The above was a Western Union-style message from an industry guy that I received this evening — seven words that might shake the world John Reed-style, and which, right now, are certainly putting a slight chill up the backs of Netflix execs after CODA having won SAG’s Best Film Ensemble prize.

“You’re kidding,” I replied. “In terms of Best Picture? I mean, I get the fact that it feels a lot warmer and more huggable than The Power of the Dog. But CODA is basically a heart-massaging sitcom, an ABC after-school special, La Famille Belier, etc. It’s fine but calm down, for heaven’s sake! Eugenio Derbez (Mexican music teacher) saved it.”

Regional director–writer: “CODA has the heart factor going for it, despite its plodding execution at times. POTD has zero support from the industry. It hasn’t won any guild awards. Belfast could benefit but that feels hollow at this point. CODA could start picking up momentum from the SAG win.”

Scott Feinberg analysis

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In a recent Gold Derby Best Actress discussion, Tom O’Neill stuck his neck out by saying there’s a lot of heartfelt support for The Eyes of Tammy Faye‘s Jessica Chastain. Right away Deadline‘s Pete Hammond said “I haven’t heard that,” and a second later IndieWire‘s Anne Thompson (or was it Variety‘s Tim Gray?) said the same.

O’Neill didn’t argue it out and later that day an HE commenter said “that was a gulp moment…O’Neill being shut down on the Chastain schpiel and being told ‘okay Tom, let it go.'”

And that, ladies and germs, set the stage for tonight’s wowser SAG awards surprise…Chastain has won for Best Actress!

None of the know-it-alls were that enthusiastic about her performance. They were all “yes, okay, a good performance but it was mainly about Jessica having worn a ton of silvery eye makeup.”

Which, generally speaking, low-rent SAG-AFTRA voters are always impressed by, of course. The first thing that your basic SAG rube votes for is “most acting,” and the second thing is “most dramatic physical alteration…weight gain or loss, fake nose (The Hours), loads of base and mascara,” etc.

Chastain beat The Lost Daughter‘s Olivia Colman, House of Gucci‘s Lady Gaga, Respect‘s Jennifer Hudson and Being The Ricardos‘ Nicole Kidman.

HE to Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone: If I’m not mistaken you said not too long ago that Kidman is probably the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar. If she ever was a front-runner, she’s certainly no longer that after tonight. She’s actually finished, I would say. (Probably.)

One by one the presumed front-runners have fallen by the wayside — first Spencer‘s Kristen Stewart, then Gaga, now Kidman.

HE to Academy: You can’t give the Oscar to Jennifer Hudson — well, you can but you won’t. And you don’t want to give Colman a second Oscar so soon after the first. And so the only tenable nominee to vote for is Parallel Mothers‘ Penelope Cruz! Who delivered the greatest performance among the five nominees anyway!

Posted last September:

“Last year’s woke Soderbergh Oscar telecast was the nadir…we realize that. The Oscars had been losing steam anyway, but the Union Station awards put a fork in it. In one fell swoop we destroyed whatever allure the Oscars once had.

“But this year will be different. We recognize it’s a live event television show and we must prioritize the television audience to increase viewer engagement and keep the show vital, kinetic, and relevant.” – A half-imagined quote from AMPAS honcho David Rubin.

John Mulaney’s SNL standup last night was excellent stuff. Delivered in his usual dry, ironic fashion, it was mostly about a drug dependency intervention that happened in late ‘20. It reminded me of my own ridiculous adventures in depravity, which I recalled four years ago in a piece called “Clam Chowder Sunday.”

From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (‘69) — written by William Goldman, performed by Strother Martin.

At the 34th annual USC Scripter awards, which honor scriptwriters and original source material authors as a tag team, The Lost Daughter‘s Maggie Gyllenhaal and novelist Elena Ferrante shared the top prize.

Which struck some of us as mildly surprising. It had been presumed in some quarters that Jane Campion‘s screenplay for The Power of the Dog, based on the same-titled 1967 Thomas Savage novel, would win instead, given Campion’s expected Best Director Oscar win plus Dog being well positioned to snag the Best Picture Oscar.

