Neil Blomkamp‘s District 9 meets George Miller‘s The Road Warrior meets current epic sensibilities. Pure apocalyptic formula, and called Mortal Engines, you bet. “Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event,” blah blah, same old same old. Wells to filmmakers: Huge tractor cities don’t growl like dinosaurs — they don’t go “rrrhhoowwwhhrrr.” Directed by Christian Rivers, produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, written by Jackson, Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Costarring Robert Sheehan, Hera Hilmar, Leila George, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Lang. Universal will open it on 12.14.18.

On 12.14 I made it clear that I had no problem with the Academy’s foreign-film branch leaving Robin Campillo‘s BPM: Beats Per Minute off the shortlist. I respect BPM — it’s fleet and sharp and well cut — and I admire, of course, the balls-out militancy of the ACT UP movement in the late ’80s and ’90s. But to me Campillo’s felt too strident, too hectoring and a little too Taxi Zum Klo.

Yeah, that’s right — I prefer gay movies (i.e, Call Me By Your Name) to queer cinema. I guess that makes me a bad guy in some quarters, right?

Variety‘s Guy Lodge has dutifully passed along the elitist disappointment about the BPM snub. “More conservative voters in the general branch might not warm to the film’s length, talkiness and frankly queer sensibility, it was reasoned,” GL wrote, “and when the film got frozen out of the Golden Globes last week, we were given a hint that it wasn’t a universal favorite outside the critical enclave. [For] the general verdict from onlookers was that the Academy had erred badly by passing on Campillo’s film.”

Translation: Those who didn’t vote for BPM are likely homophobes, and they need to work through that. Group therapy, night classes, etc.

Guys like Mark Harris and Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson can lament this, but there’s no law that I know of stating that you have to be moved by, say, a scene in which an AIDS-ravaged guy gets a death-bed hand job. “Reform is desperately needed here,” tweeted Harris. “And the fact that it’s a gay movie…this is a stain.”

Presumably the foreign language committee as well as the Academy at large understand that the next queer movie that comes along needs to be embraced with a bit more fervor. If not, more charges of homophobia!

The first Sundance showing of Gus Van Sant‘s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, about cartoonist John Callahan, is about as prime as it gets — Friday, 1.19 at 9:45 pm, Eccles. And today’s announcement about the Amazon release being selected as a 2018 Berlinale competition title completes the picture. The film is apparently a first-rater with heat, and Van Sant is looking pretty slick himself.

(l.) Jonah Hill, (r.) Joaquin Pheonix.

Don’t forget that Van Sant was all but covered in shit after the critical drubbing that his last film, The Sea of Trees, received in Cannes two and a half years ago. It just goes to show that if you keep hustling and don’t let failure get you down, you’ll eventually find yourself back on top or close to it. Maybe. If you’re X factor to begin with.

Pic stars Joaquin Phoenix as Callahan, and costars Rooney Mara, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Mark Webber and Udo Kier. Amazon will open the period drama stateside on 5.18.18.

I wouldn’t call President Trump’s statement about not planning to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller…I wouldn’t call that comforting because you know he wants to. He just doesn’t think he can fire Mueller without making things worse for himself. If Trump were otherwise persuaded he’d go for it. He’s unhappy about Mueller for gaining access to all transition those emails. “My people were very upset about it,” he said — right. Mueller’s spokesman claimed that the email-obtaining methods were totally legit.

Owen Gleiberman‘s latest Variety essay, “Four Reasons Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi Isn’t One for the Ages“, is (what else?) highly perceptive and sharply written. If you haven’t time to read the whole thing…

Excerpt #1: “Something happens” at the end of a climactic lightsaber duel in Jedi “that echoes a famous death from the original 1977 Star Wars. It’s a ‘whoa!’ kind of moment, but…turns out to be merely the set-up for a much bigger ‘whoa!” moment.

“That mega, super-ultra ‘whoa!’ is designed to blow our minds, and in one sense it does. It leaves the audience with popped eyes and dropped jaws, going ‘Geez, I didn’t know the Jedi could do that!’

