Comment thread repulsion: “I was convulsing with misery and dying to escape but boiled down EEAAO isnt so much about generic verse-jumping (although it is) or the IRS audit or Ke Huy Quan’s nerd husband wanting a divorce or James Hong’s grandfather Gong Gong or the hot dog fingers, etc.

“Boiled down the central story tension is about the discomfort and denial that Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn, a laundromat owner, is going through about her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) and her lesbian relationship with Becky (Tallie Medel) and particularly Becky’s annoying hair style — a situation reflected in the multiverse by Joy’s Jobu Tupaki vs. Alpha-Evelyn and Jobu’s threatening, Darth Vader-ish behavior (“omnicidal” in the multiverse) blah blah.

“The big EEAAO catharsis manifests not so much with a resolution over the audit (although that’s welcome) as much as Evelyn’s ultimate acceptance and embrace of Joy’s queerness. Evelyn has travelled outside of and within herself to find peace with Joy not being straight.

“Kill me now with a steak knife.”

Friendo: “EEAAO has everything that Woke Twitter needs to feel safe. Bad white lady vs. good older Asian woman at the nominal center, augmented or flavored by a neutered dweeb-husband type plus gay daughter representing how people SHOULD think.

“The whole movie is the gay daughter chasing her mother around saying ‘why are you like this?’

“It’s basically everything we’ve all lived through from 2020 onward. CG purée made out of woke dogma. Or, alternately speaking, a 2013 Tumblr thread made into a movie.”

It was asserted yesterday that for All Quiet on the Western Front to win the Best Picture Oscar, “It must win Best Adapted screenplay, but that will be tough because Sarah Polley could definitely win that.”

And I said “oh, yeah?”

It was then claimed that whichever film wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Banshees or EEAAO, that is your Best Picture winner. What else can Banshees win?  If Kerry Condon wins, it’s over.  Banshees will take the Best Picture Oscar.

And I said “oh, yeah?”

It was pointed out that a film “usually can’t win Best Picture Oscar without a Best actor nom, a Best Screenplay nom/win, and a Best Editing nom.”

And I said “Oh, yeah?”

The same guy said “if Judd Hirsch wins the Don Ameche award, then The Fabelmans could win.”

He concluded by saying that Top Gun: Maverick, which will almost certainly win Oscars for sound and editing, can only win if it somehow wins Best Screenplay, but that ain’t happening.”

And I went “Ohhhhh, yeaaahhhh.”

Friendo: “Any thoughts on Jacob Bernstein’s 1.21 NY Times piece about the last days of Nikki Finke?”

HE: “What’s there to say? Okay, to some extent Fink wept and lamented as she faced the Big Sleep, and to some extent she was accepting. Most of the article is a “Nikki’s greatest hits” rehash. The only new material (at the beginning and end) is from a friend of Nikki’s, Diane Haithman, who helped her during the waning days.

“For what it’s worth, Jay Penske comes off like a human being.

“The piece says, by the way, that Finke died last October at Hospice by the Sea in Boca Raton. In fact it’s located roughly 20 blocks from the sea. It should be called Hospice by Interstate 95.

“The important thing, no offense, is that she’s dead. Nobody wept when J.J. Hunsecker passed on either.”

Two days ago I caught The Son (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20), which I found well-written, well-acted and somewhat arduous to watch. Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad film — it’s just a bit of a thing to get through. Not a slog, which has negative connotations, but somewhat burdensome.

Directed by Florian Zeller (The Father) and cowritten by Zeller and Christopher Hampton, it’s about five characters — a 50ish, high-powered Manhattan businessman (Hugh Jackman), his anguished and estranged teenage son (Zen McGrath), the son’s divorced, worry-fraught mother and Jackman’s ex (Laura Dern), Jackman’s second, 20-years-younger wife (Vanessa Kirby) and Jackman’s crusty, tough-as-nails father (Anthony Hopkins) who’s in his late 70s or early 80s.

My mp3 review lasta around 12 minutes.