So does it mean anything that the Dog team fell short? Probably not but…

The other three film nominees were Passing, by Rebecca Hall and based on the book by Nella Larsen; Eric Roth, Jon Spaiths and Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune screenplay, based on Frank Herbert’s novel; and Joel Coen’s adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Last night (Friday, 2.25) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at the third annual America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, organized by white nationalist figurehead Nick Fuentes.

As Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling.

All Americans should renounce this garbage and reject the Putin wing of the GOP now. pic.twitter.com/6fgpV6ohZ8

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 26, 2022

“In Ohio, Senate candidate and Trump loyalist J.D. Vance said on a podcast that ‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,’ and tweeted that ‘our leaders care more about Ukraine’s border than they do our own.’

“Fox’s most popular host, Tucker Carlson, pooh-poohed the idea that Putin is an enemy: ‘Why do I hate Putin so much?’ he said. ‘Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?'” — from Marc Fisher‘s 1.25 Washington Post story “How Republicans moved from Reagan’s ‘evil empire’ to Trump’s praise for Putin”

Donald Trump is a traitor and a national security threat. https://t.co/ymkBH4BdRO

— VoteVets (@votevets) February 27, 2022

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In the wake of West Side Story and the upcoming semi-autobiographical The Fablemans, Steven Spielberg has clearly been on a mid 20th Century kick in which he’s mined memories of his youth. This is continuing with news that he and screenwriter Josh Singer are developing an original feature based on the character of Frank Bullitt, the San Francisco plainclothes detective played by Steve McQueen in Peter Yates‘ Bullitt (’68).

Translation: Spielberg wants to re-shoot that legendary car chase. And it might be cool to see him try to top what Yates and McQueen created as that Mustang and Dodge Charger burned rubber all over town.

But nobody can make that unique Bullitt thing happen again. The film was shot 55 years ago in a fairly simplified, lean-and-mean, flying-hubcaps style, but the San Francisco of that era (when the psychedelic revolution was being felt big-time) no longer exists, of course, and no actor can replicate that impeccable McQueen cool. And how many Bullitt-like car chases have been shot in the decades since?

It would be fascinating if Spielberg and Singer decided to set their film in mid ’60s San Francisco, but God, the expense!

In the same way that I re-watched Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion when the pandemic began in March 2020, I feel like re-watching Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, a 2017 doc about the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine from 11.21.13 to 2.23.14.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review:

Regional friendo: “I finally got around to watching CODA. Maybe I missed something?  It plays like a randy after-school special with fart jokes and broad sitcom sex jokes.  The rising above one’s station in life is nothing new.  It’s all played very safe.  More cloying than moving.  I’m probably in the minority. It’s one of those films that is nearly critic-proof. If you knock it, then you probably hate kittens, puppies, Santa, and kids. It reeks of ‘TV movie’. Nothing worse than calculated sentimentality and cheap emotional scenes. I’d rather spend more time with the Guccis than this crowd.”

HE comment: I was irked by the beginning of the Berklee School of Music audition scene, when it initially appears as if Emilia Jones‘ character is choking (i.e., lack of confidence). This is a cheap device that some directors resort to — the big moment arrives and our lead protagonist has to deliver or die, and it seems as if he/she is going to drop the ball but then…recovery! Mimi Leder‘s On The Basis of Sex pulled the same crap when Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) is about to deliver a big argument before the Court of Appeals, and seems to hesitate and stammer before getting it together.

Woody Allen‘s Love and Death (’75), a satire of early 18th Century Russia and the philosophical issues that weighed heavily upon the brooding types of that era, is a very clever and inventive film. Thick with allusions to Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and the plots of War and Peace, The Gambler, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. Shot with some difficulty in France and Hungary but handsomely produced, it’s…what’s a fair description?…decently diverting.

The only problem with Love and Death (which I caught in June ’75 at the Westport Fine Arts Cinema) is that it’s not really “funny.” Okay, I silently snickered three or four times but snickers don’t count.

Actually, I laughed once. Woody’s “Boris Grushenko” and Diane Keaton‘s “Sonja” are married and starving and forced to eat melted ice and snow. One evening Sonja announces that they have a special treat for dinner — sleet. “Oh, fantastic…sleet!,” Boris enthuses. Why has this one 47-year-old joke resonated? It’s the only one I can vividly recall.