It’s Saturday morning in Hanoi at 4:50 am, which is 2:50 pm Friday by the Los Angeles clock. This after crashing at midnight or Friday morning Pacific at 10 am. Yeah, I’ve more or less acclimated. Didn’t take long. It was misting most of yesterday afternoon and evening — precipitation so faint it’s barely worth the name. Jett and Cait arrived late last night. Jett will buy his own SIM card and then it’s off to the races. We’ll be renting bicycles, not scooters. A nice long day ahead. I’ll be filing daily but I’ve no intention of keeping up the usual pace. To me a vacation is when you indulge in spiritual rest and nourishment but at the same time you get very little sleep.

You have to hand it to the producers of Genius (Summit/Roadside, 6.10) for believing in a smarthouse period drama (and a darkly lighted one at that) about the legendary Max Perkins. An HBO/Showtime thing, yes. A Netflix or Amazon streamer, okay. But it doesn’t exactly scream nultiplex. British theatre director Michael Grandage has directed an excellent cast — Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Dominic West, Guy Pearce, Laura Linney. The script is by the esteemed John Logan. Alas, Variety‘s Peter Debruge, filing from Berlin, called it “dull” and “dun-colored.”

The trouble began within seconds of my Seoul-to-Hanoi flight landing at 11:15 this morning. AT&T’s default partner Viettel, which is Vietnam’s largest mobile operator, wasn’t allowing me to (a) text, (b) use Skype or (c) use Google Maps. I had no such difficulties when I was here in 2012 and ’13. Puzzling. I asked around after checking in at the Art Trendy hotel in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, and I gradually learned that Viettel can’t shake hands with the iPhone 6 4G technology. (Or something like that.)

I’m afraid this is one of those times in which I couldn’t post an original HE image. Rest assured this is almost exactly what it looks like outside my hotel window. I was too consumed with cell-phone hassles to snap my own stuff.

This could’ve been a huge problem. The plan from the start has been to get around on our own (myself, Jett and Cait) without a guide, but for that we obviously need to access Google Maps. So I had to buy a Vietnamese SIM card, and now everything works. I’ll keep it in the phone until we head south on Monday morning.

The Hanoi atmosphere was all milky and foggy as I flew in. It’s now 6:05 pm on Friday (4:05 am in Los Angeles) with the smell of scooter exhaust and street grime mixed with the aroma of spicy hot noodles with steamed chicken and fish. The Old Quarter is no one’s idea of antiseptic but that’s part of the charm. It takes character to appreciate such a neighborhood. (No Club Med luxury queens.) My fifth-floor hotel room is small but acceptable. Dusk is just starting to settle in. I have a list of several Hanoi street food joints that we’ll be hitting tomorrow and Sunday. We’ll be dining at Club Ly on Sunday evening.

Ditto.

Yes, again. More devastating destruction caused by good-guy superheroes duking it out with a demonic baddie, it seems. I’m starting to get really sick of Michael Fassbender‘s general vibe and his glaring, teeth-clenching “don’t fuck with Magneto” expression in particular when all he’s basically doing here is pocketing a paycheck. Am I the only one? Best line: Evan Peters (Quicksilver) saying to his mother, “You wanted me to get out of the house more, right?”

Less than an hour after my Los Angeles-to-Seoul flight landed I was ordering a cappuccino and a heated tomato-and-mozzarella sandwich in a little airport cafe called Paris Baguette. But first I had to wait in a line of about nine or ten people, and the first thing I noticed was a medium-sized, brillo-haired, slightly heavyish American woman of about 50 rummaging through her handbag in order to find her wallet and pay the cashier.

She kept digging and somewhat frantically, like a determined raccoon sifting through a tipped-over garbage can or like George the terrier looking for that intercostal clavicle in Bringing Up Baby.

