Marina Zenovich‘s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out will be available on iTunes on 3.26. Zenovich had planned to interview Polanski about how Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired had reopened the case, but Polanski was arrested in Zurich two months before their appointment. Odd Man Out, which I saw last September, explores the Swiss incarceration and legal wrangling that happened in ’09 and ’10. It also touches on Zenovich’s guilt over having possibly prompted the Los Angeles DA to seek Polanksi’s extradition in the first place.

Last night I attended a special LACMA screening of David Mamet‘s Phil Spector (HBO, 3.24). It’s far from a typical big-murder-trial, guilty-or-innocent movie. It’s very tight and taut in the classic Mamet style, and it contains a pair of compelling, at times amusing, charismatic performances from Al Pacino as Spector-the-nutbag (brilliant, flamboyant, fickle, rambling of speech, bewigged, gnome-like) and Helen Mirren as his flinty defense attorney, Linda Kenney Baden.

Obviously Pacino and Mirren are destined for Emmy award nominations. Ditto Mamet for direction and screenplay.

Phil Spector runs a mere 91 minutes. That obviously indicates considerable discipline given the reams of material on Spector and his first Lana Clarkson murder trial, which resulted in a hung jury in September 2007. (The state re-tried Spector and got a conviction in May 2009 for second-degree murder. He’ll be eligible for parole when he’s 88 years old.) Mamet could have made an epic-sized thing, or at least one lasting two or three hours.

And yet it’s not so much about story-telling as the wielding of a blade that cuts in and around like a sushi chef. Great skill and flair and theatrical pizazz have been brought to bear.

The script may remind you in certain ways of Mamet’s script for The Verdict (’82) in that it’s much more about psychology than courtroom strategy, and also because it offers an ethically precise point of view. As The Verdict was about redemption, Phil Spector is about damnation.

It’s all “factual” in a sense, but it’s also a fantasia of sorts. It’s a visit to Mamet-world. His strategy is to focus on the relationship between Spector and Baden, but in so doing explore all the key arguments that suggested Spector was guilty of deliberately shooting Clarkson in the mouth and also that he may not be. The idea is that in a certain foolish or theatrical way Clarkson may have been holding the gun and that it may have gone off accidentally. It does seem likely that what happened was accidental. It does seem likely that there would have been more blood found on Spector’s white jacket if he had been holding the gun. The evidence is the evidence.

Mamet has said over and over that Phil Spector is about the “mythological possibilities” in Spector’s life and personality and in the murder trial itself. In line with this he tries a little mumbo-jumbo tap-dancing right out of the gate. “This is a work of fiction,” a statement reads before the film begins. “It’s not ‘based on a true story.’ It is a drama inspired by actual persons in a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor comment upon the trial or its outcome.” I don’t know what the hell that really means.

And yet Mamet’s film states quite clearly that (a) the facts indicate that Spector didn’t deliberately kill Clarkson, and (b) she may well have been holding the gun when it went off.

I think that’s pretty close to taking a side, don’t you? Mamet looks at the facts of the case and conveys a conclusion. I was persuaded by his presentation.

Mamet’s bottom-line view is that Spector basically screwed himself by being himself. He was convicted of “we don’t like you.” He was convicted for not opening himself up to People magazine and admitting he’d been a snarly, selfish fuck and asking for forgiveness. He was convicted for having owned several guns and having threatened other women with them. He was convicted for having acquired a reputation of being a reclusive shit. He was convicted for wearing a series of appalling wigs.

Pacino has a lot of fun with Spector. It’s a beautiful virtuoso performance. He rolls around like a pig in shit. But honestly? Pacino makes Spector seem a little bit goofier and wiggier than he seems in Vikram Jayanti‘s The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector. Here’s an excerpt from my 6.26.10 piece about the doc, which I first saw three or four years ago:

“[Spector is] a fascinating man — there’s no getting around that. A brilliant, oddball X-factor ‘character’ of the first order. I’ve known a few guys like Spector. They’re egotists and half-crazy and it’s always about them, but they’re a trip to talk to and share stories with. If you love show business, you can’t help but love how these guys are always sharp as a tack and don’t miss a trick and are always blah-blahing about their genius and their importance.

“Except Spector’s blah is backed up by truth. He’s a serious maestro who really did shape and inspire rock ‘n’ roll in its infancy, and who touched heaven a few times in the process.

“Okay, so he probably shot Lana Clarkson, a 40 year-old, financially struggling actress, on 2.3.03 when she was visiting his home. Or maybe he threatened to shoot her and the gun accidentally went off. Or whatever. And maybe Spector telling a Daily Telegraph reporter two months before the shooting that ‘he had bipolar disorder and that he considered himself relatively insane’ was a factor. And maybe he deserves to be in jail for 19 years. The guy is obviously immodest and intemperate with demons galore.

“But you can tell from listening to Spector that he’s some kind of bent genius — that he’s brilliant, exceptional, perceptive — and that it’s a monumental tragedy that these qualities co-exist alongside so much weirdness inside the man — all kinds of strutting-egoist behavior and his having threatened women with guns and all of that ‘leave me alone because I’m very special’ hiding-behind-bodyguards crap. Because life is short and the kind of vision and talent that Spector has (or at least had) is incredibly rare and world-class.

