Directed and written by Melville Shavelson and starring Charlton Heston and Harry Guardino, The Pigeon That Took Rome (6.20.62) is a comedy set in the final days of World War II. Don’t forget that Rome was captured by the Allies on 6.4.44.

“In 1944, during the last stages of the war in Europe, American officers Paul MacDougall (Heston) and Joseph Angelico (Guardino) are sent to Rome to act as spies for the Allies, even though they have no experience in espionage. Working with Partisan resistance soldier Ciccio Massimo (Salvatore Baccaloni), MacDougall and Contini send regular reports to their superiors by carrier pigeon.

“Angelico also finds himself falling in love with Massimo’s pregnant daughter Rosalba (Gabriella Pallotta), while her sister Antonella (Elsa Martinelli) has her eye on MacDougall. Angelico proposes to Rosalba, and Ciccio prepares a feast to celebrate his daughter’s upcoming wedding. However, Ciccio prepares squab for the occasion, killing all but one of the carrier pigeons. Ciccio scrambles to replace them, but the new pigeons he finds are German, and they deliver MacDougall’s and Angelico’s messages directly into enemy hands, creating new confusion.”

…you’re basically telling the audience, “Okay, guys…time to grim up and grapple with those uh-oh Jesse Plemons vibes. One look at that kisser and it’s like “okay, here we go.”

Plemons was just cast by Martin Scorsese in a major role in Killers of the Flower Moon, as a top-dog FBI agent investigating a string of murders of Native Americans in 1920’s Oklahoma. Plemons can be best described, no offense, as (a) a funny-looking Matt Damon, (b) a creepy looking Matt Damon with a drug problem or (c) a space-aliens version of Matt Damon after being kidnapped 40 years ago and just returned to earth except he hasn’t aged a day — kidnapped at 45, still looks 45.

You can’t go wrong with Plemons…those demon eyes, that copper-meets-carrot cake hair.

I love the “big smelly fish in the back seat of the maroon-colored sedan” scene in The Irishman. Plemons played Chuckie “dumb shit” O’Brien. Questioned about what kind of fish has stunk the car up, Plemons is too dumb to simply say “look, a friend of mine ordered it…I just picked it up.” Instead he prolongs it, fucks around, refuses to tell the guy that it’ wasn’t his fish. O’Brien was also too dumb to put the fish into a bucket of ice and then put it in the trunk. Instead he wraps it up in newspaper and then places it on the back seat, and smells the whole car up.

…for all those millions of Midwesterners and particularly suffering Texans who are all but freezing to death as we speak, I’m sorry. I hate extreme cold — the kind of windy cold that sometimes descends upon Boston and Chicago around thus time of year. 26 degrees in Austin, 18 degrees in Park City, etc.

CBS News: “A Texas mayor resigned after seemingly telling residents to fend for themselves in a Facebook post amid a deadly and record-breaking winter storm that left much of the state without power Tuesday. ‘No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Body said on Facebook. “Nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim — it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and fired of people looking for a damn handout.”

A “friendo” whom I know pretty well and whose opinions I don’t always agree with but whose observations are always fairly spot-on…this person has seen Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick‘s four-part Allen v. Farrow (HBO Max, starting on 2.21), and I’m upset and alarmed about what he told me, which is that he found the doc persuasive. Not in a conclusive smoking-gun sense, but in a way that registered. He went into it with a “show me” attitude and came out with his mind…well, nudged to some extent.

“Friendo” has read tons of material about Woody Mia Dylan Soon Yi over the last 28 years — he knows the turf pretty well. And he shares my view that certain adamant kneejerkers from the film realm were all too willing in years past to cast Woody aside. The doc nonetheless persuaded him as far as it goes that Allen may (emphasis on the “m” word) be guilty of committing an act of one-off incest with Dylan Farrow on 8.4.92. Just allowing for the possibility that the Woody haters…I don’t want to think about it. I’ve been on the Woody-is-innocent team for such a long time.

“Friendo” didn’t arrive at this conclusion suspicion without thinking it over good and hard. And he says the doc is “not” a hatchet job, in part because of the craft levels.

I’ve requested a link to Allen v. Farrow but until HBO coughs one up I’ve obviously no basis from which to accept or argue. The Woody friendlies (including Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman and Allen friend and confidante Bob Weide, who posted a sight-unseen assessment roughly a week ago) have vented suspicions and logical counterpoints all along, as I have. But Weide hasn’t seen the doc and even says he doesn’t want to.

