Dwayne Johnson and Rawson Marshall Thurber‘s Skyscraper (Universal 7.13) has been assessed as a serious box-office shortfaller, if not a calamity. Yesterday it made a lousy $9,268.000 on 3782 screens for an average of $2451, and will end up with an estimated $24 to $28 million by Sunday night — a third-place finish behind Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation and Disney-Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.

“Skyscraper Falls,” a Variety headline announced; “Skyscraper Up In Flames,” proclaimed Deadline.

Could it be that audiences are finally waking up to Hollywood Elsewhere’s longstanding assessment of Johnson, which is that he’s fundamentally opposed to making good films and that his default instinct is to topline high-concept action flicks that are relentlessly stupid and implausible? Did audiences steer clear because critics are saying that Skyscraper is so bone-dumb it’ll turn your brain into a volley ball? Are they finally starting to realize that Johnson has repeatedly shown contempt for audiences by making nothing but crap?

Not so much, says Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro. “There [are] a few reasons why Skyscraper is in shambles,” he wrote this morning, “but chiefly Johnson’s family crowd here is being swallowed up whole by both Hotel Transylvania 3 and the second weekend of Ant-Man and the Wasp.”

AD also said something about Johnson’s brand being over-exposed with the recent release of Jumanji and Rampage, i..e, “where’s the fresh face?” He quotes a RelishMix observation about Skyscraper “literally [looking] like a Die Hard update, but with a hero challenged by a prosthetic.” But shouldn’t the fact that Skyscraper is a shitty film…shouldn’t that at least be factored in? Quality counts for a little something…no?

It’s ironic that on a day that everyone is talking about Johnson’s first significant box-office stumble, The Guardian‘s Steve Rose has posted a “yay, Dwayne!” piece called “Let’s Rock! Why Dwayne Johnson is the new Schwarzenegger.”

Posted on 12.8.16: “With the exception of Michael Bay‘s Pain and Gain, Johnson has demonstrated time and again that he’s fundamentally opposed to appearing in films that are (a) good and (b) at least semi-believable. He makes big, dopey, adolescent cartoons.”

I noticed three culturally significant things during my second visit to London in early December ’80. I was there to interview Peter O’Toole for GQ magazine, but it was also quite the jarring moment when I awoke one morning to learn that John Lennon has been killed hours earlier in New York City.

One, I noticed how almost everyone using the up escalator in the London Underground always stands to the right to allow others to pass. The only ones who didn’t seem to understand this system, to go by a 40ish business-suited guy who was standing in front of me one day, were American tourists. Americans (pudgy couples in particular) love to stand and block escalators or travelators. Especially in airports and on New York subways. I’m into walking and stair-climbing, so every time I travel I’m constantly saying “sorry…excuse me”, over and over. Standing to the right is totally a British thing, or so it seemed at the time.

Two, for the first time in my life I heard my last name pronounced correctly, or at least in a richer, more tonally satisfying way than I myself had ever pronounced it. It’s an English name, of course, so no surprise that I experienced my “woke” moment when a British Airways attendant said “Mr. Wells?” He said it with a zesty, just-right emphasis on the “ell” sound. The best way I can describe his pronunciation is that he said it vigorously where I tend to use an “euhll” sound, and with an air of near-resignation. The British Airways guy made me feel proud of my heritage.

Three, I got into Bow Wow Wow. Their music was blasting at every party I attended. I bought a cassette that had a different, much better mix of “Louis Quatorze” than the one commonly played. And then I lost it.

Fox News reporter John Roberts is calling out Trump’s vicious attacks on CNN and NBC News at the UK press conference pic.twitter.com/M81LXzdrOm

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 14, 2018

The premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s Who Is America? pops tomorrow night on Showtime. Seven satirical half-hours about pranking conservative lunatics and one or two liberals, including Bernie Sanders. SBC’s return to series television for the first time in more than a decade. (I’m not finding any reviews.) Should four-year-olds carry firearms to pre-school and perhaps undergo anti-terrorist training on weekends? No, but what happened to former tea-bagger Joe Walsh is amusing. Satisfying, I mean.

