The Night The Oscars Stopped “Sinners”…Please!

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8:31 pm: Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar goes to Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another. Expected. Then he again he did advance the idea of Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw being willing to murder his biological daughter in order to qualify for membership in the Christmas Adventurers Club…a ridiculous narrative conceit. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is expected to win for Best Original Screenplay. Yup…he’s got that. Coogler is a likable dude. He speaks from the heart, and off the top of his head.

8:20 pm: Kieran Culkin announcing Best Supporting Actor winner. Rooting against likely reality for Stellan Skarsgard to win. But Sean Penn wins, of course. And Penn isn’t there to accept! Anyway, it’s over…casting plus Penn means Sinners isn’t winning Best Picture. Yes! Yes! It’ll be OBAA. A friend says Delroy Lindo didn’t clap for Penn. True?

8:15 pm: A tie for Best Live Action Short. One is for “The Singers. The other is for “Two People Exchanging Saliva.” Kumail Najiani: “Ironic that the longest segment of the show is about the winners of Best Live Action Short.”

8:05 pm: Two first-rate Burger King commercials….”we fired the king.” The first one was easily the better/best.

8:02 pm: The first-ever Oscar for Best Casting goes to Kassandra Kulukundis (sp?) for One Battle After Another. Sinners loses again!

7:51 pm: Frankenstein winning for Best Costume Design = no win for Sinners in this category! I’m sorry but this is encouraging! And Frankenstein wins for Best Makeup!

7:48 pm: Venytura Crossroads parody commercial (making all aspect ratios into tall and think) made me laugh out loud. Loved it!

7:43 pm: The big Sinners musical dance number was a total knockout….wonderfully sung, beautifully lighted, excellent choreography….grade A top to bottom.

7:38 pm: Jett and Cait are both predicting that Michael B. Jordan will take the Best Actor Oscar. HE response: Jordan defeating Timothee Chalamet or Ethan Hawke is a ludicrous notion.

7:31 pm: Sutton’s favorite film, KPop Demon Hunters, wins Best Animated Feature. I feel nothing personally, but good for Sutton and all her KPOP friendos. I don’t care about the animated short subject winner. Nobody does. Okay, that’s mean.

7:18 pm: Amy Madigan has to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar…right? Yes!! Weapons! Love the expression on hubby Ed Harris‘s face….”what have I been tellin’ ya?”

7:06 pm: Conan O’Brien‘s Weapons opener (chased by angry kids) through the sets of all the Best Picture nominees….fantastic! Great Ted Sarandos joke…”it’s his first time in a theatre!” Great Timothee Chalamet dig at the ballet & opera thing. “Too real for ya, hah?” Leonardo DiCaoprio’s moustache is his look for a new, currently rolling Martin Scorsese film (costarring Jennifer Lawrence).

6:40 pm: I’m sorry but Timothee Chalamet‘s all-white, peak-lapel tux is atrocious. I will defend TC’s right to speak hard truths about opera and ballet all he wants, but he deserves serious pushback for the tux.

6:40 pm: Too many actress nominees (Rose Byrne, etc.) are wearing their hair in tight buns. HE is especially disappointed that Sentimental Value‘s Renate Reinsve is bunning it. Kate Hudson and Nicole Kidman‘s hair is not bunned, and they look really great.

6:25 pm: Probably the most inspiring halftime speech ever given by any actor in any sports film, bar none…a speech that makes my eyes dampen each and every time: “We can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight out way back….into the light…we can climb outta hell.”

< Red carpet [6:10 pm]: I love how the tech crew supporting the ABC red carpet interviewers can’t manage to post the names of not-famous-enough celebs being spoken to. (Pick it up, fellas!) The gown worn by Hamnet‘s Jessie Buckley (deep red sash, pink-beige dress) doesn’t make it…not really. Plus she’s cut her hair too short — should have let it grow out a bit.

