There are three things that a film has to do in order to qualify for eternal blue-ribbon, Mount Olympus status and the simultaneous allegiance of Joe and Jane Popcorn along with your elitist, dweeb-level, ivory-tower critics.

One, it has to deliver the plain, honest truth (or undercurrent of truth) about a given world or situation — along with a little entertainment value, okay, but without undue exaggeration, no shallow exploitation, not too much sugar or vinegar, and no blatant bullshit of any kind. (This requirement in itself leaves out at least 80% of commercial cinema.)

Two, it has to persuade audiences to emotionally invest in it — to trust what it’s doing and where it seems to be going.

And three, it has to put you into a kind of alternate-reality mescaline dream state that you want to stay in and never leave, or at least make you want to return to frequently — a realm that feels so inviting or stylistically transporting that you want to live in it, even if it seems a bit dangerous.

Yes, of course — all movies are dream states, in a way. The better ones always lead to a certain primal feeling of alteration or discovery (the film has taken you to an entirely new but seemingly straightforward place) or emotional comfort and reassurance. But the ones that hit the jackpot are the ones that tell you what this or that slice of life on planet earth (or life aboard an intergalactic space cruiser) is basically like …how it really is…the full, honest, non-delusional truth of things.

There is no bullshit and nothing but truth in The Bicycle Thief (notice that I didn’t call it The Bicycle Thieves), North by Northwest, East of Eden, Mean Streets, Repo Man, Election, The Hospital, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, David Fincher‘s Mindhunter series, Gunga Din, Some Like It Hot, Two Women, La Strada, Zero Dark Thirty, Vertigo, Fellini Satyricon, Manchester By The Sea, Paths of Glory, Vertigo, Nomadland, Only Angels Have Wings, Collateral and 12 Years A Slave.

Except I didn’t want to live in or even visit the Nomadland realm (bucket pooping, bald tires, borrowing money for van repairs, shooting the shit around campfires) so I guess it doesn’t qualify.

Let’s look at the 2021 Best Picture contenders and ask ourselves “which of these films did we actually want to live in, or at least frequently visit?” The general truth is nobody wanted to live in [most of] these films, and that’s one basic reason why nobody watched last month’s Oscar telecast.

On 2.23.21 HE noticed a FYC ad for The Father that suggested Anthony Hopkins‘ character was a clever, debonair sort, perhaps a tad unscrupulous or caddish but never without a rapier retort when his daughter, played by Olivia Colman, questioned his thinking, morals or behavior, even though her attitude was always one of amusement. Now, in ads for the 6.11 British opening of Florian Zeller’s film, the Sly Fox is back. Except this time around Colman appears delighted by her dad’s rascally ways. No more sighing, eye-rolling or tearful regrets of any kind — eccentric old dad is simply irresistable. A scoundrel, but she can’t help herself!

Art by HE regular Michael Gebert:

So with Los Angeles opening up (restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls) and on the day that President Biden and the CDC announced that masks are no longer required for fully vaccinated adults (indoors and outside), Bill Maher, who’s been fully vaccinated, tests positive for COVID. This Friday’s show has been cancelled. Bizarre on Maher’s part (reportedly asymptomatic), and over-cautious on HBO’s, it seems. They can’t do another show or two from Maher’s Bel Air home, like they did last year?

Leslie Jones to “Just for Variety“‘s Marc Malkin (5.12): “When [the COVID vaccines] first came out I was like, ‘I’m not taking that shit.’ They’re just going to come up with a potion and we’re supposed to take that shit? I was like, ‘I’m going to wait until the last batch and then maybe somebody could talk me into it.’

“But then Jones spoke to her aunt’s friend, a biologist working in COVID research. “She was like, ‘This is very serious…please get vaccinated.’ But Jones still wasn’t ready until she was asked to host the MTV Movie & TV Awards, airing live from Los Angeles on 5.16: “I was like, ‘I gotta be sage so let me just go bite the bullet.’”

In other words, if serendipity and self–interest hadn’t intervened — if Jones hadn’t spoken to her aunt’s biologist friend and hadn’t landed a MTV Awards hosting gig — she might still be a vaccine hold-out. America ravaged by 583,000 COVID deaths, a life-saving vaccine finally comes along and in certain quarters the response is “no way!” Brilliant.

When the COVID vaccines began to be available earlier this year, I was like ‘how can I get that shit? I wanna get jabbed and quick…where do I sign up and how do I do it?” My first injection happened on 2.23, the second on 3.16.

Posted on 11.20.07: I’d love to get into Denzel Washington‘s The Great Debaters, which I saw this evening, but it’s early yet. Discussions and terms await. But it’s essential to mention Nate Parker, who plays one of three African-American debaters (the other two played by Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker) from Wiley College in 1935 who wound up debating the Harvard University team, under the guidance of Washington’s Melvin B. Tolson.

Nate Parker

I’ve never seen Parker before, but he’s got it. Charismatic, good-looking…a “tan” Paul Newman (as Newman was in The Young Philadelphians) who looks people in the eye cool and steady, and perhaps has a slight weakness for women.

Parker has only been in the game since ’04. He’s acted only on TV and in crappy movies so far. (I missed his supporting performance in Pride, the swim-team sports movie with Terrence Howard and Bernie Mac that opened last March.) Worse, his next two are low-rent exploitation films — Tunnel Rats (directed by — yipes! — Uwe Boll) and Felon. The Great Debaters is Parker’s first and only A-level effort. He needs to build on it and move in another direction, or in five years he’ll be Dorian Harewood. It’s his call.

All I know is, Parker has a quality, a presence, a vibe. He could be another Denzel. A small group I spoke with after tonight’s screening agreed on this point, or at least that he’s Newman-esque. It’ll be intriguing to see what happens.

Unable to recall or even investigate where this remote horse ranch in the Belizean jungle was located, or the name of the couple who ran it. The guy was from Texas — I remember that much. And the howler monkeys in the high trees. And the fact that we went swimming in a lake, and under a waterfall. Fall of ’90, 30 and 1/2 years ago.

I love listening to Oliver Stone expound on any subject — everything he says is human, honest, heartfelt, perceptive. But I couldn’t listen at the beginning of this chat with Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday because he couldn’t get the framing right. His phone wouldn’t hold position and kept tipping upwards. And he’s sitting too far back. Oliver finally got it after four or five minutes.

The interview is about the paperback edition of Stone’s “Chasing The Light.”

Chilly, calculating eyes are fairly common in any social business environment. Some peepers may radiate inner warmth or sincerity, of course, but many don’t. I personally don’t think you can really “read” anyone’s eyes unless you have close proximity. And yet Christian Bale once (allegedly) claimed he could sense coldness or emptiness behind Tom Cruise‘s eyes. So if Bale went there, it’s fair to ask the HE community who else seems to have a certain robotic vacancy behind the eyes.

Not discerning or shrewd eyes — that’s something else. I mean eyes that block and tell you nothing.

“Everyone reflexively smiles when they meet people socially. Some smile slightly, some a little too much but often with the same glazed eyes. Not much sincerity offered or expected. Mostly. Their teeth are gleaming but their eyes are scanning you like a Manhattan detective, trying to assess your nature or strengths or potential threat levels in the space of two or three seconds.

“I felt this when I met CAA honcho Mike Ovitz in ’88 — he had the eyes of a timber wolf. The eyes of MPAA president Jack Valenti, whom I met in ’84 at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, weren’t as feral but he was definitely sizing me up.” — posted on 9.25.16.

“You got cop’s eyes” — Julie Harris to Paul Newman in Jack Smight‘s Harper (’66).

“I walked with him, right beside him, back into the hotel. And his eyes rested upon mine a couple of times. He didn’t know me well, only slightly. And his eyes were absolutely cold, always…really cold gray. The smile was in the [eye] crinkles and in the mouth and the big teeth, but the eyes always remained, I always thought, very cold and calculating.” — Robert MacNeil on JFK on 11.22.63, 2:10 to 2:31, emmytvlegends.org.

You don’t have to agree with, much less admire, a politician or activist to acknowledge that they showed courage by sticking to their principles under fire.

In yesterday’s riff about the trailer for Tom McCarthy‘s Stillwater (Focus Features, 7.30), I shared reservations about Matt Damon‘s “yokelish Midwesterner who probably loves Donald Trump and resembles those generic beastly types who stormed the Capitol.

