A few weeks ago I spoke to Marilyn Ann Moss, the Los Angeles-residing author of “The Farrows of Hollywood: Their Dark Side of Paradise” (Skyhorse, 4.11).

In late ’21 I had seen and reviewed an interesting doc about the late filmmaker, titled “John Farrow: Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows.”

My motive is speaking to Ross was to try and persuade her to tell me a bit more about Farrow’s personal life and maybe answer a couple of other dangling questions that the doc hadn’t really gotten into. Alas, Moss was more into verbal volleying for its own sake. So we just kind of chatted and danced around. Cool.

I haven’t had a chance to read her Farrow book, but Moss seems to know nearly everyone and everything…she’s really been around. And her literary credentials are impressive — author of “Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary Director” (2011) and “Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (2004). In 2021 the Criterion Collection released her 2019, feature-length documentary, The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh, on Blu-ray. Moss is a former film and television critic for The Hollywood Reporter and Boxoffice Magazine.

“Undimmed Saga of John Farrow,” posted on 10.17.21: Last night I watched John Farrow: Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows, a 96-minute doc about the prolific, under-rated Australian-born director. Farrow made scores of better-than-decent, lower-budgeted films (The Big Clock, Five Came Back, Calcutta, His Kind of Woman, Hondo). A skilled and dependable craftsman, he directed no drop-dead masterpieces but was great with long takes.

Married for 20-odd years to Maureen O’Sullivan while constantly catting around, the Roman Catholic Farrow sired seven children, including Mia Farrow.

Co-directors Claude Gonzalez and Frans Vandenburg have delivered a respectable effort, often edifying if less than fully satisfying, for reasons I’ll try to explain.

The sage talking heads include Australian directors Phillip Noyce, Bruce Beresford and Philippe Mora, plus film critics Todd McCarthy, David Thomson, David Stratton, Margaret Pomeranz, Imogen Sara Smith and Farran Smith Nehme. Hollywood biographer Charles Higham and Farrow’s wry look-alike son, John Charles Farrow, also participate.

I’m not a serious Farrow devotee but I respect his assurance and sense of polish and control, and his extra-long takes are Scorsese– or Coppola-level.

I’m as much of a fan of The Big Clock as the next guy. Vincent Price’s performance in His Kind of Woman is one of my all-time camp favorites of the ’40s, and Five Came Back (’39), a crashed-in-the-jungle survival story with Lucille Ball, is a keeper. I’m trying to recall if I saw Farrow’s 1956 remake, Back From Eternity. And the 3-D, John Wayne-starring Hondo is pretty good.

I understand why producer Mike Todd fired Farrow off the direction of Around the World in 80 Days (i.e., Todd wanted a less headstrong director, someone he could push around) but why exactly did Farrow lose the King of Kings gig? The filmmakers couldn’t explore that? This is one of the issues I wanted Moss to explain.

Farrow losing two high-paying 1950s prestige gigs in the space of five years is odd. It alludes to an imperious, uncooperative manner.

Was Farrow’s 1963 heart attack a genetic thing? Was it due to alcohol abuse? Farrow was only 58 when he passed — a relatively early departure for a man who wasn’t overweight.

How many years ago was this doc shot? The answer seems to be “not recently.” Three, four years ago for the most part? More?

But we’re gonna say it anyway.

Le Point has published a friendly encounter interview between Roman Polanski’s wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, and his long-ago victim Samantha Geimer. Journalist Peggy Sastre was the go-between.

As you might expect it’s yet another rehash of l’affaire Polanski with Geimer taking the lead with the “enough already” — a mantra she’s been repeating for many years, over and over and over.

Geimer: “Let’s be very clear — what happened with Polanski was never a big problem for me. I didn’t even know it was illegal, that someone could get arrested for it. I was fine, I’m still fine, and that this thing was made into something bigger weighs heavily on me. Having to constantly repeat that it was no big deal is a terrible burden.”

I’ve said over and over since Roman Polanski’s September ’09 Zurich bust and all the other ludicrous harassments that followed…well, you know the HE drill. The now 89-year-old director is an Art God who’s paid the price and should be left the fuck alone. He’s certainly an Art God in the eyes of The Eternals and/or any fair-minded, cinema-literate adult who understands the value of Repulsion, The Pianist, J’Accuse, The Ghost Writer, Cul de Sac, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, et. al.

In 2015 Geimer told People magazine that Polanski “said he did it, he pled guilty, he went to jail…I don’t know what people want from him.”

And she’s saying the same thing now, and I’m sure you all realize this shit will never stop.

Congrats and salutations to all the films and filmmakers officially announced this morning as heading to Cannes ’23 — Todd Haynes‘ May December, Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City, Martin Scorsese‘s already confirmed Killers of the Flower Moon, Steve McQueen‘s Occupied City, Kore-eda Hirokazu‘s Monster, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Sam Levinson‘s The Idol and Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero.

Plus Wang Bing‘s Youth and Man in Black, Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s About Dry Grasses (rumored to be four hours!), Kleber Mendonca Filho‘s Pictures of Ghosts, Wim Wenders‘ Perfect Days and Catherine Breillat‘s L’Ete Dernier. Plus James Mangold‘s previously announced Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Maiwenn‘s Jeanne du Barry.

But for HE the absence of Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance, a reportedly dark French-language drama that was recently screened and praised in Manhattan, is nothing short of devastating. How could Allen and his producers have let this rousing opportunity slip from their grasp? Woody has allegedly made his best film since Midnight in Paris or even Match Point, and they fold the Cote d’Azur tent? Because they’re afraid of the haters? Because they’re guessing Venice or San Sebastian will be friendlier?

