Steve Allen to Manhattan pedestrians: “If a brilliant presidential candidate was an admitted homosexual, and yet was clearly the brightest and most emotionally mature guy among all the candidates, truly a fair-minded man for all seasons and a guy with a liberally measured and compassionate view of what governing should or shouldn’t do overall…would you vote or not vote for him because of his sexual orientation?”

Delmer Daves’ Broken Arrow (‘50), which starred James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, was shot in June, July and August of 1949. Stewart was 41 during filming, and 15 year-old Debra Paget, born in late August of 1933, played Sonseeahray, the love interest and eventual wife of Stewart’s Tom Jeffords.

Imagine a 41 year-old superstar playing the lover and husband of a 15 year-old actress today. A 26 year age gap! #MeToo fury!

I propose cancelling Stewart and Daves posthumously. As a minor Paget had no agency and was clearly manipulated into submitting to sexual wifely situatione, exposing her to carnal matters at an inappropriate age.

I’ve long regarded Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone as an exceptionally brilliant and perceptive diviner of the human condition and especially political behavior in both the Hollywood and Washington, D.C. realms.

She’s also an excellent, true-blue human being — certainly among the most loving and supportive friends I’ve ever known. We’ve had our spats over the years and I certainly don’t agree with her about certain political matters, but she’s made of fine, honorable, gold-bullion stuff

Sasha’s political views began to lean right around four years ago, which is fine. But alas, she’s concurrently developed a curious affinity for…I can’t say it! I can’t say the name!

And within the last year this affinity has allegedly caused her…well, a few minor political problems within a certain branch of the Hollywood community, particularly the progressive totalitarian thought police brigade…you know, the Robespierres who’ve been controlling the proverbial conversation since woke theology began to take hold around the mid teens, and who have thereby inserted a climate of fear among filmmakers (woke casting criteria + the Clayton Davis lobby + celebrate and certainly don’t offend women, POCs, LGBTQs or trans, especially with Emilia Perez coming down the pike!) and have generally caused certain Hollywood films to become vehicles for woke talking points and social instruction (Killers of the Flower Moon, Disney’s forthcoming Snow White, etc.).

It’s common knowledge that The Hollywood Reporter‘s Rebecca Keegan has been researching what sounds like a Sasha hit piece over the last couple of weeks. The idea (i.e., rake her over the coals) apparently began in response to Sasha having satirically or facetiously tweeted “white power” when discussing “White Dudes for Harris”, but also for having expressed certain MAGA-ish viewpoints that have rubbed some in the skittish Hollywood community the wrong way.

Keegan has spoken to Sasha as well as Variety columnist Jazz Tangcay, who used to write for Sasha’s site, Awards Daily contributor Megan MacLachlan, and, I’ve been told although I haven’t confirmed, THR award season columnist Scott Feinberg.

I’ve been using the term “hit piece” because Keegan hasn’t spoken to me (Sasha told her about our devout friendship) or longtime associate and friend Clarence Moye, who’s been writing Awards Daily TV commentary for ten years and is about to launch www.the-contenders.com, largely because Sasha has been urging him to do so in order to thrive without having to cope with the smoke that Sasha’s viewpoints have apparently generated among the Orwellians.

Earlier today I spoke to Moye, who intends to launch The Contenders on Monday, 8.26, about what’s been going on, Sasha-wise.

Moye: “Sasha has encouraged us (myself, Megan, Joey Moser) to consider breaking out on our own for several years, but we haven’t considered going out until this year. I know that a few years ago Sasha was getting attacked by pro-trans activists for questioning the hate bombs thrown at J.K. Rowling. We stood by her and fully support her when it comes to being against left bullying and cancel culture. As long as what she says isn’t hurtful.

“But Sasha has been encouraging us to do this for four or five years now. She wants us to be spared. I for one have not heard any advertisers say they are uncomfortable with this messaging. I have heard publicists say ‘what’s going on with Sasha?’ Fellow awards contenders have also said this from time to time. They don’t get the embracing of MAGA culture, which for some has been the tipping point.

“Sasha is free to say what she wants. I think if she only focused on woke and anti-cancel culture rhetoric, most of the feedback would be manageable. It’s mainly the MAGA commentary, and it’s really just been [happening] over the past year. Somebody will come up and say ‘what’s going on?’ She doesn’t represent my opinion. She has her own voice. The only thing I and Joey and Megan have objected to was politics being tweeted via the Awards Daily brand…we were concerned about the Awards Daily brand becoming toxic. This is what seemed to be the tipping point for many.

