I ducked out of last night’s Tomb Raider press screening around 7:55 pm or thereabouts. On my way out I noticed a lively crowd congregated in the Arclight lobby. I quickly learned it was a premiere screening for Max Winkler‘s Flower (The Orchard, 3.16). I never got invited to a screening, but it’s not like Flower was hotly buzzed about when it played the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival or, you know, is currently setting Twitter ablaze.

Given the reviews it got last spring from The Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Scheck, Slant‘s Chuck Bowen and TheWrap‘s Dan Callahan, the publicists appear to be relying on the old hide-the-ball strategy.

“There’s nary a believable moment in Winkler’s edgy dark comedy about a rebellious teen girl (Zoey Deutch) who’s clearly meant to be amusingly crass but instead comes across as emotionally disturbed,” Scheck wrote. “Uneasily combining its determinedly edgy plotline with failed sentimentality, Flower is redeemed only by Zoey Deutch’s magnetic performance, which would be star-making if in the service of a better vehicle. The film also squanders the talents of such reliable comic pros as Kathryn Hahn and Adam Scott.”

The “edgy” plot is basically about Deutch’s Erica giving blowjobs to older guys in order to blackmail them for inappropriate sexual contact, and then deciding to nail an older guy named Will (Scott) for having allegedly molested Luke (Joey Morgan), the overweight, oxy-addicted son of her mom’s boyfriend.

Two thoughts about the trailer: (a) Deutch, who delivered a likable, easy-vibe lead performance in Richard Linklater‘s Everybody Wants Some!! (’16), has, as Erica, a brashly assertive Millenial screwball quality — you can tell right away that she’s “got it” as far as that term applies; and (b) why is Morgan, the red-haired, whale-sized guy whose sexual victimhood is the whole reason for the revenge plot…why doesn’t the trailer show Morgan saying a line or two?

Tomb Raider (Warner Bros., 3.16) is a third-rate, totally-by-the-numbers, CG-propelled exercise in female adventurer myth-building.

With the exception of Alicia Vikander‘s defiantly emotional performance as Lara Croft, which is surprisingly decent considering the circumstances, this cinematic effort by the great Roar Uthaug (pronounce his last name over and over until you can say it backwards in your sleep) struck me as a mostly boring, time-wasting programmer — a 21st century equivalent of Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold.

Don’t let this and the other cruddy reviews stop you this weekend. You wanna see how Vikander measures up, right?

The truth is that this Swedish-born Oscar winner, all of 29, isn’t half bad as the video-game adventurer with the bow-and-arrow and the buff bod. She’s too small (5’5″) to be a convincing whup-asser and I could have done with fewer cries of pain, but she gives this gamer character everything she has inside, trying like hell to make Croft’s situation feel as earnest and real-deal as possible. Vikander certainly gives a more full-hearted performance than Angelina Jolie did in those two Lara Croft flicks (’01 and ’03) that came and went without stirring a single bowl of soup. And comparing VK’s boobs to Jolie’s is a non-issue.

The first 35 minutes of Tomb Raider are the most plausible and therefore tolerable, as they happen in a semblance of real-world London (Croft’s home) and Hong Kong, and then aboard a small ship bound for a remote location in the South China Sea.

Croft is a reluctant heiress. Yeah, I know — what kind of idiot says “nahh, I don’t want an inheritance — I’d rather be in debt as I deliver pizza on a bicycle”? She’s torn up about her disappeared and presumably dead tycoon dad (Dominic West) who vanished in ’09 while researching Himiko, the legendary shaman queen who was buried alive on the island of Yamatai, somewhere southeast of Japan.

A clue found in one of her dad’s effects results in Lara travelling to Hong Kong and then paying a ship owner (Daniel Wu as the good-looking, physically agile Asian guy who has to appear in all international-appeal action films) to take her to this place of rocky foreboding.

