Fin: The FYC deluge, a 'Scream' firing, and Hall vs. Oates

A Thanksgiving weekend notes column

Hope everybody had a Happy Thanksgiving and a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat.

Before the holiday, around a quick trip to Hollywood, I’ve spent much of the past week in full-on For Your Consideration mode. If I’m not watching awards screeners, I’m helping colleagues get a hold of them, figuring out my review schedule for December, and trying to decide what order to watch things in. There’s been a lot of time commiserating with my colleagues about which screener sites are functional and which are not. (The best? Vimeo, plus the WB and Apple ones. The worst? It rhymes with “Misney Mebut.”) 

It’s an odd time of year- there might be a film that I spent months trying to see, that I rearranged my schedule to squeeze in during a film festival months ago, and on a day like today, I get three copies of it in my inbox. 

A couple of other takeaways: I can’t believe they’re doing an awards push for Flamin’ Hot. Doesn’t the entire premise of the film being exposed as a lie knock movies out of contention? Usually that happens during the actual Oscar campaigning, not around the movie’s release a year earlier. 

Also, I’m not seeing any FYC emails for Sound of Freedom. I wonder why- did something happen? 

Slashing Scream 7 

Big news this week, is that actress Melissa Barrera has been sacked from the seventh Scream film, following social media comments about Israel and the Palestinians. Jenna Ortega, a star of the last couple of Scream pictures and much more of a budding star has also dropped out. 

Granted- it’s the seventh Scream film, and if that franchise has taught us anything over almost 25 years, it’s that it doesn’t matter all that much which actors are in it. After all, a bunch of them get killed off every time, and the ones who survive can't stay teenagers forever. 

That said, I don’t love this. Barrera didn’t say things that I would say, but I don’t find her comments especially beyond the pale. 

This is beginning to look a bit like the blacklist. And in case you haven’t read that history, the blacklist wasn’t very good for the Jews. 

Sure, right-wingers in Hollywood like to complain about getting “blacklisted,” which is the sort of thing that almost never survives the scrutiny of a look at their IMDB page. Seriously- Mel Gibson has legitimately been one of the busiest actors for the last five years. But what’s happening now has much more in common with midcentury, naming-names, Hollywood Ten stuff. 

The Susan Sarandon part, though, did lead to this amazing tweet, quoting Sarandon’s son:

Sarandon, whatever you can say about her politics, might have enjoyed the longest continuous run as a sex symbol in Hollywood history. I mean, she played the “hot older woman” in both Bull Durham and White Palace, which were made, respectively, in 1988 and 1990.

Hall vs. Oates 

Big news in Philadelphia pop music feud news: Daryl Hall and John Oates appear to have had a falling out. But the reasons remain a mystery. 

Per Philadelphia Magazine, Hall has obtained a restraining order against Oates, for reasons that remain confidential. The two men, though, have long had a complicated relationship, frequently breaking up and reuniting. It’s long been whispered about that Hall does all the work, and Oates much less. That dynamic, and that of Simon and Garfunkel, was brilliantly parodied in SNL’s “Wolverton & Flamm” sketch from 1991: 

Kevin Bacon, like Hall and Oates, is from Philadelphia and plays music. 

Numerous media outlets have written about this dispute, all of them offering up feeble puns involving the duo’s lyrics. Anyway, I’m looking forward to discovering just whatever this is all about.

The world’s most hateful Wawa 

The author of that Phillymag item, Victor Fiorillo, wrote last week about a particularly unpleasant visit to a Wawa in Upper Darby. While picking up his morning coffee, Victor suddenly stumbled into the Peter Himmelman song “Untitled.” 

“Those Jews already have too many holidays,” one employee said, as part of a Bill O’Reilly-esque rant about the “War on Christmas.” “The Jews get what they want. Always.”

Another employee chimed in with, “We have to crush them. We have to beat them down.” If you’re going to talk like that, always smart to do it in front of a journalist.

Wawa’s CEO, Chris Gheysens, emailed Victor to apologize, and to promise the comments “will be swiftly dealt with.” The chief executive did not, however, apologize for Wawa’s latest attempt at pizza. 

I have been to that Wawa many times. And next time I’m in there, I might just whip out my Star of David near the coffee machines and yell out “I’m YUDEN!,” like Adam Goldberg with the German POWs in Saving Private Ryan. 

This week’s writings 

A bit of a light week heading into the holiday, but here at the Substack I wrote about the “return” of sex to the movies, and reviewed the wrestling documentary Out in the Ring, and later the animated films Wish, Leo, and Trolls Band Together. For Splice Today, I reviewed the sports documentary Bye, Bye Barry.

Earlier this fall, I reviewed Maestro and Saltburn, which reach theaters this weekend. You can read all my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Or, if you Google my name and the title of the movie, it should come up that way.

Also, I wrote for Living Life Fearless about 'Euphoria' being delayed to 2025 and reviewed three music documentaries from DOC NYC. And for AppleInsider, I wrote my Apple crime roundup, including the seizure of iPhones and iPads from Mayor Eric Adams.

Next week: More on Maestro, reviews of more new movies, a fun interview, and a lot more. As always, thank you for your support.