It would appear that Noah Baumbach‘s White Noise has been more or less downgraded, at least as far as Venice Film Festival critics are concerned. The last time I checked a 69% Metacritic rating signified something between teetering and over and out.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s less-than-ecstatic Variety review: “On the page, Don DeLillo‘s ‘White Noise’ achieved total heaviosity. It was a novel of ideas. But that’s a tricky thing to translate to the big screen. As a movie, White Noise announces its themes loudly and proudly, but the trouble is that it announces them more than it makes you feel them.

“Greta Gerwig has one of the best scenes — a tearfully extended, ripped-from the-gut monologue in which she confesses her adultery to Jack, though her transgression isn’t about any desire to stray so much as her compulsion to get those [mood-stabilizing] pills by any means necessary. By the time Jack heads out with a tiny gun to confront the man Babette slept with, White Noise has found its heart of darkness but lost its pulse. We no longer buy what we’re seeing, even as we’re told, explicitly, what it all means. The film ties itself into knots to explicate the bad news.

“How telling, then, that it’s so much more effective when it’s willing to be upbeat, notably in a triumphantly daffy closing-credits dance sequence that takes place in the brightly lit aisles of the A&P. Set to the joyful thumping groove of ‘New Body Rhumba’ by LCD Soundsystem, the place really does seem like ironic nirvana. That’s a quality White Noise could have used more of.”

Yesterday a friend called this teaser for Florian Zeller‘s The Son (Sony Pictures Classics 11.11) “a parody of an older, well-educated white person’s Oscar bait film.”

All I know is that I hate the kid (played by Zen McGrath). He’s playing a character called Nicholas, and within the realm of the film my basic attitude is “whatever it is you’re shaky or unstable or feeling hurt about it, get over it and shut the fuck up…okay? Really. I’m sick of young sensitive guys whose feelings are hurt about whatever. Seriously, fuck off.”

Directed by Zeller from a screenplay he co-wrote with Christopher Hampton, The Son is part of a “spiritual trilogy” that includes The Father and The Mother. Costarring Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, McGrath, Hugh Quarshie and Anthony Hopkins. Premiering in Venice on 9.7.22.

The current population of the United States of America is 332,403,650. A travel statistics site estimates that in 2019, or before the pandemic struck, 5.6 million Americans visited Italy. That comes to 1.68% of the U.S. population, which surprises me. It’s hard to guesstimate how many Americans have visited Venice altogether, but I’m guessing fewer than 3%. I’ll bet the same affluent people visit time and again.

“…for being blatant military propaganda”? Really? Who said this exactly? First time I’ve heard it.

This isn’t all that funny. Obvious stuff.

Veteran newsperson and CTV National News anchor Lisa LaFlamme, 58, has apparently been canned because she let her gray hair go. Accusations of sexism are now being flung at Bell Media. News anchors have to look sharp, trim and attractive, of course, but within this older-woman spectrum LaFlamme looks fine. Her hair is thick and well-styled…what’s the problem? A full head of silver or white hair (i.e., Jamie Lee Curtis) is best. “Starting to go gray”, maybe not so much.

Not enough marquee-brand actresses adhere to the Steve McQueen school of less-is-more acting. One of my all-time favorite female performances in this vein was Kristin Scott Thomas‘ grief-struck ex-convict in I’ve Loved You For So Long (’08). On the other end of things are the over-emoters, and one of the most deeply annoying in this regard has been Emily Blunt. For me at least.

When I think of top-tier actresses who seem strangely and fundamentally opposed to the kind of acting that Thomas exhibited in ILYSL, Blunt tops the list.

To me she’s always “acting,” and all this strenuous effort kinda drains my soul. Blunt has been kicking it since playing Meryl Streep‘s assistant in The Devil Wears Prada (’06) and in my book she’s given only two performances I’ve been able to really believe and settle into, and they both opened eight years ago — the hard-ass “Rita Vrataski” in Edge of Tomorrow and the baker’s wife in Into the Woods.

Okay, I liked her also in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (’11). Okay, she wasn’t bad in Charlie Wilson’s War (’07) and Sunshine Cleaning (’08).

I was actually okay with Blunt until she started playing above-the-title leads, a period which seemed to begin with The Five Year Engagement (’12). All I know is that I flinched, twitched and occasionally rolled my eyes during her performances in The Devil Wears Prada (too much sniffling and sneezing), Looper, Arthur Newman (“I don’t like Durm!”), Sicario (really hated her in this…too emotional, too actressy, picking up some stray dude in a bar), The Huntsman: Winter’s War, The Girl on the Train, A Quiet Place (stop “acting”!), Mary Poppins Returns (awful…Blunt’s second-worst film), A Quiet Place Part II (Blunt suggestion — try imagining that the camera isn’t there and that what’s happening in a given moment is simply happening to your character alone), and Jungle Cruise (arguably Blunt’s worst film ever).

