There’s an art to making good movies about nothing. The common thread in the best of them (Michelangelo Antonioni‘s early ’60s films are the ultimate expression of this form) is a sense that something is churning even if nothing is really “happening” in terms of decision, desires, events or consequences. L’Avventura, L’eclisse and La Notte say to viewers in a thousand small but significant ways, “Are you sensing what’s wrong here?…are you feeling the absence of something?”

Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women (A24, 12.25) is about an absence of strong interest in what you’re seeing on-screen. I got through it, but I never felt caught up or swept along or anything along those lines.

But please, don’t let me stop you. One of the blogaroonies thinks it’s a charmer, and that Annette Bening may end up as a Best Actress contender. So far 20th Century Women has racked up an 88% and a 74% from Rotten Tomates and Metacritic, respectively.

It’s basically a lefty, leafy period piece, set in 1979 Santa Barbara, about a thoughtful, laid-back, somewhat fickle character based on Mills’ mom (Bening). Dorothea is a 50ish independent-minded divorcee who smokes too much, rents out rooms, holds down a drafting job and tries to get through to her son (the Mills stand-in, played by Lucas Jade Zumann, who’s supposed to be 15 but looks physically closer to 13) as he makes his way through early puberty.

Uproxx’s Mike Ryan has observed that Dorothea is like Frances McDormand‘s Elaine Miller, the headstrong mother of William Miller, in Cameron Crowe‘s Almost Famous, except that 20th Century Women is told almost entirely from Dorothea’s viewpoint and not the kid’s. That’s fairly close to the mark.

The characters and situations are semi-diverting as far as they go, but nobody ever really does anything and nothing ever heats up. The film muses, meditates, dithers, meanders, piddles along, Mills’ screenplay is all character study. It has no story, no tension, no arc, no pivot point, no climax and no conflict to speak of. Just a lot of semi-interesting dialogue, and a few better-than-decent scenes and performances (especially from Bening, who’s landed her best-written role since The Kids Are All Right).

It’s partly the fault of the setting. Santa Barbara is a great place to chill and enjoy, but nothing interesting ever happens there except for Roger Durling‘s annual Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival. It’s like what Orson Welles said about Switzerland in The Third Man — a tidy and bucolic little country from which the only noteworthy contribution has been the cuckoo clock.

A friend “appreciated” the meditative tone of 20th Century Women. “I liked the connection between the small moments and the historical aspects,” he writes.  “But otherwise I agree [with your viewpoint]. Bening is a knockout but what else is new? I love how she dresses and acts like Amelia Earhart, and the large crumbling house and the various characters. It has stuck with me. As flawed as it is.”

Tate Taylor‘s The Girl on the Train opened yesterday in 3144 locations, and will end up with something like $26 or $27 million (a per-screen average of around $8500) by Sunday night. This is mainly about the popularity of Paula Hawkins’ book (11 million copies worldwide) overcoming the mostly shitty reviews (45% and 47% from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively). Here’s my 10.3 pan. I’m an admirer of the New Yorker illustration (Adrian Tomine) that accompanies Anthony Lane’s review. Some HE readers attended, I’m presuming.

This black-and-white video, posted last night by Megyn Kelly, was taped by Robert De Niro some time ago, but the timing seems especially apt in the wake of last night’s crotch-grab hot mike Billy Bush video.

Swaggering, big-dog alpha men — connected, financially fortified, honeyed — tend to talk crudely about basic urges and attitudes in private. With a smirk. Guys with less-than-elegant educations and backgrounds, I mean. Not writers and directors as much as bulldog producers, agents, executive producers, etc. I’ve witnessed their behavior in private sanctums, within the quiet corridors.

This is one of the things I hate about guys who lug golf clubs around…their yaw-haw chortlings, the smug entitlement. Introspective X-factor types (including guys like Jimmy Carter) may have occasional thoughts along these lines, but big dogs boast and chuckle about them. It gives them comfort to let their hair down, goad each other.

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I’ll be doing the New York Film Festival today and tonight before hitting Connecticut for the weekend. I couldn’t stay at Jett’s place and was therefore forced to book a Manhattan hotel room. I looked around and couldn’t find anything better cost-wise than a boilerplate Comfort Inn on Ludlow Street, which is a block and a half north of Delancey. Just a standard room with a queen bed, a TV, a bathroom and wifi, and it’s costing me in the vicinity of $250 plus tax. I’m sorry but that strikes me as exorbitant.

I’m currently sitting in a McDonald’s at the corner of Essex and Delancey, partly for the wifi but also because I was starving. This morning’s NYFF press screening (10 am) is Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women, which I caught in Los Angeles last week. This afternoon’s press screening (1 pm) is Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s Aquarius, which I saw and quite admired in Cannes last May — deserves a second viewing. I got the usual two hours of sleep on the plane so at some point I need to take a nap.

McDonald’s work station at Essex and Delancey — Friday, 10.7, 10:10 am.

