The La Pizza guys honored HE’s reservation, but they somehow got the idea that 40 guests were expected. “That was a mistake, possibly on my part,” I explained, half expecting to get my knuckles rapped. “I’d like to predict but people do what they want…I mean, the guests could be as few as 20 or 25.”

The waiters were counting on a much bigger bill and tip, you see, so they were a teeny bit miffed. I must have said “I’m sorry” three or four times, but the La Pizza guys were giving me side-eyes left and right.

I explained that Toronto Star critic Peter Howell was on deadline, a plane carrying Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson was late, N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” Kyle Buchanan was downstairs and not into the upstairs crowd and Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman had opted to join his colleagues (including editor Claudia Elller) three or four tables down from ours. And Variety‘s Steven Gaydos was inexplicably MIA. And no sign of Deadline‘s Pete Hammond.

Plus there’s a kind of Hatfields-vs.-McCoys separatism between wokester critics and the not-so-woke, I told the waiters. It’s not the one-for-all, all-for-one crowd it used to be. A lot of prickly pears out there.

But things eventually worked out. Our banquet-sized table filled up, everyone ate and drank and the mood turned joyful and even boisterous. Raucous applause broke out when Thompson arrived; more cheers when Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich dropped by.

The bill ended up at 359 euros. Film at Lincoln Center exec director Lesli Klainberg generously picked up half the tab…that’s the American spirit!

Top group photo (l. to r.): Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, Claudia Eller, Asian bureau chief Patrick Frater, Brent Lang. Fourth pic from the top (l. to r.): World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, Film at Lincoln Center’s Lesli Klainberg, Miami Film Festival’s Carl Spence, Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn, Apple guy Matt Dentler, John Von Thaden from Magnolia Pictures and director (Show Me What You Got) & dp Svetlana Cvetko.

Doris Day has passed at age 97. Nothing sad or tragic in this — she lived a long, luminous and bountiful life, if not over the last half-century then certainly during her 25-year heyday. Day was semi-hot between 1940, when her big-band singing career began to happen at age 18, and the launch of her film career in 1948. She was huge throughout the ’50s and early ’60s but it all began to wind down around 1965, when her “world’s oldest virgin” routine finally began to get old.

From “Doris Day Is More Or Less Okay,” posted on 1.10.10:

“Day was fairly great in Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, Young Man With A Horn and Love Me or Leave Me. I remember something tart and tolerable about her performance in Young At Heart, in which she played the love interest of a dark-hearted Frank Sinatra. And she was reasonably “good” in those bizarre comedies of sexual constipation that she made in the early to mid ’60s.

“And yet it’s hard to think of another veteran of ’50s and ’60s cinema who was more of an icon for uptight middle-class values and zero sexuality.

“I know I suddenly liked Day a lot more when I heard that rumor about her having had an affair with Sly Stone — but that story turned out to be bogus. Day did apparently have a fling with L.A. Dodgers base-stealer Maury Wills.”

Day was offered the Mrs. Robinson role in The Graduate, but turned it down for moral reasons. Mistake.

In 2010 director Douglas McGrath (Infamous, Emma) made a case for Day, then 87, receiving a special career-honoring Oscar. McGrath wrote persuasively and with feeling about Day’s special qualities. She committed to her light-comedy roles, held her own with the likes of James Stewart, Kirk Douglas and James Cagney, and deserved a tribute for the same reason that Cary Grant was tributed in 1970 — i.e., because she was iconic.

The only Day performance I had a problem with was her costarring role in Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Man Who Knew Too Much. I adore aspects of this 1956 thriller (the murder in the Marrakech marketplace, the assassination attempt in Albert Hall) but Day’s grating emotionalism makes it a very hard film to watch. She cries, shrieks, trembles, weeps. And when she isn’t losing it, she’s acting pretentiously coy and smug or singing “Que Sera Sera” over and over.

I caught Joe Berlinger‘s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile last week. The reason I didn’t feel moved to post anything is that I was impressed as far as it went, but the only element that really got me was Zac Efron‘s icy, understated portrayal of serial killer Ted Bundy.

It’s a straightforward, well-measured, non-emphatic portrait of a fiend, drawn from the point of view of Bundy’s onetime girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall (Lily Collins). The source is Kendall’s book “The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy“. Kudos to screenwriter Michael Werwie for pruning it down just so.

I was never bored, irked or irritated, but it’s obviously and necessarily an alienating thing to sit through, and the whole time I was telling myself “this is fairly decent but I can’t say I’m enjoying it, and how could I?”

Efron is fascinating. Before this his best performance was in Me and Orson Welles, but this is much stronger for its subtlety. He’s playing an extremely scary guy without overtly signalling full-monster vibes. Well, he does but with dozens of little darting, brush-flick ways.

