I have to watch each True Detective episode a couple of times to figure out what the hell is going on, and even then it helps to read a couple of online summaries and then watch a third time for good measure. Partly due to the labyrinthian plotting, partly due to the general slurring and murmuring. But hoowee, did things come alive last night or what? For the first time this year I sat up and went “whoa, whoa…wait, wait!” It began around the 45-minute mark and lasted for just about nine minutes. Easily the best action scene of this kind since the downtown L.A. firefight in Michael Mann‘s Heat (’95), which lasted about 90 seconds longer. A lot of cops and non-involved citizens went down before it was over. Those Mexican drug dealer guys (especially the baldie with the white T-shirt) are really crazy — all they want to do is waste as many cops and bystanders are possible before being killed. I didn’t believe Rachel McAdams would run after the bad-guy SUV and fire away — too reckless. In real life she would have caught a bullet or two or three.

Originally posted on 5.3: A 21st Century D.C. Comics ragtag Dirty Dozen minus three. A metaphor for comic-book culture ragtag subterraneans, livin’ tough and hard by their own flinty, scruffy-as-shit, smart-assed outlaw code…rude, used, abused, sued, yahoo’ed & tattooed. “Incarcerated supervillains acting as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences” blah blah. Warner Bros. will open this David Ayer creation on 8.5.16.

Whatever happened to Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups? It was screened and, it has to be said, not ecstatically reviewed at last February’s Berlinale, and…well, I haven’t felt anything since. No buzz, no anticipation, no sound of humming engines…zip. What’s to say, right? Another ethereal, rhapsodic dream poem from Mr. Wackadoodle. The distributor is Broad Green Pictures. I’m guessing Cups will turn up at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival prior to a limited theatrical/peek-out VOD opening sometime next year. This is what the Malick cult has boiled down to — peek-outs, escapes, secretions.

When will Malick’s other space-trip movie, Weightless, play to audiences? I realize that principal photography began on this Austin-based musical drama in September 2012 or thereabouts, or a little less than three years ago. But it probably won’t be seen….well, who knows but sometime next year, I’m guessing, and most likely in the late summer or fall, especially if Knight of Cups doesn’t open this year, which wouldn’t surprise me.

If (I say “if”) Weightless doesn’t open until the fall of ’16, a full five years will have transpired between the earliest filming at the September 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival. That would be a kind of milestone — the first ostensibly commercial film in history to shoot with major stars and not open until they’ve all noticably aged and basically turned into slightly different people.

Variety‘s Scott Foundas has mentioned Margaret and Accidental Love (a.k.a. Nailed) as precedents. Except Accidental Love was delayed by force majeure financial factors and Margaret was held up due to differences between a director (Kenneth Lonergan) and a distributor. Weightless is the first major film to be delayed ad infinitum due to creative dithering, indecision and lettuce-leaf-tossing on the part of the director.

The genius stroke, of course, would be to release Knight of Cups and Weightless either simultaneously or closely in tandem. The fact that Christian Bale, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett costar in both (as either the same or different characters…does it matter?) would lead to a certain intrigue. You can’t see just one, etc.

I’m presuming that James Vanderbilt‘s Truth, which Sony Pictures Classics will release sometime during the 2015 award season, will have its first showings in the early fall at one of the early September festivals — Venice, Telluride, Toronto — or at the New York Film Festival, which begins in late September. Last night I tapped out a quickie about whether Cate Blanchett‘s allegedly excellent lead performance as CBS News producer Mary Mapes will strongly compete with her already-seen-and-praised performance in Todd Haynes‘ Carol in the Best Actress realm. Who knows how SPC and The Weinstein Co., the distributor of Carol, will play their cards? A guy who’s seen Truth tells me that Blanchett’s performance is pure drillbit so it may come down to a matter of who blinks first.

One thing for sure is that when Truth starts to be seen the nutter right will dive again into that controversial, clearly flawed 60 Minutes segment and spread their usual bullshit. Aired on 9.8.04, the much-criticized segment led to the resignation of Mapes and other CBS News producers and executives in its wake, and CBS anchor Dan Rather the following year. It explored former President George W. Bush‘s dubious record of military service in the early ’70s, and leaned heavily on documents that allegedly came from the files of Bush’s commanding officer, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. They claimed that young Bush, then in his late 20s, swaggered around like an entitled fratboy and at one point disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.

The righties (including HE’s own Correcting Jeff) will assert that the entire segment was inaccurate or invented, and they will be dead wrong and/or lying through their teeth when they do that.

Those who saw and cheered Rooney Mara‘s Carol performance two months ago at the Cannes Film Festival and who agreed wholeheartedly when she won that festival’s Best Actress award may be chagrined or at least somewhat surprised to hear that the Weinstein Co. plans to campaign her for Best Supporting Actress. They’ve also decided to campaign the nearly-or-arguably-as-good Cate Blanchett, who plays the titular role, for Best Actress. The strategy, obviously, is for the Carol costars to not run against each other.

(l.) Cate Blanchett as former CBS news producer Mary Mapes in James Vanderbilt’s Truth; the real McCoy.