Sinners‘ Wunmi Mosaku, whose supporting performance I had totally forgotten before she was nominated, is hugely pregnant and dressed in an intense green gown. She’s not winning so forget it. Melissa McCarthy looks great…transformed by Ozempic! Spike Lee‘s white-beige cuffed pants look awful…way too much ankle-sock.

Perfect Ford (i.e., “It’s My Way”)

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[Initially posted on 9.25.15] This, ladies and germs, is one of the most satisfying punch-out scenes ever captured in the history of motion pictures. It works because it arrives after nearly an hour of hiding out, milking cows, raising barns, fixing car engines and making goo-goo eyes at Kelly McGillis.

It feels so good when those redneck bullies start giving grief to Alexander Godunov because they don’t know what’s coming…but we do. You’re about to get thrashed, assholes.

Please list any other wonderfully satisfying dominance scenes…a good guy about to clobber the baddies, and the sheer comfort of knowing nothing will get in his way.

,/p>

Grateful For Invite to Southhampton Playhouse Oscar Gathering

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HE’s basic Oscar Night activity is to sit in a soft chair and file reactions to the various winners, losers, clips, tributes, witty commentaries and unexpected occurences. I just need to be plugged in…period. Socializing doesn’t really work in this context.

I was nonetheless tempted to accept Bill McCuddy and Eric Kohn‘s gracious invite to attend the Southampton Playhouse Oscar Viewing & Schmoozing event. I’ve never been there (said to be qjuite the jewel), and it would feel liberating to savor those wealthy, laid-back vibes.

But getting there from Wilton would take 3 1/2 hours and maybe longer — a 70-minute Metro North train to Grand Central, subway to Penn Station, two-hour Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) journey to Southampton. The other way is a Bridgeport-to-Hamptons car ferry + driving out to Southhampton Playhouse (43 Hill St, Southampton, NY 11968). But it’s a bear either way. Driving to Boston would take less time.

Thanks again, fellas, but it doesn’t feel like a fit.

Dying Harvey Knows He’ll Never Be Free

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And that he’ll most likely expire in jail. But he doesn’t want to perish on godforsaken Riker’s Island. He’d like to live in some kind of decent facility, maybe savor some fraternal comfort with other inmates, be offered a better selection of films, etc.

The Rikers Island-residing Harvey Weinstein to THR‘s Maer Roishan (posted on 3.10): “When I got sick last year, I was freezing to death in my cell. For days, I couldn’t move. There’s no doctor here. We’re on Rikers Island — all these prisoners and no doctor.

“Finally, I called Craig Rothfeld and begged him, ‘Please help me…I’m sick…I don’t know what to do.’ He got on the phone and they shipped me to Bellevue. I had a heart operation the next day. A day later and I would have been gone. I have bone marrow cancer. I’m dying here. And the DA’s idea is probably to have me die in prison. But I am dying.”

Roshan: “Do you worry about the possibility that you may die here?”

Weinstein: “It scares the shit out of me. Cold and heartless. It’s incredible to have the life that I had and the things that I did for society and not have the leniency to deal with me in a kinder way. Whatever they think I did bad in my life, I didn’t get the death penalty. I’m going to be 74 in March. I don’t want to die in here.”

Elliott Gould‘s Philip Marlowe to the encarcerated David Carrdine in The Long Goodbye (’73): “Listen Dave, remember…you’re not in here, it’s just your body.”

Check-Out Conversation

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The 2026 Oscars will kick off Sunday evening. Finally. But there’s a whole world out there that doesn’t know or care about them. Zero. Donut.

On Saturday afternoon I spoke with two employees of Wilton’s Village Market — Linda, a friendly, somewhat older checkout person with big glasses and long brown hair, and Andrew, a blond-haired trainee who seemed about 19 or 20.

As of 3:20 pm, Linda didn’t know the Oscar telecast was a day away. Nor had she seen or even heard about any of the Best Picture nominees. Linda: “You’re talking to the wrong people.”

HE: “How about last year’s Best Picture winner, Anora?” Linda: “No, but thanks for telling me. Maybe I’ll stream it.”

I asked Andrew if he’s seen Anora. He looked at me with a flat, emotion-less expression. Eyes as dead as a shark’s.

I asked Linda if she’s ever watched the Oscars, and if they’ve ever made any kind of impression if she has. Yes, she said, but she mainly likes watching the red-carpet fashion parade. “Cool”, I said. “Nothing wrong with that.” And that was it.

This isn’t Linda and Andrew’s fault — it’s the film industry’s. I blame wokeism. We all know the alleged causes and the drainage factors, but for the last nine or ten years Hollywood has been camped out inside its own social-political rectum. All I know is that 15 years ago there was a monoculture out there, and supermarket checkout folks were at least passively aware of the Oscars and had maybe seen one or two Best Picture contenders, or at least had heard about them.

Things have changed…something’s missing. Linda and Andrew don’t care for a reason.

Something Obviously Wrong With Mark Faulkner

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Only girly-men take offense or say “uh-oh” to themselves when contemplating the idea of a teenage male getting lucky with a pretty adult woman.

In Robert Mulligan‘s Summer of ’42 (’71), 15 year-old Hermie (Gary Grimes) lucks into a one-off with the beautiful but heartbroken Dorothy (Jennifer O’Neill) after she’s received news that her husband has been killed in combat.

For my money Summer of ’42 was too sensitive and restrained. Not even a little bit raunchy…booo!

I was 15 once. I used to dream of some 25 or 30-year-old hottie doing me a huge favor. All healthy 15 year-old lads desire this.

I’m personally appalled that guys like Mark Faulkner find the notion of a teenaged boy receiving an intimate gift from an older woman distasteful or even felonious. I replied to Faulkner’s Facebook post by asking, “Is there something wrong with you?”

Followup message to Faulkner: “There’s no ‘The’ in the title.”

Changed My Mind — Stellan Skarsgard Over Sean Penn

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HE’s final calls have just changed as far as the Best Supporting Actor category is concerned. I don’t care if Sean Penn is likely to win because his performance as Colonel Lockjaw is overly rigid and ass-plugged, and the character’s motives are basically nonsensical and anti-human.

I have to go with Sentimental Value‘s Stellan Skarsgard because he tells the truth — his performance conveys the real, close-to-burnt-out, looking-to-rejuvenate reality of things for old guys trying to hold on to their creative juju.

Given how much Scott Mantz and Perri Nemiroff are emotionally rooting for Sinners to win the Best Picture Oscar, I will be absolutely shrieking with joy if OBAA wins. Obviously out of spite. The Sinners bullshit (a Best Picture Oscar going to a schlocky Samuel Z. Arkoff musical vampire movie?) has to come to a full and final end. The Movie Godz demand this.

I Wept With Joy Last Year When Demi Moore Lost…Justifiably, I Might Add, For Having Pushed a False Narrative

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HE-posted on 2.11.25: For the sixth or seventh time, Demi Moore’s narrative is dishonest. She was not forced into a popcorn box by mean old Hollywood executives. She walked right into that box of her own volition, and she totally reaped the spoils (mainstream fame, huge paychecks, flush lifestyle) until she aged out.

And then she pivoted into a body horror flick just like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford pivoted into hag horror in the early ’60s.

In the ’80s and ’90s Moore went for big, attention-getting, high-paying roles in mainstream films, and she became rich and famous from this. She chose this path while the choosing was good.

I’ve never read or heard that Moore tried to prove her arthouse mettle by appearing in edgy Sundance films, and she never tried to be in a critically-approved, Cannes-worthy, outside-the-box feminist statement film, and certainly not in a body-horror film.

She only took the lead in The Substance when she calculated that she’d aged out (duhhh) and a role like this was her only likely shot at revitalizing her career.

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Should Have Called Out Teyana Taylor’s “Cat-face”, But “James From Corporate” Beat Me To It

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During my initial viewing of One Battle After Another I had an immediate problem with Teyana Taylor‘s obviously worked-on facial features, which look unnaturally inflated and scrunched and super-sculpted. But I chickened out. I was afraid I’d be accused of racist pigeonholing or something, so I kept my arrows in the quiver.

