Time Out‘s Tom Huddleston says “there’s plenty of fun to be had” from Burr Steers‘ Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (Sundance Selects, 5.23). “Vidal’s observations on everything from civil rights and JFK to Afghanistan and Iraq are informed, wise and often bleakly funny, while the snippets of his 1968 television debates with right-leaning loonball William F Buckley are downright hilarious. [And] the stars queue up to fawn over Vidal, from celebrity chums like Tim Robbins and Sting to intellectual rivals such as Norman Mailer and Christopher Hitchens, who Vidal proudly proclaimed as his ‘heir’ before they fell out over US foreign policy.

“But the film’s blanket refusal to question its subject feels not only cowardly, but antithetical. Here was a man who questioned everything (except, perhaps, his own rectitude); who opened every dark door and peered inside. By refusing to do the same with their subject’s life and opinions, the filmmakers do him a disservice.”

There’s obviously a fatalistic undercurrent in the poster slogan for Chris Nolan‘s Interstellar (Warner Bros., 11.14), to wit: “Mankind was born on earth” but it was “never meant to die here.” In other words, the notion that mankind is fated to “die” (i.e, become extinct) is (a) a given, and yet (b) this is less important or interesting than the notion that this death will happen somewhere other than on the planet earth. Think about that for 15 seconds. We’re toast as a species but at least some of us can experience finality on another planet or historical period through time travel and/or alternate dimensions via the discovery of a wormhole.

In the comment thread for yesterday’s piece about Bob Furmanek‘s “The First Year of Widescreen Production” (which, again, I think is admirable for its comprehensive historical precision), an under-informed pisshead reader named “Michael” wrote the following: “Thankfully, nobody who releases films gives a shit about what Jeffrey Wells thinks about aspect ratios.”

.
This morning I ran the following reply:

“Actually, Michael, my view does hold some sway. You might want to check with Warner Home Video and George Stevens, Jr. (and Woody Allen, for that matter) about how the restored Shane was released on Bluray last year. Before I stepped into the fray in late March 2013 and singlehandedly led a “boxy” rebellion, that 1953 classic was slated to be mastered on Bluray at 1.66.

Somehow I can’t get that GQ shot of Julia Louis Dreyfuss doing it with a clown out of my head. The intent was obviously to push some kind of perverse-humor button, but I’m probably not the only one who regards the shot as curiously erotic. There’s something about a woman with a red clown nose moaning with pleasure….go figure. It’s a little Helmut Newton-y on some level. I’m just sorry that GQ took the chickenshit route by having the guy wear red pants.

I’ve naturally averted my eyes and mind whenever a mention of the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot (Paramount, 8.8) has surfaced. But a just-released photo of Megan Fox in a Turtles scene reminds me of two things: (a) Fox has obviously made up with Bay after he fired her off Transformers: Dark of the Moon five years ago for comparing him to Hitler, and (b) Fox’s career never really recovered from the combination of that whacking plus the disappointing reactions to her starring role in Jennifer’s Body and costarring performance in Jonah Hex…all in ’09. She fared relatively well with her supporting/cameo roles in Judd Apatow‘s This Is Forty and Sacha Baron Cohen‘s The Dictator (both in 2012) but to me Fox taking a starring role in the Turtles reboot is a metaphor for her career not having worked out. Obviously a paycheck move but one that also says “this is the best I could do so I took it, hoping for the best.” Fox is presumably loaded and healthy and doing fine in many respects, but it’s noteworthy that both she and Shia Labeouf (her costar in the original 2007 Transformers) have run into serious potholes since.

Exhibition scholar and aspect-ratio authority Bob Furmanek has posted what appears to be the most fully researched and most definitive study of the aspect ratio changes implemented by the major studios in 1953, a.k.a. “The First Year of Widescreen Production.” The study will “hopefully help to dispel many of the myths associated with this era,” Furmanek writes. He’s done some very good work here and hats off, but it won’t dispel the HE aspect-ratio theology any time soon. Because Furmanek’s work will be used to justify 1.85 and 1.75 aspect ratios for 1950s films on Bluray and Hi-Def streaming, and that is just wrong. The Movie Godz will tell you it’s better to open things up and let the light and space into the frame. Boxy is better and beautiful. The 1.37 version of Sabrina on Vudu is much more captivating than the 1.75 Bluray version that recently popped. For the 167th time, nobody needs to give a shit any more about the fear of television that was motivating the major studios 60 years ago. That was then and this is now. Just throw the research out the window. We can remaster old films any way we want these days. Screening Shane at 1.66 was an abomination, but Furmanek simply reports that it was presented that way in all the big urban theatres without comment. Those who care about this stuff need to wean themselves off history. At the very least alternative versions of ’50s films (1.37 plus 1.66 or 1.75 or 1.85) need to be presented. Free your mind, free your souls, and reject the office-of-Orson Bean-in-Being John Malkovich cropping that Furmanek and his ilk are still pushing for. Remember the triple-aspect-ratio Criterion Bluray of On The Waterfront, and move forward.

