There’s only one way to see Julia Ducournau‘s Titane (Neon, 10.1)**, the “body horror” thriller that won the Palme d’Or last July, and that’s on a big screen. I’d ideally like to see it on a huge IMAX screen, which of course will never happen.

** Titanium

Originally posted from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland on 6.17.12: “Early yesterday afternoon I was expecting to meet Jett and Dylan at the modest Alpine-styled cabin we’re renting in Lauterbrunnen, but they weren’t there when I arrived. So I texted them and they said they were in town and would be along. The problem was that they had the only key to the place, and I was coping with a slight call of nature. But I figured I’d wait it out.

“The minutes dragged on and they didn’t show. The little devil on my left shoulder began to think about taking care of business behind the cabin. ‘No!,’ said the angel on my right shoulder, ‘don’t be an animal!’ But Jett and Dylan were taking their time.

“I looked around and noticed a narrow driveway behind the cabin — a possible problem. But nobody had driven by in quite a while. I also considered the fact that the rear of the cabin is sheltered from view by a hilly mound. Quiet, quiet, no cars, no cars. The devil won out and I stepped behind the cabin.

“Four or five seconds later a car drove up the driveway with a family in it, and with a three-year-old staring and pointing at me from the back-seat window. Five seconds after that another car drove by with a pretty girl at the wheel. She also checked me out.

“If I hadn’t stepped behind the cabin, those two cars would have never driven by.”

It took me a while but I’ve finally watched three of the four episodes in Spike Lee‘s NYC Epicenters 9/11->2021½. It’s easily one of Lee’s finest film achievements; I would even call it miraculous. Due to the fact that you can feel the soul of New York City glowing and flowing through all of it.

Episode 3, which runs two hours, focuses on the 9/11 attacks, and provides perhaps the most emotionally fulfilling and heartfelt recapturing of that day, ever. It’s so good I’m thinking of watching it again soon.

Episode 1, which is about NYC’s response to the Covid crisis, is also magnificent except, in my opinion, for one aspect. Unless I missed something, Lee doesn’t really grapple with the relatively low percentages of African American vaccinations in New York State and elsewhere.

Something like 80 million U.S. citizens have sidestepped Covid vaccinations, and we will never get out of this hole as long as tens of millions of idiots continue to refuse.

An adult all alone and on a phone, having to talk his or her way out of a tough, high-pressure situation. I don’t know how many times this set-up has been built into a compelling feature, but I’m thinking at least four**.

The very best is Steven Knight‘s Locke (’14), an 85-minute character study about a construction foreman (Tom Hardy) grappling with issues of personal vs. professional responsibility. Three years ago Gustav Möller‘s The Guilty, a gripping, Danish-made crime thriller that I just re-watched yesterday, delivered similar cards. Last weekend a same-titled remake, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, played at the Toronto Film Festival, and will debut theatrically on 9.24 before hitting Netflix.

And now there’s Phillip Noyce‘s Lakewood, which stars Naomi Watts as Amy, a widowed, small-town mom reacting not only to news of a Parkland-esque high school shooting, but to the possibility that her sullen and estranged son Noah (Colton Gobbo) may be involved in some way.

More than two-thirds of this 84-minute film (roughly 47 minutes) are focused solely on Amy and her iPhone in a remote wooded area. We’re talking about a torrent of smooth steadicam footage plus several overhead drone shots and some elegant editing (kudos to Lee Haugen), plus Watts stressing, emoting and hyperventilating her head off — a one-woman tour de force.

Right away I was thinking that Noah might be the shooter, and that, you bet, made me sit up and focus all the more. And that’s all I’ll discuss in this vein.

My second reaction was about Amy’s iPhone, and what an amazing reach it has. She’s in a woodsy area a few miles from town (I didn’t catch how many reception bars were showing) and yet she experiences only a couple of signal drop-outs, and she’s watching all kinds of video and whatnot without a hitch. I was also impressed by her iPhone’s battery — what power! (I never leave home without a back-up battery for my iPhone 12 Max Pro — I have too many active apps and the battery is always draining hand over fist.)

Despite all that’s going on at the high school and having to juggle all kinds of incoming info, Amy continues to jog during most of her phone marathon. If there’s one thing that all Lakewood viewers will be dead certain of, it’s that Watts will stumble and suffer an ankle injury. I was telepathically begging her not to. HE to Watts: “C’mon, stop…don’t…there are all kinds of obstacles on your forest path and you obviously need to focus so just start speed-walking”…down she goes!

The pace of Lakewood is very fast and cranked up, and Amy is nothing if not resourceful. She manages to persuade an auto mechanic whom she doesn’t know to supply crucial information about Noah’s whereabouts, as well as info about the possible shooter’s name and contact info. All kinds of conversations and complications ensue, and you’re always aware that Chris Sparling‘s script is determined to increase the stress and suspense factors.

Most of these efforts felt reasonable to me, or at least not overly challenging or irksome. Lakewood is a thriller. I didn’t fight it. I accepted the rules and requirements.

