No one will argue that films were generally better 19 years ago. They obviously were. Herewith a reminder, posted or or about 12.15.05:

Creme de la Creme: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes, Match Point, The Family Stone, Cinderella Man, The Beautiful Country, Last Days, Grizzly Man, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (13).

70% Masterful…Merging of Lovers From Different Cultures in the Midst of a Splendorous Natural Symphony…But Goes off The Rails, Drop-Kicks the Mood and Leaves You Stranded at the 110-Minute Mark: The New World (1)
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Overly Schematic But Clearly Delineated (hasn’t aged well): Crash. (1)

Pretty Damn Good to Reasonably Good: Good Night and Good Luck, The Wedding Crashers, Syriana, Munich, The Aristocrats, Batman Begins, Broken Flowers, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, Cache (Hidden), The Interpreter (for the bomb-on-the-bus scene alone), Nine Lives (for Robin Wright Penn alone), Cronicas, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach has an assured place at the table), The Upside of Anger (for Kevin Costner’s performance), The Thing About My Folks (for Peter Falk’s performance), Mrs. Henderson Presents, Kung Fu Hustle, Kingdom of Heaven, Rent, Broken Flowers, Brothers (for Connie Nielsen’s performance and the austere and upfront tone of Suzanne Bier’s direction), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, War of the Worlds, Casanova, My Date With Drew (a good-humored rendering of a metaphor about youthful pluck and persistence and team spirit), My Summer of Love, Paradise Now. (27)

Not Half Bad: The Producers, The Dying Gaul, The World’s Fastest Indian, Four Brothers, Layer Cake, The Great Raid, Reel Paradise, Green Street Hooligans, Everything is Illuminated, Proof, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (13)

Gets Worse The More I Look Back Upon it: King Kong (1).

Unquestionable Failure That Nonetheless Half-Saves Itself as It Comes to a Close: Elizabethtown (1)

Biggest Bummer (and splattered milkshakes don’t matter): The Weather Man (1)

Solid First Stab by Talented Director: Scott Caan’s Dallas 362. (1)

Grudging Approval (i.e., respect for an obviously first-rate film that I didn’t particularly enjoy watching all that much): Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (1)

Blaaah: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country, Shopgirl, Jarhead, The Libertine (5)

Tediously Acceptable: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Catherine Keener’s fine performance helped); March of the Penguins. (2)

Crap Marginally Redeemed By…: Sin City (heavenly Nevada silver-mine black- and-white photography); House of Wax (Paris Hilton’s death and some fairly inventive pizazz shown by director Jaume Collet-Serra). (2)

Cavalcade of Crap…Moneyed, Honeyed, Sullied…an Affront to The Once Semi-Respectable Tradition of Mainstream Hollywood Filmmaking: The Dukes of Hazzard, The Island, Bewitched, Rumor Has it, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Must Love Dogs, Memoirs of a Geisha, Domino, The Legend of Zorro, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Constantine, Aeon Flux, Fantastic Four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. (15).

Final Enduring Proof of George Lucas’s Mediocre Soul: Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (1)
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Best Docs (after Grizzly Man and Bob Dylan: No Direction Home): Why We Fight, Gunner Palace, Mondovino, Favela Rising, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Mad Hot Ballroom, Tell Them Who You Are, One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern (for the tribute factor alone…McGovern is such a respectable man), Rize, The Last Mogul, Murderball, Occupation: Dreamland (12).

You might say that the standout element in the below image, snapped at Las Vegas McCarran airport six or seven years ago, is the blonde in the chair. Naturally. But in my view the blonde is secondary because the photo is mainly about the feelings generated by (a) the white pants, (b) the Italian brown suede lace-ups and (c) the blackness outside.

Don’t misunderstand — the woman is a key element in the overall composition. Without her the photo would amount to a lot less. But the message of the photo isn’t “wow, look at the blonde” — the message is “airport lounges are mostly about avoidance and meditation…feelings of postponement, waiting, pausing and studying phone screens as a way of not contemplating your life…hundreds of people chilling and texting and trying not to ask themselves ‘what is my life? how did I get here? what does it all amount to?”