Everyone in line, trust me, was quietly exhaling and rolling their eyes without, you know, actually rolling them for fear of seeming rude and impatient. Brillo Lady finally found her light-gray wallet but it took at least 90 seconds. I know because I got my watch out around the 45-second mark and timed her. My unspoken words: “How long does it take to find your wallet, lady? Have you ever heard of putting your wallet and keys into a zippered side pocket and putting everything else in a big heap in the main part of the bag?”

I’ve rarely slept for more than a couple of hours on any flight. Okay, I’ve gotten three on a couple of NY-to-Paris flights and once I did four or five hours after taking two (2) Ambien. But last night’s 12 and 1/2 hour flight from Los Angeles to Seoul was a corker. I slept for just under seven (7) hours, and right now I feel rested and ready. How did I manage it? A tab and a half of Percocet, that’s how. I might bag a few more zees on my five-hour flight to Hanoi, which leaves at 8:10 am. It’s Friday over here — 6:40 am in Seoul, 4:40 am in Hanoi. 2:40 pm on Thursday in Los Angeles.

Artist’s rendering of grand entrance to Inchon Int’l airport, which is roughly 7 or 8 miles west of Seoul.

I’m struggling to tap out a half-assed review of Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special (Warner Bros., 3.18), which I saw on the Warner Bros. lot yesterday afternoon. Struggling because my flight to Seoul is leaving pretty soon. I’m as much of a fan of Nichols and his two standout films, Take Shelter and Mud, as the next guy, but Midnight Special (Warner Bros., 3.18) definitely underwhelms.

It’s a grim, grubby paranoid road-chase thing — a kind of shitkicker film about peeling rubber and hiding out in shitty motels and dodging the authorities — mixed in with doses of Starman, E.T. and Close Encounters.

It doesn’t tell you very much but bit by bit you gradually piece it together, but for my money it felt like too much work for too little payoff. I actually found Nichols’ story irritating. When it ended I was muttering to myself, “That’s it?” As I driving back over the hill I was saying to myself, “You can’t hit a homer every time at bat.”

Nichols’ script is about an eight-year-old alien (Jaeden Lieberher) who’s trying to reunite with an alien community that’s been keeping tabs on our affairs and behavior.  Like the Trafalmadoreans did in Slaughterhouse Five and Michael Rennie‘s alien fellows did in The Day The Earth Stood Still.  

The action is about the kid’s father (Michael Shannon), mother (Kirsten Dunst) and the father’s friend/accomplice (Joel Edgerton) trying like hell to deliver the kid to a rendezvous point somewhere in a rural southern backwater. Naturally there’s an army of government guys trying to catch them. With the exception, that is, of a sympathetic good-guy scientist (Adam Driver) who gradually decides he wants to help, etc.

I respected Nichols’ small-scale, minimal-tech approach but overall the film is really not all that interesting. It’s one of those films that make you ask “is something cool going to happen here  or what?” I began to lose patience around the 45-minute mark. It has one good scene (a kind of meteoric bombardment of a gas-station complex) but it’s basically telling an annoying, one-note story. But critics like Nichols and so nearly everyone has given this thing a pass. I’m telling you straight that it’s pretty much a  moderate burn. An interesting, indie-styled burn but a burn nonetheless.

Guy: “I feel like getting out. Wanna catch a movie or something?” Girl: “I don’t know. Depends. Is anything good playing?” Guy: “I dunno, lemme check.”

I’ve no idea if Mildred Rogers, the tragic character created by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1915 novel, was a reflection of a woman he knew or observed first-hand or a type of person he’d heard or read about.  Either way I know this is the kind of tale that would never be re-made today. The 1964 film version (i.e., the only one of the three adaptations I’ve seen) is a drag to sit through. Kim Novak‘s Mildred is so relentlessly self destructive, and so weirdly incomprehensible. This is one depressing, downish, nihilistic film. But even if someone re-made it, not even the most clueless marketing exec would approve copy like you see on this poster. The culture of ’64 was just sexist and crusty enough to use this, which of course was a reflection of male attitudes about femme fatales. I was just..I don’t know, taken aback when I saw it.

