Jordan Ruimy: What do you think are the odds on Sound of Metal getting a Best Picture nom?
HE: Excellent odds, no? It’s by far the most spiritual film of the lot.
JR: It just needs to be seen by enough voters. There’s no way the Academy doesn’t respond positively to this movie.
HE: Agreed. What tells you it isn’t being seen? Or has been insufficiently seen?
JR: Insufficiently, but word of mouth is starting to build. The IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes ratings are very positive, audience-wise. Isn’t it now available to stream on Amazon Prime? There is no reason.

There’s one thing I regret about Sound of Metal, and that’s the title. The only sound you can get out of metal is something blunt or raw or screechy, and that doesn’t represent where this film is coming from at all. A better title, if it hadn’t been claimed by a mid ’60s Simon & Garfunkel tune, would have been Sounds of Silence.

Everyone knows how Scott Feinberg‘s award-season forecasts break down. The ten films included in his Frontrunners tally are well-situated to the extent that most (i.e., Scott always includes a couple of stragglers) are likely to be Best Picture-nominated.

It’s axiomatic in this highly political year, especially in the wake of last summer’s George Floyd protests, that any well-reviewed, professionally assembled film featuring a primarily POC cast will be Best Picture nominated, and so Feinberg, being no fool, has included Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Amazon’s One Night in Miami and Pixar’s Soul in his Frontrunners roster.

None of these three films even approaches the quality of Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove, Lovers Rock and Red White & Blue, but McQueen’s “Small Axe” quintet is Emmy material and so we’re left with what we’re left with. No disrespect intended, but two of these features are basically filmed plays, and Soul is emotionally indecisive and all over the map and fairly infuriating for that.

The question for Oscar-race handicappers is “why does Feinberg have it in for Spike Lee‘s Da 5 Bloods“? I don’t mean to imply that Feinberg has a hardnosed problem with Lee’s film but there must be some reason why he’s included it in the much-dreaded “Major Threats” category.

If Feinberg has categorized your awards-hopeful film as a “major threat,” you’re…well, I’d better be careful here. I was going to say “you’re as good as dead” but what I really mean is that “major threat” means “uh-oh.” Over the last several weeks Da 5 Bloods has been on just about every Best Picture top-ten contender list. Right now it’s occupying the #9 slot on the Gold Derby expert list.

Feinberg is just one guy, of course, and voters will vote how they want to vote, etc. Especially the crowd that voted last year for Parasite…people that live on their own planet.

Here are the films included in Feinberg’s top four categories. Hollywood Elsewhere has boldfaced those titles that really and truly have the Best Picture juice …films that deserve to be Best Picture nominated in the eyes of the Movie Godz. Before starting I’m going to say for seventh or eight time over the last three or four weeks that while Steve McQueen’s Mangrove and Roman Polanski‘s J’Accuse won’t be under consideration for reasons that have nothing to do with quality, they would DEFINITELY be Best Picture hotties in a fair and just universe.

Frontrunners

Nomadland (Searchlight)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Minari (A24 — Spirit Awards)
Promising Young Woman (Focus)
Sound of Metal (Amazon)
The Father (Sony Classics)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
One Night in Miami (Amazon)
Soul (Pixar)
Mank (Netflix)

As long as militant British wokesters are going after Grease, we need to keep things going on this side of the Atlantic by cancelling Mel Brooks‘ The Producers (’67). It wears homophobia and anti-trans attitudes like an armband. “We’re not alone!!!” 52 years ago Gene Wilder‘s Leo Bloom went into catatonic shock over Christopher Hewett‘s Roger De Bris wearing a ball gown…what would Harry Styles say to that? Not to mention Elliot Page and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt?

And what about Andreas Voutsinas‘ performance as “Carmen Ghia”, De Bris’ assistant who can barely control himself due to close physical proximity to Bialystock and Bloom in an elevator? What is that supposed to be, funny? It’s hateful to characterize gay men in this fashion.

Grease is one thing, but the sooner The Producers is erased from showbiz culture the better for all of us going forward. And that means hauling the 94-year-old Brooks before the judges and giving him what-for.

I’ve seen Randall Kleiser‘s Grease exactly once. Ironic ’50s nostalgia had been a thing for roughly a decade when it opened on 6.16.78, and Grease did nothing to advance or upgrade the basic package. It was made strictly for the chumps, and this resulted in a haul of $366 million and change. Definitely not my cup, but now that this John Travolta-Olivia Newton John musical is a topic du jour, I’m thinking about re-watching it. British woke twitter is apparently condemning it for being “racist, rapey, homophobic and slut-shaming.”

Robert Towne‘s definition of the essence of a good film is “four or five” fundamental, touch-bottom moments “between two people.” That’s not the same thing as Howard Hawks‘ definition of a good film — “Three great scenes and no bad ones.” But it’s close enough or at least in the same ballpark.

