Zurich


Arrived in Zurich at 7 am, 1 am NYC time. I’m sorry, but the rolling green hills and forests and patchwork farmland seem prettier and more haven-like here than in the States. They always have. If I had the time I’d be walking along one of these roads right now, just taking it all in. They have energy-saving escalators at Zurich Airport — i.e., the kind that don’t move until you step on them. Do they exist in the States? My Swiss Air flight to Nice leaves at 9 am.

Squeamish About Homos

That NPR-spikes-Nathan Lee‘s-Outrage-review story is so cold you could wrap fish in it. It happened last weekend and Indiewire, slow on the pickup, ran a story about it four hours ago. Forget it, dead…this morning’s news. The reason for the spiking is that NPR editors didn’t want Lee to be able use a discussion of the content of Outrage to indirectly “out Idaho Sen. Larry Craig or Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Lee, naturally, was hugely pissed about this, and tried to post a protest.explanation on the NPR site. This too was removed by NPR.

Agreeable Upgrade

My Three Days of the Condor Bluray arrived this morning. There’s a certain level of ’70s grain in Owen Roizman‘s cinematography. It’s a New York-based film, after all, and it wasn’t shot with the idea of looking “attractive.” But it sure looks nice all the same. Some shots are so pleasing (I’ve only seen about 30 minutes’ worth) they brought a smile to my face. This may be my last post before heading out to JFK.

No Gaspar For Me

I wrote publicist Phil Symes this morning about my keen interest in seeing Gaspar Noe‘s Into The Void in Cannes. I’m departing Cannes on Thursday, 5.21 and the first scheduled press screening is on Friday, 5.22, so I was hoping to catch a slightly earlier market showing. But Phil dashed my hopes.


A scene from Enter The Void that resembles a similar idyll-in-a-park scene at the end of Irreversible.

“There will be no screenings prior to the 14:40 screening on Friday 22nd,” he replied. “The film is expected only to be completed the previous day. So sorry, this is not going to be possible.

I wrote back the following: “So Gaspar’s pulling a Wong Kar Wai this year, eh? I understand the exactitude and perfectionism that drives directors, of course, but a plan to have the film completed only one day before a Cannes debut seems a bit extreme. Not two or three or four days before the Cannes screening, which would be cutting it close enough, but only 24 hours before? Something manic in that.

“If Gaspar manages to finish it a tad earlier, please advise. I respect Gaspar highly and was looking very much forward to seeing this during the festival.” Phil promised to keep me in the loop if something changes.

Synch Issue

Its reputation as perhaps the best written, best acted mumblecore bromance flick of all time more or less intact/unchallenged, Lynn Shelton‘s Humpday (Magnolia, 7.10) could/should emerge as an indie summer punch-through — here’s hoping. But isn’t it a basic rule of movie marketing that your two stars (in this case Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) should have the same stylistic appearance on the release poster that they have in the film?


Crop from a current Humpday release poster.

Mark Duplass (l.) and Joshua Leonard (r.) as they appear in Lynn Shelton’s Humpday

Here’s the HD trailer, which went up…what, three or four days ago?

Reporting

Pretty much everyone seems impressed by Star Trek‘s $72.5 million haul on 7,400 screens. Dissings from various HE talkbackers aside, the word on the street is apparently pretty good so there’s a better than decent shot at tripling the $72 mil and cresting $200 mil. But poor Wolverine‘s Sunday night figures were 68% less than last weekend’s…all she wrote.