If there’s one thing film twitter wants you to abandon, it’s your comfort zone. Be brave, step over the fence and experience the exotic, uncertain, challenging realms that exist outside of your little piddly backyard. Of course! Hollywood Elsewhere agrees that people who refuse to step outside of their c.z. are missing so much and absorbing so little in the way of life-giving nutrients or eye-opening realizations. I’ve been in rooms with people who don’t want to see what they don’t want to see, and it’s not pretty. The wrong kind of vibe.

On the other hand I’ve always defined “comfort zone” in a different way.

To me a comfort movie is one that presents three basic things. One, semi-recognizable human behavior (i.e., bearing at least some resemblance to that which you’ve observed in your own life, including your own something-to-be-desired, occasionally less-than-noble reactions to this or that challenge). Two, some kind of half-believable story in which various behaviors are subjected to various forms of emotional or psychological stress and strain. (This should naturally include presentations of inner human psychology, of course, as most people tend to hide what they’re really thinking or scheming to attain.) And three, action that adheres to the universal laws of physics — i.e., rules that each and every life form has been forced to submit to since the beginning of time.

The physics thing basically means that I can enjoy or at least roll with superhero fantasy popcorn fare, but on the other hand these films have a way of delivering a form of profound irritation and even depression if you watch enough of them.

There are, in short, many ways of telling stories that (a) contain recognizable human behavior, (b) engaging stories and (c) adhere to basic laws of gravity, inertia and molecular density. I’m talking about tens of thousands of square miles of human territory, and movies that include Her, Solaris, Boyhood, Betrayal, Children of Men, Leviathan, Thelma and Louise, Superbad, Cold War, Across 110th Street, Shoot the Piano Player, Them!, A Separation, The Silence, Se7en, Holy Motors, Silver Linings Playbook, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Hold That Ghost, The Miracle Worker, The Wolf Man, Ikiru, Crossfire, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Duck Soup, Moonlighting, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, the better screwball comedies of the ’30s, The Blob, First Reformed, Ichi the Killer, The Equalizer 2, Adaptation, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, Punch Drunk Love, Out Of the Past, Danton, Some Like It Hot, The Big Sky and God knows how many hundreds or thousands of others.

But if a movie presents human behavior that I regard as completely unrecognizable or nonsensical, that insists on ignoring the way things are out there (or “in” there), I tune out. And if you don’t like that, tough.

Michael Avenatti lacks the resume of a typical Democratic presidential contender. He’s a bit out of his depth — more hat than cattle — and of course he’s an opportunist. What attorney isn’t? But he strikes me as a highly intelligent, relatively decent fellow. He’s tough, well-organized and and well-phrased, and has never stumbled in all the interviews I’ve seen him do. His domestic political views are basically compassionate and humanist. I don’t see a huge problem.

From Maggie Astor’s 8.10 N.Y. Times story: “[Yesterday] Avenatti used his first big speech as a prospective presidential candidate to call on the Democratic Party to reject Michelle Obama’s oft-quoted advice about President Trump and his allies: “When they go low, we go high.”

“The hard-charging lawyer who represents the pornographic film star Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, did not mention the former first lady in his keynote speech Friday night at the Democratic Wing Ding, a party fund-raiser in northern Iowa. But there was no mistaking his meaning.

“’We must be a party that fights fire with fire,’ Mr. Avenatti said to cheers from the audience, his voice rising. ‘When they go low, I say hit back harder.’

“He received a thunderous ovation at the end of his speech, notably louder than the applause for the night’s other speakers, including Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio as well as Representative John Delaney of Maryland, who is running for president.”

Twilight Time overcharges. I’d buy their Hot Rock Bluray if it was $19 and change, but those extra ten dollars are killers. Forget it. Movies of a certain formidable calibre (great reviews, awards, classic status) might be worth $30, but not a fun, throwaway flick about stealing and re-stealing a big, fat African diamond….c’mon! Why can’t I just stream it?

“They come from the planet Cannabis. Which is why they look so stoned.” — YouTube commenter from 2013.

The main reason I never cared for Francis Coppola‘s Tucker: The Man and His Dream (’88), the story of innovative auto designer Preston Tucker and his attempt to produce and market the 1948 Tucker Sedan, is that it says the same thing over and over. That thing is the fix was in, or the corporate auto industry refused to allow an innovative auto designer to prosper and thereby make them look bad, and so they had his business killed.

If Tucker had been funnier and crazier, maybe. But it’s so methodical and so determined to deliver the same observation over and over that it eventually smothers your soul.

When you think about it, movies that say “the fix is in and anyone who tries to change or expose this system is going to suffer or get killed or at least corrupted” is a genre in itself.

Alan Pakula‘s The Parallax View is a “fix is in” movie. Ditto Michael Ritchie‘s The Candidate. Luchino Visconti‘s The Damned and Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo and the 120 Days of Sodom are two extreme examples. Serpico and Prince of the City are major “don’t try to un-fix things” films. All The President’s Men, obviously, is the opposite of a “fix” film.

