I saw and praised Bill Pohlad‘s Love & Mercy (Roadside Attractions, 6.5) seven months ago at the Toronto Film Festival, and now, with this excellent trailer, I’m feeling some of the same sitrrings and satisfactions for the first time since then. Paul Dano and John Cusack both give knock-out, award-level performances as Beach Boys wunderkind and genius composer Brian Wilson at different ages. I’ve been looking forward to a second dip in the pool since Toronto, and now I’m a little disappointed that I’ve been been told about only one Los Angeles press screening this month (on 4.28), and at the less-than-wonderful Wilshire Screening Room at that.

Neil LaBute‘s Dirty Weekend, debuting this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, is said to be an “ascerbic” comedy concerning an odd-couple pair of co-workers (Matthew Broderick, Alice Eve) who roam around Albuquerque “on a business trip as personal proclivities and intimate secrets are revealed” blah blah. A Wikipedia entry states the obvious, which is that the U.K. term “dirty weekend” alludes to “a romantic hotel assignation.”

The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler has suggested that Hillary Clinton‘s likability problem would evaporate overnight if she got Barack Obama to run as her Vice-President. If you ask me Beutler is on to something. From my perspective this would totally lift me out of my Hillary doldrums and change everything.

“There are three sections of the Constitution that prescribe limits on who can be president and vice president,” Beutler writes. “Article II, the Twelfth Amendment and the Twenty-Second Amendment. While the former two limit who is ‘eligible’ to serve—natural born citizens, 35 or older—the Twenty-Second Amendment begins ‘No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.’

I was thinking about crashing around 11 pm last night, or about 90 minutes earlier than usual, but then I decided to watch a little bit of Jonathan Demme‘s Philadelphia (’93), which is streaming in high-def for Amazon Prime subscribers. I hadn’t watched it in 21 and 1/3 years, and I’d forgotten many of the excellent scenes and the unforced, mild-mannered way in which they sink in and connect. I wound up watching the whole thing and staying up until 1:15 am.

I remember that soon after Philadelphia opened in December 1993 (when Hillary was in the White House!) it fell out of favor in foo-foo circles for what was regarded as a too-chaste portrayal of the relationship between Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas. But the widespread affection for Hanks’ performance as Andy, the gradually dying AIDS victim, was overwhelming. It was a dignified, carefully measured performance with the weight loss and the vulnerability and the make-up, and sad as hell. Everyone knew he’d win the Best Actor Oscar, and of course he did.

Last night I watched about two-thirds of Furious 7 in a D-BOX seat at the TCL Chinese plex, and I found it mostly pleasing. It’s basically a high-tech chair that rumbles and vibrates and pitches around in synch with the action. You could describe the D-BOX experience as a slightly less dynamic cousin of the 4DX experience, a South Korean-developed system that augments the vibration and movement with atmospheric effects. 4DX is available worldwide (including Vietnam) but it may not be in U.S. theatres for another year or two.

My D-BOX experience happened during a 7 pm screening inside theatre #1. The cacophonous Avengers: Age of Ultron premiere was occuring outside on Hollywood Blvd. and inside the adjacent Dolby theatre. A friend has told me I’m going to hate, hate, hate this Joss Whedon-directed Disney release, which screened last weekend for the junket whores.

I can’t believe I’ve now watched portions of Furious 7 in three different theatres so far. I’ve now seen the completely sub-mental Abu Dhabi sequence. Are you reading this, Michael Moses?

Directors, fight choreographers and editors of all of those Marvel and D.C. Comics superhero features (along with evil Furious 7 director James Wan) need to pull up a chair and watch this one-take Daredevil fight scene and take copious notes, and then bow down in front of series creator Drew Goddard. Brilliant! HE gold standard! The cinematographer is Matt Lloyd. As per House of Cards tradition, all 13 episodes of Daredevil began airing four days ago (i.e., 4.10).

From HE reader Matt Howell: “Given your hatred of the comic book genre and your lament over action scenes and fight choreography being unrealistic, what’s your take on this clip? Those are real looking blows, struck by a progressively more beaten down and winded hero. Bad guys don’t go down with one punch and stay down, they get back up and come back at him (albeit a little slower and in pain). Oh yeah, and it’s all one take.”

Jon Stewart is saying that Hillary Clinton‘s “it’s not about me but you” announcement video hits the right notes, but the piece felt a bit too orchestrated and prepared and stage-managed — the sentiments and feelings were fine but they didn’t feel all that genuine. Her “did you know I’ve been Elizabeth Warren all along?” act feels like an act. We all know that when the rough-and-tumble starts next year and Clinton is forced to respond off the cuff that somehow or some way she’ll put her foot in it. I’m not hoping this will happen, but we all know it will. Repeating: I don’t want her to lose but she doesn’t turn me on. And she never will.

Almost everybody loses it from time to time, and so Dennis Quaid gets a pass from me. At least he didn’t sound as nutso as Christian Bale did a few years ago. Quaid also gets points for creating a new cartoon character — “Dopey the dick.” If you’re dealing with someone who’s lost it, there are only two ways to respond. One, offer submission and obeisance in the usual physical and verbal ways (solemnly nod your head, say “you’re right, man…I hear you” and so on). And two, never say their name over and over. The guy on the video says “Dennis, Dennis”….wrong! Saying the name of a screamer implies that his anger is excessive and that his objections aren’t that important. Always address the objections. Never admonish or urge any kind of restraint. Simple agree with him and it’ll all go away in less than a minute, and the likelihood of the ranter stomping out of the room and saying “blow me!” will be next to nil. And five minutes later he’ll most likely be apologizing.