Movie Nation

In their documentary short “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant,” filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert captured the failure and closing of a Dayton, Ohio General Motors plant that closed in 2008.

Some ten thousand longtime GM employees lost their jobs and a big chunk of their future when the plant closed at the beginning of the Great Recession. That’s how Reichert and Bognar begin their new film, as well — the aftermath and aftershocks of that closure.

Jill confesses she “struggled to get back to the middle class,” living in her sister’s basement. Others speak of months and years of job hunting, skilled factory workers in a part of the world where such skills are unneeded in an American workforce whose needs and requirements are changing.

But “American Factory” (now on Netflix) is about a glimmer of hope, the Chinese firm that figures an empty factory, a desperate workforce and a whole lot of state incentive money adds up to a profitable investment in Dayton. We see Fuyao Automotive Glass move in, with hopeful workers listening to a pitch at a job fair, the plant’s opening and the pitfalls and the trials and tribulations that follow.

There’s a hint of the culture clash comedy “Gung Ho” to this, with hundreds of Chinese employees and supervisors brought in to help start the place up, and a couple of thousand new American jobs for workers willing to retrain in a different corner of the auto industry, learn a few words in Chinese, each side trying to “read” and get along with the other.

See the Americans embrace the “culture” of the company, with some visiting the corporate HQ back in China, learning to sing (or at least listening to) the “transparent” company anthem, absorbing the many slogans the Communist/Capitalists serve up to the workforce. One even weeps at the globalism “We are One” message of a parade of singers, dancers and sketch-performers at a big company banquet.

And we also see Americans bridling at the various safety and health shortcuts their new bosses want to impose, the “Be alert, be earnest, be lively” and “Accept Good Glass, Create Good Glass, Transfer Good Glass” indoctrination emblazoned on every wall. The two thousand are so jobs pay less than half what GM did.

And the boss? He’s more out of “The Simpsons” than “Gung Ho.” Smiling Chairman Cho Tak Wong declares, “If a union comes in, I’m shutting down.”

“American Factory” follows this culture clash through the first five years of Fuyao Glass America’s existence. And although we’re not told the incentive money put in by government, and the time parameters of it, these years are fraught enough that we fret for the long-term prospects of this enterprise through what might be, as the presidential candidate Andrew Yang has been warning, the last generation of a manufacturing labor force that is being automated into oblivion.

The candor here can be amusing — the burly Americans criticized for their “fat fingers” by the lean, younger Chinese (behind their backs), an American inviting Chinese colleagues over for Thanksgiving on his farm — turkey, ham and a little shooting time on the DIY firing range he’s set up behind the house.

The movie’s more unsettling side is the ugly stereotyping the Chinese, young and old, carry around about Americans, who are “lazy” and “love to be flattered to death…Donkeys like being touched in the direction their hair grows” one higher-up counsels.

Xenophobia is a two-way street, with red-blooded Buckeyes bridling at video screens filled with Chinese child singers warbling songs of efficiency, profitability and peace.

There are Chinese staff meetings, and American staff meetings. In the Chinese ones, ethnic identity and cohesion is stressed among the expats, who will “always be Chinese,” even though they’re living and working in the flatlands of Ohio.

Sure, speech is free here, and virtually every American worker lives in better conditions than the lower-level managers imported to “supervise” do. But the Chinese cannot fathom why they can’t impose “efficiencies” that endanger employees (“OSHA?”), why they can’t dump toxic byproducts down the drain (“EPA?”) and why the Americans won’t work 12 hours a day, with just two days off a month.

“American Factory,” made under the aegis of Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company, is no celebration of the politics of “bringing back jobs and saving a community.” It’s about a fight to unionize, a struggle for common ground and a totalitarian management/ownership style that’s not the least bit alien to American workers these days, unfortunately.

Speaking of “aliens,” there’s a hint of science fiction in the eager way certain higher-paid American management types buy in to the ethos of their new masters. When Senator Sherrod Brown mentions unions in his speech at the grand opening, one grousing minion  jokes “I’m gonna have to kill me a senator.”

