Or, if you will, inorganic, tacked-on bullshit endings…written and shot at the last minute in hopes of making the audience feel better or less dispirited. Endings that might convey a friendlier, more even-toned feeling, but which lack integrity.

Last night I somehow slid into a viewing of Love Me Tender, and yep, the re-shot ending lacks integrity. With Elvis Presley‘s “Clint” dead and buried, the five remaining members of the Reno family — played by Richard Egan, Debra Paget, Mildred Dunnock, William CampbellJames Drury — leave the graveyard and return to their home. Grim and flat. So 20th Century Fox went with a Gunga Din finale — they blended a short clip of the dead Presley singing the title tune, and double-exposed it over the end credits.

It’s not as effective as the actual Gunga Din ending (Sam Jaffe‘s heroic titular character wearing the uniform of a British solder, smiling and saluting) but it’s better than just “Clint is dead and its back to work but at least Egan gets to marry Paget.”

A friend recently re-watched Sydney Pollack‘s Absence of Malice. The final scene between Paul Newman and Sally Field on his boat a tacked-on bullshit quality, he feels. It reeks of studio meddling. Wikipedia agrees: “It is unclear whether [Field’s] Carter keeps her job, or whether Carter’s relationship with Gallagher [Newman] will continue, but the final scene shows them having a cordial conversation on the wharf where Gallagher’s boat is docked before he sails away and leaves the city.”

Friendo: “Maybe you should do a column about tacked-on happy endings like this one.  It feels so different from the rest of the film.  Of course, the big one is Fatal Attraction but there are others.”

The cheapest fare from the NYC area to the Telluride-adjacent town of Montrose, Colorado requires a three-leg journey of 13.5 hours — American all the way.

Leaving Laguardia on Wednesday, 8.31 at 10 pm. Arrive at D.C.’s Reagan National at 11.:17 pm. Six-hour layover. D.C. to Dallas, departs 5:25 am, arrives 7:40 am. Dallas to Montrose, departs 8:25 am (only 45 minutes between flights!), arrives at 9:30 am. And then a shuttle of some kind. I’ll probably hit town by noon or thereabouts.

In hopes of catching a few zees during the Reagan National layover, I’ll be carrying (a) a self-inflating Powerlix Sleeping Mat (3 inches thick, built-in pillow, carry-on bag) and (b) a sleeping mask.

Maya Forbes, Wally Wolodarsky and Thomas Bezucha‘s The Good House, a boomer-booze-recovery relationship film set in suburban Massachusetts, premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival.

Universal had the domestic distrib rights, but then they bailed; Lionsgate/Roadside stepped up to the plate last June. The smartly-written film, which seems to feature a strong Sigourney Weaver performance, opens on 9.30.22.

“Hildy Good (Weaver) is a real-estate agent with an alcohol problem. She is half-heartedly in recovery, having been forced into rehab by her adult daughters, a couple of castoffs from a Nancy Meyers movie about spoiled children.

“There’s a provocative imaginary line to be drawn between being accused of witchcraft and being accused of drinking too much, both of which are so damning that the trial is over before it’s begun.

“The Good House rejects anything like ambivalence. It’s the same old song of hitting rock bottom — here tied to an autistic child in a way that feels exploitative — and getting a second chance and stating your name and disease before God and literally sailing off into the sunset. That may be what some folks need to hear, though it isn’t profound.

“The Good House repeatedly finds Hildy breaking the fourth wall and addressing us directly, High Fidelity-style, and Weaver can’t quite sell the wine-mom Ferris Bueller monologues she’s asked to deliver in these moments. Online excerpts from Ann Leary‘s source novel suggest the first-person narration was much more searching on the page, which may have proved a better match for Weaver’s vaguely patrician air. I don’t know.

“What I do know is that nothing that includes blackout drinking, suicide and the tragedy of gentrification should go down so smoothly, even if the filmmakers’ sensibility is fundamentally comic. (Co-writers/co-directors Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky previously made The Polka King, and Forbes wrote for The Larry Sanders Show.)

“After Hildy reveals that she’s descended from witches, Donovan‘s ‘Season of the Witch’ cues up on the soundtrack; I felt like a little old lady being helped across the street.

“For what it’s worth, Weaver’s frequent onscreen love interest Kevin Kline is in this, too, as a handyman who hauls garbage and fixes up boats. I guess you can only be in so many fake John Sayles movies before they finally cast you as David Strathairn.” — from Bill Chambers’ 9.20.21 TIFF review.

…but I did some stage acting in the mid ‘70s, and I somehow picked up the idea that the most persuasive kind of acting involves craft and discipline, of course, but is often sired within an atmosphere of spontaneity. You have to surrender to the behavior and more importantly the emotion. Technique only gets you so far.

In a Westport Country Playhouse production of “Dark of the Moon,” my role as backwoods yokel Marvin Hudgens required performing a bizarre ritualized rape scene. I had to forget about the cast (and the audience) watching this assault and just go with it — within the limits of decency and proper consideration for the actress playing Hudgens’ victim I had to become a hormonal animal, so to speak. I had to “be there.”

Three or four years later I was struck by a semi-aggressive sex scene between Roy Scheider and Janet Margolin in Jonathan Demme’s Last Embrace (‘79). Instead of the usual clutching and heavy breathing, Scheider dropped to his knees and buried his face in Margolin’s exposed lower belly. Definitely something Last Tango-ish about this — untamed, primal, committed. All these years later the scene is still an HE favorite.

The only other spontaneous belly smooching I can recall happened in a 1968 comedy called How Sweet It Is!, shot in Europe and costarring James Garner and Debbie Reynolds. Reynolds was the recipient; the smoocher was a colorful Italian chef or concierge.

What if woke-mandated “intimacy coordinators”, who’ve only been around the last couple of years…what if intimacy coordinators had somehow been monitoring these belly-smooching scenes way back when? Would they have helped or hindered the intended effect?

All to say that poor Sean Bean got roughed up by woke Twitter fascists yesterday for asserting that “intimacy coordinators” kill the mood or interfere with the natural vibe of a heated romantic scene, or words to that effect.

HE to director friendo: “Have you ever felt that actors in a romantic scene that you were directing weren’t ‘feeling it’ and needed to somehow give themselves more freely to the moment?”

Zegler translation: If it hadn’t been for the WSS intimacy coordinator, Ansel Elgort might have taken liberties and perhaps worse. But I was protected, thank God. How did Natalie Wood ever survive the coarse gropings of Richard Beymer during filming of the original West Side Story (‘61)?

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“Yeah, another female-centric superhero flick from a company with a spotty track record for this kind of thing, featuring a race-swap protagonist and some weird multi-versal plot device that felt like a cheap excuse to get Michael Keaton back as Bruce Wayne, and I imagine the poor test screening[s] didn’t exactly help convince the studio that they had a major hit on their hands.

“But if the rumors that I’ve heard are true, [Batgirl] actually scored higher than Black Adam and Shazam 2. But you’ve got to ask yourself ‘how bad does a film really need to be that the studio would rather pull the plug on the whole thing and lose tens of millions of dollars rather than just re-cut and try to salvage something halfway decent…this is the same studio, remember, that reckoned Birds of Prey, Justice League and Wonder Woman 1984 were fit for human consumption.

“And Batgirl, by the way, isn’t the only [Warner Bros. movie] to get shitcanned [as] the tumor is that Supergirl is also on the chopping block…hmmm, two female-centric superhero movies featuring race-swap protagonists that happened to get unceremoniously cancelled at the same time…

“Film division honcho Walter Amada‘s genius strategy was to basically do whatever was popular at the time, and what was popular the time was diversity, female empowerment and representation. Rather than try to work these things into his movies with skill, intelligence and patience, Warner Bros. instead decided to just straight-up replace popular characters played by problematic white men for more diverse alternatives.

“I think it’s fair to say that after nearly a decade of having ‘the message’ shoved down our throats, audiences are getting a little bit tired of this shit.”

…is said to be a vaguely raunchy, ’70s-styled road movie (possibly in the vein of Mark Lester‘s Truckstop Women?) about a couple of queer women taking a trip between Pittsburgh and Tallahassee.

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I’m very sorry about the death of Olivia Newton-John, who enjoyed quite the heyday in the ’70s and ’80s, and had weathered three bouts of breast cancer over the last 30 years (in 1992, 2013 and ’17). The adjectives that kept coming to mind when I thought of ONJ over the years were dreamy, delicate and wealthy. “Physical” and “Have You Never Been Mellow?” were her biggest songs…right? The film highlights, of course, were Grease (’78) and Xanadu (’80). Very sorry, cruel cards. But then again 73 bountiful years.