What are some of the better ones? Dramas or comedies that merely say “everything stinks and corruption will always be with us” are not “fix is in” movies. You need a lead protagonist who wants to do things differently and tries to implement that, and is finally stripped, beaten down and gutted at the end.

A Bluray of Tucker: The Man and His Dream will pop on 8.28.

A few days ago Esquire‘s Nick Schrager listed his best-of-the-year-so-far list. I agree with him here and there but some of his other choices…Jesus. The Rider doesn’t develop, doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a movie about waiting for death, about “the thing that you love you can’t do, and so you’re fucked.”

Here’s HE’s latest best-of-the-year roster — a grand total of 21, and in this order:

Tied for first place: Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife (Sony Pictures Classics, 8.17) and Paul Schrader‘s First Reformed; 3. Ari Aster‘s Hereditary; 4. Stefano Sollima‘s Sicario — Day of the Soldado; 5. Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise‘s Mission : Impossible — Fallout; 6. John Krasinski‘s A Quiet Place; 7. Eugene Jarecki‘s The King; 8. Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here, 9. Tony Zierra‘s Filmworker, 10. Andrej Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, 11. Jeremiah Zagar‘s We Are The Animals, 12. Tony Gilroy‘s Beirut, 13. Wes Anderson‘s Isle of Dogs; 14. Bo Burnham‘s Eighth Grade; 15. Won’t You Be My Neighbor; 16. Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther; 17. Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood; 18. Betsy West; Julie Cohen‘s RBG; 19. Spike Lee‘s BlackKKlansman; 20. Antoine Fuqua‘s The Equalizer 2; and 21. John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick.

Not bad, liked ’em well enough, half-liked ’em, mezzo-mezzos: Jason Reitman‘s Tully; Andrew Haigh‘s Lean on Pete; Chloe Zhao‘s The Rider; Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One; Armando Ianucci‘s The Death of Stalin; Greg Berlanti’s Love Simon; Clint Eastwood‘s The 15:17 to Paris; Samuel Maoz‘s Foxtrot (all from Sony Classics), Ziad Doueiri‘s The Insult (Cohen Media Group) and Alex Garland‘s Annihilation.

Still Haven’t Seen ’em: Sally Potter‘s The Party, Joel Francis Daley‘s Game Night, Cory Finley‘s Thoroughbreds and what else?

There’s your rectangular-block, tidy-front-lawn suburbia (exemplified by my boyhood small town of Westfield, New Jersey), exurbia (the leafy, winding-road environs of Westchester and Fairfield counties — Wilton, Weston, Ridgefield, New Canaan, Chappaqua, Bedford) and finally your seriously serene Andrew Wyeth rich-folk farmland regions like the Berkshire foothills, where I was yesterday. Southfield, New Marlborough, Monterey, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Lenox.

I hadn’t visited this Western Massachusetts region since the mid ’80s, and had forgotten how quiet, how disarming, how completely far-from-the-madding-crowd it is. “Gently intoxicating” is one way to describe it The murmuring pines and hemlocks, and the occasional farm-fresh food stands by the roadside. There are whole regions in which your iPhone connectivity totally disappears, and you almost don’t mind. All you can hear is the grass growing.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m still a city boy at heart (and by that I mean Paris, Prague, Rome or Hanoi), but yesterday I felt as if I was 10 years old and sitting on a patch of tree-shaded grass and listening to a nearby waterfall.

“All Quiet on Fondamente de l’Arzere,” posted 14 months ago: There’s a soul-soothing atmosphere of quiet throughout the Dorsoduro and San Croce districts after dark. No scooters, no sirens, no thumping bass tones emanating from clubs, no half-bombed 20something women shrieking with laughter…just the barely-there sound of bay water lapping at pier pilings.

“There are many places, I’m sure, that are just as quiet when the sun goes down. But there are very few where you can’t even hear hints of civilization, where traces of the usual nighttime rumble aren’t at least faintly audible. I can sit at home in West Hollywood and feel cool and collected, but I’ll always hear the occasional helicopter or motorcycle whine or subwoofer speakers thumping in someone’s car or louche party animals roaming nearby. Venice is dead-mouse quiet, especially after 10 pm or thereabouts. You can hear a pin drop.

Restoration guru Robert Harris and I spent most of today (Friday, 8.10) visiting the legendary Douglas Trumbull — special-effects designer and innovator (Close Encounters, Blade Runner, Tree of Life), director of Brainstorm and Silent Running, the Thomas A. Edison of knockout movie concepts and visuals — on his sprawling estate in Southfield, Mass.

The highlight was experiencing (watching sounds too bland) Trumbull’s Magi, a mindblowing digital 3D projection system that delivers images at 120 frames per second and hefty woofer shake under your seat, and which turns you around in a way that feels pretty damn unique.

Douglas Trumbull, Robert Harris outside Magi projection facility.

