In Contention‘s Kris Tapley also praising Jesse James.

One final reminder to bulldoze your reluctant N.Y. and L.A. friends into seeing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday, and get those guldarned, dad-blasted per-screen averages up where they damn well oughta be for a film this plum mesmerizing. If any varmints and polecats need a further nudge, here‘s Liza Schwarzbaum‘s A-plus review in Entertainment Weekly:

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford — a haunting retelling of one of the enduring outlaw sagas in American culture — is shot by the brilliant cinematographer Roger Deakins in a wide-open geography of moody skies and fields plaintive with bent light and shadow,” she writes. “Yet the psychological heart of the matter is dark, secretive, and daringly interior.

“This masterful Western by New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Dominik (Chopper), based on the 1983 book by Ron Hansen, dips into the genre-bending influences of wild-card Westerns from the late ’60s and ’70s like Bonnie and Clyde and Days of Heaven for its elegiacally fatalistic tone.

“Yet the picture emerges with something very much plaguing the 21st century on its mind — a cool acceptance of lethal paranoia as the natural state brought on by the weight of too much legend-building and the warp of too much unrequited fandom.

“The charismatic, bank-robbing, gunslinging James, after all, was shot in the back by a puny would-be tagalong who claimed to be the gang leader’s biggest fan, and this is one rueful recounting of how it all went down. Stories about the loneliness of celebrity and the dangers of firearms rarely get starker or more mesmerizing than that.”

Ever since David Fincher‘s Zodiac opened early last March the hardcores have been eagerly awaiting the “Directors’ Cut” DVD, in part over expectations that something close to a three-hour version of this classic crime-obsession movie would be offered, especially as I’d heard from various sources that something close to a 180-minute cut has been screened, with one publicist telling me in particular that he preferred the longer version to the the final release-print version, which either ran 156 minutes (according to Variety‘s Todd McCarthy), 157 minutes (per Amazon) or 158 minutes (says the IMDB).

The “Lake Berryessa” scene in Zodiac.

Now for some mildly shocking news: the Zodiac “Director’s Cut” DVD that will be released on 1.8.08 (official stories have run over the last couple of days) will run 162 minutes, according to a story by DVD Lounge‘s Travis Leammons. That will make it a mere five minutes longer than the theatrical version (if you go by the Amazon running time) or six minutes longer if you go with McCarthy’s count.

The whole point of Zodiac is obsession. The fun is in the obsessive wading through detail after detail, clue after clue, hint after hint. It follows, therefore, that the Director’s Cut DVD should give free rein to the film’s investigative intrigues (Jake Gyllenhaal‘s, Mark Ruffalo‘s, Robert Downey‘s…everyone’s). This naturally means more details, hints and clues and more running time to explore each one. In this light, five or six extra minutes isn’t nearly enough. I was looking for at least an extra 20 or 25 minutes. This is very disappointing.

I called Phoenix Picture to see if the 162-minute running time was correct. One guy expressed surprise at this length (“I would have thought it would be closer to three hours”) but said “we have nothing to do with the director’s cut.” I called Paramount Home Video publicity to double-confirm the running time, but the person I was looking for wasn’t in. I tried to reach David Fincher‘s Benjamin Button crew but gave up after a three or four calls. This sounds obsessive in itself.

“I’m Alicia Silverstone and I’m a vegetarian ….there’s nothing in the world that’s changed me as much as this…I feel so much better with so much more energy…it’s so amazing.”

It’ll be neck-and-neck between Resident Evil: Extinction and Good Luck, Chuck for the #1 spot this weekend — the horror flick expected to rule on Friday night but probably fated to slip on Saturday (as almost all sequels do) with Chuck (which isn’t expected to enjoy great word-of-mouth) moving ahead. No age and quadrant breakdowns, but Evil is currently at 79 general, 45 definite awareness and 27 first choice and Chuck is at 83, 46 and 23.

Eastern Promises — 38, 28, 5. Sidney White — 45,38 and 9. Feast of Love — 37, 29 and 1. The Game Plan (a Rock comedy that’s sneaking this weekend) — 58, 40 and 8. The Kingdom (opening a week from tomorrow) is at 70, 43 and 7. The Heartbreak Kid — 63, 31 and 3. Elizabeth: The Golden Age — 53, 27 and 4… Michael Clayton (10.5 limited, 10.12 wide-ish) — 37, 29 and 1. Postal — 20, 30 and 0. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? — 35, 48 and 3. We Own The Night (opening against Michael Clayton on 10.212) — 46, 38 and 3….not bad at this stage.

Say what you will about Julie Taymor‘s Across The Universe, but it had an excellent per-screen average last week on only 23 screens. Despite this encouragement, Sony have now decreased the amount of screens for this Friday’s expansion twice, according to Box-Office Mojo. From a reported 700-screen opening Sony trimmed it down to 400 screens and is now, according to BOM, it will open on only 276 screens.

A Sony spokesperson says they’ve “reduced the screen count to help Across The Universe capitalize on its strong word-of-mouth” and that this “has nothing to do with the screen count for Resident Evil.” The off-the-lot view is that Sony is in fact looking to get as many screens as they can for this weekend’s opening of Resident Evil: Extinction, which is tracking very strongly. They’re going for the money whjile the going’s good.

Terrence Malick‘s reputation as the most reclusive and press-averse director of all time — since the release of ’78’s Days of Heaven he has truly become a Thomas Pynchon-ish, Glenn Gould– styled hideaway — was turned on its head with yesterday’s announcement that he will actually take the stage at the upcoming Rome Film Festival (10.13 to 10.21) for the festival’s “Extra” section.

Yeti-like Terrence Malick during the filming of The Thin Red Line

Although paparazzi will be verboten (per Malick’s insistence), the Rome event will be, as far as I can recollect, the first time that Malick will have taken part in a pre-announced public appearance/idiscussion in almost three decades. (I read early last year that he took part in a post-screening discussion following a screening of The New World in his home town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.)

Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli reported that Malick’s forthcoming appearance (no specific date was given) was the result of his being “coaxed for more than a year.” Vivarelli explained that the “reclusive Malick will talk about his love for Italian cinema, as well as his own work.”

Yesterday brought a Borys Kit Hollywood Reporter story about Jennifer Garner being “in negotiations” to star opposite Matthew McConaughey in New Line’s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a Christmas Carol-ish romantic comedy about “a bachelor visited by ghosts of past and future girlfriends who endeavor to connect him with his true love.”

My reaction, naturally, was one of instant nausea. But it was heartening to learn soon after that at least one other McConaughey hater felt the same way. The combination of McConaughey, Garner and the insipid-sounding plotline inspired Burbanked.com’s Alan Lopuszynski to construct a McConaughey rom-com chart indicating that MM’s actress costars tend to wind up with poorly-written roles and poor reviews.

Although N.Y. movie writer Lewis Beale once called McConaughey “the Robert Cummings of our time,” it’s an article of faith in some quarters that he’s a true Hollywood Beelezebub. I ran a piece along these lines on 7.16.06, called “King of the Empties.” Here it is, reprinted and repasted:

“I’m developing an idea that Matthew McConaughey is a kind of anti-Christ. I’m 35% to 40% serious. He may not be the Satanic emissary of our times, but I honestly believe if and when the real devil rises up from those sulfur caverns and begins to walk the earth, he’ll look and behave exactly like McConaughey.

“He’s not just the absolute nadir of empty-vessel pretty boy actors. I’m talking about an almost startling inner quality that transcends mere shallowness. It’s there in McConaughey’s eyes…eyes that look out at the wonder and terror of life but do nothing but scan for opportunity…something or someone to hustle or seduce or make a buck off. Eyes that convey a Maynard G. Krebs-like revulsion at the idea that life may finally be about something you can’t touch, taste or own.

McConaughey and fan

“He has the soul of a Texas bartender who dabbles in real estate and has an overly made-up and undereducated girlfriend who drops by at the end of a shift to give him a lift home, except that he tends to ignore her when there’s a good game on and all his empty-ass buddies are there…a bartender who will clean shot glasses for 20 minutes before looking in your direction…a guy with a thin voice and a hey-buddy Texas drawl who sorta kinda needs to be stabbed with a screwdriver.

“I’ve known guys like McConaughey all my life, and I feel I’ve come to know them as a predator tribe. Guys with fraternity associations and shark eyes and quarter-inch- deep philosophies that tend to start with barstool homilies like “the world is for the few.”

“Because of this I can easily wave away his respectable performances in Dazed and Confused and Reign of Fire and focus on the void. I agree about these standout performances and his being tolerable in one or two other films (U-571, etc.), and because of this I was able to handle his being in movies without cringing for years.

“But then came the double-whammy of Two for the Money and Failure to Launch, and now the mere mention of his name…

With Sarah Jessica Parker in scene from Failure to Launch

“McConaughey is the emperor of the so-called vapid squad. He can kick Paul Walker‘s ass with one hand tied behind his back, in part because Walker is now off the shit list after his sweat-soaked danger-freak performance in Wayne Kramer‘s Running Scared. Forget the unfairly maligned Matthew (a.k.a., “Matt”) Davis, who gave a genuine and unforced performance as a decent-guy football player in John Stockwell‘s Blue Crush…next to McConaughey he’s almost Brando-level.

“I forget who the other contenders are but none of them hold a candle to McConaughey because they haven’t got that deep-down emptiness, which is what it’s all about. Not a matter of craft or affability, but essence.”

Persona-wise, Owen Wilson “isn’t just Mr. Space Case, but one who really has ‘the spirit’ — his characters always seem genuinely imbued and imaginative and familiar with college philosophy basics, and there is no one else on the planet who does this sort of thing with Wilson’s particularity.

“[And] there is no other actor on the Hollywood landscape whose dialogue (large portions of which Wilson always seems to write or improvise himself) is focused so earnestly and consistently on matters of attitude and heart. Pretentious as it may sound, Wilson is an actor with a consistently alive and pulsing inner-ness. Is there any other actor who even flirts with this realm?”

The preceding is from a July 2006 piece on Wilson (called “A True Original“) that I just re-read this morning, and which seems a little more resonant today than it was during the You, Me and Dupree build-up, especially with across-the-board Darjeeling Limited screenings about to commence.

A shorter re-edited version of Richard Kelly‘s Southland Tales — i.e., shorter than the version that played and bombed at the ’06 Cannes Film Festival — will open on 11.9 via Samuel Goldwyn. L.A. Times contributor Mark Olsen has written that Kelly and producing partner Sean McKittrick “have been hard at work on revising the film nearly nonstop” since the Cannes wipeout.

The film has been trimmed “by approximately 20 minutes” and “now has about 600 visual-effects shots, of which at least 100 are completely new,”: Olsen reports. I liked portions of what I saw at Cannes 16 months ago, but I basically called it “a very long throw of a surreal wackazoid football.”

Because I’ve run at least three extended items about the Robert Rodriguez-Rose McGowan alliance — #1, #2 and #3 — that ignited during the shooting of Grindhouse, it seems permissable to link to this “Page Six” thing, which I would otherwise regard as something worth considering while standing in the checkout line at the West Hollywood Pavillions….at best, maybe.

I’m skeptical but at the same time half-persuaded that a special Harry Knowles-orchestrated “secret screening” of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage, 12.26) will be shown soon — perhaps on Saturday, 9.22 — at Austin’s Alamo Draft House (on South Lamar) as part of Fantastic Fest (9.20 to 9.27). Two sources — one direct, one second-hand — funnelled the info. Paramount Vantage reps denied or poured water on the story. Draft House honcho and festival organizer Tim League didn’t return calls.