Within the last couple of days Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans suffered two savage bird pecks, the combination of which may prove fatal. First, Variety‘s Clayton Davis printed a reaction to The Fabelmans from “a prominent member of the [Academy’s] producers’ branch”, to wit: “I really didn’t like it.” And secondly, the five BAFTA nominations for Best Film didn’t include The Fabelmans.

Can you feel it? Can you faintly feel it? Can you sense the velocity of the the furiously beating wings of crows flying above? Can you hear them cawing?…aahhnk! aahrrrk!

Perhaps the biggest shake-and-stir from the BAFTA noms was the 14 nominations that went to All Quiet on the Western Front.

Another noteworthy BAFTA thing was their decision to include The Woman King‘s Gina Prince-bythewood among their five nominees. She was presumably added so the BAFTAS could nominate a woman of color. The other four: All Quiet On The Western Front — Edward Berger; The Banshees Of Inisherin — Martin Mcdonagh; Decision To Leave — Park Chan-wook (FORGET IT!), Everything Everywhere All At Once — Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (NO!) and Tar — Todd Field.

HE’s preferred winners: Field or Berger.

Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking, which all the woke critics were salivating over during Telluride ’22, had been BAFTA longlisted for director, adapted screenplay, supporting actor and original score categories. It came up totally empty-handed this morning.

HE boldface obviously indicates a preferred winner or winners:

BEST FILM:

All Quiet On The Western Front – Malte Grunert / HE
The Banshees Of Inisherin – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin Mcdonagh
Elvis – Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick Mccormick, Schuyler Weiss
Everything Everywhere All At Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang
Tar – Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan / HE

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM:

Aftersun – Charlotte Wells, Producer(S)
The Banshees Of Inisherin – Martin Mcdonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin
Brian And Charles – Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris Hayward
Empire Of Light – Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris / HE…YES!
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande – Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy Brand (NOT A CHANCE!)
Living – Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo Ishiguro
Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical – Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis Kelly
See How They Run – Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark Chappell
The Swimmers – Sally El Hosaini, Producer(S) Tbc, Jack Thorne
The Wonder – Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma Donoghue

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Two days ago Megyn Kelly attributed the following line to Jesse Kelly, whom I’m not a particular fan of: “I don’t mean to mock the MLK sculpture — every man wants to be remembered this way.”

In a two-day-old (1.17) Oscar assessment piece, Variety’s Clayton Davis dutifully reported what almost everyone except for guys like Bobby Peru have accepted since the ‘22 / ‘23 Oscar season began several months ago, which is that Everything Everywhere All At Once is probably too divisive (read: hated by the over-45 crowd) to prevail in the Best Picture category unless international voters come to its rescue (“rally round the flag, boys!”).

…and they told me to state my pronouns, I would write Eat / Me. Okay, that’s fairly vulgar but I’d probably feel better about that designation than He / Him, which seems overly compliant.

My life doesn’t feel quite whole and nurtured without Real Time to look forward to on Friday nights. This is how I feel.

We all know Bill Barr and Andrew Sullivan — Nancy Mace is a seemingly sensible, non-MAGA Republican Congressperson from South Carolina. On 10.21.21, Mace was one of nine House Republicans who voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 chaois.

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Would it be fair to observe that casting-wise there’s a certain diverse-centric approach on view here? A determination to virtue-signal by un-Wonder Breading the brand…right?

There are two or three fleeting glimpses of social congregations, and yes, I’ve noticed a couple of younger Millennial- or Zoomer-aged revelers who could be accused of having a problematic heritage, but otherwise the idea seems to be about playing it safe. Would that be fair to say?

For tonight’s main event, a pair of family movies that invest in and reflect upon lasting, spirit-sustaining values about family and community — Frank Capra‘s It’s A Wonderful Life (’46) vs. Francis Coppola‘s The Godfather (‘72)

The core message in Capra’s film at the end of the day: “Forget the thrill and risk of life…or, you know, don’t worry too much about it…forget the exotic climes and unfamiliar aromas and the adventure of struggle and experimentation…forget wandering around the streets of Paris or Hanoi or Venice late at night while smoking an unfiltered Gitane…forget all the faraway places…if you’re loved and treasured by your neighbors in your hometown, that’s all that matters.”

