Basic logline for Young Hearts: “Tilly (Quinn Liebling) and Harper (Anjini Taneja Azhar) ultimately become each other’s first high school boyfriend and girlfriend. But when their budding relationship suddenly becomes the talk of their school, they are faced with enormous pressure from their so-called friends. A breakup is, perhaps, inevitable.”

Can I ask something? I’ve watched this trailer twice and what is it, exactly, that Tilly and Harper are doing that strikes their friends as uncool or warrants being “the talk of their school”? They’re nice kids and attracted to each other — what’s the problem?

Honest question: At what point does the physical size of a young woman in a presumably adult relationship become…well, an issue of vague discomfort? Azhar is only 4’8″, or roughly the size of a seven or eight year old girl in elementary school. Elliot Page towers over her at 5’1″.

I’m not espousing sizeism, but if you were Chris Nolan and a casting agent had urged you to consider hiring either Azhar or Elizabeth Debicki for the role of Kenneth Branagh‘s wife in Tenet, who would you be more inclined to hire? And why?

I’ve made it clear that Ben Affleck‘s basketball coach alcoholic in The Way Back struck me some time ago as totally naked — perhaps (probably?) the closest-to-the-bone performance he’s ever given.

This is emphasized by the fact that The Way Back isn’t a “let’s man up and put our problems behind us so we can win the playoffs” drama — it’s an emotional (and psychological) saga of a guy who’s furious about something ghastly that happened to him and his ex-wife, and about how he copes with this terrible scar on his heart and soul. I love how The Way Back isn’t afraid of Jack’s rage and subliminal longing for self-destruction — it digs right down into that pit. It isn’t the least bit tidy or sanded down or escapist.

This plus the fact Affleck seems to have lost about 30 or 40 pounds since Naomi Fry‘s “Sadness of Ben Affleck” piece ran in The New Yorker (3.24.18)…a change that I’m processing as a visual metaphor for the shedding of issues that were dragging him down..this also is a good thing.

I’m sorry for not yet having seen Julia Hart‘s I’m Your Woman (Amazon Prime, 12.4.20). The truth is that I decided to wait after seeing the trailer, which looked like a fairly basic ’70s-era action flick about a victimized woman (Rachel Brosnahan) whose life is in constant jeopardy because she was dumb enough to marry a guy (Bill Heck) who reeked of criminality from the get-go.

Generally approved by critics, Woman was produced by Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). The thinking is that she might get some Best Actress awards action out of it. I should probably admit that I was inspired to post this because I recently received a very cool promotional gift associated with I’m Your Woman — a nice red battery-powered bedroom alarm clock.

From Substack’s “Common Sense with Bari Weiss“. a piece that asks whether the Khmer Rouge will relax their vendetta against moderate centrists and independent iconocloasts under Biden, or turn it on all the more. Plus a discussion with Megyn Kelly, who notes that Weiss, when working at the N.Y. Times, was faced with a situation in which she had to offer “full submission” to woke orthodoxy or else.

Weiss: I voted for Joe Biden. I think that he is past his prime. I also think he is an eminently decent and kind man. That fact that his decency seems positively refreshing is a tragic sign of where we are. But it does. And I welcome it. But…

Will the Biden administration make the case that America is good?

That’s not sarcastic or rhetorical. And it’s not a question about what’s in Joseph R. Biden’s heart.

I mean: Will his administration embrace the new re-understanding of America that shot through the streets [last] summer and issues forth daily from the mouths of our elites? That view goes like this: America was born for the purpose of upholding white supremacy and it remains irredeemably racist. Our founders were not primarily political geniuses but slaveholders who wanted to find a way to hoard their property. And while the rioters may have gotten a little out of hand, they weren’t wrong to target statues of men like Lincoln.

To take a stand against the teardown; to insist that, America, for all its flaws, remains a source of hope on Earth; to suggest that our founding date is 1776 and not 1619; was to out yourself as some bigoted troglodyte.

Will the forces that insist that America is unexceptional control the bounds of discourse and policy in the Biden administration? Or will the White House stand up for the basic tenets of liberalism, like the free exchange of ideas, even — especially — the ones they don’t favor?

Will neo-racism be normalized?

A few months ago I spoke to a Trump administration official who confirmed that the president wouldn’t know what Critical Race Theory was if it smacked him in the face. Nevertheless, in September of 2020, Trump passed an executive order banning training for federal agencies and federal contractors that relies on this ideology.

Time Magazine was far from alone in spinning Critical Race Theory as “an indispensable and widely accepted tool for properly understanding the state of the nation.”

That’s not true.

Critical Race Theory is a threat to the most basic foundations of American life, including, but not limited to, equality under the law. It asks us to define ourselves by our immutable characteristics. It pits us against one another in an endless power struggle. It rejects Enlightenment tools of reason and scientific discovery as tainted. And it undermines our common humanity.

On his first day in office, President Biden rescinded Trump’s executive order. That’s not a good sign.

Everyone will begin to emerge from their hovels and caves sometime in late ‘21 or early ‘22. The idea of mask-free social activities seems so exotic now, but it’ll eventually happen. And when it does and we’re all able to schmooze around and get a good look at our friends, acquaintances and business colleagues after almost two years in stir, almost everyone over the age of 30 is going to look at least five years older than how we remember them. Others may look older than that. (Even with my Prague procedures…even I will look older.) The applicable term will be “battle-worn”. Like how Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable looked when they returned to Hollywood after WWII service. And everyone will greet each other with “wow, you look good…the pandemic agreed with you!” What else are we gonna say?

In the comment thread for “Mid Clinton-Era Romcom,” “filmklassik” suggested that George Clooney‘s finest films were relatively few and far between. Let me gently explain something. The legacies of the greatest stars are always about a relative handful of films. That’s just the way it shakes out. Clooney, whose peak period lasted longer than most (almost 20 years), more than measures up alongside anyone you might want to name (James Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, James Cagney, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Robert Redford).

MICHAEL CLAYTON is Clooney’s mythical summit. Followed by THE DESCENDANTS, UP IN THE AIR, OUT OF SIGHT, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and BURN AFTER READING. Six bona fide classics. Not to mention GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK (Clooney’s best-directed film), SYRIANA and HAIL, CAESAR. Plus THREE KINGS. I would go further and include THE PERFECT STORM. I would even include the first two OCEAN’S films. Six goldies and five silvers and two bronze.

It’s a basic creative and biological law that only about 10% to 15% of your films are going to be regarded as serious creme de la creme…if that. Most big stars (the smart ones) are given a window of a solid dozen years or so** in which they have the power, agency and wherewithal to bring their game and show what they’re worth creatively. We all want to be rich, but the real stars care about making their mark.

In ‘02 or thereabouts I gave Tony Curtis (whose peak period started with Sweet Smell of Success and ended with The Boston Strangler) a list of all his films & asked him to check off those he truly admired and respected. He checked off about 10%, if that.

Same with Kirk Douglas when I offered the same during a set visit with him in ‘82 — just a handful (basically confined to his 15-year peak period between ‘49 and ‘64) but he felt VERY good about those few.

** Some enjoy 15- or even 20-year rides. Grant peaked from the late ‘30s to late ‘50s. Cagney between Public Enemy and White Heat, Stewart between Destry Rides Again and Anatomy of a Murder. Clark Gable’s hottest years were between It Happened One Night (‘34) and The Hucksters (‘47), Bogart’s between High Sierra / The Maltese Falcon (‘41) and The Harder They Fall (‘56) — a 15-year run. Wayne was fairly aflame between Stagecoach and North to Alaska. Redford peaked between Butch Cassidy (‘69) and Brubaker and Ordinary People (‘80). I’m talking about the years when they had serious heat.

I wish, if only, don’t kid yourself, etc.

I was heartened by the Biden-Harris inauguration, of course, but the most encouraging interlude of the entire day was the initial press briefing by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki — a forum for information, actual facts as opposed to alternative facts, respectful, intelligent, wonky, a bit boring, honest as far as it went, non-combative. In short it was the first White House press briefing in four years that wasn’t a farce or a forehead-slapper or some kind of shit show. Very comforting.

Due respect to producer Lynda Obst and exec producer Michelle Pfeiffer, but I’m having trouble remembering much about Michael Hoffman‘s One Fine Day. I didn’t dislike it, but it was kind of a “uh-huh, okay” by way of a chaotic romcom.

It focused on two single parents (George Clooney, Michelle Pfeiffer) struggling to juggle work and kid chores as they slowly (half-heartedly?) fall in love.

