After (a) persuading six major-league directors (Guillermo del Toro, JJ Abrams, Alfonso Cuaron, Rian Johnson, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Matt Reeves) to sign a letter requesting MGM to allow Robert Harris to attempt a restoration of the 70mm version of The Alamo with outside funding, (b) warranting a mention on the Alamo Wiki page and (c) getting editorial attention from Breitbart.com’s John Nolte, Team Alamo is having a slow second day. The two Stevens (Soderbergh and Spielberg) haven’t responded; ditto Martin Scorsese and David Fincher. I also haven’t heard back from Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne, but give ’em time. I’ve been too lazy to reach out to George Lucas and James Cameron, but a critic friend has offered to ask Clint Eastwood to sign the letter. Who else should I approach?

Tweet #1: Matt Reeves‘ excellent Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (7.11), which I saw Tuesday night on the Fox lot, is the Empire Strikes Back of this franchise — a drizzly, darkly lighted dystopian noir that is nonetheless a remarkably subtle and nicely-shaded film about peace and compassion. Tweet #2: It’s basically a thoughtful and humanistic deal that pays off in dramatic terms (or as much as a middle-act trilogy film can do that, given the restrictions), but has a thematic current that laments the war impulse in all beings and species. Tweet #3: Rather than endorse the original Pierre Boulle idea about all men being violence-prone and all apes being basically peaceful (or at least not as bad as humans), Dawn shows that both species have their warmongers and troublemakers, and that the actions of wiser, calmer peacemakers (i.e., leaders more in the Obama than the Dubya mold) are needed to chill things down. Tweet #4: Dawn has some truly beautiful 3D photography with one exquisitely moody composition after another (when it’s not flat-out nocturnal the movie is covered start to finish in misty rainfall and rainforest fog) and a generally lamenting anti-violence attitude. Tweet #5: I was particularly struck by Andy Serkis‘ remarkably subtle performance as the sad and heavily-burdened Ceasar, which is easily an award-quality thing. Cheers also to Jason Clarke for lending real heart and tenderness to a role that might have felt rote or routine with another actor. Tweet #6: Dawn is a much less predictable and more layered film than I expected.

I don’t want to know from Michael Bay‘s Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Nothing…nothing. It’s not playing anywhere, people aren’t going to see it, I don’t know what you’re talking about, it doesn’t exist. After next weekend it literally won’t exist and we can all move on. I just don’t see why any kind of attention whatsoever should be paid. To what end? What good can possibly come? I don’t understand why Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn took the time to discuss it.

I saw Steve James‘ warm, amusing, candid and sometimes hilarious Life Itself (Magnolia, theatres/VOD/iTunes, 7.4) for the third…well, nearly the third time last night. It holds up. It will always hold up. They say “dying is easy but comedy is hard” but dying is pretty hard stuff. I was admitting to myself as I watched that I might not have the courage to face up to disease and difficulty the way Roger Ebert faced it, particularly when things got really tough during the last year or so of his life. The man was a bull, and I’m not sure I have even half of that strength. I nonetheless smirked, laughed, felt a little sadness, smiled, felt the fervor, etc. Life Itself is a journey through the realm of serious, devotional movie-worship over the last 45 years or so, and it’s quite a thing to let into your heart. A vital, necessary film for the HE crowd.

Six weeks ago composer and longtime David Fincher collaborator Trent Reznor told Entertainment Weekly‘s Kyle Anderson that working on Gone Girl (20th Century Fox, 10.3) “has been really fun. It’s been an interesting challenge with some different parameters, and it keeps us on our toes. That’s what makes it good. [But] it’s a much darker film than I was expecting. The book is not exactly uplifting or happy, but it’s a nasty film.” Reznor’s quote would have been just a tiny bit better if he’d said “nasty-ass.”

It doesn’t matter if I’ve ever regarded Taylor Swift as even vaguely foxy (I’m obviously far afield of the target demographic) but I never have. Sharply cut nose, too tall and ostrichy, the bland blondeness…a “pleasant” appearance as far as it goes but a vibe that’s hardly fetching. But her Giver appearance is different. Now she’s got something going. Sometimes when you remove the makeup and darken the hair…I’m sorry that I wrote this because now I sound like LexG. I’m just saying that it works, this thing. I’m going to leave it right there.

All I want from the 2014 Oscar season are a couple of films that end as well as No Country for Old Men and A Serious Man. At least a couple. Is that asking too much? Those Coens, man…they know to end a movie on a cold, bracingly clear note. Think about it, mull it over, let it sink in.

Honestly? This doesn’t look half bad. A satire of disaster films with at least a semblance of meteorological realism. Who remembers Twister? Who remembers Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s performance in Twister? Who remembers Jan De Bont? Directed by Steven Quale, Into The Storm (Warner Bros., 8.8) has all the basic ingredients plus a self-mocking attitude. You can tell this was at least somewhat influenced by the success of Sharknado, which aired 11 months ago. Are you telling me that the producers of this thing said, “Naah, let’s not go too Sharknado territory here…let’s tone it down and keep it real”?

The junket-whore crowd has arrived in San Francisco for a big Dawn of the Planet of the Apes press encampment (screenings, interviews, etc.). A big whoop-dee-doo premiere screening at the Palace of Fine Arts happens tonight at 7:30 pm. I’m presuming that tweeted reactions will start flying around sometime around 9:30 pm or 10 pm. A select few attended a Tuesday night screening on the Fox lot. I’m ready to share reactions when everyone else jumps into the pool.

Yesterday morning (i.e., Wednesday) I mentioned a response from a film critic friend about the apparent indifference being expressed by MGM honcho Gary Barber about the deteriorating 70mm elements for John Wayne‘s The Alamo (’60). “This ridiculous Alamo situation seems to have reached the point where an effort should be made to rally the big boys — Scorsese, Spielberg, Fincher, Cameron, Lucas, Nolan, whomever else — to speak out about this and hopefully embarrass the hell out of Barber and anyone else at MGM who might be standing in the way,” he said. Soon after I began writing several heavy-hitter directors and their reps, and am pleased to report that six have personally told me they’ll sign a letter to Barber that asks MGM to support a restoration of The Alamo that would be funded independently.

The six supporters of Project Alamo are JJ Abrams (director of the currently lensing Star Wars, Episode VII), Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Rian Johnson (Star Wars, Episode VIII), Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim), Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman).

I spoke yesterday with Joe Berlinger, director of Whitey: United States of America vs. James J. Bulger (Magnolia, NY/Boston/VOD, 6.27). Everybody knows Bulger, right? Notorious Boston Irish mob boss during the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. Vague inspiration for Jack Nicholson‘s gangster fiend in The Departed. Went on the lam for 16 years, got arrested in Santa Monica in 2011, currently doing two life terms for multiple murders and other crimes. The focus of Berlinger’s first-rate doc, of course. Currently being portrayed by Johnny Depp in Scott Cooper‘s forthcoming Black Mass (which costars Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Juno Temple, Sienna Miller, Joel Edgerton, Corey Stoll, Julianne Nicholson). Again, the mp3.

(l.) Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger in Scott Cooper’s Black Mass; (r) Whitey Bulger sometime in the early to mid ’80s.