I’ve watched this Miles Ahead teaser three times — nice vibe, feels authentic. But I’ve been listening with good headphones, and I’m telling you I can’t understand anything that Don Cheadle is saying except when he says “can we record this?” and a couple of times when he says “yeah.” His Miles voice is a little too raspy and mumbly. If this persists in the watching of the actual film in a theatre or screening room, it’ll be a problem.

Now this is one fetching Cuban cover. It looks like dessert or afternoon sex. The hot red letters, Rihanna’s intense red hair, the chipped-paint wall of beige-tan with just a touch of mustard, the almost teal-green classic car, the faded green of her outfit…beautiful. I’ll be buying this new issue of Vanity Fair today or tomorrow, and I’ll plop it down on my aged wooden chest in front of my big blue couch, and if recent tradition is any guide I’ll probably never get around to reading it. I always buy it intending to read the whole thing front to back, but somehow I never do.

I’ve been buying Vanity Fair for 30 years now. I can’t precisely pinpoint when I stopped reading it, but sometime within the last couple of years. Mainly because I’m always checking twitter or writing when I sit down at home. I used to read Vanity Fair on coast-to-coast flights but now I spend all my time online, writing or researching column stories.

On top of which the articles have began to seem a little less substantial with more of an emphasis on girly, frothy, fashiony stuff.  Or people I can’t stand to look at.  I know that I hate the all-fashion issue. I’m not saying VF has become a kind of lah-lah magazine that celebrates (or tries to instill a fascination with) wealth and fashion and loaded people who are spending their money on increasingly peculiar or arcane things. But it feels like it’s kinda going in that direction.  More and more jaded crap.

I’ve seen Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas‘s Spartacus at least 15 if not 20 times, and in all kind of formats — big-screen celluloid projection, broadcast, VHS, Criterion laser disc, DVD and the discredited 2010 “shiny” Bluray that Universal issued five years ago. (And which I somewhat shamefully half-approved of for the simple reason that it looked much better than the 480p Criterion DVD.) Two days ago Universal’s new restored Bluray arrived in the mail, and I swear to God it’s never looked this needle-sharp and natural. It’s a digital knockout, and clean as a hound’s tooth. The difference between this newbie and the 2010 version is analogous to the difference between a run-of-the-mill DVD and a Bluray of anything. It really pops. I felt as if I was watching something almost “new.”

I’m told that every frame has a full measure of grain but I can’t see so much as a single Egyptian mosquito. We all know what grainstorms can look like, and this puppy has none of that. Plus there is extra information on all four sides, and the skin tones and shades of everything look completely natural and unforced. This is the Spartacus of the Gods — robust and radiant and more wowser, I’ll bet, than it’s ever looked, even when Douglas, Kubrick and producer Edward Lewis had a final looksee before the New York premiere in November 1960.

Respect and farewell to Kevin Corcoran, the pint-sized actor in various Walt Disney flicks and serials — Toby Tyler, Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, Pollyanna, Adventures in Dairyland, Savage Sam — who went on to work behind the camera in various capacities. Corcorcan, 66, died two days ago from colorectal cancer in Burbank. Tough break. “Every day above ground is a good day.” — Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin) in Brian DePalma‘s Scarface.

I know that young girl, or I knew her, I should say. Because she was me. Like Marcello Mastroianni, I left her standing on the beach a long time ago. We all do this sooner or later. Obviously not an occasion for celebration. Resignation is more like it.

As much as I enjoyed last night’s Academy discussion between Guillermo del Toro and Kerry Brougher, I enjoyed listening to these clips of GDT’s remarks from a visit to YouTube Space LA three weeks ago even more. Del Toro sat with Tony Valenzuela (I’m soprry but I have a problem with anyone who wear mandals) to discuss…well, the topics in sequential order are (a) dealing with limitations, (b) comment-thread haters and (c) assholes on the set.

“For many of us going to movies is like going to church. We go over and over and most of the time you don’t get very much, but it’s all worth it when a movie delivers the great beauty and the transcendence and the kiss of God, like from a great sermon. And that single ectstatic episode — that fix — is enough to keep us going back for years to come.”

(l. to r.) Michael Mann, Guillermo Del Toro and director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Kerry Brougher prior to lastnight’s event — “In The Labyrinth: A Conversation with Guillermo Del Toro.”

This was the Guillermo del Toro quote that stayed with me as I shuffled out of last night’s discussion between the legendary director and interviewer Kerry Brougher at the AMPAS auditorium (i.e., the Samuel Goldwyn theatre).

The talk started out problematically with Brougher kissing Del Toro’s ass over and over, but eventually he let GDT have the floor and after that everything was fine. There is really no one more articulate, perceptive and spiritually imbued than Mr. Del Toro on the subject of film. Or any any subject. But we all know this. The discussion last for just over 90 minutes, and that was exactly right.

I saw GDT’s latest, Crimson Peak (Universal, 10.16), several weeks ago and will post my reaction next week sometime. It’s one of the most exquisitely painted and meticulously composed grand guignol orgies I’ve ever experienced, and I say that as someone who…well, who’s not as much into grand guignol orgies as others. Quite red, quite mad, quite sumptuous.