Fin: The Globes don’t blow it, Spielberg speaks, Taylor Swift and Soros, and reflecting on Reggie White
This week’s notes column
First off, I want to thank everyone for the huge response to the “808 Lines about 404 Movies” series (Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.) I also know I’m welcoming a lot of new subscribers, so thank you for that, it’s a pleasure to have you here. I would ask that you read my piece on “50 Things I Believe About Movies” to get a sense of what my views and values are as a critic; it won’t take nearly as long to read as the movie countdown piece, I assure you.
This, for new readers, is the weekly Friday notes column; I typically write an essay on Mondays, a movie anniversary piece on Tuesdays, reviews of new features and documentaries on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and this on Fridays. However, that gets scrambled many weeks for various reasons. And in case you were wondering about the name, Ben Hecht was a famous screenwriter, author, and playwright in the early 20th century, The SS Ben Hecht was the ship he sent to rescue Holocaust survivors, and “SS” also stands for both my initials and “Sub Stack.”
A fairly normal, new-era Golden Globes list
The Golden Globe Awards have always been something of a curiosity (if you’re being generous) or a corrupt scheme on the part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (if you’re not).
In reality, the “Golden Globes scandal” of a couple of years back was two different scandals: Scandal 1 was that the HFPA was a den of corruption and payola. Scandal 2 was that the HFPA had zero Black members. HFPA’s response, at least at first, was to rectify Scandal 2, by adding some Black members, doing just about nothing about Scandal 1, and therefore pretending that “the scandal” had been solved.
In the last year, the Golden Globes were sold to something called Eldridge Industries, which is a holding company with a convoluted structure that also involves both Penske — which owns all the Hollywood trades, plus Billboard and Rolling Stone — and Dick Clark Productions. The “owner” is Todd Boehly, who also owns Chelsea Football Club.
As a result, the HFPA has formally disbanded BUT, the former HFPA members are now, per Vulture, “salaried employees of the new for-profit organization with responsibilities that include voting for the Golden Globes and making content for its website,” with a starting salary of $75,000 a year, plus benefits. So they vote, literally, for a living- with the trade publications now covering an awards show that is their corporate sibling. Also, the ceremony will now air on CBS, after NBC previously banished it.
The nominations for the first Golden Globes of the new era came out this week and… they’re relatively normal. I was sure they do something ridiculous like nominate Flamin’ Hot for Best Picture, but no, they went fairly conventional, even if nominating Air for Best Picture was something of a reach.
Meanwhile, I’m a member and awards voter in the Critics Choice Association, and we put out our Critics Choice Awards nominations this week. I didn’t find much to complain about with them, either. Check out the awards on January 14 on The CW.
Is May December a comedy?
Todd Haynes’ May December is the first of the November/December awards movies to get people talking online, probably because it showed up on Netflix (I wish we could have some discussions about Saltburn, although we will when it lands on Prime Video December 22.)
A lot of viewers have been noticing little things and discussing them, which is a good thing. But after May December was nominated for the Golden Globe in the “Best Picture- Musical or Comedy” category, it set off a robust debate over whether the movie should be considered a comedy.
One critic, Glenn Charlie Dunks, had a theory:
I’m neither. I first saw May December at a press screening in a theater… at which I was the only critic who showed up, and the only person in the theater besides the studio rep and projectionist. Not sure which one that counts as, but I’d say May December is a drama with some comedic accents.
Spielberg speaks out
I wrote back in mid-November about how Steven Spielberg had not yet spoken out about any of the events in Israel, and how some voices, including one group of Holocaust survivors, had called him out for this. My take was that Spielberg has more than earned the right to speak out if and when he chooses to, and besides, Hamas isn’t likely to be moved by any appeal from a Jewish American filmmaker. It’s not like they’re huge Close Encounters fans or anything.
This week, Spielberg did indeed speak out. The director issued a statement, through the USC Shoah Foundation, that “I never imagined I would see such unspeakable barbarity against Jews in my lifetime.” He also announced that he had been collecting testimonies from survivors of the October 7 attack, similar to Spielberg’s existing project of doing so for Holocaust survivors.
This is the kind of effort that likely took some setting up, and has already been underway for a while, which is likely the best explanation for why Spielberg took his time in saying anything. And the people who sought to cast aspersions on Spielberg’s motives should maybe think about apologizing.
And speaking of apologies…
SNL vs. Stefanik
Last week, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) got to fulfill the perpetual conservative dream of publicly haranguing three college presidents. It was a hearing that lasted several hours, but as is usually the case with these things, there was a viral video of a politician grandstanding and berating the witnesses. If you don’t believe me, watch any time a tech CEO or Biden cabinet secretary testifies. By contrast, 95 percent of Congressional hearings are boring and uneventful.
