Nobody does cruelty and savagery like teenagers in high school. Especially those in their early to mid teens. I was thinking about this in the wake of Kimberley Peirce‘s Carrie, about a teenaged girl with exceptional powers being picked on by venal female classmates, and the recent suicide death of 14 year-old Rebecca Sedwick, the Floridian girl who jumped to her death after being bullied online about some inane matter. (Her taunters, one or two of whom are now being prosecuted, were apparently ragging on Sedwick because she had been seeing somebody’s ex-boyfriend.) I was also thinking back to the grief I went through in high school because I was “different” in my own way. What a joyful experience that was! I remember the taunting and the cruelty like it was yesterday.

A hero or good-guy protagonist is always more interesting if he has weaknesses or flaws of some kind. If you can portray a basically honorable fellow with problems or vulnerabilities, it always enriches the flavor of the character and the portrayal both…no? Which is why I was intrigued when I read about possibly erroneous assertions by Maersk Alabama crew members that the real-life Captain Richard Phillips, portrayed by Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips, may have ignored or unwisely dismissed reports about Somalia pirate threats prior to the 2009 hijacking and hostage crisis.

It may be, as noted, that these allegations are untrue, but if I’d been in the shoes of Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray, I probably would have seized upon this material as it’s always more engaging when you have a slightly blemished, less-than-true-blue hero.

In a recent Reddit discussion Greengrass said he’s “confident that Captain Phillips did not take an irresponsible route along the coast of Somalia and ignore a specific warning, as alleged in the press. We spoke to every member of the Alabama crew bar one, all of the U.S. Military responders that played a leading role in these events, and thoroughly researched backgrounds of the four pirates and the issue of Somali piracy generally. And I’m 100% satisfied that the picture we present of these events in the film, including the role playing by Captain Phillips, is authentic.

In a 10.16 N.Y. Times piece about Saving Mr. Banks, the upcoming John Lee Hancock film about the fierce debate between Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) about the tone and emphasis of the Mary Poppins script, Brooks Barnes reports that Walt Disney Studios adopted a more or less hands off, comme ci comme ca attitude regarding the film’s portrayal of the studio’s founder.

Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson in John Lee Hancock and Kelly Marcel’s Saving Mr. Banks.

The article, titled “Forget the Spoonful of Sugar: It’s Uncle Walt, Uncensored — Saving Mr. Banks Depicts a Walt Disney With Faults,” says that Hanks’ Disney “acts in a very un-Disney way. He slugs back Scotch. He uses a mild curse word. He wheezes because he smokes too much.” And Banks producer Allison Owen all but shudders with pleasure when she says to Barnes, “Wow, this was so not the battle I anticipated…Disney behaved impeccably.”

Not really. Or at least, not entirely. According to remarks attributed to Hanks by Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione at a BAFTA tribute last night in London, Disney execs were not only skittish but downright censoring when it came to any thoughts of showing Disney actually smoking.

It’s 11 pm in London. With less than three hours of “sleep” on the flight over (the best anyone can manage in coach is a form of slumber that’s more about willpower and Advil PM than actual rest) I’ve been forcing myself to stay up all day. London is not an easy town. It’s huge and sprawling and crowded and expensive as hell. And they have something against precise numerical addresses that defies GPS and makes it difficult to find this and that. I actually had to ask directions from people, which I haven’t done in years. Plus I was having trouble finding free wifi. Plus the Starbucks outlets I found aren’t very large and they don’t have any wall outlets, and that pissed me off. I’m figuring if I wake up around 5 am (or 9 pm L.A. time) I can tap out two or three articles before leaving for the 10 am Saving Mr. Banks screening.

I flirted for about 45 seconds with buying a ticket to this Old Vic production of Much Ado About Nothing, but the jet lag would’ve gotten in the way. I would have been nodding. The last time I bought a seat at the Old Vic was in early December of 1980, when I saw Peter O’Toole in a heavily panned production of Macbeth.

I’ll wager that no movie theatre in the United States has ballyhooed Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said to this degree. I came along this evening and went, “Whoa…the size of that marquee! You can see it three or four blocks away. This is like Times Square in the ’50s or ’60s.” James Gandolfini is looking down from heaven and saying to himself,. “Those Londoners know how to make a movie feel special.”

Two days ago I had one of those Hollywood Elsewhere this-is-how-things-look-now spitball discussions with Blackfilm.com‘s Wilson Morales. We didn’t digress into personal passions or dig into any subject with any kind of corkscrew device. We just hopped from category to category, assessing and yap-yapping and skimming across the pond. But we didn’t beat around the bush either. Hanks (Best Actor) vs. Hanks (Best Supporting Actor), Nyong’o vs. Winfrey, the Dern calculus, etc. If nothing else our chat reminded me to (a) give serious thought to Captain Phillips costar Barkhad Abdi as a Best Supporting Actor contender and (b) Jennifer Garner as a Best Supporting Actress contender for her performance in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Again, the mp3.