On this, the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman‘s birth (7.14.18), I am holding to my conviction that the darkest, hottest and most despairing Bergman film of all time is The Silence (’63). And therefore my favorite, in part because it’s so crystalline and unified — a perfect distillation of a sensual gloomhead mentality.

A ten year-old boy (Jorgen Lindstrom, who’s now 67) travelling with his ailing mother Ester (Ingrid Thulin) and her younger sister Anna (Gunnel Lindblom) through a grim Central European landscape, and then renting a couple of rooms at an old-world hotel. The boy watches as Anna settles into a kind of scowling sensual abandon. As always, Sven Nykvist‘s black-and-white cinematography is exquisite, and his capturings of of the sultry, vaguely self-disgusted Anna in various states of undress in that hotel room and bathroom are the stuff that lifelong dreams are made of. For me anyway.

I’m mentioning The Silence because you can’t buy a stand-alone Bluray version, not from Criterion or anyone else. You can watch it on Filmstruck and The Criterion Channel but I’m not yet a subscriber. (For whatever reason my initial reaction to Filmstruck was “a bridge too far” — lame, I realize.) It’s included in Criterion’s $239 Ingmar Bergman Bluray box set, and you can buy a DVD version in a 2003 Bergman trilogy package that includes Through A Glass Darkly and Winter Light. So right now it’s FilmStruck or nothing. Bummer.

In a 5.27.13 Criterion-posted essay, David Blakeslee wrote that “as significant as The Silence was in Bergman’s development as a filmmaker and person, there’s no doubt that it marked an even bigger advance in terms of expressive freedom in dealing with human sexuality, especially as it involved both nudity and the portrayal of women in pursuit of their own erotic fulfillment rather than as passive sex objects.

“With the Palme d’or winner Blue is the Warmest Color and Lars Von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac, we can trace a tangent that didn’t necessarily begin with Bergman’s 1963 masterpiece but is clearly continuous in using on-screen sex to drum up interest. And it works! Through its lasting influence and continuing beguilement as to what it’s all about, The Silence still makes a lot of noise.

A new trailer for Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War appeared a few hours ago. It was also announced earlier today by The Playlist‘s Charles Barfield that Amazon will release the Polish-produced film on Friday, 8.31 rather than the previously announced date of Friday, 12.21. That’s incorrect. The IMDB actually says that Cold War will be released in England on 8.31, and not in the U.S. The IMDB is still saying that Cold War is being released stateside on 12.21.18.

Even before the mistake was revealed it seemed a little head-scratchy that Amazon would decide to release a leading contender for the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar just as the 2018 Telluride Film Festival (where I’d expected Cold War to a leading attraction) is getting underway.

Cold War is the latest Pawel Pawlikowski masterpiece, destined to win the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar and HE’s favorite Cannes film by a country mile. Jewel-perfect, exquisitely photographed, tight as a drum.

5.19 HE blurb: “Cold War is so perfectly composed, a masterwork on every level. Pawlikowski’s story-telling instincts couldn’t be more eloquent or understated. Every plot point is always conveyed in the most discreet and understated terms, but you’ll never miss a trick. And the economy! A story that spans 15 year sis handled within 84 minutes, and you never sense that you’re being rushed along.”

On 6.2.18 I posted my latest best-of-2018 piece — i.e., “Ten Serious Winners.” I was restricting myself to films that have commercially opened. If I were to include the Cannes entries, my list would read as follows: Cold War, First Reformed, Hereditary, A Quiet Place, The King, You Were Never Really Here, Filmworker, Happy as Lazzaro.

“As the hearing stretched deep into the afternoon, it broke into pandemonium when Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, invoked [FBI agent] Peter Strzok’s extramarital affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page to question his character. “I can’t help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eye and lie to her?” Gohmert said. Democrats shouted that the statement was “intolerable witness harassment.” Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, Democrat of New Jersey, demanded, “Do you need your medication?” Strzok replied that he had “always told the truth” and said that Gohmert’s invocation of “a family member who I have acknowledged hurting goes more to a discussion about your character and what you stand for.” — from Nicholas Fandos‘ 7.12 N.Y. Times report about the Strozk hearing.