“That’s why Jayanti’s film is so absorbing, and why the title is exactly right. Why do so many gifted people always seem to be susceptible to baser impulses? Why do they allow bizarre psychological currents to influence their lives? What kind of a malignant asshole waves guns around in the first place? I’ll tell you what kind of guy does that. A guy who never got over hurtful traumatic stuff that happened in his childhood (like his father committing suicide), and who decided early on that he wouldn’t deal with it.”

Thanks to LACMA’s Elvis Mitchell for being a nice guy.

The fattest, booziest, most depressed and most down-minded schlubs in America live in the lower Midwest and the South, and they tend to vote Republican and against socially progressive initiatives. I think most of us already knew this, but a Gallup poll, condensed in a 3.14 Daily Mail story, has re-reported the basic facts.

The saddest and most personally screwed-up voters (poor health, obese, boozing, cigarette-smoking, living hand-to-mouth in trailer parks or McMansions, driving gas guzzlers, poorest educational systems, highest divorce rates) live in West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Oklahoma…in that order. Yes, there are many thousands of self-destructive dim bulbs who live in the Northeast, the Southwest, the Northwest, California and so on, but their numbers are less concentrated.

The Depression States basically constitute Tea Party country. A brief scan of the U.S. Senators and Congresspersons representing these areas tells you everything you need to know about why this country doesn’t work. Boehner, McConnell — not all of the anti-progressive Congressional naysayers, corporate fellaters, obstinate crazies and stoppers come from these states, but a high percentage of them do.

I say again that the best thing that could happen all around would be to create a separate nation in these Midwestern and Southern areas — just cut the yokels off and let them raise their own revenues and nurture their retro beliefs, values and prejudices. They’re just a drag on the rest of the country and the sooner Red America is cut loose, the better for the rest of us. Seriously.

This isn’t the 1860s. Our borders are secure, we have nuclear weapons, and nobody’s going to invade. We can be two countries and make out just fine. Yugoslavia broke up into two or three chunks and they’re doing okay. Czechoslovakia became two nations and they’re holding it together. We could create our out Czech Republic — a Blue America — and let the “Slovakians” have their own. I’m perfectly serious here. The heehaws are what’s wrong. Get rid of them and a lot of the nation’s big problems will become much more managable.

Would we still have to cope with corporate corruption and self-destructive forces in an All-Blue Nation? Of course. Would life still be hard and harrowing at times? Yes. But at least we’d have a better chance of being able to fix problems with the crazies out of the picture.

At most I was half-watching Adele‘s “Skyfall” performance during last month’s Oscar telecast. Perhaps only a third or even a quarter of my attention went to her. Constantly feeding the column doesn’t leave room or energy for much else. I’m just saying that Adele nailed it. The whole number was perfectly sung, designed, composed.

Ten days ago Blouin‘s Sam Gaskin posted an interview with highly respected cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who’s been known to occasionally raise a glass and share intemperate thoughts. The best part is Doyle ridiculing the Academy members who voted to give the Best Cinematography Oscar to Life of Pi‘s Claudio Miranda because, in Doyle’s view, Miranda’s work was so thoroughly CG’ed and manipulated in post that it doesn’t mean anything.

There’s also a mystifying portion in which Doyle ridicules Lincoln because…well, it’s vague. Something about the Lincoln worshippers being myopic and “fluffing” themselves.

Doyle on Miranda/Pi #1: “I’m trying to work out how to say this most politely, and no offense to — I don’t know [Miranda] personally — but what a total fucking piece of shit. Let me be blunt. Ah, fuck. I don’t care, I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy and I’m sure he cares so much, but since 97 per cent of the film is not under his control, what the fuck are you talking about cinematography, sorry. I’m sorry. I have to be blunt and I don’t care, you can write it. I think it’s a fucking insult to cinematography. I’m sure [Miranda is] a wonderful person, I’m sure he cares so much. But what it says to the real world is it’s all about us, we have the money, we put the money in, and we control the image. And I say fuck you, wankers. Are you fucking kidding? That’s not cinematography. That’s control of the image by the powers that be, by the people that want to control the whole system because they’re all accounts. You’ve lost cinema. This is not cinema and it’s not cinematography. It’s not cinematography.”

Doyle on Miranda/Pi #2: “If somebody manipulated my image that much, I wouldn’t even turn up {to accept the Oscar]. Because sorry, cinematography? Really?”

Doyle on Miranda/Pi #3: “It’s not a strange choice if you understand how fucked up people are and how lost they are. You bail out your bankers, support your rich people, you say Spielberg and Tarantino are the gods of cinema. Hey, good luck.”

So Gaskin posted ten days ago and then Indiewire‘s Kevin Jagernauth posted yesterday morning and here I am re-posting, the caboose on the train and last guy in the world to take notice…terrific.

