Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, the action cyborg blam-blammers who gave us the amusingly ridiculous John Wick, are almost contractually locked to deliver John Wick 2 to Lionsgate. This time the slaughter commences when Keanu Reeves‘ pet hamster is eaten by a pit bull that belongs to a totally psychotic, bug-eyed, mouth-drooling Ukranian hipster drug dealer who lifts weights and wears a Hitler youth cut and a ten-day stubble and listens to ’70s-era vinyl and has greenish-yellow teeth with shiny metal fillings. But before Keanu can waste this miserable fuck he has to take out between 180 and 200 bodyguard goons, some of whom are Lithuanian, some Georgian, some Romanian but all of them brawny and studly with black suits and Hitler youth cuts and size 14 feet.

It was reported last January that Stahelski and Leith will also co-direct Cowboy Ninja Viking Samurai Street Fighter Fucknose Bare-Knuckled Stud With a Nine-Inch Wang, a Chris Pratt action-fantasy flick for Universal. I wrote in the same story that that Leitch and Stahelski “are robo-directors, and that they (along with Zack Snyder and all the other zombies in good standing) represent everything about the action-fantasy-superhero franchise business that is rancid, puerile and devoid of a soul. I’ve also noted that Stahelski is the last name of an electrician, a surfer, a pool-maintenance guy, a hot-dog chef at Pinks, a garbage man or a guy whose grandfather worked in the same New Orleans factory as Stanley Kowalski.”

The very first time I’ve ever heard those familiar John Williams themes coming out of a wooden, 1930s-era radio. It’ll probably turn out to be the last time. The radio is located at Dun-Well Doughnuts on Montrose near Bushwick. The waitress behind the counter spoke with the usual mincing, sexy-baby, beep-uh-duh-beep-beep vocal fry. When she asked if I wanted soy or almond milk (as they have no dairy), it sounded like “deebeedeesoyahahmand?” Uhm…are you asking if I want regular or low-fat milk? “M’sayingweeyonlyhavesoyahmand.” Soy or…? “Soyahamand.” Which is the least problematic? “Soy.”

“These people, their lives…they’re in a galaxy far, far away…it’s a journey that people can relate to” — 23 year-old Daisy Ridley (i.e., Rey) offering a generic, somewhat worrisome thought about Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens in the Vanity Fair video piece. What I find worrisome is a sense of what Ridley may (I say “may”) be implying when she says “people.” Millenials and fanboys, I fear she means. A chill just went down my backbone. I sincerely hope my suspicions are neurotic rather than intuitive. I really want Awakens to work in a classical way.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that that the converted, fluttery-voiced devotionals (i.e., the children of Harry Knowles) mean nothing — they’ll be there no matter what. This movie has to knock my demanding, somewhat grumpy socks off…that’s what’ll count at the end of the day. I will be one of the first canaries to go down into the Force Awakens coal mine, and if I die, the movie dies with me in a sense.

About five months ago the Stars Wars 7: The Force Awakens actor/characters were identified via Topp-style trading cards provided to Entertainment Weekly by J.J. Abrams and Co., and one of them was Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, which I described as “the black-cloaked bad guy in the snow-covered forest with the light saber“…duhh. In yesterday’s ign.com piece about the Annie Leibovitz Vanity Fair photo shoot on the set of the film, Lucy O’Brien somewhat breathlessly notes that the video essay [below] suggests that (a) Driver “is indeed playing antagonist Kylo Ren” and (b) “very little is known about his character beyond the lightsaber he carries and his attire, as spotted in the Force Awakens‘ first teaser trailer.” HE to O’Brien: How much do you need to know at this stage? When you see a tall, big-shouldered guy with severe features dressed in black, what does that suggest to you? Abrams quote from VF piece: “I have a thought about putting Jar Jar Binks’ bones in the desert there. I’m serious! Only three people will notice, but they’ll love it.”

A 21st Century D.C. Comics ragtag bullshit Dirty Dozen minus three. A metaphor for comic-book culture ragtag subterraneans, livin’ tough and hard by their own flinty, scruffy-as-shit, smart-assed outlaw code…rude, used, abused, sued, yahoo’ed & tattooed. “Incarcerated supervillains acting as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences” blah blah. Will Smith (as Floyd Lawton/Deadshot) is all but unnoticeable for his bald head and beard and not being well lighted. The problem for me is Joel Kinnaman (Robocop, Run All Night, Child 44), who lacks natural charisma or frowns too much or something. Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Jay Hernandez, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood, et. al. But not for another 15 months. Principal began on 4.13 in Toronto; Warner Bros. pic opens on 8.5.16.

“I’ll always be a devout fan of Rodney Ascher‘s Room 237 because it’s a treasure chest of endless imaginative theorizing about Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining. I loved the fruit-loop quality. But his latest, a documentary about sleep paralysis called The Nightmare, is almost completely devoid of imaginative riffing of any kind. The film is entirely about descriptions of creepy, real-deal encounters with “shadow men” — Freddy Krueger-like spooks who have terrorized several real-deal folks in their bedrooms (always in the wee hours) and caused them to freeze and be unable to speak and in some cases have trouble breathing. It just goes on and on like this for 90 minutes…”I was half-sleeping and then I felt something and the boogie man was behind me,” etc.

