A guy who apparently doesn’t know his way around asked this morning if I’ve ever seen a DVD of Mark Rydell‘s The Fox (1967). I told him it’s available through Warner Achives. The fact that it’s a mediocre film, I explained, is why it hasn’t been available for so many years. He wanted to see it anyway, primarily, I suspect, because of the film’s carnality, which is spare but intense by way of Anne Heywood. One look at this clip and you’ll be dissuaded for life.

In two posts over the last six days the Digital Bits guys have listed several titles (some new, some classic) being prepared for 2010 Bluray release: Fox’s Alien Anthology, Collateral, the Indiana Jones trilogy (please…not Crystal Skull!), The Maltese Falcon, a Dr. Zhivago 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Saving Private Ryan, a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies (Where Eagles Dare, etc.) and three titles that aren’t necessarily 2010-ers but may be released the following year or in 2012: Ben-Hur, The African Queen, Lawrence of Arabia.

My personal requests focus on (a) large-format films of the ’50s and ’60s, (b) Technicolor films known for their lush and intense palette, and (c) especially crisp and handsome black-and-white classics. I could go on and on but a Paramount Home Video Bluray of To Catch A Thief, shot in VistaVision, would be dellightful; ditto The Ten Commandments (VistaVision) from the same folks. I wouldn’t mind a nice Criterion Bluray of Spartacus (70mm Technirama), for that matter.

Plus Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks (VistaVision, obviously requiring a restoration) and Mutiny on the Bounty (Ultra Panavision 70), Oklahoma and Around the World in 80 Days (30-frame Todd-AO), Cleopatra (24-frame 70mm Todd-AO…a nearly unwatchable film and yet beautifully photographed), My Fair Lady (70mm), Funny Girl (ditto)…actually I could live if they let the Funny Girl Bluray go. I could survive, I mean. It wouldn’t kill me.

I’m especially interested in seeing a Bluray of the 1953 War of the Worlds, but with those awful Martian space-ship wires digitally erased (like WHV did with those Wizard of Oz wires). The too-vibrant colors in this film look fake, of course, but exquisitely so. ’50s movies with poster-paint colors provide to film buffs what a Nancy Meyers movie delivers for women of a certain age — total bullshit fantasy that soothes and satisifies.

I’d also like to see Blurays of any and all Gregg Toland movies shot in the late ’30s and ’40s — Citizen Kane, obviously, along with Wuthering Heights, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ball of Fire and John Ford‘s The Grapes of Wrath. As well as Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, My Darling Clementine and The Quiet Man. And a Bluray of Fred Zinneman‘s From Here To Eternity, which I presume is in the works based on a restored version of this 1953 classic having recently screened at the Academy.

In the view of ThePunch.com’s Sam Cleveland, 2009 was “the year the ‘chick flick’ smartened up…rounded female characters showed up in everything from straight-out Oscar bait to rock ’em-sock ’em horror flicks, while some of the best films of the year centered around women and their distinct set of needs and challenges.” The September Issue, 500 Days of Summer, Drag Me to Hell, Whip it, Coco Before Chanel, Julia and Julie, An Education, etc.

IFC.com’s Stephen Saito has reviewed his favorite critical dust-ups of 2009. Some…er, most of these were about a critic or a columnist getting personal in some quirky-ass way. Anne Thompson vs. Kent Jones. Glenn Kenny vs. Joe Swanberg. John Anderson vs. Jeff Dowd. My own Oxford Film Festival episode plus the pear-cake-wrapped-in-tin-foil clash in the West Village. Roger Ebert vs. Armond White. NY Times film critic Manohla Dargis‘ f-bomb-filled interview with Jezebel on the state of women in Hollywood. And last but not least, MSN’s James Rocchi on his conflicted Couples Retreat junket experience.

“The geniuses at the Universal Citywalk IMAX theater appear to be screwing up the projection for Avatar in a major way,” tech guy Al Magliochetti has allegedly twittered. (Likely but unverified — I’ve been trying to find his Twitter handle.) “I’m trying to get them to fix it but until I post otherwise I would suggest seeing Avatar elsewhere.”

“A 3D frame is made up of two images, a left and a right,” he explains. “Polarizing filters are used on the projector along with convergence lenses to merge both images into one and then filter it so that each of the two images is sent to the appropriate eye and canceled out by the other.

“The goobs, however, appear to be projecting the film one half frame out of sync, which would normally invert the 3D and make it backwards (background objects appearing closer). And yet to fix that screwup they also inverted the polarizers, meaning that whenever anything is static or slow moving the 3D looks fine, but the minute any fast action occurs the 3D effect collapses and the whole film flattens out until things slow down again.

