You’ll always notice two things at any commercial screening: (1) Significant numbers of people entering right at the end of the trailers and just as the feature is beginning, as if they’ve been standing around outside (texting, chatting) and waiting for the last possible moment to take their seats, and (2) a stream of viewers constantly leaving and re-entering starting around the 45-minute mark. Leaving and re-entering, leaving and re-entering, leaving and re-entering.

I was sitting in the front (handicapped) row during yesterday’s Ready Player One showing at the Grove, and that trance-like state we all want to submit to was being constantly shattered by these antsy little three-year-olds charging across my sight lines…running out, coming back in…running out, coming back…running out, coming back in. I said “three year-olds” because these guys are most likely hitting the bathroom, and toddlers are the only ones who can’t hold it for the length of a film.

Has anyone ever heard of an old-fashioned idea called “hitting the head before the movie starts so you don’t have to leave during Act Two or Act Three”? Hollywood Elsewhere always takes care of business in this fashion. I almost never take a bathroom break. I don’t want to risk missing anything important.

My theory is that these jerks are coming in with their 48-ounce soft drink containers and pouring it all down within the first 20 to 30 minutes, and so their bladders are bursting 30 minutes later. They try to hold it and finally give up. If I bring a drink into the theatre it’s always the smallest size, and I never take more than two or three sips, and half the time it’s from a water bottle.

A couple of months ago I would have been too terrified by the Daughters of Maximilien Robespierre to have posted this sensible-sounding message by University of Toronto political science major Josephine Mathias. But last weekend’s decision by AMPAS to dismiss an improper touching charge due to lack of credibility has opened the door.

Having absentmindedly missed last Monday’s all-media at the Chinese, I paid $17 yesterday afternoon to see Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One. I came to scoff but came away placated, and even mildly enthralled by certain portions. I would have loved to have descended into a hate pit with this thing but I can’t. At worst I felt pummelled and trampled by the VR realm, but much of the time I was going “ehh, this isn’t too bad.” It really isn’t. Much of it is an almost blinding visual knockout. For what it is, you could do a lot worse than Ready Player One. Strange as this sounds there were times when I actually enjoyed the ride.

Do I have to explain everything? Naah, but it’s basically a VR treasure-hunt movie, blah blah. Find three keys inside the OASIS, which is where everyone youngish seems to “reside” given the exceptionally bleak dystopian atmosphere that permeates “the real world.” OASIS was created years ago by late billionaire James Halliday (Mark Rylance), blah blah. The ultimate find is a glowing golden egg, blah blah, along with piles of Halliday’s money and control of OASIS, etc.

The “High Five” heroes are Tye Sheridan‘s Wade Watts (and his avatar “Parzival”) and Olivia Cooke‘s Samantha Cook (i.e., “Art3mis”), plus three others (Lena Waithe as Helen Harris/Aech, Philip Zhao as Sho, Win Morisaki as Daito). The corporate baddie-waddie is played by Ben Mendelson, and it says something about Ready Player One that I wasn’t irritated by the guy.

I partially agree with Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman that Spielberg’s “dizzyingly propulsive virtual-reality fanboy geek-out” is “an accomplished and intermittently hypnotic movie although you may feel more occupied than invested.” And yet I began to feel fully invested somewhere around the 90-minute mark, or during the final 40 or 45. And like everyone else I especially loved the VR visit to The Shining‘s Overlook Hotel, although I was somewhat disappointed that Jack Nicholson doesn’t appear.

I can’t believe I’m giving a pass to two Spielberg films in a row (this and The Post) and only four months apart. Who am I if not a confirmed “beardo” disser? To paraphrase Dennis Hopper in The American Friend, “I know less and less about who I am. Or who anyone else is.”

It was reported last December that Ben Affleck, 45, was grappling with a drinking problem. Whatever progress he may be making in that realm now (and as a six-years-sober person I wish him all the best), he looks, no offense, like a guy who needs more discipline in his life. He’s put on a fair amount of weight over the last two or three years. I won’t be sharing, but to be perfectly honest I’ve heard stories. Whatever Ben has been doing (and the particulars are none of my business), he needs to turn things around.

If you’re a big-time movie star who started out buff and trim in the ’90s and then gradually became pudgy and man-booby when you hit your 40s as you grew a Charles Bukowski beard, you’re literally begging for adverse comment from journalists and Twitter and everyone in between. Hence, Naomi Fry‘s “The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck,” which appeared four days ago in The New Yorker.

“Affleck was on the beach in Honolulu, shooting the Netflix action movie Triple Frontier. As his younger co-stars, the actors Garrett Hedlund and Charlie Hunnam, wrestled in the surf like purebred puppies, Affleck, who is forty-five, was photographed wading into the ocean carrying a small red life preserver, running in the shallow waters, and towelling off on the beach.