Another journo colleague who’s never been part of the lynch mob says the doc is not a slam-dunk or dispositive, and yet Moses Farrow’s landmark 2018 essay (“A Son Speaks Out“) is challenged in the doc by members of the family, as well as by Allen’s own testimony in a child custody hearing. Allen allegedly stated, I’m told, that Moses had “gone for a walk that afternoon and was not in the house.”

Plus, I’m also told, the doc shows a police drawing of the attic in which the alleged molestation took place. Despite Moses’ claim that were no train tracks or toy-sized trains of any kind in the attic, the drawing allegedly shows train tracks and a toy train set-up of some kind.

Not in the house? A plain-spoken offering of first-hand testimony from a then-14 year-old kid who was there on that fateful day, and who is currently a licensed marriage and family therapist…I’m sorry but I was sold early on. Moses’ claim that there was no operating train set in the attic has always been, for me, one of the most important pieces of testimony. Moses states in the essay, in fact, that the train set was sitting in a kind of downstairs play room for the boys.

Now comes an alleged image, supplied by the Connecticut police, that argues with this? And Moses wasn’t even around when the alleged incident took place? What’s going on here?

Jerry Zucker‘s Ghost (’90) implanted a creepy idea in the minds of millions — that when a seemingly evil or at least dastardly person dies (like, say, Tony Goldwyn‘s “Carl” or Rick Aviles‘ “Willie”), his soul is surrounded by a crew of shadowy growling demons who grab hold and take him down to hell. I’d be lying if I said this image didn’t manifest when I read about the death of Rush Limbaugh, a victim of lung cancer at age 70.

A truculent and blathery broadcaster of a long series of Big Rightwing Lies since he became a nationwide brand in the early ’90s (although he’d been making a lot of noise as a radio talk-show guy starting in the late ’80s), Limbaugh is, was and always will be the grandfather of rightwing disinformation and bullshit, right up to a radio show statement he made on 2.24.20 about the coronavirus: “I’m dead right on this…the coronavirus is the common cold, folks,” adding that it was being “weaponized” to bring down Trump.

When Limbaugh’s lung cancer diagnosis was announced three weeks earlier, or on 2.3.20, I posted the following: “I want to say this plainly but carefully: I did not feel profound sadness when I read of Rush Limbaugh’s condition. His strident-rightie rhetoric did a lot to inflame Bumblefuck Nation and rupture the fabric of civility in this country and fortify the toxicity that fuels the culture-war fires to this day. In the eyes of many millions Limbaugh is a flat-out villain. Anyone on my side of the battlefield (i.e., with a liberal or left-center attitude or philosophy) who says he/she feels badly about Limbaugh’s misfortune is just ‘saying that’, trust me.”

But of course, there is no cosmic moral judgment system that sends guys like Limbaugh to the caverns of hell and others into the clouds of heaven. I regret to say that death is a non-judgmental, non-denominational agent of flatline finality and that’s all. Nothing would give me more comfort than to learn otherwise…to learn that the 21 grams of spiritual matter that used to reside inside the body of Rush Limbaugh is hovering in some dark, self-loathing place. Wherever and whatever that is, it’s probably safe to say that Donald Trump‘s soul will be joining him down the road.

The Robert Towne-David Fincher commentary track is perfect. You don’t need to concurrently re-watch the film for the 17th or 18th time. Dialogue + commentary, smooth as silk. Incidentally: All these years in Los Angeles, and I’ve never once visited Walker’s Cafe (700 W Paseo Del Mar San Pedro, CA 90731).

From the 2.15 edition of “The Conversation“, co-authored by N.Y. Times columnist Gail Collins and Bret Stephens:

Bret: “From a political standpoint, Nikki Haley has played her cards pretty astutely. She might be the only potential GOP candidate who can unite the party. She’s smart, charismatic, has a great personal story, did the right thing as governor of South Carolina by getting rid of the Confederate flag from the State House soon after the Charleston church slaughter, and was effective as U.N. ambassador. If she wins the nomination she’d be a formidable challenger to the Democratic nominee, whoever that winds up being.”

Gail: “Wow, Kamala vs. Nikki.”

Bret: “Interesting that Kamala ’24 already seems like a foregone conclusion. Shades of Hillary ’08? Haley’s dodges and maneuvers are a bit too transparent. And her brand of mainstream Republican conservatism is just out of step for a party that is increasingly out of its mind.”

