I was a bit surprised to read that Baltasar Kormakur‘s Everest (Universal, 9.18) will open the 72nd Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, 9.2. Out of competition, of course. I’m sure it’ll be pretty good for what it is (a tragic, fact-based disaster film), but Kormakur’s Contraband and 2 Guns made it clear that he’s more or less Renny Harlin of the early ’90s. Pretty much all the male leads die in this, right? Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, John Hawkes and Michael Kelly. With Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Robin Wright fretting as sketchy reports come in. Everest will almost certainly not be a Telluride film…right?

The new British-made trailer for Steven Spielberg‘s Bridge of Spies (Disney, 10.16) is a significant improvement over last month’s teaser. It still has that trademark bluish-white Janusz Kamsinski cinematography, which I loathe with a passion, but it lays out the social and political context of the late Eisenhower era and delivers a more precise portrait of U.S. vs. Soviet tensions when the Francis Gary Powers U2 incident happened in May 1960. Spielberg and Hanks were kids when this shitstorm happened, and so there’s likely to be an extra measure of authority in the depictions of those times. Hanks’ 17th version of his man-of-character-and-infinite-patience thing, etc.

Rob Garver, director of the forever-gestating What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, needs $75K to finish the film, which I had expected (emphasis on the “had”) would be hitting the fall festivals. I guess not. Okay, I’ll contribute $100 but it profoundly bothers me when a trailer has a slightly wider than correct aspect ratio. I’m not talking about the Kickstarter pitch as much as the Vimeo trailer posted after the jump. I hate the horizontal taffy-pull look. Fix it, please.

“If we go back and think over the movies we’ve enjoyed—even the ones we knew were terrible movies while we enjoyed them—what we enjoyed in them, the little part that was good, had, in some rudimentary way, some freshness, some hint of style, some trace of beauty, some audacity, some craziness….They have the joy of playfulness. In a mediocre or rotten movie, the good things may give the impression that they come out of nowhere; the better the movie, the more they seem to belong to the world of the movie. Without this kind of playfulness and the pleasure we take from it, art isn’t art at all, it’s something punishing, as it so often is in school where even artists’ little jokes become leaden from explanation.” — from a Pauline Kael piece called “Trash, Art and the Movies,” from “Going Steady.”

I’m off to see Trainwreck again tomorrow night, and I can’t wait. I know when a movie has its shit together and when it doesn’t, and apart from third-act disputes and discussions (which are fair to kick around) Trainwreck is two or three cuts above. It does the conventional relationship thing in a dryer, sharper, deep-down way. For the deadpan hilarity alone you can’t not see it. Smarts, depth, poignant perceptions, gut-level honesty — qualities obviously owned by Amy Schumer but not, I regret to observe, abundant among Kate Upton types. Prevalent now and then but not abundant. I wish it were otherwise.

“Perhaps most surprising, though, is what a strong performer Schumer proves to be,” says Screen Daily‘s Tim Grierson. “On her Comedy Central show, she’s quite funny in short sketches, but here she gets the chance to play a multi-dimensional character. The actress-comedian makes Amy’s childishness endearing while also recognising its shortcomings.

I would definitely pay to see this guy, Anthony Ingruber, play young Han Solo in that dopey-sounding prequel that the LEGO Movie guys are making. The looks, the Ford voice, the attitude, the right age…nailed cold. Now watch the producers ignore him…assholes.

Variety and the N.Y. Times reported this afternoon that Twentieth Century Fox is developing a film about the Supreme Court’s recent marriage-equality ruling. Fox has acquired the life rights of Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that went to the court. To cover their bases the studio has also bought life rights to Obergefell’s attorney Al Gerhardstein.

On 6.26 The Onion ran a piece about such a project, beginning with the following:

“WASHINGTON — Shortly after turning in dissenting opinions in landmark federal rulings today that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and conferred full federal benefits to married same-sex couples, Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito reportedly realized today that they would someday be portrayed as villains in an Oscar-winning film about the fight for marriage equality.

“’Oh, God, the major social ramifications, the political intrigue, all the important people involved in the case — I’m going to be played by some sinister character actor in a drama with tons of award buzz, aren’t I?” said Scalia, joining his fellow dissenting justices in realizing they would be antagonists in a film potentially titled Defense Of Marriage and probably written by Tony Kushner.

A new Star Wars prequel about a young Han Solo is being worked on by LEGO Movie directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. A screenplay has reportedly been co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon and…what, Miller and Lord are re-writing?. And Solo will be played by whom? Chris Pratt or some young buck trying to be the next Pratt? Flick will allegedly tell “the story of how the young Han Solo became the smuggler and thief who Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley and shot Greedo,” blah blah. That obviously removes any chance of Harrison Ford filling the role, which is what everyone would rather see happen…right? Screw all prequels. Pic will open on 5.25.18.