“This isn’t something that could be threaded incorrectly so I’m presuming it’s been incorrect since the opening last week, and thereby giving several thousand viewers several thousand headaches. The teenage ‘manager’ offered me passes to shut me up but refused to give me any names of people to contact, so this could get interesting.”

If anyone has experienced any projection problems of the 3D IMAX Avatar at Universal Citywalk, please advise.

L.A. Times/Envelope/Notes on a Season columnist Pete Hammond is flatly declaring that Avatar is now the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar. Because it’s “big” and grand and dazzling and selling tickets big-time, and because there was a effusive response from the mostly older membership when Avatar screened at the Academy theatre last Sunday night.

50-plus and retirement-age types were thought to be a hindrance to Avatar‘s chances of nabbing the big prize with their reputed tendency to under-value CG-driven spectacles, but Hammond is apparently persuaded that the gray geezer contingent is ready and willing to support James Cameron‘s fantasy epic.

Also factoring, says Hammond, are last weekend’s $77 million opening (even with the northeastern blizzard slowing things down on Saturday), a $235-million-plus worldwide gross, an A rating from Cinemascore rating and an A+ from males younger than 25, not to mention major Golden Globe and Critics Choice Movie Award nominations, etc.

There’s a primitive, slap-dash, graphic-novel feeling to the title art in this Runaways teaser. Along with the theme about overcoming sexism in the ’70s rock-music world, of course. Passable but you want more.

The New Daughter, a horror film toplining Kevin Costner, has quietly snuck into L.A. and possibly other markets this past weekend, with no advertising or reviews to speak of.

Kevin Costner in The New Daughter

The film is directed by Luis Berdejo, who wrote the acclaimed Spanish horror film [REC] that was remade for America as Quarantine, and it costars Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth).

HE reader Marc Edward Heuck, who alerted me, doesn’t claim to “know too much about the plot” but says it’s “something about a widower moving his two kids to a remote place, the daughter of course being a rebellious teen, and then some possession-type stuff ensues, possibly caused by a burial mound on the property.”

Daughter “was made by Gold Circle, and was supposed to be released by New Line, but supposedly they dropped it and Anchor Bay picked it up and are doing this dump release at the Regency Fairfax. It had some advance coverage on horror sites like bloodydisgusting.com, but no advances in the mainstream press.”

Has anyone seen it? Whatever the quality, a sneaky Fairfax Regency opening is clearly a comment on Costner’s ability to open a movie these days.

Having performed much better yesterday than expected, Avatar raised its final weekend tally to $77.3 million rather than the previously estimated $73 million. James Cameron‘s film has therefore squeaked by the $77.2 million earned by Will Smith‘s I Am Legend and taken the all-time record for a December opening. Variety‘s Pamela McClintock reports that Avatar “dropped a mere 3% from Saturday to Sunday, a rare feat, and a sign that the 3D sci-fi fantasy is already benefiting from powerful word-of-mouth.”

I said to a friend an hour ago that I’ve never enjoyed the Christmas holidays because everything slows or shuts down, and because there doesn’t seem to be anything to do except catch up on reading or roam around in the slush or hang out in coffee shops or go to book stores or drink Irish coffees and rum egg nog, etc. I write all the time but still, the holidays are dreary and boring for the most part.

To which he said that Xmas holiday cheer has always seemed forced to him, and that he finds it analogous to posing for a photo and the photographer saying “say cheese.”

What is there to feel cheerful about? he said. Tell me what’s cheerful! It’s cold and windy and damp outside. Sooner or later I’m going to suffer through a slow agonizing death or a sudden terrifying one. The health care bill is sickening, an embarassment. Obama has shown that he’s a total wuss and simply lacks the wily, hard-nosed ability to pressure the perverse into bending to a semblance of the popular will, who hasn’t the skills to administrate with any effectiveness, who’s essentially a media presence who lacks the confidence stand up to the generals and the Wall Street guys, etc.

I’m committed to buying two wooden back-scratchers in Chinatown, going to the Apple store on Mercer and buying some computer-screen cleaner, visiting the Metropolitan Museum, paying some bills, maybe catching a film, etc.

“I just got back from an aborted IMAX 3D showing of Avatar at the Showcase Cinemas in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Apparently the prime-time showing last night also conked out — an issue in which the sound drops out and then the whole movie shuts down. Showcase guys are claiming that some showings have gone fine, but their prime evening showings on Saturday and Sunday both bit the dust. I’m PISSED because I had reserved prime seats, and hell if I can swing getting back to the theater over the next couple of weeks.” — e-mail from HE reader Doug H., sent five minutes ago.