Some have been following the great Ishtar Bluray Delay saga since last January, but most haven’t so let’s recap the chronology. But first let’s report the latest, which is that earlier today the 92nd Street Y announced “a rare screening and discussion” with Ishtar director-writer Elaine May on Tuesday, 5.17 at 7:15 pm. The 92Y press release mentioned the Ishtar “cult” that has taken form in recent years and also the “impending” release of the Ishtar Bluray.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will eventually, no doubt, release their Ishtar Bluray (i.e., the one that almost came out last January but then was pulled at the last minute) but to go by SPHE publicist Fritz Friedman nobody at that company has any specific idea when this long-delayed disc will finally appear. Sometime this summer, next fall, next year…we’ll get back to you.

Why, then, does today’s 92Y press release refer to an “impending release” of the disc? That’s apparently conjecture by Miriam Bale, an associate of May’s who’s referred to in the release as the “curator” of May’s 92Y event.

I’ve been personally involved on the fringes of this prolonged political tangle for several months so here’s how it’s all gone down from my perspective:

(a) I posted a pretty good “where is Ishtar?” piece on 1.8.10.

(b) New Yorker columnist Richard Brody wrote an article called “To Wish Upon Ishtar” on 8.9.10.

(c) Sony Home Entertainment, presumably in response to the emerging Ishtar cult community, announced on 10.26.10 that Ishtar would come out on Bluray on 1.4.11.

(d) The Ishtar Bluray nonethless didn’t appear on 1.4.11, and I was told by Friedman a day later this was because star-producer Warren Beatty felt that it needed to be promoted a bit before being released. As I understood it, Beatty’s idea (apparently in concert with SPHE president David Bishop) was to perhaps stage a couple of special screenings in New York and Los Angeles with Beatty, May and Ishtar costar Dustin Hoffman in attendance and do post-screening q & a’s. These screenings could possibly happen in May, Beatty speculated.

(e) On 1.13.11 I received a copy of the Ishtar Bluray from a guy who bought a copy on my behalf at a Toronto video store. (Somehow a shipment of Ishtar Blurays was sent to Canada despite the decision to hold the release. A few were sold before being recalled.) I ran a piece later that day about seeing it.

(f) I passed along the idea of possible promotional Ishtar screenings in May to Museum of Modern Art film director Rajendra Roy, who had gotten May to appear at a Mike Nichols tribute on 8.18.09, and also to the Austin-based Moses Chiullan, the former HE contributor who said he wanted to try and stage an Ishtar screening in Los Angeles with the help of the Alamo Draft House guys. I then passed along their info and emails to Beatty.

(g) I ran into Beatty at a Santa Barbara Film Festival party last February and asked if he’d heard from Roy or Chiullan and, if so, had they discussed anything? He answered in his usual vague way, but he did say he wanted to make sure Elaine May “is on board,” which sounded to me like an allusion to her being satisfied or happy or taken care of, etc. Peter Biskind‘s Beatty biolgraphy reported that Beatty and May clashed during the making of Ishtar. It’s accepted doctrine that the disastrous reception to the film in 1987 pretty much ended May’s directing career.

(h) A few days ago I called Beatty to ask what happened to the potential May release of the Ishtar Bluray along with the idea of staging special screenings, etc. His response was again vague, but he did mention wanting to make sure May is “on board,” or words to that effect. “That’s still a concern?,” I said. “You said that last February.”

(i) I left two messages for Elaine May through Mike Nichols‘ Manhattan office — silencio.

(j) The 92nd Street Y announced its Elaine May-talks-about-Ishtar evening earlier today.

(k) SPHE’s Friedman called to say that SPHE president Bishop is calling or reaching out or sending carrier-pigeon messages to Elaine May, and that he “wants to talk to her about tweaking the [Bluray] masters to see if she’s happy with it.” (HE Question: In what realm is a Bluray mastered, duplicated and packaged with copies sent to Canada and then three months later the president of the Bluray distribution company tries to get in touch with the director to ask her about tweaks?) Friedman adds that Bishop has reached out to Beatty about possibly arranging for special promotional screenings of the film with Beatty, May and Hoffman doing q & a’s after screenings as a way to stir word-of-mouth. As far as I could tell this last statement was said without irony. Bishop appears to regard this idea as a relatively fresh one.