“There is no Batman movie happening yet. We’re still trying to figure it out…you know, get the script and budget and all that stuff. And someone said, ‘what are you calling it?’ and I had said, like, back when we were promoting another movie, I was like ‘we don’t have a name for it, we’re just going with The Batman or Batman movie.’ And [after] I said that, everyone was like ‘Affleck announces the name of his Batman movie.’” — Ben Affleck during a recent E! Online interview that was mainly focused on The Accountant.

So Affleck’s Batflick, which sounds like it’ll be released in 2018 or ’19, is back to being a blank slate. Which should be a relief to diehards as The Batman radiated nothingness. I was thinking the other day about re-titling Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as The Adventures of Captain Fatass, and a couple of commenters said “now that‘s something I’d pay to see!” I genuinely believe that Affleck should give his Batman flick some kind of locoweed title — something off the grid and fuck-all sounding. It hit me as I was riding on the A train this morning on my way into town from JFK: Bing Bang Bat Bongo.

Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister reported yesterday that E! has shut down production of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, apparently out of concern for Kim Kardashian‘s emotions in the wake of the recent Paris robbery. “Kim’s well-being is our core focus right now,” an E! spokesperson told Wagmeister. “No decision has been made as to when production will resume.” KUWTK has been sinking in the ratings, and then a potential ratings-booster like the Paris heist comes along and E! stops shooting? Am I mistaken about KUWTK being a reality show? Wagmeister reports that E! signed the Kardashies to a three-year extension last year, which will extend KUWTK‘s presence into 2018, but when something like the Paris robbery happens, you exploit the shit out of it. Wagmeister writes that “when asked if cameras were rolling in Paris around the time of the robbery, E! declined to comment.”

ArtHouseTrump is a parody handle — i.e, some person pretending to be a Trump-minded film critic but in an SNL sense. Which is to say that some of his/her opinions, while obviously parroting Trump’s mentality, aren’t entirely absurd. Earlier today Jessica Chastain got into a scuffle with ArtHouseTrump over Interstellar, and to be perfectly honest I don’t think it’s all that crazy to suggest that she, Chris Nolan, Matthew McConaughey and the others do “owe” us for that fucking film. I laughed, in any event, at the suggestion. By the way: I’m not saying Chastain isn’t aware that ArtHouseTrump is a put-on, but one of her tweets today indicated that she thinks the person behind it is some kind of serious Trump surrogate. Or is she in on the joke? Help me out.

There’s a Sam Kashner-authored profile of Warren Beatty in the new Vanity Fair. Beatty participated mainly to plug Rules Don’t Apply (20th Century Fox, 11.23) but he also gave up some personal stuff, including two stories I’d never heard or read before — one about Marilyn Monroe that happened a little more than 54 years ago, and the other about Edie Sedgwick that also took place in the ’60s.

Monroe: “Peter Lawford invited Beatty out to his house in Malibu [HE correction: Lawford’s home in the early ’60s was on the beach in Santa Monica, not Malibu] for a night of tacos and poker, and Monroe was there. ‘I hadn’t seen anything that beautiful,’ Beatty recalls. She invited him to take a walk along the beach, which he did.”

In a presumed reference to their stroll. Beatty tells Kashner “it was more soulful than romantic.”

“Back in the house he played the piano. Marilyn sat on the edge of the piano in something so clingy that Beatty could tell she wasn’t wearing underwear. ‘How old are you?’ she asked. ‘Twenty-five,’ he answered. ‘How old are you?” he asked cheekily. ‘Three…six,’ she said, as if not wanting to bring the two numbers together.

“By then the tacos had arrived, and no one really played poker that night. Warren noticed that Marilyn was already a bit tipsy from champagne, even before the sun had set.

“The next day Harold Mirisch, brother of the producer Walter Mirisch, called. ‘Did you hear?’ he asked. ‘Marilyn Monroe is dead.’ Warren was one of the last people to see Marilyn alive — a story Beatty tells only reluctantly.”

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1. Are you named after someone? / JW: “Yeah, some character in a novel. My mom told me the particulars once, forgot ’em.”
2. When’s the last time you cried? / JW: “Nine months ago. The first time I watched Manchester by the Sea. I didn’t exactly cry but I got a little misty.”
3. Do you like your handwriting? / JW: “Like it? I can’t even read it.”
4. What is your favorite lunch meat? / JW: “Spicy Italian salami.”
5. Do you have kids? / JW: “Two sons.”
6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? / JW: “Certainly.”
7. Do you use sarcasm? / JW: “Infrequently. Only when it’s right. Which is rarely.”
8. Do you still have your tonsils? / JW: “The fuck?”
9. Would you bungee jump? / JW: “I’m past that point.”
10. What is your favorite cereal? / JW: “Open Nature strawberry vanilla granola with vanilla yogurt.”
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? / JW: “Is this a trick question?”
12. Do you think you are strong? / JW: “Emotionally, not as strong as I could be. Physically, yeah, as far as it goes. I’m not weak.”
13. What is your favorite ice cream? / JW: “Cookies and cream.”
14. What is the first thing you notice about people? / JW: “Whether or not they look me right in the eye and hold it for two or three seconds when we first say hello.”
15. Red or pink? / JW: “Neither. Okay, red.”

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