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How repellent can a strange bedfellows engagement comedy be? How unfunny? James Franco isn’t an asshole (I’ve met him a few times — he’s a good egg) but he sure does play assholes a lot! Why Him? is basically a reversal of the Meet The Parents formula only this time the future son-in-law is the oppressive grotesque figure and the peevish milquetoast dad is the victim. I would rather endure a ten-day stomach virus than sit through this thing. Trailers always make films seem more lowest-common-denominator than they actually are, but director John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, I Love You, Man) is obviously a lowballer.

The big Academy premiere for Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea happened last night. There was a big after-party, of course. (North Shore working-class food — clam chowdah, baked beans, crab cakes, potato salad, etc.) I was roaming around with a friend, and for a short while we chatted with costar Lucas Hedges, who is totally locked for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Sharp dude, just turned 20, friendly, slick-looking suit, preparing to do a play (“Yen“) at the Lucille Lortel.

Manchester By The Sea costar and all-but-assured Best Supporting Actor nominee Lucas Hedges.

About a minute into our three-way it hit me that my pal wasn’t following rule #2 from Ms. Manners’ Manual of Normal Celebrity or Filmmaker Chit-Chat (2016 edition). Rule #1 is that your opening remarks must express one of the following: (a) a deeply personal emotional reaction to the film, (b) generic gushing praise, (c) an inside-baseball industry observation about box-office or awards prospects, or (d) admiration for some outfit or garment that the celebrity or filmmaker is wearing. My friend chose (a) but she broke rule #2 by not expressing her thought within 15 to 20 seconds, 30 at the outside. She took well over 90 seconds.

Why 30 seconds max and preferably 20, or better yet 15 or even 10? Because industry parties are not The Charlie Rose Show. They’re about sound bytes, banter, ping-pong. If you have something extra-heavy to say, fine, but do it within 20 or 30. But my friend went on for over 90, and the expression on Hedges’ face as she passed the 45-second mark was priceless. His face was basically saying “okay, we’re going deep and heavy here, and that’s cool but…wow, okay, she’s still developing her thought, throwing in a little back-story, not even close to the crescendo…but hang in there, hold your eye contact, show respect, let her run with it.”

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The great Michael Shannon on last week’s election of Donald Trump, as quoted today (11.15) by Metro‘s Matt Prigge (and a hat tip to Jordan Ruimy for highlighting):

Shannon #1: “I’m on tenterhooks here. I have two young children. Basically [Trump] is probably going to destroy the earth and civilization as we know it. It’s kind of terrifying. [Talking about this] is unavoidable. It should be talked about constantly. It should be the only thing anyone talks about.”

Michael Shannon, star or costar of Nocturnal Animals, Loving, Complete Unknown, Frank & Lola, Midnight Special, Elvis & Nixon, Werner Herzog’s Salt and Fire and Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming The Shape of Water.

Shannon #2: “These protests are so moving, but ultimately what are they going to accomplish? I’m so glad these kids are going apeshit, but at the end of the day the guy’s still going to be president. Maybe you need a civil war or something.”

Shannon #3: The wall isn’t between the U.S. and Mexico — the wall is between people who voted for Trump and people who didn’t. And we’ve got to do something about it. I don’t want to live in a country where people voted for Trump. I want to live some other fucking country. But I don’t want to run away. So we’re just going to have to bust this thing up.”

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This is not a review of John Lee Hancock‘s The Founder (Weinstein Co., 12.16), which I saw the other day but can’t write about yet. I’m allowed to tweet stuff but it’ll take too many characters to say what I’m thinking so I’m trying something a little different.

The Founder is basically the story of how the legendary Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) persuaded the earnest, slightly doltish, small-time-thinking McDonald brothers (Dick and Mick, respectively played by Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) to let him franchise their small fast-food business and turn it into a super-sized empire. But more generally it’s a nuts-and-bolts story about what a scramble it is to grow a business and then stay afloat with all the serpents snapping at your heels.

I wrote earlier this year that Robert Siegel‘s script is “a downish portrait of dog-eat-dog entrepenurial capitalism — a movie that basically says ‘sometimes it takes a pushy, manipulative shithead to orchestrate a big success.'” Which is often true in business and is a little bit true in this context, but not entirely. And I was wrong about the “downish” part. The Founder is mainly dutiful.