The basic Godfather conveyance is that however independently willful or curious or hungry for the nectar of life a young person might be…however strong this curiosity and longing may be, sooner or later that young person will recognize family as the most fundamental thing of all, and that down the road he/she will give his/her loyalty to it above all else.

One of the main reasons that The Godfather won the Best Picture Oscar is because of that final scene when Michael lies to Kaye about his complicity in the death of Carlo. Kaye can sense the lie, of course, and then Al Neri closes the door as she’s gazing into Michael’s office with everyone kissing his hand.

That’s the way it is (or certainly was) with a lot of marriages within a certain realm. That’s reality, and all that family jubilation and exhilaration in the finale of Capra’s film….well, it’s very nutritious
and fortifying but who really trusts it? It feels like a forced confection.

I somehow missed a four-day-old report that Barack Obama had re-issued his Best Films of 2022 list as a tribute to Andrea Riseborough‘s searing performance in To Leslie. A gesture of respect, acknowledgment. Somehow this alters everything. In my head, at least. I’d interpreted the enthusiastic and orchestrated praising of Riseborough’s performance by a long roster of actor buddies as…well, expressions of loyalty and love. But Barack joining in changes things somewhat. He’s part of the cabal. Repeating: HE endorses Riseborough’s performance despite the film’s first hour having driven me up the wall. I feel much greater enthusiasm for Olivia Colman‘s performance in Empire of Light.

Given the basic sinking-into-the-swamp dynamic that’s been evident for some time now…

A fascinating hypothesis from sex & intimacy expert Shan Boodram to Bill Maher at 2:23 mark: “If somebody said to me ‘if there are 100 men that you are physically attracted to, how many of those would you have sex with?'”

Imagined HE response: The initial answer is “the wealthy funny ones who seem to have a soul.” The second answer is “you know going in that most men won’t stand up to any kind of serious emotional or psychological scrutiny…one way or another 75% to 80% will disqualify themselves by just talking…by focusing mostly on themselves or failing to be sufficiently gracious or show sufficient respect to the woman or whatever.”

To borrow from Lawrence Kasdan‘s Body Heat, “With grade-A, quality-level, creme de la creme women there are 50 different ways you can fuck up, and if you can think of 35 of them in advance you’re a genius.”

Of the remaining 20% or 25% of the men who seem smart and palatable and emotionally secure with a little dough in the bank, half will eliminate themselves with some kind of obsessive quirk thing…a pet rhesus monkey, being a workaholic, smart-phone obsessed, being a sports fanatic or a terrible dresser or…whatever, wearing plaid pants.

Maher response: “Great question for a woman. And here’s a bit: I’ve never known a woman who hasn’t shared some version of this story. ’I met a promising guy…’oh, he’s cute, seems hopeful, doesn’t look like a psycho’, and then he opened his mouth and I lost interest’. Every woman has a version of that story, and no men [do].”
‘
Here’s the full hour-long discussion.

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Artist Hank Willis Thomas obviously isn’t stupid. He knew that “The Embrace,” his recently unveiled Martin Luther King-Coretta Scott King sculpture, would be derided by the meat-and-potatoes crowd as an image of four hands and arms gripping a giant brown schlong or resting upon a huge turd.

Literalists are always voicing the same beef — “this work of art isn’t literal enough!”

Then again why did he create a 19-ton sculpture that looks like four hands and arms gripping a giant schlong, etc.? HWT knows the game. He knows that the proletariat masses always have the final say.

At 70 Liam Neeson seems too far along to play a certain legendary shamus in Neil Jordan’s forthcoming Marlowe. (Open Road, 2.15).

In two previous films Phillip Marlowe (described by novelist-creator Raymond Chandler as early 30ish in the mid 1930s) has been depicted as spiffily middle-aged. Humphrey Bogart was a fit 45 when he made Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (‘46). The dashing James Garner was 40 or 41 (but looked younger) when he made Marlowe (‘69).

Robert Mitchum, on the other hand, seemed a little too creased and weathered when he made Farewell, My Lovely (‘75) in his late 50s, and more so when he returned as Marlowe in Michael Winner’s Big Sleep remake (‘78)

This said, Neeson appears to have been digitally de-aged in Marlowe. That or my eyes deceive.