I went to see Daniel Barber‘s The Keeping Room last night, mostly due to prodding from Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn. I’m not sorry I saw it as Barber and particularly dp Martin Ruhe, who collaborated on Harry Brown, are fans of flavor and especially handsome, subtly-lighted photography. It’s given a classy treatment with period trappings (rural South in 1865, the end of the Civil War) and a few meditative detours. The latter refers to interminable dialogue scenes that are only half-decipherable due to the actors speaking in a kind of whispery Southern drawl fry (especially when Hailee Steinfeld has the floor…good God). But the film is basically a cabin in the woods horror-violence flick about evil, almost-foaming-at-the-mouth Union soldier invaders trying to defile and murder three Southern women (Brit Marling, Steinfeld, Muna Otaru). Kohn bought into it but I didn’t. There isn’t the slightest trace of half-sensible motivation or recognizable humanity driving the bad guys (Sam Worthington, Ned Dennehy) — they’re just doing the old Jason Voorhees thing with a couple of rapes thrown in plus some personality sauce, period clothing, old rifles and so on. Marling delivers the most substantial performance but that’s almost damning with faint praise in this context. Say it again: I hate, hate, hate “evil” behavior that lacks a semi-discernible motive. Cut away the art-film pretensions and it’s clear that The Keeping Room is pandering to the slobs who like their exploitation tropes the way low-rent Los Angelenos like their pickles and mayonnaise at Fatburger. Final warning: Beware of filmmakers who love burning things (wagons, homes) around dusk — it’s a sure sign of hackery.

I was assured several months ago by producer Neal Dodson that J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year would definitely be diving into the award-season melee. So where is it and what’s the word? Still deeply in post, I was told last night at the A24 party at Michael’s on Simcoe. But the first teaser will pop sometime next week. Set in 1981 Manhattan and focusing mainly on a married couple (Abel and Ann Morales) played by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year is allegedly not that violent. It’s basically a good, strong, super-tasty Sidney Lumet film, I was assured. More relationship-driven than anything else. The relative lack of shootings and face-beatings may disappoint the primitives who would pay to see it for precisely that element, but them’s the breaks. Chandor (All Is Lost, Margin Call) is not a panderer — he makes complex, real-deal, human-scale films. The release date will be late in the year, I was informed. Costarring David Oyelowo (just pronounce it “oh-yellow”), the great Albert Brooks plus Alessandro Nivola, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ashley Williams, etc.

Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain in J.C. Chandor/’s A Most Violent Year.

There’s no question that Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies (A24, 10.12), which I saw for the second time a few days ago, is one of the best comedies of its type, and by my standards the most satisfying Shelton flick ever. Some of her fans have argued it isn’t really Shelton-esque (semi-improvised, mumblecore-ish), certainly not in the vein of Touchy Feely, Your Sister’s Sister and Humpday. But I think Laggies represents a kind of liberation for Shelton — a bold cliff-jump. I spoke with her this evening at a Toronto party thrown by A24, distributor of Laggies and J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year. What does she say when her fans complain that Laggies is too commercial (i.e., tightly written)? This is my process, guys…a journey I took because it seemed right. I asked if Laggies costar Sam Rockwell, who slips right in and anchors the film’s second half, had written any of his very Rockwell-esque dialogue. No, she said — screenwriter Andrea Seigel authored every line. We chatted enjoyably but it was just a quickie. Here’s to the next time.

Laggies director Lynn Shelton during Wednesday night’s A24 party at Michael’s on Simcoe.

Richard Kiel, otherwise known as “Jaws” in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, ascended today. He was four days shy of his 75th birthday. Kiel may have peaked with his 007 films, but he was a steadily employed actor for a half-century, starting in 1960 when he was 20 or 21. You can tell from his voice and manner on this 1985 David Letterman clip that he was quite the settled sophisto. Let no one forget that Kiel played the titular role in Eegah (’62), one of the absolute worst films ever made. That same year he played the lead Kanamit in “To Serve Man,” a legendary Twilight Zone episode. I don’t hold the fact that he was a born-again Christian against him.

Both the Toronto Film Festival and yours truly are limping along, hanging in there. I almost like it more after “the crowd” goes home, or after the fourth or fifth day. I’ve been here seven days now; two more full days to go after tonight. Tomorrow is the big Douglas Trumbull demonstration of MAGI plus Pasolini, The Good Lie, This Is Where I Leave You (Shawn Levy crap) and Still Alice. Friday offers Christian Petzold‘s Phoenix plus The New Girlfriend, Eden, The Riot Club, Bang Bang Baby. Definitely more high-pedigree titles over the last few days, which wasn’t the case before. I feel fine but I’m running on fumes, apples, grapes, energy bars and an occasional Toronto spicy dog with hot sauce.

Lobby of Scotiaplex on Tuesday, 9.9 — 2:50 pm. All but dead.

(l. to r.) Sony Pictures Classics Michael Barker, Janet Jones, Red Army producer/director Gabe Polsky, Wayne Gretzky, PSC’s Tom Bernard at last night’s Red Army premiere at the Ryerson Theatre.

“When I reach out for a handshake, there’s a little part of me that dreads the possibility of clasping a damp clammy hand. I’m thinking about this because I shook a really sweaty one last night. Outwardly I didn’t react in the slightest but inwardly I shuddered like a candy-ass. It’s like shaking hands with an eel with a fever or some kind of jellyfish or something. It’s worse when the clammy hand is cool but warm and slithery runs a close second. Please, God…let the next hand be dry and crisp like mine. Aahh, that was great. Okay, here comes another one…terrific, nice and dry. Another one…aagghh, an eel!

Some people just have this condition. A glandular thing. If I was a clammy-hand type I’d avoid handshakes. I’d clasp people by their wrists and quickly pat the tops of their hands or give them a comradely poke in the shoulder. Confession: I had slightly sweaty hands when I was a kid but I grew past it. I love that my hands are currently dry at all times, and I mean like sandpaper. Okay, the inner palms contain a hint of dampness but only that.

I’m feeling a bit alienated from under-40 movie actors, mainly because I can understand maybe half of what they’re saying in movies these days. It’s my fault, not theirs. I grew up trying to speak clearly and concisely, and I guess I got used to others speaking the same way, especially actors in movies. I could actually understand those guys (i.e., actors who peaked from the 1930s to the early aughts) each and every time they spoke. But times have changed. I need to learn how to speak with a little uptalk mixed in with some vocal slur fry. That basically means I need to take it easy with the clear enunciation and speaking from the diaphragm at a moderate pace, and instead try speaking solely from the throat with an emphasis on fast and slurry and…well, basically sounding like I just woke up. Instead of saying “does this room have a mini-bar?”, I need to say “havaminibar?” It’s not hard. I can get into it. I know of a West Hollywood vocal coach who might be able to help. He charges $75 an hour.

This morning Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn urged me to catch The Keeping Room, an allegedly thrilling Civil War melodrama that could be described as female-centric Straw Dogs meets an expansion of that scene in Gone With The Wind when Scarlett O’Hara shoots that grizzled Union soldier in the face. It screens tonight at 7:45 pm. Kohn’s review calls it “an artful period drama and first-rate thriller” and “smarter than it looks.” But I’m concerned by two sentences. One, “The violent incursions in the concluding 45 minute stretch don’t always dodge cliches.” And two, “The two men hankering to rape and pillage the farm come across in more simplistic terms — as scowling villains with no motivation other than sheer lunacy.” Why do any villains have be ape-crazy and frothing at the mouth? I hate this kind of comic-book writing. People are people, and they have their reasons. Hunger, greed, lust…whatever. No motivation = a hack screenwriter who can’t cut the mustard. But let’s not pre-judge. I’ll catch it this evening and see what’s what. Here’s David Rooney’s review in The Hollywood Reporter.

(l. to r.) Muna Otaru, Hailee Steinfeld, Brit Marling in The Keeping Room. Heavy blood stains on garments tend to have a brownish tint, no?

