Endless cans of red ink and red paint, poured all over the Batman realm, soaking every square inch and boiling it all down to one “statement,” which is that we’re in a world of red, baby. Not arterial red, fire-engine red or tomato red, but Bob Kane comic-book red. The imaginings of which director Matt Reeves read as a kid.

“I know, I know you’ll probably scream and cry that your little world won’t let you go…”

Last night Paul Schrader asked his Facebook pallies if he should maybe drop acid. “When I was in college I refused to take LSD because I was so full of suicidal anger, [and] I feared the drug would unleash self destruction,” he wrote. “That of course was media propaganda. But now at 74 with little left to lose I would like to take a trip. Is it safe at my age? Where can I safely access it?”

HE reply, filed this morning at six-something: “I wouldn’t, Paul. Unless you’ve developed a notion that you’re ready to accept the mystical, which means putting aside the rational and in some cases judgmental constructs that you’ve been assembling for so many decades — all of those structural towers of intellectual, influential, scholastic, explorational and experience-based building blocks of your identity.

“LSD is a potential passport to satori and clear light. It’s all there and quite the wonder-realm, but you can’t really enter the kingdom without letting all that other stuff go…all of that material you’ve been accumulating and evaluating and sifting through since your early teens. None of that stuff really matters in the realm of the mystical. If you think you might be down with this or at least open to the possibility, go with God. But it’s a lot easier to allow this kind of ‘letting go’ transformation to happen when you’re 19 or 22 and made of much softer clay.

“LSD is a key, a door ajar, a gateway into a whole ‘nother territory. It isn’t really about therapy or psychology (sorry, Cary) or this or that terra firma, furrowed-brow examination or rumination. It’s about stepping off a kind of misty, moss-covered cliff or, if you will, deciding that the rules, restrictions and governances that you’ve been living by are just obstructions, and that a blue-sky realm awaits.

“I’m just saying that most (i.e., obviously not all) older people have invested too many decades and sorted through too much stuff to accept this kind of clarity, this kind of spiritual cleansing and refreshment. Some people are better off living in safe, sensible worlds that have worked for them…familiarity, recognizable borders, trial and error.

“A good satori book by Alan Watts (such as “This Is It“) would be good to have around. The lyrics of ‘Are You Experienced?’ [see above] are proof that Jimi Hendrix really knew whereof he spoke…“not necessarily stoned but beautiful.”

“All due respect and serious admiration, Paul, but I suspect that you’ll find this kind of newspaper-taxi adventure and temptation more unsettling than transformative.

“If you intend to do this, fine, but at least do so with a good supply of come-down medicinals at the ready (Ocxycontin, Tapendatol, Dilaudid).”

The Tenet review embargo lifts tomorrow in England. Everyone (major US critics included) will jump in at noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific. In a way tomorrow’s dam break will constitute the second wave of reactions as the first reactions popped five days ago, courtesy of Jordan Ruimy.

TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman is reporting that film directors Neil Marshall (The Reckoning) and Joshua Newton (Nicole and O.J.) were the guys who “attempted to extort veteran Hollywood executive Ron Meyer,” and whose efforts led to Meyer’s being dismissed from his vice-chairman job with Universal.

This, wrote Waxman, is “according to two individuals with knowledge of the drama that led to the mogul’s abrupt ouster on Tuesday.”

Waxman reports that both Marshall and Newton have “dated” actress Charlotte Kirk, the 28 year-old actress whose brief affair with Meyer in 2012 was the source of all the trouble.

Kirk also got down with Warner Bros. honcho Kevin Tsujihara in 2013 and ’14, an affair which led to his ouster a year ago last March. Prior to that she may have also have “dated” producer Brett Ratner and allegedly did date Australian billionaire James Packer.

I’m wondering if Kirk has ever “been” with someone who’s roughly her age and wasn’t an older dude of wealth and power who might have helped her career. If I were writing Kirk’s story for a screenplay, I would invent a young, witty, good-looking boyfriend who has no power but makes her laugh and is good in the sack. The tragedy would be that although Kirk has found a guy who really loves her, she can’t reciprocate because he’s not an industry heavy-hitter or at least a director with the option of casting her in something.

I prefer the NMDLND version because it’s more succinct, less colorful, a little sadder and scruffier.

The more colorful version with portions of five license plates (Alaska, California, Arizona, South Dakota and one other) is more eye-poppy. It suggests that the film may be about a vibrant and colorful journey of some kind — different regions, vistas, aromas, flavors. It suggests some kind of eye-opener or pick-me-up experience, and that Frances McDormand‘s “Fern” may be in for a bracing adventure.

