Jennifer Lawrence playing Zelda Fitzgerald, based on a screenplay by Emma Frost (The White Queen)?  Presumably embarked upon as a prestige acting project that will showcase Lawrence’s range, but sure, why not? And yet Ron Howard‘s interest in possibly directing the biopic sounds, no offense and due respect, like a pay-grade reach. Former Lionsgate exec Allison Shearmur, who worked with Lawrence on the Hunger Games franchise, will produce. Really?

In the view of Variety‘s Peter Debruge, Doctor Strange (Disney, 11.4) “shares the same look, feel, and fancy corporate sheen as the rest of Marvel’s rapidly expanding Avengers portfolio, but it also boasts an underlying originality and freshness missing from the increasingly cookie-cutter comic-book realm of late.”

Okay, maybe…

Debruge then calls Doctor Strange “Marvel’s most satisfying entry since Spider-Man 2, and a throwback to M. Night Shyamalan’s soul-searching identity-crisis epic Unbreakable, which remains the gold standard for thinking people’s superhero movies.”

That’s a recommendation?

I distinctly recall not being especially impressed, much less feeling “terrifically satisfied”, by Spider Man 2, which is otherwise known as “the Alfred Molina Doc Ock one.” And I regard Unbreakable, which arrived in the immediate wake of The Sixth Sense, as a quirky non-starter in the Shyamalan canon. I felt distinctly underwhelmed as I shuffled out of the Los Angeles all-media screening and saying “that’s it?” to a couple of colleagues. I remember Gregg Kilday repeating “they call me Mr. Glass!” during a post-screening discussion on the sidewalk, and my saying that any film that announces the fate of a major character with a freeze-frame title card at the conclusion is doing something wrong.

In honor of Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie and Antonio Campos‘ Christine, which played back-to-back at the Savannah Film Festival this evening, my initial reviews are linked above.

Tomorrow I’ll see Keith Maitland‘s Tower, Matthew Brown‘s The Man Who Knew Infinity (online link, preparation for Jeremy Irons phoner), Scott Feinberg‘s Docs to Watch roundtable and a second look at Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land. Or something like that.

Late this afternoon I pedaled two or three miles to a Lenscrafters for an eyeglass repair job. Then I hit my favorite Savannah cafe, The Sentient Bean. There I met a couple of local girls, Emily Jordan and Melissa Burkholder, who initially thought I was Chris Walken. The conversation eventually turned to day-to-day life in Savannah, which led to their telling me about what they called “Savannah’s dirty little secret” (as least as far as visitors like myself are concerned) — the recently rising murder rate.

I’ve discussed the exquisite restoration of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks, which I saw last May in Cannes and which Criterion will “street” on 11.22, many times. One final issue remains. Before the Bluray hits it would be great to see it shown in a sizable, first-rate Los Angeles venue on a one-night-only basis. Alas, Universal has arranged to screen it theatrically at Cinefamily on Friday, November 11th.

Really? All those months of hard work that went into the One-Eyed Jacks restoration and it ends up showing at an amiable but down-at-the-heels rep house? From a high-impact perspective Cinefamily brings zip to the table. Like the New Beverly, the screen in that Fairfax Avenue house is smallish. It’s a couple of steps up from 4K projection on an 80-inch screen in some guy’s living room.

The Academy theatre wasn’t a possibility? Or at the Linwood Dunn on Vine? The Hollywood Arclight shows classic films now and then — why not a one-off at that venue? Or the one in Sherman Oaks?

Donald Trump has inspired Manhattan’s Film Forum to run a “Demagogues” series from 11.4 through 11.10. This includes films in which demagogues are lead characters as well as supporting. HE’s favorites, in this order: Elia Kazan‘s A Face in the Crowd, John Frankenheimer‘s Seven Days In May, Robert Rossen‘s All The King’s Men, Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (James Gregory‘s Johnny Iselin is supporting) and George Clooney‘s Good Night, and Good Luck. Honest admission: I’ve never seen Frank Capra‘s Meet John Doe.

Donald Trump‘s “grievanceburg address” (the term was coined by CNN’s Jim Acosta less than an hour ago) was delivered in a small setting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Same old “up with protectionism, let’s stick it to China, up with fossil fuel industry, down with NAFTA and Obamacare” crap. The only thing I liked was the proposed prohibition of government heavies becoming lobbyists for foreign governments. Trump pledged to sue all of the women who’ve accused him of sexual assault “after the election is over”…bullshit.

The 2016 Savannah Film Festival kicks off today. Hollywood Elsewhere arrived in Savannah last night (Friday) around 7 pm. I’m staying in room #353 at the Brice Hotel. It’s 1:15 pm as we speak. The plan is to rent a bicycle, pick up my press pass, buy some stuff at CVS, visit the local Lenscrafters and then…the festival! Tonight’s picks are Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie (7:30 pm) and Antonio Campo‘s Christine (9:30 pm). Yes, I caught the latter in Park City last January and the former in Toronto last month, but what do you want me to do? Not see them? Both can easily stand a second viewing.

I’ve never seen J. Clay Tweel‘s Gleason (4:30 pm), and I never will.  I won’t submit to this kind of shameless disease-and-parenting documentary. Consequence of Sound‘s Paul Goble called it “an exemplary, sometimes artificial act of emotional manipulation.” Many people have found it affecting, but I won’t go there. 