I’m not making any of this up. Plenty of things may have happened unbeknownst to me, but this is what I personally know to be factual. To me it’s like the Keystone Cops or like a scene from David Cronenberg‘s Scanners with my head about to explode. Things really do move this slowly and disjointedly in corporate circles from time to time.

What’s so awful about The Hangover Part II director Todd Phillips comparing his new film (Warner Bros., 5.26) to The Godfather Part II? Francis Coppola‘s 1974 classic is widely regarded as a sequel that was better (or certainly artier) than the original. Phillips is merely claiming in a droll, tongue-in-cheek way that The Hangover Part II is better than The Hangover…that’s all. Hardly a crime, even if it turns out to be bullshit.

“I think there are very few sequels that have been made that live up to or exceed their first film,” Phillips tells MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz in the above clip. “We had always planned on calling [our film] The Hangover 2, and when we finished the script, I changed the cover page and wrote The Hangover Part II, because I think the film lives up to or exceeds the first one. It was very much a nod to The Godfather.”

He actually meant “a nod to The Godfather, Part II“….Jesus, get this stuff straight.

Hollywood Life editor-in-chief Bonnie Fuller has written an emotionally effusive girly article about Lady Diana Spencer for CNN.com. I’m not challenging Fuller’s personal observations, but I don’t see how anyone can write about Diana without at least touching on the basic fact that she’s dead, and not from sheer happenstance. A tree didn’t fall on her.

The former Princess of Wales essentially orchestrated her demise due to her atrocious judgment in choosing a profligate immature asshole — Dodi Fayed — as a boyfriend. Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way.

It came to a head in Paris on the night of 8.31.97. Fayed told his drunken chauffeur to try and outrun a bunch of easily finessable scuzzball photographers on motorcycles, and we all know the rest.

I was working at People when Diana started seeing Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to search around, make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man. Very bad boyfriend material, in short…and yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she’s dead.

How do you write even briefly about this woman without at least mentioning the tragic turn?

AMPAS announced today that (a) the 84th Oscar ceremony will air on Sunday, 2.26, (b) the 2011 nominations will be announced on 1.24.12, the nominees luncheon will take place on 2.6.12, and final ballot deadline will be 2.21.12. Been here before, not radical enough but fine…whatever.

Weinstein Co. co-chief Harvey Weinstein was in very good form when he spoke to TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman three days ago (Friday, 4.22) during TheGrill@Tribeca, a media and entertainment conference.

I don’t really need the TCM Classic Film Festival (4.28 to 5.1) to see venerated older films or wallow around in old-movie sentimentality — I can do that at home. But I am interested in seeing classic movies on big screens with presumably optimum (or at least signficantly better-than-average) projection in the company of large enthusiastic crowds — to me that’s special. So I’m feeling moderately cranked about this festival, which is now in its second year, and which I’m fully press-credentialed and ticketed for.

I have to hit the 7 pm Fast Five screening so I’ll finish this later, but dozens of extremely worthy older films are playing for four days. The question is “how good will they look and sound?”

For whatever reason I’ve been sent images of impressionistic paintings inspired by Joe Wright‘s Hanna. The copy implies that Focus Features paid three artists — Jock, Aaron Minier, Alan Brooks — to “capture the spirit of the characters and bring them to life in their own mediums,” etc. But what for? It reenforces the notion that Hanna is an art thriller but everyone understand that now. I don’t really get it but whatever.

Justin Lin‘s Fast Five (Universal, 4.29) will have its all-media screening at the Arclight in less than three hours. Hollywood Elsewhere will be there. The air is crackling with electrons. Some may have missed a riff I posted on 4.13.