“I am not a social media person. I don’t care about being ridiculed. There have been a few tweets about ‘the Awards Daily writers must be horrible people because they support her.’ But Twitter is a cesspool. The anti-woke culture stuff, I don’t think, would have been seen as all that bad, considering the worm has started to turn.

“I am looking at a place where I need to make a name for myself. Sasha has given me so much, and I feel like it’s time to fly the nest, and to put my own voice out there. I’ve been writing for Sasha for ten years, I saw that ‘white power’ tweet and I knew it was a joke. But an unwise joke I would add, given the insane asylum that is Twitter and the fact that informed conversations are a rarity.”

Keep in mind that Clarence Moye isn’t the first journalist to graduate from the Sasha Stone academy. 15 and 20 years ago Sasha’s site (formerly known as OscarWatch.com) served as an opinion and Oscar-handicapping platform for Feinberg, Kris Tapley, who couldn’t be bothered to reply to an inquiry I sent about this history or even acknowledge that I was reaching out, and Awardswatch.com‘s Erik Anderson.

Sasha quote (8.13.24): “It is strange that we live in a time in which someone thinks this is a story. I wonder why there aren’t more interesting things to write about, and then I remember how paralyzed everyone has become in this climate of fear. One thing I’ve tried to do is become more tolerant by humanizing the accused witches, and I have paid a price for that. But you have to live a truthful life as best you can, stand up for what you believe is right and that is what I’ve done.

“I am too careless on social media. No one ever interacts with my tweets. It’s been a ghost town since years ago when the bullying began. So I guess I didn’t realize the Eye of Sauron was watching me. If I’d known it would lead to this of course I would not have posted it. I thought it was a funny joke. My friends and I used to say all the time ‘white rights!’ because it was so ridiculous. Now, of course, if you say it people think you mean it literally. And therein lies to answer to why American culture has collapsed into itself.

“There are a lot of people who feel like I do but they are too afraid to speak out. I hear from them in DMs.”

Christian Toto, HollywoodinToto.com: “Sasha Stone is an old-fashioned Hollywood success story. A single mother whose love of film became a full-time career. Her political evolution has been both fascinating and unexpected, and her industry colleagues would be wise to at least listen to what she has to say and write. She’s been able to roll with industry changes via her sly Substack account while other journalists have been understandably caught up in the industry’s seismic makeover. If only Celebrity Nation mirrored her passion for free expression, one of her signature passions.”

A well-connected fellow says he’s “heard very casually and very second-hand that someone is talking to studio/streamer campaign types, but beyond that I know nothing about [Keegan’s article]. Over the past few weeks I did hear from a couple of people at studios expressing concern about advertising with someone who might be regarded as politically toxic from a certain perspective and how that might be a question, but at least one told me they really like Sasha’s awards site and so are somewhat perplexed. Either way I’m sure this hubbub will make Sasha a hero in MAGA-land for sticking it to Hollywood.”

Personal aside: Ever since Hollywood’s woke thought police began to target me in late ’18 or thereabouts and especially since the Great Awokening of 2020, I’ve been increasingly enamored (or at least open to the opinions) of varioue sensible, plain-spoken, anti-woke headliners….Sasha, Bill Maher, Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Chris Gore, Dennis Quaid…even the tart-tongued Megyn Kelly from time to time. Kelly is an out-and-out-Trumper, but she hates the Orwellian left and that’s music to my ears. Otherwise you could call the other seven or eight “independents” or “center-right contrarians”, but I regard them as voices of the new counter culture.

I draw the line, however, at odious MAGA theology and bowing down to that hideous, corpulent, felonious, flatulent one-man plague who’s running against Kamala Harris. In my book he’s a despicable, low-rent, mouth-breathing animal from Queens who, trust me, will be going down hard when he loses the election come November.

Added note: The thought police seriously damaged my ad income between ’21 and the present, and it was never about Trump. It was about nothing but scurillous bullshit. This history exposes these monsters for who and what they are.

My first reactions to James Cameron‘s Aliens in ’86 (38 years ago!) were “magnificent verisimilitude, great military vigor and excellent cutting, but it looks too grainy.”

I’ve always wanted to see Cameron’s de-grained 4K version of Aliens. but I never got around to buying it. After reading dweeb complaints about the lack of grain, I’m even more excited about catching this version.

The only problem is that $54 price tag for the Ultimate Aliens Collectors Edition 4K.