It’s hard to see this and not think of “1984,” of a workforce of “proles” powerless to resist the depressed wages and thankless work offered by People’s Republicans, who have a lot in common with America’s robber barons, and with those who enslave in the bastardized interpretation of Marx or Lenin.

“American Factory” is too dispassionate to be a rallying cry, too sobering to be a “wake-up call,” but still a terrific fly-on-the-wall look at the struggles of America’s working class.

And it’s a reminder that politicians might want to be wary of Chinese bearing gifts — if you provide plenty of incentives for them to do it.

MPAA Rating: TV-14, profanity

Credits: Directed by Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:50

The Monroeville, Alabama of “Just Mercy” is a barely-repentant racist town coasting on the righteousness of its most famous resident, Harper Lee — who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“Hav’ya BEEN to the Harper Lee Museum?” every white person in the legal system asks Bryan Stevenson, an African American “lawyer from up North,” upon his arrival. It’s the late 1980s, and he has brought his Harvard Law degree to the Deep South to work for death row inmates, to provide “legal assistance for people who can’t afford it.”

But the comfy white folks of Monroeville are bound to be puzzled, if not enraged, by that. “To Kill a Mockingbird!” they say, as if that makes them safe and secure from present day scrutiny and condemnation. The book was set in the 1930s, came out in 1960, and heck, Gregory Peck was in the movie! All that lynching, racism, racial profiling and unequal justice? Ancient history!

“Just Mercy” is a movie about a touchstone case that proved that to be a lie, a righteous, well-intentioned but uneven emotional roller coaster of a film that plays it safe a little too often itself.

Michael B. Jordan plays Stevenson, an idealist fresh out of law school with a government grant to start a legal aid service for inmates in the heart of the former Jim Crow South. He has been chastened by his internship, helping the same sorts of clients he will be dealing with in his new job. But he’s raring to go. Back home in Delaware, his mother is less optimistic, blunt about her concern that he might “get killed down there.”

Stevenson’s ardor is cooled when he finds his new office manager (Brie Larson), a white local, can’t even rent office space for such a “business.” His first visit to prison includes a protocol-breaking strip search, meant to simply humiliate him.

Jordan lets us read that it in Stevenson’s eyes, the struggle to stay poker-faced at the insults, threats and violent police harassment that follow. It takes a special kind of commitment to endure that, Jackie Robinson stoicism and self-control coupled with calming righteousness.

Meeting his first clients, he is steeled for the task ahead. He needs to be. Because while he can assure a condemned man (Rob Morgan, superb) whose Viet Nam War-related post traumatic stress syndrome means “there’s always something we can do” to build an appeal, while the holes in another convicted murderer’s case make a retrial an obvious path, Stevenson is about to figure out how little has changed in the Alabama legal system since Lee’s Atticus Finch stood before the court.

The film’s prologue shows us Walter “Johnny D.” McMillan’s arrest. Driving home from his wood pulp business, Johnny D. (Jamie Foxx) smiles through the “sharp looking truck you got there” cracks, the implied threat and then summary arrest for a teenage white girl’s murder. Now, he sits on death row, broken and furious, not really wanting to put his family through the false hopes this Harvard lawyer with “white boy status” is promising.

“I look like a man who could kill somebody,” he says. Down here, “you guilty from the moment you born.”

The ups and downs of McMillan’s case, the smiling dismissals of the green, don’t-rock-the-boat district attorney (Rafe Spall), the intimidating scowls, manipulations and unspoken menace of the sheriff (Michael Harding), an entire system that circles the wagons to defend itself from outside scrutiny, second guessing and reform, are the meat of “Just Mercy.”

As such, it’s a generally unsurprising film, given the years of high-profile police and prosecutorial misconduct cases that have played out in the news, the trigger-happy, racial profiling local police who inspired #blacklivesmatter. In 1988 Errol Morris released “The Thin Blue Line,” a classic documentary about a Texas case not unlike this one, but lacking the racist undertones here. This is nothing new, and yes, too little has changed.

Director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton (“The Glass Castle,” “Short Term 12”) never lets the picture turn preachy and didactic. But he’s hard-pressed to escape the tropes of the genre, seen in movies from “Dead Man Walking” to “Clemency,” both better films — the death row shouts of support and rattling of cups against the bars whenever one of their number is in the death chamber, the “traffic stop” by police and anonymous threats by phone meant to scare off those who question “the way things have always been.”

Characters are thinly-developed and some — Johnny D’s wife (played by Karan Kendrick) among them — are mere archetypes.

The performances are generally solid, with Foxx reminding us his Oscar was no fluke, although fellow Oscar-winner Larson appears to be picking up a cigarette for the first time. Tim Blake Nelson, playing an inmate and key prosecution witness, gives a dazzling character turn.

Jordan, in the sort of role usually offered to Chadwick Boseman, gets across the earnestness and dignity of the character without letting us forget he’s human and a bit alarmed at all this Jim Crow Era behavior coming from The System and those amoral enough to defend it.

My favorite moment in the movie is the one that gives it purpose. We’ve seen judges simply refuse to consider that they and their system have made a mistake, but it takes the venal sheriff to suggest why no “lawyer from up North” is worth hearing out. To guys like Stevenson, “we’re just’a bunch’a corrupt, Southern racists,” as if declaring that out loud makes it untrue.

But that “racists” and “bigots” and “bigotry” exist isn’t really the message of “Just Mercy.” And that’s not because the words don’t pop up, here and there, and aren’t apt and deserved. It’s just that there’s nothing teachable in such labels.

“Prejudiced,” as evidenced by the behavior — personal, official and legal — in this case and many others like it, is what “Just Mercy” sees as instructive. Break down the word. “Prejudiced” implies “pre-judged,” which is the curse of our legal system — under partisan assault, courts stuffed with judged deemed “unqualified” but fitting the racial and political agenda of those doing the appointing.

Under such conditions, there will never be a day when an Atticus Finch or Bryan Stevenson isn’t a lonely voice in the wilderness, crying out for justice for those railroaded, ineptly-defended, bankrupted, broken and imprisoned by a system set up to do just that, from Jim Crow onward.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic content including some racial epithets.

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rafe Spall, Tim Blake Nelson, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Karan Kendrick, Michael Harding and Rob Morgan

Credits: Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, script by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham, based on the book by Bryan Stevenson. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 2:16

James Mangold is following his “Ford v Ferrari” outing with another biopic, a piece of pop culture controversy and history. When Bob Dylan plugged in and went electric.

“Going Electric” is the working title. All sorts of points in Dylan’s history where it could have its climax — Newport Folk Festival outrage, British “Don’t Look Back” (the documentary) tour, “Like a Rolling Stone” recording session.

The mind reels at the possibilities, and Timothee Chalamet looks like Young Robert…a little.

Timothee Chalamet to Play Bob Dylan in Film Directed by James Mangold https://t.co/wjIMJnEYmY https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1214324748009668608?s=20

So is “1917” slipping into place as the late-comer to the race that’s become the horse to beat?

Two wins at the Golden Globes, now a WGA nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Heck, why didn’t all this buzz happen for “Dunkirk?” Mutter…

“1917” goes into wide release Friday.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY nominees

1917, Written by Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns; Universal Pictures

Booksmart, Written by Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins and Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman; United Artists Releasing

Knives Out, Written by Rian Johnson; Lionsgate

Marriage Story, Written by Noah Baumbach; Netflix

Parasite, Screenplay by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won, Story by Bong Joon Ho; Neon

The WGA also nominated “Parasite,” “Booksmart,” “Knives Out” and “Marriage Story” for best original script for a feature film.

Remember, Quentin Tarantino refused to join the WGA, a tiff over an earlier screen credit going back decades, now. He’s still a likely best director nominee and possible winner.

ADAPTED MOVIE SCREENPLAY? Here they are.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster, Inspired by the Article “Can You Say…Hero?” by Tom Junod; TriStar Pictures

“The Irishman,” Screenplay by Steven Zaillian, Based upon the Book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt; Netflix

“Jojo Rabbit,” Screenplay by Taika Waititi, Based on the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens; Fox Searchlight

“Joker,” Written by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver, Based on Characters from DC Comics; Warner Bros. Pictures

“Little Women,” Screenplay by Greta Gerwig, Based on the Novel by Louisa May Alcott; Sony Pictures.

The WGA just breathed a little life into the fading hopes of “The Irishman,” I figure. “Jojo” and “Beautiful Day” also seem to be outliers, movies being pushed into the past but given a little hope, here.

“Little Women” may gain a little tailwind here after the Globes shutout.

WGA nominations for TV, streaming or otherwise, are here at the official website of the Writers Guild.

On the day David Bowie died, June and Edward got into a fight.

She’d been a big Bowie fan since childhood, painting her face up Aladdin Sane style as a child.

And now, in 2016, her partner Edward is telling jokes.

“Man, it’s hard to make a joke about cancer…Hey, what’s David Bowie do after going to the gym?”

“It’s like a light has gone out, and you don’t even SEE it!” she gripes.

June (Allison Tolman of “Krampus” and “The Gift”) flies into a “take stock” rage, shouting that she wants “a partner who” understands “WHY he was so important,” some guy capable of “a grand gesture.”

Edward (Ray Santiago)? He’s got nothing. And then “POOF,” he vanishes.

“Speed of Life” is a thin little sci-fi romance that leans rather heavily on the whole “inspired by David Bowie” hook in its plot and title (a Bowie song). Having no rights to music or images, writer-director Liz Manashil’s 75 minute movie doesn’t even get into what made Bowie so special to her, no quoted lyrics — just a mention of his “alien” image and “out there” persona.

And then, with a poof, it’s debate-over. Because Edward is gone.

Fortunately, the story then moves into the reliable hands of Ann Dowd (“American Animals,” “Compliance”) and Jeff Perry (“Lizzie,” “The Grifters”) and its heartfelt intentions become clearer.

It’s 2040 now, and June is days-shy of age 60. Her Big Brother “Program” smart home is reminding her of mandatory retirement, mandatory relocation to a Newton Company government-licensed retirement community. Neighbor Sam isn’t nuts about it either, but June is insistent.

“Edward could come back!”

And then he does, albeit confused at what’s going on.

“Where’s June? Where’s all my stuff?”

“Speed of Life” then takes a stab at what connects people “for life,” the ardor that the years cannot dim and the “taking stock” one does decades after losing that Great Love to the void, devoting years to pining for him, and then having him return.

Manashil is more interested in tenderness than laughs, and there’s a little of that, just not enough to put the picture over.

A parallel story involves Sam’s listless daughter (Vella Lovell), at a loss for what “The Program” will find for her to do for a job, lonely until she meets her downwardly-mobile neighbor (Sean Wright).

There’s probably an intended theme spun from Bowie that the picture doesn’t quite get across, about souls and love defying time, physical differences and physical appearances.

“The guy had a weird eye and messed up teeth” and still became a sex symbol and romantic ideal, so that’s something.  Perhaps the lyrics to “Speed of Life” are the clue.

“I was running at the speed of life
Through morning’s thoughts and fantasies
Then I saw your eyes at the cross fades
Secret secrets never seen
Secret secrets ever green.”

But I can’t say I got a lot out of “Speed of Life” — just a dystopian future where most choices have been removed from the randomness (and premature death in poverty) of life. Dowd’s always interesting, and Perry makes a nice foil for her.