“I’m sorry but I don’t care for heavy-set fellows who swallow their words…vaguely surly, low-key clock punchers who drawl ‘yes sir’ and ‘yes ma’am’ and still insist the election was stolen…I love hanging with super-smart reporters who work for the Boston Globe, but not Jesse Plemons gutty-wuts like this.”

To which Correcting Jeff wrote, “At least Wells owns being an ass.”

HE to Correcting Jeff: “In what way exactly is it asinine to say what I said above?

“Audiences like certain characters and they dislike others. It’s a common, natural process. Basic human appeal, intelligence, decency, spunk, charisma, relatability, compelling energy…these things and more go into determining whether you want to hang with a certain character for the length of a feature film or not.

“I was persuaded by the Stillwater trailer that I don’t especially want to hang with Damon’s burly hinterland character. Based on the lack of above-mentioned qualities. How exactly does this make me an ass?

“If McCarthy and Damon had simply agreed before shooting that Damon’s overly performed bumblefuck character would be too much of an obstacle for people like me, and that the wiser course would be to have Damon drop 15 or 20 pounds and play the guy as if he’s Matt Damon, the movie star, only from Oklahoma — a guy with an intelligent appreciation of the life’s ins and outs, no blue-collar baseball hat, no swallowing of consonants, no cornbelt accent — if they’d done this the movie would be A LOT more appealing.

“I don’t want to spend two hours with a schlubby guy whose friends, one imagines, could have easily stormed the U.S. Capitol on 1.6.21.”

My Warner Archive Bluray of They Won’t Believe Me (’47) arrived yesterday; I watched it last night. Produced by Joan Harrison, written by Jonathan Latimer and directed by Irving Pichel, this RKO release has acquired a reputation in some circles as a tasty, extra-dark potboiler — required viewing if you’re any kind of film-noir fanatic.

It’s dark, all right, and I’m not sorry I saw it, but it’s a completely unbelievable, ridiculously over-plotted piece about a doomed nogoodnik — Robert Young‘s slimey, squishy, wholly unsympathetic Larry Ballentine**. The plot is mainly about how Ballentine hoodwinks, strings along and betrays three women — a gold-digger (Susan Hayward), a journalist (Jane Greer) and his rich, endlessly forgiving wife (Rita Johnson).

It makes no sense that Hayward, Greer and Johnson are each in love with Young — he’s obviously a waste of skin. If “they won’t believe me” is Ballentine’s lament, the obvious reply is “why the hell should they?”

The only aspect that really works (in a WTF, blunt-trauma way) is the bizarre ending when Ballentine, on trial for killing his wife Greta, tries to commit suicide by leaping out of a courtroom window on the fifth or sixth floor, just before the verdict is announced. A trigger-happy marshall shoots and kills Ballentine as he reaches the window ledge. And then they read the verdict.

I’ve honestly never disliked a lead character as much as this, and Young’s performance is no help. He’s playing an absolute cipher and a cad — a Shallow Hal with no smarts, no passion, no cunning, no wit, no sense of irony about himself, no style. Robert Mitchum‘s sardonic private detective in Out of the Past is shady but likable — Young is detestable. Within minutes you’re rooting for his demise. It’s no surprise that They Won’t Believe Me flopped.

If your idea of an A-level noir is Out of the Past, Double Indemnity or The Big Sleep, rest assured that They Won’t Believe Me is at best a C.

The 4K transfer has been nicely finessed — the 74 year-old film looks as good as it ever will. A nice silvery sheen, excellent black levels, finely detailed.

I was so bored I began thinking about Young’s actual life, and how he was plagued by alcoholism and depression despite a career that enjoyed a fair amount of comfort from playing the title roles in two popular, long-running TV shows, Father Knows Best (’54 to ’60) and Marcus Welby (’69 to ’76). The poor guy tried to commit suicide when he was 84. (Who does that?) He passed in ’98 at age 91.

I thought last year’s Ellen DeGeneres “mean boss” melodrama (which lasted for several weeks during August and September) had cooled down and that things were more or less chill. Nope! After moving in with Courteney Cox following the sale of her Beverly Hills home, Ellen has decided to quit her show next year. Because…? Ratings, I guess, but the real reason will be kept under wraps as long as humanly possible.