This new trailer for Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty (Sony, 12.19) is obviously a huge improvement over the initial teaser, which came out in early August and was greeted with a chorus of yawns and people saying “really?…that’s it?” Good on whoever cut this new one. We now have a film to look forward to. Thank you.

Two musical notes: (a) Today’s ear bug is “Pretty Ballerina,” the 1967 Left Banke single (written by pianist Michael Brown about Renee Fladen) and one of the tunes heard in David Chase‘s Not Fade Away; (b) I’ve argued for years that the doo-wop chorus sung by The Tokens in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is “ah-weem-ah-wepp, ah-weem-ah-wepp” — i.e., “wepp” with a “p” sound. So obvious.

With Ben Affleck‘s Argo opening tomorrow, I’m re-running chunks from two HE riffs about it, one posted during the Telluride Film Festival and the other a pushback thing I ran in mid-September.

(1) “Affleck’s period drama, set during the 1979 and ’80 Iran hostage crisis and based on fact, is a partly light-hearted, partly riveting drama about the rescuing of six American foreign-service workers who had taken shelter in Tehran’s Canadian embassy after the storming of the U.S. embassy and the taking of hostages. An enterprising CIA guy named Tony Mendez (Affleck) devises a plan to hoodwink Iranian officials into believing that these six are filmmakers looking to use Iranian locations for a fake, cheesy-sounding sci-fi film called Argo.

(2) “Argo starts out as a somber docu-drama, and then shifts into a kind of flip jocular vein (especially with the appearance of John Goodman and Alan Arkin as a couple of Hollywood operators who assist Affleck in creating the backstory for the phony film), and then somber again and then sad and then revved again and then really, really tense. In short, it’s smart and absorbing for first two-thirds to three-quarters, but it’s the suspenseful final act that brings it home.

(3) Affleck’s direction “is clean and concise and doesn’t waste time or footage. The screenplay by Chris Terrio is aces. And the cast hits nothing but true notes — Affleck as Mendez, Bryan Cranston as his CIA boss, Arkin and Goodman as the Hollywooders, Victor Garber as Iran’s Canadian ambassador who protected the six when they were hiding in his residence, and Kyle Chandler as the late Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff. And Argo delivers superb period detail all the way through — technology, cars, clothes, haircuts, everything.

(4) “It’s a good, smart, satisfying adult thriller — a story well told and highly suspenseful, for sure. It’s pleasing to see a tough situation resolved through ingenuity and guts, and I’m sure it’ll wind up as a Best Picture contender. I don’t happen to think it’s finally one for the ages, but that’s me. Argo is a well-crafted, highly satisfying caper film with a certain patriotic resonance that basically says ‘job well done, guys…you should be proud.'”

(5) “Argo is further proof that Affleck has clearly, seriously upped his directing game. He really is the new Sydney Pollack, and I say that as someone who knew, enjoyed, occasionally chatted with and deeply respected the director of Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie, The Yakuza, Out of Africa, The Firm, The Way We Were, etc.

(6) “But it’s 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 lathers it all on.

(7) “Yes, that jacked-up suspense finale that ‘works’ but it doesn’t feel genuine. You know it doesn’t. That last nail-biting bit with the police cars hot-dogging the departing jet on the Tehran airport runway? Standard Hollywood bullshit.

(8) “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 doesn’t exude paralyzing 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 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.”

A DVD Beaver screen capture of the new Rosemary’s Baby Bluray reveals an error I’ve never seen before. In the glass on a washing machine door you’ll notice a reflection of one of those old-fashioned studio lights on a pedestal. Definitely a major screwup, especially from a perfection freak like Roman Polanski. Hey, Roman, if you’re reading from Paris — why didn’t you and your Criterion homies digitally correct this? I would have.

DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze calls the Criterion Bluray (out 10.30) ” a great release that doesn;t disappoint…the image quality has wonderful film grain textures and contrast is at Criterion’s usual hallmark standard. Everything is sharper and the more intense colors breathe new life in the viewing presentation.”

There’s an Azazel Jacobs film being assembled called The Grace That Keeps This World. Deadline‘s Mike Fleming reports that Glenn Close, James Franco and Brit Marling will costar, and I can tell you right now that any movie title using the word “grace” is looking for grief.

A movie with “grace” in the title means “watch out…here comes something precious.” Joe and Jane Popcorn, trust me, will avoid this film like the plague if and when it comes to the local plex (which it probably won’t — the title screams “Sundance darling” and “VOD”). Yes, the excellent Maria Full Of Grace was a must-see, but Joe and Jane ignored it. Grace is Gone, Grace Quiqley, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea…”grace” on a marquee is an omen of cancer.

Fleming’s story says Matthew Aldrich‘s script (based on Tom Bailey‘s book) “follows a father and his sons as they prepare for the upcoming hunting season,” blah blah. And that “family conflicts arise when a rookie environmental cop begins an investigation of hunting violations that reveals a family divided by their life choices,” blah blah. They’ll be better off calling this thing Hunting Season, bad as that sounds.

Jacobs’ last film was Terri, about John C. Reilly dealing with a morbidly obese 15 year-old (Jacob Wysocki).

As everyone knows, Flight (Paramount, 11.2) is about a brilliant airline pilot getting raked over the coals and threatened with prison because he had booze in his system when he heroically saved his passengers from death. The metaphor, clearly, is about the nature of genius in all of its forms, including creative. The movie basically says “don’t fuck with creatives or you’ll look like an asshole.”

