Every so often a New York tabloid headline becomes an instant classic. The key elements are irreverence, bluntness, mockery, contempt. One of my all-time favorites is BRIDE OF JACKOSTEIN — the 1996 N.Y. Post headline about Michael Jackson‘s breeder wife Debbie Rowe. Ditto their August 2009 headline about Jackson’s final resting place — STACKO! And now the Pope giving God “two weeks notice” — good one.

Last night director William Friedkin tweeted that the much-hungered-for, long-stymied Bluray of Sorcerer, his brilliant 1977 remake of Henri Georges Clouzot‘s Wages of Fear, is finally in the works. “The original negative is in good condition [and] it’s now being budgeted to make a new digital master,” Friedkin said. He added that the Bluray will “not be released by Criterion.”

This is excellent news, of course. I’ve been pining for a Sorcerer Bluray for years. But a thought occured when I read this, and I tweeted it right away to Friedkin. Why not master Sorcerer at 1.66? Friedkin replied that it was framed for 1.85 so why 1.66? I came back with my usual “1.66 is beautiful + it breathes better” response.

But I was also thinking that 1.66 fits because Sorcerer has an international cast, one of the major characters (played by Bruno Cremer) is French and the dominant non-Scope aspect ratio in France during the ’70s was 1.66. (I saw that 1.66 version of Roman Polanski‘s Rosemary’s Baby at a Paris revival house in ’76.)

An hour later I discovered a passage from Thomas Claggett‘s 2003 Friedkin biography, “William Friedkin: Films of Aberration, Obsession, and Reality,” that states the following, according to Sorcerer‘s Wiki page: “During the 1980s and 1990s, like Stanley Kubrick, Friedkin consistently claimed that he preferred the home video releases of his films to be presented in the full-frame format.”

But things are different in 2013, apparently. All TVs are 16 x 9 and Friedkin now wants the Sorcerer Bluray to be cleavered in order to conform to this aspect ratio (i.e., 1.78 to 1 with thin black borders on the top and bottom, which renders 1.85). He did frame Sorcerer for 1.85, of course — the long-established U.S. aspect-ratio standard. There’s nothing wrong in releasing the Bluray this way. And there’s nothing wrong with Friedkin wanting to go with the current commercial flow.

But asserting “during the 1980s and 1990s” that he preferred the full-frame version clearly indicates Friedkin would be at the very least content with a little more height on the Sorcerer Bluray, if not secretly pleased. You can’t be a quoted vocal supporter of the “boxy is beautiful” aesthetic and then turn around a decade or so later and say “Naah, I didn’t mean that…chop off the tops and bottoms and make it 1.85.”

How could it hurt to go the Masters of Cinema route and present two versions of the Sorcerer Bluray — one in 1.85 and the other in either 1.66 or 1.37? Where would the harm be? The 1.85 fascists would hate this, of course, but isn’t that a good thing? These guys are on the ropes after Criterion’s multi-aspect-ratio release of their On The Waterfront Bluray. Bluray distributors who “get it” need to seize the moment and release more of these and marginalize the fascists as much as possible.

“The charge of inaccuracy is a poor thing measured against the potency of truth,” writes N.Y. Times columnist Roger Cohen in a 2.11 article. “Zero Dark Thirty is a truthful artistic creation, one reason it has provoked debate. I think the movie’s portrayal of torture is truthful: It helped at times but at others did not. It provided clues that might have been gleaned by other means.

“In the end the case for the unacceptability of torture is not best made by sweeping assertions that it is useless. The nuance of this movie builds a much stronger case that, whatever torture’s marginal usefulness, it is morally indefensible.

ZD30 screenwriter-producer Mark Boal told Times “he did not want ‘to play fast and loose with history’ — a statement held against him by several of the movie’s critics, most eloquently Steve Coll in The New York Review of Books. My sense, however, is that Boal has honored those words.

“Truth is art’s highest calling. For it the facts must sometimes be adjusted. Zero Dark Thirty meets the demands of truth.”

