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Like everyone else I’m feeling moderately excited about Tetro dp Mihai Malaimare Jr. not only shooting Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master, but partly in 65mm. My understanding of the view of most dps (including Roger Deakins) is that 65mm doesn’t deliver anything above and beyond what today’s digital can provide. So shooting in 65mm is either a sentimental gesture on Anderson’s part or it’s being used to compose FX shots.

Will I have to drive down to Newport Beach or Costa Mesa to see The Undefeated, the pro-Sarah Palin documentary, when it opens on 7.15? I’m presuming that the distributor, Cinedigm Digital Cinema, won’t be screening it for Los Angeles-area journos…right? Deadline is reporting that Stephen K. Bannon‘s film will open in other red-access burghs like Dallas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, Indianapolis and Kansas City.

AMC Theatres will be the exclusive exhibitor of The Undefeated. Pic was produced by Victory Film Group and “financed independently,” Deadline reports.

I’m expecting Steve McQueen‘s Shame, a film about a Manhattan guy (Michael Fassbender) coping with porn/sex addiction, to be some kind of exception, especially with Carey Mulligan playing his frazzled-flaky sister. And I’m not just coasting on a presumption that the guy who directed Hunger must be on the stick. I’m also impressed by the fact that Shame began shooting only about 14 weeks ago, and it’s already locked into the Venice Film Festival.

Shame costars Nicole Beharie, Michael Fassbender.

Six months between the first day of shooting and the first festival viewing! That’s not as fast as Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder (which began shooting on 3.23.59, wrapped on 5.15.59 and opened on 7.2.59) but a quick turnaround is an indication, I believe, that a film is going to be tight and true with no crapping around.

Does this mean that movies that take forever to shoot and spend a year or so in editing are generally troublesome, or at the very least will be trying to sit through? Obviously not. There have been many, many justifications and/or exceptions to the “rule”, if you want to call it that. (The glorious first 40 minutes of The Tree of Life, George Stevens‘ Shane, Howard Hawks‘ Red River, etc.) But really long shooting schedules and editing periods do, I believe, tend to indicate that the director shot the film with an uncertain focus about what the film would or should eventually be. Sometimes (often?) this can result in a somewhat diffuse or fuzzy-minded or sprawling final cut.

I realize that holding to an overly rigid concept of what a film (or a play, painting, book, song, article) is supposed to be can in some instances lead to mediocrity. At some point the work starts telling you what it is instead of vice versa, and artists who can’t or won’t listen to this process are almost certainly second-raters. But speaking as a viewer, I generally feel better about films that have been made and punched out without too much muss or fuss. You know what I mean. The get-it-done John Ford or Clint Eastwood or Takashi Miike approach as opposed to Terrence Malick‘s.

Movies that have been made quickly or slowly are not necessarily better or worse, but as Hank Worden said in Red River, “I don’t like it when things go too good or when things go too bad…I like ’em in between.”

I’m presuming, of course, that Shame (which costars Nicole Beharie) will play at the Toronto Film Festival as well as the Venice Film Festival.

On 6.17 I noted that the 50th anniversary Ben-Hur Bluray will, of course, arrive almost 52 years after William Wyler‘s film opened on 11.18.59. In response Warner Home Video’s Ronnee Sass has forwarded the following statement from Warner Home Video exec vp Jeff Baker:

“At WB we are more than acutely aware of the age of Ben-Hur — i.e., 52 in 2011. It was our intention to release this film in Blu-ray in 2009, but the film restoration was complex, and the 8K scan was the optimal solution vs. 2K or 4K, therefore we took our time and did it right to deliver the best possible resolution for the consumer. Therefore we are celebrating the 50th anniversary in 2011, and considering that it is more than 50 years, we do not see this as being disingenuous, particularly due to the circumstances surrounding this restoration. After all, we are not advancing the clock and celebrating the 55th or 60th.”

The Ben-Hur restoration, just to be clear, was completed from an 8k scan of the original 65mm camera negative, with a 6k finish making this the highest resolution restoration ever completed by Warner Bros.

I tried to get into a couple of Guard screenings at Sundance…couldn’t. Tried to make an LA screening last week…didn’t. Want to attend a screening next Monday evening (6.13)…we’ll see how that goes. Something is holding me back.

From my 9.13 Toronto Film Festival review: “Who in Errol Morris‘s Tabloid can you believe? Or rather, who do you want to believe? Or what slant on the Tabloid story do you feel better about accepting as probable truth?

“That’s the key consideration, I think. Apart from the fact that everyone should try to see this deliciously entertaining, thoroughly bizarre comedy doc.”

Tabloid will ostensibly open via Sundance Selects on 7.15 (although you’d never it from the website).

On 5.27 I described Elle Fanning‘s big moment in Super 8 — a moment that suspends the film in a kind of crush vibe for about 30 or 40 seconds.

N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott agrees. Having joined the cast of a super-8 zombie movie called The Case, Fanning’s Alice character delivers “the best moment in both that movie and Super 8, a scene in which Ms. Fanning and her character, in different ways, demonstrate their impressive acting chops.”

The assumption is that all slips of the tongue are 100% Freudian — that all accidental utterances are very much on the speaker’s mind. I guess there’s no other explanation. I love the pleading look (“No…tell me I didn’t just say that!”) flashing on the face of WDBJ anchor Holly Pietrzak. Uploaded on 6.8; famous forever.

Last night’s Super 8 premiere offered (a) a spritzy party vibe inside the Fox Village lobby and theatre before the film began (i.e., roam-around, schmooze-around) and (b) a post-premiere outdoor street soiree with all kinds of Middle-American munch food (corndogs, taters, Fatburgers). I chatted with director JJ Abrams and almost everyone else except costars Elle Fanning, who apparently left the after-party early on, and Kyle Chandler.

Elle Fanning facing shouting-animal paparazzi prior to last night’s Super 8 premiere screening at Westwood’s Fox Village — Thursday, 6.8, 6:55 pm.

Super 8 producer Steven Spielberg came to the screening (black garb, black baseball hat, white hair) but didn’t attend the party.

I spoke before the screening to Transformers: Dark of the Moon director Michael Bay about the Chicago wing flyers he used for his upcoming film, and my theory that most people don’t really believe anything they see on the screen these days, etc. He told me about the 3-D helmet cameras that he used to shoot the stunt flyers, and expressed interest in my Canon Elph 300 (which I always have slung around my neck). My parting comment was a recommendation that he see Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Drive.

Super 8 costar Ben Gavin (who plays one of the deputies), star Joel Courtney during the wind-down phase of outdoor Super 8 after-party.

Pete Hammond, Super 8 director JJ Abrams.

(l. to r.) Super 8 costars Gabriel Basso, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee.

Thursday, 6.8, 9:45 pm

Tom Cruise, Elle Fanning — pic stolen from Huffington Post Entertainment page.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon director Michael Bay

Super 8 costar Jessica Tuck, whose looking-out-the-window-at-Joe moment at the very beginning provides Super 8‘s first emotional touchstone.

Super 8 costars Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning.

I’m not saying TotalFilm‘s Jamie Graham is necessarily a guy to listen to, but why the mysterious shroud of silence hanging over those Bad Teacher screenings that happened last weekend? I only know that the trailer-fed optimism of early May seems to be ebbing.