With Leonardo DiCaprio and Camilla Morrone having parted ways, Leo has reaffirmed a lifelong pattern — no girlfriends over 25, and certainly no marriage or kids.

My guess is that he’ll finally tie the knot somewhere in his early to mid 50s, which is usually when hounds start to realize that older guys constantly sniffing around is déclassé. Warren Beatty got married in ‘92, when he was 55. George Clooney said “I do” in ‘14, at age 53.

I heard many years ago that young DiCaprio told Beatty at a party, “I’m gonna break your record.” (Beatty denied it but it’s a great anecdote.) I’m guessing the Killers of the Flower Moon star will follow the Beatty bridal path also. Leo turns 48 in November, and the clock will start ticking faster and faster. HE envisions a modest wedding in Italy sometime in ‘27 or ‘28, certainly no later than ‘30.

Most likely a blend.

Strictly carry-on for tonight’s (and tomorrow morning’s) LaGuardia–to–Montrose journey. No liquids, no sprays, no weapons…I can do it! The agony of an overnight nap on the floor at Reagan National awaits. Here’s hoping American Airlines allows me to catch that final Dallas-to-Montrose hop. Thanks in advance, fellas!

Diana, the former Princess of Wales, died on 8.31.97 — exactly a quarter-century ago today.

When I noted the 20th anniversary of her car-crash demise five years ago, the over-saturation of her legend (largely by way of Emma Corrin’s Diana in The Crown and Kristen Stewart’s in Spencer) hadn’t yet happened. And it still ain’t over — the final two seasons of The Crown (focusing on Elizabeth Debicki’s version) will begin their extended journey in November.

Anyone who says at this point “no, I’m not Diana’ed out…I want to re-immerse over and over and will probably never be satisfied”…anyone who says this with a straight face is someone most of us would probably want to avoid, no offense.

Posted on 8.4.17: I was attending the Montreal Film Festival when the news broke. I remember talking it through with colleagues and then retreating to my hotel room and tapping out a reaction piece for my L.A. Times Syndicate column. Given my haste and the late-hour fatigue, the piece was too long.

The next day Rod Steiger, a guest of the festival, delivered a rant about how the papparazzi had killed her. Which they did in a way. But the primary villain was Dodi Fayed, the millionaire asshat whom Diana had been intimate with for a few weeks.

I was working at People when Diana began seeing Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man.

And yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she died. She orchestrated her demise by choosing Fayed for a boyfriend.

Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way. It all came to a head on that fateful night in Paris. Fayed told his drunken chauffeur to try and outrun a bunch of easily finessable scumbag photographers on motorcycles, and we all know the rest.

Three and one-third months ago I was watching and listening to Charlbi Dean during the Triangle of Sadness press conference in Cannes, inside the Grand Palais.

She was sharp and attentive, and obviously beautiful. Plus her performance as Harris Dickinson‘s girlfriend and a social-media influencer was, I felt, above average. I was saying to myself, “She’s got something.”

And now she’s dead from a “sudden illness”? This is devastating. People Dean’s age don’t fall seriously ill as a rule — forget sudden death.

Charlbi was two months younger than my younger son Dylan, who turns 33 in November. I’m terribly sorry. Awful.

Neon will open Triangle of Sadness on 10.7.22.

Mikhail “glasnost” Gorbachev, the Russian leader who gradually liberalized the Soviet Union between the mid ’80s and early ’90s and thereby paved the way for further democratic reforms, has died at age 91. Respect and condolences.

First and foremost a skilled politician and consensus builder, Gorbachev was in my eyes the first moderate-minded Russian — the first Soviet commie with whom I felt a vague kinship. I loved his kind dark eyes. They told me “this man is essentially decent.”

In August ’91 Soviet hardliners ousted Gorbachev in a coup, but it failed hours later and within two or three days he was back in power. But the courageous Boris Yeltsin had become the new big dog, and before you knew it the Soviet Communist party was no more and the Soviet Union was dissolved. By the end of the year Gorby had resigned.

I was sorry that he gained a ton of weight about ten years ago, perhaps due to some medical condition or whatever. All I knew was that suddenly his face had become a beach ball, and he was such a handsome man during his heyday.