N.Y. Times guy Michael Cieply reported this afternoon that Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner is among 28 signers of a pro-Zero Dark Thirty letter sent to all 100 U.S. Senators. The letter objects to pressure exerted by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain upon Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s film.

Kushner & Co. have basically stated that Feinstein, Levin and McCain’s 12.19.12 letter suggesting that Sony Pictures “should somehow correct ZD30‘s depiction of torture” is out of bounds and that the trio should back off

“History demonstrates, in particular the 1950s McCarthy period, that government officials should not employ their official status and power to attempt to censor, alter or pressure artists to change their expressions, believes, presentations of facts or political viewpoints,” the letter said.

Last night I tried to rally the anti-Argo crowd by suggesting a way to stop Argo from winning the Best Picture Oscar. My suggestion was mocked, spat upon. But at least it was honest and constructive, which is more than you can say for the current backlash sentiment, which is basically nihilist and defeatist. If people had any backbone or brains or balls they would vote for Zero Dark Thirty…but of course they don’t and they won’t.

This “pissed-off JFK swearing” tape emerged a couple of years ago. It reminds me that there’s nothing quite as funny or fascinating or revealing as listening to a famous person lose his or her temper. You never learn anything when people are calm and composed, but anger tears all that down and tells you who they are and what they’re really about. It reveals stress, of course, but also values, core convictions, the truth.

We’ve all seen or heard Christian Bale and David O. Russell lose their tempers, but these episodes led some people to think, “Oh, well…that’s because those guys have cranked-up personalities.” The truth is that it’s a very rare person who doesn’t let go with at least a flash of temper every so often, and sometimes with a bit more. An any case Bale and Russell are old hat. We need new recordings. I would pay serious money to hear a recording of one of the placid mild-mannered smoothies — Ron Howard or Tom Hanks or George Clooney or Steven Spielberg — haul back and rip someone’s head off.

A month ago Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kaufman reviewed Universal Home Video’s Cape Fear Bluray, and when I read the following I went “ooo-wee baby!” and my heart began to warm.

“While [the Cape Fear Bluray] is nowhere near the most egregious example of Universal’s tendency to remove grain,” Kauffman wrote, “those who dislike even moderate DNR will probably be less than completely pleased with the look of this Blu-ray.”

I knew right away that I’d love it. I was panting with anticipation. Guys like Kaufman, trust me, are bad news…the enemy.

Gregory Peck in J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear (162).

I bought it last night and I was right. Universal Home Video technicians are masters of tasteful DNR-ing (i.e., digital noise reductions) and in my book the Cape Fear Bluray is a black-and-white DNR orgasm. It’s as beautiful as Universal’s Psycho Bluray, which has also been nicely finessed.

I’m an admirer of several black-and-white Blurays that haven’t been DNR’ed (like Criterion’s Sweet Smell of Success and The Bicycle Thief) but something inside me melts when that annoying speckly grain has been tastefully toned down and I get to savor all those deep blacks and shimmering silvers and that wonderfully crisp detail that DNR-ing, when done just right, can provide.

To me grain is nothing but an element getting in the way. It’s a hot summer day, you’re in the foyer, your kid runs up on the porch and comes up and says “dad?” and you can see and hear him pretty well…but he also looks a bit filmy and hazy because there’s a screen door in the way. That’s what fucking grain is.

There are few things I despise more in life than the dweeb aesthetic that cherishes overbearing grain.

I seethe when I think of those cloistered grain monks like Kauffman and DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze writing “ooh, look at that wonderful grain structure…this is so great…swarms of divine mosquitoes!” The critics who say stuff like this are espousing an elite form of perversity that’s almost beyond description.

I admire many aspects of Criterion’sOn The Waterfront Bluray, yes, but not the grainstorm portions, of which there are quite a few. I wish Criterion had made four versions of Elia Kazan‘s 1954 classic — a 1.37, 1.66 and 1.85 aspect ratio versions in glorious grainstorm, and a 1.66 version that’s been tastefully DNR’d in the Universal “house” style. Criterion would never do it, of course, but I can dream.

