Comfort-wise, the Long Island train from Bethpage to Penn Station is like the Overland stage from Abilene to Dodge City. Unlike other trains in the civilized world, and particularly those in Europe. The train rocks and kicks and bucks. The only thing it doesn’t do is rear up and neigh and defecate. I’ve been trying to write a short story and I’ve just about given up. It’s always something.

I’m looking at Sean Means‘ list of dead and dismembered film crickets and asking myself if the firings and layoffs have begun to bottom out. Out of the 55 who’ve been laid off, reassigned or otherwise bitten the dust since ’06, 10 have been heave-ho’ed this year. Four in January, one in February, two in March, three in April and one in May. But since then (i.e.,the last four months) it’s been All Quiet on the Western Front.

Which obviously doesn’t really portend anything. For all I know another 10 or 15 will get tossed between now and New Year’s Eve. But a little voice is hinting that perhaps things are settling down a bit. I mean, y’know…maybe.

There were 9 head-choppings in ’06, 13 in ’07, and 20 in ’08. The forces that prompted the dismissals were obviously gaining strength with each succeeding year. At first ’09 looked like a lion with ten bodies falling through the trap door over the first five months. The final tally could have been 25 or 30…who knew? But then came late spring and summer, and it turned into a lamb. It just stopped. Maybe the film cricket job market has been bled to the point that there ain’t no more blood. Hard to say, hard to know.

You need to be guarded when it comes to Variety‘s Derek Elley. I mean, I’ve felt that way ever since his Hurt Locker pan last September. But it’s hard not to be affected by his Venice Film Festival rave of Grant Heslov‘s The Men Who Stare at Goats, which he’s calling “a “superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.

“Recalling many similar pics, from Dr. Strangelove to Three Kings and the screwy so-insane-it-could-be-true illogic of Catch-22, this is upscale liberal movie-making with a populist touch, in Coen brothers style. He’s also called it “a serendipitous marriage of talent in which all hearts seem to beat as one.”

I’m tapping this out on my iPhone from a combination magazine, ice cream and pizza store in a subterranean corner of Penn Station, but Elley also predicts that “an enthusiastic welcome at Venice is likely to be echoed at Toronto, should translate into friendly biz Stateside in November.”

Tim Arango‘s 9.8 N.Y. Times story about Oliver Stone beginning work on Wall Street 2 is a bit of a nod and a gloss-over. The return of excess, return of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas ), Shia Lebeouf blah blah. The ethos of Stone’s original 1987 film having been celebrated and embraced. I’ve heard all this and then some.

As N.Y. Times A.O. Scott said in a video essay a few months ago, “While Wall Street was intended as a cautionary tale, it has since turned into — i.e., become regarded as — one of the most enjoyable and effective advertisements for capitalism ever made.”

Stone to Arango: “I can’t tell you how many young people have come up to me in these years and said, ‘I went to Wall Street because of that movie.” Which echo, of course, Douglas telling Michael Cieiply in a May 2007 piece that “he wouldn’t mind if he never had ‘one more drunken Wall Street broker come up to me and say, ‘You’re the man!’

A couple of years ago I wondered if Wall Street 2/Money Never Sleeps was going to be something different or familiar.

The familiar, I wrote, “would be another tale about a twentysomething money-hungry guy (a) gaining entry to the world of high finance, (b) learning the ropes, making big bucks and getting a little drunk on the juice of it all, and (c) eventually going too far, getting busted and crashing into a hole of shame and disrepute.

Last June Nikki Finke reported the following synopsis

“Shia is a young Wall Street trader who’s engaged to be married to Gekko’s estranged daughter. Shia wants to be a major player, but his mentor unexpectedly kills himself, and Shia thinks a stock-shorting worldwide hedge fund manager is responsible. Shia seeks revenge on this villain, to be played by No Country For Old Men Supporting Actor Oscar-winner Javier Bardem.

“So Shia goes to Gordon saying, ‘I need your help’, and makes a Faustian deal with Gekko who in return wants Shia’s help getting back with the daughter (Carey Mulligan). From then on, it’s ‘antagonism’ for everyone.”

None of this is interesting. You know what’s interesting? This.

