In any given year many Oscar nominees are elevated by career narratives (being “due” or launching a comeback). More recently or over the last five or six years, it’s been a matter of narrative plus identity with an emphasis on the latter.

In other words the Oscars have never been solely about merit, but since ’17 and especially in the Best Picture realm** they’ve become equity-driven and identity-branded, certainly as far as the Best Picture winners have been concerned. (The exception was Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book, which won in early ’19.)

We’re all familiar with this year’s recipients of equity largesse, but some nominees have made the grade solely on merit…imagine!

The merit nominees include Cate Blanchett‘s Tar performance, obviously, in the Best Actress realm. (She won’t be winning.) Elvis‘ Austin Butler (likely winner), Banshees‘ Colin Farrell and Living‘s Bill Nighy among lead actors. The Whale‘s Hong Chau (deserves to win) was nominated completely according to merit. Among support male performers the leading meritorious trio are Banshees‘ Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, and The Fabelmans‘ Judd Hirsch.

And among the purely meritorious Best Picture nominees there’s no elbowing aside Top Gun: Maverick, All Quiet on the Western Front, Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans.

** Moonlight (’17 — counterweight to “Oscars so white”), The Shape of Water (’18 — mousey spinster has sex and falls in love with the grandson of The Creature From The Black Lagoon), Parasite (’20, absurdly plotted, chaotically concluded social drama from plump South Korean nerd director), Nomadland (’21, rootless nomad shitting-in-a-bucket drama, directed by female Asian who went on to shit the bed with The Eternals), CODA (’22, hearing-impaired feelgood family drama that also won because everyone realized at the last minute that they really didn’t want Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog to win the big trophy.) When EEAAO wins Best Picture Oscar next Sunday (3.12) the Academy will have bestowed six identity-driven Best Picture Oscars over the last seven years.

Except for English and history, my high-school grades were low and my SAT scores were mediocre. I was basically glum-minded and lacking in ambition, but at the same time quietly horrified and appalled that my shitty scholastic performance would be casting a dark shadow for years to come, at least in the matter of college admissions.

It was a difficult, unfair, punitive system. I felt oppressed by it. Seriously bummed. I didn’t develop any fire in the belly about movie journalism until my mid 20s, which is when my life began to turn around. But until that point…

And yet today the concept of scholastic merit and proving your mettle with good grades has been almost completely jettisoned, certainly as far as high-school and college-age POCs are concerned. Which is why Asian-American parents are irate at equity policies — because their kids seem to always earn good grades

I’ve often bitched about 4K remasterings looking too dark, but I didn’t feel this way about Shout! Factory’s recently released 4K Bluray of John Sturges‘ The Magnificent Seven (’60).

My immediate reaction was “whoa, this looks like celluloid!” I felt as if I was watching a screening at a Seward Street post-production house of a mint-condition 35mm print made from the original negative.” Shout! informs, in fact, that it’s a 2022 restoration and color grading using an existing 4K scan of the original camera negative.

I was spellbound during last night’s viewing — it seemed absolutely perfect to me. Excellent earthy colors, never too dark, spotless, fresh from the lab.

The Hi-Def Digest comparison footage below (the fast-draw contest between James Coburn and Robert Wilke) suggests that the disc is darker than it needs to be. It didn’t look that way to me. It struck me as more organic-feeling than previous versions, but that’s an enhancement in my book. I didn’t notice any teal tinting either.

TMS was shot by Charles Lang (Some Like It Hot, The Facts of Life, One-Eyed Jacks) in 35mm Panavision anamorphic. Lensing began in Mexico on 3.1.60. The Mexican village and the U.S. border town were built from scratch. The locations included Cuernavaca, Durango and Tepoztlán. Indoor filming was done at Mexico City’s Churubusco Studios.

HE commenter “freeek” has misspelled entertainment and is misreading the room when he says EEAAO is “aimed at teens brainfried by social media” — the target audience is an 80-20 blend of Millennials (born between 1981 and ’96, ranging from 27 to 42 years old) and Zoomers (hatched between 1997 and ’12, spanning between 10 and 25). But when the Oscar season finally ends and most of us can all blessedly forget about the Daniels for the rest of our lives, the title of this post will live on. Hopefully, I mean.

Francis Coppola’s Twixt, which I saw but can barely remember (sorry), was generally regarded as underwhelming horror film when it opened in 2011. But marketing-wise, the title was the main bugaboo.

The Wiki page says the original title was Twixt Now and Sunrise. An “authentic cut” version popped on Bluray on 2.28.23, and the title has added a B-apostrophe. It’s now called B’Twixt Now and Sunrise. Whatever.