Zach Galifiniakis never makes me laugh…ever. His man-infant in the two Hangover films is tedious and pathetic. His pot-smoking Due Date douchebag is more of the same. (There was one good laugh laugh in that film, when Robert Downey, Jr. punched that dicky kid in the stomach.) And this recent “Between Two Ferns” Oscar video is the same old asshole-interviews-hostile-celebrities crap. (Chris Farley’s 1993 Paul McCartney interview began this sort of thing but in a different vein.) Galifiniakis isn’t even accidentally funny. Or vaguely even.

Chris Farley’s 1993 Paul McCartney interview began this sort of thing but in a different vein. Galifiniakis isn’t even accidentally funny. Or vaguely even. All I have to do is look at his face and I’m in a foul mood. Oh, great…the “so unfunny he pisses me off” guy!

What fan of ’50s alien-monster movies wants to shell out $30 for a Criterion Bluray of The Blob, a mildly amusing drive-in flick in which a 28 year-old Steve McQueen plays an anxious teenager? Criterion’s affection for this 1958 film is mystifying, especially with William Cameron Menzies‘ Invaders From Mars — the spookiest and most artful low-budgeter of this type ever made — still un-Blurayed as we speak.

If not Invaders why doesn’t Criterion put out a Bluray of Them! or the 1951 version of The Thing or any ’50s monster-invasion flick with at least a semblance of lasting merit? If they’re going to Bluray The Blob they might as well do it to Gorgo and The Mysterians.

The less McQueen “acted”, the better he was. The more he was required to “act”, the worse he was. His dese-dem-dose Bronx accent in Somebody Up There Likes Me was godawful, and he’s not very good at expressing alarm and confusion in The Blob either, and has particular difficulty with phrases like “it’s this mass that keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

McQueen was so broke as filming began that he took a $3000 fee rather than an offer of 10% of the profits, which would have been around $200,000 as The Blob made $4 million with roughly $2 million returning to the distributor.

For whatever bizarre financial reason The Blob “was filmed in and around Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,” says the Wiki page. “The primary shooting took place at Valley Forge Studios, and several scenes were filmed in the towns of Chester Springs, Downingtown, Phoenixville and Royersford, including the basement of a local restaurant named Chef’s.”

The Blob is thin gruel. The kitschy aspects are diverting but after a half-hour you’re looking at your watch. It doesn’t fit the Criterion profile because it only operates as an amusing wallow. It doesn’t go anywhere else. It’s one of those hokey films that allows the most clueless person in the world to feel hip and superior. “Heh-heh, Jesus…look at this thing…what a low-budget wank…yaw-haw…look at that cheeseball effect…it looks like jello mixed with thick strawberry syrup!…hah, that was funny.”

An 85 year-old official announcing a resignation due to declining health is hardly a shocker. Pope Benedict XVI has been on the job for eight years, but some are going “whoa!” because the usual way for the head of the Catholic church to leave office is to keel over. Outside of Italians and ardent Catholics, who really cares? Another old guy will be selected to fill Benedict’s shoes, and the church will continue to deny or deflect allegations of sexual abuse by this or that priest.

MSN critic and Some Came Running jazzman Glenn Kenny graciously agreed to an Oscar Poker chat earlier today. We got into Identity Thief and obesity issues, but I wanted to keep the mp3 shortish so I cut that stuff out. The talk runs about 45 minutes. It starts with me lamenting how the best films are always crammed into the last four months of the year. It ends with a discussion of the On The Waterfront Bluray and the very fine cinematography of Boris Kaufman.

Oscar Poker chat

Hollywood Elsewhere to Academy’s Lincoln and Life of Pi supporters:

It’s getting really repetitious but what can you do? Argo won at the BAFTA awards today/tonight. Best Picture plus Best Director for Ben Affleck. Last night Chris Terrio‘s Argo screenplay won the Scripter Award. Affleck has also won the DGA award, of course, and Argo has also won the Producer’s Guild Award, the SAG Ensemble award, the Golden Globe award for Best Drama and the Critics Choice award for Best Picture.