A couple of thoughts in the wake of Michael Fleming’s Deadline report about Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions having acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to Bill Pohlad and Oren Moverman‘s Love & Mercy. One, it just hit me that “I Can Hear Music,” the Beach Boys track that I’ve always regarded as their most emotionally affecting, was just a cover and was written for the Ronettes by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector. (The Beach Boys recorded it on 1969’s “20/20.”) And two, while Brian Wilson has always been a good humanistic, earth-loving, blue-minded guy, the Beach Boys band members (Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston) have been philosophically and politically Republican since at least the Reagan era. Consider this 7.2.12 N.Y. Times op-ed- piece by Daniel Nester (“Be True To Your School”), and particularly this passage: “For many Republicans, the rags-to-riches story of [the Beach Boys] embodies an imaginary time of consensus politics and an American Dream at once white-bread and innocent. The band tapped into this sentiment well before the Reagan era, and it’s this strain of the Beach Boys’ peculiar cultural DNA that has supplied them with steady bookings as political mascots for Republicans and conservative causes.” Again, the “Music” mp3.

In the immediate wake of yesterday’s Apple announcement of the iPhone 6 and 6 plus, Slate‘s Lily Hay Newman wrote a piece titled “The New iPhones Will Probably Have Terrible Battery Life.” I have absolutely no trouble believing this as iPhone batteries have always been weak so why should anything change? The only answers for me have been (a) Mophie Juice Packs, which augment the iPhone battery and keep things going a lot longer, and (b) the Jackery portable iPhone charger. Everyone has known for months that the iPhone 6 phones would measure 4.7 and 5.5. inches diagonally so Mophie has had ample time to prepare. I checked this morning to see if their their new iPhone 6 juice packs are ready for sale, and of course they’re not. Can you imagine being the Mophie manufacturing guy now? “I’m trying…we’re running a little behind…it’s hard keeping up with all these sudden changes,” etc.

A couple of days ago Awards Daily‘s Ryan Adams posted the new international trailer for David Ayer‘s Fury and wrote that costar Logan Lerman “looks to have the same roller coaster arc as Barry Pepper was given in Saving Private Ryan…a plum supporting role.” Sorry but nope. Lerman is obviously playing a sensitive candy-ass who trembles in the heat of battle (at least initially), and that’s analogous with Jeremy Davies‘ Private Ryan role as the frail, pale-faced translator and not Pepper’s scripture-quoting sharpshooter. I don’t mind the company of delicate dweebs in a real-life setting but they’re a huge drag to deal with in a war film. The Germans are the enemy, delicate weenie boy. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly.

That review I ran yesterday of Bill Pohlad‘s Love and Mercy reminded me of a brief encounter I had with Brian Wilson in ’74.

I was living in an upstairs one-bedroom apartment at 648 14th Street in Santa Monica, doing nothing, working as a tree surgeon…my lost period. (I began my adventure in movie journalism the following year.) Right below me lived a guy named Eddie Roach and his wife Tricia. At the time he was working with the Beach Boys as a kind of staff or “touring” photographer. Dennis Wilson fell by two or three times and hung out a bit, and one time I was part of a small group that played touch football with him at a local high-school field. Dennis mocked me that day for being a bad hiker, which I was.

Anyway it was a cloudy Saturday or Sundayafternoon and I was lounging in my living room when I began to hear someone tooling around on Eddie’s piano. It sounded like the beginnings of a song. It began with a thumping, rolling boogie lead-in, complex and grabby, and then the spirited vocal: “Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie…yay-ee-yay…back home boogie, bong-dee-bong”…and then he stopped. One of the chords wasn’t quite right so he played a couple of variations over and over, and then he began again: “”Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie yay-ee-yay!” and so on. Then another mistake and another correction. Then he stopped again and started laughing like a ten year-old drunk on beer: “Hah-hah, heh-heh, heh-hay!” and then right back into the song without losing a beat. It was great stuff. Who is this guy?