Parker’s Urban Gourmet Market (which is also a gas station) is a great place to saunter into in the wee hours. Great deli food, all the basics. I’ve been coming here for years.

The climate control system in my Brice hotel room refuses to put out heat. It got a little cool last night but the mode control kept refusing to generate even a slight amount of warmth. I’ve complained to no end. Maybe I can find a space heater somewhere.

I’ve never forgotten an alleged Francois Truffaut quote about his concept of success. In 1957 at age 25, Truffaut launched a production company, Les Films du Carrosse, and went on to produce 35 films. (Truffaut died in 1984 at age 52.) What he said was that “when one of our films goes into profit, we open a bottle of champagne.”

From a 2016 American perspective, that’s an attitude of a loser, a small-timer, a producer who doesn’t have what it takes. But I think it’s great. Because it tells you that all Truffaut and associates wanted was enough profit to stay in the game. Because they loved making films, and the process of making them was its own reward.

I think we all understand that Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel and Zack Snyder, who are emblematic of a kind of cancer in today’s film industry, couldn’t understand Truffaut’s attitude.

Yesterday Gael Garcia Bernal (Neruda) articulated a similar fraternal philosophy during a opening-night event at the Morelia Film Festival:

“There’s a culture of friendship in Latin American cinema, between people like Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro, which they in turn inherited from others. They’re a sensation of brotherhood, that people care about you, look after you, which we’ve sought to maintain consciously. That ‘brotherhood’ is the best way to survive, to make better films, but it also a way of coming close to the biggest reason to make films.

I tried for two days to write something about Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, but I couldn’t get it up. I blame myself, not the film. Because I had an usual response that I couldn’t quite explain in the right way. Now I’m on an Atlanta-bound flight (heading for the Savannah Film Festival) and I have to get this done. My basic thought is this: “Why isn’t it okay for a rote, second-tier throwaway action flick to just deal the cards in a rote, second-tier, no-big-deal way?  As long as it’s reasonably well done?”

At least this is a less-is-more Reacher film, not quite in the vein of Chris McQuarrie’s 2012 original (which was better) but not what the two trailers had indicated, which was a Reacher T-1000 film. At least it’s operating on a higher level than a typical bonehead Dwayne Johnson film.

Sorry but there’s something in me that relaxes when a film  announces that it’s not up to anything special and is just planning to bang around for 110 minutes or so. It’s a B movie.  If the attitude is right and the craft levels are okay, I don’t have a problem with that.

I could see what this was and sense the lackadaisical attitude, but I didn’t hate it. I can’t imagine how anyone could. I was mildly engaged, never irked. And I could feel the audience settling into it. (And I know what it feels like when a film isn’t working and the audience is getting restless.) It isn’t anyone’s idea of clever or knockout or originally conceived (the Rotten Tomatoes score is only 39%), but…I don’t know, maybe I’m turning soft or something.

The only thing that elevates it is slumming Tom Cruise, but that’s okay because even in a film like this he has that thing going on, that presence, that vibe. Say what you will about Cruise but he always has your attention when he walks into a room, and now that he’s 54 and a little bit heavier and even a wee bit saggy in a more-or-less-acceptable way, he’s got a little something extra going on, a slight attitude of acceptance that life is closing in and narrowing his options and that sooner or later he’ll have to stop making hammmerhead action flicks and…who knows?

HE (speaking to Cruise): How much are you worth? More than $200 millon?
Cruise: Oh my, yes!
HE: Why are you making nothing but grandslam franchise action films? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can’t already afford?
Cruise: The future, Mr. Wells! The future.

“Last night I caught a test screening of Martin McDonagh‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” reports a Los Angeles-based HE reader. “It stars Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, an antique-shop owner, and it’s basically about the fact that months before the film’s events McDormand’s daughter was viciously raped and murdered. There’s been no news about the case in a long time and no arrests, and Mildred has begun to feel that authorities may be dropping the ball.

“So she rents out three billboards leading into town and puts up an advertisement that says something along the lines of ‘Why aren’t the cops doing more to catch the guilty?’ and singles out the police chief (played by Woody Harrelson). The police are of course riled about being called out like this (the rest of the town, including Mildred’s son, also think that the billboards are taking it too far), and so begins an interesting battle of wits between Mildred and the police department.

“I didn’t care for Seven Psychopaths much at all, but I really liked In Bruges. I think this film is on par with the latter quality-wise — it’s an incredibly smart, dark comedy with a great script.

Obviously there are some who’ve been gifted with extraordinary perception and creativity. Artists, mathematicians, inventors, chefs. You can call them geniuses if you want to, but I wouldn’t touch that word with a ten-foot pole. Mainly because the people who seem to use it the most — sycophants, ass-kissers, headline writers, obsequious wives and girlfriends, employees, speechwriters — are not the sort I’d want to have dinner with. I doubt if anyone who has that special crackle-and-snap aliveness in their craniums would use it either. I first heard the term when my mother was telling me who Albert Einstein is, and that was way before he changed his name to Albert Brooks. All I know is that I decided a long time ago to make a little mental note about anyone who says “oh, he/she’s a genius.” Only second-tier people use it.