There just isn’t enough to this script to make the Bowie premise of the picture a promise the movie can keep.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, sexual situations

Cast: Ann Dowd, Jeff Perry, Ray Santiago, Allison Tolman and Vella Lovell

Credits: Written and directed by Liz Manashil. A Giant Pictures release.

Running time: 1:16

It’s been thirteen years since Spike Lee and screenwriter Russell Gerwitz’s clever (ish) heist thriller “Inside Man.” And from the looks of its sequel, “Inside Man: Most Wanted” the cast and crew have been sprinting every day of those past 13 years.

They must have been trying to catch and hold onto some member of the original cast, which included Denzel Washington as the cop, Clive Owen as the head crook, Jodie Foster as the high-priced corporate “fixer” and Christopher Plummer as the unrepentant Nazi behind the scenes.

None were landed for so much as a cameo from this straight-to-video (uh oh) follow-up. But everybody involved seems so winded, as if they know they’re third choice casting decisions and that the script, this time out, is warmed over leftovers.

A Federal Reserve Bank robbery set five years after “the Nazi diamond” heist, “Most Wanted” is a riot of weird accents — and not just those of the Teutonic robbers and “tourists” they take hostage inside the bank. New York cops, bit players and others have a hint of Afrikaans in their speech.

Yeah, it was filmed in South Africa. To save money.

It’s just as well, as this is a dull caper peopled by somewhat colorless players trying to pretend that they’re not working their ways towards the most anti-climactic anti-climax in recent heist picture history.

Aml Ameen (“The Maze Runner”) is the cocky, swaggering NYPD hostage negotiator Remy, boasting “I’m five for five this year” about his record in stand-offs, that “I could talk a scared cat into the water.”

He drops the word “cher” into his speech. And he borders on unprofessional, even if he is lightly New Orleans charming and very quick to size people up by their looks, manner and speech.

How’s he going to click with the top FBI agent on site? That’s Dr. Brynn Stewart (Rhea Seehorn of “Better Call Saul”), who teaches college classes on criminal history and the like. She’s not used to being shadowed by a lowly cop, one with psychology on his side. The head crook (Roxanne McKee of TV’s “Dominion”), the one in charge of this large operation that apparently intended to take 20 hostages in the course of a robbery, wants to communicate in German? Don’t let her. Wait her out.

“Make her start with a loss.”

Stewart sees this as a “copy cat” crime with echoes of the “Nazi diamond heist” in it — a huge haul, lots of hostages and confusion with an elaborate series of mis-directions as the foundation of the get-away plan.

Remy, the negotiator? He’s not so sure.

The gang lady wants to go by “Most Wanted” on the phone, and she’s pretty cavalier about what she lets the cops know about her and her connections.

Remy is all flirtatious charm with the lady bank robber, full of positive reinforcement — “This is a good start!” — and ditzy statements of the obvious to the FBI lady, who isn’t impressed.

“She’s desperate!”

“She’s robbing a bank.”

Flashbacks over-explain what these creeps are really up to. The crooks, one brute especially (Urs Rechn), are quick to kill each other off for breaches in protocol.

And none of it is the least bit suspenseful. Screenwriter Brian Brightly was put in a corner and told to write his way out of it. The best he can come up with is “mildly interesting,” and even that only in random moments.

At some point, politics enter into the fray, no doubt shocking viewers taking a break from Fox News to stream this. A villain delivers a lecture on how America is now “weak…a laughingstock,” that all this gold isn’t even really America’s and how US power “is cheap rhetoric.”

Yeah? And?

There’s nothing here to hold one’s interest more than 30 minutes. By that time, the viewer is as winded as the hapless cast.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language

Cast: Aml Ameen, Rhea Seehorn, Roxanne McKee and Urs Rechn

Credits: Directed by M.J. Bassett, script by Brian Brightly. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:45

God bless James Caan. The man turns 80 this year, and there was no way he was ever going “gentle into that good night,” as the poet said.

He’s still working, diving into indie fare and B-movies and cheap exploitation pics, and he generally shows up and makes sure he delivers fair value. Stream “Holy Lands” or “The Good Neighbor” to get an idea of what he still gets out of it, aside from a paycheck.

He was 76 when he made “Undercover Grandpa,” and he’s the only reason to see it, offering up a tiny taste of his lingering twinkle in a comedy that’s far beneath his talents.

It’s about a private school teen (Dylan Everett of TV’s “Pure”) who only wants to score points with fastpitch softball siren Angie (Greta Onieogou of TV’s “All American”). But he’s got to drive his beloved, yarn-spinning blowhard of a grandpa (Caan) around first.

He’s always dropping broad hints of his many exploits and adventures in covert ops, as a member of the Devil’s Scum. You tell the family you invented “KFC” during the Bay of Pigs, nobody’s going to take you seriously.

Then Angie disappears from the spot where her Mini Cooper broke down (true-to-life accuracy) and all Grandpa has to do is sniff the air and read the tire and shoe tracks to know what went down.

“There’s more than one of them. That’s not good.”

As he tries to convince the kid,m who is “tired of everybody telling me what to do,” we gather that this war criminal on the lam (Paul Braunstein) might be behind it. And before Grandpa’s old boss (Jessica Walter), running her covert ops HQ out of the basement of the local sanitation plant, can stop them — Grandpa is “getting the team back together.

So we’ve got a more PG than PG-13 “RED,” with Louis Gossett Jr., Paul Sorvino, Kenneth Welsh and Lawrence Dane as the elderly experts in camo, weapons, tech and tactics that Grandpa used to to work with.

The script gives nobody but Caan anything amusing to say, and all of that is recycled from a dozen better movies.

“I thought you were dead.” “I don’t think so.”

We’re treated to a few threats that the stunt people and Caan back up, DeNiro in “The Irishman” style — half-speed, cautious kicks and fights where the fear of breaking a hip is obvious.

Welsh, of “Twin Peaks” back in the day and TV’s “Lodge 49” today, is gifted with the only sight gags — a deep sea “walker” and a first generation (1950ish) “computer” that he still uses.

And that’s about it, just some fairly colorless young performers teamed up with guys who mention “I have to pee eight times a night, six times in the toilet.”

Caan, Gossett, Sorvino and the rest get to work, everybody puts some effort in. But man — let’s wish for better things for everybody involved, save for the screenwriter.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for some violence and suggestive material)

Cast: James Caan, Dylan Everett, Louis Gossett Jr., Jessica Walter, Paul Sorvino and Greta Onieogou

Credits: Directed by Eric Canuel, script by Jeff Schechter A CCI Entertainment/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:39

Ricky Gervais set the tone.

“Fifth time…I don’t care…I’m over it.” The jokes were amusingly mean, but the entire 77th Golden Globes were more of a shrug than usual, this in spite of the fact that several genuine surprises upset the apple cart last evening in Hollywood.

A couple of heartfelt speeches about abortion, politics, assorted shots Mark Zuckerberg, Weinstein etc. A promising night kind of flattened by the tone.

The show always seems perfunctory, despite the free-wheeling nature of “I’ve had a few drinks” acceptance speeches. The HFPA makes the trains run on time, and if not for Joaquin Phoenix praising the group for taking HIS suggestion about a Vegan menu during his long acceptance speech, they’d have gotten off the air “on time.”

But will last night’s winners be repeat winners at the Oscars next month?

The Earliest Ever Oscars mean that the nomination ballots are already out, the guilds are deciding as the studios, PR folk and stars lobby. The shorter turn-around suggests, to some, that the Golden Globes — which the Academy has been trying to strip of influence for the past 20 years, moving their telecast up and back, trying to take the business of honoring “our own” out of the dubious hands of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association —will have an even greater influence on the Oscars this year.

That means“1917” and director Sam Mendes are in the game,that “Joker” and Joaquin Phoenix will be taken seriously, and that Netflix can put a cap on spending for Oscar lobbying right now.

