It’s not the movie but the nitrate thang. I just want to be able to say that once, just once, I watched a first-rate projection of a black-and-white nitrate print. TCM Classic Film Festival copy: “Nitrate projection made possible through support of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Turner Classic Movies and The Film Foundation in partnership with the American Cinematheque and the Academy Film Archive.”

After the show: Very handsome print with nice detail and texture, but the film looks better — sharper, a bit brighter, a bit more gleaming — when streamed at 1080p on 65” 4K monitor. Sorry but it does.

FIFOG (Festival Internationale du Film Oriental de Geneve) runs from 4.29 through 5.5, but who uses the “o” word these days? The last time was when Paul Schrader used it in a late March Facebook post (“I’ve written or directed films with a black lead, an oriental lead, a female lead,” etc.) Before that was during a viewing of What’s Up, Tiger Lily?.

Glenn Close is going to play some kind of Ma Bumblefuck in Ron Howard and Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy…right?

Close is one of our greatest actresses and Lord knows she’s covered the waterfront with many disparate characters — long suffering literary wife, Jenny the nurse, Alex the psycho, Cruella de Ville, Albert Nobbs, etc. But she’s never played a rural, dispirited, mule-stubborn, Trump-supporting Okee from Muskogee with an Oxycontin habit. I’ll believe Close’s acting (I always have) but I’m going to have difficulty forgetting that Close, the refined, well-educated, WASPy actress from Connecticut, is pretending to be this kind of…uhm, person. It’ll be like Helen Hayes or Jeanne Eagels playing Daisy Mae from L’il Abner.

Amy Adams is also playing some kind of yokel type, or so I gather.

The screenplay, based on the respected book by J.D. Vance, is by Shape of Water co-screenwriter Vanessa Taylor. Howard is producing with Imagine’s Brian Grazer and Karen Lunder.

From Cineuropa‘s Fabien Lemercier by way of World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy about next month’s Cannes Film Festival: “Jay Roach‘s Fair and Balanced (Lionsgate, 12.20) rumored to premiere out-of-competition; ditto Armando Iannucci‘s The Personal History of David Copperfield.”

It would be highly unusual (if not unheard of) for a December release to debut in Cannes, but maybe the Lionsgate guys are thinking “we have to somehow out-splash The Loudest Voice,” the Showtime version of the Roger Ailes story that pops on 6.30. It costars Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Seth MacFarlane and Sienna Miller.

Fair and Balanced costars John Lithgow as Ailes, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, Margot Robbie as a fictional Fox News employee, plus Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Mark Duplass and Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch.

Lemercier is also claiming Pablo Larrain‘s Ema has been bought by Netflix but that the deal has yet to be finalized. Either way Cannes is a no-go, he’s reporting. (My understanding is that the Netflix story is smoke, but what do I know?)

Ruimy: “A major find for American cinema will be director Danielle Lesowitz‘ debut Port Authority, which is rumored to be in Un Certain Regard section. I’m hearing that Cristi Puiu‘s French-language Manor House is 199 minutes. Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor has major Godfather vibes.”

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I haven’t yet seen Amy Poehler‘s Wine Country (Netflix, 5.10), but I will soon. It may amount to more than a Napa Valley, gender-flipped Sideways blended with a late-40ish Bridesmaids, but you can tell in a heartbeat…no, you can’t. Trailers always mislead. But you certainly sense a lack of gravitas. No one’s going to get clobbered with a motorcycle helmet. Directed by Poehler (who also stars and co-wrote the original story), written by incidental costars Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski. Costarring Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Tina Fey, Jason Schwartzman, Cherry Jones.

Julien Assange, 47, obviously knew for some time that his ouster from the Ecuadoran embassy was imminent. But when the moment arrived this morning he looked breathless and anxious, and like an unwashed, tattered, 69 year-old Gandalf.

I would have manned up and submitted to the inevitable. I would have showered, shaved, gotten a haircut and a manicure, put on a freshly-pressed suit and a pair of elegant Italian shoes and walked out with British officials in handcuffs. Standing tall with a touch of dignity. Instead Assange looked and behaved like an asshole…”aaghhh, they’re carrying me out…aagghhh, these brutes!”

From Eileen Sullivan and Richard Pérez-Pena’s N.Y. Times report, posted this morning: “Assange, 47, has been living at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012. British authorities arrested him on Thursday, heavily bearded and disheveled. A dramatic video showed him shackled and being carried out of the embassy and forced into a police van. He was detained partly in connection with an American extradition warrant after he was evicted by the Ecuadoreans.”

Had it not been for Assange’s torpedoing of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats with those Wikileak-ed emails, she might well have won…no? This year she’d be facing primary challengers and looking like Jimmy Carter in ’79. But at least we wouldn’t have Trump.

If a cosmic wizard were to offer me a chance to re-live the first three or four decades of my life all over again, I’d immediately say “yes!” and jump into it like a swimming pool. As long as the wizard agrees, that is, that I could retain the knowledge, perspective and seasoning that I have in my head right now. Man, what a symphony of stimulation and smoothitude. The advantages! The foresight! Almost every day of my actual childhood and teenaged life was miserable in one way or another, but the re-boot would be a steady high. Well, most much of the time.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

Excerpt from video essay on Dragged Across Concrete Bluray:

Jordan Ruimy sent a Wayback Machine capture of several best of the ’90s lists from top-tier critics. This inspired me to come up with my own ’90s rundown, but I really can’t confine an entire decade (especially the ’90s) to ten films. Well, I can and did, but I feel better about listing my top 40. Which were selected not just on the basis of alleged greatness and sublime craft and whatnot, but because they’re closest to my heart.

1. Fargo (d: Coen brothers)
2. GoodFellas (d: Martin Scorsese)
3. Pulp Fiction (d: Quentin Tarantino)
4. Unforgiven (d: Clint Eastwood)
5. L.A. Confidential (d: Curtis Hanson)
6. Schindler’s List (d: Steven Spielberg)
7. The Silence Of The Lambs (d: Jonathan Demme)
8. Groundhog Day (d: Harold Ramis)
9. Heat (d: Michael Mann)
10. Saving Private Ryan (d: Steven Spielberg)

11. The Insider (d: Michael Mann)
12. Go (d: Doug Liman)
13. Flirting With Disaster (d: David O. Russell)
14. Rushmore (d: Wes Anderson)
15. Fight Club (d: David Fincher)
16. The Player (d: Robert Altman)
17. Reservoir Dogs (d: Quentin Tarantino)
18. JFK (d: Oliver Stone)
19. Mad Dog & Glory (d: John McNaughton)
20. The Usual Suspects (d: Bryan Singer)

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We all know that cats bring home captured prey as tribute to their human family. Over the last week Anya, who just turned two, has been delivering live geckos, one after another. At least five if not six. In each instance she’s bitten their tails off before bringing them home. And then, as cats tend to do, she plays with them to death. Well, not really because after congratulating Anya for being a good hunter and telling her how much I respect her prowess, I grab the gecko, take it outside and throw it over the fence. And then Anya will bring home another tail-less victim. Rinse, wash, repeat.

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