Stefanik, in footage you’ve probably seen, demanded yes-or-no answers from the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT about whether a call for genocide against Jews would violate the schools’ harassment policies. The real answer, which the presidents tried to give in an especially mealy-mouthed way, is “It depends.” If a college student said the actual words “I call for the genocide of Jews,” then yes, it would probably violate policies and get them kicked out of school (and cost them all their job offers, should a video emerge of them saying it). But for the GOP, the bar for what qualifies as a call for genocide has been lowered down to “saying ‘Free Palestine,’” “carrying a Palestinian flag,” or “wearing a keffiyah.”
As a result, Stefanik got what she wanted, which was the resignation of Penn’s president, lots of attention for herself, and even social media praise from liberals who normally wouldn’t say something so nice about a politician who has spent about 90 percent of her public career doing little more than suckle at the teat of Donald Trump.
On Saturday, Saturday Night Live did a cold open based on that moment in the hearing. It mocked both Stefanik and the university presidents, and while new-ish cast member Chloe Trost did a decent job channeling Stefanik, the tonal shifts were abrupt, as if a liberal writer had written the Stefanik parts and someone from the Babylon Bee had been brought in to mock the presidents. If anything, the sketch was probably meaner to the college presidents than it was to Stefanik.
Overall, it was SNL doing what it always does- mocking something that happened in politics the week before. They’ve done nearly identical Congressional hearing sketches, usually featuring Jim Jordan yelling at people, at least a half-dozen times. The Stefanik bit was a pretty feeble sketch, but it also went nowhere close to crossing any kind of line whatsoever.
So, naturally, the New York Post reaction was this:
Which quoted this:
This is, for lack of a better word, madness. And it would be utterly unprecedented to demand an FCC investigation of a Saturday Night Live sketch if Trump hadn’t himself threatened to send the Justice Department after SNL back when Alec Baldwin was doing an impression of him.
The question of whether antisemitism (or, for that matter, Nazis or the Holocaust) can ever be funny has been litigated and argued about for decades. There was an entire documentary, The Last Laugh, about that very question, and in that and elsewhere, Mel Brooks has spoken about this extensively.
But the idea that a member of Congress haranguing Ivy League presidents over their speech and harassment policies is so beyond the pale that it can’t even be joked about on a comedy show? That’s laughable. Is Elise Stefanik so beyond reproach that the government must intervene now that a comedy show has mocked her?
I remember, just a year or two ago, when “no one in comedy should ever apologize for a joke” was a core belief of modern conservatism. This is just another example of everything that’s been stated by the right about censorship, free speech, cancel culture, comedy, and campus political behavior going right out the window the moment Israel/Palestine becomes the issue.
Swift and Soros
I don’t normally feel the need to respond to nonsense online conspiracy theories, but this one is becoming too widespread to ignore: That Taylor Swift and financier George Soros are in cahoots to somehow subvert the 2024 election.
The evidence of this? During Swift’s masters dispute, which has been heavily reported about for several years, she found herself on the opposite side of Alex Soros, son of George, who had invested in one of the entities that bought Swift’s masters out from under her. There was never any deal directly between Swift and Soros; Soros got involved as a third party.
In 2020, Swift called out the “shameless greed” of the Soros family; this was during the period when online Nazis were under the mistaken impression that Taylor was one of them, and it’s let’s just say a knock on the Soros family is something that goes over well with that crowd.
That dispute was never settled, and Swift has since re-recorded those albums, to massive success. The conspiracy theory from psychopath Laura Loomer — which is completely evidence-free in every way — is that Swift secretly reached some type of settlement with the Soros family, which also included a plan to collaborate with them to help the Democrats in 2024. Some versions say Pfizer is involved, since Travis Kelce endorses them, or that Soros “funded” the Eras Tour, which was the most lucrative in history and likely didn’t need much or any outside funding. This is all, I can’t stretch enough, total make-believe.
Meanwhile, Newsweek, which used to be a real magazine, now runs headlines like this:
The piece regurgitates Loomer’s claims, and closes with “Newsweek has been unable to independently confirm the claims made by Loomer.” Great job, everyone.
RIP, Andre Braugher
Actor Andre Braugher died this week at age 61, of lung cancer. He was among the greatest TV actors of all time, known to many fans from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But I’ll always associate the actor with Homicide: Life on the Street, in which he played a very different cop, Det. Frank Pembleton.
Many have lamented that Homicide is not streaming anywhere, an especially unfair fate for a series that was constantly jerked around the schedule for its entire run. Also, like most cop shows of the era, its cast got younger and hotter as its run went on; by the end of NYPD Blue, the detective squad was down to just Dennis Franz and four different sexy 25-year-olds.
I binge-watched Homicide around 2007 and 2008 in an extremely era-specific way: They used to run two episodes per day on a cable channel (I think it was WGN) so my wife and I would DVR and watch them. Then, on a trip to Baltimore, we visited the Fells Point building which was the homicide squad’s headquarters.
