Two days ago I shared my Albuquerque-to-Telluride driving itinerary, and only one guy — CMed1 — pointed out that 550 north to Durango is the fastest way of all. I did some checking and realized this was so. Three to four hours driving time. So no more Chama — that’s history. Thanks loads to all the experienced, knowledgable drivers who’ve travelled between these two cities and failed to mention the 550, and thanks especially to CMed1.

Yesterday’s “They Just Knew” post began with Fred Zinnemann‘s story about the August 6, 1953 opening of From Here to Eternity. 15 months ago I ran an update about Sony Home Video’s long-delayed Eternity Bluray. The high-def restoration was done in the summer of ’09 by Grover Crisp. A print was shown at the Academy in the fall of ’09 and then at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. In May 2010 I reported that Sony intended to release the Eternity Bluray in late 2011, but that’s been pushed back to sometime in 2012.

Or, you know, whenever somebody finally says “okay, let’s put it out there, for eff’s sake. Three years of collecting dust on a shelf is enough.”

I have a suggestion that Sony execs will appreciate, I’m sure, because it’ll save them a lot of money. Never release the From Here To Eternity Bluray. Just forget about it. Just put it aside and keep it aside. This 1953 film never existed, the eight Oscars it won weren’t really deserved…just forget the whole thing and license it for high-def streaming on Hulu and Netflix and concentrate on releasing 21st Century Blurays that’ll make more money anyway.

Where did this idea about movies acting as shared-memory experiences, aesthetic-worship rituals and/or opportunities for spiritual nourishment come from anyway? You’re running a business, Sony Home Video, and that’s how you need to play your cards. If a Bluray isn’t likely to bring in a healthy profit that will impress Sony stockholders, fuhgedaboutit.

And people whose lives are, in their minds, basically about finding spiritual fulfillment and deliverance after they’re dead are ridiculous figures. They’re certainly appalling. The only reason religions are good for society is that they keep the nutters (i.e. those who would otherwise be seeking solace in alcohol or drugs or in the ravings of some antisocial cult leader) in line, and they instill a sense of moral order and temperance among people who lack the intelligence or drive or hunger to seek spiritual satori on their own.

Make it easy for Gaddafi to leave office and don’t threaten to go after him. If you say “we’re coming after you when you leave, we’re going to put you on trial in the Hague and make your life hell”…where’s the incentive for him to leave? Then again “if I leave I won’t get killed” is a pretty good incentive.

In my 4.9.11 Sidney Lumet obit I insisted that “Lumet’s masterpiece is Prince of the City — a nearly three-hour-long drama about the morality of finking out your friends in order to find your morality, and entirely about New York cops and mob guys and district attorneys and junkies, most of it set in the offices of this or that prosecutor with guys dressed in suits and shirtsleeves with cold takeout food and tepid coffee on the desk.”

I was therefore delighted to come upon Steven Santos‘ two-part video essay about this 1981 drama, which opened 30 years ago today.

“Lumet is fascinated by the logic behind corruption,” Santos writes. “What is the thought process that causes people to lose their way? The key to Lumet’s success in exploring this theme is the degree to which he does not pass black and white judgment on his characters. The more we see ourselves reflected in people who justify their amoral actions, the more Lumet has made these people human. While Q & A and Night Falls on Manhattan admirably try to explore the gray zone of morality and corruption, it is Prince of the City that is Sidney Lumet’s masterwork on that theme.

“While Prince of the City has many admirers, the film has not gotten its due for its influence on the genre or the complexity with which it presents its subject matter. I consider it to be the Sidney Lumet film to watch to fully understand who he is as a director, a summation of all his work. With its large cast, the film creates a detailed world with communities of lawyers, gangsters, drug addicts and cops. At the center of it all is a performance by Treat Williams that ranks among the best, comparable to the greatest work of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, actors originally considered for the role.”

Here’s part 2.

Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass, a thriller about some baddie-waddies kidnapping a well-to-do couple (Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman), will play mid-September at the Toronto Film Festival, open theatrically on 10.14.11 and then…wham, hit the Bluray shelves on 11.1, only two and a half weeks later. That’s pretty much a straight-to-Bluray release with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it theatrical pit stop. Have Cage or Kidman ever starred in an almost-straight-to-video flick before?