Harris picked me up this morning at the new Danbury train station. (The old train station, located 150 feet to the east, is where Robert Walker‘s Bruno Antony disembarked in “Metcalf” in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Strangers on a Train.) We drove up interstate 84, over to Route 8, northwest on 44 and then due north on 272.

We pulled into Southfield a little after noon. We stopped at the Southfield Store for a rest and a light lunch, and arrived at the huge Trumbull compound (four or five large residences, a “mad genius” workshed, a couple of soundstages, a projection facility, a couple of garages, meadows with grazing donkeys and goats and towering trees all around) at 12:45 pm, give or take.

The Trumbull compound seemed larger than George Lucas‘s Skywalker Sound facility in northern Marin County. Try 50 acres. It’s homey and at the same time a kind of high-tech village. You need to drive to get from one end to the other.

Full of energy and sharp as a tack, Trumbull led us over to a “Magi pod” theatre, which seats 60 and uses a large, curved concave screen. He explained that Magi integrates virtual reality and augmented reality (seat rumblings), and that it’s the kind of thing that could re-energize moviegoing in an era of fading cinema attendance.

Boilerplate: Magi captures and projects images in 3D, 4K HD and 120 frames per second. Trumbull has developed a prefabricated “Magi Pod” theater, as most theatres are incapable of delivering the right stuff. Magi Pods can be shipped and assembled in a week. Each seat faces the center of a 36-foot-wide by 17-foot-tall screen. A 32-channel, surround-sound system provides strong, needle-sharp audio. The system produces a picture that’s way more immersive than regular 3D or IMAX.

Trumbull and a collaborator are writing a script called Lightship. I didn’t grill him on the specifics, but it’s some kind of high-tech, high-dynamic, eyeball-popping hair-raiser. Trumbull intends to direct Lightship with most of the principal photography to be captured in the compound.

Harris and I pushed on a little after 3 pm, and were both back at our respective homes less than three hours later.

Are high-school kids really this cruel? You bet. Is there anything unhealthy about being obese? Maybe, but don’t discuss it. Is there anything wrong with launching a Netflix series about weight issues and fat-shaming? Yup, there is.

From 8.9 N.Y. Times story, “Is Netflix’s ‘Insatiable’ as Offensive as It Looks?,” by Aisha Harris and Eleanor Stanford:

“When the trailer for the new Netflix series Insatiable arrived in July, it was met with fierce criticism on social media and elsewhere; a Change.org petition calling for it to be pulled from release has over 200,000 signatures as of this writing. The objection was over the show’s basic premise: A bullied teenager named Patty (Debby Ryan) seeks revenge when she loses weight after an incident forces her to have her mouth wired shut.

“The cast and producers of Insatiable, including the actress Alyssa Milano, have offered rebuttals to the accusations of body-shaming. Ms. Ryan shared her own struggles with body image on Twitter, writing, ‘I was drawn to this show’s willingness to go to real places about how difficult and scary it can be to move through the world in a body.’” And Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vp for original series, has defended the show as a satire meant to critique the act of fat-shaming.”

James Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli has reportedly said “it is time” for an ethnic actor to star as 007, and she is certain “it will happen eventually”. This view was passed along by director Antoine Fuqua (Equalizer 2) and published by Daily Star reporter Robin Cottle.

If it’s “time” for the leading black candidate, Idris Elba, to step into the coveted role, why is Broccoli saying it’ll happen “eventually”? Her assessments don’t jibe. If she’d said “it’s not quite time but it’ll happen eventually,” then the statements would agree. It sounds to me like Broccoli is saying “yes, today’s movie culture is totally ready for and perhaps even clamoring for a black 007 — I get that — but I’m not sure I want to push that button just yet.”

Esquire‘s Matt Miller has written that Broccoli’s quote “isn’t much, but it’s a good sign that Bond producers are at least leaning in the right direction.” Which indicates that in Miller’s mind, there’s a wrong direction. I presume that means that a traditional studly British white guy in the Sean Connery mold — Henry Cavill, say — would be the “wrong” way to go.

From a certain perspective, Miller is right. It is time for Elba, but Cavill really has that naturally muscular X-factor quality, Glenn Kenny will call me a grand wizard for saying this, but Cavill is a better “traditional” fit than Elba. Traditional as in “to the manor born.” Cavill’s villain role in Mission: Impossible — Fallout convinced me of this. He has wit, looks, clarity and presence, and he’s an above-average actor.

I totally agree that Elba would be a great, forward-looking choice — tall, strapping, good-looking, dignified, that air of dry irony. But Cavill is Connery II, and more so than Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan or Craig. Ask the rabid fan base who’s been the best Bond ever. The majority will still say Connery.

“Major Kong? I know you’re gonna think this is crazy, but I’ve just heard about a two-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in Telluride that sleeps four or five. It’s one of the units in the Viking Lodge, and it’s going for only $225 nightly during the Telluride Film Festival (8.30 thru 9.3). If three people share it’s only $75 a night or $300 for the whole four days.”

Esteemed critic and obliging nice guy Chris Willman is looking for two hygienic, industry-savvy persons to join the band. Write me for Chris’s info.