The truth (and again, this not a review but an ethical side-riff) is that Keaton’s Kroc is not a shithead, but just a hungry, wily go-getter who believes in the organizational basics that made McDonald’s a hit during its early California years (1940 to ’54) and who has the drive and the smarts to build it into a major money-maker. Kroc may not be the most ardently “likable” protagonist I’ve ever hung with, but he isn’t exactly “unlikable” either. Your heart is basically with him, and I was surprised to feel this way after having nursed vaguely unpleasant thoughts about the guy (scrappy Republican, Nixon and Reagan supporter) my entire life.

And Keaton turns the key in just the right way. He doesn’t try to win you over but he doesn’t play Ray as a bad guy either — he plays it somewhere in between, and it’s that “in between” thing that makes The Founder feel quietly fascinating. It allows you to root for a not-so-nice-but-at-the-same-time-not-so-bad guy without feeling too conflicted.

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During a Comics Come Home fundraiser at Boston’s TD Garden (100 Legends Way, Boston, MA 021140) on Saturday night, Wanda Sykes elicited boos when she said “we elected an orangutan to run the country.” They booed some more when she said “I’m certain this is not the first time we’ve elected a racist, sexist, homophobic president…he ain’t the first one…He’s just the first confirmed one.” When they booed again, Sykes, a lesbian with a pair of cast-iron balls, responded, “Fuck you, motherfuckers. Fuck all y’all…fuck y’all. The evidence is there. How can you say he is not racist? ‘Grab them by the pussy’? How can you say he’s not sexist? How can you say he’s not racist? How can you say he’s not homophobic?”

Posted today by former Breitbart.com editor-at-large Ben Shapiro about Steve Bannon, the just-appointed Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to President-Elect Donald Trump: “Is Bannon anti-Semitic and racist? I have no evidence of this. But with that said, as I wrote at The Washington Post [last] August, Bannon has openly embraced the racist and anti-Semitic alt-right — he called his Breitbart ‘the platform of the alt-right.’

Former Breitbart honcho Steven Bannon, the just-appointed chief strategist and senior counselor to President-Elect Donald Trump.

“The alt-right, in a nutshell, believes that Western culture is inseparable from European ethnicity. (Wells interject: In other words, it believes in fortifying a dominant white culture in the U.S. of A.) I have no evidence Bannon believes that personally, but he’s happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them in order to transform conservatism into European far-right nationalist populism. That means that the alt-right will cheer Bannon along as he marbles Trump’s speeches with talk of ‘globalism’ — and that Bannon won’t be pushing Trump to dump the racists and anti-Semites who support Trump anytime soon.

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On the occasion of tonight’s big AFI Fest premiere of Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie (Fox Searchlight, 12.2), which I’ve seen twice, I need to lay a couple of things on the line, just to keep the conversation open and frank and upfront.

One, Jackie really is “the only docudrama about the Kennedy’s that can be truly called an art film,” as I wrote after catching it in Toronto. “It feels somewhat removed from the way that gut-slamming national tragedy looked and felt a half-century ago, and yet it’s a closely observed, sharply focused thing. Intimate, half-dreamlike and cerebral, but at the same time a persuasive and fascinating portrait of what Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (Natalie Portman) went through between the lunch-hour murder of her husband in Dallas on 11.22.63 and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery on 11.25.63.”

And two, after seeing it the second time I went back and re-read a 2.12.10 draft of Noah Oppenheim’s script, which is a whole different bird than Larrain’s film. Pablo cut out a lot of characters and a lot of interplay and a general sense of “this is how it happened” realism, and focused almost entirely on Jackie’s interior saga. And honestly? I discovered that I liked Oppenheim’s version of the tale a little more than Pablo’s.

The script is more of a realistic ensemble piece whereas Larrain’s film is about what it was like to be in Jackie’s head. I fully respect Larrain’s approach, mind, but I felt closer to the realm of Oppenheim’s script. I believed in the dialogue more. The interview scenes between Theodore H. White (played by Billy Crudup in the film) and Jackie felt, yes, more familiar but at the same time more realistic, more filled-in. I just felt closer to it. I knew this realm, these people. 