Update: And yet a bigger question may be which Blanchett lead performance will prevail as the strongest Best Actress contender — her Carol lead or her portrayal of former CBS news producer and author Mary Mapes in James Vanderbilt‘s Truth (Sony Pictures Classics), a dramatization of Mapes’ 2005 memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.” A friend who’s seen Truth says Blanchett’s performance is “incredible (no surprise) and I don’t see a world where she’s supporting — the film is hers. Redford’s Dan Rather role is supporting.”

Mapes’ book explains how and why Mapes and Rather lost their jobs in the wake of a 2004 report about a young George Bush having allegedly received preferential treatment in an attempt to duck military service in Vietnam.

This is just one of my nothing-else-to-post photo assemblies, but the above title is a line of dialogue from a well-known 1959 film.

(l. to r.) Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling, End of the Tour director James Ponsoldt, star Jason Segel at post-screening reception in hills above Santa Barbara. Tour was screened late Saturday morning for a private group at SB’s Riviera theatre.

Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Any Adams, Jesse Eisenberg and rest of the Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice gang at ComicCon.

Snapped during last Thursday night’s after-party for Irrational Man at Hakkasan (233 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills).

Gina Lollobrigida sometime in the late ’50s.

“You’ve got studios right now announcing [comic-book and superhero] movies through 2019. This time next year, you’ll have, by my count, 24 television shows on the air based on comic books. Even if four or five are great, how many does that leave that suck? That’s the real danger moving forward.” — Dark Knight producer Michael Uslan, speaking two days ago (7.10) at a Comic-Con panel called “The Comic Book Film Adaptation,” as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Graeme McMillan.

An excerpt from “The Lufthansa Heist,” written by Henry Hill and journalist Daniel Simone, as summarized by Bill Sanders in a N.Y Post story:

“When John Gotti, still seven years from becoming the Dapper Don, heard Tommy DeSimone was about to be ‘made,’ he demanded a sit-down with Paul Vario. ‘This fuckin’ DeSimone whacked two of my top earners, and I let it go for a long time,’ Gotti told his fellow capo. ‘Now he wants to be made, and I’m not gonna sit quietly. I mean, that’s as bad as putting a cactus up my ass.’

“’John, what do you suppose I should do?’ Vario asked.

“’Paulie, all I want is what’s fair,’ Gotti said. ‘I wanna whack the bastard, and I want you to give me the green light.’

“Vario considered how DeSimone was a constant source of agita. He also figured the feds or the cops would soon pinch DeSimone for the robbery. But there was another reason, the book ­reveals.

When Hill was in federal prison several years before, DeSimone had tried to assault Hill’s wife, Karen. Vario was furious about this — partly because, at the time, he and Karen were having an affair.”

Wait…Joe Pesci tried to rape Lorraine Bracco when Ray Liotta was in the slam, and this pissed off Paul Sorvino because he and Lorraine were having an affair at the time? Why wasn’t this in the film?

This morning Daily Beast correspondent Marlow Stern posted surreptitious footage from yesterday’s ComicCon trailer to Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds‘ forthcoming Marvel superhero flick Deadpool (20th Century Fox, 2.12.16). It would be nice for Reynolds to be in something that either makes money or which critics like. Or both. But in my realm this is mainly cause for more lethargy. Would it do any good to once again suggest that superhero movies are a kind of cultural virus — a metaphor for mass feelings of weakness and insufficiency against the tumbling tides of oppressive corporatism? Empowerment fantasies that, ironically, corporations are getting rich off by selling them right back to the chumps? Why support quixotic quests like Bernie Sanders‘ campaign when you can plop down at a megaplex and watch Deadpool? On top of which this long-stalled event flick contains R-rated dialogue…breakthrough!

Obviously the guy who drove backwards down Lauren Canyon Blvd. from Mulholland to Hollywood Blvd. last Thursday afternoon was being reckless. Yes, he deserves to face charges if the cops find him. Hollywood Elsewhere definitely frowns upon such activity. But that aside, you have to give the guy credit for handling this like Steve McQueen. Okay, so he went over the yellow line a couple of times…big deal. The news channel narrator says he “appears to almost hit a pedestrian”…bullshit. The pedestrian is obviously just walking along the road and Mr. Backwards zooms right past.

Apparently Ben Affleck‘s Bruce Wayne is seething at Henry Cavill‘s Superman over that interminable fight with Michael Shannon‘s Zod at the finale of Man of Steel. I don’t care how pissed Wayne is — Mr. Krypton can still kick the shit out of him with one hand tied. Haunting 9/11 image at beginning with dust cloud enveloping Affleck. The fact that Jesse Eisenberg‘s Lex has hair indicates there’ll be a whole sub-story about how he loses it…thud. Did I miss Jason Momoa‘s Aquaman? It’s okay with me. Jeremy “paycheck” Irons adds a touch of class. Why was Wonder Woman thrown into this?

As much as I despise ComicCon culture for its heinous influence upon popcorn cinema (except when it comes to standouts like Ant-Man, Avatar, the two Captain America flicks and The Empire Strikes Back), I wouldn’t have minded being in San Diego last night for that panel and the Star Wars musical-concert-under-the-stars and the fireworks…the whole thing. You could feel the vibes right through YouTube and all the way up the 405.