Joachim Phoenix as Napoleon

Little Boney Goes Hollywood

The Last Duel, a 2021 film by Sir Ridley Scott with Matt Damon as a mulleted French aristocrat chud battling honorably (if stupidly) a suave Adam Driver in 1386, turned out to be better than expected: not a classic, but quite decent, especially for a director in his mid-80s. (Sir Ridley turns 86 this week.) So hopes grew high when Scott announced he was making Napoleon with 2019 Best Actor Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix (for Joker). Granted, lots of ambitious directors have contemplated making a Bonaparte biopic, just as Scott’s revival of the sword & sandal genre in 2000 with Gladiator set ...

Writers Gulled

My friends (and one or two foes) have informed me that my past few columns have been downers. “Can’t you do something a little lighter?” they ask. “Also, what’s your ...

Andrea Riseborough

“I’d Like to Thank the Blackademy”

]It’s Oscar season! Which of course means only one thing: White people are evil. Of course, to be fair, that also applies to rainy season, holiday season, baseball season, ...

‘Avatar’s Unsightly Valley

I can vividly recall driving along the coast of Baja California in late 1996 a few days after being diagnosed with cancer, feeling sorry for myself about my impending ...

Duane Jones

I Woked With a Zombie

My Christmas gift to myself this year is a column about zombie movies. I’ve been wanting to do this one since October, when it was announced that Night of the Living Dead is ...

Steven Spielberg

‘The Fabelmans’: A Drama About a Drama-Free Boyhood

To have been born in the USA in 1946 was to have been dealt aces in the poker game of life. Those born in the first year of the baby boom went through their days finding that ...

Cate Blanchett

‘Tár’: The Cult of the Conductor

Tár is a strong art-house drama for older audiences about a #MeToo scandal in the arts that cleverly buys itself the right to be moderately sympathetic toward its ultimately ...

Plan Biden From Outer Space

In the words of John Goodman from Barton Fink, “Jesus, it’s hot.” L.A.’s historic, unprecedented September heat wave is literally murdering me. But you wanna know ...

Johnny Depp

Johnny on the Spot

No doubt it is evidence of my dissociation from much of modern life, but until the recent libel trials I did not really know who Johnny Depp was and had never heard of Amber ...

Maverick Moviemaking

White male aircraft carrier fighter pilots were the heroes of the 1986 hit movie Top Gun. But today, white men are the designated villains in our culture. Yet the profession of ...

Hollywood Apartheid Is Ready for Its Close-up

Hollywood’s been Jewish from the get-go, but “racial loyalty” never trumped the bottom line. People who lose money for the bosses get canned, Jew or not. Similarly, ...

Hollywood’s Jews Get Their Wandering Papers

I’ve been working the “Hollywood apartheid” beat since before it was hip. Four years ago I reported on the USC Annenberg School’s push to force Hollywood to insert ...

Blue Pills Matter

There is no better demonstration of The Matrix’s concept of the blue pill that leaves its victims able to perceive only the simulacrum of reality curated by the powers-that-be ...

Romeo and Juliet Balcony  Verona, Italy

When You’re a Remake

Like The Great Gatsby, the enduring fame of West Side Story is due to two factors: Many people encounter it during high school (because teachers show the 1961 movie when trying to ...


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