My heart surged when I noticed that the title of this 12 Years A Slave teaser is “Fight Back.” I presumed that meant it would show that slammin’ scene in which Chiwetel Ejiofor, as kidnapped free-man-turned-slave Solomon Northrup, stands up to Paul Dano‘s sadistic John Tibeats character and then pounds the shit out of him. This scene isn’t just cathartic — it’s ten times more satisfying than all of the bullshit payback scenes in Django Unchained rolled into one. But the teaser doesn’t show it. It’s just a standard montage teaser with a two-second clip of the beatdown scene (from 24 to 26-second mark). Why call it “Fight Back” then? 12 Years A Slave opens on 10.18.

In a just published issue of Vanity Fair, Mia Farrow “discusses her relationship with Frank Sinatra, telling Maureen Orth. that Sinatra was the great love of her life, adding that ‘we never really split up.’ When asked point-blank if her [alleged] biological son with Woody Allen, Ronan Farrow, may actually be the son of Frank Sinatra, Farrow answers, ‘Possibly.’ No DNA tests have been done. When Orth asks Nancy Sinatra Jr. about Ronan’s being treated as if he were a member of her family, Sinatra answers in an e-mail, ‘He is a big part of us, and we are blessed to have him in our lives.'”

One of my all-time favorite political thrillers is Phillip Noyce‘s Clear and Present Danger (’94), and for that I’ll always respect and admire the late Tom Clancy for his having written the 1990 novel that gave birth to the film. It always seemed ironic that Clear and Present Danger‘s basic plot seemed inspired by Iran-Contra, and yet Clancy was a classic Reagan-admiring NRA conservative who held Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in high esteem, or so I read. The guy was only 66.

I didn’t have much of a problem with Stephen Frears‘ Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight (HBO, 10.5) when I saw it last May in Cannes. I wasn’t moved to write about it (and that in itself says something) but it’s a nicely ordered, well acted (particularly by Christopher Plummer and Frank Langella as Justice John Harlan and Chief Justice Warren Berger), moderately mid-tempo account of how the Supreme Court dealt with Muhammud Ali’s 1971 appeal of his conviction for refusing induction after his local draft board rejected his application for conscientious objector classification based on his Muslim convictions. It was touch and go at first, but the Supremes reversed the conviction, finding that the government had failed to properly specify why Ali’s application had been denied.

Shawn Slovo‘s script tells us that the behind-the-scenes hero of this deliberation was Harlan’s assistant Kevin Connolly (Benjamin Walker). Harland at first didn’t see a lot of merit in Ali’s argument, and Berger, a staunch ally of President Richard Nixon, was foursquare against it. But fairness won out. This is an intellectually driven film, dealing with personal conflicts and corruptions from time to time but mostly focusing on the pro and con arguments. But because it’s basically a procedural about a hot-button issue (mixed in with a vague sense of the political tumult of the early ’70s), it feels oddly impassioned but constricted. Muhammud Ali never appears except in news footage. But it’s not half bad. Certainly by the standards of an intelligent, honorably crafted HBO film. Give it a pass.

I hate being late with whatever I’m trying to do. I hate procrastinating, but I seem to succumb…well, not every day but too damn often. There are always five or six general topics that everyone is riffing on, and I really hate that others have jumped into material that I’m just getting into. But on some days I can’t seem to make myself get up and do it. Damn.

My phone interview with producer and former studio chief David Picker came off without a hitch. The subject was “Musts, Maybes and Nevers“, his just-published book which was celebrated last night at a party in Beverly Hills. We kicked it around, of course, but it was mainly an excuse to hope from topic to topic. There was so much to get into. My admiration of Richard Lester‘s Juggernaut (’74), which Picker produced. My evolved opinion of Lenny and particularly Dustin Hofffman‘s performance. George Stevens‘ The Greatest Story Ever Told and the hardening of the creative arteries that happens to almost every filmmaker. The possibility that Paramount might boot Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street into 2014. Picker’s writing habits. Robert Altman, Stanley Kramer, et. al. Again, the mp3.

In a vitriolic 10.1 piece about the government shutdown, Esquire‘s Charles P. Pierce states that “the first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.” We did this? The Midwestern and Southern dumbshits who elected Tea Party wackos to the House of Representatives did this. The people who don’t know that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are one and the same did this. Rural ignorance did this.

