Over and over, MTV’s Josh Horowitz mock-pleads with Jennifer’s Body star Megan Fox to sing “Over The Rainbow.” And all she does is refuse with that reedy little voice and a testy look on her face. “What is this about?…I’m not gonna sing it.” In short, Fox hasn’t much confidence, isn’t into relaxation or chuckling at herself, clearly knows she’s limited and that it’s safer to stick to reading lines in movies, and hasn’t much gumption. I mean, I could do “Over The Rainbow” on MTV.com. I could hit the notes, I mean.

John Hillcoat‘s The Road, which screens today at the Venice Film Festival after months of being kept out of sight by the Weinstein brothers after postponing its release from the end of last year, has been totally dismissed by Variety‘s Todd McCarthy. The opening graph of his review says “this Road leads nowhere” and that “it falls short on every front.”

Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee in John Hillcoat‘s The Road.

The drama as composed by novelist Cormac McCarthy in his 2006 novel “is one little genre step away from being an outright zombie movie,” McCarthy observes. “[And this is] something that’s much more evident onscreen, with its drooling, crusty-toothed aggressors and live humans with missing limbs; memories of Night of the Living Dead unavoidably advance in all the scenes in which Viggo Mortensen and son Kodi Smit-McPhee take refuge in a house, where they must contend with unfriendly marauders.

“But Hillcoat, who played with heavy violence in The Proposition and made some of it stick, shows no talent for or inclination toward setting up a scene here; any number of sequences in The Road could have been very suspenseful if built up properly, but Hillcoat, working from a script by Joe Penhall, just hopscotches from scene to scene in almost random fashion without any sense of pacing or dramatic modulation.

“Dialogue that should have been directed with an almost Pinteresque sense of timing is delivered without meaningful shadings, principally by two actors who have no chemistry together. Unfortunately, Mortensen lacks the gravitas to carry the picture; suddenly resembling Gabby Hayes with his whiskers and wayward hair, the actor has no bottom to him, and his interactions with Smit-McPhee, whom one can believe as Charlize Theron‘s son but not Mortensen’s, never come alive.

“Tellingly, both thesps are better in their individual scenes with other actors; Mortensen gets into it with Robert Duvall, who plays an old coot met along the road, while Smit-McPhee registers a degree of rapport with Guy Pearce, practically unrecognizable at first as another wanderer. Generally, the boy’s readings are blandly on the nose.

“If you’re going to adapt a book like McCarthy’s bestseller, you’re pretty much obliged to make a terrific film or it’s not worth doing — first because expectations are high, and second, because the picture needs to make it worth people’s while to sit through something so grim.

“Showing clear signs of being test-screened and futzed with to death, the Dimension release may receive a measure of respect in some quarters but is very, very far from the film it should have been, spelling moderate to tepid box-office prospects after big fest preems.”

McCarthy didn’t review The Road out of Venice, but off a showing at LA’s Sunset Screening Room on 8.27.

Yesterday Take Part passed along a report by Ric O’Barry, the haunted star of The Cove, that Taiji officials have at least temporarily decided not to move ahead on the annual dolphin slaughter. O’Barry is in Taiji and wrote on 9.1 that he’s seen no fishing boats, no fishermen, no harpoons…nothing.

Great, but does anyone believe this is really the end of it? Not I. Maybe the bad guys have simply decided to kill the dolphins in some other cove in some other nearby town? And surely the Taiji fishing industry will at least continue to round up dolphins for sale to marine tourist parks? Most people involved in nefarious enterprises (a) are essentially amoral in matters of income and (b) don’t give up their meal tickets this easily.

This reminded me of the situation facing director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu regarding his decision to serve as jury president at the forthcoming Tokyo Film Festival in lieu of the festival’s decision, despite its “green” theme, not to show The Cove. On 8.18 I passed along Peter Howell‘s Toronto Star 8.5 report that the a festival official had told Cove director Louie Psihoyos that Tokyo wasn’t taking The Cove “for political reasons.”

In lieu of O’Barry’s report I’m wondering if anything has shaken loose. Will the Tokyo Film Festival show The Cove after all or…? This is a story that needs an ending.

Last May 21st the Toronto Int’l Film Festival announced a City- to-City Spotlight promotion with Tel Aviv, of all cities. A little more than three months later — i.e., last Friday, 8.27 — Toronto filmmaker John Greyson sent a letter to TIFF honcho Piers Handling announcing his decision to withdraw his short doc, Covered, from the festival in protest over TIFF’s celebration of Tel Aviv ‘s “brand.

Greyson essentially feels that Tel Aviv and the Israeli government have too much blood and militaristic aggression and kad karma on their plate to warrant partnership with a forward-thinking film festival like Toronto’s. And he’s arguing that TIFF’s Tel Aviv promotion flies in the face of an economic boycott against Israel that he and anti-Israel voices would like to see enforced in order to get Israel to be more reasonable and less belligerent in its dealings with the Palestinians.

At the end of his email he wrote, “”Isn’t such an uncritical celebration of Tel Aviv right now akin to celebrating Montgomery buses in 1963, California grapes in 1969, Chilean wines in 1973, Nestles infant formula in 1984, or South African fruit in 1991?

“To my mind, this isn’t the right year to celebrate Brand Israel, or to demonstrate an ostrich-like indifference to the realities (cinematic and otherwise) of the region, or to pointedly ignore the international economic boycott campaign against Israel. Launched by Palestinian NGO’s in 2005, and since joined by thousands inside and outside Israel, the campaign is seen as the last hope for forcing Israel to comply with international law. By ignoring this boycott, TIFF has emphatically taken sides — and in the process, forced every filmmaker and audience member who opposes the occupation to cross a type of picket line.”

Early in the letter Greyson noted that “this past year has seen (a) the devastating Gaza massacre of eight months ago, resulting in over 1000 civilian deaths; (b) the election of a Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) accused of war crimes; (c) the aggressive extension of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands; (d) the accelerated destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards; (e) the viral growth of the totalitarian security wall, and (f) the further enshrining of the check-point system.

“Such state policies have led diverse figures such as John Berger, Jimmy Carter, and Bishop Desmond Tutu to characterize this ‘brand’ as apartheid. Your TIFF program book may describe Tel Aviv as a ‘vibrant young city… of beaches, cafes and cultural ferment… that celebrates its diversity,’ but it’s also been called ‘a kind of alter-Gaza, the smiling face of Israeli apartheid‘ (Naomi Klein) and’tthe only city in the west without Arab residents” (Tel Aviv filmmaker Udi Aloni).

“Let’s be clear: my protest isn’t against the films or filmmakers you’ve chosen. I’ve seen brilliant works of Israeli and Palestinian cinema at past TIFFs, and will again in coming years. My protest is against the Spotlight itself, and the smug business-as-usual aura it promotes.”

“What eventually determined my decision to pull out was the subject of Covered itself. It’s a doc about the 2008 Sarajevo Queer Festival, which was cancelled due to brutal anti-gay violence. The film focuses on the bravery of the organizers and their supporters, and equally, on the ostriches, on those who remained silent, who refused to speak out: most notoriously, the Sarajevo International Film Festival and the Canadian Ambassador in Sarajevo.

“To stand in judgment of these ostriches before a TIFF audience, but then say nothing about this Tel Aviv spotlight — finally, I realized that that was a brand I couldn’t stomach.”

Taken earlier today in quiet, under-populated Telluride, Colorado by HE correspondent “buckzollo,” who, among others, will be passing along impressions and whatnot starting Friday. And of course, the 66th Venice Film Festival begins today. Tomorrow John Hillcoat‘s The Road and Todd Solondz‘s Life During Wartime will screen there. And Michael Moore‘s Capitalism: A Love Story will show in Venice on Sunday.

I can remember reading an article in the ’80s that reviled middle-aged European tourists (particularly Germans, as I recall) for walking around Manhattan in the summer months in short-sleeved sports shirts, shorts (and thus exposing their hideous alabaster legs), brown socks and sandals. In my book it’s just as bad to wear black socks and sandals. It may be that the style offender in this shot is wearing black lace-up sneakers, but so what? White legs, black socks…forget it.

And I’m amazed, truly amazed that a guy could go out in public like this. But lots of guys in their mid 40s and younger do go out like this. I’ve seen them in Central Park and downtown and all around, and there’s no stopping it.

Michael Caine will sit for a Toronto Film Festival interview on Sunday, 9.13, at the Isabel Bader theatre to promote his new film, Harry Brown. The interview program is called Mavericks. Caine has worked to some extent in the independent arena, but he’s been known his entire career for a whorish willingness to act in just about anything. He starred in Joseph Sargent‘s Jaws 4: The Revenge and Irwin Allen ‘s The Swarm. I love the guy but has there ever been a less Mavericky actor in film history?

Variety‘s Todd McCarthy has reviewed the Red Riding trilogy, a forthcoming IFC Films release that was made by England’s Channel 4 presentation and which runs — wait for it — 302 minutes. It will play at this weekend’s Telluride Film Festival but not, significantly, at the Toronto Film Festival. And I wonder why, given McCarthy’s enthusiasm for the level of craft and the acting. The three films are Julian Jarrold‘s 1974 (104 minutes), James Marsh‘s 1980 (95 minutes) and Anand Tucker‘s 1983 (103 minutes).