Taped/posted two days ago by somebody with Samantha Bee‘s Full Frontal. Until I watched this last night I’d honestly never (a) considered the possibility that Donald Trump has attracted a certain strata of younger educated supporters or (b) considered what their reasons might be for deciding to vote for him. If any under-35 Trump supporters with a couple of years of college are reading, please explain, elaborate upon, dismiss, rationalize or whatever.

Jodie Foster‘s Money Monster (Sony/TriStar, 5.13), a politically-themed hostage thriller that seems to sorta kinda resemble Costa Gavras‘ Mad City, will apparently screen at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, according to trade reports. It will probably screen as a second-nighter on Thursday, 5.12 — the same day and almost the same hour as the U.S. commercial debut.

In other words, Money Monster might be okay or entertaining, but it’s probably nothing to throw your critical hat in the air about. Top-tier U.S. critics will have seen it before the festival begins, of course. The producers are simply looking to use Cannes to promote the European openings, which happen the same weekend.

Cannes is the greatest international festival of all, of course, but I’m focusing on U.S.-produced films for the moment, and what serious Cannes-o-philes care most about in terms of potential U.S. entries are the big-bets — the possible award-season contenders that may not open until the fall. In other words, not films like Money Monster or any other “commercial”-sounding title set to open in May or June.

Martin Scorsese‘s Silence, a period drama about faith, devotion, religious persecution and torture, would be a big bet. Cannes critics, trust me, will find ways to praise or at least be kind to this thing one way or the other. What critic isn’t in thrall to Scorsese? I would be frankly stunned if it doesn’t appear on the Croisette two months hence.

Oliver Stone‘s Snowden (Open Road, 9.16) would be another, although it’s been kicked around so much release date-wise that I have my concerns, not to mention Open Road’s decision to open it during the Toronto Film Festival — never a good sign.

I’ve been nursing a left-field suspicion that Damien Chazelle‘s La-La Land (Summit, 12.16) might play Cannes…maybe. Because it’s screening again this weekend for L.A. research audiences (the second time over the last few weeks) and I just have this feeling that Summit execs believe they have something here. Plus Team La-La has every reason to expect critical support for what I’m told is basically an homage to old-fashioned movie musicals, but shot in a modern-day mode. If any group is going to “get” this movie, Cannes critics (most of whom are already favorably disposed towards Chazelle by way of being Whiplash fans) will.

And what about Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea (Amazon/Roadside)? The domestic family drama is sure to build up an even greater head of steam by way of British and European critics, not to mention those U.S. critics who weren’t able to see it two months ago in Park City.  Then again the Roadside/Amazon guys may decide to hold it until Telluride/Toronto. Who knows?

Watch again the new Ben-Hur trailer and pay attention to the scene when Jack Huston‘s Judah Ben-Hur, unjustly accused by Messala of plotting to kill a Roman Judean governor, is told that his mother and sister may be crucified. Huston’s response is to scream “Nooo!!” Here’s an mp3 of that moment. I’m sorry but any time a movie character so bellows it’s almost always a tip-off that the film will be mediocre.

Face-punching is another indication of trouble in an ancient-period film. Nobody punched anyone in William Wyler’s 1959 version — lashings and crucifixions but no knuckle sandwiches. But there’s a whole lotta sluggin’ — jabs, right crosses, uppercuts — in Timur Bekmambetov’s film.

And lastly, please pay attention to the moment when Morgan Freeman‘s Sheik Ilderim asks Jack Huston‘s Judean prince for his name, and Huston answers “Ben-Hur.” Who self-announces or self-identifies by their last name? When Charlton Heston was asked the same question by Jack Hawkins in the ’59 version, he answered “Judah Ben-Hur.”

If TheWrap‘s Jeff Sneider had endured the same ordeal (i.e., washed up on a beach after escaping three years of servitude as an oar slave) and then was asked his name by Sheik Ilderim, would he answer “Sneider?” No, he would give his first and last name.