Robert Aldrich‘s Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion Bluray, 6.21) is pure black-and-white splendor. You can can take or leave the plot/dialogue/theme, but you can’t ignore the magnificent visual capturings of mid ’50s Los Angeles. All those downtown locations that are gone now plus Ralph Meeker/Mike Hammer’s still-standing apartment building (10401 Wilshire Blvd, NW corner of Wilshire and Beverly Glen and the Hollywood Athletic Club (6525 W. Sunset Blvd.), where Hammer finds the black box with the bright light inside.

I’m not a coffee snob, but I’ve owned a couple of cappuccino machines and been to dozens of European cafes and have acquired a mature understanding, I believe, of what makes a really good cup. Imagine my surprise, then, when it hit me two or three weeks ago that this kind of instant coffee is really delightful — rich, rounded, full-bodied.

This is the raptor seen in one of the micro-squares on that one-sheet for Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life. Would it be out of line to ask for a poster for a screaming Sean Penn and Brad Pitt being chased by a raptor, Jurassic Park-style? If anyone has the Photoshop ability and the time….well, obviously many people do. But do they give enough of a damn to work on it and send it along?

U.S. forces are “stopping the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan”? Really? I hadn’t heard that.

I’m almost getting a supernatural, time-trippy Purple Rose of Cairo vibe from this Midnight in Paris trailer. Or maybe more like A Stop at Willoughby? That’s good, I think. Woody Allen hasn’t gone off the imaginative deep end in quite a while.

I know one thing for sure: I felt more than a little nauseous the second that Michael Sheen‘s character began talking about wine. So he plays (a) Tony Blair, (b) mad vampires kingpins with white hair and crazy glazed expressions, (c) soccer coaches and (d) assholes?

David Gordon Green‘s Your Highness (Universal, 4.8) was shown to select press last Friday, and I was waiting for hate tweets all weekend…and they never happened. The trailers have made it clear that this medieval stoner comedy is (a) unfunny, (b) loathsome even by stoner-improv standards, and (c) a blend of downmarket sloth and Danny McBride toenail shavings. I really can’t wait to get my hate on for this thing. So who saw it last weekend and suffered involuntary convulsions?

So once again, two years ago Natalie Portman decided on a strategy of making one good film (Black Swan) and then signing up for one contemptible piece-of-shit paycheck movie after another? Is she ever going to be in anything good ever again? Or is it all downhill from here on?

A month ago MCN’s Kim Voynar wrote about the Girls on Film clips in which famous scenes from great films starring guys are recreated with women. I paid no mind, and for whatever reason Girls on Film‘s Ashleigh Harrison waited a whole damn month to say to herself, “Let’s see, is there anyone else we haven’t gotten some attention from? Oh, yeah, this Jeff Wells guy…okay, let’s write him.” The No Country For Old Men caught my fancy most of all.

Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky has more or less dismissed claims by dance-double Sarah Lane that Natalie Portman performed only a small fraction of her ballet scenes in the film. Aronofsky’s official statement, released through Fox Searchlight, says Portman performed 80% of of the dancing seen in the film.”

“Here is the reality,” his statement reads. “I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement.”

Lane claimed in a 3.28 Wall Street Journal “Speakeasy” story that Portman performed about 5% of the dancing in the film.

In other words, Lane has faux-pahhed herself out of Aronofsky, Portman, Benjamin Millipied‘s and Fox Searchlight’s good graces.

A distribution guy who knows everyone and has been around forever saw Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life a good while ago, and while discussing it with a friend several weeks ago said somewhat perfunctorily, “I’m a fan.” Now, you have to understand what it means when a distribution exec says “I’m a fan.” That’s like some dude who’s just gone out on a blind date saying the next morning that the girl has a nice personality. It means (a) the film has problems, (b) the distribution guy is being polite, and (c) he doesn’t want to say anything too strong for fear of being identified as a rapt admirer. (I almost said “raptor” admirer but that’s another thread.)

It appears as if some kind of mistake was made by England’s Icon Distribution in announcing (or failing to convincingly deny) that it would commercially release Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life on May 4th, as reported earlier today by Empire‘s Helen O’Hara.

A shock wave went around for a couple of hours later this morning when it seemed at least possible that the story might be true because such a move would have completely undercut the hoopla effect of the expected Cannes Film Festival debut of Malick’s film, which will probably happen a week after the questionably-reported British opening.

I was told by two senior execs with Fox Searchlight, the film’s domestic distributor, that the Empire report is most likely untrue. I then asked Jill Jones, chief of int’l distribution for Summit Entertainment, which holds int’l rights on The Tree of Life, to deny or confirm the story, and through her spokesperson she refused to do either — thanks, Jill! Instead she referred me to Zak Brilliant, VP distribution and publicity or Icon Distribution UK, which will open Malick’s film sometime in May, and he also refused to respond.

So I haven’t been told for sure that it’s an incorrect story, but it probably is.

Earlier but never posted: If today’s Empire magazine report about the May 4th British release date for Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life is solid, the air is not only rapidly hissing out of the Malick/Life/Cannes Film Festival balloon — the balloon is deflated and lying on the pavement. For Empire‘s Helen O’Hara is essentially reporting that the expected Cannes debut of Malick’s Penn/Pitt/dinosaur movie has been made completely meaningless by the British release plan.

Summit has international rights to The Tree of Life, and they’ve sub-licensed the British film rights to Icon Releasing. I’m currently waiting for Summit’s Jill Jones to confirm yea or nay. I’ve spoken to two reps from Fox Searchlight, which is releasing Tree of Life domestically, and been told that O’Hara’s report sounds extremely suspect.

But if it’s true this is the end of The Tree of Life because it’s been completely devalued as a Cannes attraction. It not only kills the Malicky coolness factor chasing the festival’s expected unveiling, but indicates that the film is less than the cat’s meow. If it were something special you know that the film’s producers and Cannes honcho Thierry Fremaux wouldn’t allow it to open anywhere before Cannes because a pre-festival commercial opening completely suffocates the tingle.

What a shocker if true! Years of waiting and all this delay, and the Cannes booking of The Tree of Life not even confirmed and it all might all come down to a commercial opening in England? A young mom in Leeds who can’t afford a babysitter will be able to take her two kids to an afternoon showing of The Tree of Life at the local plex before the Cannes elite has a looksee? No, no…that’s too much, too ridiculous. It can’t be true.