I bought two large plants about a month ago, and in so doing condemned them. I’m more or less resigned to the fact that all plants that come to this apartment will die within four or five months. I’ve always made sure they get the right amount of water (i.e., every three weeks) and plenty of indirect sunlight, and every three or four days I mist their leaves. But the leaves inevitably turn yellow and then fall off, and before you know it the plants are stalks.

This is a House of Death and I am Vincent Price.

The guy in the apartment next to mine has been taking a shower for a good ten to twelve minutes so far. Will he go 15? Do we dare talk about 20? Now I know, in any case, who he is and what he’s made of. 9:09 am update: He finally turned the water off after 13 or 14 minutes.

Like fingerprints or snowflakes the best actors of any generation are always unique instruments, playing their particular music no matter what the role. Meanwhile the second-tier actors, lacking this uniqueness or particularity, tend to draw from a generic grab-bag of mannerist ticks and tendencies in favor at a given cultural moment. The tendencies of young male actors in the mid ’50s through the next 15 or 20 years were about trying to channel the sensitive anguish of Brando-Dean-Clift, etc. Every generation has its particular mode and attitude.

I’m saying this because I’m feeling more and more annoyed by second-tier GenY and younger GenX actors. I’ve been noticing behavioral similarities in their performances on cable (particularly in True Blood) and in crappy movies like Scream 4, etc. And I guess…okay, I’ll say it: they need to get off my lawn.

The ultimate acting style or manner, for me, is no acting style or manner. It’s about “being” and receptivity and constant vigilance in a quiet Zen way. Not being a sap but not shutting things out either. It means being Steve McQueen in Bullitt. It means Jean Paul Belmondo or Robert Mitchum in repose, or Meryl Streep in almost anything. It can’t get any better if you simply follow James Cagney‘s rule of “plant your feet, look the other guy in the eye and tell the truth.” Very, very few second-tier under-30 actors, it seems, try to do this. Perhaps they haven’t been told.

The common behavioral thread among young 21st Century actors performing second-rate material is a kind of cool disdain — a mannered chilliness, especially when these guys are acting with each other. Almost everything said to them except “dude, wanna party?” or “let’s go home…I want to make love with you” is an affont of some kind. It’s always about thinly veiled hostility and “oh, God…please.” Hayden Panattiere‘s behavior in Scream 4 is a perfect distillation of this.

The underling message when they speak with each other is always “you want some of my time and attention? I am so effing bored just anticipating what you might have to say! Okay, fine….what? Because before you start you need to understand you won’t be taking advantage of me. Because I will not be fucked by you…get it?” They all exude “pretend” put-on emotion by way of broadly faked feeling or their contempt for another character’s agenda or manner, and letting the other character know how, like, totally difficult it is and what a turn-off it is to even listen to what he/she has to say, much less take him or her seriously.

“Pretend” emotion, hostility, disdain, hidden emotional agendas, cynicism…they never just parcel it out straight and simply lay it on the line like St. Francis of Assisi or Charles Aznavour in Shoot The Piano Player or Oskar Werner in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. There’s always the “cover” of frosty vibes, attitude acting, “mock” feeling. “I really can’t be bothered to talk to you straight so I’m going to let you know in unmistakable terms what a drag it is to even look at or listen to you…Jesus!”

They’re terrified of emotional even-steven, openness, vulnerability, plain straight talk and behaving in an unaffected manner. They are the sworn enemies of the James Cagney way. Spencer Tracy is looking down at these guys and shaking his head and throwing up his hands.

Taxi Driver costars Jodie Foster, Robert DeNiro at the Cannes Film Festival, a bit less than 35 years ago. De Niro looks distinctly uncomfortable; Foster seems glassy-eyed but more or less accepting. Today’s De Niro is a tad mellower (naturally) but is still the same guarded guy, obviously still thriving and punching even though — let’s be honest — he creatively peaked as an actor years ago. Foster — 13 then, 48 now — has grown into my idea of a steady and together hyphenate, and her peak may be yet to come.

Photo found here.