Gail: “Still, you’ve got me obsessing about an all-female presidential race.”

Bret: “About time.”

HE reaction: Stephens is probably right. Republicans don’t want to nominate a classic conservative as much as a lunatic — Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, somebody who might capture the nut fringe. The only thing that worries me about Kamala is her speech-giving voice — shaky timbre, uninspired phrasing. I’d be just as happy with Gretchen Whitmer. And I’d be extra-delighted if Pete Buttigieg runs again.

“The art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned and reduced to its lowest common denominator — ‘content.’

“As recently as fifteen years ago, the term ‘content‘ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form.’ Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should.

“’Content’ became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It was linked, of course, not to the theatrical experience but to home viewing, on the streaming platforms that have come to overtake the moviegoing experience, just as Amazon overtook physical stores.

“On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t. If further viewing is ‘suggested’ by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema?

“Curating isn’t undemocratic or ‘elitist,’ a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity — you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. (The best streaming platforms, such as the Criterion Channel and MUBI and traditional outlets such as TCM, are based on curating — they’re actually curated.) Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.” — Martin Scorsese in a Harper‘s essay about Federico Fellini, titled “Il Maestro.”

After the Blake Lively Boone Hall wedding catastrophe of a few years ago, who could have possibly failed to understand that attending any kind of Antebellum South event was extremely unwise if not flat-out stupid? Bachelor contestant Rachel Kirkconnell nonetheless “went” there in 2018.

In a 2.9.21 discussion with Extra‘s Rachel Lindsay (herself a former Bachelor contestant), Bachelor host Chris Harrison tried to wave off Kirkconnell’s naivete while concurrently blaming “this judge, jury, executioner thing,” etc. Which of course landed Harrison in hot water, the result being that he’s temporarily withdrawn from hosting duties.

When will this finally sink in? Anything Antebellum is best ignored or avoided. Forever.

The Ryan Reynolds-Blake Lively Boone Hall nuptials were obviously ill-advised, but nine years ago there wasn’t this instant socio-political condemnation thing associated with Southern plantations. 12 Years A Slave hadn’t even been filmed at that point. Eleven years before the Reynolds-Lively wedding a scene from Peter Chelsom and Warren Beatty‘s Town and Country was partly filmed on a storied Southern plantation. And Forrest Gump, of course, had been filmed on a similar Georgia plantation eight years before that.

A little more than five years ago (on 10.29.15) I joined Scott Feinberg and a friend of his for a scooter journey to Wormsloe, a Savannah location used in Forrest Gump. A three-century-old plantation with a long straight driveway shaded by an entwined canopy of moss-covered oak trees, etc. We didn’t attend any sort of planned event there, thank God — we just wanted to see it, take pictures, etc.

Four or five years ago, a certain multi-word mantra began to get around in entertainment-related journalistic circles. The mantra was this: “Get with the ‘woke’ Khmer Rouge program — embrace the notion that almost all straight white guys are evil or at least deplorable on some level, that people of color are blessed and need to be embraced and exalted every which way, and that the time has come for women who’ve been sexually harassed and/or discriminated against to be avenged — or forget about working as a front-line journalist.”

In short, the time had come for a little reverse discrimination against white males. Was this viewpoint justified? Yes — absolutely, abundantly and to hell with due process. Bully boys in powerful positions had earned this enmity for centuries, and now the tables had turned and a lot of powerfully corroded whiteys were hauled before courts (legal as well as Twitter-verse) and the general tone turned to one of condemnation and retribution.

Fairly or unfairly, the message was clear to every seasoned, semi-verified or would-be journalist or critic: talk the talk and walk the walk, or you won’t survive in this industry. Because a revolutionary mind wave, driven by Donald Trump nausea and Harvey Weinstein-esque repulsion, is spreading throughout liberal professions, and those who fail to sign on with enthusiasm will…uhm, have a difficult time of it.

My first significant taste of Khmer Rouge hysteria happened in the fall of ’17, as I was on my way to the Key West Film Festival. Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich shrieked like a p.c. banshee when I tweeted to Jessica Chastain that an aspiring film critic not only needs to be talented, tenacious and willing to eat shit, but that it would “help” if he/she is “fetching.” Ehrlich was appalled that anyone would even suggest that an attractive appearance might have something to do with how you’re received in mixed company or by potential employers. I called him a delusional little bitch, of course. 18 months later Bill Maher set him straight.

