From Sasha Stone’s post-Oscar nom assessment (“The State of the Race: Oscar Nominations Drop at Last”):

“Best Picture and Best Director are still wide open.

“It should be noted that the stats champ right now is The Irishman. It’s the only one so far that has every requisite nomination we usually look for in a Best Picture winner:

“(1) It came out early (i.e., in late October)
(2) Globes nominations for Director, Picture, Screenplay.
(3) SAG ensemble nomination.
(4) DGA nom for Scorsese.
(5) Eddie nomination plus Oscar nomination for editing
(6) Oscar nominations for acting, directing, and writing.”

I’ve heard what people are saying about The Irishman. I’m not an idiot. I’m a semi-reasonable fellow as far as it goes, and I know that the odds don’t look good for a Best Picture win. I just have this one teeny-weeny little hangup, which is the dead cold fact that The Irishman is easily and obviously the finest film of the year — hands down, made by a master, clean and true, don’t even debate it. The Movie Godz know the truth of it, and many in the journalistic and filmmaking community do also.

I’m sorry but there’s this thing called “reality“, and every so often (not frequently but now and then) it can actually influence how people will vote.

Lone Scherfig‘s The Kindness of Strangers (Vertical, 2.14) was killed in Berlin last February, ending up with a 5% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Review excerpt #1: “I think they’ve probably hit bottom with this howler, a criss-crossing ensemble piece set in New York and featuring a rogues’ gallery of non-characters slowly learning to appreciate the transformative power of (sick bucket please) ‘forgiveness’ — Kevin Maher, London Times. Review excerpt #2: “Dear lord, I’ve been searching high and low for something nice to say about this mess, and I have come up nearly empty.” — Barry Hertz, Toronto Globe & Mail.

Scherfig’s An Education (’09) was perfect, in my humble view. One of the best John Schlesinger films ever made. Then came the so-so One Day (’11). Then she seemed to fall out of the groove — The Riot Club (’14), The Astronaut Wives Club (ABC TV, 2015), Their Finest (’16) and now The Kindness of Strangers. Mystifying.

This morning’s Oscar nom thread included a hilarious debate between manwe sulimo and cinefan35 about who stole Jennifer Lopez‘s Best Supporting Actress nomination for Hustlers. The “this is JLo’s seminal moment” and “she has to be nominated for what is obviously her best performance”…all of it started with the first Toronto Film Festival screening of Hustlers and moved on from there.

This morning’s JLo shutout was akin to a classic Ford Mustang cruising at 70mph and suddenly slamming into a concrete barrier on an elevated highway…crushed metal, people turning away in horror, gasoline puddles, ambulance attendants, etc.

cinefan35: “It looks like J.Lo got pushed out of the field by Margot Robbie, which is utterly ridiculous. I like Robbie and think she is talented but she played such a non-character in Bombshell.” HE interjection: Agreed.

manwe sulimo: “LOL, how the fuck did Robbie, who was always a lock (hit all precursors), push JLo out? It was Kathy Bates [who delivered the elbow].”

cinefan35: “You’re probably right [but] it might have been ScarJo who pushed her out.”

manwe sulimo: “JLo was pushed out of BAFTA by Pugh or Robbie for OUATIH. She was nominated with Johansson for SAG and with Bates for GG. So by elimination, Dern and Robbie were locked so they didn’t hurt JLo. Johansson had her spot thanks to SAG + BAFTA so she didn’t push her out either. That leaves Bates and Pugh. Since JLo was a lock for BAFTA snub and Pugh a lock for BAFTA nom, it isn’t Pugh because Brits saved her a place. It’s Bates who replaced Robbie for OUATIH.”

HE summary: Bates did it!”

Earlier today in the Oscar nomination thread, Dr. New Jersey wrote the following: “I just wanted to mention that at the beginning of the year when Kent Jones‘ Diane was showing at the festivals, HE insisted that Mary Kay Place would be nominated for Best Actress and many of us said her performance would be long forgotten when the nominations came around. HE insisted that she was greatly respected in the industry, and so on and so forth. Anyhoo, Breakthrough is an Oscar-nominated film and Diane is not. As Clint Eastwood wisely said, ‘Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.'”

HE to Dr. New Jersey: “How’s your short-term memory? Place recently won Best Actress trophies from both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress.

“The only reason she didn’t make the Oscar nom cut (as well as the Critics Choice and Golden Globe cut) was because IFC Films wouldn’t or couldn’t fund an Oscar season campaign on her behalf. Voters tend to respond when money (parties, swag, FYC ads) is thrown around with face-time mingling — that’s how it works.”

The Hammond organ track that made history. Ignore the horrific first 30 seconds and just cut to Al Kooper‘s story. 21 years old, June 16, 1965. Columbia Records, 799 Seventh Avenue, Studio B. It was included in Martin Scorsese‘s No Direction Home doc, but this is a more complete telling.

Boilerplate: “When Dylan heard Like A Rolling Stone played back, he insisted that the organ be turned up in the mix, despite [chief engineer] Tom Wilson‘s protestations that Kooper was ‘not an organ player.’ Dylan: “I don’t care who he is and what his experience level is…turn it up.”