Late Thursday afternoon I spoke to 12 Years A Slave screenwriter John Ridley about…well, everything I could think of. The critical acclaim, Ridley’s expert recreation of formal mid 19th Century dialogue (which I haven’t heard done this well since Ed Zwick‘s Glory), the milqetoast pushback factor (i.e., older industry voices expressing reluctance to sit through Slave’s “tough medicine” scenes), Ridley’s Jimi Hendrix film All Is By My Side. For some inexplicable reason I didn’t ask Ridley about one of Slave‘s most riveting scenes — a wordless, almost agonizing moment between Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Solomon Northup character and a woman with whom he briefly has sex, both of them desperate to escape their tormented reality as slaves. No love, no familiarity, no intimate connection — their coupling is strictly about “we’ve gotta get ourselves out of this situation for at least a couple of minutes.” In the annals of sex scenes it’s classic stuff, and is one of the reasons Ridley is sure to land a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Again, the mp3.

12 Years A Slave screenwriter John Ridley.

My ten-hour flight from LAX left yesterday at 5:55 pm, touched down at Heathrow today at 12:15 pm. Long overnight flights in coach are never pleasant. Heathrow Express to Paddington Station (20 pounds), Circle Line to Sloane Square. Bought an umbrella. Filing as fast as I can in my Kings Road flat right now before heading over to BFI London Film Festival headquarters to pick up my pass. Galavanting tonight. The press screening of Saving Mr. Banks happens tomorrow morning at 10 am. Variety critic Scott Foundas is travelling from Lyon (where he’s been attending Thierry Fremaux‘s Institut Lumiere Festival) to London tonight or early tomorrow morning to review Banks. As mentioned earlier, the Disney embargo forbids reviews before 11 pm Sunday (or 3 pm L.A. time).

Circle Line platform at Paddington Station — Saturday, 10.19, 1:35 pm.

Sloane square

Near intersection of Kings Road and Edith Grove.

I naturally presumed that John Turtletaub‘s Last Vegas (CBS Films, 11.1) would be just another wank — a slightly tamer Hangover for 60somethings with the usual old-fart, where-did-I-put-my-Viagra? jokes. Well, it’s better than that. I found it mostly likable, amiable, fast on its feet. Michael Douglas and Robert DeNiro do well enough by their roles, but Kevin Kline and Morgan Freeman really kick up their heels. (Costar Mary Steenburgen also comes off nicely.) Dan Fogelman‘s script is up to much more than just a series of crude, low-rent gags. HE regulars might recall guessing which of the four revelers will buy it in the end. I’m not spoiling anything but it’s always pleasant when a film doesn’t do the expected thing. There’s a no-review embargo until late October but I told one of publicists they’re making a mistake with that. The word on this is going to be at least half-decent.

I’m not doing too well here. I have to leave West Hollywood for my LAX-to-London flight in roughly 75 minutes (i.e., by 3:30 pm) and as usual I’m trying to jam in a couple of extra stories before I do that. And of course I haven’t packed yet, much less showered. 5:30 pm update: I made the flight although there’s some official doubt about whether my suitcase will be loaded in time. Heathrow arrival around noon Saturday (4 am L.A. Time). Ten hours of coach-class hell.

The response last month to Dallas Buyer’s Club (Focus Features, 11.1) among Toronto Film Festival journos was that it’s a very good film containing two award-calibre performances — Matthew McConaughey‘s as Ron Woodruff, the real-life Texan who became a renegade supplier of unapproved AIDS-fighting medications after being diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1986, and Jared Leto‘s as Rayon, Woodruff’s drag-queen ally who helps him with distribution among the gay community. But I changed my mind after seeing it again last at the Academy. Because it sank in deeper and I teared up a bit. Jean-Marc Vallee‘s disciplined direction and Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack‘s tightly woven but natural-flowing screenplay deliver a compelling humanist current. I came away thinking that this has to be in the Best Picture arena. I was too whipped to absorb it fully in Toronto. Seeing it fresh and rested last night turned things around.

(l. to. r.) Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Mathew McConaughey on stage before last night’s Dallas Buyer’s Club screening at the Academy.

I explained myself a bit more this morning in the discussion thread for yesterday’s riff about what I called the “Guru Consensus Virus.” Here’s what I said: “I’m just talking about conversation drivers and that subtle but very familiar process in which online pundits leave a certain film off their Best Picture contender list (Grantland‘s Mark Harris did this two or three days ago to All Is Lost) and/or put it at the bottom of their list of likelies, and before you know it that very good and deserving film is on the downslide and more or less dead.

“Some of us are covert List Queens and others (like me) are upfront about it. Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby are the two big destination sites for award-season List Queens.

Here’s a brief scene from William and Tana Rose‘s original 500-page script for Stanley Kramer‘s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which will be released in its longest and most complete form ever on a Criterion Bluray that will “street” on 1.21.14. This scene was either never shot or was in an early version that was never screened for audiences. It’s a semi-funny bit that actually has a point, which comedies used to offer from time to time. The fact that “Dingy” Bell (Mickey Rooney) and “Benjy” Benjamin (Buddy Hackett) are oblivious to the allure of a busty lady in a bikini…fill it in.