“But approximately two seconds after you’ve taken the moment in, it also leaves you with the feeling that the reason you didn’t know they could do that is that the film is making up its rules as it goes along. The moment is arbitrary, breathless but superimposed — spectacular in a monkeys-might-fly-out-of-my-butt sort of way. It seals the experience of The Last Jedi, a movie in which stuff keeps happening, and sometimes that stuff is staggering, and occasionally it’s quite exciting, but too often it feels like the bedazzled version of treading water.

“Yet you hang on and go with it, because you’re yearning for something great, and this is what the Star Wars universe, in its sleek retro-fitted corporate efficiency, has come down to: Making stuff up as it goes along.”

Tatyana and I were waiting in line on the Disney Burbank lot for last Monday’s 7 pm show of The Last Jedi. Waiting and waiting. 6:25 pm, 6:30 pm, 6:35 pm…what’s going on? Suddenly the 4 pm show broke around 6:42 pm, and I knew there wasn’t a chance that they’d start again at 7 pm.

I happened to mention to Tatyana that Jedi lasts around 150 minutes, and a minute later she decided she didn’t want to stay. We agreed that she’d meet me outside the main Alameda gate around 9:45 pm. But we’d have to stick to this plan come hell or high water as we’d left our phones in the car in the parking garage, per Disney orders.

Sure enough they started the film late; it ended around 9:42 pm. I sped-marched out of the main theatre and up to the main gate. I knew the metal gates would be locked but presumed they’d have those special one-way doors that allow people to leave but not enter. Nope. Then I figured “okay, I’m agile, I’ll hop the fence” but I soon realized that was easier said than done.

It was now 9:47 pm but I didn’t see Tatyana. I walked down to the Buena Vista gate — same deal, no exit. The place is a fortress! I started to feel a little creeped out by those damn Mickey Mouse heads atop the green metal fence. Mouse heads…mouse heads everywhere.

Then I walked down to the Riverside Drive gate…another locked gate. You’re staying the night! I walked across Riverside on an elevated pedestrian bridge and down behind an animation building, and finally I came upon a driveway gate with access to the street. Disney security doesn’t fool around.

Two minutes later Tatyana showed up at the corner of Riverside and Buena Vista. She’d driven around the lot three times and was about to start on the fourth.

Obviously Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a huge hit. Sometime tonight domestic earnings are expected to hit $220,047,000 plus $230 million foreign for a worldwide haul of $450,047,000, and that’s after three days in theatres.

Obviously everyone wanted to see it this weekend, but what about those shitty “user” (i.e., ticket-buyer) ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (56% with 97,121 respondents) and Metacritic (4.9% out of 10)?

Metacritic user score for The Last Jedi as of Sunday noon.

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro has asked around and is reporting that while “user scores typically aren’t that far from their critical ratings,” the reason for the huge gap between critical upvotes for Jedi and negative responses from ticket buyers is due to malicious “trolling.” Additionally, he says, “there’s no way to filter on these sites whether or not the users have actually seen Last Jedi or not.”

This is why D’Alessandro trusts CinemaScore and PostTrak much more, as they “literally poll moviegoers in real time, as they’re exiting the theater.”

And yet no other films on the current Rotten Tomatoes roster are showing this kind of discrepancy — a 93% critical rating for Jedi vs. 56% user ratings from 96,829 respondents.

Ferdinand has a 73% rating and a 75% user rating. Justice League, generally regarded as a box-office underperformer, is at $40% (critics) and 79% (some very friendly users). Wonder is at 85% (critics) and 91% (users). The Disaster Artist is at 99% and 90%. Coco is at 97% and 96%.

In short, the only film beside Jedi with a serious critic-user discrepancy is Justice League, but in that case the film was much better liked by users than critics. In all other cases user and critic ratings are fairly close.

Two days ago it was reported that Dan and Toby Talbot‘s Lincoln Plaza Cinema, an arthouse sixplex and an Upper West Side cultural haven since it opened in 1981, has been given the heave-ho by its landlord, Milstein Properties. The theatre will close in January.