The Boston Phoenix, the alternative weekly that began publishing in 1965 and which helped launch the careers of several top-notch film critics including Owen Glieberman, David Denby, David Edelstein, Paul Attanasio, Janet Maslin, David Chute and Stephen Schiff, has been shut down for good. Phoenix publisher Stephen M. Mindich cited (what else?) ad revenue decline.

Joan Micklin Silver‘s Between The Lines (’77) was set in Boston and about a Phoenix-like staff (played by John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum, Bruno Kirby, Michael J. Pollard, Gwen Welles, Jill Eikenberry, Marilu Henner) dealing with a big-business takeover. The script was mostly penned by Fred Barron, who had written for The Phoenix and The Real Paper. Silver reportedly once worked for The Village Voice. There was also a short-lived TV sitcom, also titled Between the Lines.

I learned this afternoon that even though Paramount technicians spent a lot of time and money restoring George Stevens‘ Shane (’53) and spiffing it up for Bluray and high-def viewings, they’ve sold it to Warner Bros. as part of that overall catalogue deal that was announced last October. Does that mean Warner Home Video will release a Shane Bluray this year to commemorate the film’s 60th anniversary? I just asked a WHV spokesperson and her answer was to say as little as possible.

So I asked if she could confirm that the restored high-def digital Shane…can she at least confirm that this version is what will be shown next month at the TCM Classic Film Festival? Nope, she said. Can’t confirm or deny.

As I noted yesterday, dealing with home video operations is like dealing with the Soviet Union in the ’70s or North Korea today. They live in their own realm, and always by stealth and secrecy.

She didn’t explain why I shouldn’t necessarily get my hopes up about seeing a 60th anniversary Shane Bluray this year. It might conceivably happen, she implied, and then again it might not. Remember that Warner Home Video ignored Cabaret‘s 40th anniversary by waiting until 2013 to release the Bluray…even though it played at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival. And Ben-Hur‘s 50th anniversary was celebrated 52 years after its release when the WHV Bluray was released in 2011. The bottom line is that WHV isn’t much for celebrating anniversaries. They do what they want to do when they want to do it.

The 3D remastering of the 1939 The Wizard of Oz is finished, I’m told. It would have made marketing sense to release it concurrent with the opening of the 3D Oz The Great and Powerful a couple of weeks ago but nope. WHV blew that opportunity also. They’ll be releasing the 3D Oz next fall, according to this report.

A blunt view would be that the Warner Home Video guys are either timid of spirit or asleep at the wheel…or maybe both. The Bluray business is slowly losing steam, I realize, but still….

I used to think the gay guy who lives upstairs was a mental case because he would occasionally play gay disco house music (female soul singers, synthetic Euro pop) on his bedroom speakers at 7:30 am. It’s bad enough that anyone would listen to that shit at all but loudly enough to bother your neighbors, and while they’re having morning coffee? But lately he’s been loudly giggling at something at the exact same hour…”Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!” On the phone with a friend but every damn morning at 7:15 am or 7:30 am. It’s one thing if you’re having a laugh once in a while, but every morning at the exact same time? Hell is other people.

Here’s a nice little 9-day-old piece about director Michel Gondry visiting a video store in Paris (the sign says “Video Club” but what’s the address?) and riffing about human contact and some of his favorite films. One is Wim Wenders‘ The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick; another is Kevin Smith‘s Clerks.

Michel Gondry: A Cinephile’s Labyrinth on Nowness.com.

When I was living in Paris during the summer of ’03 I used to visit a store located southeast of Les Invalides and northwest of Montparnasse that specialized in English-language DVDs and was painted red on the outside. Gondry mentions a place called Videotheque (or is he saying Mediatheque?) but this is the Paris film world for you — less downloady and somewhat more personalized and cinema-obsessive than the way things are in the States.

The color in this video has an odd kind of bleachy pink hue. Which is okay, I suppose, but it’s a tiny bit off-putting. What’s the filmmaker trying to say, that the life of a Parisian film obsessive is bleachy and pink and fucked up?

I need to state clearly that Joe Popcorn and Joe Download are more or less the same person. Okay, they’re somewhat different but Joe Popcorn has been slowly morphing into Joe Download over the last four or five years because it’s easier and cheaper to stay home. They just want to sit back and be entertained by movies written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, or better yet sit at home and watch these movies on their 60″ LED or LCD screens. (They aren’t hip enough to buy a plasma.) And they don’t care if it’s download or DVD quality or whatever. Bluray means nothing to them.

The Two Joes just want to sit there and watch and eat pizza and laugh and text their friends during the film and…you know, relax and have a good time and scratch their balls.

I didn’t have a chance yesterday to watch Ed Schultz‘s MSNBC interview with Scott Prouty, the catering guy who secretly taped Mitt Romney‘s “47 percent” comment at a Florida fundraiser last May.

There have been complaints that the default Disqus comment settings offer the “best” comments first and so they’re posted out of natural sequence. The apparent solve is to hit the discussion tab and click on “newest” (as opposed to “best” or “oldest”). I’m not happy with the out-of-sequence placement at all so maybe this’ll help.