Plus that late-breaking rumor about Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers plotting a surprise visit turned out to be bullshit. It’s also shattering that Michel Franco’s Memory, an English-language film with Jessica Chastain, Merritt Wever, Elsie Fisher, Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Harper, is absent from the list. Ditto Jeff Nichols‘ The Bikeriders, which costars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer…absent without leave! Yorgos Lanthimos Poor Things, a sci-fish drama with Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef, also wasn’t announced this morning.

And what does it mean for Killers of the Flower Moon to have ducked a competition slot? Variety: “[Cannes topper Thierry] Frémaux said he tried and failed to convince Martin Scorsese to vie for the Palme d’Or but hasn’t given up on hopes.” On some level Scorsese and the Apple guys have apparently divined an uh-oh element in the prospect of competing.

All in all there are still enough attractions to constitute serious excitement. So let’s focus on the positive and try to dispel the feeling of absolute shock and devastation about the absence of Coup do Chance.

Friendo: What do you think of Justine Bateman‘s appearance?
HE: I think she looked a lot better when she was younger. But if she’s cool with looking a bit worn and gothy, that’s fine. No worries on this end.
Friendo: I’m pretty sure she still dyes her hair. Plus she’s wearing makeup. What’s the difference between that and trying to look younger?
HE: She seems to basically be saying that she’s out of the hottie game.
Friendo: Why not just go all gray?
HE: Fair point.
Friendo: …and just embrace that? She’s still trying to look young. It’s just she’s using age as makeup/identity
HE: It’s cool to go solid white gray, but mixed dark and gray…I don’t know, it doesn’t work.
Friendo: Her pitch is that she’s just being honest, but why would she also dye the hair?
HE: Because she’s being “honest” as far as it goes.
Friendo: I think she looks weird because her hair is still long, her ears looks elfin and the eyeliner is severe
HE: The dark eyeliner makes her look gothy. And those deep ridge lines around her mouth.
Friendo: Her eyes are too old to wear that eyeliner. It just makes her look older
HE: Agreed.
Friendo: Cut the hair to the chin, ease up on the eyeliner and she’d look better. I think

The iPhone camera somehow diminishes the yellow and violet blossoms. The colors don’t quite pop like they do with the naked eye.

The team “HBO Max” has finally and officially been killed. Earlier today Warner Bros. Discovery officially announced Max as the big new hunka-chunka streamer. It launches on 5.23.

Max will be available in three separate versions, but why would anyone want Max Ad-Lite ($9.99/month or $99.99 annually)? Max Ad Free ($15.99 or $149.99/year) delivers (a) two concurrent streams, (b) 1080p HD, (c) up to 30 offline downloads and the usual 5.1 surround sound blah blah. Max Ultimate Ad Free ($19.99 or $199.99 per year) will offer (a) four concurrent streams, (b) up to 4K Ultra HD resolution, (c) 100 offline downloads and (d) Dolby Atmos. $200 bucks a year for “up to” 4K resolution?

In HE’s book, there is no competitor to John Hurt‘s performance as the Roman emperor Caligula in BBC’s I Claudius, which was shot on video in ’76.

I’ll allow that Jay Robinson‘s Caligula in The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators (’54) was enjoyably grandiose in a campy sort of way, but Hurt was much more wicked and perverse, and that wonderful snappy voice has never been used to greater effect.

For years I’ve been searching YouTube for his great death-of-Caligula scene (starting at the 42-minute mark in “Hail Who?“, which originally aired on 11.15.76). Today I finally found it. What’s magnificent is how Hurt doesn’t shout in anger or fear but weeps like an hysterical, deeply disappointed child.

For those who live in a cocoon of protective ignorance and are indistinguishable from ostriches who bury their heads in sand when fearful, this article contains historical spoilers:

Most of the Osage murders happened in the early 1920s, when the principal bad guy, William Hale (1874-1962), was in his late 40s. And in the below photo he looks it — dark hair, not too middle-aged, fit and trim for a somewhat older guy.

Sentenced in 1929 to a life term for only one of the many killings he was responsible for, Hale was paroled in July 1947 and died at age 87 in the second year of the JFK administration.

In Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, which will be shown on 5.20.23 (a bit more than four weeks hence) at the Cannes Film Festival, Hale is played by Robert De Niro, who was 77 when filming began in April 2021.

Will anyone care that De Niro was 30 years older than the real-deal Hale was in ’21? Or that Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Hale’s homicidal nephew, Ernest Burkhart (1893-1986), was around 47 and 48 during filming, and therefore Hale’s precise age at the time of the century-old killings? Burkhart was around 28 when the murders began to happen.

It’s not that crazy, of course, for actors to play a decade or two younger or older than actual historical figures they’re portraying. Viewers never give a damn one way or the other, and I will try like hell to get past this when I catch Scorsese’s film next month. Because I want to go with the flow.

But at the same time an actor being 30 years older is, I feel, a bit of a bridge too far. If you’re casting older, you should stay within a decade or two. Otherwise the general disregard for history and biology undermines the verisimilitude. If you’re going to cast a name-brand actor is his late 70s to play a guy in his late 40s, you’re free to throw caution to the winds by casting a guy in his mid to late 80s…why not, right? Scorsese could’ve theoretically cast Clint Eastwood as Hale.

He could just as easily have cast an actor in his late 20s, say, to play Hale…who cares, right?