Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich is an excellent editor as far as year-end recaps are concerned, but my God, what a mostly horrible year 2021 was, excepting the top 30 that I mentioned in this 12.19.21 post. Okay, not the films as much as that hideous Sparks song from Annette, “So May We Start?”…Jesus. Not to mention The Green Knight and the dour melancholy pills represented by Spencer and The Power of the Dog. Was 2021 as bad as 2020? Perhaps not, but it sure came close.

“Jesus…losing power…I gotta land this thing now, but where?…God, I’m Sully Sullenberger!…think fast!…oh, wait, maybe I can land on those railroad tracks up ahead…yeah, that works…okay, don’t panic…set her down…just aim for those tracks….yeah, that’s it.”

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From Richard Rushfield‘s latest Ankler column, “The Sound of No Globes Clapping“: “While founded as a promotional vehicle for Hollywood films, there’s a very good case to be made that the awards firmament these days (Oscars, Globes, CCA, BAFTAs, guilds, critics groups) may actually chase more viewers away than it brings in, if you look at this from the audiences’ perspective (remember them?).”

In other words, the cinematic intrigues of Joe and Jane Popcorn and the awards-giving fraternity used to overlap on occasion and would be “good for business,” as the phrase goes.

As recently as five or six years ago, Best Picture competitiveness for films like La La Land ($447 million worldwide), Manchester By The Sea ($79 million worldwide) and Moonlight ($65 million worldwide) would occasionally translate into good box-office energy. The term “quality-level awards contender” used to mean “hmmm, maybe it’s worth catching at the AMC plex.”

But no longer. In fact, once the word gets out that Guy Lodge, Amy Nicholson, Eric Kohn, David Fear, Ella Taylor, Walter Chaw, David Ehrlich and Justin Chang are strongly recommending this or that film, your basic popcorn hoi polloi response is “okay, definitely not theatrical….not if those guys are high on it…strictly an HBO Max or Netflix or Amazon-er…maybe.”

Rushfield: “On that entire campaign trail there was exactly one stop” — i.e., the Golden Globes — “that wasn’t a burden to slog through. Yes, it was thrown by people whom ‘The Community’ didn’t take totally seriously. But maybe it wasn’t such a horrible thing for stars-participants-audience to refuse to treat an awards show with the same solemnity as, say, the announcement of a new cancer treatment.

“And now, congratulations…at a moment when Hollywood is, shall we say, realigning its relationship with the viewing public, they got rid of the one event that stood a chance still of winning over a few fans, portraying the Hollywood weltanschauung in a slightly less weltschmertzy light. With essentially sizzle reels for TV shows and films, and stars who weren’t birthed on TikTok.”

Posted by Newsweek‘s Jon Jackson at 1:08 pm Pacific: “Pope Francis warned on Monday about the ‘one-track thinking’ caused by “cancel culture” as well as the spread of misinformation related to COVID-19 and vaccines.

“In comments made during an address to diplomats, the pope cautioned against ‘a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the cancel culture invading many circles and public institutions.”

“Reuters reported that the pontiff said the words ‘cancel culture’ in English while otherwise speaking in Italian during the long speech. The news agency speculated that he chose to do so because the topic is a point of controversy in English-speaking countries like the U.S.”

Pope Francis went on to chastise Hollywood publicists and talent managers for deciding en masse last year to cancel the “flawed but human” Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globe awards.

“We’ve all recognized for many decades that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is just another an organization of prostitutes…a group looking to promote Hollywood product, and in so doing enjoy the industry perks and enrich itself and take a ride on the gravy train,” the pontiff said. “Which is exactly the same goal and attitude of Joey Berlin and the Critics Choice Association. There are no priests or nuns in this racket, and they all have their hand out.

“We all understand, of course, that the HFPA was slow to adapt to the requirements of urban progressive culture by failing to add journalists of color to their ranks. But does that make them evil? Does this mean they need to die?”

Okay, the previous three paragraphs are entirely fictitious. Pope Francis said nothing earlier today about the Hollywood Foreign Press and the Golden Globes. But he might well have come to this conclusion privately. If he cared one way or the other. Maybe.

Now that he’s joined the anti-wokester brigade, Pope Francis surely recognizes that woke cancer has spread in a thousand different directions over the last four or five years, and that the people who decided to kill the Golden Globes in order to demonstrate the intensity of their commitment to anti-racism…Pope Francis surely understands that they’ve basically decided to commit a form of award-season hari kiri, and for no reason other than virtue-signalling.

