Meryl Streep is a good enough singer to know how to sing badly in just the right way. Not inept enough to torment her listeners but enough to make them chuckle and — who knows? — perhaps invite a little pity or compassion. And yet her bad singing is missing from the trailer for Stephen Frears‘ Florence Foster Jenkins (opening in England on 5.6, no U.S. date from Paramount). In real life self-delusion has never seemed funny to me. It’s the kind of thing that you just want to escape from. How, then, will this play? It’s probably more than just a one-joke film but I wonder what the added elements could be.

“Viewing Donald Trump in light of the fascists of the first half of the 20th century — who used economic stresses to scapegoat others, created cults of personality, intimidated opponents, incited violence, glorified their nations and disregarded international law, and connected directly with the masses — helps explain what Trump is doing and how he is succeeding. It also suggests why Trump presents such a profound danger to the future of America and the world.” — from a 3.9 Altnet piece by former Secretary of Labor, U.C. Berkeley economist and Inequality For All star Robert Reich, titled “Donald Trump, 21st-Century American Fascist.”

The average Rotten Tomato–Metacritic rating for 10 Cloverfield Lane (Paramount, 3.11) is 83%. That’s far too generous for a film that spends 85% or 90% of its length inside an underground quonset hut and never really turns you on or makes you laugh or scream or anything. I caught it last night at the AMC Century 14, and the second that the end credits began I all but leapt out of my seat and was speed-marching out of the plex like R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket.

It’s basically a drama of confinement — a three-character piece about a pair of late20somethings (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, The Newsroom‘s John Gallagher, Jr.) being held captive in a bunker by a fat, bearded, paranoid survivalist (John Goodman). Goodman is definitely an oddball with a temper but not a fiend — he just insists that something awful has happened up above (contaminated air, nuclear holocaust, alien invasion) and that they’re both very, very lucky he’s decided to save them.

On the other hand the place is on maximum security lockdown and so this is a little bit like Room, only bigger and homier with a nightly dinner hour and two or three classic-rock interludes (clap if you hate “I Think We’re Alone Now”).

Right away Winstead is suspicious about the ground-level threat story plus she smells some kind of malevolence residing deep within Goodman’s girth, and so most of the film is about (a) her extremely actorish responses to Goodman’s strangeness and possible bullshit (I was silently screaming “will you stop fucking ‘acting’ and just be in the situation and play it real and low-down?”) and (b) constantly plotting or attempting escape.

Tom Tykwer‘s A Hologram for the King (Lionsgate/Roadside, 4.22) is being sold as totally predictable, right-down-the-middle middle-aged redemption drama — healing, love, discovery, sandstorms. Based on a respected book by Dave Eggers. Who knows how good the film is? The trailer is clearly trying to make it look like Larry Crowne Goes To The Desert with Sarita Choudbury (remember her in Mississippi Massala?) in the Julia Roberts role. Plus the narration (and more particularly the vocal tone of the narrator) is deathly. Listen to the King trailer and then re-watch that ten-year-old Shining parody trailer [after the jump]. Same tone, same sing-song quality.

In their KCRW interview with The Treatment‘s Elvis Mitchell, The People vs. O.J. Simpson co-authors Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski take issue with yours truly. It happens around the 26:20 mark — here’s the mp3. They say I criticized the casting of Cuba Gooding as O.J. because I couldn’t believe Cuba as a killer. I never said that. Anyone can be a killer if the wrong chemicals and circumstances combust.

What I said is the following, broken down in sections (all re-posted): (a) At 5′ 10″, Cuba lacks that brawny, broad-shouldered quality that Simpson (who stands around 6′ 2″) had in his prime; (b) Cuba can’t find that cool, studly, possibly malicious vibe — a guy who might have an Othello complex going on inside; (c) O.J. had relatively trim, clean features while Cuba looks weathered, saggy, baggy-eyed; (d) Cuba has the wrong nose — OJ’s nose was fairly straight, almost Romanesque; (e) Cuba is whiny and raspy-voiced, his shoulders are narrow and small, he’s too short and wimpy.

Right off the top we’re given hints that Anthony and Joe Russo‘s Captain America: Civil War (Disney, 5.6) might be the least substantial in this Marvel series. (Joe Johnston‘s Captain America: The First Avenger stands the tallest, but the Russo’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a super-sharp, near-masterful follow-up.) Like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Warner Bros., 3.25), it feels caught in the grip of a weak concept. But many believe that Zack Snyder (i.e., anti-Christ, new Michael Bay) isn’t fit to shine the Russo brothers boots. I support this view completely. Does Dawn of Justice have a line that feels as good as “I can do this all day”?

If it happens, Sean Parker‘s The Screening Room will offer viewers a chance to watch first-run movies for $50 a pop over a 48-hour period (along with a $150 fee for a receiving device of some kind). I’m not saying the idea will be supported by major distributors (last night Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allesandro reported there is strong resistance) but if it does roll out what do HE consumers think of it, concept- and wallet-wise?

Speaking as an effete consumer, I’m not interested in this idea at all. You know what I would like? A day-and-date streaming rental option for new Blurays, especially those from Criterion.

Variety‘s Brent Lang has reported that “as an added incentive to theater owners, Screening Room is also offering customers who pay the $50 two free tickets to see the movie at a cinema of their choice…that way, exhibitors would get the added benefit of profiting from concession sales to those moviegoers.”

