A few hours ago someone at Turner Classic Movies tweeted the below photo to promote a showing of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s L’Avventura. Someone with the attitude of a Polyanna or a huckster, I should say. Or who just doesn’t know the film. Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti appear to be lovers who’ve found happiness. Their characters’ relationship in this 1960 classic is about anything but that. L’Avventura is about wealthy Italians wandering about in gloomy ennui, anxious and vaguely bothered and frowning a good deal of the time. The movie is about the absence of whole-hearted feeling, and it never diverts from this. If there’s a moment in which Vitti conveys even a hint of serenity in her intimate scenes with Ferzetti, it barely registers. I don’t remember a single shot in which Ferzetti (who just died last December at age 90) smiles with even a hint of contentment. A publicity still, I’m presuming.

When I saw Russell Crowe slug Ryan Gosling in a trailer for The Nice Guys, I immediately presumed that Shane Black‘s action comedy is a cliche-wallower and probably dismissable for that. In my book any film that resorts to face-punching outside of a boxing ring is automatically low-rent. I’m not speaking of messy, life-like altercations (shoving, slapping, sloppy beat-downs) but clean, decisive, John Wayne-style punches. Slugging is a steady ingredient in coarse and rowdy action comedies (particularly the urban variety) and superhero films, but clenched fists and dropped opponents are largely an indulgence of hacks.

How many films directed by women have had slugging scenes? How many punches have been thrown in films of true quality other than restrained westerns like Shane and outside of boxing films (or films that included a single boxing scene like Barry Lyndon)? Punch-outs are always aimed at the apes. Did Alfred Hitchcock ever resort to one? Will Asghar Farhadi or Pedro Almodovar or Judd Apatow ever go there?

My kind of fight scene is fast and sloppy and over in five or six seconds, like that brief roadside altercation between Gene Hackman and Bill Hickman in The French Connection. Nobody ever goes down from a single punch.

Yes, right crosses and duke-outs are a fast, economical way for characters to convey anger, but they’ve become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to avoid a feeling of numbness and vague depression when they occur.

Three years ago I noted how 21st Century action films have trended in the direction of firing hundreds if not thousands of rounds, and that economical gunfire is almost always a mark of quality. (The piece was about proposing a ten-shot rule.) Today’s equation is that any face-punching outside of boxing films merits an automatic turndown. Slugging is one of the banes of my moviegoing existence, and what I mainly hate about superhero films in general.

Last night (or a few hours ago if you’re in the States) I mentioned buying a Paris-to-Cannes train ticket for 185 euros. In the comment thread Bob Strauss said “that sounds like a lot for train fare. How long is the trip? You getting a bunk or something for what, 6 to 9 hours?” Me: “It’s actually a five-hour trip and yes, agreed — the fare is high. All European train fares are pricey, and I’ve never been happy about that. And yes, I could’ve paid a bit less for a second-class seat but that’s not how I roll. (Second class is no cut-rate bargain — it’s just marginally less expensive.) But it’s still worth it and here’s why.

Agreed, a one-way Paris-to-Nice plane fare is cheaper by 30 to 45 euros. BUT the train leaves right from the middle of town (very relaxing and stress-free), and so I don’t have to hike all the way out to Orly or CDG and deal with crowds and security and all the rest of that time-consuming airport hassle. AND it’s hugely pleasurable to sit there in comfort (you can stretch out, walk around, get a bite in the food car or work on a piece without the guy in front leaning his seat back into your 18 inches of personal space) and gaze at the beautiful French countryside whizzing by. AND the train drops me right into downtown Cannes, and I’m thus spared from having to disembark in Nice and then wait for the bus and the congested 40-minute freeway trip to Cannes.

A friend sent me this four-day-old clip. It made me feel SOOOO bad. It made me want to start drinking again.  The audience takes a half-beat longer to respond to George Clooney and Julia Roberts than it does to Gwen Stefani. Number of times I’ve sung “The Sweet Escape” on my own while driving — zero. Yes, things improve somewhat when Clooney and Roberts get into the back seat but it goes on for 14 and 1/2 minutes! Friend: “Stefani is seriously creepy….her albino hair is so intense along with the intense eye makeup.”   Somebody (Roberts?) is off-key when they sing “We Are The Champions.”

This afternoon I was running to catch a Chatelet-bound metro on my way to Gare de Lyon, where I would buy a pricey (185 euro) ticket for Tuesday morning’s train to Cannes (departing at 7:19, arriving at 12:23 pm). A train was just pulling out as I was coming down the stairs. In New York that would mean shaking your head and going “okay, bad luck…now I have to wait eight or ten minutes for the next train as I sit here without wifi and smell the urine and watch the rats scurrying across the tracks.” But this is Paris. Less than two minutes later the next train pulled in. Arguably the best metro system in the world — clean cars, doors you can open on your own, good wifi in every station.

Posted on 7.4.10: Fred Ward tells a joke in this scene from Mike Nichols‘ Silkwood (’83). I’ve told it off and on myself for the last 30 years, but jokes don’t land unless you master exactly the right tone, timing and emphasis. Message: Life occasionally sucks so badly that even (or particularly) your own family or community will bring pain into your life, which is kind of what Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man was about. Every time this clip surfaces, copyright attorneys have it taken down. On top of which you can’t even stream Silkwood — all you can do is buy the DVD. I wouldn’t mind watching it again.

