This is an identity-propelled insult to the concept of “Best Actor” by any definition, in any context.

If there was going to be an overturn-the-apple-cart winner in this category, it should have been Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon. But no — SAG members gave the big prize to a guy who played the dual role of Smoke and Stack in a 1930s Delta blues vampire exploitation film…but of course!

On top of which Sinners has won SAG’s Best Ensemble award…what a revoltin’ development. This is total bullshit…identity over merit. Sinners might actually win the Best Picture Oscar. At least the lack of certainty makes for a palpable suspense element.

Excerpts from Bret Stephens‘ “Trump and Netanyahu Are Doing the Free World a Favor“, posted on 3.1.26:

“It’s a mistake to say that Trump got America into war on Saturday. What he did was respond to a war that Iran has been waging against the United States since 1979.

“It waged war when it seized our embassy in 1979, murdered (via proxy) hundreds of our service members in Beirut in 1983 and supplied the I.E.D.s, or roadside bombs, that killed or maimed over 1,000 of our troops during the war in Iraq. It waged war when it sought to assassinate former senior U.S. officials, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and, according to a 2024 report in Politico, Trump himself. One reason Iran behaved as it did is because it drew the lesson that it would pay no great price. No more.

“Would the United States, the Arab world or Israel have been safer if we had waited a year or two for Iran to build several thousand more missiles? Or after Russia had supplied the regime with thousands of advanced shoulder-fired air defense missiles, as The Financial Times reported last week that it had agreed to do?

“Iran does not exist in a geopolitical vacuum: With Moscow and Beijing, it is a core member of the axis of autocracies that threaten the democratic world broadly.

“It is impossible to imagine anything like Mideast peace without the end of this regime.”

A healthy audience will probably want to see The Testament of Ann Lee, once, but how many would really want to own a Bluray version? Ann Lee is not what anyone would call a repeat viewing experience, or even a film you’d want to see twice. So no Bluray is no biggie.

Last night the Producers Guild Awards put everyone to sleep by handing their top prize to Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another. Okay, I felt a certain “whew” when they didn’t give their award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures to Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners…thank you, dear God, for small favors.

Otherwise I’m feeling nothing, nothing, nothing.

Three years ago my blood turned acidic and my soul was choked with industrial-strength hate for EEAAO, but I’m not even feeling that this year as OBAA is indisputably well-made. Throughout my entire life I’ve felt some kind of emotional response to this or that Best Picture Oscar winner, but this year is a total flatliner. Okay, I’m rooting for Sentimental Value‘s Stellan Skarsgard to win Best Supporting Actor, but otherwise the well is dry.

…films like Willam Castle‘s Hollywood Story (’51) would be completely forgotten….they would sink beneath the waves.

Bosley Crowther review, posted on 6.7.51:

“It is easy to see, now, why some pictures which sound promising at the start, on the strength of the ideas behind them, turn out to be dismal flops.

“Hollywood Story demonstrates it.

“This film, which came to the Paramount yesterday, is, in fact, a detailed demonstration of the collapse of a good idea upon which a movie producer hopefully launches himself. And with the collapse of his idea, this picture collapses, too. Only goes to show what a gamble the movie business is.”

He yelped, whimpered and whined, I mean. Okay, I don’t know that for a fact. But I’d like to believe it.

It’s almost okay to be a wokey if you didn’t like Sinners…respectful salute to Christophe.

I vaguely understand what the concern might be, but only vaguely. Fuck it…I know next to nothing.

“Pound them, Charlie…pound them.” — Jack Hawkins’ Gen. Allenby in Lawrence of Arabia.

HE believes that distraction is Donald Trump’s primary motivation in attacking Iran’s rulers…its military and governmental facilities. The idea of clobbering and wasting Iran’s detestable rulers is not a bad one, but the main goal is to make Don look tough and resolute…Mr. Ramrod.

N.Y. Times editorial, posted early this morning: