I couldn’t file anything today after the first two articles. I spent a good portion of the morning writing and thinking about Spike Lee‘s Oldboy, which I was generally okay with and actually impressed by to a certain extent (it’s nowhere near as problematic as the buzz might suggest). Except for the ending. But I can’t get into it until embargo day so that’s that. And then I spent some time trying to decide if it’s worth going to the Berlin Film festival in February in order to see George Clooney‘s Monuments Men and Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel. And then I got un-invited to a screening of Delivery Man, the Vince Vaughn-starring remake of Starbuck. And then…I don’t want to talk about it. Now I have to get down to the Hollywood Roosevelt for a Bethlehem interview, and then I’ll be hitting a reception for American Hustle‘s David O. Russell at 7pm (also at the Roosevelt) followed by a Russell chit-chat at the Egyptian at 9 pm.

Paul Greengrass, director of The Bourne Supremacy (’04) and The Bourne Ultimatum (’07), is a seasoned maestro of grade-A political action thrillers. If you were to make another Bourne film, you’d want Greengrass directing and Matt Damon back for one more paycheck. If you’re determined to make a sequel to The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner in the lead and you can’t get Greengrass, you would at least want Tony Gilroy to re-deploy. But you certainly don’t want Fast and the Furious franchiser Justin Lin because he’s a low-rent, jizz-whiz director with a sloppy, pseudo-animated videogame attitude about shooting chases and fights and shoot-outs. Lin would rather shoot himself in the mouth than direct an action sequence that even occasionally adheres to the laws of physics. All Lin will do is cheapen the franchise and lower the property values. Lin makes Brett Ratner look like Anthony Mann. But of course, the Universal zombie execs want him. He makes action flicks for under-35s who want sequences in which guys leap from one rooftop to another and then do swan dives off 50-story office buildings. He’s an animal. Greengrass to Gilroy To Lin…what a devaluation. Greetings, Mr. Bourne — you are about to become a T-1000 cyborg.

Everyone presumably knows by now that Peter Berg‘s Lone Survivor (Universal, 12.27) is the story of the failed Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan (June 2005), which resulted in the deaths of three Navy SEALS on the ground and eight more SEALS plus eight U.S. Army Special Ops guys — 19 in all. It’s being sold as a story about the four Navy SEALS on the ground (Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Littrell, Taylor Kitsch as Lt. Michael P. Murphy, Emile Hirsch as Danny Dietz and Ben Foster as Matthew Axelson) who got shot all to pieces, and about how three of them died nobly and bravely.

But if these guys had been more tough-minded (in the “diamond bullet” sense of that term as conveyed by Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now) and followed some basic strategic wisdom they might not have died at all.

I attended an AFI Fest premiere pre-party this evening for Saving Mr. Banks at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. It began earlyish, around 5:15 pm or so, but it was dark and cool out so who cared? Having seen Banks in London about three weeks ago I decided at the last minute to drive over to an Old Boy screening in West Los Angeles.

Saving Mr. Banks screenwriter and principal architect Kelly Marcel — Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, Thursday, 12.7, 6:05 pm. Marcel shares screenwriting credit with Sue Smith, but the dramatic focus and the voice of the movie that premiered tonight is pretty much all Marcel’s.

Banks star Tom Hanks, costar Bradley Whitford.

(l. to r.) Colin Farrell (partially hidden), Emma Thompson, Mary Poppins songwriter Richard Sherman, Tom Hanks.

(l. to r.) Colin Farrell, B.J. Novak, Richard Sherman, Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman.