The next time I visit Berlin I’m going to visit to F.W. Murnau‘s grave at Stahnsdorf cemetery. Last night I watched Fox Home Video’s new Bluray of Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), which I hadn’t seen since…I forget but sometime in the early ’80s. We all know it’s a work of pure cinematic poetry and a masterpiece of compassion and redemption, but I’d forgotten (a) how long those extended tracking shots by dps Charles Rosher and Karl Struss go on (truly groundbreaking for their day), (b) how design aspects of the amusement-park sequence resemble Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis, (c) the heartbreaking current between Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien, (d) the subdued acting styles (i.e., not entirely naturalistic but certainly leaning toward subtle by the standards of 1920s emoting), and (e) how much better Sunrise is than Murnau’s absolutely over-rated Nosferatu, which I saw for the first time not long ago and was mildly disappointed by.

Janet Gaynor, George O’Brien in F.W. Murnau’s ?Sunrise (1927).

Nobody can fathom why Shia Lebeouf simply didn’t admit to “sampling” a Daniel Clowes comic-book character (i.e., Justin M. Damiano) at the beginning of HowardCantour.com, his recently released short film. All he had to do was say “ripped off from Daniel Clowes…due respect but this was the process.” But no — he tried to pass it off as an original.

In any event, Lebeouf has now tweeted that he’s “retiring from all public life.” Not really. He’s just an emotional guy who’s throwing up his hands and saying “fuck it” for the time being. He’s feeling heavily assaulted and is basically taking a vacation from the slings and arrows. He’ll be back in a year or so. His Clowes plagiarism thing was an artistic felony, of course, but he presumably learned a lesson. I’m guessing that he’s retiring like Frank Sinatra retired in ’68 and like Steven Soderbergh is retired now.

A black-and-white version of this Apocalypse Now art appeared in the N.Y. Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section a week or so before Francis Coppola‘s epic opened on 8.15.79. To my knowledge it was never used again — not as a one-sheet during the theatrical run, and not on any jacket art for VHS, laser disc, DVD or Bluray versions, etc. I was living back then in a cockroach-infested Sullivan Street two-room flat and working at the Spring Street Bar & Grill. I clearly remember seeing this ad and saying to myself “Wow, this is gonna be good.”

In the realm of press releases no word is more phony sounding than “excited.” Whenever someone is hired by a company of any size they’re always, always “excited” about a great opportunity; ditto their employers; ditto any creative or business person or senior management type embarking on any entrepreneurial, cooperative or corporate venture. “Excited” is so ubiquitous it’s almost scary. Because people in the business world refuse, bizarrely, to use any other word. Like it’s some kind of code. It’s so commonly used you can pretty much count on the person using it being…I don’t want to say they’re a political zombie but they’re certainly looking to blend in. I’m serious — anyone who says “I am very excited about this opportunity” in a press release can and should automatically be perceived as a joiner, a go-alonger, a Zelig, a drone. If you’ve seen the John Carpenter film They Live, you know what kind of person I’m talking about. Why am I the only person who’s ever mentioned this? (I riffed on it three or four years ago.)

The following portion of Dr. Svet Atanasov‘s July 2011 review of Optimum’s Don’t Look Now Bluray was music to my ears: “Unfortunately, I must speculate that additional corrections were performed that have affected its integrity“…yes! “Specifically, a layer of occasionally thick machine noise has been applied, possibly to sharpen the image and reduce film grain, which has a tendency to degrade detail and clarity”…oh, come on, it’s not that bad! “On medium size screens (52″ to 55”), the majority of the subtle image degradations would likely remain unnoticed by most viewers, though the sporadic harshness of the image would still bother those who are sensitive to post-production sharpening”…not me, Svet! I watched this Region-2 Bluray last night, and if you ask me Svet is a nitpicking whiner. Yes, there are traces of digital scrubbing but the grain is reduced and that’s what counts. (Nobody loathes grainstorms like yours truly…I am the king of that aesthetic.) It’s not a great-looking Bluray but it’s mostly a very handsome transfer of a classic chiller. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen it look this good, even with the digital noise. Seriously. Tonight: Billy Liar and Sunrise.

I was standing next to the great Bruce Dern at last Saturday night’s Palm Spring Film Festival gala. He was wearing a tux, smiling and chatting, posing for photos. And I happened to look down and notice that he wasn’t wearing a pair of uptown Bruno Magli or John Varvatos or even Florsheim evening shoes (shiny black leather, a genuine or pseudo-Italian “statement”, lace-ups or buckles) but what looked like black running shoes or, worse, orthopedic comfort shoes. Right away I came up with my own Dernsy: “Jesus, I love the guy…he’s gotta be the greatest raconteur in the world and his Oscar campaign has been inspired, and then he kinda screws it up — in the eyes of discerning journalists, at least — a little bit anyway — by wearing old man shoes!”

Let me explain something: I’ve walked around the streets of Rome, Milan and Florence on warm evenings, and white-haired Italian guys never, EVER wear comfort shoes. It’s a point of pride. They would rather be stricken with a heart attack and collapse on the street than wear those clunky things. I’m not saying old guys can’t wear comfortable shoes at home or while walking around the neighborhood or the mall, but when you’re out at night and hanging with the swells you have to wear classy, high-style, Cary Grant-at-El Morocco footwear, even if it hurts. Even if it shortens your life.”

“It’s not hyperbole to suggest that [Matthew] McConaughey will win every award for which he is eligible, both because he is a Movie Star stooping to work in television, and because he is jaw-droppingly great. McConaughey has reinvented himself in the last few years, using his leading man swagger in service to each performance, rather than a substitute for one. Even if nothing else about True Detective worked — and so much of it works spectacularly — McConaughey would be worth the price of admission. (Harrelson’s terrific in his own right, and could also win many trophies if he’s willing to position himself as a supporting actor, even though they’re both clear leads.) — from Alan Sepinwall‘s review of HBO’s True Detective (debuting on Sunday, 2.12).

The 2014 South by Southwest Film Festival (.3.7 to 3.15) will kick things off with Jon Favreau‘s Chef (Open Road, 5.9), a formulaic-sounding comedy about a high-class chef (Favreau) experiencing career failure and rebirth through a food-truck business. Then again it seems likely that Favreau — the star, director, producer and writer — will inject some serious foodie passion. On the other hand my cockatoo sensibility would be happier with a thinner guy in the kitchen. Favreau may or may not be the most calorically challenged of today’s big-time movie directors, but he clearly loves to eat as much as make movies or anything else. Good cast — Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sofía Vergara, Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Garry Shandling, Amy Sedaris and Oliver Platt. Wiki thumbnail: “When Miami-born chef Carl Casper (Favreau) tries and fails to open a restaurant in Los Angeles, he returns to Miami to fix up a food truck he names El Jefe Cubanos and reacquaints with his ex-wife (Vergara). He plans to drive across the country to reclaim his success in L.A.”

Jon Favreau in Chef (Open Road, 5.9)

Bruce Dern isn’t competing against Matthew McConaughey for a Golden Globe award. The Nebraska star has been nominated for Best Actor, Comedy/Musical while the Dallas Buyers Club star is up for Best Actor, Drama. But they’ll almost certainly be eyeball-to-eyeball in the Oscar race, and the real competition, of course, won’t be about their performances as much as their campaign narratives.

Dern’s, of course, is “I finally got to be an award-nominated lead actor at age 77 after a lifetime of supporting roles — you too can be a lead in your own life!” McConaughey’s is “I was a Texas bongo party-boy actor who almost drowned in a Kate Hudson romcom swamp, but three years ago I decided to reinvent myself and got into quality stuff (Bernie, Magic Mike, Mud, Dalls Buyers, Wolf of Wall Street, HBO’s True Detective) and look at me now! McConaissance!”

The word on MM’s performance in HBO’s True Detective is so good that it might put him over the top in the best Actor Oscar race….maybe.

This morning a friend at 42 West asked me to post the new green-band trailer for Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words (Focus Features, 3.14). “Due respect but what’s the point of a GREEN-BAND trailer for a smart, nervy, occasionally profane, envelope-pushing movie like Bad Words?,” I replied. “Agreed, there’s a lot more to Bad Words than just nervy dialogue, but surely the RED-BAND trailer is more to the point. Putting out a GREEN-BAND trailer for Bad Words makes as much sense as putting out a RED-BAND trailer for a re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

HuffPost‘s Ricky Camilleri and Chris Rosen join Vanity Fair‘s Hollywood editor Katey Rich exchange predictions about this Sunday’s (i.e., four days hence) Golden Globe awards. Noteworthy: Rich recounts what she saw and heard at Monday night’s NYFCC award ceremony regarding the behavior of City Arts critic Armond White and his tablemates.

The designers of this poster are, of course, conveying an attitude about the forthcoming Oscar telecast. HE interpretation: “We obviously don’t know what Ellen’s monologue will be like, but trust us — we aren’t doing ANYTHING differently this year. In fact we’re probably going to be even more generically Oscar this year than any generically Oscar show you’ve ever sat through. As far as we’re concerned it’s 1990. Jokes aimed at viewers in Shanghai and other none-too-hips, Las Vegas-styled dance numbers, pomp and circumstance…the whole shot. But at least no sexist songs like ‘We Saw Your Boobs.'”