Due respect to J.J. Abrams, but it seems like a terrible idea to cast Mark Hamill in a cameo role in the currently-shooting Star Wars Episode VII. Right now, Hamill looks more like Jabba the Hut than Luke Skywalker, and it’ll just be too great of a shock. Harrison Ford looks like an older-but-still-studly Han Solo and that’s cool, but Hamill looks like a wreck. I’m not chuckling or gloating at this. From Hamill’s Wikipage: “In September 2013, Robert Englund said that Hamill, a longtime friend, was currently working out in the gym. ‘Mark now…they’ve got Mark in the gym, because Mark’s coming back as Luke Skywalker. They’ve got him doing his sit-ups.’ It was previously reported that both Hamill and Fisher had been assigned nutritionists and personal trainers to work with ahead of production.”

I finally saw Jon Favreau‘s Chef today…one of the last press guys on the planet to do so. (The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Morgenstern, Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir and grumpy Lou Lumenick were at the same noon screening.) I had gotten an impression from speaking with Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn that Chef is negligible fluff, but it’s too engaging to be dismissed as such. It’s basically a celebration-of-good-fortune movie…a celebration of perfect, scrumptious art-food (the cooking and serving shots are to-die-for), of clever guy humor and pothole-free narrative charm, of Favreau’s acting and writing skills (as well John Leguizamo and Robert Downey, Jr.‘s)…okay, it’s fluff but it’s very tangy and alive and well-constructed fluff. It never once reached in and got me in that deep-down place, but I never felt the least bit irked or antagonistic toward it. It’s a nice easy cruise, this film. There’s really no substantial reason to put it down with any passion. In fact, Chef is so well crafted and engaging and satisfying that I forgot about the weight issue that I’ve mentioned once or twice. I still say that if Downey had Favreau’s role instead of a cameo, Chef would be that much more engaging. Because it would be. There’s something about a guy with a weight problem that goes against the basic grain of escapism, which is what this movie is basically selling. But I forgot about it. Or at least, it didn’t get in the way. Coming from me, that’s a serious compliment. Cheers also to costars Sofía Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver Platt, Bobby Cannavale and Dustin Hoffman.

A second lawsuit filed by a former teenaged “twink” against Bryan Singer was announced yesterday by attorney Jeff Herman. The plaintiff is anonymous and British and younger than the first plaintiff, Michael Egan, as he claims to have been violated at a tender age at a Superman Returns after-party, or eight years ago. A statement reads that the plaintiff has only recently become cognizant of the “psychological and emotional injuries, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life” as a result of the alleged sexual abuse. Translation: the plaintiff read about Egan’s lawsuit against Singer and figured he could join in.

Singer has led a libertine life over the past 18 or so years. No one’s disputing that. Perhaps an age-of-consent line was inadvertently crossed once or twice, but powerful Hollywood types have been liberally partaking of sexual opportunities with young, looking-to-break-in partners for a long, long time. It’s how things have operated since the days of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company and the 1914 release of The Squaw Man. Favor for favor. An industry friend believes that Herman is on to something and that many more plaintiffs will be coming forward once the momentum really starts.

I haven’t bought a juvenile toy since the kids grew out of it. I don’t think I’ve ever bought one for myself outside of squirt guns. But today I’m seriously thinking of getting a Syma S107 toy helicopter. Tom Risch, an old friend and a renowned inventor (he created Misto, the gourmet olive-oil sprayer) demonstrated the Syma 107 during a dinner last night at his Westport home. Other than that earth-shaking development there isn’t a whole lot to say this morning. I’m in Connecticut, the temperature is on the cool side, etc. (Observational aside: I hate sitting in restaurants and occasionally watching people eat. Especially older folks. Eating is a very unattractive activity from a purely visual standpoint. Every time I watch someone else eat I tell myself to never eat anything other than small portions of fruit, and sparingly.) Maybe I’ll have another look at Ida this afternoon. Dinner with a director friend this evening in Soho.

On 4.30 Vocativ.com‘s Adam K. Raymond and Matan Gilat posted a curious, data-based chart of the friendliest and meanest film critics. Curious because it’s based upon Metacritic scores for the 200 biggest-grossing films of the last decade, which kind of narrows things down. The biggest-grossing 21st Century films have tended to be those made, naturally, for the easy lay carbs-and-sugar crowd — young CG-worshipping idiots, conservative-minded families and girly-girls. The chart is therefore calculating which critics have been the friendliest, the most mainstream and most hostile to the biggest corporate megaplex popcorn flicks, for the most part. Reviewing films of this sort is not why most critics got into this line of work, trust me. It’s not what floats their boat. I also can’t trust a chart that suggests that Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern is the most inclined-to-dismiss. Knowing Morgenstern’s writings as I do, he’s hardly the grouchiest or most dimissive and quick-tempered. Other Metacritic meanies are N.Y. Times critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, The New Yorker‘s Anthony Lane and N.Y. Post critic Kyle Smith. The top friendlies, according to the chart, include ex-EW critics Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum, The Oregonian‘s Shawn Levy and The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy.