Jason Bateman‘s The Family Fang (Starz, 4.29) is a fine, straight-dealing dramedy — mature, plain, unforced. It’s about a 40ish brother and sister (Bateman, Nicole Kidman) coping in different ways with a certain degree of emotional damage caused by their eccentric parents (Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett). The movie basically says to all kids who’ve had bruising parents, “Tough break but this is now, and you have to decide if you’re going to stand up and call your own shots…or not.” It doesn’t make a stupid joke out of the situation. And I admired Bateman’s decision to keep the the tone measured and low-key and not inject comic schtick, which nine out of ten directors would have resorted to.

The Family Fang compelled me to make a list of the worst cinematic parents of all time, and right away I thought of my top five: John Huston‘s Noah Cross from Chinatown, Daniel Day Lewis‘s Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood, Walken’s Brad Whitewood from At Close Range, Faye Dunaway‘s Joan Crawford in Mommmie Dearest and Marion Lorne‘s Mrs. Antony (mother of Robert Walker‘s Bruno) in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Strangers on a Train.

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Every night I try to get seven hours of slumber, but it never seems to happen. Arianna Huffington says I should bag at least eight hours, but a little man in my head has always resisted that. At best I manage five and a half to six hours plus 30 to 45 minutes of pre-sleep tweeting plus an hour of lying around and checking tweets the next morning. I’ll sometimes try and grab a nap between 4:30 and 6 pm, but that doesn’t seem to help much. The bottom line is that with sleep constantly tugging at my sleeve it’s easy to slip under at a moment’s notice.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled into a CVS parking garage at the northeast corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica Blvd. In a car, I mean. I eased into a spot and sat there for a bit as I finished listening to a song. I closed my eyes and 20 minutes later I woke up, still in the sitting position, iTunes music still playing, the engine still running. “Holy shit,” I said to myself. The next time I feel a fatigue thing approaching as I’m driving, I’ll just pull over and park and catch 40 winks.

There’s nothing wrong with remaking THX-1138. If I were George Lucas I’d feel honored and flattered. Sterile, robotic society without feeling or physical intimacy. Emotions outlawed, everyone wearing same white tunics. Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart fall in love anyway, eventually have to run for it, etc. Executive produced by Ridley Scott, Equals is screening this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. popping on DirecTV on 5.26, following by select theatrical and VOD on 7.15.

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On 3.2.16 L.A. Times reporter/analyst Glenn Whipp posted a piece about ten possible Best Picture nominees for 2016. I’ve got my own list of suspects but let’s first consider the Whipp roster plus another posted on 3.7 at Awards Watch.

Most of Whipp’s picks sounded interesting — David Michod‘s War Machine, Tom Ford‘s Nocturnal Animals, Martin Scorsese‘s Silence, Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea and Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Three could be described as generic, right-down-the-middle populist hambone movies — Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation (19th Century slave rebellion), Ben Younger‘s Bleed For This (boxing flick) and Garth Davis‘s Lion (shameless-sounding, Life of Pi-without-the-tiger-or-the-flying-fish lost puppy saga about Indian guy, played by Dev Patel, finding his family after 25 years of separation).

Forget Pedro Almodovar‘s Julieta, as that will feed right into the Best Foreign Language Feature category. And the last of Whipp’s picks — Barry Jenkins‘ Moonlight — sound a bit too fringey and druggy and Jean Genet-ish for the Best Picture derby.

Not long after this Awards Watch posted a consensus chart about the same topic. Second verse, almost the same as the first. Their top 15 picks were (in this order) Silence, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, The Birth of a Nation, Jeff Nichols‘ Loving (period interracial marriage drama), Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Denzel Washington‘s Fences (adaptation of honored August Wilson play), Lion, Clint Eastwood‘s Sully (inspirational saga of seasoned airplane pilot who landed damaged jet on surface of Hudson River), Damien Chazelle‘s La-La Land, Denis Villeneuve‘s Story of Your Life, War Machine, Deepwater Horizon, Passengers and Robert Zemeckis‘s Allied (WWII dramatic thriller about assassins falling in love w/ Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard — just began filming last month).

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A veteran filmmaker reminded me yesterday that Breakout, a 1975 B-grade action flick that’s basically about a helicopter pilot (Charles Bronson) air-lifting a framed American prisoner (Robert Duvall) out of a Mexican jail, was the first film to open via wide saturation booking, and not Jaws, which usually gets the credit.

After Breakout opened internationally on 3.6.75, Columbia opted for a radical, roll-the-dice decision to open this mezzo-mezzo actioner in 1350 situations on 5.21.75. After two weeks it had grossed a then-head-turning $12.7 million.

Impressed, Universal chairman Lew Wasserman and studio president Sid Sheinberg decided to ape this strategy by opening Jaws, which they knew would be a big hit, on 6.20.75 in a similar fashion.

The initial Jaws plan was to open it in 900 theatres, but Wasserman cut that figure down to 464. Wikipedia claims that Breakout opened on 1300 screens, or nearly three times the opening-day screen count of Jaws.  The veteran who reminded me about Breakout recalled a screen tally more in the 600 range.

I just think it should be recognized or remembered that the Breakout guys were the saturation pioneers and not the Jaws copycats.

Full disclosure: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Breakout. (Or have I?) It was regarded as a harmless, enjoyable diversion at the time, although no one thought it was anything more than a throwaway for drive-ins and sub-runs. Now that it’s been re-activated in my mind I intend to stream it soon.

The Los Angeles-residing Matthew Warren has been making alternative movie posters for the last four years. His company/URL is called Paper8. Message: “My practice combines movie posters with the construct of cinema and celebrity culture” — okay.  For Warren’s latest project he has eight (8) billboards up around the Hollywood area. Locations include Sunset Blvd. & Stanley Ave. (4.11 – 5.9); Melrose Blvd/Larchmont Ave (4.18 – 5.16); Santa Monica Blvd/Vine St (4.25 – 5.22); and Highland Ave. and Willoughby Ave (4.25 — 5.22).

