In a February 2011 riff about John Landis‘s Schlock (’73) I mentioned a piano-duet sequence shot in The Old Place, a storied restaurant in the hills above Malibu. This morning I found a YouTube clip of the scene.   (It starts slowly but hang in there.) The blind virtuoso with a Zen attitude is played by Ian Kranitz. I’ve never understood why Landis, who directed, wrote and played the lead role, continues to refer to Schlock as “bad and appropriately named.” It’s cheaply made — shot in only 12 days for $60K — but it’s a lot funnier than The Blues Brothers and only sllightly less funny than National Lampoon’s Animal House. As noted four years ago, Schlock is “more than a genre spoof — it’s a combination of stoner humor and social satire in the vein of the old, occasionally surrealist Ernie Kovacs show of the ’50s and early ’60s.

I’ve been missing screenings of David Robert Mitchell‘s It Follows (Radius/TWC, 3.15) for nearly ten months now. It played at last year’s Cannes, Karlovy Vary and Toronto festivals (among many others) and also at Sundance ’15, and has generated nothing but primo buzz. The 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating speaks for itself. A few days ago Boston Herald critic James Verniere advised me to “check this out if you haven’t yet…early Cronenberg vibe.” I intend to, but the truth is that I’ve been ducking It Follows because of an impression that it’s yet another perils-of-promiscuity flick about a hot girl being stalked by something ghastly — a cliche that stretches back to John Carpenter‘s Halloween (’78).

On top of which is Mitchell’s somewhat tiresome narration of the above N.Y. Times video essay. The opening shot, he explains, starts with “a slow, calm, objective shot of this sort-of middle-class neighborhood”…sort of? The Shadow of a Doubt-like, tree-lined, middle-class atmosphere is a right-down-the-middle cliche that’s also right out of the Halloween and Scream films and dozens of others in this vein.

The necessary and inevitable nature of destructo-porn, apart from top-tier VFX, is to improve upon the scale and savagery of the last big one — i.e., seriously budgeted, major U.S. distributor, mid-level or starting-to-fade stars holding their noses. Roland Emmerich‘s 2012, which ran 158 minutes, popped five years ago. San Andreas (Warner Bros., 5.29) was costly to make but not super-costly (i.e., $100 million) and was directed by Brad Peyton, whose last two films were Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (’10) and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which nobody with a smidgen of taste gave a shit about and which grossed $326 million worldwide. Paul Giamatti signs the contract, delivers the lines, cashes the check. Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Kylie Minogue, Ioan Gruffudd, etc.

It’s a measure of how entrenched and militant the politically correct Stalinist goons have become that Gunman star Sean Penn is still getting pestered about that harmless little green card joke he shared at the end of last month’s Oscar telecast.

Before announcing that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman had won for Best Picture, Penn said, “Who gave this sonuvabitch his green card?” — an allusion to Inarritu being from Mexico. It was typical wink-wink guy humor (i.e., one fellow describing or alluding to another in blunt disparaging terms that wouldn’t be cool unless they were friends) but the usual Twitter retards took offense.

“I have absolutely no apologies,” Penn has told USA Today‘s Cindy Clark. “In fact I have a big fuck you for…anybody who is so stupid not to have gotten the irony when you’ve got a country that is so xenophobic.” The joke, he said, was
“a little inside humor with he and I…I knew that [Alejandro] would be the first person in the room to know that his film won.”

The people who found Penn’s remark racially insensitive are, I suspect, related to the same concerned citizens who got upset last year when David O. Russell described Jennifer Lawrence‘s obligations to Lionsgate and the Hunger Games franchise as a form of slavery as la Twelve Years A Slave.

This is 15 hours old but classic stuff — the only time I’ve ever seen an Islamic woman publicly tell off a male sexist Islamic creep and hold her ground. It happened about five days ago on Al-Jadeed when Lebanese news-discussion host Rima Karaki cut into a statement by Islamic scholar Hani al-Sibai and advised him to answer the question more clearly. He became irate and belligerent and then told Karaki to shut up, in response to which she justifiably berated him and then told him the interview was over. Excellent!

Here we go again with another Wizard of Oz-like tale…a magical, inexplicable force transporting an impetuous youth, initially misunderstood and scolded by an elder, out of a proverbial Kansas to a colorful, dazzling, eye-popping realm full of thrills and danger. Nice VFX…I’ll give it that.  Section C, paragraph 15 of the rulebook states that George Clooney‘s character has to begin as a gruff, cantankerous hermit who’s living in a ramshackle, vine-covered house, and that he’ll gradually warm up as he gets to know Britt Robertson‘s young spirited protagonist. Either way an HE slogan bears repeating: Beware the Lindelof. This is not a prediction as I know nothing.   Just a note a caution.

Wealthy famous guys are routinely characterized in films as inept or wildly selfish or wholly indifferent when it comes to fathering. We all know what happens when these guys turn old and come looking for redemption from their now-grown kids. Hostility, fuck do you want?, take a hike, etc. Dan Fogelman‘s Danny Collins (Bleecker Street, 3.20) is one of those films, and it’s tough to ignore the fact that the basic situation is a huge, elephant-sized cliche. But not an insurmountable one. Wes Anderson‘s The Royal Tenenbaums started with the same situation but finessed it into something clever and affecting. I’m sorry to say that Fogelman doesn’t quite manage the same.

It was doubly hard for me given my completely unreasonable prejudice against the name “Danny” or any character or movie using it. Sorry but that’s two strikes going in.

Al Pacino‘s titular character is a dissolute, Neil Diamond-like soft rocker who’s been coasting for at least a couple of decades as an oldies act. This in itself is tough to swallow given that Pacino has a frail, hoarse-sounding singing voice that no one would pay to hear. Plus Collins has the kind of cocaine and alcohol problem that almost invariably ends in death or career ruin by the time an artist hits his 50s and certainly by his 60s, but here’s crazy, high-spirited Danny still tootin’ and sippin’ into his 70s. The movie in fact obliges his addictions by depicting them as regrettable foibles or indulgences, almost along the lines of how Humphrey Bogart regards Walter Brennan‘s alcoholism in To Have and Have Not.

This morning Midnight Rider director Randall Miller not only pleaded guilty to criminal trespass and involuntary manslaughter in the accidental death of Sarah Jones last year, but accepted a two-year prison term (he’ll probably walk after a year) and 10 years probation, during which time Miller agreed “not to serve as a director, a assistant director or a supervisor in charge of safety on any film production.” Miller’s rep is toast in this town anyway but now he’s essentially agreed to fold his directing career. It’s theoretically possible that he could return to filmmaking in 2025 but what are the odds? In taking the deal Miller has at least spared his wife, Jody Slavin, from prosecution. Their grief aside, Jones’ family and friends are probably now feeling a certain closure. Miller’s admitted indifference to safety procedures led to Jones’ death, and now that disregard has pretty much killed his career.

I felt appalled last night when I watched this TMZ video showing the death of Terry Carter during the 1.29 Suge Knight altercation in Compton. My initial thought was to ignore it out of general disdain for the gun-toting bluster and territorial machismo that has long been an aspect of rap and hip-hop culture, particularly when Knight has been around. Knight apparently was being threatened by a security guy waving a gun but who reacts this crazily? This is Zapruder-level and about as revolting as it gets. Knight’s temper or pathology have no direct connection, of course, with F. Gary Gray‘s N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton (Universal, 8.14), but Knight was reportedly in the area because a trailer for the film was being shot and Knight wanted to speak to former N.W.A. member Dr. Dre about his likeness being used in the film. Hair-trigger violence seems to happen a lot in that general realm. Five days after filming began last August a drive-by shooting occured.

