Then again 79% isn’t bad for a three-hour Japanese “Uncle Vanya” film about driving around in a red Saab and smoking a mountain of cigarettes. Four out of five popcorn-inhalers aren’t complaining.

Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and the Pheonix-residing Crane sisters (Janet Leigh‘s Marion and Vera Miles‘ Lila) were, of course, never in the same room together. But once you get past this and after you contemplate the fact that Lila has her palm pressed against Sam’s rib cage, you immediately consider the possibilities.

Could straight-arrow Sam have been two-timing Marion with a concurrent affair with Lila? No — that would have been too much, too reckless, too thoughtless for a financially pressed owner of a hardware store.

But after Norman Bates was arrested for the murder of Marion and Martin Balsam‘s Arbogast and the whole thing had been put to bed, could Sam and Lila have gradually become lovers? As a way of embracing life and renouncing death? This, to me, seems conceivable.

I always assumed that Peter Bogdanovich falling in love with and marrying Louise Stratten, the younger sister of his murdered lover Dorothy Stratten…I always thought he was motivated by the same spirit of renunciation and renewal — an attempt to replace the trauma of murder with the bloom of fresh love.

Contrary to the Getty Images caption, the woman with Nightmare Alley director-cowriter Guillermo del Toro at today’s Oscar Nominees Luncheon is not a “guest.”‘ She’s GDT’s wife and Nightmare Alley co-author Kim Morgan.

Earlier today HE reader “Mike” complained about my Santa Barbara Film Festival doings thus far. “Why the obsession with the festival’s back-slapping, glad-handing interview sidebars?,” he wrote. “What about the bread and butter? It’s a film festival, for Christ’s sake. Surely it’s not hard to see a couple a day and drop a few comments. What are your favorites so far?”

HE to “Mike”: “The back-slapping, glad-handing interviews ARE the festival’s bread-and-butter. Bringing brand-name celebs to town in the heat of Oscar season is what the SBIFF does — what it’s famous for.

“The films that show at SBIFF are always curated with care — Roger Durling and his staff do the best they can, and most are quality-level as far as it goes — but for various reasons the SBIFF never gets the pick of the litter. You would hope that they’d screen some of the more interesting Sundance titles, but they never do (and not for lack of trying).

Every so often there’s an interesting doc or odd foreign feature in the lineup. I take them as they come.”

Right now I’m watching Neil LaBute‘s House of Darkness, an eerie seduction drama with Justin Long and Kate Bosworth. Synopsis: “A man drives a woman home after they meet over drinks in a local bar. When she invites him into her home for a nightcap, the evening doesn’t follow the familiar path toward seduction.”

Later this week I’ll catch Justin Kurzel‘s Nitram, a drama based on the saga of Australian mass murderer Martin Bryant. Costarring Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis and Anthony LaPaglia,

Nitram had its big premiere at last July’s Cannes Film Festival; Jones won the Best Actor award. Pic received a limited theatrical release in Australia last September.

“It was one of those surreal moments when light entertainment mugs history. Vladimir Putin crooned the song ‘Blueberry Hill at a children’s charity benefit in St Petersburg in 2010, as a crowd of celebrities — including Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Gérard Depardieu, Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci – clapped along like they were in kindergarten.

“When the politician reeled off the opening line — ‘I found my thrill’ — thoughts of the Georgian invasion or the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko didn’t seem to be urgently popping into anyone’s head. Knowing what we know now, the spectacle plays more like Dr. Evil’s rendition of ‘Just the Two of Us’ but far less funny.” — from “Putin’s Hollywood pals – the stars who snuggled up to the Russian dictator,” a 3.7.22 Guardian piece by Phil Hoad.

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone is asking her readers to pick preferences among the ten Best Picture nominees. She’s asked me to ask the HE community to join in. Right now Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog seems to be leading, she says.

If you believe in fairies and if you care about doing your part to halt the scourge of homosexual panic in 21st Century cinema, please vote now. Within the realm of this small but culturally significant poll, only YOU can stop The Power of the Dog.