Niki Caro‘s McFarland, USA (Disney, 2.20.15) will close the Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival. And it’s better than that. “It’s not another one of these sport films,” a friend says. “It’s got its own special quality.” Another friend says that Caro invests a lot in the high-school runners, their families and the small-town culture, etc. There’s a little bit of a stigma to closing a festival like Santa Barbara, but McFarland, USA is, in this context, an exception…they’re telling me.

You know that with Brad Pitt, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling costarring, Plan B’s big-screen adaptation of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short” could be an award-season contender when it pops in ’16 or ’17. Margin Call, Wall Street, Boiler Room…that line of country. But not — I repeat not — with Adam McKay, by any standard a low-rent comedy guy and commercial opportunist, directing and writing. Wells to Pitt and producing partner Dede Gardner: Do this project a huge favor and get rid of McKay, a troglodyte whose only noteworthy directing credit is Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, and bring on Bennett Miller…please. Don’t allow McKay to degrade this thing. Pay him off and get rid of him. McKay co-wrote Ant-Man and has a co-story credit on The Campaign. A ten-year-old could tell you where his sensibilities lie.

For those who unthinkingly skipped today’s HE Sink-In piece (“Birdman‘s Inarritu and The Soul Cages“) on the suspicion that it’s just another Birdman suck-up piece…well, it’s not. It’s a pretty decent piece of writing if I do say so myself. But for those who blew it off, check out a video clip from the jump page and a corresponding explanation:

“Before Inarritu was honored at the gala for the recent Palm Springs Film Festival, they showed a video clip of him leading the cast and crew of Birdman in a kind of prayer on the first day of shooting. It involved the throwing of rose petals and shouting ‘Abba, Eli,’ which is basically a chant of praise to God or fate or whatever luck can be found.

This morning Deadline‘s Mike Fleming reported that Gone Girl trio David Fincher, Ben Affleck and Gillian Flynn are re-teaming at Warner Bros. for a Strangers On A Train remake. Affleck would play the Guy Haines role, except in Flynn’s 21st Century version of Patricia Highsmith‘s tale, Affleck won’t be a tennis pro but “a movie star in the middle of an Oscar campaign during awards season” — hilarious! — and when Affleck’s private plane breaks down a wealthy stranger (i.e., the Bruno Antony character) offers him a lift back to Los Angeles, and then it’s off to the races.

Wells to Fincher: Please don’t cast a boilerplate psycho type as Bruno. Please don’t cast James Franco or Jude Law, and put any notions of Christoph Waltz out of your head this instant. You know who’d be good as Bruno? Matt Damon. Or tap into the dark corners of some funny guy. Go with Seth Rogen or Jack Black or Jason Segel (as long as he’s not in a fat cycle). And speaking of fat, Chris Pratt wouldn’t be a bad choice either. Just don’t go generic.

The five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2014: Wes Anderson {The Grand Budapest Hotel}; Clint Eastwood {American Sniper}; Alejandro G. Iñárritu {Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)}; Richard Linklater {Boyhood}, and Morten Tyldum {The Imitation Game}. Another indication of a male-dominated industry, right? That’s really, really it for Selma, I’m afraid — shut-out every which way. We all suspected for the last six weeks that Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken wasn’t acquiring any traction, but the DGA guys have made this clear. If it had been me I would have nominated Whiplash‘s Damien Chazelle instead of Eastwood, no offense. That obviously mechanical baby that Bradley Cooper was holding in Sniper should have disqualified him. That creepy little arm took me right out of the film. And if not Chazelle then Gone Girl‘s David Fincher or Nightcrawler‘s Dan Gilroy….c’mon.

Paul Feig‘s Spy appears to be boilerplate Melissa McCarthy material splattered upon an old-fashioned espionage canvas. The Heat minus sisterhood element with perhaps a tiny bit more smarts and sophistication than Tammy, let’s say. The bit where McCarthy can’t handle the scooter with a roof and falls over…nothing. I really don’t want to see McCarthy wearing that awful older Midwestern woman curly-haired wig in too many scenes…please. The presence of Jude Law and especially Jason Statham = upgrade. Costarring Rose Byrne and Allison Janey. Directed and written by Feig. 20th Century Fox — opening 5.22.15.

Click here to jump past HE Sink-In

A couple of nights ago a journalist friend told me that the late, great Billy Wilder would have admired the hell out of Birdman. Because in a sense Wilder made a somewhat similar kind of comedy in One, Two, Three (’61), an acrid, fast-paced, crackerjack farce — faster than anything Wilder had ever done — that depended upon sustained manic energy start to finish, and at just the right pitch. It’s a widely admired film today (everyone loves James Cagney‘s spunky, self-satirizing performance) but critical reactions were mixed when it opened on 12.15.61, and One, Two, Three actually lost money. So risks don’t always pan out. Then again if you don’t take risks you’re not much of a director.

If you ask me Alejandro G. Inarritu is every bit as ballsy a filmmaker as Billy Wilder was. He surely knew that his ass was on the line when he began to shoot Birdman — another sustained high-wire act that had to come off just so. And if he didn’t know it, he had the late Mike Nichols to remind him. Inarritu had lunch with the legendary director a week before Birdman began filming, and when Inarritu told him about the no-cut visual strategy, Nichols said, “Alejandro, you are running to disaster…you should stop now.”

“Nichols was a wise guy and a [expletive] to tell me that one week before,” Inarritu told N.Y. Times reporter Melena Ryzik. “But I hugged him and said thank you. The best thing he told me was, ‘Alejandro, once you have it, do it faster.’ And he was right.”

Birdman has found more success than One, Two, Three, of course — high praise, Oscar contention, a decent box-office return. Sometimes risks pay off. And sometimes a change of pace works also. Before Birdman Inarritu was more or less regarded as Darkman — an explorer of random tragic fate in Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel and Biutiful. Then something happened.