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My face-to-face meeting with Scott Rudin was brief. “You’re fired, Scott,” I said.

“The Oscar show will have so much wattage, sunglasses may be required to watch.” So proclaims an Academy release this week, deftly ignoring the gloomy clouds hovering over Oscar weekend (voting opens today).

She keeps a list of men who’ve walked out on her. She’s OK with that. She also keeps a list of men who’ve aced her out of gigs.

Hollywood’s great re-awakening seems at hand. Sort of.

Jane Fonda felt the scene as written would be flat, and the camera was about to roll. “I’m going to play it while peeing on the toilet,” she suddenly told her co-star, George Segal. The surprised Segal paused for a moment, gulped, then promptly re-created his dialogue, embellishing the exchange and the scene moved forward and with greater energy.

Let’s be real: Navigating the list of Oscar nominees represents a challenge this year, so I was intrigued by one filmmaker’s winning formula. “The key is to mix and match,” he advised. “I watch the characters trudge across Nomadland, then turn to Fred Astaire dancing in Top Hat. I move from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to Easter Parade.” The objective: “It’s the real vs. the unreal; I need them back-to-back to appreciate them. Or survive them.”

The reminders from the Motion Picture Academy and the distributors arrive daily: See the movies! Judge the work! Choose your favorite!

“Since studios keep making remakes, why don’t they at least remake them better?” Billy Wilder had a right to ask me that question 20 years ago, since the many remakes of his movies (Sabrina, The Apartment, etc.) never matched the originals.

The Golden Globes ritual this Sunday may prompt the usual groans in some circles, but it will also trigger some elegant paydays.

Now that we’re entering Year 2 of our pandemic purgatory, here’s at least one positive takeaway: We’re coming to terms with our past — our movie past, that is. Two films circa 1951 and 1966 represent a personal case in point. Miracle In Milan (1951) starts with a lost baby and an operatic cop, but it’s touching and absurdist. Lawrence of Arabia (1966) delivers an empathetic protagonist with a Trumpian addiction to violence that seems relevant.

They fill the mailbox daily – the tightly packaged screeners that arrive like welcome anachronisms, some bearing familiar titles (Mank, Soul) but most as strangers (Wolfwalkers, Athlete A). Their sheer abundance reminds us of the creative energy out there; the “out there,” however, seems lost in the mist. “We need festivals and parties and hype,” observes Nick Jarecki, whose fast-paced thriller Crisis opens in March, searching for hype (he won the Kodak Auteur Award).

The line was long, and I felt the stir of excitement as I edged toward the front. “It’s like the first Iron Man movie,” says the guy behind me, adjusting his mask, “but that ticket was easier to get.”

“Forget money, I’m focused on dignity and loyalty.” Those were the disturbing words spoken the other day by my favorite agent who, alas, is facing the prospect of going out of business.

It’s hard to remember a moment in Hollywood when more production starts were announced or star commitments unveiled — witness Netflix’s slate of 70 films (yes, 70). The stars glow brightly in streamer heaven. And Donald Trump’s messy exit helped stoke the hubris.

Though renowned for his music, Phil Spector also harbored an ambition to direct and produce movies, and in 1966 asked me to drop by his house so he could explain his plan. At the time, I was a reporter covering politics for The New York Times in Los Angeles and had met Spector at a political party.

Show business can be a great unifying force in a divided nation. Even the oracular Dr Fauci picked up on it this week when he said theaters must be opened by this fall.

The Donald Trump era is passing like a dark cloud, but I’d offer a second headline of equal importance: The Rupert Murdoch era also is history. As the media lord nears 90, his ominous hold on the politics and pop culture of three nations is lifting as well. Hollywood, too, will be healthier in his absence.

WarnerMedia’s awkwardly revealed re-invention of Hollywood’s release windows has stirred anger among filmmakers and their reps, with fists clenched and threats exchanged. But then there’s Steven Soderbergh, the idiosyncratic filmmaker who reminds us that he is above it all.

Has Donald Trump blown it? Major actors have always coveted playing the role of an empathetic U.S. president, but after Trump’s four years will anyone want that gig?

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.

With movies, as with marriages, it’s always best to dwell on the best moments: Cringing at Get Out, convulsing at Borat, wiping tears at A Dog’s Journey. As a confirmed ticket buyer, I’ll never forget seeing Parasite with a mostly Korean audience, hearing their laughs at jokes I’d missed.

Cordial yet reserved, the man seated across from me seemed well cast as a CEO. We had just attended a board meeting as “outside” directors, and he was mulling the big question: “How much disruption and cost cutting can you apply to a company, yet still keep it functional?”

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeHe is still stalling, but the bottom line is that Donald Trump is ankling his job. For the uninitiated, “ankling” is Variety “slanguage” for getting fired, as Trump knows well.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeMovies about the making of movies rarely find an audience. That long-standing Hollywood dictum will be defied this weekend with the Netflix release of Mank, but here’s the rub: The central character is a critic who becomes a screenwriter who becomes a victim.That may be a clue as to why Mank this week is receiving reviews somewhere between worshipful and orgasmic.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeDonald Trump was not the first American president who owed his education to Hollywood, but he was the first who tried to turn it into a cult.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeHe felt angry. He felt exploited.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeWith yet another major round of layoffs about to hit Hollywood, I am reminded of Ben Hecht’s explanation of how he made his peace with the town. “The key is to understand how to balance the misery with the money,” he wrote.Arriving in Hollywood at the zenith of the studio system, Hecht wrote that everyone he met was working, but also complaining.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeAaron Sorkin tends to build movies around disturbing ideas rather than empathetic protagonists, thus revisiting tense courtrooms and raucous newsrooms.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeDecision time has arrived: Keep working at home or go back to the office? That choice now confronts millions of employees (and their bosses) around the world. The impact could be profound on business activity, real estate values and the future of city centers.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThe amped-up efforts by Facebook and Twitter to tone down blatant “misinformation” on the campaign trail merits public support. Personally, I find myself trying with limited success to tune out the political noise while sensing that the problem goes beyond that.The rhetoric of politics overall sounds tired and anachronistic, but then, to my ear, so does much of the dialogue on the popular streamers we binge on.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThe memoirs and random ruminations of corporate leaders rarely find their way into the public conversation, but rules change when Netflix is involved. Tuesday marked the publication day of Reed Hastings’ book in which the co-CEO warned that no company employee at any level should assume job security.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThe Republican convention this week delivered cool optics, sharp reality television and an ominous threat to public health, in the opinion of most media critics.“A political convention is like a movie trailer; if a party messes up, it will likely mess up the election,” according to Franklin J.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThe Motion Picture Academy’s decision to expel Roman Polanski in 2018 is headed for court again on Tuesday, and savvy observers likely will distance themselves from the rancor that the case will generate.Polanski is resolutely pursuing his appeal because he feels he was denied due process.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeAlmost six months have passed since COVID-19 crunched our careers and intruded upon our lives, but ask people to analyze its personal impact and you encounter ambiguity: For every individual who feels damaged, there are others who testify that quality of life has in many ways improved.“I hate the fact that my Zoom dependency has kept me happy,” comments one writer-producer.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeRon Meyer’s departure from Universal amid rumors of scandal has stirred a strong emotional response in Hollywood, perhaps more than any other executive exit within memory. Few had a wider circle of friendships than the 75-year-old ex-agent, some entailing deep trust and loyalty among the top stars and power players.“Ronnie loves people.

Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThere are no smiling faces in Hollywood. The industry’s power pyramid last week underwent further upheavals, turning former CEOs and network presidents into job hunters.