Todd Phillips’ Joker has landed more Oscar nominations than anyone or anything — 11 of these babies including Best Picture, Best Director for Phillips and Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix. Which leads one to imagine that it might conceivably win the Best Picture Oscar…right? Best Picture handicappers have ignored this possibility all along, but it’s obviously on the table.

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (yowsah!), Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (okay) and Sam Mendes’ 1917 (yup) snagged 10 nominations each. Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Marriage Story and Parasite landed six each.

The Best Director nominees are all dudes — Martin Scorsese for The Irishman, Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Bong Joon-ho for Parasite, Sam Mendes for 1917 and Todd Phillips for Joker.

Marriage Story and Little Women landed Best Picture nominations (congrats), but no respective Best Director noms for Noah Baumbach or Greta Gerwig. Both, however, scored screenwriting noms — Gerwig for Little Women (adapted) and Baumbach for Marriage Story (original).

No Best Supporting Actress nom for Hustlers‘ Jennifer Lopez! Snubbed, ixnayed, frozen-out, brushed off, given the go-by and the bum’s rush. Everyone thought JLo was locked down. Where exactly did she go wrong? What did she fail to do? Her fans are shrieking, howling, reeling in shock.

Then again Kathy Bates‘ supporting performance in Richard Jewell was nominated; ditto Jarin Blaschke‘s cinematography for The Lighthouse.

Back to #Oscarssowhite…right? With the exception of Harriet‘s Cynthia Erivo being Best Actress nominated, woke quota mandates were pretty much ignored. Gerwig wasn’t Best Director-nominated but who would seriously argue that Harriet director Kasi Lemmons was in any way, shape or form shafted? The universal opinion is that Harriet is nowhere near good enough. The Khmer Rouge quota commissars have a point as far as the overlooking of The Farewell‘s Lulu Wang is concerned.

Best Supporting Actor: Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes), Al Pacino and Joe Pesci (The Irishman), Brad Pitt (Once Upon A Time in Hollywood). Pitt has this, of course.

Best Picture: Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite. Hollywood Elsewhere can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone else, but all will be well as long as Parasite doesn’t win.

Best Actor: Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory; Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Adam Driver, Marriage Story; Joaquin Phoenix, Joker; Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes.

Best Actress: Cynthia Erivo, Harriet; Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story; Saoirse Ronan, Little Women; Charlize Theron, Bombshell; Renee Zellweger, Judy. What happened to The Farewell‘s Awkwafina? I’ll tell you what happened to her. Her nomination slot was snatched by Cynthia Erivo.

Best Supporting Actor: Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes; Al Pacino, The Irishman; Joe Pesci, The Irishman; Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Best Supporting Actress: Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell; Laura Dern, Marriage Story; Scarlett Johannson, Jojo Rabbit; Florence Pugh, Little Women; Margot Robbie, Bombshell.

HE’s beloved Irishman won only one trophy at the 25th annual Critics’ Choice Awards show on Sunday night, and that’s a shame. My heart is aching over the apparent fate of this awesome classic.

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood scored awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt (who didn’t show up), Best Original Screenplay for Quentin Tarantino, and Best Production Design (Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh).

And 1917‘s Sam Mendes split the Best Director prize with Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, but thank God Parasite didn’t win anything else. This underlines the likelihood that Parasite will only win the Best International Feature Oscar on 2.9.20. I regard this as a kind of victory or vindication.

The indicators suggest that either Once Upon A Time in Hollywood or 1917 will take the Best Picture Oscar. The Critics Choice awards have often reflected the final choices of the Academy.

I think it’s tragic that enough people don’t seem to be standing up for The Irishman, which is easily the year’s best film…easily. Either they’re impatient or too stupid or simply not interested in the lives of gangster geezers with neck wattles and pot bellies.

The CC Best Actor and Best Actress awards were taken by Joker‘s Joaquin Phoenix and Judy‘s Renee Zellweger. The Best Supporting Actor award went to Pitt, as noted. Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern won the Best Supporting Actress trophy — no surprise.

On the TV side of the equation it was Fleabag, Fleabag, Fleabag and Succession Succession Succession. Plus prizes for Watchmen‘s Regina King, Barry‘s Bill Hader, When They See Us‘s Jharrel Jerome and Fosse/Verdon‘s Michelle Williams (who, like Pitt, didn’t bother to show).

People applauded warmly or appreciatively when this or that white nominee took a prize, but you could feel extra whoo-whoo currents when anyone outside this fraternity won.

When John Lithgow announced that the Best Director award had been partly given to Sam Mendes, the applause indicated that people were saying “aaah, good, we approve!” When Lithgow added that the other winner was Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, it was like a home town basketball team had won the state championship. Ditto when Ava DuVernay‘s When They See Us (Netflix) won for Best Limited Series.

BREAKING: Video emerges of @JoeBiden criticizing antiwar Dems, praising Bush for leading America into the Iraq War & promising he will support Bush's continuation of the war

"The president of the United States is a bold leader & he is popular…I & many others will support him" pic.twitter.com/Sx2zsdbSJV

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) January 12, 2020

When it comes to 2020 Oscar nominations, Hollywood Elsewhere is partly run-of-the-mill and partly…well, a bit peculiar. In some ways I’m a lot like Scott Feinberg, and more similar than not to Sasha Stone. But I’m everybody’s brother and son. I ain’t much different from anyone. Well, in some ways I am.

