In his just-posted review of Francis Coppola‘s Tetro, which will open the Director’s Fortnight program in Cannes, Variety‘s Todd McCarthy has at least one unqualified thing to say, which is that the film will “likely be most remembered for introducing a highly promising young actor, Alden Ehrenreich.

18 year-old Tetro costar Alden Ehrenreich.

“Allegedly first noticed by Steven Spielberg in a homevideo played at a bat mitzvah and subsequently discovered by longtime casting ace and producer Fred Roos, the 18-year-old Ehrenreich manages the remarkable feat of resembling by turns three of the leading actors from The Departed.

“When he first appears, he looks like the younger brother of Leonardo DiCaprio; then, at certain moments, his smile and the look in his eye recall Jack Nicholson, while his head and facial shape are reminiscent of Matt Damon.

“Not only that, he has a winning screen presence and proves entirely up to the role’s dramatic requirements.”

While the film itself is “markedly better than [Copppola’s] previous small-scaled, self-financed film, Youth Without Youth, Tetro is still a work of modest ambition and appeal. Gloriously shot in mostly black-and-white widescreen in Buenos Aires, Coppola’s first original screenplay since 1974’s The Conversation hinges on the tension between two long-separated brothers dominated by an artistic genius father.

“The angst-ridden treatment of Oedipal issues makes the picture play out like a passably talented imitation of O’Neill, Williams, Miller and Inge, and thus it feels like the pale product of an over-tilled field.

“Coppola has spent much of his career, as well as a great deal of his own money, seeking the ideal state of truly independent filmmaking. The trouble, as always, is in being careful what you wish for, since when he finds creative nirvana, he frequently has trouble delivering the full goods. Tetro represents something of a middle ground in that respect.”

The Playlist‘s Rodrigo Perez has posted a riff and some links about an alleged homoerotic subcurrent in Guy Ritchie‘s Sherlock Holmes. It feels like a dicey presumption, but there’s at least a possibility that Holmes could knock Humpday off the bromance pedestal.

“The dreaded ‘bromance’ term has been brought up several times in discussions surrounding Guy Ritchie‘s action tentpole, Sherlock Holmes,” he begins. “But even more explicit — much to the chagrin of producer Joel Silver, to be sure — are claims from the actors in the film itself, who not so subtly have already suggest the ‘gay’ word in referencing the very-tight relationship between Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his trusty sidekick Watson (Jude Law) Not an appellation you probably want associated with a blockbuster.

“Sherlock star Rachel McAdams has already said the film is, ‘kind of the love story, actually. I play supposedly Sherlock’s love interest, but it’s really Watson.”

“In [a] recent interview in USA Today, Jude said the homo-erotic overtones, filthy language, and bare-knuckle fighting are ‘quintessential parts’ of the Sherlock Holmes film (sounds like quite the rollick indeed).

“Or at least that’s how a lot of gay-friendly sites are positioning his quotes, and it’s not the first time. Put in ‘gay’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes’ in Google and you will get plenty of responses. It’s as if the gay community wants to adopt the film as there own.

“And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, and the filmmakers are probably wry enough to acknowledge this too. But Silver and the studio? Hmm…”

In view of LexG having posted a teardown video of jeffmcm on the Hot Blog, is this the beginning of a YouTube flame war between these two? I’m not in this, but you can’t say it’s not faintly amusing.

Funny People (comedy, Universal,7/31/09) — R, “language and crude sexual humor throughout, and some sexuality.” Bruno (comedy, Universal, 7/10/09) — R, “pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and language.”

This Michael Fleming story in Variety is nominally about a western called Unbound Captives, which is set to begin filming at the end of this year with Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Robert Pattinson in the leads. The heart of the story is about how Madeline Stowe, the once very-hot actress who (no offense) has been pretty much over for the last six or seven years if not longer, not only co-wrote the script but will now direct the feature. Read about her for twice turning down a huge go-away payday and tell me you don’t respect that.

The animated 3D Up (Disney/Pixar, 5.29) is a comic adventure fable of a very high order. Even by Pixar’s high standards it’s a notch or two above the norm. Visually luscious and spunky and intriguing at every turn, it’s an amusing (i.e., somewhat funny), sometimes touching, briskly paced film that’s about…well, pretty much everything that relatively healthy, forward-thinking middle-class people care about.

Like finding your dreams, making a family, dropping your guard, warming your heart, and standing up for your friends, for starters. As well as the finding of courage and fulfillment, the blooming of love, nurturing the past (as well as letting go of it), and embracing the now.

It revels in all this, and in a peppy, delightful and at times Chaplinesque way. (Particularly in a silent sequence that tells the story of loving marriage over the course of seventy years or so.) And without going cheap or coarse. It’s about as good as this sort of thing gets.

The story — a really cranky old guy and a cheery obese kid bond during the course of a balloon trip to a remote area in South America which holds enormous emotional significance for the old guy — is way off the ground. It’s kind of crazy-surreal in a sense, like a weird dream. It makes you wonder if director Pete Docter and co-director and screenwriter Bob Petersen get high at all, or at least used to get high. (Once you’ve turned on you never lose that stoner sensibility.)

And yet it’s a fairly square and tidy thing as the same time. It’s not meant as a putdown to say that Up is too immersed in buoyant punchiness and mainstream movie-tude, which basically boils down to Pixar’s always-front-and-center task of giving the family audience stuff to laugh at and go “oooh” and “aahh” about, to finally matter all that much. It’s too entertaining, in put it another way, to sink in all that deeply.

And yet it’s almost too good for the family market. You just know there’s a significant sector of that crowd that will be saying to each other after they see it, “What’s with the old guy? Where was the truly-over-the-top fantastical stuff? Where were the cheap junk-food highs? Why didn’t it throw in a little toilet humor to round things out? Why didn’t they go with a manic-nutso chase sequence of some kind? You know…why didn’t they thrill-ride it a bit more?”

(l.) Charles Muntz character in Up; relatively recent shot of Kirk Douglas.

I’m not saying that people who like lowbrow entertainment talk like this (if they did they wouldn’t be lowbrow) but if they did they’d probably continue the thought by saying, “It’s not like we don’t appreciate quality-level movies but Up is almost too nutritious for us. It’s good stuff — bright, funny, lots of fun and amazing-looking — but it feels like it was made by people who went to college and eat vegetables and exercise two or three times a week, unlike us.”

Then again they might relate to it due to the lead adolescent character, Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai), physically resembling a high percentage of American kids today. I don’t care what anyone says — I think Docter and Petersen knew this would strike a chord out there.

I sure didn’t see it as a metaphor for anything in my life, I can tell you. It’s just a high-strung story with a lot of gee-gosh stuff going on and some recognizable issues propelling the two main characters.

So what am I saying, boiled down? That it’s really quite well made and has an almost stoner sensibility in portions but may be a little too good for the lowbrows and at the same time isn’t really deep and resonant enough to penetrate with quality-cinema buffs? Something like that. I realize what I’m writing (and re-reading) may sound a bit contradictory but there it is.

The only other thought I have is that the face of an old explorer character named Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer) seems to have been inspired by Kirk Douglas. Or at least on Douglas’s cheekbones.

Note: The title of this piece means I’m down with this film, that I’m cool with it. That’s obvious from reading the review but some might interpret it to mean, you know, “down” with it as in “off with its head.”

Orange Wifi Cafe inside the Palais, an hour after the finish of 10 am screening of Up (a reaction to which I’m currently banging out).