Earlier this evening I attended a party for the legendary producer and senior studio exec David Picker and his just released tell-all, “Musts, Maybes and Nevers.” We’re scheduled to chat tomorrow around noon. The stories in Picker’s book are flavorful and well-shaped, and the prose is smooth as silk. Picker began at United Artists when Eisenhower was president. He brought the James Bond franchise into the fold with Dr. No in ’62; later A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris. In the early ’70s he produced Juggernaut, Lenny and Smile. As Paramount Pictures honcho from ’76 to ’70 he presided over Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Ordinary People. He then produced three Steve Martin films — The Jerk (’79) Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (’82) and The Man With Two Brains i(’83). As Lorimar Prods. chief in the early ’80s he oversaw S.O.B., Being There and Escape to Victory. And then at Columbia Pictures Picker greenlit Hope and Glory, School Daze, Vice Versa, Punchline and True Believer. He produced The Crucible for Twentieth Century Fox in 1996. Picker stands tall, looks great, seems undiminished.

(l.) producer Larry Mark; (r.) “Musts, Maybes and Nevers” author David Picker.

My new 60-inch Samsung plasma (PN60-F5300A) arrived today. I hooked it up and figured out all the complex (and occasionally frustrating) stuff myself. Okay, I called Samsung about a couple of things. Every Bluray I’ve popped in over the last couple of hours looks much, much better than before. A definite uptick from the 50-inch Vizio, which is now in the garage. And no gray windowbox bars — they default to black.

You’ll notice that these highly educated hinterland types are all saying “no” to Obamacare because of the word that precedes “care.” On top of which Affordable Care sounds more…well, affordable.

“Even ardent fans of Hollywood’s polymath pin-up James Franco may be surprised to learn that shoestring-budgeted Sal is actually the Rise of the Planet of the Apes star’s fifth feature-length movie as a director,” Hollywood Reporter critic Neil Young wrote on 9.3. “But while this heartfelt, rough-edged tribute to now largely-forgotten Hollywood actor Sal Mineo isn’t without interest, it’s too small-scale and sketchy for wide theatrical distribution.

“That isn’t in any way to knock the impressive front-and-center performance from curly-maned Val Lauren as Mineo, the diminutive New Yorker who became a 1950s teen idol thanks to movies like Nicholas Ray’s James Dean vehicle Rebel Without A Cause – the film which earned Mineo the first of two Oscar nominations. But as the ‘Switchblade Kid’ aged, his star gradually waned and by 1971 he was barely recognizable under simian make-up in Escape From the Planet of the Apes — foreshadowing Franco’s own involvement with the same revitalized franchise decades later.

“By concentrating on theater and TV, Mineo slowly edged his way back to prominence. When he was stabbed to death in a robbery-motivated murder in February 1976, he was returning home after rehearsals for another L.A. play. His short, eventful life in which Mineo was increasingly open about his homosexuality was chronicled in a 2010 biography by Michael Gregg Michaud, the source material for Stacey Miller’s screenplay. But Miller and Franco focus only on the period immediately leading up to Mineo’s demise. Only occasional dialogue references to his friend ‘Jimmy’ Dean (whom Franco himself played in a successful 2001 TV-movie) hints at his illustrious past.”

The Los Angeles premiere of Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips (Sony, 10.11) happened last night at the Academy. The film played the same for me — workmanlike verisimiltude, scrupulous realism, Greengrass + Barry Aykroyd dazzle-cam — but it was different with a large crowd than with six or seven critics in Manhattan’s Sony screening room a few weeks ago. This time when the big climactic moment happened the audience cheered — drop those Somali bastards! (It’s so rare in life when tense situations are resolved with such bracing finality. Wouldn’t it be great if the Republican wackos who’ve shut down the government…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.) The true-life story could be subtitled “The Little Hijacking That Never Had A Chance” or “Four Fleas on the High Seas” but the expert chops speak for themselves. Ditto Hanks’ cathartic meltdown at the end — easily his best performance since Cast Away. The real-life Richard Phillips (the titular character played by Tom Hanks) appeared on the big-screen via Skype before the film began as Greengrass, Hanks and costars Barkhad Abdi, Mahat Ali and Faysal Ahmed took bows.

(l to. r.) Captain Phillips costars Mahat Ali, Barkhad Abdi, Faysal Ahmed and Tom Hanks.

The real-deal Richard Phillips as he appeared last night at the Academy theatre screen prior to the showing of Captain Phillips.

I’m down with the Minnesota-residing Barkhad Abdi, who plays the top-dog Somali pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse in Captain Phillips, becoming a Best Supporting Actor Oscar contender. At the very least to round out the field.

Hanks, Greengrass, Abdi.