The streaming service got pummeled Sunday night on NBC. “Dolemite is My Name” and “The Two Popes” and “The Irishman” came up short. “Marriage Story” picked up an acting award for its best performance (Laura Dern, supporting actress).

Netflix came into the night with a dominant presence, figuring it had four legitimate contenders. But it did only as well as A24 (Awkwafina for “The Farewell”) and Neon (“Parasite”) and never-a-contender also-ran Roadside Attractions (Renee Zellweger’s win for “Judy”). Realistically, Netflix has two legitimate contenders this year, and The Globes are probably the only place they will spend and push “The Two Popes” and “Dolemite.”

Good enough movies, not quite contenders. Sorry, Eddie.

“Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” and “Joker” had the feel of contenders upon release. “1917” just elbowed its way in. Maybe. It faces a “Dunkirk” headwind of not having any actors impressive enough to nominate.

Will the Oscars pay more heed to Adam Sandler and “Uncut Gems?” Almost certainly. But one thing I took away from the Golden Globes was how there was a perfectly crowded field withOUT that film as a “best picture” nominee, or Sandler in the acting field. And if you’re leaving out Eddie Murphy, how do you justify shoehorning Sandler in?

It’s not something The Academy gets together in a room and plots, it’s all lobbying and voting and popularity contests and Hollywood insiders’ “tastes,” and one think I’ve picked up from decades of asking the “What have you seen lately in a cinema?” question is that these folks don’t get out and watch the product of the factory they work in.

That partly explains the excessive length of all these Netflix movies. Why cut it? We’re watching it at home, as is everybody else?

Will “The Lighthouse” find some traction? “Just Mercy?” “Dark Waters?” Probably not.

Did Jennifer Lopez just lose all her Oscar momentum to second generation Hollywood Laura Dern, who has never won an Oscar but should be a best supporting actress nominee for either “Marriage Story” or “Little Women?”

Speaking of “Little Women,” if you want to diversify that best director field, is that the film and director (Greta Gerwig) for the Director’s Guild and Hollywood to get behind if they want to include a woman nominee in a year of impressive female directing? Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”) and Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) are worth considering. But plainly, “getting behind” one woman/one female-directed film is what it’s going to take to break into the Tarantino/Mendes/Scorsese/Baumbach/Bong Joon-Ho/Todd Phillips and James Mangold tier (at least TWO of THOSE worthies will be left out) field.

Is ANYBODY under the illusion that critics and Hollywood hold Elton/Bernie and Taron Egerton from “Rocketman” in the same adoring light that the HFPA do? Or Renee Zellweger? Those two acting wins — Taron and Renee — fall under the “Golden Globe winner, why not?” rubric. I have doubts either of them gets an Oscar nomination.

I have wondered all fall just what film the Academy would honor with “Best Animated Feature,” as there simply wasn’t a dazzler from Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Sony or Blue Sky to consider. “Missing Link” (Laika/Annapurna) was a tad more original than what the big boys were offering. Perhaps THIS is a category Netflix should be lobbying harder in, as“I Lost My Body”was their stand-out animated offering, and “Klaus” was more original than any Disney or Dreamworks sequel.

This list reveals the slim pickings — and it doesn’t even mention “The Addams Family” and other even lesser titles.

In any event, Oscar nominations voting ends TUESDAY, Jan. 7, the WGA and other guilds are sprinting into their final voting and the only way to know how any of this impacts the Oscars is to tune in Jan. 13 to ABC to see WHO is nominated, and plan your wagering for the Feb. 9 Academy Awards.

Wyld Stallions: The Next Generation?

No. Not this image. The one below

With Hollywood pandering to the Chinese market in every action film tailored for international release, it’s worth taking a look at the fare prepared at home for domestic consumption. In China. Here’s an actioner about a battle late in the Chinese civil war. Perhaps only Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Uyghers will be rooting for the other side in “Liberation.”

We may get a limited North American release of this one.