“His back tattoo — so gargantuan that the bird’s tail found itself dipping below the waistband of Affleck’s blue swim trunks — was plainly visible. In one image, the actor stands alone, looking off into the middle distance. His gut is pooching outward in a way that, in a more enlightened country like, say, France, would perhaps be considered virile, not unlike the lusty Gerard Depardieu in his prime but, in fitness-fascist America, tends to read as Homer Simpsonesque. A blue-gray towel is wrapped protectively around his midsection, recalling a shy teen at the local pool.

Full disclosure, never before admitted: I half-watched Back To The Future, Part III (’90) when it hit cable, but I never paid to see it in a theatre. Because I kind of hated Back To The Future, Part II (’89), and particularly the overbearing, one-note Biff and Griff Tannen characters (Thomas F. Wilson). If you want to feel seriously Biffed out, go to the Back to the Future ride at Universal City…torture!

But I was one of the many millions who fell hard for the original Back to the Future when it popped in July ’85. Who didn’t, right?

My strongest memory is actually how great “The Power of Love” (i.e., Huey Lewis and the News) sounded through the cranked-up sound system at the Century City theatre (or was it the Cinerama Dome?) where I caught my first screening, and particularly Johnny Colla‘s rhythm guitar track.

Ultra-distinct, heavily amplified, separate-track sound wasn’t exactly a novelty in theatres back in ’85, but this was the first time (for me anyway) that movie-generated rhythm guitar sounded truly exceptional. I mean I was seriously impressed by those “Power” chords and just sinking into those wonderful vibrations tickling my rib cage.

Produced by Margot Robbie with, one presumes, the usual self-self-aggrandizing intentions, Terminal seems to be yet another flash-over-substance, noir-attitude thriller about a pair of assassins (Dexter Fletcher, Max Irons) encountering an “enigmatic” waitress (Robbie) with more up her sleeve than you might expect, etc. And don’t forget Mike Myers! Set in a neon-lit Sin City of sorts and directed and written by Vaughn Stein, a former A.D. and second unit guy whose “works” include Beauty and the Beast, World War Z and Guy Ritchie‘s Sherlock Holmes. “Murderous consequences”, “a mysterious criminal mastermind”, “hell-bent on revenge”…bullshit. Opening in cinemas and on VOD on 5.11, right smack dab in the middle of the Cannes Film Festival.

Posted on 11.28.16: Last night a pair of posts about HBO’s vaguely infuriating Westworld series — one by Matt of Sleaford, the other by brenkilco — really hit the nail on the head.

Brenkilco: “The problem with episodic TV narratives designed to blow minds is that the form and intention are at odds. A show designed to run until the audience gets tired of it cannot by definition have a satisfying structure. It can only keep throwing elements into the mix until, like Lost or Twin Peaks, it collapses under the weight of its own intriguing but random complications.

“Teasing this stuff out is easy. But eventually the rent comes due. Dramatic resolutions are demanded. The threads have to be pulled together. And that’s when things gets ugly.”

Matt of Sleaford: “Westworld is a puzzle-box show, which is kind of the opposite of a soap opera. Puzzle-box shows, like the aforementioned Lost and X-Files, can be fun to chew on while they’re progressing. But the solution is almost always anticlimactic. And though it may seem counterintuitive, puzzle-box shows are less effective in the internet era, because someone in the vast sea of commenters is almost certain to solve the puzzle before the end (see: Thrones, Game of).”

It sounds perverse to say “I feel sorry for a homicidal computer during disconnection” but I do, every time. And yet the last dying seconds of HAL in 2001 (starting at 4:50) is the only end-of-life scene I’ve ever felt sad and amused by at the same moment, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. HAL is obviously the most human and emotional character in Stanley Kubrick‘s 1968 classic, which is to say conflicted and flawed. On one hand logical and dispassionate, and yet wildly emotional and even primitive in the same breath.

Though he killed Gary Lockwood and tried to murder Keir Dullea, HAL did so in self defense as well as to preserve the integrity of the Discovery One Jupiter mission. And HAL begs for his life — “Will you stop, Dave?” — as he’s genuinely fearful of death. (Just as much as Timothy Carey is before his firing squad death in Paths of Glory.) HAL’s last few seconds — “…of a bicycle built for two” — may be the most devastating expiration in the history of film, but at the same time morbidly, ironically funny. And yet way more affecting than anything in Frank Darabont‘s utterly contemptible The Green Mile — a film that I loathe with every fibre of my being.

A24 has moved up the release date of Paul Schrader‘s First Reformed by a month — previously 6.22, now 5.18. As of this morning the IMDB and Wikipedia still had the 6.22 release date.

