If you can overlook the phlegmy voice, soft diction and under-powered delivery, President Joe Biden‘s Valley Forge speech was a keeper. He had waited and hemmed and hawed for months on end, but then he finally stood up and hoisted Donald Trump on his own spear. It was about damn time.

The smartest way to figure out the winners of Sunday night’s Golden Globe awards (CBS, 1.7, 8 pm eastern / 5 pm Pacific) is to consider the primary mission.

Mission #1 is to give Paul Giamatti a Golden Globe award for his Holdovers performance. That’s the priority, the main thing…nothing else matters.

Two years ago the old Hollywood Foreign Press Association had been condemned and ostracized for being racist or insufficiently woke or generally bad news. Now that it’s Penske-owned and operated (i.e., the “Golden Penskes”) the impetus, obviously, will be to lean diverse whenever feasible to make up for alleged past sins.

The other presumption is that many if not most of the winners will align with the preferences of the dumbest, shallowest and least edge-minded voters.

Best Motion Pic / Drama / Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest.

HE pick: Maestro (easily the most dynamic and transporting film among the nominated six.). Safest default choice: Oppenheimer. Likeliest woke winner: Killers of the Flower Moon.

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy / Air, American Fiction, Barbie, The Holdovers, May December, Poor Things

HE pick: Poor Things. Safest default choice: The Holdovers. Likeliest woke winner: Barbie.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama, Actor / Bradley Cooper, Maestro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon (not a chance!), Colman Domingo, Rustin (not happening!), Barry Keoghan, Saltburn (get outta town!), Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer (alien from Tralfamadore!), Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers.

HE pick: Cooper for Maestro. Safest choice: Murphy for Oppenheimer. Likeliest winner: toss-up between Murphy and Cooper.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama: Actress: Annette Bening, Nyad; Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon; Sandra Heller, Anatomy of a Fall; Greta Lee, Past Lives; (no way) Carey Mulligan, Maestro (yes!); Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla (not a chance)

HE pick: Mulligan in Maestro. Safest choice: Mulligan. Surprise winner: Bening in Nyad.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actor: Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario, Timothée Chalamet, Wonka, Matt Damon, Air, Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers, Joaquin Phoenix, Beau is Afraid, Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction.

Should & will win: Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actress / Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple, Jennifer Lawrence, No Hard Feelings, Natalie Portman, May December, Alma Pöysti, Fallen Leaves, Margot Robbie, Barbie, Emma Stone, Poor Things.

HE pick, obivous winner, hands down: Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Director / Bradley Cooper, Maestro; Greta Gerwig, Barbie; Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things; Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer; Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (no!), Celine Song, Past Lives .

HE picks: Cooper, Lanthimos. Likeliest winners: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer or Greta Gerwig, Barbie.

Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actor / Willem Dafoe, Poor Things; Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon (no!), Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer; Ryan Gosling, Barbie; Charles Melton, May December (no!), Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things.

HE pick: Nobody…I feel nothing. Likeliest winner: Downey in Oppenheimer.

Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actress / Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer; Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple; Jodie Foster, Nyad; Julianne Moore, May December; Rosamund Pike, Saltburn; Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers (yes!!)

Should win, will win: Randolph in The Holdovers.

I feel too fagged and shagged to predict any of the other categories.

Last night I watched Juan Antonio Bayona’s Society of the Snow (Netflix, now streaming), and while it’s obviously a thumbs-upper in several respects I don’t quite understand why so many critics have been doing acrobatic cartwheels.

It’s very good but it’s not a film that enables you to meet or know God…it doesn’t cleanse or purify your soul or bring about a shuddering emotional orgasm. Turn it down, ease up.

Society is obviously a very well-made, bracingly realistic survival film. I never felt it was doing anything but dealing straight cards about that horrible real-life ordeal that befell that Uruguayan rugby team when their prop plane crashed into the snowy Andes mountains in mid October of ‘72.

The smallish plane was carrying 45 passengers; upon rescue 71 days later all but 16 had died, and the survivors wouldn’t have lived if they hadn’t resorted to cannibalism, and not just strips of flesh and muscle but internal organs (heart, lungs, brains)…horrific but true.

I still feel that Bayona’s The Orphanage (’07) is his finest film, but Society of the Snow is quite the rugged accomplishment and I have no serious complaints. I do, however, have a few small ones.

One, there’s too much “acting” among the ensemble cast of young lads…too much eye contact, too much hugging, not enough bitter humor or a sense of “we’re fucked and I don’t need to fucking hug you” solitude.