Full term only. Already taken…sorry!

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There’s something about texting that over-50 women seem to resist or otherwise have trouble with. I’m convinced that on some level they feel that texting constitutes a violation of their soul space and are therefore enacting little rebellions by taking their sweet-ass time to respond or claiming they never got them, and in so doing are protecting their privacy. Either they don’t get back to you until three or four hours have passed, in part because they haven’t assigned a text tone that alerts them when a text comes in, or they’ll shut their phones off when they’re working or whatever, or they’ll leave it on the kitchen counter or the bedroom bureau when they go shopping or out with friends or to the gym. One way or another they’re always slow to get back. But all of this changes when you’re dealing with women in their early to mid 40s and younger. There’s some kind of generational dividing line. Older GenXers (those born in the early to mid ’60s) respond when they get around to it, but younger GenXers are almost always respond. Millenials, of course, don’t even think about it — they always text back, usually within minutes if not seconds. Me? I always respond to a text within five or ten unless it’s somebody I’d rather not deal with, in which case I’ll delay for an hour or two. Guys in general tend to be pretty good about texting, but older women are weird. Forget boomer women — 75% of them are technical klutzes on top of the attitude thing.

Ronald Reagan was a few days shy of 70 when he was first sworn in as President on 1.20.81, and was just a few days away from turning 78 when his second term ended on 1.20.89. Hillary Clinton will be 69 and 1/4 when she takes office next January, and will be 77 when she wraps her second term, if and when. I’m not predicting or presuming anything, but I wonder how invested she’ll be in being re-elected in 2020 or (I’m just speculating) she might be of a mind to pass the torch and get a little r & r with her grandkids while she has the time and the health. Bernie Sanders wouldn’t back off at all if he got elected. He’ll work the treadmill, lift weights, eat right and charge on until his late 90s. Bernie will bop until he drops. But Hillary…who knows? And what about Gavin Newsom? Because after Hillary’s two terms, the electorate will definitely be in a mood for someone without a cackly laugh or a neck wattle. And you know what else? By the time Hillary leaves office in 2025 it’ll be time for a Millenial presidential candidate or two. I define Millenials as those born in the mid ’80s and beyond, so right now the oldest Millenials are about 30 and by ’23 or ’24 they’ll be in their late 30s and/or pushing 40, or three or four years older than they legally need to be to run for President (i.e., 35).

Before this morning I had honestly never seen this extended hand-held shot from Robert Drew‘s Primary, which is included in Criterion’s forthcoming Bluray of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew (4.26). Boilerplate: “In one of the most famous shots in all of documentary history, Albert Maysles’s camera follows JFK into Milwaukee’s American Serb Hall. Primary, which documents the Wisconsin 1960 presidential primary, was shot on a camera engineered specifically by Drew and his team to allow for sync-sound recording, a feature that made the entire genre of cinema verite possible.”

Once upon a time movies were about more than just attempts to connect and make money. To some extent they also reflected our culture, values, history, goals, dreams, conflicts, etc. We all realize that except for X-factor oddities like Money Monster and The Family Fang and the usual award-season titles, the socially reflective aspect has all but disappeared from theatres and migrated to cable and streaming. American movies used to be cousins of literature and theatre — now movie theatres are more or less amusement parks for under-25s and the none-too-brights. Look at a rundown of releases from any month in the ’80s, ’70s or ’60s and you’ll see the usual mixture of fluff, drama, fantasy and social realism. And look at the movies that are happening right now — what do they say or indicate about where your average moviegoer is at intellectually, morally and spiritually? Yes, I realize that April releases tend to be on the skanky or swampy side but really…what does this rundown tell you about the U.S. of A.? If you were God and were looking down from the clouds upon a country and a culture that you had often been proud of and stirred by during the first 200-plus years, what would you be feeling as you review this sad list of films? There’s only one with a potent combination of smarts, style, craft and social urgency — Gavin Hood‘s Eye in the Sky. (Here’s my 3.9.16 review.)

If your movie runs more than two hours and 10 minutes you’d better have a damn good reason for that. Obviously many films have sufficiently demonstrated why they need to be that length or longer and that’s fine, but for me two hours and 10 minutes is a line in the sand. Per Cinando, there are four movies playing at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival that may be of concern in this respect. The heavyweight champ in Christi Puiu‘s Sierenevada, a Romanian entry which runs six minutes shy of three hours. Next is Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann at 162 minutes. In third place is Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey, which runs two hours and 38 minutes. Park Chan Wook‘s The Handmaid is in fourth place at 141 minutes.

I ride a big fat Yamaha Majesty, which you might as well call a motorcycle. It’s large and fast and makes a nice rumbling sound, and it has leather saddlebags and a mounted snap-shut carrying case on the rear. And I do what I want when I ride around, believe me. I rarely stop for traffic. I just ride between cars (i.e., splitting lanes), and I never, ever pay for parking. When I’m on that beautiful machine Los Angeles doesn’t own me or tell me what to do — I own it.

Anyway when I’m too far back in a left-turn lane waiting for a light, I’ll just move forward and slip in front of the first car waiting to turn. If he/she doesn’t like it, tough.

Two days ago I rumbled in front of a left-turn guy who was sitting in a hefty gray muscle car (Dodge, Camaro, Mustang). As I was idling there the guy inched forward while turning slightly to the right. He squeezed (the word is actually semi-crushed) my left thigh and damn near pushed me over. This asshole was telling me he didn’t like my cruising in front of him, and that I had compromised his feelings of masculinity.

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