From Alonso Duralde‘s 7.2 Wrap review, filed from Karlovy Vary: “If Mel Gibson makes a great movie, and no one in America wants to see it, does it make a sound? His last lead in a genre film, Get the Gringo, got positive reviews in 2012 but had a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical release.

“It would be a real shame if his latest, Blood Father (Lionsgate, 8.26), were to meet the same fate — it’s grungy and action-packed, yes, but it also features the kind of sharp characterization and clever dialogue that justifies the presence of an old pro like Gibson.

“Director Jean-François Richet (Mesrine 1&2, the Assault on Precinct 13 remake) keeps the action set pieces and shootouts coming with bracing regularity. And unlike many thrillers, Blood Father doesn’t grind to a halt while it’s catching its breath, thanks to the spot-on screenplay by Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig.

“The film is loaded with lots of great two-person scenes that allow the cast to do something besides run and shoot. There’s a lot of terrific honest-to-gosh banter going on here.”

There’s a cloud hanging over Drake Doremus‘ Equals (A24, 7.15). It’s taken forever to finally open, and it’s coping with failing grades from Rotten Tomatoes (52%) and Metacritic (37%). But it’s not as bad as all that. I wouldn’t even call it “bad’ — it’s just a tad underwhelming. I couldn’t hear 65% of the dialogue when I watched it at the Wilshire Screening Room, but I respected it as a reasonably decent tribute to George Lucas‘s THX 1138. Same milieu, same theme, similar story…but a little bit different. I’m presuming that the vast majority of Millenials and younger GenXers have never heard of Lucas’s 1971 film, much less seen it. (The publicist who was checking off names at my screening is among them.) Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult, as a pair of suppressed would-be lovers in a futuristic Orwellian society, are reasonably compelling. Not a great film, but watchable.

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That Mary Elizabeth Winstead kerfuffle that happened last March (i.e., my tweeting that her performance in 10 Cloverfield Lave was overacted, which inspired a mob of Twitter bitches to call for my disemboweling) reminded me of a basic human trait. If you say something even mildly contentious to or about a celebrity, people will foam at the mouth. It’s a monkey-obeisance instinct, built into our genes. ”We love you, important movie star! That guy who said those unkind things? We’ll defend you by beating him to a pulp!”

It happened again last night. Patton Oswalt had attended last night’s Ghostbusters screening at the Grove, and he tweeted that it was “fun, scary, terrific.” I immediately tweeted the following: “Due respect, Patton, but I’m not buying this. No offense.” The twitter dogs howled and screamed, and their logic was breathtaking. I hadn’t yet seen Ghostbusters (I’m actually catching it tonight) so how could I possibly have a doubting opinion about Patton’s admiring words?

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Like everyone else I’m hoping for drama and perhaps even a taste of rebellion during the Republican National Convention (7.18 thru 7.21). The latter is probably a fantasy given that most Republicans, fearful of alienating Trump followers, don’t have the balls to stand up. We’ve been reading for weeks that many establishment Republicans won’t be attending, and that many of the usual corporate sponsors won’t be there either. Nobody wants the Trump stink on their clothes. It seems odd, given all this, that the Creative Coalition, a well-funded, ultra-lefty entertainment industry do-gooder charity, is throwing a cocktail party. To what end?

Criterion’s Dr. Strangelove Bluray popped 10 days ago. Here’s my 6.11 non-review. The clip after the jump is from the opening moments of Criterion’s 1992 laserdisc of Dr. Strangelove, which was mastered with alternating aspect ratios (partly 1.37, partly 1.66), presumably in accordance with Kubrick’s wishes. I have an old Columbia/TriStar Strangelove DVD that also uses this a.r., but you’ll never see a boxy Strangelove in high-def…ever. If I had been in charge of mastering the Criterion Bluray I would have included a 1.37 version for “boxy is beautiful” types, but we’re a dying breed. Guys like Bob Furmanek and Pete Apruzzese have seen to that.

Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE is just one of the 800-plus Criterion titles on sale at @BNBuzz! https://t.co/UOUZqgckNH pic.twitter.com/f2Nb2pPEPl

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) July 6, 2016

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I’m trying to get past my Fassy complex, but I’m dug in pretty deep so I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about The Light Between Oceans for so long — pre-processing, kicking the trailer around, sharing premonitions — that actually watching it is going to seem anti-climactic on some level. We all “know” about Act One and Two at this stage — it’s all in the hands of Act Three and how delicate and moving Rachel Weisz‘s performance will be. TLBO will begin screening sometime late this month or certainly by early August. It opens on 9.2.

An antsy St. Paul, Minnesota cop shot and killed Philando Castile, a 32 year-old school employee, last night, drilling him five times because he didn’t reach for his wallet in his back pocket in the right way. His girlfriend, Lavish (a.k.a. Diamond) Reynolds, posted a live Facebook video of the immediate aftermath as Castile was dying. The Falcon Heights police department detained her right after the incident (sometime around 9 pm) and kept her all night until 5 am this morning. Obviously a hostile act on their part — punishment for her Facebook posting? Before getting plugged Castile reportedly didn’t run, argue or resist arrest. Reaching for his wallet is apparently what did it.

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Rose McGowan to Owen Gleiberman in 7.6 Hollywood Reporter piece: “You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women. I speak as someone who was abused by Hollywood and by people like you in the media, but I’m a different breed, one they didn’t count on. I refuse and reject this bullshit on behalf of those who feel they can’t speak. I am someone who was forced by a studio to go on Howard Stern, where he asked me to show him my labia while my grinning male and female publicists stood to the side and did nothing to protect me. I am someone who has withstood death threats from fan boys, had fat sites devoted to me. I’ve withstood harassment on a level you can’t comprehend, Owen.”

Translation: “All visual aspects of all movies are obviously fair game for critical discourse except when it comes to this or that actress having undergone certain adjustments. You can write about Bette Davis‘s eyes, but not if they’ve been touched up. I don’t care what you’re thinking or feeling or why — don’t go there again. Every ugly thing that I’ve been put through by asshole producers, directors and agents in this town is on you, Owen. Their karma is your own. Because you’re all the same beast. If Harrison Ford or Robert Redford or Mark Hamill do a Michael Cimino to themselves some day and you feel compelled to say something, have at it. But you’ve written the last sentence you’ll ever write about surgical touch-ups concerning any actress, anywhere. Once more and you’re done. If I had my way you’d be toast now, but I haven’t the power to bring that about.”

Attractive women are at their most alluring in their 30s and especially 40s. Women in their 20s? Not so much. They just don’t have that much going on inside. If a man or woman of any age doesn’t have some kind of unstated deep-river intrigue what good are they? The downside of 40-plus women is that they’ve all been through difficult times with other guys and are therefore a minefield of negative triggers and resentments if you happen to say or do the wrong thing. 20something women aren’t as pissy — they haven’t yet acquired the wounds and the scars. All to say that Margot Robbie, 26, will definitely be a more skilled and tantalizing actress when she hits 35 and definitely by 40.

The best grief-recovery movies are ones in which something else is going on besides coping with grief. In my book the five best (all of which deal with the aftermath of a death of a loved one) are, in this order, In The Bedroom, Manchester By The Sea, Don’t Look Now, Ordinary People and Things We Lost In The Fire. Because each is focused on something other than just a main character stumbling and thrashing around in pain. The only stumbling around grief flick that I’ve been okay with is John Cameron Michell‘s Rabbit Hole.

The lesser grief-recovery dramas (Demolition, Meadowland) are those in which lead characters mainly just sink into it…”hurt so bad….can’t get past it…I need to drown my grief with drink, drugs, sex or oddball behavior.”

From my perspective the latest permutation could be described as “angry parent of a recently deceased son/daughter faces off with the deceased’s partner/spouse” — Amber Tamblyn‘s Paint It Black (Janet McTeer vs. Alia Shawkat) and Maris Curran‘s Five Nights in Maine (Dianne Wiest vs. David Oyelowo).

I’m just sick of the whole subgenre. I’m sick of death, loss, grief. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for escapism either. I’m just sick and tired of people with long faces. I’m excluding Manchester By The Sea, of course, as I don’t classify it as a “grief” film, even though it more or less is.