Advance warning: Bong Joon-ho‘s over-praised social dramedy will wind up Best Picture nominated (along with a locked nom for Best International Feature), but it must not and can not win in the former category…no!

Best Picture in order of likelihood: The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1917, Parasite, Joker, Marriage Story (6). Outliers: Little Women (will a series of impassioned journalist columns and the ever-present Twitter fervor push it through?), Jojo Rabbit (too broad, too comedically tidy, lacking in boldness), Ford v Ferrari (respectable character-driven drama, excellent race-car footage), Knives Out (VERY clever, first-rate popcorn whodunit), Uncut Gems (an endurance test to sit through, the Safdies are sadists). (5)

Best Director in order of likelihood: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman; Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Sam Mendes, 1917; Bong Joon-ho, Parasite; Todd Phillips, Joker. (5)

Possible surprise omission: Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story (not much momentum over last four months, might fall by the wayside). Forget it: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit.

Best Actor in order of likelihood: Joaquin Phoenix, Joker; Adam Driver, Marriage Story; Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes; Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory; Taron Egerton, Rocketman.

Not happening: Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (nobody has said boo about Leo’s performance — all the heat has been about Brad).

Best Actress in order of likelihood: Renée Zellweger, Judy; Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story; Charlize Theron, Bombshell; Saoirse Ronan, Little Women; Awkwafina, The Farewell.

Shameful omission of the best female lead performance of the year: Mary Kay Place, Diane.

Forget it: Lupita Nyong’o, Us. Not a chance: Cynthia Erivo, Harriet.

Best Supporting Actor in order of likelihood: Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Al Pacino, The Irishman; Joe Pesci, The Irishman (will cancel each other out), Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy.

Not likable enough: Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes. Too broad: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit.

Best Supporting Actress in order of likelihood: Laura Dern, Marriage Story; Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers; Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell. (3) Possible: Shuzhen Zhao, The Farewell.

Should be nominated but won’t be: Julia Butters, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Unworthy contenders: Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit (because her character was hung?); Margot Robbie, Bombshell (because Roger Ailes humiliates her in that one agonizing scene?); Nicole Kidman, Bombshell (because she delivers a prim-and-proper performance that she could have performed in her sleep?).

Call me bullish, biased or delusional, but I refuse to take this man out of my Oscar predictions. pic.twitter.com/hgr0B6xrAr

— Zach Laws (@zachlaws) January 12, 2020

In a 1.11 Facebook entry, director Eugene Jarcecki (The King, Reagan, Why We Fight) posts some photos of various West Village retail shops that have shuttered and laments “the lie of a ‘booming’ economy…in Gentrification 2.0, where even the crappy soulless establishments that once replaced the original mom-and-pop places, even these onetime intruders can no longer survive.”

One of the photos was of the recently shuttered Vesuvio’s Bakery (or more precisely the Birdbath bakery inside the Vesuvio’s storefront) at 160 Prince Street. Devastating. I haven’t been to Manhattan since last spring, and had somehow missed the closing last August. Early 20th Century storefronts like Vesuvio’s are the heart and soul of what remains of the old West Village. This kind of thing has been happening in Manhattan for the last 20, 25 years. Earthy single-owner establishments have been dropping like flies, and with them the flavor and character of Sidney Lumet‘s Manhattan.

In ’78 and ’79 I lived a hop, skip and a jump away at 143 Sullivan Street. I was mostly miserable back then, and yet I felt so glad that my apartment was part of a living, breathing neighborhood composed of mom-and-pop businesses, and run by people with pugnacious New York personalities.

Eugene Jarecki anecdote: During the annual Sony Pictures Classics party in the middle of the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, I was talking to Jarecki about Why We Fight, which the festival was screening. We were engaged in the usual party chit-chat. And then I somehow shifted into a testy-bordering-on-hostile discussion with MCN’s David Poland, who was standing right next to me. “Whoa, wait,” Jarecki quipped. “This sounds like a real conversation…you guys actually have something to say to each other!”

Morgan Freeman had a point, but Rod Lurie had a better one. Read Lurie’s Facebook tale below [posted on 1.9], and then consider Elia Kazan‘s story about shooting On The Waterfront in December of ’53 and early ’54. In the video it starts at 42 seconds, ends at 1:24.

On The Waterfront director Elia Kazan: “We were shooting [On The Waterfront] in the winter, and it was a cold winter. And as we went along [we got] more and more into the winter, more and more cold and rain…and we never stopped shooting. And Brando…sometimes I had to go into the hotel…I think it was called the Majestic hotel, some phony name…I had to go in and drag him out because it was too cold out there, and he’s not very hearty in some ways. And also the cold helped the actors’ faces. They looked a certain way…they were sunk in here. They didn’t have this lovely flesh of success that leading men in Hollywood have…dimpled, pink, beautiful complexions. They were miserable looking human beings, and that included Brando.”