Positive & negative reviews be damned — the public has already decided to give Shutter Island a strong opening weekend. Definite interest of 46 and 53 among under-25 and over-25 males, respectively, and a surprisingly high 44 and 40 among under-25 and over-25 females. Go figure.

Marlon Brando‘s decision to briefly pause between the words “to” and “fight” in this clip constituted the only moment of wit or subtlety in an otherwise bombastic and broadly emphatic film. Which I’d nonetheless like to see on Bluray some day. Warner Home Video has already mastered for HD-DVD — why not just offer it on Bluray? All 70mm and VistaVision films of the ’50s and ’60s need to turn up in this format, even the somewhat mediocre ones.

The above-quoted dialogue can be found at 6:24.

I’ve been punched, kicked and spat upon, but never face-slapped. I take that back — a pretty blonde who’d had a few drinks slapped me during a high-school party once. But that was eons ago. I suspect that face slaps are mainly a movie thing because they look and sound highly dramatic. I don’t believe people actually slap each other in real life. I’ve almost never seen it happen, nor have I ever heard of it happening.

That said, this clip from Charley Varrick is one of strangest slap scenes of all time.

A quote from Leonardo DiCaprio in the current Esquire goes hand in hand with the Roger Ebert profile, if you think about it: “When I was eighteen, River Phoenix was far and away my hero. Think of all those early great performances — My Own Private Idaho. Stand by Me. I always wanted to meet him. One night, I was at this Halloween party, and he passed me. He was beyond pale — he looked white. Before I got a chance to say hello, he was gone, driving off to the Viper Room, where he fell over and died. That’s a lesson.”

Chris Jones‘ profile of Roger Ebert, one of the most perceptive and deeply moving pieces I’ve read about anyone, is in the current Esquire. Here are portions:

“Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can’t remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn’t happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn’t as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz’s ear.

“The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren’t they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

“He [once] lived his life through microphones. But now everything he says must be written, either first on his laptop and funneled through speakers or, as he usually prefers, on some kind of paper. His new life is lived through Times New Roman and chicken scratch. So many words, so much writing — it’s like a kind of explosion is taking place on the second floor of his brownstone.

“It’s not the food or the drink he worries about anymore, but how many more words he can get out in the time he has left. In this living room, lined with thousands more books, words are the single most valuable thing in the world. They are gold bricks.

“Here idle chatter doesn’t exist; that would be like lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills. Here there are only sentences and paragraphs divided by section breaks. Every word has meaning. Even the simplest expressions take on higher power

“Ebert’s dreams are happier. Never yet a dream where I can’t talk, he writes on another Post-it note, peeling it off the top of the blue stack. Sometimes I discover — oh, I see! I CAN talk! I just forget to do it.

“In his dreams, his voice has never left. In his dreams, he can get out everything he didn’t get out during his waking hours: the thoughts that get trapped in paperless corners, the jokes he wanted to tell, the nuanced stories he can’t quite relate. In his dreams, he yells and chatters and whispers and exclaims. In his dreams, he’s never had cancer. In his dreams, he is whole.

“We have a habit of turning sentimental about celebrities who are struck down — Muhammad Ali, Christopher Reeve — transforming them into mystics; still, it’s almost impossible to sit beside Roger Ebert, lifting blue Post-it notes from his silk fingertips, and not feel as though he’s become something more than he was. He has those hands. And his wide and expressive eyes, despite everything, are almost always smiling.

“There is no need to pity me, he writes on a scrap of paper one afternoon after someone parting looks at him a little sadly. Look how happy I am.”

Let this become everyone’s motto, regardless of their situation: become an explosion. Do everything you can with every ounce of energy at your disposal in the time you have left.

Unless you’re an HE talk-back hater, in which case I would advise going home and turning on the TV and sitting down on your stained IKEA couch and stewing in your own juices. Because short of some amazing epiphany, that’s as good as it’s going to get for you.

In Contention‘s Guy Lodge has called Noah Baumbach‘s Greenberg “a shaggy, often very funny addition to the recent mini-genre of manchild movies.” And Variety‘s Todd McCarthy has termed it “an outstanding L.A. movie.”

“As a study of stasis and of people conscious of not living the lives they had imagined for themselves,” McCarthy continues, “Greenberg offers a bracing undertow of seriousness beneath the deceptively casual, dramatically offhand surface, even if the characters’ vague ambitions and aimless actions leave the film seeming relatively uneventful on a moment-to-moment basis.”

Lodge writes that “Baumbach’s acrid humor has mellowed a little in the California sun, but his preoccupation with the social failings of the chronically self-absorbed is undiminished.”

As Roger, “a fortysomething layabout with undetermined mental issues and a repeatedly stated resolution to “do nothing for awhile,” Ben Stiller “gives this sneakily ingratiating effort a shot at a general audience,” McCarthy notes, “but it will be most appreciated by followers of distinctively flavored, off-center indie-style fare.”

Mumblecore veteran Greta Gerwig “makes her move toward the mainstream with work likely to divide, or at least puzzle, viewers. A big young woman who’s attractive enough but not at all in the usual glamorous-actress mode, she offers no perceptible performance in the popularly received sense; you don’t detect impulse, calculation, yearning, hidden feelings or anything else beneath the surface. She just seems completely real, behaving the way people do, just reacting to things as they happen.

“Either Gerwig is a total natural — most likely — or she has the most invisible technique of any modern actor. Either way, interest will surround her subsequent work.

“Baumbach and co-writer Jennifer Jason Leigh “convey a strong sense of what it’s like to live in [this] city. Except for the opening shots, which seem specifically designed to spotlight Los Angeles at its smoggy worst, Greenberg‘s metropolis is presented from ground level without editorializing and with a fine balance between the beauty and the blight, the ease and the hassle, the luxury and the basic, the stimulating and the banal.”

Roman Polanski‘s The Ghost Writer “has some of the same elements as Chinatown in that it’s about “a hero who is never quite as smart as he believes because he’s looking at only a small section of the puzzle, without realizing that there is more to it than he can take in.

“The script, by Polanski and novelist Robert Harris, does offer clues – but it resolutely puts us in the ghost’s shoes. The Ghost Writer can be frustrating because you only know as much as the main character right up until the final scene. But when it all becomes clear, all the jagged edges go away and the film comes into focus as the well-honed thriller it has been all along.” — from Marshall Fine ‘s 2.16 review.

You want frustrating? The Ghost Writer opens on 2.19 and I’ve received no screening invites from 42West or Summit…zip. Calls and e-mails to various parties have revealed no further information.

There’s a legit transcript of Benicio del Toro‘s visit to the Howard Stern Show last Thursday morning, provided by marksfriggin.com. Here are the YouTube recordings: #1, #2, #3 and #4.

Hard info #1: Benicio “said he was going to do a movie with Scorsese” — a presumed reference to the dreaded Silence — but that got “pushed.” Hard info #2: Benicio said “the Three Stooges thing”,” which he said is basically “three episodes” stitched together, is “still alive but they don’t have a date for that.” Here’s a portion of the transcript:

“Howard read that Benicio’s father was an ogre. Benicio said he was strict but not an ogre. Howard said he read that Benicio’s father called him gay when he said he wanted to be an actor. Benicio laughed at that. He said his father never called him a fag. Howard said his father wanted him to be a lawyer. Benicio said that’s what all parents want.

“Howard said he can picture Benicio with a 10-inch penis that’s wide. He said that Robin Quivers is 10 times better than Emily Blunt would ever be. Benicio got a laugh out of that. Fred threw in some porn clips where a woman was howling like a dog which made him laugh even more.

“Howard asked Benicio if he did Emily Blunt while he was in costume. Benicio asked him to stop with that. He said he never did anything to her.

“Howard asked Benicio about who he’s dating and what’s going on with that. Benicio said he is dating but he’s not talking about who it is. Howard said when you’re with a chick and you bang her after a couple of weeks, you don’t do other women. Benicio agreed with him but he didn’t sound like he was really behind what he was saying.

“Howard told Benicio he should move on to other women if he’s not that into the chick he’s with. He said that he shouldn’t lead them on. Benicio said you have to be moved by the girl. He said if it doesn’t happen then what do you do. Howard said you move on. Howard asked Robin if she would let Benicio do her for just one night. Robin said she’s not looking for that.

“Howard told Benicio to stick with the Wolfman thing and just drag it out all he can. He said he could do Wolfman vs. Mike Tyson and he’d watch it. He said he doesn’t have to keep doing other things.

“Howard said he’s going to predict that this movie is going to come in at number 1 this weekend. Benicio said the only problem is that it’s rated R. Howard said that shouldn’t be an issue. He said kids will sneak into the movie.

“Howard read a quote from Benicio where he talked about how he has to calm down with women. He read the quote and Benicio said the problem is that he can do his own thing. Benicio said that someone else must have written that. Howard said it was a direct quote. Benicio told him to get it on audio. He said he doesn’t think he ever said that.

“Howard asked Benicio what his game plan is. Benicio told him to collaborate with him. He said he was going to do a movie with Scorsese but that got pushed out. He said the Three Stooges thing is still alive but they don’t have a date for that.

“Howard asked Benicio if he can really play Moe. He said he hasn’t worked on it. Howard told him he thinks that they’re the greatest. He said he read that it was going to be Jim Carrey as Curly and Benicio as Moe. He said that he’s not sure that Jim will commit to gaining the weight for the part. Benicio said he hasn’t spoken to him about it. Robin asked who was going to play Larry Fine. It was going to be Sean Penn. Benicio said he thinks that’s a good cast.

Benicio said that he knows it won’t be like the original. He said that “all due respect, my movie” — a reference to The Wolfman — “wasn’t as good as the original. Howard said he has to think it’s better. Benicio said he really doesn’t. Howard told Benicio that he would have flung your fuckin’ ass out of there today if he had screwed up the movie. Robin said that she actually fell in love with the character in the movie.

“Howard asked how you do a Three Stooges movie. Benicio said that it was going to be a remake of some of their short movies. He said he didn’t have exact answers for what it would be about. He said that he would be his own Moe and not be doing an impression of the real Moe. Howard said he just has to have the essence of Moe.

“Gary came in and said that Benicio had to go. He said that they gave them 10 extra minutes. Gary said that he had to go somewhere else. Howard said he has the next movie idea for Benicio: Wolfman vs. The Three Stooges.” “That’s a good idea,” Benicio said. Howard asked, “Should I be the next host of American Idol?” “Definitely,” said Benicio.

“Christina Hendricks thinks all the talk about her body is a little embarrassing,” writes New York‘s Amy Larocca. “‘It kind of hurt my feelings at first,” the Mad Men star remarks. ‘Anytime someone talks about your figure constantly, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious. I was working my butt off on the show, and then all anyone was talking about was my body!'” Which is why Hendricks wore hot lingerie to illustrate the piece (and grace the cover of the current issue).

Larocca, by the way, has also written a shockingly cruel and thoughtless observation about a certain actress whose emotional well-being is near and dear to the politically-correct HE brownshirts. Larocca needs to be slapped down, and I know just the boys for the job.

55 minutes of battery time left means there’s no time to tap out a 750-word Shutter Island review. But here’s that David Edelstein New York pan that’s giving pause to the Friends of Marty crowd. I agree up and down — SI is a long slog and then some. Because it’s purely a movie-atmosphere exercise with zero narrative intrigue (anyone could spot the third-act twist in the trailer), it’s almost as difficult to get through as Kundun.

“Some great directors, as they age, strive to simplify and refine their technique in the hope of getting closer to their subjects,” Edelstein begins, “but Martin Scorsese has happily — perhaps even with relief — moved into a long and not-so-emotionally taxing formalist phase (with fat studio paychecks). He seems to have been drawn to Shutter Island by the chance to quote from quasi-horror asylum B movies like Shock Corridor and Bedlam, and to play the kind of straight-ahead illusion-versus-reality games he leaped clean over in his early expressionist masterpieces Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.

“Dennis Lehane‘s novel, about a Boston detective who travels to an insane asylum on a craggy island to investigate the disappearance of a female patient, is a doodle, a Paul Auster Lite breather between his tortured Mystic River and the panoramic The Given Day. But Scorsese draws it out to two hours and twenty minutes of Hitchcock-like tracking shots and bombastic music and shrieking storms and detectives in long coats and fedoras trudging past leering mental patients.

“It’s all deliberately artificial, of course, and the fifties noir tropes do gradually morph into something weirder and more hallucinatory. But even when the detective-story foundation begins to crumble and the gumshoe protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio) becomes racked with visions of concentration camps and bloody children and babbles about Communist subversives and Nazi experiments, Shutter Island is still suffocatingly movieish.

“DiCaprio had a breakthrough in the much-maligned Reservation Road: He sanded off some layers of polish and dared to be raw, wobbly, in the moment. He’s every bit as good here — he’s just not very interesting. He trudges around with his sidekick (Mark Ruffalo) interviewing characters played by great actors pretending to be bad actors (only Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley’s strangely paternal psychiatrist are fun to watch), and it’s all setup for the big reveal of the last 25 minutes. The ending is powerful (it should be, given how Scorsese lingers on the corpses of little kids), but Shutter Island is a long slog.

“The sad thing is that Scorsese could have connected emotionally with Lehane’s narrative. Without spelling things out, the story comes down to whether fierce self-dramatization can lead to revelation, catharsis, and healing — a question raised obliquely in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. But Scorsese can’t get past the thicket of old movies. He’s farther from reality than his hero is.”

I’m typing this from seat 9A (window) on an American flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth to LaGuardia It’s 6:15 pm — somewhere over Arkansas. $12 and change to connect the laptop; $8 and change for the iPhone. The pages are coming up a bit slowly, but it’s better than nothing.