The 1996 Fox release made $46 million domestic, which was considered disappointing. Raising kids can be exhausting, at times even soul-draining…we all know this. That’s pretty much all the film conveyed. It was okay, I felt, but it got killed critically.

The best thing about One Fine Day is the final scene. Just as romantic sparks are about to manifest, Clooney and Pfeiffer fall asleep on the couch. That’s single parenting!

I showed One Fine Day at my Woodland Hills-based film series, called “Hot Shot Movies.” Obst graciously agreed to drop by for a post-screening q & a.

8 year-old Jett and 7 year-old Dylan attended also. They were fidgeting and fighting during the Obst appearance and embarrassing me to all to hell. Obst saved the day by speaking to them directly over the mike with the whole crowd listening — “Don’t do this when we’re talking, boys…be respectful.” And they shut right up! Hail Lynda!

Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy is reporting that the 2021 Cannes Film Festival is looking to postpone the mid-May event until…possibly in July. Probably. It would happen “sometime between” July 5th and 25th, the story says.

Because the festival honchos have calculated that despite the vaccine and all, the pandemic will still be a monster four months hence — a fairly good guess.

What are the odds that things will be free and clear six months hence? Slightly better than May, but that’s not saying a whole lot.

The July projection is a dream, a “wing and a prayer” scenario, a flyer, a guess, a “please God, you cancelled last May’s festival but don’t do it again in ’21…not two years in a row…Jesus H. Christ!”

When will things really be safe for film festivals as we used to know them? When can we go back to the good old normal? I think we’ll be lucky if that happens by early ’22. Right now I’d say it looks a wee bit dicey for the 2021 fall festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto), which are eight months off as we speak.

Yesterday’s Bernie twitter meme took off because he captured the moment with those mittens. By watching the inauguration solo, I mean, while wearing a pair of those fall-themed, thick-yarn hand warmers. How did we get from there to here?

LOL pic.twitter.com/3pilfxzuo1

— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) January 21, 2021

It was four months ago or mid September 2020 when I saw Michel Franco‘s New Order, a dystopian theatre-of-cruelty film that reminded me in some ways (certainly tonally) of Ridley Scott‘s The Counselor.

Neon has acquired it for distribution, but they haven’t announced a release date. I know nothing but I’m guessing they’ll be holding it until the fall. I don’t think it’ll matter when it opens for this is a brilliant but absolutely dead-cold film — a certain segment of the public is going to turn away in horror while the cineastes will show respect.

From my 9.14.20 review: Set in Mexico City, it’s about a violent revolution against the wealthy elites by an army of ruthless, homicidal, working-class lefties. Director-writer Franco (After Luca, Chronic) is clearly tapping into all the insurrectionist anger out there (last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, last year’s French Yellow Vest demonstrations) and imagining the ante being raised a couple of notches.

Remember those rightwing thugs (“Los Halcones”) murdering leftists during that Mexico City demonstration in Roma? New Order is a roughly similar situation but with the lefties pulling the trigger, and with a lot more ferocity. Rage against the swells.

It struck me as a nightmare vision of what could conceivably happen if the ranks of our own wokester shitheads were to dramatically increase and anger levels were to surge even more.

New Order, trust me, is brutal, vicious and ice cold. But it’s so well made, and so unsparing in its cruelty. Franco is definitely the new Michael Haneke. He’s a very commanding and exacting director, but the film is ferocious and vicious, more so than even The Counselor (and that’s saying something).

I’m figuring that any serious fan of The Counselor would definitely be down with New Order. Especially given its Mexico City location, the fact that it deals with hostage-taking and exorbitant demands, and the fact that it has the same kind of cruel, compositional decisiveness and clarity of mind that Scott’s film had, only more so.

Franco is a very strong but, on the face of it, heartless director. Personally, I’m sure he’s personable and affable and humane and whatnot.

A filmmaker friend assures that Franco “is a nice fellow…he has a very surgical mind and his dramatic construction seems to veer towards the inexorable.”

Variety‘s Peter Debruge: New Order is “a full-on assault on our collective comfort zone while doubling down on the very thing that makes his films unwatchable for so many. Moviegoing is, by its nature, an act of empathy, as we invest in the lives of fictional strangers, trusting the narrative to repay our emotional commitment — and yet, in film after film, Franco challenges that assumption. Perversely, for those who’ve now come to expect that from him, New Order doesn’t disappoint.”