What other films contain a top-notch lead performance while otherwise making you wish they would end soon?

Hollywood Elsewhere hasn’t seen Mike Dougherty‘s Fat Godzilla (Warner Bros, 5.19) and I’m pretty much determined to excuse myself until it streams, but I strongly disagree with Steve Weintraub’s praise on principle. More doesn’t mean better. I’ll always prefer a monster film that invests in hints of things to come rather than one that pushes it all in your face.

From my 5.10.14 review of Gareth Edwards‘ Godzilla: “I liked the fact that Edwards tones Godzilla down for most of its running time. Over and over he uses suggestion — visual and aural hints and implications — instead of blatant show-and-tells. He deserves admiration for delaying Godzilla’s first big MCU roar until the two-thirds mark and also holding back on the trademark fire-breathing until the big super-finale, in which San Francisco gets it but good.”

Amidst the general dissatisfaction with last night’s Game of Thrones episode (“The Bells“), an assessment by Giant Bomb associate producer and Brooklyn-based comedian Abby Russell stands out. HE commentariat remarks are hereby requested.

“People like you must create, otherwise you become a menace to society.”

The last trailer for the endlessly bumped Where’d You Go, Bernadette didn’t mention director Richard Linklater. The newbie doesn’t state his name either, but at least it acknowledges it’s “from the director of Boyhood and School of Rock.”

The Annapurna film, which stars Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Emma Nelson, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer and James Urbaniak and has been described as a “mystery comedy-drama”, opens on August 9th.

The grand unfurling happened yesterday morning. Around this time Hollywood Elsewhere was half-sleeping as a Norwegian Airlines 787 flew over the North Sea. Video posted last night by Reuters.

Keanu Reeves answered Stephen Colbert‘s question succinctly and gracefully. Everyone including Colbert approved, but of course KR sidestepped the question. Which struck me as a bit curious given a recollection that Reeves (a) has previously shared heavy-mystical-cat views about the scheme of things (or so I recall) and (b) played Siddartha in a Bertolucci film so he’s been down to the bottom of that well.

HE’s stock reply: “Life is a fountain, and each of us is a drop of water. The fountain shoots us out and we rise gloriously into the air, and then we fall back into the pool and get sucked down and then shoot out again. Okay, some water drops aren’t so glorious but it’s nonetheless a divine, infinite process.”

When the kids were young and asking these kinds of questions I used to say that when we die we become a baby again, except we never remember this. Well, every now and then some claim to.

HE’s Stockholm-to-Nice flight touched down at 9:30 pm, or a half-hour later than scheduled. Plus 25 minutes in front of the luggage carousel. I couldn’t locate the 15-euro bus, which usually takes 45 or 50 minutes. So I took Jordan Ruimy‘s advice and dragged my luggage down to the Gare de Nice-Saint-Augustin, which began operations in 1864. The hike took a little more than 15 minutes. Lots of twists and turns and fast-car-dodging, but I managed. The train ride was free — nary a conductor in sight.

My LAX-to-Stockholm flight was a typical 10-hour int’l flight, which is to say uncomfortable and interminable. A grim-up endurance test. Can you take it? Can you steel yourself and suffer through with grace and aplomb?

What made it especially bad was the absence of wi-fi. What airline doesn’t offer in-flight connectivity these days? Norwegian plans to join the club sometime next year, but for now Type-A passengers looking to file stories during a trans-oceanic flight are fucked.

It’s 4:52 pm, and I’m waiting to board the 6 pm Nice flight. And having gotten a grand total of 90 minutes of shut-eye, I’m starting to droop. I know this drill backwards and forwards. I’ll crash on the flight, and when I finally get to the Cannes apartment this evening I won’t be able to sleep.

Stockholm Arlanda is seemingly waaay out in the country. No sprawling suburbs or congested business strips nearby — just mile upon square mile of birch and pine trees, like you’re flying into Savannah. An unusually attractive airport setting. Not oversized, mellow vibe.

Plus it’s also somewhat pleasant to be around all these attractive Swedish people with their Nordic features, blonde hair (although black hair is equally plentiful) and relatively trim physiques. If you’ve done any travelling over the last 10 or 15 years you know that Jabbas are ubiquitious in U.S. airports, but there are almost none here. So it’s a nice place to hang.

During the flight I watched Dog Day Afternoon (’75), and spotted “Tony Lip” — i.e., Anthony Vallelonga, the real-life character who was portrayed by Viggo Mortensen in Green Book. Dog Day Lip is playing a plainclothes detective. He’s glimpsed at the end of the climactic JFK tarmac sequence, or right after John Cazale‘s “Sal” has been shot in the forehead by Lance Henricksen. (Spoiler!).