Geniuses roll how they roll. Geniuses make and live by their own rules. They don’t play the game like obedient little mice, and if you want geniuses to work for you or your company, you’re going to have to put up with their peculiarities and their crap.

Of course, most people in business, government and management refuse to understand this and are always trying to discipline geniuses for not playing by the rules and not behaving in a straight and narrow fashion. Most people, in short, are Salieris to the Mozarts in their realm. In this sense Flight is a kind of Hollywood metaphor — a big eff you to corporate owners and studio execs who think they’re running things and don’t realize they aren’t running anything — they’re just empty, egoistic, overpaid poseurs.

The people who really make this town tick are the geniuses, and so eff all the suits and officials who’ve ever made miserable the lives of the truly gifted, starting with Orson Welles back in the ’40s.

The great Harris Savides is dead & gone. For me, Savides’ cinematography was as breathtaking and cutting-edge as it got. His mostly-digital work on David Fincher‘s Zodiac is probably his greatest achievement. Right after that I would put Ridley Scott‘s American Gangster and Sofia Coppola‘s Somewhere in the #2 and #3 slots, followed by his 1.33 lensings of Gus Van Sant‘s Elephant and Last Days (which hopefully gave indigestion to Bob Furmanek and all the other 1.85ers).

And then Fincher’s The Game, which can be freshly appreciated on a Criterion Bluray. And then, in my opinion, comes his work on Noah Baumbach‘s Greenberg and Margot at the Wedding. And then James Gray‘s The Yards. Savides’ last film, I gather, was Sofia Coppola‘s The Bling Ring.

Savides, 55, lived in Manhattan with his wife Medine and daughter Sophie. Hugs and condolences to family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and fans.

Most of the industry people I wrote this morning about the possible cause (“What the hell happened?”) didn’t answer, although a director friend says “he had a long-term ailment.”
It’s a too-soon deal any way you slice it. Who dies at this relatively young age? If you’re a well-paid film industry guy with ample medical insurance and the right attitude about diet and exercise…it doesn’t matter. Anyone who lasts into their 70s or 80s or ’90s does so, to a certain extent, out of genetic good fortune.

9:55 am Update: The lack of reader responses to Mark Harris‘s interview with Lincoln director Steven Spielberg and star Daniel Day Lewis isn’t surprising. What are they going to say? What is the highly intelligent and always perceptive Harris going to ask? You know before listening that it’s going to be the usual modesty soup and “here’s how it all started” and “I was humbled and honored and more than a little scared” and blah blah blah.

In a 10.9 q & a with Jay Penske, L.A. Times guy Ben Fritz notes that “many staffers at Variety are understandably nervous about what [Penske Media’s] purchase means for them,” and asks Penske, “Do you expect there will be layoffs or staffing changes? Do you intend to invest in the editorial side of Variety?”

Penske’s reply: “We are not buying Variety to gut the newsroom, we are buying the business to build it. Are there going to be changes? Yes. Do we want to reduce our dependency on print revenues? Yes. How quickly can that happen? We’ll know more in the coming months.”

Last night I attended a serene, high-altitude screening-and-supper party for David Chase‘s Not Fade Away (Paramount Vantage, 12.21). It was at the Laurel Canyon home of elite sound mixers John and Nancy Ross, and was filled with journalists, Paramount publicity staffers, filmmakers and, of course, the Not Fade Away guys — Chase, James Gandolfini, exec producer and music maestro Steven Van Zandt and costars Bella Heathcote and John Magaro, among others.

Not Fade Away costars John Magaro, Bella Heathcote at last night’s gathering — Tuesday, 10.9, 9:55 pm.

Not Fade Away director-writer David Chase.

Not Fade Away exec producer Steven Van Zandt, Paramount publicist David Waldman.

I haven’t written a review but I respect Not Fade Away for its authenticity — it’s largely a personal-recollection saga drawn from Chase’s own history — and the grounded musical current. It’s basically a 60s cover-band saga than runs from late ’63 to early ’68 (and not the summer of ’67, as one or two NY-based critics indicated) about growing up and romance and failure and digging in and moving on.

Magaro (also in Liberal Arts) plays a New Jersey kid who starts a band with some pallies and experiences moderate success and struggle while going through all the changes that everyone else did in the mid’ 60s. (No LSD satori though.) Gandolfini plays his hard-assed, bluntly phrased, disapproving dad. Heathcote (Dark Shadows) plays Magaro’s free-spirited, highly perceptive lover and comrade.

Van Zandt told me that the Not Fade Away soundtrack album with have about 20 or 24 tracks, and will be out sometime in late November or thereabouts.

I asked Vam Zandt if he’s interested in the Pono, Neil Young’s new digital music device that will deliver vinyl-level sound. He didn’t know about it. Chase didn’t know about it either. I don’t know squat about it myself except that (a) it’s supposed to deliver a much greater dynamic range than CDs or mp3s, (b) a lot of classic material is being remastered for the Pono, and (c) the player will cost a shitload.

As with many films, Not Fade Away was once a lot lengthier than its final-release version. Van Zandt said it was three hours at one point. I for one would love to see the long version when it comes out on Bluray/DVD. Not Fade Away tells a long and detailed story in terms of the many characters and time span, and I’m sure loads of good material was cut out. And the long version has no narration, I was told. (I’m frankly not a fan of any narration in any film, if it can be avoided.)

Crappy audio but this riff is really beautiful. You can really feel the rhythm and the smarts and the joy. And it’s apparently, lamentably the kind of thing that stiff-necked, chickenshit, teleprompter Barry doesn’t have in him.