For me, Jay Roach, Robert Schenkan and Bryan Cranston‘s All The Way (HBO, 5.21) is a more engaging thing than the Broadway play version, which I saw and reviewed exactly two years ago. (I expressed modest misgivings — the key phrase was “engaged but not emotionally engulfed.”) I know the Lyndon Johnson saga backwards and forwards, and yet I was gripped and fascinated by this strategic re-telling. It’s about as tightly organized, propulsive and snappy as anyone could reasonably expect.

And yes, Cranston kills as LBJ in a performance that hits all the highs and lows of his Tony Award-winning performance but with extra seasoning that allows for a bit more compassion. Most of Cranston’s stage performance was about LBJ’s grand overbearing manner and gusto with maybe 25% conveying his doubts and uncertainties. In the HBO film it feels more like a 60-40 deal.

Like the play version, All The Way lacks the emotional sweep and tragic dimension of Dave Grubin‘s LBJ, the 1991 American Experience documentary. The focus is strictly on Johnson’s first year in office (JFK’s murder to LBJ’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in November ’64), and as much as I would have preferred to see Cranston play Johnson in a five- or six-hour miniseries combining All The Way with Schenkan’s The Great Society (which was performed on stage in Seattle late 2014), that was never on the table.

And yet there’s no denying that the HBO version, like the play, is an expertly written ensemble piece and a crackling political drama. The bonus is that Roach’s film takes the story into more intimate realms. Like any good director would have, he finesses and intensifies in a way that no stage director could have managed. The camera doesn’t just stay close to Johnson but slips into his recesses, fears, inner determinations, anxieties. The film is more affecting for this effort. Yes, Cranston delivers all of the shadings and crafty impulses and whatnot — all the scrappy bombast that came through on stage but with a sadder, more vulnerable underside.

The opening weekend of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival looks a teeny bit soft, and yet the first two nights (Wednesday, 5.11 and Thursday, 5.12) seem to promise some degree of intrigue. How can you go all that wrong with Woody Allen‘s Cafe Society, Jodie Foster‘s non-competitive Money Monster (which, by the way, a friend said he “really liked…the ‘system is rigged, Wall Street is corrupt’ theme plus the [narrative of the] Jack O’Connell character is tailor made for Trump and Sanders messaging”) and Christi Puiu‘s SieraNevada? The Romanian-made family reunion drama will likely prove the strongest of the three.

But the Friday thru Sunday fare…I don’t know, man, but so far I’m not sensing great currents of snapping, zapping electrical energy from Park Chan Wook‘s The Handmaiden, Bruno Dumont‘s Slack Bay, Ken Loach‘s I, Daniel Blake, Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann and Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey, among others.

I’m not very interested in seeing the weekend’s two big non-competitive attractions — Steven Spielberg‘s The BFG on Saturday (which I’m not firmly committed to blowing off but I just might) and Shane Black‘s The Nice Guys on Sunday. I won’t skip the latter but I’m kind of half-dreading what will almost certainly be a wallow in formulaic ’70s rowdyism with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe.

As reported by the N.Y. Times in mid-April, nightly political protests in the vein of Occupy Wall Street have been happening every night at Place de la Republique. The gatherings, mostly attended by Millenials and being called Nuit Debout, began as a pushback against proposed labor-law reforms, but several leftie causes and grievances were being aired when I dropped by last night around 9 pm. It felt like a huge, amiable community gathering — speeches, banners, placards and the usual pamphlets, T-shirts and buttons being sold. I was particularly impressed by the respect and sense of fraternity shown by a small crowd that was listening to one short speech after another by anyone who felt moved to pick up the mike and share. Each and every speaker was politely applauded. No way would that happen in Union Square.

This has to be one of the most striking artistic appropriations of the 1945 flag-raising on Iwo Jima I’ve ever seen, hands down. Sculpture was sitting in an art-gallery window.

To go by screen captures contained in Gary Tooze‘s DVD Beaver review, Criterion’s 4k Bluray of Robert Altman‘s The Player (5.24) looks distinctly darker than New Line Home Video’s 2010 Bluray (which I own and am totally fine with). On top of which the Criterion version, cropped at 1.85:1, offers less picture information on all sides than the 1.78:1 New Line version. The cropping alone is a major issue, but coupled with the darker images = definite fail. You also have to consider that with the exception of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Altman films have never offered super-captivating, exquisitely composed cinematography so in most instances creating 4K versions is a bit of a head-scratcher. I didn’t request this puppy from the Orange Media guys, and I’m not buying it either. God forbid the possibility of Criterion delivering a 4K Bluray of McCabe down the road. That candle-and-kerosene-lighted 1971 classic is already dark and hazy and murky — given their established tendencies the Criterion guys would probably take it even deeper into this realm. I couldn’t stand their darkened-down 4K version of Only Angels Have Wings.

Now that first-wavers have seen Captain America: Civil War, mini-reviews are requested. Please answer the following: (1) As efficient and well organized as the film obviously is, does there seem to be something missing nonetheless? Some spark of soul or feeling or genuine inspiration?; (2) Is there common agreement that the film does pretty much peak after the airport brawl or…?; (3) Was anyone vaguely bothered by the similarity to Batman v Superman in that CA:CW is basically about superheroes facing adversity and repression because the public feels threatened by the chaos-creating battles between the Avengers and supervillains?; (4) Scott Mendelson has tweeted that the film “is more of a parable for World War I than the U.S. Civil War” — agree or disagree?; (5) Is anyone else feeling fatigued and dispirited by the presence of Robert Downey, Jr.? Once again, my original review.