I’m not sure about the strategy of this teaser for Deepwater Horizon (Summit, 9.30), but at least the editors have gone with an unusual approach. You know what this film will be (petroleum-soaked gutslam CG action, blue-collar heroes, bad British Petroleum execs) and that with Peter Berg at the helm…well, you know Berg’s tendencies and so did the Summit guys who decided to hire him in favor of original helmer J.C. Chandor. But let’s be positive. Intercutting between Mark Wahlberg‘s young daughter explaining a school science project (right?) and the pre-disaster activities upon BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig suggests that the film might be less than 100% predictable. If only Wahlberg was playing a typical half-attentive, half-spaced dad instead of smiling and beaming and soaking in every last wonderful word from his daughter’s mouth. (You know, as in “stop selling it, you fucking actor, and just be in the moment”?) You know what would’ve been even nicer? If they’d only shown the can of Coke exploding on the kitchen table and left the bigger eruption to our imagination.

Donald Trump is an inelegant speaker with a crude vocabulary and a simplistic attitude about nearly everything, but if you hone and de-generalize and re-phrase what he said to ITV’s Good Morning, Britain about Muslim complicity in terrorism, you have to admit that he has half a point. I don’t like admitting this, but not everything Trump says is 100% nutso.

Trump basically told the ITV guys that Muslims in Britain and the U.S. are purposely ignoring suspected terrorists or fugitives. I’m sorry but he’s almost certainly not wrong when it comes to the tiny but not insignificant portion of Muslims who support or sympathize with ISIS goals.

Trump’s broad-brush thinking and sloppy sentence construction implies that many if not most Muslims may be guilty of looking the other way, which is an undoubtedly wrong and unwise conclusion, but there seems to be little doubt that a tiny sliver of persons within any average Muslim expat community support ISIS, and that these persons are almost certainly keeping quiet about what they may have seen or heard about the activities or whereabouts of the “wrong” ones. It follows that friends and family of these persons would probably also keep mum.

To say there are considerable feelings of tribal loyalty among Muslims living in non-Muslim countries is not an unreasonable assumption. Not every expression of concern or caution about the doctrine of Islam is necessarily synonymous with bigotry and Islamophobia.

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When I stepped out of the bungalow at 6 am this morning and strolled over to the beach (maybe 75 feet), I was expecting to see a solitary hiker or two. Instead I found at least 40 or 50 people, especially on the beach in front of the hotel to the south (i.e., the Zero Seamile Beach Club).

Hoi An vista in front of Palm Garden bungalow #415 — Thursday, 3.24, 6:05 am.

My geographical inability to join in the Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice pile-on — 37% Rotten Tomatoes, 46% Metacritic — concerns me not. Everyone seems to be handling the task just fine without me. I’ve been smelling…okay, sensing what was coming for months. Who hasn’t?

From N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott: “A diverting entertainment might have been made about the rivalry between these two muscle-bound paladins — a bromance or a buddy comedy, an album of duets. Batman v Superman is none of those things. It is about as diverting as having a porcelain sink broken over your head.

“In keeping with current business imperatives, what Mr. Snyder has concocted is less a free-standing film than the opening argument in a very long trial…not so much a ‘dawn’ as an entire morning spent watching the clock in anticipation of lunchtime. The studio has, in the usual way, begged and bullied critics not to reveal plot points, and I wouldn’t dream of denying you the thrill of discovering just how overstuffed and preposterous a movie narrative can be.”

Director Zak Snyder has always been and will always be toxic to me. Unless, you know, he’s eventually seized by some life-changing convulsion and turns into someone or something else. I can’t wait to pay money to see this thing next week. Wait…naah, I have to see it.

Today’s scooter trip from the Than Thien hotel in central Hue to Hoi An’s Palm Garden Resort took about 5 and 1/2 hours, or 9 am to 2:30 pm. Soul-filling, eye-opening…one of the greatest rides of my life. Our guide was the easygoing and super-knowledgable Thong do van of Easy Riders. The journey included seven or eight quick stops for stretching, vista-gazing, eating, and taking pics of rice paddies and water buffaloes. Toward the end of the trip we all had a decent noodle-and-chicken meal at a non-tourist, all-Vietnamese restaurant in Danang that cost roughly $1.60 (U.S.) per person. I captured what I’m certain will be some near-great GoPro footage of the trip, but as I mentioned a day or two ago I forgot to pack the upload cable so all Go Pro footage have to wait until I return to Los Angeles. We’re bunked down at the Palm Garden between now and Saturday morning, which is when we’ll return to Hanoi for a final day and night.

Thong do van, Caitlin Bennett, Jett Wells prior in Hue as journey was about to begin.

