about a blackmailer making life miserable for a seemingly straight-and-married barrister (Dirk Bogarde) over allegations of a male homosexual relationship from the barrister’s past.

Victim‘s Wiki page says it was filmed in only 10 days.

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Integrated Theme Songs

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As far as I can recall there are only two films with a strong, recognizable musical theme or theme song…Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (’55) and Robert Altman‘s The Long Goodbye (’73)…these two may be the only films in which the musical theme is sung or hummed by characters within the film itself.

Which means, obviously, that the theme was composed and performed before principal photography on these films began.

In Eden, Julie Harris hums Leonard Rosenman‘s main theme (which begins at the :40 mark in the below video), and in The Long Goodbye, a lounge singer croaks or croons John Williams and Johnny Mercer‘s “Long Goodbye” tune in the Hollywood bar in which Marlowe retrieves his messages.

There are probably other films that have operated this way, theme-song-wise — I just can’t remember them.

Apologies For Falling Behind on “The Lost Bus”

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On a certain level I feel nearly ashamed for having this far failed to see Paul Greengrass‘s The Lost Bus, which began streaming yestetrday (10.3) on Apple TV Plus.

Back in the day not catching a new Greengrass film as early as possible would have been unthinkable. When I say “back in the day” I mean 2002 to 2007, or the time of Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy (the birth of shakycam), United 93 (a truly masterful 9/11 nightmare flick) and The Bourne Ultimatum.

For me the Greengrass brand weakened slightly with the arrival of Green Zone (2010), Captain Phillips (2013) and Jason Bourne(2016). It weakened a bit more when 2018’s 22 July came out, and then was damn near broken by 2020’s News of the World.

I was in Venice when The Lost Bus premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival on 9.5.25. It was released in select NYC theaters on 9.19.23 (15 days ago). Decent reviews, favorable reactions, not even a slight burn. But Greengrass needs to deliver another United 93. He could have easily directed A House of Dynamite if Kathryn Bigelow hadn’t grabbed it first.

I’ll see Lost Bus tonight or early tomorrow. Reactions?

Woke Lefties Belong In The Forest

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Progressives began to flee into the forest when Kamala Harris lost last November, and for now they need to stay there. Live in tents, wear animal hides for warmth, bathe in rivers, eat raw game and wild berries

From Andrew Sullivan‘s “How Utterly Lost Is The Left?” (10.3.25):

Ezra Klein to Ta-Nehisi Coates: “In losing as badly as we have, we have imperiled trans people terribly…we’ve just begun to lose that argument terribly…and that has put people in real danger”

“‘[Because] a huge amount of the country, a majority of the country, believes things about trans people, about what policy should be toward trans people, about what language is acceptable to trans people, that we would see as fundamentally and morally wrong.’

Sullivan: “Bingo. Behind the rhetoric, the woke mindset still reigns.

“And let’s look at what Americans actually believe ‘about what policy should be toward trans people’: there are big majorities for allowing trans adults to transition to the sex they want, and for banning discrimination against them, which is now the law of the land, thanks to a Trump nominee. How is that ‘fundamentally and morally wrong’?

“According to Klein, it’s because even bigger majorities (a) oppose sex changes for children, (b) don’t want biological men competing against women in sports, and (c) believe that being male or female is a function of biology, not something entirely in your head.

“Disagree if you want, but why is this ‘fundamentally and morally wrong’? It just isn’t. Nor is it ‘fundamentally and morally wrong’ to undo the unprecedentedly reckless immigration policies of Biden and Boris.

“We’re not stupid. No amount of fake rhetorical moves to the center will work. When very basic things that most human beings take for granted — that foreigners are not citizens and citizens come first, that men are not women, that children are not adults — are deemed fundamentally immoral in one political party, that party deserves to lose.

“And they will.”

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