Of all the tourist attractions to begin his trailer for To Rome With Love with, Woody Allen chose “the monstrosity” — the Monument of Victor Emmanuel. And then, of course, for the sake of Joe and Jane Schmoe, the Colosseum. That said, the greens and the magic-hour ambers are beautiful — cheers to dp Darius Khondji.

When I saw Whit Stillman‘s Damels in Distress (Sony Classics, 4.6) in Toronto last September I felt it was too arch by half. Stillman’s films (Metropolitan, Barcelona, Last Days of Disco) are always about people with money and social connections who live in their own rigorously neurotic world. Barcelona is Stillman’s best because it allows the real world into this realm. Damsels, sorry to say, feels entangled in a system of forced whimsy, like it was shot on the grounds of an insane asylum for hipsters.

“By the time Damsels in Distress winds its way toward its closing musical number — a singing, dancing outdoor ensemble rendering of George and Ira Gershwin‘s ‘Things Are Looking Up’ — its romantic charms, meager to begin with, have worn thin, like a tweed jacket gone threadbare at the elbows. The thing has the feel of a vanity project, lacking urgency — like the work of a gentleman filmmaker who doesn’t have to work.” — from Stephanie Zacharek‘s Movieline review.

The combination of Lou Lumenick‘s N.Y. Post review of Titanic 3D and Mekado Murphy‘s N.Y. Times dissection of the enhancement of James Cameron‘s 1997 film has me looking forward to the finest 3D conversion of my moviegoing life …maybe. And if it doesn’t live up to this, watch out.

I’ll be seeing Titanic 3D twice within the next 27 hours — at 6:30 pm tonight at a Burbank AMC plex via the not-highly-respected RealD and accompanying Sony 3D projection system, and at 11 tomorrow morning at the UltraLuxe Anaheim 14 in Anaheim, where I’ll see a Panavision 3D version.

Will someone tell me why Paramount has decided to have its all-media screening at a plex run by the notorious AMC chain (which is referred to in certain high-end projection circles as “All Movies Compromised”)? Will it be shown in the same theatre that MCN’s David Poland caught Titanic 3D in on 2.14? I’m asking because what Poland saw resulted in the following reaction: “I found myself wanting to take the glasses off repeatedly [because] it’s like watching the movie through a filter. Call it darkness, call it clarity, call it what you like…the movie takes such painstaking efforts to get every detail right…I want to see the imperfections…and with those glasses on, I could not.”

Paramount showed the Titanic 3D preview footage at its big swanky theatre on the lot last fall. Why are they subjecting media invitees to a long arduous shlep out to Burbank, and during rush hour yet? Just so they can pack the screening with Titanic fans? This tells me Paramount doesn’t truly respect the full technical potential of Titanic 3D. It tells me they just want the money.

It’s only a trailer, but I’m getting a very glossy, gay Vegas vibe from this thing (Warner Bros./New Line, 6.15). Obviously lampooning and worshipping the excessive ’80s rock scene, reducing everyone — stars, fans, roadies, musicans, hangers-on, up-and-comers, managers, rock journalists — to cliche. Director Adam Shankman has never been a purveyor of depth. An intensely shallow Almost Famous, or so it would seem.

Deadline‘s Mike Fleming has seen it and said Tom Cruise kicks it…fine. But the essence of what this film will be is obvious.

Here’s the wrong-aspect-ratio trailer that Deadline posted this morning:

As explained this morning by Slashfilm’s Russ Fischer, a guy named Jeff Desom “built a sort of 3D digital model of the apartment courtyard from Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rear Window, and then composited all the events seen from the window of Jimmy Stewart‘s apartment during the film into a single shot.” But that horrible music Desom chose makes it painful to sit through.

Yesterday morning Sasha Stone, Phil Contrino and I kicked around last weekend’s box-office, Titanic 3D, The Hunger Games, next weekend’s openers, etc. Sasha actually believes that the enormous success of The Hunger Games, an unrelievedly mediocre film, might result in a Best Picture nomination, and that excluding it from consideration will be an affirmation of 62 year-old Academy white-guy values. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.

Male immaturity = guys going through the superficial motions of adulthood but essentially acting like they’re 16 or 17. Par for the course. But a guy holding onto a teddy bear? Wahlberg makes a great film like The Fighter and it’s exhilarating, and then he shows up in his recent paycheck films (The Other Guys, Contraband, Ted) and it’s like “this is the best you could do?”