“Anti-Grain Kahuna,” posted on 8.17.10:

“During an Avatar: Special Edition interview last week James Cameron told a Coming Soon guy that he’s “just done a complete remaster of Aliens (the Bluray of which will be included in the Alien Anthology set, due on 10.26), and that he did the work with the same colorist with whom he had worked on Avatar, and that he’s “completely removed all noise and grain from the extended version of the film.” Yes!

“It’s spectacular,” Cameron said. “We went in and completely de-noised it, de-grained it, up-rezzed [and] color-corrected every frame, and it looks amazing. It looks better that it looked in the theaters originally.

“Aliens was shot on a high-speed negative that was a new negative that didn’t pan out too well and got replaced the following year, so it’s pretty grainy. [But] we got rid of all the grain. It’s sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it’s ever looked. And we also did that to the long version, to the ‘director’s cut’ or the extended play.”

“Flailing about for relevance since the legalization of same-sex marriage, many gay-rights groups [have] pivoted to a related but fundamentally different cause: transgender rights.

“Rather than emulate the movement’s past approach — seeking allies across the political spectrum and accepting compromise as a precondition for legal and social progress — they have taken hard-line left-wing positions. LGBTQ groups repeat the mantra ‘the science is settled‘ on the extremely complex and fraught subject of youth gender medicine and insist that anyone who questions the provision of puberty blockers to gender-dysphoric children is transphobic.

“They continue to spread this message even as many European countries have backed away from such treatments after concluding that the evidence supporting them is weak.

“The reflexive promotion of major medical interventions for minors should be a red flag for gay men and lesbians, considering the research indicating that many gender-distressed and gender-nonconforming children grow up to be gay.

“Last year, though, GLAAD, HRC, and other organizations staked their reputations on a foolish crusade against the Times, condemning the newspaper’s careful and empathetic reporting on youth gender medicine as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘biased.’

“GLAAD has placed the Harry Potter novelist J. K. Rowling and the journalist Jesse Singal, who has reported extensively on youth gender medicine (including in The Atlantic), alongside such people as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on a McCarthyite list of ‘individual public figures and groups using their platforms to spread misinformation and false rhetoric against LGBTQ people, youth, and allies.'” — from “How the Gay-Rights Movement Lost Its Way,” an 8.12 Atlantic article by James Kirchick.

The first time I ever heard “right cunt” was out of the psychopathic mouth of Ben Kingsley‘s Don Logan in Sexy Beast (’00). I’ve never used the term myself (too blunt and vulgar) but it’s definitely a thing in England.

Urban Dictionary caught up with the term in August 2003, via a “Diego” posting:

I’m mentioning this colorful British epithet because TikTok’s “therocknrollmom” recently used it to describe herself as a teenager.

@therocknrollmom I said what I said…get outta here with these feminine boys . . . . . #genxtiktokers #genx #genz #fyp #fypviral #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #fypage #y2kaesthetic #y2k #millennialsoftiktok #millennial #savagemomsoftiktok #momsoftiktok #tiktokmom ♬ original sound The Rock'n'Roll Mom

On 3.21.17 Urban Dictionary’s “elzz” said the term refers to “a person who doesn’t care about anything or anyone or even his own self, and loves to cause trouble and misery to everyone on the planet…a person who farts in a room full of people and doesn’t care how bad it smells and owns up to it laughing his head off.”

That’s Don Logan, all right, but does this description remind anyone of any Hollywood Elsewhere commenters?

…a 4.4 magnitude shaker is next to nothing. A little swaying, dogs barking…blah. Only pussies get upset. In HE’s book an earthquake has to be at least a five-point-something to turn my head around.

But is it fair to mock a former Yalie for letting go with a little perversity? Where’s the harm?

The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being freed from the horrific old-guy equation…the bitter gruel choice of drooling, bent-over Biden vs. pushing-80, flabby-neck-wattle Trump…thank you, God!; and (b) the historic, undeniably exciting opportunity to elect a fairly sharp, tough-minded, semi-youngish woman of color as U.S. President. Hard to resist.

…is the 1.37 aspect ratio. Debra Paget (still with us at age 91) may have been at her fetching peak in 1959, but boxy aspect ratios have always been and always will be mesmerizing. Look at all that head room…acres of it! And all hail director Fritz Lang, by the way — Metropolis, M, Fury, The Return of Frank James, Man Hunt, Scarlet Street, Cloak and Dagger, Rancho Notorious, The Blue Gardenia, The Big Heat, Human Desire, While the City Sleeps and, last and least, The Indian Tomb.