It’s Okay With Me

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Either way she sounds sincere in a “I really don’t give a shit” sort of way.

For What It’s Worth

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Day late, dollar short: If I’d been in Richard Rushfield‘s Ankler shoes, I probably would’ve thought twice about registering my discomfort over the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger (i.e., passing around “Block the Merger” buttons).

A couple of days ago Rushfield decided to bond with “more than 1,000 actors, directors and writers” who signed a letter protesting Paramount’s buying WBD. Paramount not only saw red but has reportedly declared it won’t be throwing The Ankler any ad money during the forthcoming 2026-2027 Oscar season.

Rushfield: “Both the Wrap and Page Six pieces are accurate to the best of my knowledge, but I’m not directly involved in sales stuff and am also [at Cinemacon] so missing out on much of the fuss.”

Quote given to Page Six: “[Paramount] obviously has an issue with Richard’s reporting and him signing the letter. It’s reached a bit of a boiling point. Their reaction is now one of the main storylines, which is so counter to what they were aiming for — now we’re all taking about these buttons.”

Best Films of 2026’s First Third

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2026 has been a slumping, slumbering, soporific year so far…three and a half months of “who really cares?” Except, that is, for two excellent foreign-made flicks I’ve seen, reviewed and derived significant pleasure from: Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake and Francois Ozon‘s The Stranger

Otherwise things have basically been bad, droopy and debilitating, although the pace will start to perk up during April’s second half — Kirk Jones‘ I Swear (4.24), Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (4.24), Peter Farrelly‘s Balls Up (debuting today on Amazon…4.15…Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Sacha Baron Cohen), David Frankel‘s The Devil Wears Prada 2 (5.1)…what else?

I hated the idea of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie existing as a feature. I spat upon it. Emerald Fennell‘s Wuthering Heights…nope. Gore Verbinski‘s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die…never saw it, don’t care. (Maybe I should have.) I didn’t “hate” Project Hail Mary but it made me feel badly…it brought me down, left me feeling alienated, vaguely put off. I thought Maggie Gylllenhaal‘s The Bride! was mostly appalling. Nothing got to me except for Cake and Stranger. Everything else either stunk or meh’ed me to death.

I still haven’t seen Steven Soderbergh‘s The Christophers.

I actually quite loved Season #2 of The Pitt….forgot to mention that.

Which Cannes Journos Will Snag Cameo Parts In Currently-Lensing “White Lotus” in South of France?

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With season #4 of Mike White‘s The White Lotus having begun lensing in France, THR‘s Nick Porter is reporting that Variety critic Guy Lodge will play himself in a cameo during the show’s Cannes Film Festival lensing.

Kidding!…kidding!…false alarm, joke, please.

What I’m really saying is that if and when White’s HBO series shoots during the forthcoming 2026 festival (5.12 through 5.23), White should not cast Lodge or N.Y. Times correspondent Kyle Buchanan or IndieWire‘s Anne Thompson…none of the usual suspects. White should instead consider one or two outspoken, rebel-spirit journos…perhaps some loner type who, let’s say, rides a rented rumblehog and maybe wears saddle shoes, Kooples shirts and tinted glasses. Someone who vaguely resembles Jeff Goldblum‘s character in Nashville, say.

Or, better yet, White should use the Oscar Expert and Brother Bro….twins Cole and Justin Jaeger. White would probably like to use some kind of youngish, good-looking journos, right?

Porter (no bullshit) is reporting that (a) the HBO series will be set during the Cannes Film Festival (presumably the 79th annual gathering), and that (b) the show will use two hotels as a dramatic base or ground zero. The Airelles Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez will portray the White Lotus du Cap, and the historic Hotel Martinez on the Croisette will stand in as the White Lotus Cannes.

“Digger” Reportedly Ducking Venice Film Festival

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Two or three days ago Jeff “Insneider” Sneider posted an “uh-oh” reaction to a research screening of Alejandro G. Inarritu and Tom Cruise‘s Digger (Warner Bros., 10.2.26).

I don’t think it’s fair to post research screening opinions unless you have at least two (2) sources or reports, and even then you should always advise that said opinions are hardly absolute or definitive.

That said, the Sneider reaction suggested that (a) the film may not be quite what it needs to be or (b) the person who coughed up this reaction may not be an especially sharp or perceptive person…who knows?

But when I read the Andreas Weisman Deadline report that planted a notion that Digger isn’t likely to debut at any of the early fall film festivals (Venice. Telluride, Toronto)…when I read this on top of the Sneider thing, I went “aahh, okay, I see…maybe.”

Danny Boyle’s “Ink”, a Murdoch Biopic, Drop-Kicked Into 2027

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There was a slight prayer that Ink might possibly premiere next month in Cannes, and then that went south. Then it was speculated that Boyle’s period journalism drama might debut at the Venice Film Festival five months hence. Nope! Now comes a report that Ink has been bumped into 2027. Translation: Boyle probably doesn’t feel confident about the way Ink has been shaping up in editing, and is probably planning upon much more editing, possibly some extra shooting…something in that vein.

Not One Cinemacon Photo of Jeremy Strong’s Ginger-Haired Mark Zuckerberg?

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A teaser for Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning (Sony, 10.6) was screened yesterday at Cinemacon. Are you telling me this Sony release won’t debut at the 2026 Venice Film Festival? Of course it will.

Boilerplate: “The footage opens on Mikey Madison as Facebook engineer Frances Haugen and Jeremy Allen White as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, discussing a potential story exposing Facebook’s commitment to profit over negative social harm.

“The trailer then cuts to the first look at CEO Mark Zuckerberg, transformatively played by Jeremy Strong in convincing makeup, defending his role in the company and dubbing himself a leader of free speech. [A serving of] Sorkin’s sharp dialogue, hearings, scandals, and an examination of Zuckerberg’s impact on the changing modern world since the original film.”

Since “Green Knight”, David Lowery Has Been a Must-To-Avoid

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At Sundance ’13 (13 years ago) I became a David Lowery de votee after catching Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, a descendant of Robert Altman‘s Thieves Like Us…basically a film about young love, guns, outlaws, rural flavor.

Three years later I got off the Lowery bus after totally hating Pete’s Dragon — a bone-headed, nonsensical, family-friendly dragon film, from Lowery and Disney and costarring Robert Redford.

But during Sundance ’17 I fell head over heels for Lowery’s minimalist Ghost Story (silent, watchful ghost under a plain bedsheet).

In ’18 came Lowery’s decent, modestly approvable Old Man & The Gun (Redford as gentleman bank robber).

And then in 2021 Lowery’s horrific The Green Knight, a sodden medieval dreamscape thing, arrived…a trippy, bizarre, hallucinatory quicksand movie that moves like a snail and will make you weep with frustration and perhaps even lead to pondering (not my idea but the film’s) the idea of your own decapitation.

After The Green Knight I said to myself, “okay, that’s it…Lowery is clearly Satan, a banshee, a vile goblin.”

From Owen Gleiberman’s review of Mother Mary:

“This is the David Lowery-est David Lowery movie ever made. Which is to say that by the end of it, you may be scratching your head to the point of wanting your money back.

“Mother Mary dances on the barn floorboards, and Sam says things like ‘You give people the gift of giving a shit about you.’ But what the movie really comes down to is a séance. And the stabbing of flesh. And a ghost.

“Yes, a ghost. In the form of a floating piece of red material that looks like a blanket made of organza. Is this the ghost of their relationship? Or a real ghost? That’s a question that will be debated by moviegoers for maybe four seconds. Because Mother Mary, as it takes the leap into Gothic metaphysical fantasy, becomes almost completely incoherent, and stays that way. It’s like an exorcist movie where the devil is a piece of bolt fabric.

“Mother Mary eventually turns into the most befuddlingly pretentious movie about a pop star since Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux. It heads down a blind alley of cosmic meaning that, in the end, means nothing.”

From HE’s July 2021 review of Lowery’s The Green Knight:

“I will never forget The Green Knight, and I will never, ever watch it again. It’s an exacting, carefully crafted, ‘first-rate’ creation by a director of serious merit, and I was moaning and writhing all through it. I can’t believe I watched the whole thing, but I toughed it out and that — in my eyes, at least — is worth serious man points.

“What would I rather do, I was asking myself — watch the rest of The Green Knight or bend over and allow my head to be cut off? Both would be terrible things to endure, I reasoned, but at least decapitation would be quick and then I’d be at peace. Watching The Green Knight for 130 minutes, on the other hand…”

Jesus….Swalwell Might Have Bill Cosby-ed This or That Woman?

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Apparently, to go by recently unveiled testimony from at least one or perhaps two women, Eric Swallwell may have Bill Cosby-ed his victims.

Speaking as a former imbiber, nobody drinks themselves into a state of total black-out oblivion without ANY memories of sexual activity. It has to be a Mickey Finn-type thing, such as when Kim Novak told Scott Feinberg that she believes she was covertly drugged by either Tony Curtis or Sammy Davis back in ‘57.)

I didn’t suspect this as I found it beyond the logical pale that Swalwell would jeopardize his career as blatantly as he’d been accused of doing.

Not to mention the seemingly selective recollections of his victims (see Megyn Kelly clip below) plus the much broader criteria for sexual assault these days, which is incontestable compared to 15 or 20 years ago or further back.

And so I under-reported the Swalwell situation last weekend. I under-interpreted it. He’d obviously sought to sexually manipulate X number of younger women but I couldn’t imagine that he’d been using Cosby-level methods. (Even JFK hadn’t resorted to Mickey Finn-ing their drinks.)

How could a married father of two and a serious Congressional legislator behave like a flat-out beast? Issues of basic decency aside, how could he subject himself and his all-important career to an absurd level of risk? How could he have been so thoughtless and reckless? So self-destructive?

Endorsed by Paul Simon

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Yesterday I was knocked out by a nocturnal photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, which had been posted on Facebook by Reid Rosefelt. It has a fantasy-world quality…pinpoints of golden amber enshrouded by fog clouds, like an image of nighttime London out of Disney’s Péter Pan (‘53).

“It doesn’t seem real”, I thought, “but congrats to Reid all the same.”

Reid later clarified that the photo has been snapped by event photographer Jane Kratochvil, who lives in Reid’s building but has a better view of the bridge.

Kratochvil’s photos, which capture corporate events and shows and big celebrations, are all postcard pretty — bursting with color, perfectly balanced, full of joy and spirit, etc. Which is what her clients want.

Look at her professional website and you immediately think of that lyric from Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome”…”gives you the nice bright colors, gives you the greens of summer…makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.”

Alas, Jane’s magnificently foggy Brooklyn Bridge-at-night snap is apparently an anomaly — I found no other images on her website that seem to even aspire to its moody complexity, much less vaguely resemble it.