Two words in a N.Y. Times, Michael Cieply-authored piece about Warren Beatty‘s still-untitled Howard Hughes film — “somewhat lighthearted” — have altered perceptions about what kind of film it might be. Or my perceptions, at least. I’m sorry but the word “light” scares me. I’m a much bigger fan of films that go for “dry” or “mildly subversive” or “even-toned” or “Antonioni-esque” or “haunted” or something along those lines.

In my mind “somewhat lighthearted” means a little bit swoony and gentile. It indicates a kind of audience-friendly attitude, one that it might even flirt with frothy from time to time. It suggests a film that doesn’t want to frown or brood, that doesn’t want to be cloudy or provocative or open any closets with skeletons.

That’s not to say that Beatty’s film will necessarily conform to these descriptions. I know nothing. It may be a whole ‘nother animal. But if I know Mr. Beatty’s tendencies as a scenarist (and I do) it’ll definitely deliver an emotional payoff during Act Three.

The film may be released this year but who knows? Cieply reports that while New Regency Pictures, which is producing the $30 million venture with Beatty, releases its films through 20th Century Fox or Fox Searchlight, “people briefed on the situation said decisions about the scope, timing and precise vehicle for the film can be answered only when the movie is finally seen.”

Beatty’s only quote in the Cieply piece: “I would appreciate if you would say Mr. Beatty good-naturedly declined to comment.” Totally typical.

In my usual haste I missed last Tuesday’s announcement that the title of Steven Spielberg‘s fact-based spy drama is now Bridge of Spies (Disney/Touchstone, 10.16) and no longer St. James Place. The title refers to a famous bridge used by the Americans and Soviets for exchange of captured spies during the Cold War. Spielberg’s film is about the U-2 spy plane incident of May 1960 when CIA surveillance pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviets. Powers was sentenced to ten years in the slam but American lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) eventually negotiated his release. On 2.10.62 a Glienicke Bridge swap happened with Powers exchanged for Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel.

Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg during filming of Bridge of Spies.

John Le Carre‘s Karla, the senior Soviet intelligence officer who was the prime antagonist of George Smiley, defected across the Glienicke bridge, which spanned between West Berlin and the former Eastern bloc suburb of Potsdam.

Before and after my 5.11.12 visit to Studio Babelsberg I walked around Potsdam and got a certain feel for the place so don’t tell me. It was nice and warm that day. I felt peaceful, at home.

Are you sensing from all this what Bridges of Spies is going to be like? It’s going to be a kind of respectable HBO-level period drama in which this happens and then that happens and then this happens and then that happens, and then Hanks finally arranges for the swap and Powers is finally free. Spielberg fans will happy to know that John Williams is writing the score for Bridge of Spies. It will be his 27th Spielberg collaboration.

A week and a half ago I added Tom Hooper‘s The Danish Girl (Focus Features, 11.27) to HE’s list of likely Oscar pedigree contenders. The presumption was that Eddie Redmayne‘s portrayal of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe will be “obvious catnip for Academy voters,” as Deadline‘s Pete Hammond commented in a 2016 Oscar forecast piece that ran on 3.6. At the same time I was thinking that an Oscar-winning actor donning a wig, eyeliner and falsies to play a transgender pioneer seemed almost too Oscar-baity and calculating. Everyone is thinking this, I’m sure. On the other hand I figured “okay, don’t get too wound up…breathe out, calm down.”

Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl was initially listed in the IMDB as a February 2016 release, but on 3.4 Focus Features announced that it will open domestically on 11.27.15.

At the same time I was suppressing a notion that underneath that ubiquitous photo of Redmayne-as-Wegener is an invisible caption-quote that reads “how are you going to deny me a nomination for this, despite my having just won for The Theory of Everything?” As Hammond remarks, Redmayne’s all-but-assured Best Actor nomination for The Danish Girl will “position him for the rare feat of back-to-back Best Actor wins, something not accomplished since Tom Hanks in 1993 and ’94 for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.”