Only fools would contend that Joey Berlin and the CCA are more moral or less race-conscious or more socially responsible than the HFPA. They’re all industry whores, all shilling at the trough, and the Hollywood machine has enjoyed the enthusiasms of these two groups for many years (decades in the case of the HFPA) so cut the shit, sonny.

Two days ago I wrote about the loss and recovery of my favorite comb, which I named “default blackie.” Nicely average-sized and bendable or, if you will, agreeably rubbery. And yet if I was being 100% honest I would’ve admitted that blackie isn’t quite small enough — my ideal size is around 75% or 80% of that dimension.

This morning I was cleaning our outdoor sunporch area, which involved removing all the plants and sweeping up the residue. Lo and behold I discovered a muddy, gunky, slime-covered junior-sized blackie, which had probably been out there for years. Tatiana saw my expression and cried out, “Oh, no, don’t do theese!”

A half-hour later I was scrubbing the rescue comb with a bristle brush, liquid soap and scalding hot water, over and over. Now it’s as good as new. I know this sounds like a minor incident within the great scheme, but it felt like an excellent thing.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

Will Smith, King Richard

BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

West Side Story (20th Century Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Rachel Zegler, West Side Story

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick…Boom!

BEST MOTION PICTURE – ANIMATED

Encanto (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

BEST MOTION PICTURE – NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE (FORMERLY FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

Drive My Car (Japan / Janus Films)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN ANY MOTION PICTURE

Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN ANY MOTION PICTURE

Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE

Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

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TMZ is reporting that Full House‘s Bob Saget has died. He was only 65, and in the middle of a multi-city tour and, to go by recent tweets, having a great time. “Multiple sources” have told TMZ that Saget passed late this afternoon (Sunday) at Orlando’s Ritz-Carlton. Quite unexpectedly. Very sorry.

Loving beyond words being on tour —And doing an all new show of standup and music. Hope to see you out there. More dates being added continually as we go further into 2022… For tickets, go to: https://t.co/nqJyTi0Dbk pic.twitter.com/ECSOpGt1K0

— bob saget (@bobsaget) December 9, 2021

I’m sorry to report that Woodstock organizer-producer Michael Lang has passed at age 77. Taken by cancer (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) at Manhattan’s Sloan Kettering hospital…tough break. I last spoke with Lang at the June 2009 Manhattan press junket for the Woodstock Bluray, which I own to this day. He struck me as lucid, settled, self-accepting and open to possibilities.

It’s less well known that Lang provided the funding for the re-shooting (or extended shooting) of Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson‘s original black-and-white Bottle Rocket short. Here’s how I explained it on 7.28.11:

It’s fairly common knowledge that the key movers and shakers in turning Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson‘s Bottle Rocket (’96) into a “go” feature were the late Polly Platt, producer-screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson and concert promoter and Woodstock ’69 maestro Michael Lang.

Bottle Rocket was green-lighted because Carson slipped the 13-minute black-and-white Bottle Rocket short — directed by Anderson, co-written by Wes and Owen and exec produced by Carson and Lang — to Platt in early ’94. The short had just played at Sundance, and Platt was involved in cutting the doomed musical I’ll Do Anything with director James L. Brooks.

Carson had seen a few minutes of rough footage that Anderson had shot, and convinced Lang to invest $7500 to pay for the short’s production costs.

“Polly was the person who persuaded Jim Brooks to watch the Bottle Rocket short during lunch break,” says Carson. “They were in the editing room on I’ll Do Anything, and she stuck the tape into a VHS player and and made him watch it. When it ended Brooks looked up and said, ‘What’s anybody waiting for? Make a deal. This is a go picture.’ No-shit-thanks, Polly Platt, for this movie.”

Here’s part 1 and part 2 of the original Bottle Rocket short.

“Wes and Owen had showed me some rough footage,” Carson recalls. ” It wasn’t even a cut-together film. I got Michael Lang to write a check for $7500, and we took that and re-shot the short.”

Current Sundance honcho John Cooper was a programmer at the time, and he told Carson’s partner Cynthia Hargrave that the short “‘has to be 13 minutes and no longer” so that’s the length they cut it to.

After the Sundance showing Carson sent the tape to Platt at the recommendation of producer Barbara Boyle, who’s now a senior professor/chair/something-or-other with UCLA’s film program.