I paid no attention yesterday to a video clip of Hillary Clinton delivering her latest gaffe — i.e., a statement that is true but politically unpopular. While attending some kind of conference in India last weekend, Clinton explained that she carried the more economically advanced (which always goes hand in hand with “better educated” and “politically progressive”) states in the 2016 election, and that Donald Trump carried the none-too-bright bumblefucks — rural, despairing, Fox News-watching, racially resentful, angry, mostly overweight, appalling dress sense, in some cases opioid-addicted, etc. Which — hello? — is 100% accurate and then some.

And totally beside the point. Machine Democrats want Clinton to keep her yap shut about the ’16 election permanently, or better yet go away and stay away for the rest of her life. We all understand that bumblefuck resentment (“Don’t put us down because we put a malicious sociopath-tyrant into the White House…that would hurt our feelings and inspire us to re-elect him!”) could hurt their chances of winning big in the 2018 midterms, and Dems now have reason to be optimistic after last night’s narrow win by 33-year-old Democrat Connor Lamb in a special House election in southwestern Pennsylvania.

It’s understood that middle-class, middle-budget reality dramas have been consigned to cable and the indie realm. (Speaking of which you can’t do much better on that score than Collateral, the recently popped Netflix series with Carey Mulligan as a police inspector). This means, I presume, that sturdy, well-written dramas about women, even in this revolutionary era, are still having a tough time being funded above the Spirit Award level (i.e., $20 million tops).

I’m not saying it’s impossible to score backing for a mildly expensive, character-driven drama about a woman character played by a mid-range star, but the usual resistance doesn’t seem to have changed, at least in the realm of theatrical make-or-break.

Erin Brockovich, which was made 19 years ago for $52 million (or roughly $75 million in 2018 dollars), probably wouldn’t be made today as a theatrical film — it would be produced by Netflix or Amazon. The Steven Soderbergh-directed film, which opened in March 2000, earned $125.5M domestic and $256.2M worldwide.

And Alan Parker‘s well-respected Shoot The Moon, which cost $12 million to make in ’81 or nearly $31 million by the 2018 economy, would probably have to go Netflix or Amazon also, and even then who knows? Theatrically the Diane Keaton-Albert Finney marital drama was a bust — it only made $9.2 million domestic.

On the other hand a version of Paul Mazursky‘s An Unmarried Woman, which cost $2,515,000 (roughly $10 million in 2018 dollars) to shoot in 1977 and went on to earn $24 million in ’78 or just under $100 million by the ’18 economy, would probably be funded today.

Ditto a version of Alan Pakula‘s Klute, which was made in 1970 for $2.5 million or $16 million by the measure of 2018, would probably be funded today. Maybe. The urban thriller wound up earning $12,512,637, which translates into $80 million today. (The 1970 to 2018 multiple is 6.42.)

I feel obliged to attend a 6 pm screening this evening of Roar Uthaug‘s Lara Croft (Warner Bros., 3.16) at the Arclight. God help me. Imagine the feeling of going to see a movie directed by a guy named “Roar.” I’m not going to joke about a sister named “Meow” or a brother named “Rowlf”, but what kind of sadistic couple, really, would name their kid “Roar”? That’s like naming him “Sue” or “Cyclops.”

I would love to enjoy a gripping, well-made actioner in the vein of Steven Spielberg‘s Raiders of the Lost Ark (which didn’t defy physics as much as the next three films in the series), but of course the big-budget, whoo-hoo action film aesthetic went over the CG cliff years ago. Nobody except for a relative handful of directors (Kathryn Bigelow, George Miller, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Mann, J.C, Chandor, Doug Liman and a few others) care about real thrills. The fantasy-superhero-bullshit aesthetic has murdered the concept of great reality-based physical action. Killed it dead.

Posted two months ago: Nobody leaps off a sinking ship in the middle of a raging typhoon and lives. Nobody grabs hold of an overhanging tree limb at the last second and thereby escapes going over a super-tall jungle waterfall. What kind of fingernail-chewing moron would pay money to watch this shite? CG stunts of this sort aren’t worth spit in the realm of real-deal physics. Yes, I realize that’s a dirty concept these days.

A little more than six years ago I posted a piece called “To Hell With Physics“:

In 1987 Lethal Weapon used a funny jumping-off-a-building gag. Ragged-edge cop Mel Gibson is sent to the top of a four-story building to talk an unstable guy out of making a suicide leap. Gibson winds up cuffing himself to the guy and jumping off the building, and they’re both falling to their deaths…not. They land on one of those huge inflated tent-sized bags…whomp!…that cops and firemen use to save people. All is well.

Flash forward to another jumping-off-a-building scene in Brad Bird and Tom Cruise‘s Mission: impossible 4 — Ghost Protocol. An American operative is being chased over a rooftop by baddies in Budapest. He fires some rounds, kills a couple of guys, and then escapes by leaping off the building, continuing to shoot as he falls four or five stories to the pavement below. He’s saved, however, when he lands on a modest air mattress that’s about one-tenth the size of Lethal Weapon‘s tent-sized bag.

Yesterday came an announcement that Pearl Street Films, the production company headed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, will be totally supporting “inclusion riders” (i.e., a diversity-hiring provision) on their forthcoming projects.

A friend writes: “I have friends who work with Ben and Matt, and I know Matt is trying to get a new movie off the ground as we speak, going around this week pitching it. (He’s over at Fox today.) So on the eve of trying to get this movie set up, they announce this inclusion-rider thing. The strategy seems kinda transparent.”

Translation: We get what’s happening — include us in — fund us — onward!

A producer pal: “Two guys who have skirted by on the #metoo block” — i.e., have narrowly dodged the Robespierre guillotine — “are now going to embrace the #metoo theology a la Frances McDormand‘s suggestion? No surprise.” He added, however, a fun fact: “No idea how such a rider would be enforceable!”

Yesterday “Page Six”‘s Richard Johnson reported in the N.Y. Post that a “source” is claiming that Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, the likely swan song of Scorsese’s career as far as mafia wise guys are concerned, may cost $175 million, and that’s without marketing.

On 2.9.18 Deadline‘s Anita Busch reported that “we are now hearing from multiple sources that the film’s budget is well over $125M and more in the $140M range (and climbing).” In late February Forbes‘ Scott Mendelson echoed Busch’s report that the Irishman is costing $140 million or thereabouts.

Al Pacino, Robert De Niro during filming.

Add the standard marketing costs (usually $85 to $100 million for a major feature) to Johnson’s $175 million figure and the total Irishman tab is in the vicinity of $250M. Add the same to Busch/Mendelson’s $140M and you’ve got $225M or thereabouts.

Being a Netflix release that almost certainly won’t have an extensive theatrical run, The Irishman isn’t subject to the usual financial arithmetic of a typical feature from a mainstream distributor, but $175M or $225M or $250M tabs are certainly stand-outs in the realm of a non-fantasy, straight-goombah period drama.

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel and Ray Romano are the Irishman costars. Anna Paquin is apparently the only actress of any note in the film.

Netflix is flush enough to handle the Irishman tab without breaking too much of a sweat. It’s interesting nonetheless to consider that Cleopatra‘s $31 million budget, which broke 20th Century Fox in ’63, inflates into roughly $248M in 2018 dollars. ($100 in 1963 = $800 in 2018.)

Last July former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly called President Trump “a moron” in private, and when the remark was reported over four months later Tillerson didn’t directly address or deny it, saying only, “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that.”

I concluded then and there that Tillerson was toast — it would just be a matter of how much distance Trump wanted to put between the “moron” quote and Tillerson’s dismissal. If I’d been in Trump’s shoes I would probably have said to myself, “Gee, maybe Rex is right…hell, he probably is right…I am kind of a moron asshole narcissist sociopath. Maybe for the good of the country I should resign?” But that’s me. Okay, that’s not me but whatever.