In an email a Milstein spokesperson told the N.Y. Times that “vital structural work” was needed to repair and waterproof the plaza around the building. “At the completion of this work, we expect to reopen the space as a cinema that will maintain its cultural legacy far into the future.” The rep added that it’s unclear “if the cinema [will] reopen with the Talbots in charge.”

This sounds like Milsteins want to sever ties with the Talbots. Maybe not.

Honestly? I’ve always kind of hated this little basement-level plex. Tiny shoebox theatres, small screens, seats mounted too close together, no leg room. The last time I saw a film there was…oh, six or seven years ago. It was raining outside (which was part of the reason I’d bought a ticket) and as I sat in one of those crummy little theatres, which felt damp and stuffy that day with the odor of soaked umbrellas and raincoats, I remember saying to myself, “What am I doing here? I don’t like the movie and the atmosphere is down-at-the-heels and the seat is too uncomfortable to take a nap in.”

But I always respected the Lincoln Plaza. A film-buff haven, a small business that has long fed the aura of Upper West Side knowingness. Every time I’d walk by I’d look up at that shitty little marquee and say to myself, “Good, it’s still there.” So the closing is a very sad thing. A shame. Diminishes the character of the city, makes the neighborhood a little less vibrant.

Smarthouse cinemas have always been good for the soul. Manhattan was a repertory cinema boom town in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. They’re all pretty much gone now, although there’s still the Metrograph, the 13th street Quad Cinema as well as the Cinema Village, the Film Forum, MoMA, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, BAM, et. al.

At the same time people have been lamenting for the last 20 years that NYC is becoming more and more corporate, and less and less accomodating for small- and mid-sized businesses, not to mention anyone earning less than a hefty six-figure income. Remember the death of Pearl Paint on Canal? Same kind of sadness.

On 12.14 The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit reported that Benny and Josh Safdie (Good Time) will direct a remake of Walter Hill‘s 48 HRS (’82). The original script, co-written by Hill, Roger Spottiswoode, Larry Gross and Steven de Souza, is about a racist tough-guy cop (Nick Nolte) springing a black convict (Eddie Murphy) from jail in order to gain an inside advantage in tracking down a pair of cop killers.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the racial epithets that came out of Nolte’s mouth 35 years ago will sound over-the-top horrendous by today’s cultural standards. Nolte’s Jack Cates calls Murphy’s Reggie Hammond the “n” word, for one thing, not to mention “spearchucker” and a couple of other terms that haven’t been heard in commercial films in a long time.

How to get around this? Reverse the ethnicity of the leads. Use a snarly, middle-aged black actor to play Nolte’s detective, and a younger white actor to play Murphy’s convict, except make him an under-educated alt-right guy.

After debuting 11 months ago at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky‘s The Polka King, a reasonably decent real-life dramedy, will begin airing on Netflix on 1.12.18.

I called it “a briskly paced, broad-brush tragicomedy that’s aimed at the none-too-hips. It’s funny and engaging as far as it goes — a kind of regional (i.e., Pennsylvania-based) farcical screwball thing. It has a tightly sprung comic attitude, and is packed (as you might presume) with traditional polka music, colorful, behind-the-eight-ball characters and all kinds of local douchebag flavor.

“It’s a bit like The Wolf of Wall Street in that it’s about a manic, larger-than-life polka-singing hustler — the real-life Jan Lewan — who ponzi-schemed his way into a five-year jail sentence about 15 years ago. The difference is that while Wolf was a half-satirical portrait of predatory financial-market culture, Polka King is about a guy who tries to flim-flam his way out of financial difficulty only to wind up in an even deeper hole.

“You know going in that the buoyant, Polish-born Jan (entertainingly nailed by the great Jack Black) is headed for a fall, so the movie is basically a waiting game — how long before Jan’s bullshit finally catches up with him? The Polka King therefore lives or dies based on how diverting or hilarious you find delusion and denial as the hallmarks of a business plan.

“I for one didn’t find it hugely amusing –the only film about relentless lying and flim-flammery that I’ve liked was Robert Zemeckis‘ Used Cars — but I took the ride and had a decent-enough time. I recognize that others who caught The Polka King last night (as I did) are down with it more than I, and that it may well prove a commercial success.

