It’s perfectly allowable to take shots at Get Low and thereby lower its Rotten Tomatoes rating to 88 and Metacritic rating to 78. But I’m having trouble comprehending how any critic could say to himself or herself, “Wow, this film really deserves to be slammed and I’m going to tear it a new asshole.” I know that feeling and the qualities that tend to motivate it, and, trust me, Get Low doesn’t deal those kind of cards.

(l. to r.) Bill Murray, Lucas Black, Robert Duvall in Aaron Schneider’s Get Low

Aaron Schneider‘s period drama is one of those laid-back fable movies — not quite “real” but carefully done and honestly rendered as far as it goes and therefore real enough. Set in 1938 backwoods Tennessee, it feels polite and quiet and connected to the gentler aspects of life. There are no sudden jolts in the story, and no child molester characters, no malicious toothless hillbillies or murderers or moonshiners, no shotgun yokels, etc. It takes its time and doesn’t push too hard (although some of it feels a little on-the-nose), and knows what it’s doing every step of the way.

Get Low is a restrained and atmospheric soft-shoe shuffle about regret, decency, nightmares and making amends, and about one ornery old dawg (very nicely played by Robert Duvall) finding a measure of peace at the end of the road. It’s about clean, elegant dialogue and exceptional, pitch-perfect acting all around, especially from Duvall, Bill Murray (as a considerate, fair-minded, moderately greedy undertaker with a certain Murrayish wit about him), Lucas Black (as Murray’s solemn assistant) and Sissy Spacek (as the sister of Duvall’s…I’d better not say). It’s slowishly paced, but fittingly for the time period and milieu.

The sharpshooters, some of whom are fans of Todd Solondz (if you catch my drift), are primarily complaining that Get Low is too mushy, too cornball, too formulaic, too folksy, too obvious, too unsubtle, too underlined. For them, they mean. They wanted a less conventional, less recognizable, more off-kilter sort of deal.

Well, I know from mushy, cornball, formulaic, folksy, obvious, unsubtle and underlined, and trust me, these guys are being way too picky. Get Low flirts with a faintly cornball vibe from time to time, but the nip-nippers are almost accusing it of being Mayberry R.F.D., and that’s ridiculous. Its a lot closer to the kind of material that the late Horton Foote used to write.

The fact that Get Low will almost certainly wind up as one of the ten Best Picture nominees is especially bothersome to some. Slant‘s Nick Schager writes that “one can practically hear the Oscar telecast’s orchestral music cuing up at the close of Robert Duvall’s every scene in Get Low, what with his role — as a mysterious hermit in 1930s Tennessee who plans to stage his own funeral before his death — the type that’s been designed, down to its measured beats of dialogue, to garner year-end accolades.”

Maybe so, but I know when a film is being relatively honest and straight-shooting and doing everything it can to get it right by taking things down a notch and not forcing the issue, and Get Low is one of those films.

I got stuck on a story late yesterday afternoon and consequently missed my last shot at seeing Scott Pilgrim vs The World (Universal, 8.13) for free. Okay, maybe I half-wanted to miss it due to serious concerns about sitting through another default, deadpan, deer-in-the-headlights Michael Cera performance.

Michael Cera (l.), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (second from left) and the cast of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (including Allison Pill, second from right).

It’s gotten to the point where the very thought of Cera and that annoying look on his face — a look that says (a) “Uhhm, do I want to be here?,” (b) “My mind is slightly blown but I’m also kinda bored at the same time,” (c) “Whoa, she’s kinda hot” and (d) “It’s not easy being the hippest, most deapanny guy in the room” — will make my jaw tighten and my teeth start to grind.

But the mostly positive reviews for the film, especially the one by Cinematical‘s Todd Gilchrist, have convinced me that I erred in semi-consciously blowing off last night’s screening. Scott Pilgrim is some kind of generational event flick, and anyone with any pretensions to being half-aware of movies as diviners of cultural currents has to see it and deal with it. It’s possible that I’ll hate it, but it has to be seen.

My son Jett got to the 6 pm Lincoln Square Scott Pilgrim all-media on time, saw it and liked it. I asked him to bang out a couple of graphs.

“If you grew up with Super Mario, Nintendo and Atari, you’ll be in sync with the humor in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” he wrote last night. “It’s a love story structured like a video game in the cutthroat world of dating when you’re 18 to 24 years old. Before you jump into this flick you’re going to have to think video-game rules — second lives, Japanese anime fight sequences, magical powers, and the possibility that anyone, including Michael Cera, can kick the shit out of you.

“I’m calling it the funniest movie of the year, thanks in part to great performances by Cera, Alison Pill and Kieran Culkin. Try to imagine snarky humor in the style of Speed Racer and Dragon Ball Z, and you’ll come close to the chemistry I’m speaking of.

“Can’t buy into the idea that a guy has to fight off seven evil ex-boyfriends to win the girl of his dreams? If so you’re being too literal. Scott Pilgrim unfolds in a realm like any video game you might play today, which always has a sequence of levels and evil bosses you must defeat in order to win the game. Either you get this or you don’t, and guys like Rex Reed probably won’t.

“If you look past the video game motifs, the story’s jabout a wimpy 22-year old boy in love with a tough guarded girl with a rocky past. But otherwise forget about the absurdity — it’s beside the point.”

Update: I’ve learned that last night wasn’t my last shot at seeing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for free. There are five more press screenings on 7.29, 8.2, 8.4, 8.9 and 8.11.

MTV.com is reporting that Radar Online has posted a non-attributable quote from a source close to Leonardo DiCaprio saying there’s “not a chance” that Leo will star in Mel Gibson‘s untitled Viking movie, for obvious reasons.

Okay, Biutiful may not be a Sony Classics movie after all, I heard today. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t, but don’t bet the farm. Sometimes the winds shift.

A forthcoming Bluray combo-pack of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (Universal Home Video, 9.21) will include a director’s cut running 156 minutes, or 15 minutes longer than the 141-minute theatrical version. The question, of course, is whether the extra length will make it a stronger film or just another case of directorial indulgence or lost “darlings.” Scott’s longer version of Kingdom of Heaven was, of course, far superior to the theatrical cut, so here’s hoping.

The only officially announced Venice Film Festival selections that seem even vaguely pulse-quickening are Juian Schnabel‘s Miral, Vincent Gallo‘s Promises Written in Water (nice title), Tom Tykwer‘s Three, Ben Affleck‘s The Town (out of competition), Casey Affleck‘s I’m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix (ditto), Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones‘ A Letter to Elia (ditto), and John Turturro‘s Passione (ditto).

This recently released trailer for Titanic 2: Electric Boogaloo is not a mash-up. It’s selling an actual, honest-to-God, straight-to-DVD movie about a second Titanic hitting a second iceberg. The stars are Bruce Davison and Brooke Burns. Okay, I’m kidding about the Boogaloo but everything else is genuine. Really.

Asylum will be releasing Titanic 2….wait, is it Titanic 2, Titanic II, or Titanic 2: The Asylum Version? Or Clash of the Titanics? Anyway, it’s out on 8.24.

HE takes its hat off to Titanic 2‘s director, screenwriter and costar Shane Van Dyke. He’s 30 years old, 6’3″ and the grandson of Dick Van Dyke and grand-nephew of Jerry Van Dyke. Making such a film and getting it distributed took balls of steel.

I was talking a while back about Kenneth Branagh throwing up each and every day in his hotel room during the making of Thor. Can you imagine what poor Bruce Davison must have been feeling during production?

The production reportedly used the Queen Mary in Long Beach so “play” the Titanic II or…you know, the actual ship.

According to DVD Beaver’s Gary Tooze, Criterion’s forthcoming Bluray of Terry Zwigoff‘s Crumb “has bright colors, heavy grain and looks far more film-like than either of the previous Sony DVDs (1999 and 2006 Special Edition). However, I don’t know that it is a film that benefits extensively from the move to Bluray 1080p.”

Wells translation: Who’s running the show over there? They take a funky little film like Crumb and Bluray it? Why?

Back to Tooze: “Although saying that, it is true that much of the comic art and facial close-ups can look surprisingly impressive in the higher resolution.

Wells translation: Well, I have to say something nice about the Bluray upgrade…right? Gotta keep my relationships at par.

Back to Tooze: “Crumb is not a viewing experience that one will recall for its striking appearance but the Criterion HD does support the ‘rustic’ feel of the film’s content. It is dual-layered with a very high video bitrate and colors seem brighter and truer than SD could relate. Skin tones seem warm and contrast exhibits healthy black levels. One must surely feel that this Blu-ray exports the most honest original representation of this amusing, thought-provoking and, sometimes, painful portrait.”

Wells comment: In other words, the decision to put out Crumb in Bluray was at best quizzical and at worst pointless. What does it cost to master a film for Bluray? $100 grand? Less? I would have much preferred a Bluray of Downhill Racer over Crumb.

If nothing else I’m guessing that the Crumb Bluray is a way for the Criterion grain monks to flex their muscles, strut their stuff and remind the world what they’re still in the game and not backing off an inch. The Grainmakers!

On the left, a 31 or 32 year-old Jeff Bridges in a scene from Tron (’82). On the right, a CG plastic-surgery version of “young” Bridges in the forthcoming Tron Legacy. The latter was achieved by youthing down the present-day Bridges, 60, with digital scrubs and touchups. Except the result doesn’t really look like Bridges. It looks like a cross between a celebrity lookalike and a Bridges dummy you might find inside Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. It’s a lazy effort.

Jeff Bridges in Tron; 60 year-old Bridges de-aged through CG scrub-down in Tron Legacy.

Imagine how cool it would have been if Bridges had been convincingly youthified — if the 31 or 32-year-old version had literally been brought back to life. For “real.” I don’t know enough about CG techniques to speak with authority but I know a thing or two about what’s possible. And if you ask me director Joseph Kosinski should have told his team to digitally copy and re-work frame images from various Bridges’ films in the late ’70s and early ’80s and then integrate them into Tron Legacy. That way we’d be looking at Bridges as he actually appeared nearly 30 years ago.

I was told a few months ago that Kosinski is “the new James Cameron.” And I’m starting to doubt that. Cameron would have never settled for this.

The Pursuitist has posted the trailer for Kenneth Branagh‘s Thor that was shown a few days ago at Comic-Con. Branagh + Thor = whore. You can’t tell me that an esteemed middle-aged British actor-director who knows from William Shakespeare did this film for any other reason than a large stinking paycheck, or that he didn’t retire to his hotel room every night during shooting and throw up.

Look at Chris Hemsworth — the brawn, the blonde hair, the Nolte-Schwarzenegger facial structure, the non-Barrymore-esque profile. He’s friendly and amiable and smiling in interviews (naturally), but he’s another Australian workout ape from Gold’s Gym. And poor Natalie Portman, pretending to be flirtatious and turned on by the whole comic-book superhero perversion. (“It might be tedious but I’ve been well paid!”) And Anthony Hopkins, the absolute whore of whores playing another bearded father of another powerful but tortured legend in the wake of Beowulf and The Wolfman.

And finally, look at the trailer. Listen to the soundtrack when Thor/Hemsworth arches his back and hows at the unfairness of things by going “Aaahrrrrgh!” Hell is not other people — hell is movies like this with the same old ingredients, time and time again. This is why I fantasized about strafing the Comic-Con faithful, because they support films like this and clamor for more.

Paramount will release Thor in 3D on 5.11.11.

Yeesterday Cinematical‘s Eric Snider posted a hilarious review of the trailer for Ben Affleck‘s The Town, which will debut on this continent at the Toronto Film Festival. Snider should do a separate trailer-reviewing column. Here’s a portion:

“‘From the acclaimed director of Gone Baby Gone…’ The acclaimed director of Gone Baby Gone happens to be a fellow named Ben Affleck, who also happens to be the star of The Town. You think, ‘Why wouldn’t they just say, ‘From acclaimed director Ben Affleck’?’ Then you realize you’ve answered your own question.

“‘… and the studio that brought you The Departed.’ Obviously, we’re supposed to notice that The Town, like The Departed, is set among criminal types in Boston; therefore The Town must be as good as The Departed. The fact that they came from the same studio confirms it! But think about it. The studio. Not the director, the writer, or even the producer. Just the studio. Saying that The Town is from the studio that brought you The Departed is like saying ice cream is from the species that brought you corduroy.”

Apocalypse Now cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is (in)famous for having long insisted upon cropping Apocalypse Now, originally filmed in 35mm widescreen Panavision at an aspect ratio of 2.35 to 1, to a somewhat less wide shape — either a 2.00 to 1 aspect ratio (which are the dimensions of Storaro’s Univisium system, which he would like to see adopted as a universal standard) or a 70mm aspect ratio of 2.21 to 1.

But now the gates have been stormed and Vittorio’s rule has been overturned. Lionsgate announced today that the forthcoming Apocalypse Now Bluray, set for release on 10.19, will be presented in 2.35 to 1. Yes!

Francis Coppola‘s legendary 1979 film was shown in the 70mm widescreen aspect ratio (2.21 to 1) during its initial engagements in big-city theatres, and then in the wider 35mm aspect ratio when it went into general release. But on Apocalypse Now DVDs (including the Redux version), Storaro standards have prevailed with the image cropped to either 2.21 to 1 or 2.00 to 1. I was never entirely sure which one it was, but I know two things: (a) it was boxier (i.e., a certain percentage of the sides sliced off), and (b) a lot of people in the elite home video community have been pissed at Storaro for years about this. So Lionsgate’s decision has almost made Storaro into a kind of metaphor for Nicolae Ceaucescu escaping Budapest in a helicopter in late December 1989.

As HE’s Moises Chiullan put it earlier today, “Our long 2.20:1 nightmare, begun by the otherwise-brilliant Vittorio Storaro, is at last over — on this picture, at least.”

There will be two Bluray versions of Apocalypse Now available from Lionsgate: (1) a 2-disc two-film set, which contains the 1979 and Redux versions, old extras and some new ones, and (2) a 3-disc full disclosure edition, which duplicates everything in the two-film set and adds George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr‘s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, more extras, a 48-page booklet, and yaddah-yaddah.