Wait…McCarthy sat through the whole 302 minutes in one sitting at the Sunset Screening Room on 8.26 (i.e., seven days ago)?

Fifteen months ago the Hollywood Reporter and then Collider‘s Cal Kemp (linking to the THR story) reported about Robert Downey, Jr. eyeing a lead role in Cowboys and Aliens, an adaptation of Scott Mitchell Rosenberg‘s 2006 graphic novel series. Earlier today Variety‘s Michael Fleming reported that director Jon Favreau will probably team with Downey on the project.

I love this idea sight unseen and not even having flipped through Rosenberg’s comic book. I love it because it’s absurd and stupid and dead-on, and because the film has a chance to redeem the idea of merging six-shooters, horses, buckaroos and super-sized other-wordly FX. The debacle known as Barry Sonnenfeld‘s Wild Wild West took this idea and killed it for years. If Cowboys & Aliens doesn’t make it work — or worse yet, if it does the same “oh, God, I hate this, lemme outta here” Wild Wild West thing — the wrath of the moviegoing world will come down on Cowboys & Aliens like a ton of bricks. No, it won’t. People will go to see it no matter what. But guys like me will be shattered.

Why would I drop everything to see Cowboys & Aliens in a New York minute but I can’t stand the idea of Johnny Depp starring in The Lone Ranger? Why would anyone want to see The Lone Ranger for any reason, under any circumstance, under the influence of any drug…whatever? Clearly, the Favreau-Downey is the cowboy movie people want to see. If I were Depp I’d bail.

Cowboys & Aliens will be a DreamWorks/Universal project. The producers are Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Ron Howard along with Steven Spielberg. (Good movie for Spielberg — he’ll be able to make more money!) Platinum Studios CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg plus Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are also producing.

Obviously the coolest aspect of Wes Anderson‘s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (20th Century Fox, 11.13) is the stop-motion animation. This is the same technique, of course, used by Merian C. Cooper and Willis O’Brien on King Kong and Ray Harryhausen for his 1950s and ’60s monster movies. It goes with saying that the Eloi, accustomed to the latest super-fluid hard-drive effects, may regard stop-motion as a little too effete and stuck-on-itself. Not me, mind you. I think it’s beautiful. I get it and then some.

I’ve been a little too strident in recent posts and I’m feeling a little sorry about that. It hit me this morning that I should offer an apology. So I am. A totally smooth and edgeless voice in the column would be boring, of course. But I shouldn’t be quite as snarly and self-righteous when it comes to flying-monkey wires and hair colors and such. I like a good argument as much as the next guy but you need to watch it tone-wise.

Something or somebody else takes over when I’m writing HE stuff. It’s a little bit of an alternate-personality thing. There’s the guy I want to be and need to be and like being when I’m dealing with people and visiting my mother and walking around shopping malls and renting cars in airports, and then there’s the other guy who comes into the room when I write the column.

The other guy isn’t wrong or…you know, saying things just to agitate without thought or reflection. I know what I know and passion always involves a bit of gnarly-ness. One of the reasons the other guy works as a voice is that I stopped saying “uh-oh, I’d better not say that” a few years ago. Well, I do say that still but a basic other-guy component is that he’s a bit a loose-screw personality. There’s a bit of a Larry David thing going on. He’s knowledgable and seasoned and knows what he knows but he can be little bit of an eccentric at times, which is why I keep him locked down and muzzled for the most part when I’m dealing with people and opening doors for people and asking for favors and dealing with the upstairs “party elephants.”

I’ve got the other guy figured out voice-wise and attitude-wise and theology-wise and that’s a good thing, but every so often I tell myself I should have pulled back a bit and been a little nicer. And I’m sorry when I haven’t modulated some of my posts with a bit more finesse. It’s kind of a candy-assed cop-out to say “this is a really tough job” and “you try banging out eight to ten stories per day” but it’s true to some extent.

The other side of the coin is that this is a great job. I sometimes feel enormous pride and often a good deal of satisfaction, depending obviously on the day and what’s gone down. The truth is that I’ve been feeling exhausted and a little gloomy on the side over the last few days. I think it’s partly because Jett went back to Syracuse last weekend and I’m feeling kind of despondent on a certain level because of this. I always feel badly when the kids leave. Anyway, I feel slightly better today and will try to be a little nicer and keep the other guy on a slightly gentler leash.