Nothing matches the excitement of being half-buried by a perfect white snowscape, and the cozy pleasure of staring at falling snow from inside a warm home. I’m generally less transported when a big snowfall starts melting but until that point, it’s like I’m eight years old again.

The life and career of the dynamic Rita Moreno is given a proud upward spin in Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. It streamed last Friday (1.29) at the Sundance Film Festival, and the tone of it is very “go, Rita… we love and cherish you”, etc. Which is great — it’s what every positive-minded doc about a long-haul, never-say-die actress should be like.

But it also says “poor Rita, poor girl…the sexist, male-dominated entertainment world of the ’50s treated you like an exotic piece of meat…it failed to foresee the advent of Women’s Liberation of the late ’60s and the #MeToo movement of 2017 and beyond…it refused to see beyond the borders of the ’50s and failed to honor you for the spunky, spiritual being that you are now and always have been, and so it failed you. And we’re sorry for that but at least you’re still kicking it at age 89. And we love you for that.”

I’m basically saying that as buoyant and impassioned as Riera’s doc is, it plays the victim card over and over. It ignores the way things were when Moreno was coming up in the ’50s, and it tips in the direction of instructional 21st Century progressive feminism. It’s totally infused with “presentism” — judging the past by present-day standards.

It’s not about how Moreno’s life unfolded on a moment-to-moment basis when she was coming up and making her name and building her career, but about how badly she was treated and what assholes the various men were. Which they WERE, of course, but the ’50s were not a time of enlightenment as far as recognizing the full value of women in any realm was concerned. Moreno had a tough time because of that, but she came through anyway and look at her today…unbowed, feisty, still plugging.

Yes, the film industry was sexist, exploitive, insensitive…unable or unwilling to see Moreno as a unique Latina with her own identity amd contours. Yes, it was a bad place in many respects, but then again she was close to the top of the industry in the ‘50s. How many dozens or hundreds of other Latina actress dancers were hungry to be cast in the roles that she landed? How many others were as talented? Or making as much money? (There was a reason that she got the Anita role in West Side Story rather than Chita Rivera, who played thee spitfire character on Broadway). How many Puerto Rican-born actresses were hanging out with Marlon Brando in the ’50s and early ’60s and running in that heavy company? Or attending the 1963 Civil Rights March? And having a side affair with Elvis Presley and rubbing shoulders with almost everyone who mattered back them?

Yes, she really got going as a stage and character actress in the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. Yes, she was on The Electric Company and Sesame Street and Oz. Yes, she’s costarring in the Norman Lear reboot of One Day At A Time, etc.

It’s a bit curious, by the way, that Riera decided to ignore Moreno’s big scene with Jack Nicholson at the end of Mike Nichols‘ Carnal Knowledge (’71). It’s one of her hallmark moments of that era, and yet Riera dismisses it because…you tell me. She also ignores Moreno’s Elvis Presley affair, which was basically about making Brando jealous. (And she succeeded in doing that.)

The narrative is only about how cruel and insensitive and oppressive the industry was to Moreno. Which it WAS, of course. But it also afforded her fame, fortune, access, opportunity….all kinds of drama and excitement and intrigues. Obviously hard and demeaning and ungracious, but also door-opening. The doc only tells you how oppressive things were and what pigs the men were. Or what control freaks they were. Which they WERE, of course, but when wasn’t life hard or challenging for saucy actresses, especially in the bad old days? What people haven’t been disappointing in this or that way?