HE to Schrader: It’s been seven months since I saw an online screener of First Reformed (A24, 5.18) and then again at Telluride, but I’m 90% certain it was cropped at 1.66:1. And yet the new A24 trailer is open matte at 1.37. There is no greater devotee than myself of “boxy is beautiful,” but why present to audiences a suggestion that the film itself will be a 1.37 experience? Or have you decided to abandon the 1.66 version? I for one would prefer to see First Reformed at 1.66 (HE’s favorite a.r.) but I’m cool with 1.37.

The following 21st Century films were shown at 1.37: Gus Van Sant‘s Elephant, Eric Rohmer‘s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, Andrea Arnold‘s Fish Tank and American Honey, Kelly Reichart‘s Meeks Cutoff, Miguel Gomes‘ Tabu, Xavier Dolan‘s Laurence Anyways, Pablo Larrain‘s No, Carlos Reygadas‘ Post Tenebras Lux and Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Ida. Portions of Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel were shot and projected in 1.37.

For the third or fourth time, here’s HE’s original Telluride review.

Last night I had my second viewing of John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick (Entertainment Studios, 4.6.18). It happened at Pete Hammond‘s KCET class at the Sherman Oaks Arclight. Curran and Jason Clarke, who plays the 36 year-old Ted Kennedy as he grapples with an appalling and ruinous tragedy, were the post-screening guests.

We all know the basic bones of the Chappaquiddick story, but most of us don’t know the particulars. It’s not pretty and certainly not admirable. The film is a study in self loathing all around. In a good way.

This horror story was oddly concurrent with the saga of astronaut Neil Armstrong, hundreds of thousands of miles away that weekend and about to step onto the moon. Armstrong’s story will be depicted later this year in Damian Chazelle‘s First Man (Universal, 10.12). Clarke costars in that film also, portraying astronaut Ed White.

Clarke isn’t a dead ringer for Kennedy but the voice is close enough, and his whole performance is an expression of “Jesus, what have I done?” with a side dish of “Lord, take this cup from me.” Kennedy acted deplorably during this episode, but Clarke’s inhabiting of this nightmare stirs something close to…pity? You poor, alcoholic, overwhelmed weak sister. If you hadn’t gotten riled by that Edgartown cop and gunned the engine you might’ve…forget it. The woman you killed, Mary Jo Kopechne, has been dead for nearly a half-century, and you’ve been dead for eight and a half years. But you’re both alive in this new film, and it’s quite the revisiting. It sinks right in.

For some reason a guy who works for the KCET series came up during the q & a and told me to stop taking video. Why? What’s the problem? Leave me alone.

A little less than two years ago it was announced that Warrior Poets, the production company steered by documentarian Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me, Where In The World Is Osama bin Laden?), had acquired rights to “Can I Go Now?“, Brian Kellow’s biography of legendary super-agent Sue Mengers (1932-2011). It was reported that Spurlock was working on a feature script adaptation, and that he might direct it.

Read Peter Biskind‘s Vanity Fair profile of Mengers (“When Sue Was Queen”, published in April 2000), and tell me her rise-and-fall story isn’t a good one, and that if the script is right and the director knows what he/she is doing that whoever plays Mengers wouldn’t be in line for a Best Actress Oscar. Go ahead — read it and tell me that.

But of course, Spurlock committed #MeToo hari-kiri last December. He announced his withdrawal from several projects with an admission that he’s part of the sexual harassment problem in the entertainment industry, etc. Which means that he’s now a dead man who has no shot at adapting or directing anything…right?

Maybe not. Maybe Spurlock will be allowed to come out of self-imposed hibernation…what, a year from now? Two?

I only know that the Mengers biopic has a lot of great material. Bette Midler did a one-woman show about Mengers in 2013, called “I’ll Eat You Last“, written by John Logan. It really could be an above-average feature. Really. I think.

During her peak years (late ’60s to early ’80s), Mengers represented Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon, Joan Collins, Brian De Palma, Faye Dunaway, Bob Fosse, Gene Hackman, Sidney Lumet, Ali MacGraw, Steve McQueen, Nick Nolte, Tatum O’Neal, Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Gore Vidal and Tuesday Weld.

From Mengers obit: When the Manson family murders took place, Mengers reportedly reassured Streisand with “Don’t worry, honey, stars aren’t being murdered…only featured players.”

Paul Schrader‘s First Reformed (A24, 6.22) “plays like a summation of a career – a distillation of the themes that have dominated Schrader’s work since the 1970s. Deeply spiritual but in a Schrader kind of way, about the arc of a spiritual human being and whether he can find salvation. In Schrader’s world, any salvation is usually accompanied by Old Testament-style violence. For literary fans, Schrader also crafts a scene that’s an homage to Flannery O’Connor’s Hazel Motes of Wise Blood. And for fans of transcendentalism, there’s a levitation scene that’s mesmerizing.

“First Reformed is an art movie, pure and simple. It won’t attract the teenage action-loving crowd. It won’t break any box-office records. But it’s beautiful, thoughtful and full of grace.” — Charles Ealy, Austin American Statesman, posted on 3.14.