Similarly, the focus of the Kate Hudson photo (which she herself posted) isn’t her toplessness, her carefully draped blonde hair or the big white coffee cup. Or at least, not for me. The focus of the photo are the peaked rooftops, and trying to guess which European city Hudson was in when she snapped this. The rooftops don’t look Parisian, Cote d’Azur, Costa del Sol, Italian, British or Czech…not quite. My best guess is somewhere in Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany or Austria.

This is the Trump cancer, plain and simple…a statistical portrait of how one bloated narcissist blowhard has planted an insanity virus in the bloodstream of American life.

During a 6.29 visit to “Howie Mandel Does Stuff“, Bill Maher said he’s booked to appear on Tucker Carlson‘s Fox show sometime soon. “We’re negotiating”, Maher said. He reports that Carlson staffers initially wanted the conversation “to just be about stuff we agree on, and I said [forehead smack] no.”

Due respect but Hollywood Elsewhere will take it as a personal affront — a slur, an insult — if Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Bardo doesn’t play Telluride ’22.

Many of us have been banking on this Spanish-language Mexican dramedy to play Venice and Telluride for several months now, and I really don’t want to hear about any possible plans to premiere the Netflix release later in the year…seriously, man…c’mon, please don’t.

Too many alleged hotties from big-gun directors are already slated for late ’22 openings — Damien Chazelle‘s Babylon, David O. Russell‘s Amsterdam, Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, Sam Mendes‘ Empire of Light, David Fincher‘s The Killer and Steven Spielberg‘s The Fablemans. Adding Bardo to this list would be excessive.

Come Labor Day columnists and film mavens like myself need to see good, nutritious, X-factor films — theatrical experiences that excite, disturb and challenge — to keep our spirits up and make our semi-miserable lives feel whole and perhaps even vibrant. This is why Inarritu ducking out of Telluride simply won’t do. We’re talking feelings of bitterness, depression and most of all abandonment.

Official Bardo synopsis: “A nostalgic comedy set against an epic personal journey. It chronicles the story of a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker, who returns home and works through an existential crisis as he grapples with his identity, familial relationships, the folly of his memories as well as the past of his country. He seeks answers in his past to reconcile who he is in the present.”

Daniel Giménez Cacho plays the journalist-filmmaker (basically a stand-in for Inarritu himself); Griselda Siciliani costars.

Bardo finished principal photography, remember, last September — 10 effing months ago. It was announced last April that Netflix had acquired the for theatrical and streaming. Shot by Darius Khondji in 65mm, the film’s actual title is Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths).

Words with the potential to strike fear into the hearts of Telluride regulars: “Bardo is a cinematic experience that has inspired us to create a release strategy designed for the film to penetrate culture in the biggest and widest way. We will give film lovers everywhere the opportunity to experience the film through a global theatrical release and the film’s worldwide release on Netflix.” — Netflix honcho Scott Stuber.

President Bartlet repeats what most Elvis Presley biographers have written — he was a major cultural earthquake and lightning personified during Phase #1 (‘54 to Army induction in ‘58), his greedy-ass manager kept him from growing as an artist by going strictly for the dough, and he wasn’t much of an actor.

Between allegedly positive responses at a recent East Coast test screening (as reported by Jordan Ruimy) and the likelihood of debuting at Telluride ’22, She Said (Universal, 11.18), a Spotlight-resembling investigative journalism drama about the Harvey Weinstein sexual predator offenses, is looking like a Best Picture Oscar contender…right?

Or is it perhaps a bit less of a #MeToo-ish All The President Men and more of a Bombshell, Part II?

Not to mention possible Best Actress noms for costars Zoe Kazan (playing N.Y. Times reporter Jodi Kantor) and Carey Mulligan (as Times reporter Megan Twohey)….who knows? But it has the right aura, the right timeliness.