I wouldn’t call myself “sad and lonely,” at least not in the Buck Owens sense of that term. But I do understand and relate to those anxious, intensely focused, mostly melancholy fellows who tend to populate Paul Schrader‘s films — aka “God’s lonely men”.

Because I’m more or less one of them. Not in a mopey or morose sense (or so I prefer to think) but certainly in the sense of being aware of the anxious and predatory nature of things out there, and certainly since the monsters came to Maple Street two or three years ago.

I have, I think, a livelier, spritzier attitude about things than, say, Ethan Hawke‘s “Reverend Toller” in First Reformed or Willem Dafoe‘s “John LeTour” in Light Sleeper, and I’m certainly more talkative and less guarded than Oscar Isaacs‘ William Tell in The Card Counter. But I relate in certain basic ways.

The Card Counter is a tight, well-organized, stripped-down drama about Tell and his basic situation, which is to play cards in various casinos and frequently win but at the same time stay away from the big pots — bet modestly, win modestly. Because he’s a shrewd and meticulous-minded fellow, and not stupid enough to agitate the pit bosses, who are always on the lookout for “counters.”

The film is only peripherally about cards and casinos, of course — it’s mainly about the wearing of a Schrader mask while grappling with buried guilt.

I found The Card Counter entirely solid and sturdy for the first 70 or 80 minutes. In my view it doesn’t end right — doesn’t quite bring it all home. But I didn’t feel burned or under-nourished either.

It’s basically a three-hander — Isaac plus costars Tye Sheridan (“Cirk”) and Tiffany Haddish (“La Linda”). Willem Dafoe‘s character, a former military guy (“Major John Gordo”) whom Isaac’s character served with during the Iraq War, is too peripheral (at least in terms of screen time) to be called an ensemble member.

In any event four-fifths of the film is taut and absorbing, and Isaac’s performance is highly respectable.

But Haddish’s character, a kind of casino scout who reps big-money guys who are looking to invest in exceptional poker players, never seems to really matter that much. I have to add that I didn’t believe her performance, and that she has no chemistry with Isaac. Matters of trust, attraction and sexuality between these two never seem the least bit interesting, much less central or necessary.

The film definitely goes soft when William and La Linda go on a date, taking an evening stroll through a lighted outdoor garden and becoming intimate later that evening. (Or soon after.) I was asking myself “why is this happening?” and “what could William having sex with La Linda possibly have to do with anything>?”

The sexual communion and levitation moment between Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried in First Reformed was a whole different thing. It was transcendent, liberating, other-worldly.

At the very end La Linda pays a visit to William in the same manner that Lauren Hutton visited Richard Gere at the close of Schrader’s American Gigolo, and in which Marika Green visits Martin LaSalle at the end of Robert Bresson‘s Pickpocket. My basic reaction was “this isn’t right…it diminishes the value of the previous two visits.” I’m not saying the ending fails, but it certainly underwhelms.

And yet the fact that I found The Card Counter to be four-fifths effective is a ringing endorsement — seriously. I can shrug off an ending if it doesn’t quite get it.

So that’s all she wrote for Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel — seen, considered and more or less dismissed as a sullen “damp mullet” melodrama by the Venice Film Festival critical watchdogs. What turned me off in West Hollywood is Dariusz Wolski’s affected bluish-gray color scheme. I’m a huge fan of Frank Tidy’s natural toned, Barry Lyndon-ish cinematography in Scott’s The Duellists (‘77); it would have been heavenly to return to that palette in Duel…but nope.

Having premiered a week ago at the Venice Film Festival, Edgar Wright‘s Last Night in Soho (Universal, 10.29) screened last night at the Toronto Film Festival. A cool and sexy time-trip ride during the first hour (visually mesmerizing, transporting ’60s pop tunes), but then it devolves into horror…WHAT ELSE?

Welcome once again to the realm of Edgar Wright, a gifted director with a geek maestro sensibility that always gets the better of him.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy: “It’s a very silly movie. Wright’s strongest work is still Baby Driver if you subtract the last 20 minutes, when it goes off the rails.”

HE: “Agree about Baby Driver. I know that I’ll never, EVER trust Jason Gorber’s opinion about any Wright film.”

JR: “Soho has a strong first hour. First half is pure pleasure. An amazing swinging ‘60s soundtrack. You live and breathe the setting. But then it devolves into infantilism.”

HE: “Thank God — you’ve made my day feel right.”

JR: “Wright’s obsession with genre cinema, particularly giallo stuff, becomes a bit too much.”

HE: “I could tell that from the trailer.”

JR: “He’s such a gifted visualist but can’t seem to let go of his obsession for more, more, MORE.”

HE: “Yup — no discipline.”

JR: “The twist is idiotic. Wright goes for wokeness. More or less a #MeToo horror revenge film. It’s a mess.”