I’ve had the BFI Bluray of Ken Russell‘s Women In Love (’69) on my bookshelf since August 2016. Yesterday it was announced that Criterion will be releasing its own version on 3.27.18. The Criterion will almost certainly look identical to the BFI. Both are 4K scans of a BFI-restored print from 2015; both using a 1.75:1 aspect ratio and running 131 minutes.

The Criterion jacket features a painting of drowned lovers, taken right from the film. More alluring than the still images on the BFI Bluray.

Women in Love is Russell’s greatest work — a perfectly captured, brilliantly written period romance that pulls you in immediately with a feeling of Lawrentian eloquence and authenticity. Not as shocking or inflammatory as The Devils but richer and more flavorful and more spiritually open, not to mention erotic. Billy Williams‘ cinematography is dazzling — the pictorial detail and robust colors on the BFI Bluray are worth the price in themselves.

Released just over 48 years ago but looking fresh from the lab, Women in Love is one of the most lusciously captured films ever made about men, women and relationships (and I’m not just talking about the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed), and one of the most articulate portrayals of the sadnesses and frustrations that plague so many lovers.

It’s also one of the first mainstream films to fully explore and dramatize the lives and longings of free-spirited, semi-emancipated 20th Century women (i.e., Glenda Jackson‘s Isadora Duncan-like Gudrun and Jennie Linden‘s more conservative Ursula) in a historical context.

Posted on 8.21.16, but applicable right now: “If Women in Love had never appeared in ’69 and yet was somehow recreated by a fresh creative team and released this fall by Focus Features or Fox Searchlight, it would instantly vault into the Best Picture category. Because nobody and I mean nobody makes brainy, pulsing period dramas as good as this for the theatrical market any more.”

This morning The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg posted a pre-holiday Oscar race chart. One standout call was Feinberg’s decision to throw in with Variety‘s Kris Tapley by describing Darkest Hour as a “maybe not” in the Best Picture race. In Feinberg parlance and especially in mid-December, “maybe not” contenders are given a “major threat” designation…same difference.

But even more striking is the sudden influence of the just-announced SAG Ensemble Award nominees, and particularly Feinberg’s decision to place Get Out at the very top of the Best Picture list.

Everyone realizes that Get Out is a tenacious contender that has struck a nerve, and that a Best Picture nomination is 100% locked. But placing it ahead of everything else seems….what, excessive? Delusional?

Do I have to say again that the three most Oscar-deserving films of the year — Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and Dunkirk — are the most independent-minded and very much singing their own tune, and are far more adventurous and accomplished than Get Out?

HE readers are probably sick of this opinion, but what am I supposed to say about Feinberg going apeshit for Get Out? Declare what a seer he is?

As for the mystifying Daniel Kaluuya for Best Actor thing, I riffed on that the other day.

Two friends disagree. “Scott’s call isn’t delusional at all,” says critic #1. “I have a feeling Get Out is going to win too. I just need more intel to make a full prediction. Right now it’s down to three: Get Out, Lady Bird and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

Critic #2 says that Kalyuua gives “a strong performance in an important film, and [the Kaluuya talk] is retroactive justice for Sidney Poitier NOT getting a Best Actor nom for In the Heat of the Night 50 years ago, while costar Rod Steiger did and won the category.”

So 2017 is not the year of women pushing back at the patriarchy and sexual misconduct, and we’re still offering make-up apologies for #OscarsSoWhite?

“I don’t see it that way,” critic #2 replied. “Get Out overcame its genre stereotyping to become one of the most significant and talked-about films of 2017.”

For the 37th or possibly 38th time, Get Out is just a hooky genre film — a satirical horror-thriller that delivers a social metaphor message a la Don Siegel‘s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and is pitched squarely at mainstream liberals. That’s really ALL IT IS. But when you add the cheering section factor, Get Out begins to morph into this on-target, Bunuelian, capturing-of-a-zeitgeist film. Sizzle overwhelming the actual flavor of the steak.