Nonetheless the white-haired Tillerson, whose deep, Texas-accented voice and Raymond Burr-like girth always suggested a lifelong Big & Tall patronage despite the fact that he’s only 5’10”, lasted until today.

I’m glad he’s gone — now what about the rest of the cabinet? And Trump’s long-overdue resignation for that matter? Throw Mike Pence into a pit filled with starving wolves, but let him die with a sword in his hand like Ernest Borgnine in The Vikings.

After suffering a crushed skull during a rodeo, Brady Blackburn’s riding days are over as one more fall could kill him. He can still train horses (or so I recall — I saw it more than six months ago) but he’s mainly looking at dull, retail-store work for the rest of his life, and you feel really badly as the poor guy sulks and laments because he can’t do what he loves. And that’s pretty much it. I should be upfront and admit I wasn’t giving Chloé Zhao‘s film my undivided attention. I wasn’t dozing but I wasn’t riveted. It had my respect — it has an honest, real-deal vibe — but at the same time I was muttering “is this story gonna go anywhere? The guy’s in a bad spot — I get that — but is he going to find a way out of this predicament or off himself in the manner of Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler or what?” The Rider has an 85% Metacritic score.

My recollection of Jan Egleson‘s A Shock To The System (’90) is that it was a deliciously dark satire about a harried, middle-aged, losing-his-mojo advertising executive (Michael Caine) who decides to stop being the victim and play hard and dirty with all the people who’ve been threatening his job, injecting anxiety and otherwise making him miserable.

The film basically allows you to snicker along with Caine as he savors the meaning of the phrase “revenge is a dish best served cold.”

I’m writing this because I watched this trailer a while ago and went “what the?…this isn’t some dippy, feel-good comedy for morons…it’s about the satisfaction of giving bad people a taste of their own medicine.” The trailer is so full of shit that it reminded me of that online Shining trailer from 10 or 12 years ago that tried to sell Stanley Kubrick‘s 1980 horror film as a heartwarming family comedy.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s Entertainment Weekly review: “At the beginning of the exhilarating corporate satire A Shock to the System, the voice of Michael Caine comes on the sound track, soothing and seducing us as it has so many times before. That voice, with its halting cockney sparkle, its tones of ironic civility, is one of the most delicious sounds in movies, as unmistakable a comic signature as Chaplin’s bowlegged shuffle.

“Once again, Caine is playing a sneak, a rogue, and drawing the audience into a conspiracy with him-the way he did in Alfie (’66), the movie that made him a star, and then 20 years later in Hannah and Her Sisters. Only this time, his character is going to go farther — much farther.

“A Shock to the System is a black comedy played very, very close to the bone. Written by Andrew Klavan, and directed by the veteran independent filmmaker Jan Egleson, it’s a head-on satire of greed and power that’s also one of the most enticingly intimate portraits of American corporate life ever put on-screen.

I wanted to see Boots Riley‘s Sorry To Bother You (Annapurna, 7.6) at last January’s Sundance Film Festival because of Lakeith Stanfield, but then I began to think that a director whose first name was “Boots” might be more into diversion and razmatazz and shuffling the deck than dealing straight cards.

But The Guardian‘s Jordan Hoffman saw Sorry and said it “shows a great deal of spirit and promise” and that “it may even become a cult classic.” Those are critical code terms for “doesn’t quite do it or get there but maybe next time.”

On the other hand a 70% Metacritic score means you’ve gotten…well, a few things right.

Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn said it’s “loaded with capricious details that shimmer with the exuberance of inspired social commentary at hyperspeed”….huh? Variety‘s Peter Debruge complained that “the more ridiculous Riley’s gonzo social critique gets, the more boring it becomes, to the point that its out-of-control second half starts to feel like some kind of bad trip.” Financial Times critic Damon Wise said “it has its moments…but Riley’s vision needs a little more refining.”