Not a rumor: According to today’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for political hackings during the 2016 electon, Hillary Clinton’s personal emails became a Russian target “on or about July 27, 2016” — the exact same day presidential candidate Donald Trump called on Russia to find her missing emails. Trump later said that he wasn’t entirely serious about asking for Russian assistance, that he was just fooling around.

Rosenstein: “The defendants falsely claimed that D.C. Leaks was a group of American hackers and that Guccifer 2.0 was a lone Romanian hacker. In fact both were created and controlled by the Russian GRU” or main intelligence directorate.

The indictment identified the Russian hackers as two specific units of the GRU, called “Unit 26165″ and “Unit 74455.” An apparent cover term for these units is “Fancy Bear.”

The indictment declares that “on or about 8.15.16, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” So who was that candidate?

Furthermore, the indictment said the Russians had communicated with a mystery person who was in regular contact with unnamed Trump campaign officials.

Wired‘s Garrett Graff: “News that paid employees of the Russian government — military intelligence officers, no less — interfered and sought to influence the 2016 presidential election, coming just days before the victor of that election will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, amounts to nothing less than an international, geopolitical bombshell.”

Out magazine is reporting that Scarlett Johansson has exited Rub and Tug a little more than a week after her casting as transgender massage parlor owner Dante “Tex” Gill sparked backlash among transgender activists. Johansson was accused of “ciswashing.” Her initial response (about 10 or 11 days ago) to the protestors: “Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment.” But today she changed her tune.

“In light of recent ethical questions raised surrounding my casting as [the late] Dante Tex Gill, I have decided to respectfully withdraw my participation in the project,” Johansson told Out. “Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I’ve learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive. I have great admiration and love for the trans community and am grateful that the conversation regarding inclusivity in Hollywood continues.”

“While I would have loved the opportunity to bring Dante’s story and transition to life, I understand why many feel he should be portrayed by a transgender person, and I am thankful that this casting debate, albeit controversial, has sparked a larger conversation about diversity and representation in film. I believe that all artists should be considered equally and fairly. My production company, These Pictures, actively pursues projects that both entertain and push boundaries. We look forward to working with every community to bring these most poignant and important stories to audiences worldwide.”

Later this month Warner Archives is releasing a modestly-priced Bluray of Peter Ustinov‘s near-great Billy Budd (’62). 11 years ago I posted the following about a Warner Home Video DVD version:

“Black-and-white CinemaScope is one of my favorite visual formats, and what an exquisite and luscious silver-toned transfer this is — spotless, velvety smooth, ultra-crisp perfection with each carefully-lighted value and tiny detail on view, and assembled exactly right. The cinematography is by Robert Krasker (The Third Man, Odd Man Out, El Cid, Fall of the Roman Empire).

“The film itself is taut and intelligent and finely sculpted. If you have the patience to get into a film that delivers in an exacting, step-by-step way and which uses the technique of just-so dialogue and characters that build and build upon themselves, it will hold you every step of the way.

“The dialogue is plain and straight in the way that seamen and gentlemen officers presumably once spoke (‘I’m sorry for the manner but not the matter’), but heavy with the irony and immense sadness of Herman Melville‘s classic tale, which is basically about a meeting of child-like innocence and craggy evil aboard a British warship in the 1790s.

“And the performances! Much better than I remembered them, especially Robert Ryan‘s Claggart , Melvyn Douglas‘s wise old Danish sailor (‘I look around this room and sense…finality’) and Terence Stamp‘s Billy — one of the more striking debut performances ever.”

Claggart: “The sea is calm, you said. Peaceful. Calm above…but below a world of gliding monsters, preying on their fellows, murderers all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who’s to tell me it’s any different here on board or yonder, on dry land?”

The Film Stage‘s Jordan Raup reports that Jim Jarmusch is currently shooting a “’70s zombie movie” in the small Delaware County town of Fleischmanns. Pic costars Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny as cops; Selena Gomez and Austin Butler are also featured. Collider’s Jeff Sneider is reporting that Steve Buscemi and Tilda Swinton have also been cast. The tentative title is either Kill The Head or The Dead Don’t Die. In an Philadelpha Inquirer article Murray calls Jarmusch’s zombie script “hilarious.” Hilarious but deadpan, he surely means.