Congrats again to Sony Pictures Classics on its announcement that Woody Allen ‘s Midnight in Paris has surpassed $50 million at the domestic box office — $50,062,843, to be exact. It’s now Allen’s biggest all-time North American earner even more so. If, that is, you don’t adjust the grosses of Annie Hall (’78), Manhattan (’79) and Hannah and Her Sisters (’86) for inflation. If you do that, as I pointed out on 7.18, their respective earnings are $135,027,530, $129,427,567 and $80,568,922. But there’s nothing wrong with popping the champagne over Paris. Good show all around.

If the Big Lebowski Bluray has been DNR’ed or edge-enhanced, as DVDBeaver’s Gary Tooze and Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kauffman have charged, then give me more of that. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s stoner classic has never looked so luscious or micro-detailed. The values are richer and more robust than I’ve ever seen in any format, including the damp celluloid print that I saw in a screening room 13 and 1/2 years ago. It’s perfect, delicious, a must-own.

Director Fred Zinnemann was in Los Angeles when From Here To Eternity opened at New York’s Capitol theatre on August 6, 1953. He was a bit worried about an August opening since it was very hot and muggy and the Capitol had no air-conditioning back then. For whatever reason Columbia chief Harry Cohn had decided to open the film quietly. “No premiere, no limousines, nothing,” Zinneman later recalled.

And then Marlene Dietrich, whom Zinnemann barely knew, called from New York at 9 pm Pacific. “She said it was midnight there but the Capitol theatre was bulging,” he said, “and that people were still standing around the block and there was an extra performance starting at one in the morning. ‘How is that possible?,’ Zinneman asked Dietrich. ‘There’s been no publicity!’ And Dietrich said ‘they smell it.'”

What films have opened like this over the last 10 or 15 or 20 years? I’m looking for stories as good as Zinneman’s. Movies that had decent promotion but not massive ad buys or big hoopla or even talk-show tours by stars…but people somehow sensed they had to see them. I remember the first weekend of Silence of the Lambs. Sold-out shows, lines around the block…all of that.

Note: I found Zinneman’s story on page 631 of “Frank: The Voice“, by James Kaplan.

Nicholas Winding Refn‘s Drive “is stylistically inspired with beautiful cinematography, perfect balance, steely cool grit and truly hilarious gore, and many silent eye-contact moments that are ten times sexier than any steamy motel romp,” writes HE’s part-time Manhattan correspondent Jett Wells. “Not only is this the coolest movie I’ve seen all year, but it’s the best thing Ryan Gosling has ever done.

Carey Mulligan, Ryan Gosling

“There are many things about his nameless character that throw you off. Masked by his half-man, half-machine attitude, Gosling is a quiet gentleman filled with pain and loneliness but who transforms into a V-12 diesel beast behind the wheel. It’s humbling watching Gosling’s character just trying to mind his own business but having to kick ass when he has to, but he still has no idea what he’s doing. There are little moments in his body-language (and his character is 98 per cent body language) that show you he’s screaming in his head, ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!’ And I love that sense of false bravado..

“It’s all in the artful contrasts that Refn uses with music, attitude and the lighting — I can honestly say I’ve never felt so happy to see so much blood mixed with long soulful stares and girl-lead electro-pop. There are so many smart, subtle subtext moments running side by side with tense and gripping chase scenes and classic noir moments.

“Not only does Refn capture some aesthetically gorgeous cinematic shots, but it pushes the noir genre into a quieter, hipper zip code. Sure, I can’t count how many dark mysterious-loner-hero movies I’ve seen, but Refn and Gosling have really done something different here, and I attribute a lot of that to Hossein Amini‘s screenplay (based on James Sallis‘ novel) and the soundtrack featuring Kavinsky and College.

“I’m on the Gosling bandwagon. A lot of actors make like they’re hard-working, but no one totes the rock like Gosling these days (if you ignore Crazy, Stupid Love).