Bottle Rocket being greenlighted by Brooks and Columbia “was a major moment….a comet coming out of the universe and hitting Wes Anderson on his left shoulder,” says Carson.

(l. to r.) The late Polly Platt, Wes Anderson, L.M. Kit Carson, Michael Lang.

…and perhaps even breathtaking happened in my head when I accidentally mis-titled Jane Campion’s 1920s Montana western. All I knew was that the attitude suggested by The Power of the Doug felt curiously liberating. If the first name of Benedict Cumberbatch’s smelly, snarly, well-educated, self-loathing gay guy had been “Doug” instead of “Phil”, the whole package would have radiated a different mood or tone. Just don’t ask me to explain.

…about being blissfully and contentedly ignorant about movies. To hear it from Alia Shawkat, there are definite generational differences between Zoomers and Millenials (including sexual histories).

I’m not saying that exploratory, real-world, adult-level filmmaking has disappeared altogether. It pops up on rare occasions — Parallel Mothers, King Richard, The Lost Daughter, Drive My Car, The Worst Person in the World, Riders of Justice, Zola, Licorice Pizza, The Card Counter. It just seems that so many films are woke instructionals — movies that seek to educate audiences about how things shouldn’t be and where our brave and gleaming future lies, and how things should have been in the past (i.e., presentism).

Woke Stalinism hasn’t entirely taken over the streaming narrative art form (i.e., movies), but it’s certainly changed the game. The basic idea is to instruct the general population how to think and behave. It’s 1930s social realism with a 21st Century spin. Movies are no longer for the most part about entertainment or transportation or soul-massaging — they’re about lessons from the comintern.

The Power of the Dog instructs all macho stinky gay guys to own their lives and bodies and not devote themselves to making the lives of others so miserable. The Tender Bar instructs us to disregard the fact that young lads who resemble a Jordanian version of a tweener Omar Sharif can easily and naturally grow up to look like Tye Sheridan, or at least that it’s more important to pretend this could happen than to acknowledge biological reality. (While concurrently instructing all film critics to not even mention this aspect of the film, if they know what’s good for them.) Belfast tells us to smile and bask in the warmth of the family unit and the joys of puppy love and karaoke-style singing. (And not so much about “the troubles”, especially considering that Kenneth Branagh‘s childhood family members are Protestant and therefore somewhat loyal to the British.) The found footage of Summer of Soul instructs us to celebrate African-American culture and the joy of great thumpin’ and crankin’ and wailin’ (including the sounds of the legendary Sly and the Family Stone), and to remind industry and press veterans that if they fail to nominate Summer of Soul for Best Documentary then they might be racists, and might therefore have to face appropriate penalties for same.

Posted on 3.22.21: “The bottom line is that the erratic pursuit of sweeping, penetrating, soul-touching art (a rare achievement but one that has occasionally manifested over the decades) has been more or less called off, it seems, because such films or aspirations, in the view of certain #MeToo and multi-cultural progressives, don’t serve the current woke-political narrative.

“There is, in fact, a historical precedent for what’s going on right now, and it’s nicely recounted on page 30 and 31 of Tom Wolfe‘s “The Painted Word“. Because what happened in the modern art world in the 1930s — i.e, the dominance of “social realism” — precisely mirrors what’s going on today.

“For upscale, sensitive-person, social-reflection dramas have fallen under the influence of a new form of ’30s social realism and, it could certainly be argued, are being used to illustrate and argue against social ills that wokesters regard as evil and diseased. The result has been a new form of enlightened propaganda cinema.”

Friendo: “Yellowstone shocked everyone when it turned out to be a huge hit, even though it’s basically hardcore macho men and sexy women. Which is something you never get from movies these days. Everything has been muted, feminized, Stalinized. Putting a female in the lead of a movie like the most recent Terminator…who gives a shit? Wokesters have just spun things out with no real sense of who they are — it’s just ‘knock down the next thing.’ But what they’ve done to film art is crushing, just crushing.”

Jordan Ruimy: “I read your ‘wokeness has taken over American film’ piece (we’ve been saying this since Moonlight / Get Out**). It’s honestly a great reason to just full-on embrace European cinema. They don’t have much wokeness. Cannes and Venice, brah. Very soon our yearly top ten lists will be 90% Euro cinema.”

** HE adds: “And the kowtowing tyranny of Bob Strauss-style critics.”