Yes, film & sports fans — the former Andy Wachowski has joined Lana Wachoswski on the other side of the gender reassignment aisle and is now Lilly Wachowski. Meaning that the Wachowskis, who started out as brothers, are now the same gender again. This feels like a deflation d’estime. Not the gender-switching thing (whatever works) but the fact that the Wachowski siblings are now more noteworthy for their lifestyle and gender preferences than as mesmerizing dreamcat filmmakers, which is what they were from the mid ’90s to mid aughts. But it all started to go south after The Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions opened and disappointed in ’03. V for Vendetta worked for some but then came the final nails — Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas and especially Jupiter Ascending. I didn’t pay any attention to Sense8, their 2015 Netflix series, but I’d been accustomed to ignoring and/or putting off seeing their stuff so no biggie. One question: For years Andy was a baldie so where’d Lilly’s hair come from? Just asking.

I used to visit Castle Batting Cages with my son Jett back in the early aughts. I could tag the 40 mph fastball but only if I tried to pull it to the left, like I was trying to hit the left-field bleachers but in foul territory. But if I tried to hit it straight-on I’d always whiff. Jett could hit a few but not I. And I totally failed when I upped the fastball speed to 50 or 60 mph. Pitch after pitch after pitch…embarassing. I would try to force myself to swing early and just meet it…nope.

I used to feel about Elijah Wood the way I now feel about Aaron Paul. I used to despise those big eyes that seemed to say “oh, my emotional pores are so open…I need love…please understand me!” I decided when I saw the first Lord of the Rings installment (almost 15 years ago!) that Frodo Baggins needed to suffer for at least ten years. But now…it’s hard to explain but Wood has an adult vibe in The Trust (Direct TV on 4.14, theatrically on 5.13) that just seems “right” on some level. The Baggins virus is completely out of his system. And the tone seems right — loose, cloddish, unforced. Cage has become such a self-directed meta joke that it’s hard know how to respond any more, but even it seems as if even he might be on to something here. Maybe. Directed by Alex and Ben Brewer, and co-written by Ben and Adam Hirsch.

The following piece, originally posted on 2.2.06, is worth a re-read: “Too much love and success can be kind of a bad thing for movie directors. It can lead to recklessness and ruin. Well, not necessarily, but there’s always the threat of this.

“Look at the hopelessly over-worshipped Peter Jackson, whose Lord of the Rings trilogy (Oscars, millions, obsequious studio execs) led to the mad-royalty decision to transform King Kong into a three-hour film with a sluggish, borderline deadly 70-minute opening.

“Quentin Tarantino was psychologically done in, I feel, by the huge success of Pulp Fiction in ’94-’95. He stopped hustling, became a party animal, succumbed to some manner of intimidation over the expectations everyone had for his next film, all of which led to the respectable but underwhelming Jackie Brown in ’97.

“Michael Cimino surely went mad after the huge success of The Deer Hunter in 1978-79, and from this the gross indulgence that was Heaven’s Gate, his very next film, almost certainly arose.

“At a certain point in their careers — generally right after an enormous popular success — most great movie directors go mad on the potentialities of movies,” Pauline Kael observed in a review of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 when it opened in the States in 1977.

“They leap over their previous work into a dimension beyond the well-crafted dramatic narrative; they make a huge, visionary epic in which they attempt to alter the perceptions of people around the world.”

As previously noted, Gavin Hood‘s Eye in The Sky (Bleecker Street, 3.11 NY & LA, 4.1 wide) was well reviewed at last September’s Toronto film Festival — 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 70% on Metacritic. But the trailer suggested that this high-tech thriller, a study of the strategic tensions and moral determinations behind a lethal drone attack upon African terrorists, might be on the flat and simplistic side.

Or at least it seemed that way to me. Plus the trailer indicated too many CUs and MCUs of military and government types staring at video screens, I felt. Worst of all I wasn’t looking forward to another oppressively sincere performance by HE nemesis Aaron Paul.

Helen Mirren in Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky (Bleecker Street, 3.11 — 4.1 wide).

Well, the trailer misled. Eye in the Sky is anything but pat or simplistic. It’s a gripping, disciplined, morally complex nail-biter — smart and focused and tight as a drum. It’s well augmented by a concise, well-written screenplay (the author is Guy Hibbert), and by direction and editing that gets right down to business and doesn’t fool around. The whole thing held me start to finish. The intrigue and tension levels never ebb.

Best of all it ends with a suspense sequence that Alfred Hitchcock himself would give a standing ovation to. He’d actually forget about the nearby tray of gourmet delicacies, I mean, and get out of his cushy easy chair and stand up and applaud.

Plus it delivers dead-on performances from almost everyone in the cast but particularly from Helen Mirren as a military intelligence officer who spends most of the film requesting an official okay to kill a team of suicide bombers with a drone strike, and from Alan Rickman as a British General who tries to persuade several anxious British politicians to stop equivocating and give the order already. Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen and Monica Dolan portray three of those equivocators with skill and conviction. And Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) is highly engaging as a sympathetic field agent who operates a flying bug-cam that delivers video of the terrorists as things progress.

The ethical crux boils down to which is preferable or worse — sparing the life of a little girl who happens to be near a small home where terrorists are preparing a suicide mission by not firing a drone missile at the target, or not sparing her life by blasting the terrorists, who may kill dozens of innocents if their suicide plot isn’t stopped, to smithereens before they leave the abode.