With all due respect and compassion, Lincoln and Life of Pi can’t possibly win the Best Picture Oscar. You strongly suspected this before; now you know it for sure. It’s not that they aren’t fine, admirable, well-made films. Clearly they are. But at this stage of the game a vote for Lincoln or Pi is effing wasted. I’m sorry to say this but that’s how it is right now. Voting for Lincoln for Best Picture is like voting for Gus Hall for president back in the ’70s and ’80s. Voting for Life of Pi is like throwing a rock into a mine shaft.

The only question now is “are Academy members content to just drift along and nod out and let Argo take the Best Picture Oscar as everyone expects, or do you have it in you to man up, seize the moment and give it to a film that really (or at least arguably) deserves to be called the very Best Picture of 2012 as opposed to giving it to the most likable or mildly pleasing?”

Yesterday Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone wrote that “the biggest group [within the Academy] has gathered around Argo and there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do about it. The Silver Linings voters won’t switch to Lincoln. The Lincoln voters won’t switch to Silver Linings. The Life of Pi voters won’t switch to Lincoln or Silver Linings.”

But why stick to your Lincoln or Pi guns at this stage? To what end? So you can say to yourself “I refused to budge!…I stuck by my principles!”? That and $1.75 will get you a bus ticket. If you want to make a difference you need to stand up, man up, give it up and cast your vote for the one movie that has a real chance of stealing the Best Picture Oscar away from Argo.

I wish I could say that film is Zero Dark Thirty. It ought to be as it happens to be the toughest, ballsiest, smartest, coolest, bravest and most intriguingly adult film of the year. Which in my book makes it the best. But it’s in the same can’t-possibly-win boat as Lincoln and Life of Pi, sorry to say. I wish it were otherwise.

If you don’t want 2012 to go down as the year of the nicely sculpted but likably congenial Argo, you have to grim up, suck it in and give your vote to Silver Linings Playbook.

Which is a beautifully made, superbly written, perfectly acted film that works on its own terms and delivers an unmistakable emotional current that really stands alone among all the Best Picture contenders. It may not be your absolute favorite, but you know it’s an ace-level touchdown, and you know that the David O. Russell metaphor — a man who has grown up and opened his heart and put his demons behind him and found a way to work lovingly and Zen-style with the very best people in the business — is one that we all know about and should applaud.

So that’s it. Give up your darlings and vote for Silver Linings Playbook or Argo will take the Big Prize. Do you want that? Do you really want that? If you don’t, you know what to do. It’s easy. Just do it, and everyone’s mind will be blown. Including, perhaps, your own.

From a 9.14.12 HE piece: “Argo is basically a movie designed to enthrall, charm, amuse, thrill, move and excite. It’s a comfort-blanket movie that basically says ‘this was the problem, and this is how it was solved…and the guys who made it happen deserve our applause and respect…no?’ Yes, they do. But above all Argo aims to please. It skillfully creates suspense elements that probably weren’t that evident when the story actually went down. And it throws in two or three divorced-father-hangs-with-young-son scenes, and some CIA razmatazz and a few ’80s Hollywood cheeseball jokes and basically lathers it all on.

“If I was a high-school teacher and Argo was a term paper, I would give it an 87 or 88. Okay, an 89. It’s obviously good, but it’s not constructed of the kind of material that ages well. It is not a film that exudes paralyzing bravery or greatness. Like many highly regarded Hollywood films, it adheres to familiar classic centrist entertainment values…and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s very pleasing thing, but it’s a fucking caper film. Boil it down and it’s Ocean’s 11 set in Washington, D.C., L.A. and Tehran of 1978 and ’89 without the money or the flip glamorous vibe or the Clooney-Pitt-Damon-Cheadle combustion.”