A lot of cleaning up, running around, packing, grocery-buying and this-and-thatting before tomorrow morning’s flight to Toronto. Six to seven hours left in the work day, and maybe nine or ten hours worth of errands to get to before it ends. And then a wake-up at 4:45 am. “I’ve always found life…demanding.” — George C. Scott in Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Hospital.

Here’s another Toronto Film Festival add-on: Luca Guadagnino‘s I Am Love, an allegedly immaculate Visconti-esque family melodrama set in Italy. Variety‘s Jay Weissberg, reviewing from the Venice Film Festival, calls it “a stunning achievement in every sense.” Tilda Swinton and Marisa Berenson are the Anglo costars among an all-Italian cast.

Guadagnino, he says, “does more than expertly craft space; he exposes the world of a wealthy Milanese family with astonishing accuracy, recalling Visconti in his ability to analyze upper-class mores and make them feel vital. Marked by flawless art direction and casting, this is the sort of film that sends viewers racing back to the helmer’s earlier pics, asking ‘What did I miss?’ While not populist enough to become a hit, I Am Love is the kind of exceptional Euro arthouse film that will generate buzz worldwide.

“A beautiful opening, in a snow-covered Milan (expertly simulated during a summer shoot) sets the tone, as the Recchi villa prepares for the birthday lunch of aging paterfamilias and industralist Edoardo Sr. (Gabriele Ferzetti). Edoardo Sr. proclaims that his son, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), has never disappointed, but it’s Tancredi’s son Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti) who embodies the best of his aristocratic breed.

“On the female side is Emma (winton), swept up by Tancredi years earlier in Russia and brought back to Milan to be his wife. Besides Edoardo Jr., they have another son, Gianluca (Mattia Zaccaro), and an artist daughter, Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher).

“Sometime after the luncheon, the old man dies, leaving the ultra-sophisticated Allegra (erenson) a widow. Emma discovers Elisabetta is lesbian, and though shocked at first, she soon views her daughter’s independence as a model for her own liberating transgression.

“At that fateful luncheon, Edoardo Jr. introduced his mother to a chef, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), with whom he plans to open a restaurant. On a visit to the city of Sanremo, Emma is drawn to an Orthodox church (her past) until she glimpses Antonio (her possible future). She follows him in a brilliantly lensed sequence that’s pure Hitchcock, down to Swinton’s chignon; what’s breathtaking here is that the scene isn’t merely imitative, but plays like a learned response to the master’s style.

“Shortly afterward, Antonio and Emma make love outdoors, the air and insects trembling with energy as the music recalls Stravinsky’s vibrancy.” (Wells insert: Stravinsky and insects?) “While the women glimpse life’s new possibilities, the men are largely focused on profit — unalloyed representatives of a class that no longer feels the need to take care of its workers. However, Edoardo Jr., far closer to his mother than to his father, is unable to stomach the crass commercialism.

“Rejecting the common notion that working-class stories are somehow more legitimate than tales of the rich, Guadagnino proves that grand tragedy has the power to move, no matter the setting. The parallels with Visconti don’t end with the milieu, but are reflected in the extraordinary attention to detail, and more importantly, the palpable sense of how the characters are molded by their physical and psychological environments. Though Emma is the most fascinating figure, the others hold equal weight, thanks to the accuracy of the writing and the exceptional performances.

“Swinton (who first collaborated with Guadagnino in his 1999 debut, The Protagonists) does more than mechanically master the Russian-inflected Italian dialogue; she brings the full weight of her creative physical force to bear on Emma. Delbono, Parenti and Rohrwacher are ideally cast, and Berenson is simply perfection. Not to be left out is Maria Paiato, magnificent as the housekeeper Ida, especially in the final scenes.

“Every camera angle is interesting and confident without being showy, just like the family itself, while small, quick details beautifully underline emotions. Yorick Le Saux’s quietly brilliant lensing reinforces the necessary integration between the superb set design and the actors, and John Adams’ music, including excerpts from his operas, are exquisitely chosen.”

Wednesday will be a big day. I’m flying to Toronto in the morning, Barack Obama will show if has the guts to stand up to the baddies in his health-care speech, I’m meeting pals at Toronto’s Bar Mercurio after seeing Casino Jack, those newly remastered Beatles’ original albums/singles will be released (along with that Beatles: Rock Band video game), and an Alliance Bluray of A Hard Day’s Night will be purchasable in Toronto.

I wrote my twice-weekly “Hollywood Confidential” column for Reel.com from August ’99 to August ’02. Three years, maybe 300 columns. I search through them every so often. Anyway, they’re gone. There are remnants on this site, but I guess I’ll need to see if all the archives are recoverable. Update: Problem solved.

My first Toronto film won’t be a festival selection. Two nights hence I’ll be catching a work print of Casino Jack, George Hickenlooper‘s recently wrapped and currently-being-edited drama about the adventures of Republican businessman, lobbyist and scumbag Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey). I’ve been pestering the temporarily-Toronto-based Hickenlooper about seeing it, and the night before the festival begins seemed like the only time so that’s the plan.

(l.) Kevin Sopacey (r.) Jack Abramoff.

Critic F.X. Feeney (full disclosure: a friend of Hickenlooper’s) caught a version of Casino Jack a while back and has passed along the following: “It manages to make lucid, funny, revealing sense of all that Republican Bush-era madness. Although it never lets Jack A off the hook in matters of right versus wrong, it locates him humanly in a context that was already savage when he arrived. He’s guilty of being the best shark in the tank, and the others are remorseless with him when they smell blood.

“Key to this is Kevin Spacey’s performance, which is so nuanced and reliant on what he does best (that perpetual soul-searching as he thinks out loud — Hamlet on uppers) that it should perp-walk him to glory. The picture, I think, is a home run.”

Spacey’s costars are Kelly Preston, Rachelle Lefevre, Barry Pepper and Jon Lovitz

Abramoff was a central figure in a series of high-profile Bush-era political scandals. He was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion, and is currently doing time in a federal slammer in Cumberland, Maryland. Abramoff will be sprung sometime in December 2011.

Abramoff’s Wikipedia bio reads as follows: “Abramoff pleaded guilty on January 3, 2006, to three criminal felony counts in a Washington, D.C., federal court related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials. The four tribes Abramoff and his associates persuaded include: Michigan’s Saginaw Chippewas, California’s Agua Caliente, the Mississippi Choctaws, and the Louisiana Coushattas. Abramoff is accused of defrauding the tribes of tens of millions of dollars on issues associated with Indian gaming.

“The following day he pleaded guilty to two criminal felony counts in a separate federal court, in Miami, related to his fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos. On September 4, 2008, a Washington court found Abramoff guilty of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favors and he was sentenced to a four-year term in prison which will be served concurrently with his previous sentences.

“The Abramoff corruption investigation has led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides.”

I’m trying to figure/imagine why Oliver Stone‘s South of the Border, a friendly doc about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, isn’t playing at the Toronto Film Festival. I’m calling/writing the TIFF guys as we speak but…

South of the Border director Oliver Stone, Venezuelan president Cesar Chavez a few hours ago at the Venice Film Festival.

What has Telluride 2009 taught us over the last three and a half days? One, that Up In The Air is a lock for a Best Picture nomination and probably the front-runner until Invictus comes along. Two, The Last Station isn’t necessarily a Best Picture contender, but it will surely be acquired forthwith (probably by Sony Classics, I’m guessing). Three, Red Riding is destined for major-cult-film status. And four, Werner Herzog‘s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans will probably sell more tickets than My Son, My Son because it’s weirder and dopey-loopier by the grace of Nicolas Cage.

A currently in-progress seminar called “The Edge of Humor: When Does the Laughter Stop?,” which began in the Telluride town park at noon today. (l. to r.) Anne Thompson (moderator), Nicolas Cage, George Gittoes, Nicolas Cage, Jason Reitman and Paul Schneider. (Alexander Payne was scheduled but didn’t show.)

Nic Cage following today’s “Edge of Humor” panel.

(l.) An Education‘s Carey Muligan and Fish Tank‘s Katie Jarvis. (Photo taken by Indiewire‘s Eugene Hernandez.)

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken recently drew a map of all 50 states at the Minnesota State Fair. And totally freehand. Definitely impressive but an old bit. He did the same thing on David Letterman‘s NBC show back in ’84. In one minute and 55 seconds.