A few weeks ago I wrote that any chance of a restored, full-length version of Orson Welles‘ never-completed The Other Side of The Wind, shot in fits and starts from the early to mid ’70s, being assembled and screened in time for Welles’ 100th anniversary was out the window, and that it might be viewable later this year at best. Now even that scenario sounds doubtful. During last night’s Indiana University panel discussion about Welles’ legacy, explanations were offered about why the work hasn’t even begun. On 4.30 Wellesnet.com’s Ray Kelly reported that producer Jens Koethner Kaul had stated that Wind producers “have been stymied by distributors unwilling to finance the project without first seeing edited footage. Producers Filip Jan Rymsza, Frank Marshall and Jens Koethner Kaul need money to edit the negative, which has been stored in a Paris vault. But those with the money want to first see edited footage before committing funds.”

In short the same cash-starved uncertainty that has bogged down The Other Side of the Wind for decades is still alive and well. The project has become a pipe dream, and could almost be described in farcical terms. What kind of money do the editors need? Enough to cover rent, food, toiletries, fresh underwear and a handful of Paris metro tickets? Or do they “need money” in the way that Humphrey Bogart‘s Billy Dannreuther needed it? (In Beat The Devil he noted that “without money I become dull and listless and have trouble with my complexion.”) With Welles’ centennial birthday happening on Wednesday, 5.6, the Other Side balloon is all but deflated.

Hollywood Elsewhere to Steven Spielberg: You cared enough about Welles’ legacy to buy the Rosebud sled. Why not be a secret godfather and help out some? If you do the right thing HE pledges to stop all Spielberg bashing for a period of…uhm, six months?

The bottom line is that would-be distributors want assurance that the film has at least some commercial value. Will anyone other than serious Welles loyalists want to pay to see it? It’s a fair question.

I’ve been hearing all along that despite a feeling of occasional CG-ishness in some of the shots in George Miller‘s Mad Max: Fury Road, the film is very much a tour de force of practical effects. “We had to do it old-school,” said Miller during a post-screening q & a in Los Angeles on 4.29 (as quoted by Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan). “This is not a CG movie…we don’t defy the laws of physics.” So why does some of the trailer footage seem a bit hard-drivey? Presumably because of the intensity of the color scheme, which Buchanan describes as “eye-popping” with “the teal of the desert sky and the orange of the explosions cranked up to hypersaturated heights.” Miller said that “one thing I’ve noticed is that the default position for everyone is to desaturate postapocalyptic movies. It can get really tiring watching this dull, desaturated color.” Thank you!

If this was set along the Oregon coast and starred Keanu Reeves, Robin Wright and Ethan Hawke and being released by Lionsgate, I’d be skeptical if not cynical. But being from Norway and particularly from director Roar Uthaug (Escape, Cold Prey) tells me it might be okay. As long as it’s not American, there’s a chance. Boilerplate: “The film draws from a real-life scientific prediction that an 80-year-old natural catastrophe — in which a large mountain slide generated a massive tidal wave in Norway — will occur again, likely sooner than later.” Opening in Norway on 8.28 but no U.S. release date as we speak.

Visited my ailing, sleepy mom earlier today at her facility (The Watermark at East Hill) in Southbury, Connecticut. No chat, no words, her eyes closed. Just hugs, neck rubs, hand holdings. Then I thought, “I know…Sinatra!” I gently covered her ears with my headphones, turned the volume down a bit and played the Nice ‘n’ Easy album. At first she didn’t seem to respond but then I noticed her left foot tapping to the rhythm — a moment. Hers, I mean. Now I’m in Wilton and visiting with an old friend, cartoonist-musician Chance Browne, and his wife Debbie in their homey red farmhouse on Indian Hill Road. A Bedlington terrier puppy, three cats, a talking parrot and a rabbit. Listening to Vin Scelsa‘s last day on the air. Not a big filing day.

I was initially unhappy with Avengers: Age of Ultron, which I saw today in 3D (but not in IMAX) at Loews 34th Street. A more accurate term would be “convulsed by and twitching with hate.” Letmeouttahere, letmeouttahere, letmeouttahere. On top of which two 20something fanboys were sitting behind me and chortling and yaw-hawing at every in-joke and smart-ass riposte. And two Asian toddler kids sitting to my left (with their parents, of course) started making a racket about a half-hour in, and yet I didn’t care because their whining and chattering at least took my mind off the film. I was thinking I might have to duck out and see this thing in installments, like I have with Furious 7. That or I’d have to be tied down with eyelid clamps (like Alex in A Clockwork Orange) to make it through to the end.

But then I chuckled at a couple of bitterly sarcastic lines spoken by Ultron (voiced by James Spader). And I found myself half-enjoying a thrash-down between Ironman (Robert Downey) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). And I faintly chuckled at Ultron’s misanthropic justification for wanting to rid the earth of humans (i.e., because they’re no damn good). And I didn’t half-mind the romantic current between the Hulk and Scarlett Johansson‘s Black Widow. And then bit by bit I found myself making actual sense of this and that portion of the plot. I was far from fully engaged, much less enthralled, with Ultron, and like everyone else I found it awfully labrynthian and a little too cast-heavy but I found myself starting to half-tolerate it. I was saying to myself “this is pretty good on a scene by scene basis but it’s a little oppressive as a whole.” I was also muttering during the second half that “this isn’t great but it isn’t awful.”