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1. A flamboyant, epic-scaled, 185-minute version of Singin’ In The Rain, but a lot longer with the songs and dancing and smiles taken out. Call it a depravity-tinged survival story about Hollywood transitioning from the silent era to sound, although ultimately spanning three decades (mid 1920s through 1952).

2. Vincente Minnelli meets Fellini Satyricon in jazz-age Hollywood.

3. An epic-sized smorgasbord in which the excesses of The Wolf of Wall Street serve the story of Singin’ in the Rain.

4. The two leads are Margot Robbie’s Clara Bow-like actress** and Diego Calva’s “Manny Torres”. The latter is the main protagonist or audience identity figure — the observer-survivor. Robbie’s performance is said to be the big takeaway and a likely Best Actress opportunity. Pitt is playing what amounts to a tragic supporting player role, Clark Gable-resembling but partly inspired by John Gilbert.

And that’s all I have to say.

** Actually called Clara Bow in one of the script drafts but since changed.

IndieWire‘s Anne Thompson has posted a 2023 Best Actor prediction piece…basically a checklist of the performances that Thompson believes might end up as noteworthy contenders.

Here’s the HE take on Thompson’s list — those in boldface have at least a chance of breaking through while those not in boldface almost certainly haven’t a prayer.

HE sez there are only seven likely Best Actor contenders right now, and even these seem iffy: Elvis‘s Austin Butler (but no win), Bardo‘s Daniel Giménez Cacho, The Whale‘s Brendan Fraser, Empire of Light‘s Colin Firth, The Son‘s Hugh Jackman, Armageddon Time‘s Banks Repeda and White Noise‘s Adam Driver.

Thompson Frontrunners:

Austin Butler (Elvis)…maybe or probably…can’t decide which.
Park Hae-il (Decision to Leave)…not a chance.
Daniel Kaluuya (Nope)..a totally insane speculation…no way in hell.
Bill Nighy (Living)…an affecting performance, agreed, but not happening.
Adam Sandler (Hustle)…no clue.

Thompson Contenders:

Christian Bale (Amsterdam, The Pale Blue Eye)…not happening.
Daniel Giménez Cacho (Bardo, or A False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)…promising.
Adam Driver (White Noise)…maybe.
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)…maybe but unlikely.
Colin Firth (Empire of Light)…maybe.
Brendan Fraser (The Whale)…how do you ignore this performance?…the girth factor alone demands attention.
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Chevalier)….no clue.
Hugh Jackman (The Son)….likely.
Brad Pitt (Babylon)…Pitt’s “Jack Conrad”, a tragic figure based partly on John Gilbert but resembling Clark Gable, is a supporting character. They might be able to sell his performance as a lead, but he’s definitely not one in any kind of classic sense.
Eddie Redmayne (The Good Nurse)…no idea.
Song Kang-ho (Broker)…not a chance.

Thompson Long Shots

Timothée Chalamet (Bones and All)
Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick)
Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness)
Jalil Hall (Till)
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)
Jack O’Connell (Lady Chatterley’s Lover)
Robert Pattinson (The Batman)
Cooper Raiff (Cha Cha Real Smooth)
Banks Repeta (Armageddon Time)
Sam Worthington (Avatar: The Way of Water)

I watched this Red Hot Chili Peppers meet James Corden karaoke video after last night’s viewing of Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99. I’m still having tremendous difficulty with the footage between 10:45 and 12:15. On one level I admire Corden’s bravery; on another I feel embarassed for the poor guy. I don’t know what to think, but I love the front-yard wrestling sequence.

I watched the three Trainwreck episodes in one sitting — 9 pm to midnight. I’m sorry but most of the people who attended the original Woodstock festival were more spiritual or centered or gentle of manner or something along these lines; many of the kids who attended Woodstock ’99 were animals, or at least behaved like same. That youngish bearded guy said that Woodstock ’99 was plagued by greed and cluelessness, but mostly greed. Exactly. The huge bonfires at the end were fairly awesome, I have to say. But the heat, asphalt, garbage, contaminated water and “shit mud”….good God. I’m almost sorry I didn’t attend. Fred Durst (now 52) and Limp Bizkit obviously didn’t help matters.