But while listening last night to Maureen Callahan’s 3.13 pre-Oscar interview with “James From Corporate”, I heard the term “cat-face” and immediately went “yes!…of course it is!…this is my turf and I should’ve said this last November, but I chickened out! Because I’m a candy-ass.”

Who am I to talk with my Prague eyelid and neck-wattle surgery plus my two hair-plug treatments, which happened in ’12, ’14 and ’15? Obviously I’m not one to talk. But I’m agreeing with James that Taylor’s injections and knife-styles get in the way of the reality of her Perfidia Beverly Hills character.

“James From Corporate’ to Maureen Callahan, 9:40 mark: “So my whole take with One Battle After Another starts with the miscasting of Teyana Taylor. I think a lot of people have an issue with this movie because the prologue doesn’t work [but] just her casting alone…

“I’m trying to find a better way to say this, but [my problem is that] her plastic surgery is very distracting. She has sort of like a cat face that resembles Lauren Sanchez. And it just doesn’t read to me at all as being authentic of a hand-to-mouth revolutionary as someone like of that world.

Callahan: “That’s a great point. She’s partnered in the film with her lover, Leonardo DiCaprio, and they are aggressively depicted as having no money.”

“James From Corporate”: “So yeah, where is she getting the money for this to look plastic surgery-ized, almost Kardashianized? So casting-wise Taylor is sort of anointed as someone new and important. I’m not sure who is behind this and who’s backing her, but Taylor really took me out of the movie. It took like another full hour for me to sort of settle into it. Although I really like the young actress, the daughter…Chase Infiniti.”

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“The Average American Goes To Four or Five Theatrical Movies Annually”? HE Catches At Least 100 Screenings Per Year, The Rest Via Streaming

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HE was lucky enough to live off and live within a mostly healthy Hollywood atmosphere (spiritually, creatively, economically) for 50 years, starting in mid ’70s Manhattan and alighting to Hollywood in ’83, shifting into big-time journalism in ’91 and eventually leaping upon my own independent online platform horse starting in ’98, launching HE in August ’04 and then gaining strength the following year (i.e., earning better and better ad income) and continuing flush into the late teens and very early 2020s, when Covid and woke terror killed everything.

Thank you, oh loving and merciful white-bearded God, for the difficult but wonderful lusciousness of that life…a life that I lived on a day-to-day, hand-to-mouth, West Village and WeHo rumblehoggy + worldwide festival travels + Vietnam and Argentina + suede lace-ups + 4K UHD Blurays + heavenly granddaughter + excellent health + Prague touch-ups and hair plugs + the blessed unbuttoning of 175 blouses. Marc Antony in Julius Caesar: “This…was a life!”

“Hollywood Isn’t A Secret Cabal of Racists…It’s A Secret Cabal of People Terrified of Looking Like Racists.” Hence (a) The Possibly Mythical, Post-BAFTA Awards “Sinners” Surge, and (b) People Insisting With A Straight Face That Michael B. Jordan Deserves The Best Actor Oscar.

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The reason Average Joes and Janes are “meh” or largely uninterested in the Oscar telecast and, indeed, will often sidestep or even ignore award-season movies until they hit streaming…the reason Joe and Jane have tuned out (i.e., slept through) woke-infected Hollywood fare for the last 10 years…the reason is because they realize that Hollywood is, as Bill Maher said last night, “a secret cabal of people terrified of looking like racists”. Or homophobes. Or transphobes. Even in a historical, centuries-old context, POCs magically appear.

Idea: Let’s remake Becket with Michael B. Jordan as King Henry II and, if you insist on bending over backwards, Paul Mescal at Thomas a’Becket.

Loud and proud: HE was one of the prominent horsemen who led San Juan Hill charge against the Lily Gladstone identity campaign for Best Actress, and when she lost to Emma Stone there was a great cry of relief across the land….a joyful wailing that said “the identity crazies are no longer dictating the terms.”

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