Reggie White and religion in the locker room
For the Philadelphia Inquirer this week, I wrote about Minister of Defense, a new documentary about Philadelphia Eagles legend Reggie White, which aired on Wednesday night on ESPN as part of the 30 for 30 series.
I talked to the directors, Ken Rodgers and Courtland Bragg, about the film’s unique approach: In addition to his career, the film covered White’s outspoken religious beliefs. White became an ordained minister when he was still a teenager, and spoke often about God and religion during his career, even claiming that God told him to sign with the Packers in 1993. He also, at the time, trafficked in some pretty ugly statements about homosexuality, and at one point gave a bizarre speech — in the Wisconsin State Legislature! — about stereotypes of different races.
At the centerpiece of the doc is the first-ever surfacing of an interview that White did, with legendary Philadelphia football scribe Ray Didinger, in the fall of 2004, just two months before White’s death. In it, White made it clear that he had undergone a religious rethinking- he remained a believer but had begun studying ancient Hebrew and seeing things in the text he hadn’t seen before. He also disavowed some of the things he had said previously, including the part about God guiding his free agency decision.
No, White did not convert to Judaism, or Jews for Jesus — although the latter group certainly attempted to claim him posthumously — and the filmmakers are clear that White was on a spiritual journey that was still in progress at the time of his death. (Didinger has told the story of the interview before, including in his memoir, but the video of it had never been shown before.)
My story was on the front page of Thursday’s Philadelphia Daily News.
(That ad for DallasStillSucks.com, by the way, redirects to a local car dealership.)
It may be my non-Philly native status talking, but I’m naturally resistant to the back-in-my-dayism so prevalent in memories of the Buddy Ryan-era Eagles, especially since those teams never won anything, and subsequent Eagles teams that were much more accomplished, from the Andy Reid era until the present have often been unfairly compared to those Ryan squads.
But White was the greatest defensive player in Eagles history, the film shows just what an off-the-charts dominant player he was. The documentary is an outstanding one that everyone should check out on ESPN+.
One more thought: Heading up to its airing, Minister of Defense got very little hype. ESPN didn’t even announce the airdate until about a week before, and I was with friends last weekend who are lifelong Eagles die-hards, and they had no idea a new Reggie White documentary was about to air. The project’s announcement, back in May, got more local and national media attention than the arrival of the movie itself.
Maybe it’s the mid-holiday season doldrums, or maybe the part about White’s complex religious journey was seen as a hard sell. I’ve also noticed for a while that ESPN doesn’t seem to care that much about 30 for 30 anymore, so maybe it’s that.
Religious belief is an under-explored subject when it comes to sports, so I commend the film for exploring that so well.
And speaking of football and religion, I also wrote a story this week for JTA, co-bylined with Jacob Gurvis, about the Jewish Vikings kicker Greg Joseph, who wore Israel-themed cleats before last Sunday’s game as part of the league’s “My Cause, My Cleats” campaign. While wearing his usual cleats – he changed for the actual game — Joseph kicked a game-winning field goal in what represented the only scoring in the Vikes’ 3-0 win against the Raiders. Joseph’s cleats raised money for Leket Israel, the country’s national food bank.
At the same time, a Muslim player for the Tennessee Titans, Azeez Al-Shaair, wore cleats to raise money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
The twist? Joseph and Al-Shaair are friends and were college teammates at Florida Atlantic. They even share the same birthday. I remembered that when I covered a Zoom panel of Jewish NFL players in 2020, in reaction to the DeSean Jackson antisemtism controversy, Joseph had mentioned a Muslim college teammate who he had had “great talks” with.
Is that the path to peace? Probably not. But it’s a start.
This week’s writings
This week, I wrote the first and second parts of the “808 Films” countdown, while also reviewing Wonka and looking back at the 25th anniversary of Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan.
At Splice Today, I wrote my (much shorter!) top ten list.
Also for JTA — and speaking of whether it’s okay to laugh in proximity to the Holocaust — I wrote about the 25th anniversary of Life is Beautiful, co-bylined with my longtime editor Gabe Friedman. And when it comes to that piece, I am not able to express all my gratitude, because now, my body is in tumult because it is a colossal moment of joy so everything is really in a way that I cannot express. I would like to be Jupiter! And kidnap everybody and lie down in the firmament making love to everybody, because I don't know how to express. It's a question of love!
For Living Life Fearless, I interviewed Thomas von Steinaecker, director of the new documentary Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer.
Also, American Fiction is out today, and here’s my review, from the Philadelphia Film Festival back in October, for Broad Street Review.
Finally, my Philadelphia Film Critics Circle colleagues and I will be gathering on Sunday afternoon to vote on our year-end award winners. Follow @PhilaFCC on X on Sunday, starting at some time between 4 and 5 Eastern, to see our winners.
Next week, I review some Christmas releases and tackle a memorable anniversary, which inspired this great commentary on the Shohei Ohtani contract with the Dodgers:
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