Am I expressing a plebian viewpoint? Yes, I am. I’m saying I slightly prefer apparent realism, familiarity and emotion to Larrain’s arthouse aesthetic.

If anyone who’s seen Jackie wants to read the February 2010 Oppenheim draft, get in touch and I’ll send it along. But you have to see the film first.

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Somebody asked for my feelings about Sony’s recently-popped 40th anniversary Bluray of Taxi Driver. Seven words: “No, thanks, not even for $9 dollars.” I own the 4K Bluray that came out in 2011, and that’s about as good as it gets. Qualifier: If Scorsese ever comes to his senses and approves a re-coloring of the Lower East Side shoot-out sequence the way it looked before the MPAA demanded changes because of all the blood, which led to Scorsese diminishing this sequence with a desaturated brownish tint…if Scorsese decides to release the original red-blood version of Taxi Driver, the one he was happy with before he was told to change it, fine — I’ll buy that. But until then, naah.

Posted on 3.11.11: Yesterday Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt posted a discussion with respected Sony restoration guy Grover Crisp about the forthcoming Taxi Driver Bluray (due on 4.5.), which represents a serious restoration effort on Crisp’s part, especially given the input from director Martin Scorsese.

I was naturally most interested in Crisp’s explanation of the sepia-toned/brown blood shoot-out sequence at the finale. As I put it two months ago, “There can be no legitimate claim of Taxi Driver having been restored without the original natural color (or at least a simulation of same) put back in. The film was shot with more or less natural colors, was intended to be shown this way, and has in fact been shown that way for the last 35 years except for the final shoot-out scene. There’s nothing noble or sacred about the look of that final sequence. The fact that it was sepia-toned to get a more acceptable MPAA rating is, I feel, a stain upon the film’s legacy.”

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I don’t celebrate being one year closer to death but it was nice to hear from all those software-prompted Facebook friends who wished me all the best (seriously, thanks) and it was extra-nice to be treated to grass-fed beef sliders, cole slaw and chocolate cake by HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko and editor-producer David Scott Smith.

It all happened at Mel’s on Sunset — an honest restaurant serving honest,’70s-era food.

The only problem was that the a.c. made the indoor climate feel like 45 or 50 degrees.

HE to waitress: “Wow, it’s nice and chilly here…good thing you guys are being considerate to your customers because it’s like 95 degrees outside, like Palm Springs in July.”

Waitress: “Oh, thank you. We aim to please!”

HE: “Uhm…I’m kidding? It’s 60 degrees outside, and it feels like a refrigerator in here? Does it have to be this cold?”

Waitress: “Oh, hah-hah…got it! I don’t call the shots, the manager does.”

HE: “Would you mind asking the manager to turn up the thermostat?”

Waitress: “I’ll ask her.”

HE: “And if she refuses, do you have some blankets?”

With HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko, just before blowing out the candle.

In Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg‘s Patriot’s Day, Melissa Benoist (a.k.a. Supergirl) plays Katherine Russell, the hijab-wearing wife of Boston bombing conspirator Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze). Watch this trailer and tell me what the clip of Benoist refusing to provide info about whether there are more bombs stored or further acts of terror planned….tell me what this seems to convey about where Patriot’s Day is coming from. I’m sorry but suddenly this film, which should probably be re-titled Boston, Fuck Yeah!…suddenly it’s feeling like a kind of Donald J. Trump production. All along it’s felt like a rah-rah chant for the ever-vigilant Americans who will always be on the lookout (guys like Wahlberg’s Sgt. Tommy Saunders, an everyman cop) and will swiftly arrest and punish “the other”. Except now it seem as if Patriot’s Day is aimed right at the hearts of super-patriots like Steve Bannon, the alt-right Breitbart guy who was just hired as Trump’s senior White House counsel. Don’t misunderstand: Nobody felt more gratified than myself when the Boston authorities got the radical Boston bombing brothers, but I’m getting odious rightwing vibes from this film. Last Tuesday’s election has bled into this film and vice versa.