Matt Damon inadvertently calls attention to diversity re film crews.

http://bossip.com/1227020/white-privilege-matt-damon-rudely-interrupts-successful-black-filmmaker-to-teach-her-about-diversity-in-hollywood/

The above link deals with an episode of the revived PROJECT GREENLIGHT watch-a-movie-get-made reality series for HBO.

Take special note of the last lines of the article.

Quentin Tarantino explains other directors' authenticity (or lack thereof) for you.

In the midst of an interview with Friendly Journalist Lane Brown for NEW YORK magazine, Quentin Tarantino had this to say about David O. Russell's THE FIGHTER vs. Ben Affleck's THE TOWN:

What makes The Fighter something we’ll be talking about in 30 years?

Part of that is the explosion of David O. Russell’s talent, which had always been there but really coalesced in that movie. I think he’s the best actor’s director, along with myself, working in movies today. And The Fighter had impeccable casting. As an example, I really liked The Town, which also came out in 2010. It was a good crime film. However, next to The Fighter, it just couldn’t hold up, because everybody in The Town is beyond gorgeous. Ben Affleck is the one who gets away with it, because his Boston accent is so good. But the crook is absolutely gorgeous. The bank teller is absolutely gorgeous. The FBI guy is absolutely gorgeous. The town whore, Blake Lively, is absolutely gorgeous. Jeremy Renner is the least gorgeous guy, and he’s pretty fucking good-looking. Then, if you look at The Fighter,and you look at those sisters, they’re just so magnificent. When you seeDavid O. Russell cast those sisters,and you see Ben Affleck cast Blake Lively,
 you can’t compare the two movies. One just shows how phony the other is.

The full interview can be read at:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/08/quentin-tarantino-lane-brown-in-conversation.html

New poem: BEN AFFLECK EXPLAINS STARDOM FOR YOU

 "I lobbied [Henry Louis Gates] the same way I lobby directors about what takes of mine I think they should use. This is the collaborative creative process."--actor/director Ben Affleck, apologizing for asking Gates to remove a certain slave-owning ancestor of Affleck from an episode of the FINDING YOUR ROOTS television series.

now we know what true Celebrity is:

it occurs when a star can agree

to appear on a television show

on the subject of genealogy

and ask for a certain relative to be erased

in much the same way the star can demand

a newspaper or magazine or website

to kill details about his/her private life

or omit any outbursts committed

in the course of the interview

>

imagining how many other omissions

might have occurred

if Ben Affleck had switched his career

from making movies

to running for national elected office

A few words on Terrence Malick's TO THE WONDER.

Someday, I'll finally watch the DVD of THE NEW WORLD (which I still haven't seen) to get a more complete idea of where TO THE WONDER fits in the scheme of Terrence Malick's fifteen-years-and-counting Second Act as a filmmaker (the First Act produced two masterpieces, BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN; the Second Act has offered up two bloated-length films with sections of brilliance, THE THIN RED LINE and THE TREE OF LIFE).

SPOILER ALERT: TO THE WONDER does have a plot thread (recounted here without the religious/mythic/stylized/nature&humanity overtones Malick and gifted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki splash onto the widescreen canvas) which carries throughout the entirety of the film: Man working as environmental inspector meets ethereal Femme, brings her and elementary-school-aged daughter from Paris to Oklahoma; Man loses Femme because he Can't Commit and Femme's Visa has expired, Man has affair with Woman he once knew; Man loses Woman because he Won't Commit; Femme (daughter lives now with birth father) wants to come back to America; Man and Femme marry and create child of their own; Man has Committer's Remorse; Femme has one-afternoon stand at an Econo Lodge with neighbor; Man upset over affair; Man and Femme divorce; Femme returns to a cold, grey-weathered France; Man Half-Commits To Something by raising their daughter in Oklahoma.

And there's a fourth major character in the film.  I wrote the paragraph below as a comment on a critic's film blog:
If one could cut together footage both in the film and what Malick probably discarded, an interesting Antonioni/Bergman/Bresson-influenced 75-minute feature--about the trials and attempt at renewed faith of Javier Bardem's priest (attending to the lost and broken of Bartlesville, Oklahoma)--would appear.

A few observations re what did/didn't win the 2013 Academy Awards.

1. Steven Spielberg, with LINCOLN, headed further into his desired elder-statesman-classicist phase--with a palpable desire to be the William Wyler/George Stevens/Fred Zinnemann of his generation.  But Ang Lee deserved the win for LIFE OF PI because the task of marrying 3-D/CGI technologies to humanistic storytelling is a more challenging achievement than making historical re-enactment epics (even those with Tony Kushner screenplays)--and Lee pulled it off quite well.

2. Emmanuelle Riva's mixture of physical detail (declining health due to multiple strokes) and emotional clarity in AMOUR was no match for the Movie Star likability of Jennifer Lawrence in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  It may be good that Ms. Lawrence is choosing to work on multiple projects with David O. Russell--because her acting can be variable (witness her flatness in the getting-to-love-you cave scene with Josh Hutcherson in THE HUNGER GAMES) depending on what her directors can pull from her.

3. Daniel Day-Lewis deserved his third win for LINCOLN.  But it's a shame that Jean-Louis Trintingant was unrecognized by the Academy voters for his totally convincing performance as the devoted/despairing husband in AMOUR.

4. Yes, ARGO was entertaining.  But future generations of movie-watchers may wonder why it received Best Picture.  After the duofecta of THE TOWN/ARGO, it's obvious Ben Affleck is an accomplished mainstream director addicted to directing himself in none-too-complex flawed-but-good-guy leading roles.  Whether he'll ever color outside the lines (of what studios want in their idea of Serious Films) as an actor/director is yet to be seen.