Hunter: [about the radio repair] How long’s it gonna take?
Vossler: I don’t know, sir.
Hunter: You know what’s going on here?
Vossler: Yes, sir.
Hunter: No, I don’t think you do. Let me explain it to you. If we launch, and we’re wrong, what’s left of Russia is gonna launch at us. There will be a nuclear holocaust beyond imagination, and so it’s all about knowing, Mr…

[Hunter looks at Vossler’s name patch]

Hunter: Vossler. We have to know whether our order to launch has been recalled or not. The only way we’re gonna know, is if you fix that radio…you understand?
Vossler: [looks down]
Hunter: You ever watch Star Trek?
Vossler: St…yeah, Star…
Hunter: Star Trek! The USS Enterprise? All right, now you remember when the Klingons were gonna blow up the Enterprise and Captain Kirk calls down to Scotty he says “Scotty, I gotta have more power.”
Vossler: He needs more, more warp speed, yeah.
Hunter: Warp speed, exactly. Now I’m Captain Kirk, you’re Scotty, I need more power. I’m telling you if you do not get this radio up, a billion people are gonna die. And it’s all up to you. I know it’s a shitty deal but you got it…can you handle it?
Vossler: [silent]
Hunter: Scotty?
Vossler: Aye, Captain.

For the last two or three years, John Ford biographer Joseph McBride has posted this photo of young John Martin Feeney, who seems to be two and a half or three years old. McBride routinely posts on Ford’s birthday — February 1, 1894. The renowned director was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and died 79 years later in Los Angeles.

Obligatory HE response: This is a fake photo. John Ford was born bald and ornery and smoking a cigar and wearing shades and a floppy hat. He was suckled by his mother with Irish whiskey.. A legendary fimmaker and a visual composer second to none, but one of the most miserable and cantankerous sons of bitches who ever walked the earth. Gruff, snarly and dismissive…a caustic bastard of the first order.

And a boozy Irish sentimentalist of the first order. He never failed to depict alcoholics as anything less than charming or even endearing.

I love many of your films, Mr. Ford (my three favorites are The Grapes of Wrath, Young Mr. Lincoln and The Horse Soldiers), but otherwise…I’ve said enough.

My favorite scene in Mike Nichols‘ Wolf (’94) is the moment when the wig-wearing Jack Nicholson cuts Michelle Pfeiffer down to size, dryly summarizing her aloof manner and personality and putting it all into droll perspective.

The problem, for me, is that they’re eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In fact the moment that Pfeiffer said “I only have peanut butter and jelly and some milk”, I flinched in my seat. I’ll occasionally have a peebee-and-jay sandwich, but guiltily, self-loathingly. I hate how a person smells when they’ve eaten peanut butter, including myself. When I finish eating one of those awful things I immediately scrub my hands and face with soap, and then brush my teeth twice and gargle with blue minty mouthwash, and then wash my face again. And even then I can still smell the peebee. So as much as I admire the dialogue (written by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick with an uncredited assist from Elaine May), the odor of peanut butter gets in the way.

Why is this my favorite scene? Because back in my randy prime I’d occasionally run into a devastatingly attractive lass at a party or press screening, and she’d give off the same “don’t even think about it, buster” vibe. Which was fine with me as I was batting around .333 between the late ’70s and late ’90s and I learned early on not to sweat the strike-outs or pop-ups. What mattered was accepting the verdict with a certain degree of charm or at least politeness, and then you move on. And every now and then you’d run into someone who really liked you, and you’d pursue that and take it as far as it was meant to go. One thing you never, ever do is fall in love with someone who’s flighty or fickle or aloof or worst of all crazy — that’s a recipe for pure pain.

I always wanted to deliver a little speech like Nicholson’s, but I never did. I’ll bet Nicholson himself never did either.

Congrats to HE’s own Nicholas Jarecki for having written and directed Crisis (Quiver, 2.26), a mostly effective, better-than-decent, Traffic-like drama about the opioid plague. I haven’t time to get into it now (I need to get outside and stretch my legs and breath a little air) but it’s definitely pretty good, and no, I didn’t think once about Armie Hammer‘s social-media, cannibal-cunnilingus problem…not once.

Costarring Gary Oldman (who has a much cooler haircut in this film than he did in Mank), Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Rodriguez, Mia Kirshner, Greg Kinnear, Jarecki himself, Luke Evans, Lily-rose Depp and Martin Donovan.