Yes, that’s correct — it’s time once again to ask which of this year’s presumed Best Picture candidates satisfy the Hawks or Towne requirements.

Without getting too bogged down in micro-analysis, does Nomadland measure up? I’d say “certainly” without question. Ditto Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove, Roman Polanski‘s J’Accuse (again — one has to be able to separate one’s opinion of an artist from the work itself), Aaron Sorkin‘s Trial of the Chicago 7, Florian Zeller‘s The Father (which I watched last night for the second time), David Fincher‘s Mank and Darius Marder‘s Sound of Metal.

You want me to list the great or very good scenes in each one? Sure but later. I’m going on a hike soon.

What about Promising Young Woman, Minari, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, One Night in Miami, News of the World, Da 5 Bloods and Soul?

“Bitch” is a term of derision or dismissal. It has a few different applications, but mainly it’s a blunt, angry, aggressive noun — used mainly in heated kitchen arguments or muttered under one’s breath — directed at a woman whom the accuser regards as cruel, heartless, harshly dismissive, ruthlessly resentful or viciously manipulative.

Jane Greer in Out of the Past, Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls…that line of country.

The male term for such behavior is, of course, bastard.

The implication in this History of Swear Words clip is that perhaps only woman-haters use “bitch” and that in a perfect world it would be as verboten as the “n” word. Okay, but does that go for “bastard” also? Because that would be fairly ridiculous.

The truth is that on a daily basis certain guys unfortunately earn this epithet and then some, just as certain women have arguably behaved in a way that more or less justifies their being called a bitch or “beeyotch.”

Marriages and relationships are not always a bed of roses. Arguments happen, tempers ignite and combatants sometimes deliver harsh judgments.

I was called a bastard once, back in the mid ’80s. A woman friend told me that a friend of hers, whom I knew slightly, liked me and that I should think about giving her a call. “But she’s not my type,” I said, looking to be polite. “You don’t know her…give it a chance,” my friend said. “What I mean is that I don’t find her particularly attractive,” I said. “You bastard,” she replied.

Early in Martin Ritt‘s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (’65), Leamas (Richard Burton) pays a visit to Control (Cyril Cusack). Control: “And, uh…how do you feel about [Mundt]?” Leamas: Feel?” Control: “Yes.” Leamas: “He’s a bastard.” Control: “Quite.”

Orange Plague to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a call yesterday (Saturday, 11.2), and posted today by the Washington Post:

“So look. All I want to do is this…I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state….Brad, what are we gonna do? We won the election…this is a faulty election result…because of what you’ve done to the President a lot of people aren’t gping out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the President…you have a big election coming up on Tuesday.”

Condolences offered to the fans, friends and family of the irrepressible Gerry Marsden, the smiling, spirited leader of Gerry and the Pacemakers and a cultural ambassador for Liverpool over the last 56 years. Marsden died yesterday at age 78.

I wouldn’t call Gerry and the Pacemakers a one-note, flash-in-the-pan group, but they pretty much stopped mattering when serious British bands began shifting out of spunky pop formula and into the next phase (deeper lyrics, complex recordings, psychedelic imaginings) in ’66 or thereabouts.

Their big songs were “How Do You Do It?”, “I Like It”, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Cryin'” and “Ferry Cross the Mersey”.

In any event we can’t all be lion tamers. Gerry is/was a beloved figure among long-of-tooth Liverpudlians. The poor guy had ticker troubles going back to a triple bypass heart operation in ’03. Marsden had a second heart operation in 2016. He announced his retirement in November 2018.

Boogahloogahloo, muh babay…this Boston Dynamics robot video surfaced last Tuesday (12.29). As always, Hollywood Elsewhere is Johnny on the spot…five days later. How many days, weeks or months of work did it take to iron out all the dance kinks? The point, as Lt. Vincent Hanna would say, is that these guys (Boston Dynamics) are good. Most impressive robot demo ever.

YouTube comment (“Baudgaud“, early this morning): “I remember just a couple of years ago when these same automotons had horrid balance and articulation problems. I particularly enjoyed watching the bipeds fall over like a drunk doing field sobriety tests, and seeing the quads rolling forward and backward like a solid-state slinky while trying to go up and down stairs. I expected the new demo to show improvement, but this is just fantastic. Perfect song for the new generation of balance and movement tech!”

Keith Olbermann can come off as strident and overheated, I realize, but he’s precisely right in this instance. Every word is appropriately chosen. Yes, Ted Cruz and the other Senators intending to object to the confirmation of Joe Biden on 1.6 (Wednesday) are merely looking to “perform” for the bumblefucks, hoping that memories of their grandstanding will linger into the ’22 and ’24 election cycles. The term “sociopathic swine” certainly applies; ditto “scum.”