All to say that when it comes to reviewing Allen vs. Farrow, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering‘s four-part Woody Allen hatchet-job doc which totally pushes the Dylan-and-Mia view of things, there’s no way for critics in the employ of Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire and the Daily Beast to say anything except “hmmm, yeah, maybe, food for thought, who knows?, Allen is toast anyway and he’s probably guilty of what Dylan has long claimed, and this four-part investigation sure makes him look like the devil so he probably is.”

Do we all understand the basic dynamic? These critics are simply not allowed to disagree with the Mia-Dylan case or or quote from Moses Farrow‘s essay (“A Son Speaks Out“) or point out the Woody-exonerating facts. If they divert from the party line, they’ll be in trouble and they know it.

I haven’t seen Allen vs. Farrow (it premieres on HBO Max this weekend) but the hanging-judge reviews by Indiewire‘s Ben Travers and the Daily Beast‘s Marlow Stern speak for themselves. These guys were clearly wokester Woody haters before they watched the series. Then again the THR and Variety reviews don’t really come up for air either.

HE’s overwhelming impression is that the Dick-Ziering doc is a one-sided hatchet job. Elite wokester journas, to repeat, are so sold on and submerged within the faith of #MeToo deliverance and historical righteousness (which, on its own terms, is not disputed in the slightest by HE) that there’s only one way to review this four-part doc, and that’s by ignoring the facts and dismissing Woody’s denials and and Moses Farrow’s account of Mia’s psychology and behavior and what happened up at Frog Hollow on that day in August of ‘92. Haters are gonna hate. Deniers are gonna deny.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy: “Are you surprised by this? Imagine if a trade like THR or IndieWire would actually go against the grain and flat out say ‘this documentary is bullshit‘ and ‘it neglects facts and is one-sided”…the backlash would be so overwhelming that there would be calls for the writer to be fired. It’s fucking sad. Unless you operate your own site you’re basically committing career harakiri if you side against woke and #MeToo narratives.”

My first New York Film Festival was the ’77 edition. I was planning to move into a cockroach-infested Soho apartment on Sullivan Street, but in late September I was still sharing a home rental in Westport, CT. I forget how many films I saw but I definitely caught Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend (the big public screening was on 9.24.77), Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (10.1.77) and Francois Truffaut‘s The Man Who Loved Women (ditto). All three were shown at 1.66:1.

If I recall correctly New York Film Festival director Richard Roud conducted a brief post-screening interview with Truffaut following the screening.

I was in awe of Roud, whose investment in nouvelle vague French cinema was storied by that point. I loved his deep voice and moustache, the smooth and off-handed way he spoke French, his continental cool-cat fashion sense and the constant smoking of what I assumed were unfiltered Galouises.

A Cahiers du Cinema contributor in the ’50s, Roud began running the Löndon Film Festival in ’60. He co-founded the NYFF in ’63 with Amos Vogel. Roud was a huge Jean Luc Godard enthusiast from way back, and I recall Andrew Sarris telling me that at one point that in his capacity as a NYFF board member he had to tell Roud and his co-enthusiasts that he couldn’t make it with Godard when his films took on an ultra-didactic political character in the early to mid ’70s.

Roud passed in 1989 at age 59.

This interview between Roud and Truffaut was taped right around the festival’s showing of The Man Who Loved Women. A longer version of the interview is on the Criterion Bluray of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim.

YouTube comment by “spb78”: “I’ll have to watch this full interview again on the Jules et Jim set, but if I’m correct in assuming there was no follow-up by the interviewer then what a wasted opportunity. Because the obvious question to Truffaut would’ve been ‘You articulated the auteur theory when you were a critic. Since becoming a filmmaker, do you still maintain this theory?’ Instead of telling Truffaut the theory is proven by his films, he should have asked Truffaut if making films validated his theory.”

Truffaut was 45 when the interview happened. He died of a brain tumor on 10.21.84 at age 52. My ex-wife Maggie and I visited his Cimitiere du Montmartre grave in January ’87.

…I thought about watching this so I could hate on it. Obviously because director-producer-writer-star Louise Linton, a Scottish actress who’s been around, has been married to Donald Trump‘s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin for three and a half years. Then I read some reviews, thought better of it, bailed. This despite HE’s own Joel Michaely, whom I’ve known since the late ’90s, having a significant costarring role.

I’m presuming no HE regulars have had a looksee. But if they have…