Three interwoven stories concerning the illegal trafficking of fentanyl, oxycodone and other opioid drugs. Crisis arrives on VOD and streaming on March 5th.

I’ve bought the Kindle version of Mark Harris‘s “Mike Nichols: A Life”, which pops on Tuesday. The Nichols signature was always about knack and intuition and doubt and a lot of fretting, and somewhat less about striking creative oil and channeling divine guidance and inspiration. (Although that happened from time to time.) In my view Nichols was God’s gift between ’66 and The Day of the Dolphin (which I half-liked). After that the Nichols brand was an in-and-out, touch-and-go thing.

If you were into Nichols back in the day (and who wasn’t?) you were at least partly looking to be part of the Nichols attitude clan, which was a kind of cool kidz fraternity…an in-crowd thing that you felt every time you watched one of his better films.

I’ve just watched the CBS Sunday Morning piece on his book and Nichols and the whole serpentine journey of the guy, and I have to say that Mark looks satisfied but exhausted. Covid appears to have been as rough on him as it has been on me. You don’t want to know. In the space of 11 months Covid has aged me five years. Inwardly, I mean.

HE’s Nichols obit, posted on 11.20.14: Some are truly gifted, and if those in that small, choice fraternity are tenacious and lucky and sometimes scrappy enough, they get to develop their gift and turn what they have inside into works that matter for people of all stripes and philsophies. And then there are those gifted types who are fortunate enough to catch a certain inspiration at the right point in their lives, which turns into a wave that carries and defines their finest work for all time to come.

This was how things pretty much went for the late and great Mike Nichols, who passed yesterday from a heart attack.

His film-directing career (which alternated from time to time with directing and producing hit Broadway plays), which was flourishy and satisfying and sometimes connected with the profound, lasted from the mid ’60s to mid aughts. Nichols had a touch and a style that everyone seemed to recognize, a certain mixture of sophisticated urban comedy and general gravitas. His first gusher was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff in 1966, and his last truly excellent film was HBO’s Angels in America. If you add Nichols’ brilliant early ’60s stand-up comedy period with Elaine May he really was Mr. King Shit for the better part of a half-century.

But Nichols’ most profound filmic output lasted for eight or nine years, or roughly ’66 through ’74 or ’75 — a chapter known for a certain stylistic signature mixed with an intense and somewhat tortured psychology that came from his European Jewish roots. Longtime Nichols collaborator Richard Sylbert, whom I knew fairly well from the late ’80s to the early aughts, explained it to me once. Nichols had developed that static, ultra-carefully composed, long-take visual approach that we saw in The Graduate, Catch 22, Carnal Knowledge, Day of the Dolphin and The Fortune, and this signature was, Sylbert believed, what elevated Nichols into the Movie God realm.

Hollywood Elsewhere mildly….no, take that back…heartily approves of Simon Stone‘s The Dig (Netflix, 12.29). That means I wasn’t exactly knocked flat but it did move me in a gently nudging way, and that I found it generally pleasing as far as this kind of modest and unassuming British period drama goes. And I loved Ralph Fiennes‘ performance as real-life archeological excavator Basil Brown — his gutty working-class accent is note perfect, but the performance is in his eyes…at various times determined, defiant, sad, compassionate.

And Carey Mulligan‘s Edith Pretty…wow! Talk about a performance at once strong, heartbreaking (as in sadly resigned) and resilient. Between this, Promising Young Woman and her Netflix detective series Collateral, there’s no disputing that she’s sitting high atop the Alpine peak these days…she and Streep, Blanchett, Davis, Ronan, Williams.

It tells the story of the famous Sutton Hoo dig of 1939, which uncovered a sixth-century Anglo Saxon burial site. It’s about a lot more than soil and geology and long-buried artifacts, of course. Pretty, the ailing owner of a large Suffolk estate, hires Brown to discover what may or may not be lying underneath some large mounds on her property. Once the importance of Brown’s find gets around, establishment archeologists rush in to share (or even claim) credit, or to try and get rid of Brown because he hasn’t the right speech patterns or pedigree.

