Everyone was gloating today about Jerry Lewis having donated The Day The Clown Cried, the World War II concentration camp tragedy that he directed but never finished and has pledged he’ll never allow to be shown, to the Library of Congress. The chuckling was over Lewis having stipulated that the film, the premise of which has been a butt of jokes for decades, can’t be screened until 2025. I don’t get the joke. Creativity is always about risking failure. Lewis wanted to make something powerful and devastating but he badly miscalculated. His sentimental streak didn’t mesh with the Holocaust. I’ve always had a perverse enjoyment of Lewis but a lot of others don’t like his brusque, caustic manner so they’re seizing upon this as a way to slap him around. The richer laughter was over Noah Bierman’s L.A. Times story having broke the news, but not until the 21st paragraph. Here’s a draft of the Clown script.

I used to chase tough stories during my reporting days with Entertainment Weekly, People and the L.A. Times Syndicate. Whenever I called about something a little scary people would lie or duck my calls or return them a week later or refer me to a spokesperson. Business as usual. But I’ve never been given the runaround — stonewalled, in fact — about the release of a small hand-to-mouth documentary, which is what happened today. The film is Colin Hanks‘ All Things Must Pass, a doc about the rise and all of Tower Records which played at SXSW last March after seven years of effort and a crowdfunding campaign that raised $92K. A 3.29 Variety story by Dave McNary reported that Gravitas Ventures had signed to distribute with a projected September release.

Encouraged by the respectful to glowing SXSW reviews, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to see this doc for several months. Everyone loved the Tower Records experience during the boom decades. But it hit me today that if ATMP was going to pop next month (probably on VOD with a small theatrical break in a few cities, if that) an online trailer would be viewable now. And there ain’t one. So I emailed Gravitas Ventures spokesperson AJ Feuerman and asked what was happening. She referred me to a spokesperson at Sunshine Sachs. So I called and asked if the film was coming out in September. “You’re being kinda rude,” she said. “I’m just asking a direct question, which you’re kinda ducking,” I said. “Is the September opening that Variety reported about being postponed?” She said she couldn’t confirm anything except to say that Gravitas is distributing the film. She again suggested Sunshine Sachs.

All through season #1 of The Leftovers Justin Theroux was rocking a ten-day beard, which is usually an indication of hip existential lethargy or in some cases serious depression. In the second season he’s clean-shaven. The indication is that his character, a small-town cop named Kevin Garvey, feels less gloomy about the big cataclysmic disappearance. That or Theroux (who married Jennifer Aniston last night) is declaring that the beard-stubble hipster thing is definitely over. (Ten months after The Spectator‘s Harry Mount said the same thing. Was Theroux’s despairing beardo look in season #1 the final death blow?) Season #2 kicks off on 10.4.15; a season #1 Bluray package will pop two days later.

The Leftovers “is about cosmic malevolence and the utter absence of wonder,” I wrote last August. “A cosmic event of extraordinary significance has occured three years before the series begins, and in the wake of the disappearance of 2% of the world’s population, it seem as if everyone in The Leftovers is saying ‘Wow, we didn’t get chosen…that’s fucked up…this feels bad…I guess we’re all spiritually deficient on some level…shit.’

“The vacation of a famous rock star and a filmmaker is disrupted by the unexpected visit of an old friend and his daughter”…okay. And then somebody does something they shouldn’t…right? There is ample evidence that Luca Guadaginino‘s A Bigger Splash exists as a film, but I’m not sensing any organic strands, aromas, tastings. Where’s the teaser? Why is this remake of La Piscine (which I tried to watch on Amazon Prime a few months ago only to lose interest) using the title of a late ’60s David Hockney painting? Answer: Because they both use images of swimming pools but I’m not getting any kind of sparkling blue chlorine vibe from A Bigger Splash — I’m getting an exotic Mediterranean island vibe with the aroma of the sea and beach tar and fine red wine. Splash will be seen at the Venice Film Festival and will probably, I’m guessing, turn up in Toronto (and perhaps even Telluride?). The IMDB says it’ll open in England sometime in October but what about stateside? Fox Searchight acquired it last February but their theatrical plans seem enveloped by a kind of fog bank or misty haze. I’m sensing a 2016 winter-spring opening. You could explain it 100 ways from Sunday and A Bigger Splash would never mean anything to Joe Popcorn because it seems to be about lah-lah elitists succumbing to base urges (or something like that). The costars are Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ralph Fiennes.

Matthias Schoenaerts, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Ralph Fiennes in A Bigger Splash — a movie that will play in Venice in less than four weeks but which is shrouded in a kind of haze. It seems to be hiding something on some level or at least has yet to define itself in a way that adds up to some kind of recognizable psychology or geography or odor…something that hints at a certain molecular constitution.

One, with journos of consequence leaving town for Venice, Telluride and Toronto a little more than three weeks hence, I’m presuming Universal will soon be press-screening Baltasar Kormakur‘s Everest, which will open the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, 9.2. Two, directors are always telling actors to scream or bellow in pain whenever something violent or traumatic happens (gunshots, avalanches) but I don’t believe this — people who’ve been hurt or seriously threatened instantly devote their energy to surviving their ordeal, and if they make any kind of sound it’s usually along the lines of a mumbled “uh-oh.” And three, will Everest convey the basic mistake of the 1996 Everest climbing disaster, which is that reports of an oncoming blizzard were known but ignored by those who didn’t want to stop?