I admire Coppola’s brass and obstinacy in continuing to tinker with this failed project. Lesser men would’ve thrown up their hands and walked away.

For what it’s worth today’s Oscar Poker podcast (3.4, 64 minutes) was and is my personal Jeff-and-Sasha favorite so far. I felt calm, level-headed and reasonably articulate. Feel free to listen.

I don't agree with this piece at all. EEAAO is the frontrunner, not the outsider. It is status quo for an industry that has become separate from the majority of the country. Bonnie and Clyde would be more akin to TAR or Triangle of Sadness. https://t.co/5mrvrZhxZe

— Awards Daily (@AwardsDaily) March 4, 2023

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and ‘Everything Everywhere’: Sometimes the Oscar Season Game Changer Is Beaten by the Game https://t.co/K0HNz2Y47F via @variety

— Steven Gaydos (@HighSierraMan) March 4, 2023

The deeply loathed Everything Everywhere All at Once has triumphed at the Branch Davidian Spirits, and nobody fecking cares! It won all seven of the categories in which it was nominated, including Best Feature. Seven of its eight nominees won in their categories, I meant to say. Cultists!

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…what I know about the mindset of Stalinist wokesters and how they’ve injected fear and intimidation into the common creative bloodstream and have thereby helped bring about the all-but-total-collapse of the mainstream Hollywood industrial entertainment complex (i.e., the industry that used to occasionally make super-cool films) and the utter superfluousness of Oscar culture…if you knew what I know about the pernicious effects of David Ehrlich-ism you would definitely be whining about the all-but-certain coronation of Everything Everywhere All At Once…trust me.

If I was in Daniel Ellsberg’s situation, which I feel very sad and sympathetic about even though we all have to go sometime, I would find a nice friendly heroin dealer and start using a few weeks (but not too many weeks) down the road. Because what difference would it make? Plus he’d feel just like Jesus’s son.

Political columnist Stewart Alsop died of cancer in ‘74. Consider this passage from his Wiki page:

In a thread about “Dude Needs To Be Cancelled” (posted at 1:37 pm eastern), the excitable Vic Lizzy posted the following with a straight face: “Who’s saying it’s not okay to be white? There’s no significant groundswell of that sentiment. Calling out racism is not the same as being anti-white.”

An hour later Bobby Peru set him straight.

Peru: “Actually, there sort of is [a significant groundswell of that sentiment].

“I work for a large global firm and at least three times this week I heard the phrase ‘white male’ used in a dismissive and derogatory way. This was with respect to suggestions of antiquated leadership, exec team makeups of the past, “traditional” behaviors that need to be eradicated, etc.

“We had a work dinner this week with our CEO, who is a white woman, and she talked on and on about our recruiting efforts, and how we would not be focusing on white males. This type of discourse is considered to be politically correct, and progressive, and she is a huge advocate for diversity.

‘At this point in time there seems to be no distinction between vaulting diversity up as an important initiative and the takedown of white male leadership. A very common refrain over and over is this notion that we need to move past the ‘white male’ leaders of yesterday. Every time this is said everyone nods in agreement, even the white male leaders.”

High-speed chase scenes have been a staple of crime + action films since The French Connection, but this just-posted news-video sequence (a cop chasing a pair of teens, 14 and 15) has one of the greatest endings ever.

Has anyone ever seen a chase sequence end this way in some Gone in 60 Seconds-type film?

If William Friedkin had ended his big freeway chase sequence in To Live and Die in L.A. this way, the audience would’ve yelled “bullshit!” and thrown soft drinks at the screen.

The kids crashing through a chain-link bridge fence and then falling 20 or 25 feet to the ground is great enough, but then they get out of the car, unharmed, and run for it…amazing! They were wearing their seat belts!

The movie version would end with either (a) the kids being picked up by a friend on the road below and escaping to safety or (b) a live-free-or-die passerby stopping to see if the kids are okay, and the kids jumping into his car and telling him “hit it, man…please, just get out of here and tromp on it…we need to get outta here!…come on, man!”

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Foam-at-the-mouth wokesters** might shriek and howl about my having posted this, but putting aside the digital footprints of Scott Adams and MrsWalker613, I like the performer (whose name and Twitter/TikTok handle I’m still not sure about) and I respect his willingness to make a point that seems fair and logical.

pic.twitter.com/lPJs7he3g4

— MrsWalker613 (@MrsWalker613) March 2, 2023

** not Jeremy Fassler, who received his walking papers yesterday.