On Friday morning I’ll be doing a MEET THE MOVIE PRESS discussion wth The Tracking Board‘s Jeff Sneider. I don’t want to converse in that rat-a-tat-tat, Mexican-jumping-bean fashion that everyone always defaults to. Then I’ll be catching a special pre-TIFF screening of Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. Among the topics I’d like to kick around with Sneider: New releases (Logan Lucky, Patti Cake$, Crown Heights), HE’s Oscar Spitball chart, Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler, John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick going to Toronto, the expected $50 million appeal of It, and the curious persistence of Get Out in the Best Picture conversation.

The early trailers suggested that Doug Liman‘s American Made was a cut-loose acting opportunity for Tom Cruise, but that the film would be wild, lurchy and lunge-y. All kinds of pumped and razmatazz. The reviews are more or less saying the same thing. THR‘s Leslie Felperin: “As much fun as all this laughing at the past is, it all starts to feel a bit superficial and vaguely monotonous as Barry gets into scrape after scrape but always escapes with a quick line of patter and a smile. As a character, he lacks depth and flavor.”

There’s a Twilight Time Sayonara Bluray arriving within a month or two. Based on a 1954 novel by James Michener, which stemmed from Michener’s experiences during the American occupation of Japan in the mid to late ’40s, Sayonara was an exercise in enlightened liberal portraiture — a tale of racial bigotry and interracial love, and particularly the prevailing attitudes about same during the mid-Eisenhower era. Obviously tame and even a bit so-what-ish in today’s p.c. climate. Plus I’ve never liked Marlon Brando‘s affected, high-pitched Southern accent. And yet — this is very weird — I’ve used his character’s last name, “gruver“, as my email handle for 20 years now. Sayonara was shot in Technirama (large format images created from 35mm film running sideways through the camera). If the new Bluray actually uses the original Technirama materials, it could be something to behold. But there’s no changing the fact that this Joshua Logan drama is slow, talky and a little too preachy. Franz Waxman‘s score is probably the single best element.

There’s a certain kind of Hollywood journalist who gets very, very excited by big box-office earnings. You can almost hear the panting as the probable first-weekend earnings, per-screen averages and total domestic grosses are reported. You could be forgiven, in fact, for presuming that the author owns stock in the distribution company behind the hit-to-be, and that a fat dividend check will soon be deposited in his/her account. If you’re that kind of trade reporter or tabulator, the projected earnings for Andres Muschietti and Stephen King‘s It — a first-weekend haul of at least $50 million, according to tracking — will do the trick.

Another way to feel the excitement is to feign indifference to grosses and just concentrate on the film, as I was doing a few months ago, and ask whether director Andres “Andy” Muschietti would deliver the same kind of carefully measured, less-is-more chills that Mama, his last film, had in spades.

Posted on 5.11.17: “Yes, it looks like a retread, a Stand By Me ensemble threatened by a demonic Clarabelle. But something tells me that It (9.8.17, Warner Bros., New Line) may be up to something good. I’m basing this suspicion partly on the last two-thirds of the new trailer, and partly on the fact that it might be Son of Mama. Or more preciselt Son of Mama meets Stephen King.

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“China’s new favorite action hero single-handedly routs pirates off the African coast in undersea combat. He wakes up fit to fight after nearly dying from a flesh-eating plague. He wields guns galore, poison arrows and a tank to wipe out the mercenaries led by the villainous Big Daddy, a swaggering, sneering American soldier of fortune. But in the end, what saves the hero of Wolf Warrior 2, China’s most popular movie ever, is a Chinese flag wrapped around his arm.” — from Chris Buckley‘s 8.16 N.Y. Times story, “In China, an Action Hero Beats Box Office Records (and Arrogant Westerners).”

High-testosterone action garbage cinema by any other name…later.

“As of last Wednesday, Wolf Warrior 2 had earned $722 million in ticket sales in three weeks, easily surpassing The Mermaid, a romantic fantasy released last year, as the top-grossing film of all time in China.

“The success of the two-hour film, featuring a red-tinged Rambo named Leng Feng, is being seen in China as a pointer to the national mood after almost five years under Xi Jinping, the president. Mr. Xi has promoted a spirit of hawkish patriotism and warned that Western forces want to bully China into submission.

“’Whoever offends the Chinese will be wiped out no matter how far away,’ goes an ancient phrase used to promote Leng Feng in two movies so far.”

When it comes to older black-and-white films, Criterion has shown a tendency to make them appear darker and inkier than in previous home-video manifestations (Rebecca, His Girl Friday, Only Angels Have Wings). Will they dim the lights for their restored, 4K-scanned Bluray of George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (due on 11.7), or will they surprise us all and not do this?

Sony’s forthcoming Ultra HD Bluray of David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai may be the very first instance of a classic-era Hollywood Oscar-winner being released in 4K. It’s due on 10.3.17. A few more 4K releases in this vein and I might actually spring for a 4K Bluray player. Yes, I purchased a very good-looking Ultra HD streaming version of Kwai three or four months ago, but streaming, I’m told, doesn’t deliver a true 4K image.

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