“The reason Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made almost nothing but crap is that they loved the action and the chutzpah in their veins (winning awards, making money, signing big names, the crackling excitement of ‘being there’), but they never really got it. Their affection for movies was enthusiastic but primitive. An under-educated rug-merchant mentality could never really fit into a business that is also, at heart, a kind of religion. The best filmmakers have always operated on a devotional Catholic principle. I believe that Menahem and Yoram were never devoted enough to the faith and traditions of great, soul-stirring cinema. They never really respected the idea of wearing cinematic monk robes.” — from HE’s 8.8.14 obit for Mr. Golan.

Not that this means squat, but Anna Peele’s Esquire profile of Miles Teller mentions that (a) he’s “kind of a dick” and (b) during a luncheon interview Teller was wearing “a pool-blue V-neck that shows off the Roman-numeral tattoo on his arm,” which sounds like what he was wearing when he and I had our “don’t be a pervert, man” encounter last October. (I described it as “a powder-blue shirt of some kind.”) I don’t know if the woman in the black-and-white Esquire photos is Teller’s girlfriend Keleigh Sperry, but Keleigh was the one I was subtly eyeballing. (Not subtly enough, I mean.) Peele describes her as “a twenty-two-year-old model/aspiring swimsuit designer/professional girlfriend who thinks Teller is attractive enough to have permanently monogrammed her perfect ass with his initials.” Oh, and by the way? Josh Trank‘s Fantastic Four, the reason why Teller’s puss is on the cover in the first place, is currently rocking a 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Don’t make shitty movies, man.

Sony Pictures Classics has announced an acquisition of worldwide rights to Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, a Miles Davis biopic that will close the New York Film Festival on Sunday, 10.11. It may or may not be significant that the release doesn’t say when SPC will release the film, which obviously indicates that they may be looking at ’16 rather than the 2015 award season. If (and I say “if”) a 2015 release is off the table, that tells you something right there. I also went “uh-oh” when I came across a statement from Cheadle that says the film was made “with the family’s blessing.” I’ve always believed that when it comes to telling stories of famous dead guys who lived on the razor’s edge, it’s better if your film unsettles or even agitates the family. The stamp of family approval (Erin and Cheryl Davis, the late trumpeter’s son and daughter, are executive producers) doesn’t always mean the film has been compromised or blanded down in some way, but it often does. Boilerplate: “[Pic] tells the story of a few lost days in the life of Davis (Cheadle), the virtuoso, fighter and genius, as he bursts out of his silent period, conspires with a Rolling Stone writer (McGregor) to steal back his music, and relives the years he had with his great love, Frances Taylor (Corinealdi).”

I couldn’t invest in Jeremy Irvine‘s lead performance in War Horse because of the giant-squid-like Spielberg factor, but I’m sensing he might be okay as a young gay kid in Roland Emmerich‘s Stonewall (Roadside, 9.25) I’m prepared to stow the cynicism and engage with this film on a serious basis. It’s Emmerich’s third U.S.-produced historical drama (the first two being The Patriot and Anonymous) but the first set in the 20th Century and the first in which Emmerich has a certain investment, being gay and old enough to remember. (He was 14 when the Stonewall riots occured.) Yes, it’s conceivable that Stonewall might seem too Hollywoodish to some but Emmerich is a pro who knows what goes. Plus the script is by respected playwright and West Wing writer Jon Robin Baitz. Costarring Joey King, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Caleb Landry Jones, Ron Perlman, Jonny Beauchamp, Matt Craven, David Cubitt, Atticus Dean Mitchell, Joanne Vannicola, Mark Camacho. Roadside needs to start screening soon with everyone out of town for Venice, Telluride and Toronto less than four weeks hence.

I’d been presuming all along that this or that aspect of Jonathan Demme‘s Ricki and the Flash (TriStar, 8.7) isn’t quite up to snuff. The release date spoke volumes. There’s nothing wrong with TriStar looking to attract an over-30 female audience, but I wrote last February that if Ricki was serious rock ‘n’ roll it would open in September or October. (It may not be fair but I’ll never fully divest myself of a notion that August is mainly for films with a soft or not-quite quality.) And then last week a critic friend told me it was “thin.”

So I attended last Monday night’s screening with low expectations, but I didn’t have that bad of a time. Yes, it’s “thin” but also an intelligent, reasonably flavorable, well-acted domestic family drama for a little more than an hour. Agreeably sharp Diablo Cody dialogue, a few interesting detours and details. Plus the unstoppable, exotically-coiffed Meryl Streep belting out eight or nine tunes with her L.A. bar band, which consists of Rick Springfield on lead guitar, a cool keyboard guy and a pair of old denim dogs on bass and drums. (Streep also manages to fake expertise at guitar-playing, which she learned for the film.) It doesn’t really add up or strum deep chords or slam any long balls, but it’s more or less okay. Not as pushy or nervy as Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, for sure, but I found myself settling for what it had.

The bottom line (and you have to roll with this) is that Ricki and the Flash isn’t a real-deal movie in that it bails on the basic drama — a mildly gloomy tale about a 60ish, barely-hanging-on rock band performer (Streep) facing her failures as an absentee parent when she returns to an Indiana homestead to help a daughter (Mamie Gummer) in crisis — around the 65 or 70-minute mark, or when Ricki returns to Los Angeles after being treated as a semi-pariah by her two sons (the younger of whom is gay and hugely resentful) and her husband’s second wife (Audra McDonald).