That said, Andre Braugher‘s performance as N.Y. Times exec editor Dean Baquet is, I suspect, unlikely to inspire the kind of reverence that greeted Jason Robards‘ performance as Ben Bradlee in Akan Pakula‘s All The President’s Men. For Baquet’s support of Kantor and Twohey’s reporting on Weinstein has since been overshadowed by his unleashing the forces of purist woke terror (1619 and BLM absolutism, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the absurd firing of Donald McNeil Jr.) in the Times newsroom and greenlighting the kind of harsh woke-scolding environment that led to Bari Weiss‘s resignation.

Apart from becoming a Scientology fanatic, it’s fair to say that the last 40-odd years of Tom Cruise‘s life and career have panned out hugely, exceptionally and phenomenally.

It’s just that the idea of Joel Goodson being five years away from the classic retirement age of 65 makes me feel that the locomotive pace of life is moving…well, a bit faster than I’d prefer. I know, I know…60 is the new 50 but still.

For me, Cruise turning 60 is roughly at par with McCartney turning 80. Anyone who was around when Risky Business opened knows what I’m talking about, and I don’t want to hear from any scolds.

HE’s 15 Richest, Best Crafted, Most Compellingly Performed Tom Cruise Films (in this order and excluding all of his high-powered, robo-bunny formula action franchise films): Jerry Maguire, Collateral, Risky Business, The Firm, Born on the Fourth of July, Rain Man, Jack Reacher, American Made, The Color of Money, Tropic Thunder, A Few Good Men, Edge of Tomorrow, Losin’ It, Interview with the Vampire, Magnolia.

HE’s 14 Least Favorite Cruise Films (excluding all of his high-powered, robo-bunny formula action franchise films): Cocktail, Far and Away, Legend, Days of Thunder, Eyes Wide Shut (very well made, compulsive watchable but finally a curiously chilly experience), Minority Report (irritating Kaminsky bleachy-gray color scheme), Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai, War of the Worlds (good film with atrocious ending), The Mummy, Knight and Day, Valkyrie, Lions for Lambs, The Outsiders.

I can’t remember how I feel about Rock of Ages.

When I was 15 or thereabouts my mother drove her three kids down to Washington, D.C. Stroll around, see the sights, absorb the governmental atmosphere. Motoring from Westfield, N.J. to the nation’s capitol and back again took about eight hours; I seem to recall flopping in some modest motel in a D.C. suburb.

At some point in the late afternoon my sister and I were both suddenly anxious about attending to #1. We were in the car and my mother was having trouble figuring where to drop us off (hotel, restaurant, anywhere). At one point we drove by a large fountain in Dupont Circle with water shooting out from 15 or 20 spigots, and my mom said “oh, God…a bad thing to contemplate in this situation…don’t look at it.” I recall glancing at her with irritation and thinking “Jesus, that’s an annoying thing to say, and certainly not funny.” But here I am recalling this decades later. The things that linger in the mind

9:25 pm: This morning I wrote 150 words about there being no rational basis for doubting the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. Somehow they were accidentally obliterated. But she’s the real deal — a hero — the new John Dean.

…since the late ’70s. Definitely catchy — you could even say throttling — in a flashy, one-hit-wonder way. The opening guitar-and-bongos prelude (the first 51 seconds) is the best part. I saw Dirk Hamilton and the band play a set at the Bitter End sometime around ’79 or ’80, and it was clear he was dealing with a serious case of stage fright. He quit music for two or three years but then came back to it, and is still plugging along.

“Unless Donald Trump is held accountable, I would say that our democracy is in grave danger. [Attorney General Merrick] Garland has said he’ll go to the top if that’s where the evidence points, and that’s certainly where it’s pointing now, and there are indications, certainly from the searches and seizures of both John Eastman and of others…strong evidence that the Justice Department is not stopping with the foot soldiers…it’s going to the generals, and the biggest general of all is Donald Trump…I do think the odds are that he will be indicted.”

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