It’s not Romney’s silence in response to the “End Climate Silence” guy asking about the connection beteen climate change and Hurricane Sandy. And it’s not his idiotic Ken Doll expression when the crowd boos the questioner. It’s the “USA! USA! USA!” chanting in response to the climate-change guy. It’s un-American and un-patriotic, in short, to warn about climate change because it’ll get in the way of job growth. Reducing greenhouse gases is a metrosexual European thing. We’re Americans, and we drive muscle cars!

A thought hit me during Sunday night’s dinner at Bouchon for Beyond The Hills and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days director Cristian Mungiu that he could be in the Terrence Malick business if he wanted it. His rep as a woman-friendly, deep-focus, introspective helmer is such he could make indie-fashioned pics in this country with any in-demand actress in the business. They’d all work with him at the drop of a hat, Meryl Streep on down, because he’s a celebrated, Bresson-like perfectionist.

Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu at Bouchon — Sunday, 11.4, 10:07 pm.

I asked Mungiu about this and he said that he’s heard from more than a few American actresses, all saying they’d love to work with him. But he really is a Bressonian in that he prefers (or has so far preferred) to work with non-actresses. He also says there’s something about the aura of an established or famous actress that might impose itself upon his process…maybe. But he’s open to the right thing if it seems right, he said, so no doors are firmly closed. He said he recently got an email from director William Friedkin about wanting to meet, partly because they’ve both shot films about exorcisms. But he’s leaving Los Angeles tomorrow with no plans to return anytime soon.

Mungiu, dp Svetlana Cvetko — Sunday, 11.4, 10:10 pm.

Three of these films deliver drop-dead beautiful images of wide-open, arid, non-green landscapes, courtesy of dps Freddie Young, James Wong Howe, Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn.

I consider The Limey to be a “comfort film” — one that I can pop in any time of day (but usually late at night) and just settle into for pleasure.

Two or three days ago I did a brief sitdown with Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu, whom I consider to be a major, world-class talent and a master of plain, austere minimalism. I had last spoken with him during promotion for the great Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. I’m off to see Beyond The Hills again right now; a dinner with Mungiu and other admirers will follow.

The 65th Cannes Film Festival jury gave the Best Actress award to Beyond The Hills costars Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur.

Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas and I got along so well on 10.21 that we decided to
go again this afternoon. Weekend box-office, Wreck-It-Ralph, Skyfall, Silver Linings Playbook, Anna Karenina, Beyond The Hills and the leading Best Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress contenders. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.

I rarely venture into, much less dwell upon, box-office cheerleading, but you have to pay tribute to the worldwide monster haul of Sam Mendes‘ Skyfall, which doesn’t even open here until Friday. The 23rd film in the 007 series pulled down a wowser $156 million this weekend, which puts the 10-day overseas total at $287 million. If that’s not staggering news, it’s fairly close to that. And the Skyfall revenues have given Sony Int’l its all-time biggest year ever — $2.6 billion through today. Overall Sony has sold $3.6 billion in movie tickets and a shot at reaching its first $4 billion year ever.

An 11.3 column by N.Y. Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called “How Romney Would Treat Women” says it pretty well, I think.

Kristen Stewart looked fetching tonight as she joined her On The Road co-creatives — director Walter Salles, costars Garrett Hedlund and Amy Adams, producer Rebecca Yeldham — in front of an AFI Fest audience before the screening (which didn’t begin until 8:40 pm) at the Chinese. And once again her body language suggested that she hated being there and was vaguely ashamed of being a famous actress. She always gives off that vibe. Lemme outta here.

On The Road costars Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and Amy Adams — Saturday, 11.3, 8:35 pm in front of crowd at Chinese.

On The Road “is masterful and rich and lusty, meditative and sensual and adventurous and lamenting all at once,” I wrote on 5.23 12 from Cannes. “It has Bernardo Bertolucci‘s ‘nostalgia for the present’ except the present is 1949 to 1951 — it feels completely alive in that time. No hazy gauze, no bop nostalgia. Beautifully shot and cut, excitingly performed and deeply felt.

“It’s much, much better than I thought it would be given the long shoot and…I forget how long it’s been in post but it feels like ages. It’s so full of life and serene and mirthful in so many different ways. I was stirred and delighted and never less than fully engrossed as I watched it, and it’s great to finally run into a film that really hits it, and then hits it again and again.”

I guess I’ll have to pay to see Wreck-It Ralph tomorrow. I’ve heard too many good things from too many knowledgable people. It’s the #1 movie this weekend with an expected $48 million by Sunday night. A friend said it might not be “all that Academy-friendly,” but let’s see how it pans out. Flight, in 2nd place, will make about half of Ralph‘s money, or a projected $23 million.

I remember now — Mr. Potter! Right? I refuse to check online. Memory or nothing.A fair number of people have seen Flight by now so how does it measure up? Please try and specifically respond to the following paragraph, which I posted on 10.31:

“All drunks have the same choice, and all movies about drunks tell roughly the same story. Should they keep drinking and come sooner or later to a bad end, or do they man up and accept that they have a problem and do something about it? But Denzel Washington‘s alcoholic has three choices. Keep drinking and doing lines. Openly admit that he not only has a problem but was drunk and buzzed on cocaine when he saved all those lives. Or lie his way out of any possible fines, severance and prison time and then admit he has a problem and do something about it.

“[So] there’s no good way out for Whip Whitaker, and most of the time people want their lead characters to do something that they themselves could live with, or at least could accept. We’ll see what happens.”

I was all over Amy Berg‘s West of Memphis (Sony Classics, 12.25) during the Sundance and Santa Barbara Film Festivals ten months ago. And now I have to get my energy up again, starting, I suppose, with a visit to this evening’s 7:15 pm screening at the AFI Fest. Easily one of the year’s best docs.

Industry Friend: “Why aren’t the pundits considering Javier Bardem for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his Skyfall villain? Silva is the most exciting baddie in any movie in a long time. Javier is one of the world’s greatest and his performance here is alchemy.” Wells response: He’s superb, agreed, but his Bond baddie isn’t as meaty a role as his Oscar-winning performance as Anton Chigur in No Country For Old Men. People see it as a vivid but lesser effort.

A rousing screening of Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein Co., 11.16) happened last night at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian theatre with director David O. Russell, star and Best Actor contender Bradley Cooper (giving his career-best performance) and costar John Ortiz posing for photos, etc. I went because I wanted to take a couple of friends, and because I wanted to feel a positive reaction after that awful Aidikoff Screening Room experience and that raging argument in the downstairs garage.

Backstory.net‘s Jeff Goldsmith, who sat just to my right, called it “great.” David Ehrenstein sat to my left. Devin Faraci sat three or four rows in front of me, and a post-screening tweet indicated he’s the latest arrival on Silver Linings Sourpuss Island.

I can spot a cerebral dweeb frowner from 100 yards off, and there’s something about the last 25 minutes of this film (which are formulaic but satisfying because so much emotional and mental fervor and skillful spadework has led up to it) that irritates the pissheads to no end. I’m speaking (and I mean no offense) of a microscopic critical sub-culture here. It’s not a crime that they can’t feel the cumulative effect of this film. But it is short-sighted if they try and dismiss how expertly fused and feverishly acted and directed this thing is…crackling, hilarious, and yet sometimes dark and unstable and despairing. And then not.

I’m fully convinced that SLP is going to ride into theatres on a tsunami when it opens two and a half weeks hence. It really, really works, and is the only film of the season (besides Anna Karenina) that has truly lifted me up and over.

There was an Academy-members-only screening Thursday night at the Laurel Canyon home of sound editors Michael and Nancy Ross (who also hosted that Not Fade Away screening & after-party that I attended a few weeks back), and I’m told that someone called it Capra-esque. Maybe, yeah…but Capra Redefined for the 21st Century and a Culture of Edge and Anxiety. I hate Capra myself. I think people who fall for It’s A Wonderful Life are easy lays and overly susceptible. But if you want a fairly good explanation how and why SLP comes together, read Brian Ondorf’s 10.24 review on Bluray.com.

Favorite Ondorf line: “When Russell calls on cliche to dig out an ending, he does so with extraordinary skill and euphoric cinematic energy.”

Before the showing Russell told the crowd how Matthew Quick‘s book first came to him from Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, who of course are both gone now. But still with us through this film.

A veteran director friend who attended the Ross screening texted as follows this morning: “Silver Linings Playbook was terrific…has to be the front-runner [now]. Jennifer Lawrence must be favorite for Best Actress Oscar…she hits it out of the park…movie comes doubly alive when she’s on-screen. Bradley for a Best Actor nomination but no win. De Niro probably. Lawrence dead certain. Stand-room-only with Academy voters fighting each other for seats. Cheers at the end.”

The Ross screening was co-hosted by Colleen Camp, Nancy Meyers and Lisa Tomei, I’m told. and was presided over by Oscar strategist Lisa Taback.