I felt mostly sympathy and compassion for Hillary Clinton during this afternoon’s 18 and 1/2 minute interview, which was conducted by CNN’s Brianna Keilar. Clinton will never knock anyone out in a one-on-one, but she’s okay. She’s trying to say the right things, strike the right balance…and I suppose she’s doing a reasonably good job of that. As far as she’s able, I mean. It’s just not in her to charm or inspire. She doesn’t come off as brittle or peevish here, but as someone who could go there at the drop of a hat. She blew off any suggestions that her trust numbers are to some extent her fault, and she dodged Keilar’s question about shutting down the Clinton Foundation if she’s elected. I believe she’ll be a good, tough, capable president — a slightly flintier Obama with the same right-center philosophy. I don’t believe for a second that she’ll do much to try and reverse the pattern of income inequality, certainly not in the populist way that Bernie Sanders has pledged to do. I believe that Hillary’s warmer and more personable up close than she seems in these interviews, but she’ll never be a great campaigner. She just doesn’t have it.

I’m, like, not the target demo for movies like Paper Towns, which is an adaptation of a YA book by John Green, author of “The Fault In Our Stars.” (I didn’t “like” the 2014 film version that much, but I didn’t obsessively hate it either — it drained me.) To go by reviews, Towns is a teen-angled dramedy about love and obsession with a kind of mystery element (i.e., where’d she go?). I’m 85% certain I’ll hate it, but you have to focus on that 15% potential. You have to take things as they come.

But I also have to be clear and say that my primary animus is, in this instance, not adaptations of YA novels as much as Nat Wolff, an obviously live-wired and nimble-witted actor (as well the 20 year-old son of thirtysomething costar Polly Draper) who plays the male lead.

Over the last four or five years, Wolff has costarred in a series of passable, tolerable, mildly acceptable and in some cases achingly sincere relationship films — New Year’s Eve, Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, Stuck in Love, Admission, Palo Alto, Behaving Badly, Grandma — about people who are hurting or insufficiently loved or turned around in some way. Most of these films have made me feel irked or unhappy or otherwise unsatisfied, and so I’ve passed them on to Wolff. The dissatisfaction is his fault, his doing. Kidding but on a certain level not. I saw his face on the poster and went “oh, Christ.”

The aspect ratio of Hou Hsiao-hsien‘s The Assassin is, to judge by the trailer, something close to 1.37:1. And yet the credit block in Justin Chang‘s review describes it as “partial Academy ratio.” I’m informed that the film is mostly in 1.85 and that only the first five minutes uses a somewhat boxier (1.37 or thereabouts) aspect ratio.

It doesn’t take much to get me to riff (or re-riff) on Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture. The 7.5 posting of a Trailers From Hell commentary on the 1991 film by Tolkin will more than suffice. To expand upon the headline, The Rapture is not just the greatest anti-Christian nutter film of all time but the spiritual father of HBO’s The Leftovers and generally one of the creepiest non-horror films over made.

Posted on 5.20.11:

“The Rapture weirded me out on a level that I didn’t fully comprehend at first. So much so that I’ve only watched it twice. It’s not what you’d call a ‘pleasant’ film, but it sinks in and spreads a strange malevolent vibe — a profound unease, disquiet — into your system.

I almost never order steak at a restaurant and I never buy it at the market. But once or twice a year I’ll enjoy a well-prepared chop of some kind. A filmmaker friend serves scrumptious meats when he throws backyard barbecues. I had a superb steak in Buenos Aires once. And I’ll admit my mouth always waters a bit whenever I drive by a traditional steak restaurant. I’m nonetheless averse for three reasons: (1) I’m basically a fish, vegetable and fruit kind of guy, (2) I’ve watched a certain cow-slaughter video a couple of times and (3) the livestock industry is pretty bad for the environment. I’m nonetheless interested in seeing Franck Ribiere‘s Steak (R)evolution (Kino Lorber, 7.17 NYC, 8.28 elsewhere). The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jordan Mintzer liked it well enough, calling it “an absorbing, and often enlightening, quest for the world’s greatest sirloin.” Mintzer reviewed a 130-minute version that opened in France last year; the Kino Lorber cut runs 110 minutes. It’s not surprising that the doc “conspicuously leaves out the slaughterhouse,” as Mintzer notes, but dodging this obviously indicates a lack of integrity. Honestly? If steer meat was to suddenly vanish from the menu I wouldn’t be horribly upset. You know who would be upset? Pie-eating guys like Quentin Tarantino. Vincent Vega to Mia: “C’mon, kitty cat, let’s go get a steak.”