Two, the incessant debate about whether or not they should eat their dead comrades in order to live is ridiculous — if they didn’t eat something (and there was nothing to eat up there) they would have died, period, and yet some (they were all Roman Catholics) insist that eating human flesh will damn their souls for eternity. Asinine.

Three, I should compare Society of the Snow with Frank Marshall‘s Alive (’93), which told the exact same story, but it’s been 30 years and I need to re-stream it. Does anyone have any vivid memories? Reviews mere moderately positive.

Four, Bayona’s film doesn’t make it clear that the crash happened entirely due to pilot error. Flight 571’s inexperienced co-pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara, fucked up and pretty much committed manslaughter, plain and simple.

Five, Bayona allows the viewer to presume that the survivors are eating the tastiest parts of the human body (ribs, arms, legs) until we see a glimpse of a stripped human rib cage…holy shit.

But there’s no question that Society is a first-rate effort…your belief in the frosty realism is absolute and bruising. I just didn’t find it miraculous or breathtaking or drop-to-your-knees astonishing. But it’s worth seeing.

Yesterday Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson posted an interview with Killers of the Flower Moon screenwriter Eric Roth, and in so doing passed along, for what seemed like the umpteenth time, the story of how Roth and Martin Scorsese‘s 209-minute period melodrama began as one thing (a traditional investigative crime drama) and then became something else (a sprawling white-guilt wokester saga about the the ache of the Osage murder victims in the early 1920s, and particularly the evil of the white Oklahoma yokels).

Leonardo DiCaprio had initially been set to play the intrepid Bureau of Investigation agent Tom White, the guy who ultimately indicted three of the killers but was unable to bring many other killers to justice. (Leo excitedly told me this during a 2019 party at San Vicente Bungalows.) But sometime in early 2020 and perhaps during the beginning of Covid, Leo had a change of heart.

He didn’t want to play White because — let’s be honest — the woke movement had taken hold in progressive Hollywood circles and he didn’t want to be attacked or sneered at for playing a heroic white savior — a politically uncool thing in the Hollywood climate that was then unfolding.

Leo instead wanted to play the none-too-bright Ernest Burkhart, who became complicit in the murders of certain Oklahoma Osage natives by way of his fiendish uncle (Robert De Niro‘s ‘King” Hale), and who also came close to murdering his own Osage native wife, Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone).

“At the beginning, Scorsese and Roth embraced a real John Ford Western,” Thompson writes.

Roth: “The early versions of the KOTFM screenplay were as much about Tom White as they were about the crime and everything else, and in that sense they were closer to the book. So it wasn’t a mystery in that sense.

“But then Marty began to express a bigger thing, which he’s so right about. It’s not a ‘who done it’ — it’s ‘who didn’t do it.’ As a social comment.”

God save Joe and Jane Popcorn from “social comment”, or more specifically social instruction.

Marty and Leo’s idea, in other words (allow me to offer an interpretation), was that we’re all guilty…all of us…back then and today.

In the same way that Randy Newman, in his 1970 song “Rednecks“, expanded the concept of racist attitudes and behaviors from the rural south to the entire country (“We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground”), Killers of the Flower Moon would essentially serve as an indictment of white racism all over, in every nook and cranny of the country…we’re all dirty and guilty and reprehensible as fuck.

There’s no way the wokesters would come after Marty, Eric and Leo if they made a movie like this, the thinking presumably went, but if they made a “hooray for Tom White” flick, they might be indicted or semi-cancelled for being old-fashioned or blind to the new woke enlightenment or whatever.

Sometime in early ’20 or thereabouts, Roth got a call from Scorsese. “Are you sitting down?” Marty said. “Because Leo has a big idea.”

Roth: “Leo didn’t want to be the great white savior. Very smart. And the more complicated part was the husband [Ernest Burkhart] and complicated for many reasons, but probably the most interesting is somebody who’s in love with somebody and trying to kill them.

“We always embraced [Mollie] as the centerpiece of the movie.” [HE to Roth: Why? She doesn’t say anything or do anything — she’s completely passive.] “We had many, many things that dealt with the Osage, the Osage customs, the Osage world.”

What?

In fact Leo’s decision to submit to woke sensibilities (and Marty and Eric’s decision to go along with this) ensured that Killers of the Flower Moon would become a long, half-mystifying, eye-rolling, ass-punishing slog — a guilt trip movie without any story tension to speak of.

And here we are now, unlikely to bestow any top-tier awards** upon KOTFM except, most likely and very depressingly, the Best Actress Oscar to Gladstone for basically playing a passive victim of few words, a sad-eyed lady of the oil-rich lowlands who sits around in native blankets and gives dirty looks to all the evil crackers as Leo injects her with poisoned insulin…fascinating!

** Except for the musical score by the late Robbie Robertson — this is likely to win.

HE has no problem whatsoever with BAFTA’s Best Supporting Actor long list excluding May December’s over-awarded Charles Melton — obviously a modest momentum-stopper.

May December also didn’t make BAFTA’s Best Film tabulation and helmer Todd Haynes has also come up short on BAFTA’s Best Director long list.

Why are the Brits ixnaying a film that American easy lays have been falling all over each other to praise? Whatever the reason, HE approves.

On its Best Film roster BAFTA has also stiff-armed Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, a tough break for a smart, engaging film that seemed semi-unstoppable after winning the People’s Choice award at last September’s Toronto Film Festival debut but estime–wise has drooped and under-performed ever since. THR’s Scott Feinberg is puzzled and a bit heartbroken.

And so, apart from respectful sympathy, I have nothing effusive or impassioned to share about the passing of David Soul, 80.

The only contact I’ve ever had with the Starsky brand was the 2004 Ben Stiller-Owen Wilson feature comedy, which was directed by Todd Phillips and costarred Vince Vaughn, Snoop Dog, Jason Bateman and Fred Williamson. Honestly? Even that is a fading memory. Pic opened two months shy of 20 years ago (3.5.04)

The original ABC Starsky & Hutch series ran for five years and change (April ‘75 to August ‘79).

Essence of Rod Lurie’s 1.4.04 THR piece about Hollywood filmmakers needing to step up to the anti-Semitism plate:

“What we should be hoping to see are movies and TV shows that highlight the extraordinarily powerful resistance the Jewish people have had against the forces that have long tried to destroy them.

“And we need those films to also highlight Jewish humanism. These are the kind of films that spit in the face of antisemitism.

“Probably the finest of this sort of film is Munich, Steven Spielberg’s 2005 depiction of the revenge that the Israelis sought out against the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre of 1972. No, let me rephrase that — it’s about the justice that was sought.

“We need more movies like Munich. But the truth is that many are scared to make them. Over the years, I have often tried to make Israel-centric films, and I have been stopped every time. If the Holocaust isn’t somehow at the center of the film, it barely stands a chance of being made — even with big stars attached.

Over the years, the greenlighting authorities have been squeamish about alienating audiences. ‘How will it play in France?’ ‘How will it play in Germany?’ ‘We don’t want protestors at our gates.’

Bottom line: “Munich would never have been made it if it didn’t have one of the greatest and most successful directors in history behind it.”

HE to Lurie: Here’s the only thing that’s hanging me up right now

What is the proper ratio of murdered Israelis to murdered Gaza residents?

How many Israelis were murdered on October 7th? The final death toll from the 10.7 attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.

As of right now Gaza’s health ministry says 22,185 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7th.

In other words 20 times more Palestinians have died than Israelis killed on Oct.7th. More than 20 dead Palestians for every single dead Israeli citizen.

What is the proper ratio? 10 dead Palestinians for every dead Israeli citizen? 25? 50? 100? When will the score be even?

That’s the only equation that bothers me right now.

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The last time I checked Truman Capote’s mid ‘70s social suicide (Esquire’s publishing of “La Cote Basque, 1965“, a roman a clef chapter from his never-published “Answered Prayers”), was more his story than the story of “the swans.”

But the trailer for Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (FX Hulu, 1.31) seemingly has it ass backwards. The scenario is all about Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart) and Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald), and secondarily about Capote.

I’ve no idea why the late Gloria Vanderbilt isn’t a character (she was certainly in “La Cote Basque, 1965“), but perhaps CNN’s Anderson Cooper, her son, presented the filmmakers with difficult terms.

That said, Tom Hollander seems to have his Capote impersonation well in hand.

The eight-part miniseries was directed by Gus Van Sant, Max Winkler and Jennifer Lynch, and written by Jon Robin Baitz.

Wiki excerpt: “Capote sold four chapters (‘Mojave’, ‘La Cote Basque, 1965’, ‘Unspoiled Monsters’ and ‘Kate McCloud’) of the novel-in-progress to Esquire at the behest of Gordon Lish in 1975 and 1976.

“’Mojave’ was published in the magazine’s June 1975 issue to little fanfare. However, with the publication of ‘La Cote Basque, 1965’ in the November 1975 issue, there was an uproar of shock and anger among Capote’s friends and acquaintances, who recognized thinly veiled characters based on themselves.