The NMDLND version conveys less in the way of optimism, and more in the way of “art.” I’m always more in favor of an implication rather than a statement of plain fact.

The first Nomadland reviews will happen at the Venice Film Festival on 9.11 — a little more than three weeks hence. The commercial opening is on 12.4.20.

I’m trying to remember when the last Los Angeles press screening I attended might have been. The first week in March, something like that. This morning the word went around that a major award-season contender will have a special drive-in screening — non-virtual, an actual projected image, people in cars — on a somewhat early September date (i.e., before the middle). Not at one of the regular drive-ins and not on the West Side or in Hollywood or downtown Los Angeles, but at a reachable, not-too-far-away location. I’m being cagey about this because no one has mentioned it on social media and I don’t want to be the first. But the mere idea of attending an actual live, big-screen showing of a presumably first-rate film after more than six months of streaming everything on my 4K 65-incher…it was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

REPORTER: QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that?

TRUMP: Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world. pic.twitter.com/rPYFU1B8WB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2020

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro reported this morning that serious Chris Nolan fans “in select cities” will be able to see Tenet before the official 9.3 opening.

No specifics on the cities but they presumably won’t include Los Angeles, New York City or burghs in New Jersey. A statement from Warner Bros. domestic distribution honcho Jeff Goldstein says Tenet will screen in the yet-to-be-named cities on Monday, 8.31, Tuesday, 9.1 and Wednesday, 9.2.

So in order to enjoy some sumptuous Egyptian scenery while taking a trip down the Nile on a great-looking, first-class steamer, we’ll need to endure sit through another Kenneth Branagh-slash-Hercule Poirot murder-mystery. Starring, directed and produced by Branagh — a truly bountiful paycheck. The script is by Michael Green.

Initially adapted by director John Guillermin and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer in 1978 with Peter Ustinov as Poirot, the new Nile is about…no spoilers.

Like Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express (’17), Death on the Nile is a wokester re-imagining of 1930s upper-crust travel culture with elegant ladies of leisure like Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright occupying first-class salons.

Some of Death on the Nile was actually filmed on in Egypt…imagine! Costarring Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Gal Gadot, Dawn French, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey and Jennifer Saunders.

Phoenix‘s musical supplements tell you almost everything about Sofia Coppola‘s On The Rocks (A24/Apple). This is one peppy, finger-poppin’ relationship comedy about a married daughter (Rashida Jones) and her laconic, libertine, hound-dog dad (Bill Murray).

You can tell right away that director-writer Sofia Coppola, who enabled Murray to give one of his best performances 17 years ago in Lost in Translation, has wisely decided to just let Murray be Murray.

Boilerplate: “Laura (Jones) thinks she’s happily hitched, but when her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) starts logging late hours at the office with a new co-worker, Laura begins to fear the worst. She turns to her charming, impulsive father Felix (Murray), who insists they investigate the situation. As the two begin prowling New York at night, careening from uptown parties to downtown hotspots,” etc.

Murray (who turns 70 on 9.21) looks good. He obviously dropped a few pounds before filming began in June 2019.

On The Rocks will open in a few select theatres in early to mid October, followed by streaming debut on Apple TV Plus later that same month.

Kevin Hart to Deadline‘s Matt Grobar translation, boiled down to basics: “Homophobic attitudes have long been embedded in African-American culture. Remember those Eddie Murphy gay jokes from the ’80s? Or the reaction among many older African Americans to Pete Buttigieg‘s candidacy last year?

“Nine or ten years ago I used a few jokes in that vein, jokes that may have connected among some in the POC community but not in the broader liberal-minded entertainment community. I got slapped around for that in late ’18 and early ’19, but I accepted this as a learning or teaching moment. I apologize for having been insensitive towards people in the LGBTQ community, and here we are now. Life is for learning, and I’m ready for the next lesson.”

Actual Hart quote: “What happened to the days of making a mistake, learning from the mistake, not doing that, and educating others on what not to do because of your mistakes?”

Unspoken Matt Grobar response: “As you know, it doesn’t work that way now. If you’ve made a mistake or if you did or said something hurtful or incorrect a few years ago and we get wind of it, you’re dead. Go away, work for Uber or McDonalds, commit suicide, move to Manila. Okay, you might be able to come back in two or three years if you profusely apologize and beg for forgiveness, maybe, but remember how HUAC and Hollywood studio chiefs began purging suspected Communists starting in the late ’40s? We’ve basically brought that shit back, but for righteous reasons. We’re scrubbing the industry clean.”