Excerpt of 9.4.21 Venice Film Festival review by Variety‘s Guy Lodge: “Wright’s murky, middling blend of horror and time-traveling fantasy briefly makes the heart quicken. Otherwise, Last Night in Soho is a surprising misfire, all the more disappointing for being made with such palpable care and conviction.

Last night a guy named Jack Yonover (@jyonnie18) raved about a projected 35mm trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (seen in what theatre?). He was impressed by the “texture and feel of the ‘70s.”. Which was what Inherent Vice looked and felt like (simulations of dirt, scratches, reel-change marks) and nobody was particularly mesmerized. It was just “okay, PTA is conveying that celluloid ‘70s vibe”…whatever.

Another guy, Andrew Bundy (@andrewjohnbundy), saw the same trailer and was impressed by Sean Penn‘s excited portrayal of a ‘70s Nazi (in Los Angeles?) and Bradley Cooper kneeling between red and blue muscle cars while holding hammers in a way that reminded Bundy of PTA’s Punch Drunk Love.

In short Yonover and Bundy were taken with the mood, visual stylings and atmospheric minutiae of the trailer. Which suggests that the trailer cutters may have decided against conveying a hint of a basic story. Which suggests…

Jose Ferrer made it clear that he regarded his brief performance in Lawrence of Arabia as his best-ever screen work. Quote: “If I was to be judged by any one film performance, it would be my five minutes in Lawrence.” I can’t think of any other non-comedic, cameo-level performance as good as Ferrer’s — can anyone?

Sean Connery‘s cameo as King Richard the Lionheart at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves wasn’t on Ferrer’s level. Connery was showboating, taking a bow.

Comedically speaking, Tom Cruise‘s Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder and Bill Murray‘s walk-on performance as a pretend zombie in Zombieland are obvious stand-outs. But it’s easy to be amusing in a quickie context.

Earlier today I mentioned the disastrous casting of 27 year-old Ben Platt as a sensitive high-school guy in Dear Evan Hansen — too old. In the comment thread “brenkilco” complained that Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci seemed too old to be playing their Goodfellas characters when young — not a problem, they passed muster. On the other hand James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and as Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis — definitely too old.

Anyway I decided to switch sides and try to recall actors who either (a) seemed too young for their roles or (b) more or less fit them even though they were actually younger that they appeared.

So far I can only come up with two actresses and no actors. 36 year-old Angela Lansbury as the 33-year-old Laurence Harvey‘s mother in The Manchurian Candidate (’62). And 31 year-old Rosemary DeCamp playing 42 year-old James Cagney‘s mom in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

It’s been said that Jessie Royce Landis‘s performance as the mother of Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest doesn’t work because they were born only eight years part (Landis in 1896, Grant in 1904). But it does work. Grant was 54 when NXNW was shot but looked 45 or 46 while the 62 year-old Landis appeared a bit older. So it worked if you imagined that Landis was an under-aged mom (17 years old, say) when Roger came along.

This 104-second passage is, I feel, the greatest ending of a feature-length documentary ever assembled. Particularlv between the 1:00 and 1:25 marks. Neil Young‘s “Keep On Rockin’ In the Free World” never sounded so glorious as it did in this instance. Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in Cannes on 5.17.04 and won the Palme d’Or, opened theatrically on 6.25.04, earned $222.4 million domestic, and George Bush was re-elected.

As we speak Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel (20th Century Studios, 10.15) has a failing (60%) grade on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Plus Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney has called it “an uneven Middle Ages #MeToo epic.” And Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman has described it as “sort of medieval, anachronistic, and more than a bit concocted.”

From Gleiberman’s 9.10 Variety review: “The plot turns on an act of sexual assault, and in the second segment the movie flirts, however briefly, with treating that act the way that Kurosawa’s Rashomon did: with supreme ambiguity.

“But that would be a dicey thing to do in our era, so the film backs off from any ambiguity. Morally, that leaves it in good standing. But dramatically, it leaves it sort of just sitting there.

“We get de Carrouges’ [i.e., Matt Damon‘s] version of the events. Then we get Le Gris’ [Adam Driver‘s], which is just different enough to tease us. Then we get Marguerite’s [i.e., Jodie Comer], which matches up entirely with de Carougges’. By then you feel the wind going out of the movie’s sails.

“There are entertaining bits throughout. Ben Affleck plays the count as a supercilious, foul-mouthed libertine who likes to bed four women at once, and you feel how much fun the actor is having playing someone this piggish in his arrogance. Jodie Comer makes her mark, holding the screen with a calm fire. And though it’s occasionally hard to distinguish the intentional from the unintentional awkwardness in Damon’s performance, it’s amusing to see him stray so willfully out of his comfort zone.”

When Damon was co-writing and then acting in The Last Duel, he probably wasn’t anticipating that a Variety critic would describe his performance as partly “amusing.”

Gleiberman: “The climactic duel, a re-enactment of the last one ever sanctioned in France, is certainly a slash-to-the-death rouser in that Gladiator-in-chain-mail way.”