Question #1: Around the halfway mark Edith becomes more and more ill with heart disease, Basil’s discovery phase recedes in the mist, and the movie is largely taken over by three young newcomers — Edith’s young, good-looking cousin, Rory (Johnny Flynn), and a loveless couple, Stuart and Peggy Piggott (Lily James, Ben Chaplin). For some reason the narrative dovetails into a heated triangle with James looking to schtup the daylights out of Flynn. Who cares if James gets royally laid or not? I was so put off by this detour that I began to entertain a delicious fantasy — of Lily James never having sex again! Blissful celibacy!

Question #2: Why did Sixth Century Anglo Saxons decide to bury exalted kings and warriors inside a ship, of all things? A rite that required hauling the ship out of water, hauling it across dry land, digging a huge hole in which to bury it and then covering it up. Why go to all that trouble?

Question #3: Once the remnants of the ship have been fully excavated, we can see impressions of the ribs of the hull. The wood, I presume, has long since rotted or been eaten away but impressions of the main hull beams remain. But has the wood been completely destroyed by natural elements? The film can’t be bothered to explain. I for one would have liked to know some more archeological particulars. This 1.29.21 National Geographic article helps.

“Gone the museums, gone the tourist-filled riverboats plying the Seine, gone the sidewalk terraces offering their pleasures at dusk, gone the movie theaters, gone the casual delights of wandering and the raucous banter of the most northern of southern cities. In their place, a gray sadness has settled over the city like fog.

“I have seen sunlight three or four times since arriving from New York about seven weeks ago. A glimmer, a summons to life, gone soon enough to leave doubts as to whether it was real. New York does not do drizzle or weeks of uninterrupted gray skies.

“So my adaptation has been harsh, particularly to a Paris with its soul torn out. ‘It’s of an absolute sadness,’ Alain Ducasse, the celebrated chef, said, when I asked how Paris felt these days. ‘It’s a terrible imprisonment. The French are not accustomed to life without its social side, a drink at a cafe, a touch, a kiss.’

“Yes, even the ‘bisou,’ the little kiss on both cheeks that is a rite of greeting or farewell, is gone.

“With more than 74,000 people dead across France from the pandemic, everyone understands the restrictions imposed. Almost all major cities across the world have had to endure lost lives, lost jobs, lost ways of life. Paris is far from alone in its deprivations.

“But each city changes in its own way. In New York the absence that feels most acute is of the energy that defines it. In Paris, the hole in its heart is the absence of the sensual conviviality that makes people dream. It is the disappearance of pleasures the French have spent centuries refining in the belief there is no limit to them.” — from “Paris, Shuttered, Must Be Imagined,” a 1.30.21 N.Y. Times piece by Roger Cohen.

Certain songs and experiences are sometimes welded together in our hearts and memories. For me, The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” will always be the song I listened to in a London pub on the night of December 7, 1980 — hours before the death of John Lennon. “Synchronicity” is the soundtrack to my so-called West Hollywood + Hollywood Reporter life of ’83 and ’84. Chumbawumba‘s “Tubthumping” will always be the anthem of the 1997 Mill Valley Film Festival, which the boys and I attended start to finish. And Simply Red/Mick Hucknall‘s “Sunrise” will always always always be the theme song of the 2003 Locarno Film Festival — another great adventure shared by Jett, Dylan and myself

Always frank, reliably caustic Fran Lebowitz (Bowen Yang) and adoring sycophant Martin Scorsese (Kyle Mooney) on SNL‘s “Weekend Update”…Fran riffing on the annoying horrors of Manhattan life, plugging Pretend It’s a City. Best bit on SNL last night by far — I was shocked to find myself actually laughing as opposed to LQTM-ing. Question: Is this skit more funny to devoted fans of Parasite than of The Irishman?