“Both ‘Mojave’ and ‘La Cote Basque, 1965’ were exposés of the dysfunctional personal lives led by the author’s social benefactors, including CBS head William S. Paley, his wife Babe (then terminally ill with cancer), Gloria Vanderbilt (depicted as being insufferably vacuous), Happy Rockefeller and Ann Woodward.

“The Paleys would never socialize with Capote again and led an exodus of ostracizing friends. Subsequently, ‘Unspoiled Monsters’ and ‘Kate McCloud’ were published in the periodical in May 1976 and December 1976, respectively.”

Here’s a summary of the “Cote Basque” nitty gritty, written by Madeline Hiltz of the Vintage News.

A month ago I briefly reviewed Jeff Pope‘s Archie, a four-part Britbox miniseries about the emotionally and psychologically fraught Cary Grant. I didn’t like it much, but after watching the final two episodes I was struck by a curious observation.

The series is based upon a 1992 tell-all by Grant’s fourth wife, Dyan Cannon, titled “Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant.” (They were married between 1965 and 1967.) Cannon, an executive producer of Archie, is played by Laura Aikman.

You would think, given the political circumstances, that Cannon would be portrayed sympathetically, but she isn’t. She comes off as anything but a day at the beach. Aikman portrays her, frankly, like a wife from hell — contentious, argumentative, feisty, completely uninterested in peace and placidity, and ready to take Grant’s head off at the drop of a hat.

One naturally presumes that Cannon was okay with this, but you have to wonder why. No marriage is ever a bed of roses, but my impression was “Jesus Christ, why did Grant ever marry that predator?”

Grant and Cannon began dating in 1961, when she was 24 and he was 57. They married on 7.22.65. Cannon filed for divorce in September 1967.

“I’ve made thuh preservationuharrAmerican democracy thuh central issue of my Presidency…agh believe in free and fair elections, the right to vote fairly and tuh have your vote counted…” — Joe Biden‘s opening words in new campaign ad.

It’s fair to say that this 60-second ad is primarily aimed at diverse rainbow types.

Until the one-third mark all the sympathetic faces are non-white. Footage of white, Confederate-flag-carrying yokels who marched in Charlottesville and during the Jan. 6th insurrection are shown between :12 and :18. A neutral-mannered 70something white bumblefuck type (i.e, blue plaid shirt) appears at the 19-second mark; another aging, white-bearded bumblefuck voter with a Home Depot baseball cap appears at the 24-second mark.

We’re shown a blonde Anglo Saxon female (40ish) with a ballot covering her face at the 40-second mark. The 1945 Iwo Jima guys (including Native American Ira Hayes) appear at the 52-second mark. But no white male Millennials and Zoomers, or none that I’ve noticed. And no middle-aged, beefy-faced white guys at all, most of whom are presumed to be Trump or RFK, Jr. voters.

At the 48-second mark Biden says, “That’s our soul…we are the United States Uhmerica.” He wanted to say “of” but it didn’t quite happen, and the ad guys decided against looping it in.

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Zelda Williams and Diablo Cody‘s Lisa Frankenstein (Focus Features, 2.9), which I will almost certainly hate, appears to be a blend of two basic ideas.

One, the trope of a headstrong teenage girl (Kathryn Newton‘s “Lisa Swallows”) falling for some kind of eccentric, misunderstood outlaw or anti-social weirdo (Cole Sprouse), except in this instance it’s a reanimated corpse who smells bad. (And probably has bad breath.)

And two, a riff on Winona Ryder‘s “Lydia Deetz” in Beetlejuice, a goth girl communing with the dead except in this instance it’s a rotting, stinky dead guy instead of husband-and-wife ghosts (Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis).

Plus Lisa Frankenstein is set in 1989, or one year after the release of Beetlejuice.

Ryder will return in Beetlejuice 2 (Warner Bros., 9.6.24). The Tim Burton-directed sequel stars Michael Keaton, of course, along with Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci and Willem Dafoe “as a ghost detective who, in life, was a B movie action star.”

Yesterday afternoon Variety’s Clayton Davis reported that AMPAS has officially classified Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Barbie script as adapted and not original.

While this is good news for The Holdovers as far as its chances in the Best Original Screenplay competish are concerned, it’s an unfair call.

Gerwig and Baumbach didn’t adapt a previously written Barbie story — they created a story out of a situational Barbie template.

Imagine if someone had written an original screenplay about Jesus of Nazareth returning to the earth in 2023 and becoming a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur. By the Academy’s thinking this would be classified as an adapted screenplay because it borrows from the lore and template of the New Testament.

But of course screenplays aren’t about templates but stories (initial intrigue, structure, tension, second-act pivot, third-act payoff). Using Jesus or Barbie as a central character does not a screenplay make.