No time to write anything with the Hoi An scooter trip starting 100 minutes hence, so here’s a re-post about films that have dealt with death in an exceptional way: “The best death-meditation films impart a sense of tranquility or acceptance about what’s to come, which is what most of us go to films about death to receive, and what the best of these always seem to convey in some way.

Terrence Stamp, John Hurt and Tim Roth in Stephen Frears’ The Hit.

“They usually do this by selling the idea of structure and continuity. They persuade that despite the universe being run on cold chance and mathematical indifference, each life has a particular task or fulfillment that needs to happen, and that by satisfying this requirement some connection to a grand scheme is revealed.

“You can call this a delusional wish-fulfillment scenario (and I won’t argue about that), but certain films have sold this idea in a way that simultaneously gives you the chills but also settles you down and makes you feel okay.

“Here’s a list containing some top achievers in this realm. I’m not going to explain why they’re successful in conveying the above except to underline that it’s not just me talking here — these movies definitely impart a sense of benevolent order and a belief that the end of a life on the planet earth is but a passage into something else. I’ve listed them in order of preference, or by the standard of emotional persuasion.

“1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ. 2. Stephen Frears‘ The Hit. 3. Brian Desmond Hurst‘s A Christmas Carol. 4. Warren Beatty and Buck Henry‘s Heaven Can Wait. 5. Henry King‘s Carousel (based on Ferenc Molnar‘s Lilliom). 6. Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice. 6. Michael Powell‘s A Matter Of Life And Death, a.k.a. Stairway To Heaven. 7. Albert Brooks‘ Defending Your Life.

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Warner Bros. has decided to open Ben Affleck‘s Live By Night, a 1930s gangster drama based on a Dennis Lahane novel, on 10.20.17, or roughly two years after it began shooting in Savannah. (Sasha Stone and I visited the set during last October’s Savannah Film Festival.) You’d think that a presumably solid genre film that finished shooting a month or two ago would open late this year or certainly by the summer of ’17. The 10.20.17 date seems to indicate a need for additional shooting or extensive CGI…something along those lines.

An invite to a 4.6 Century City screening of Hardcore Henry has arrived. I’ll attend, of course, but God help me. Anyone who’s watched either of the two trailers can tell you where it’s coming from, but I love Jacob Hall’s SXSW Slashfilm review, dated 3.14:

Excerpt: “Hardcore Henry is less of a movie and more of a 95-minute assault on good taste, a bloody theme park ride in filmic clothing, and/or the gruesome collision of the video gaming and cinematic languages. It’s a singular experience that’s truly unlike any other movie, and for some viewers, it will still be, understandably, one film of its kind too many. But Hardcore Henry isn’t lazy and it isn’t half-assed and it is in no way derivative — for better and worse, it is an ambitious undertaking that accomplishes exactly what it set out to accomplish and there’s something admirable about it.

“It’s impressively made, but entirely juvenile. Admittedly exciting, but casually cruel. Formally astonishing, but kind of skin-crawling on more than a few issues. Yeah, Hardcore Henry is going to elicit strong reactions and if you’ll allow me to break out the dreaded first person, I have no idea what to make of it.” Dreaded first-person?

“And perhaps going first-person with this review is appropriate. After all, the chief selling point of Hardcore Henry is that it’s an action movie told entirely through the first-person perspective. In fact, the making of the film sounds as thrilling any of the finished action scenes, as director Ilya Naishuller and his crew strapped cameras to a bunch of stuntmen who obviously didn’t fear the reaper and tossed them into chaotic car chases, death-defying leaps off of buildings, close-quarters combat with flamethrower-wielding henchmen, and even a musical number.

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It’s 1:10 am, and I’m filing from the lobby of the Than Thien hotel in Hue. Filing from my third-floor room would be preferable, of course, but the upstairs wifi is on the fritz. The horror of Brussels has obviously cast a pall over everything and everyone, and yet as ghastly as this sounds mass murder at the hands of ISIS has almost begun to seem…well, not routine but certainly not uncommon. What happened today was a shock but who was surprised? I hated admitting this but my first thought was that today’s event will probably fortify Donald Trump‘s appeal among fence-sitters…God help us.

Obviously there’s no reconciling today’s tragedy and the fact that we’re here in Vietnam and (this almost sounds puerile in light of today’s massacre) enjoying a world-class adventure. But that’s the shot.

Hue Citadel — Tuesday, 3.22, 10:10 pm.

River valley adjacent to Phong Nha’s Dark Cave — Tuesday,3.22, 2:10 pm.

Today’s activity was an exhilarating eight-hour excursion inside the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park — Paradise Cave, Dark Cave (the highlight of which was a fairly difficult trudge into a pool of mud so dense and liquidy-smooth that it looked and felt like melted milk-chocolate sauce), ziplining, swimming, hiking. We returned to the Phong Nha Lakehouse Resort around 4:45 pm, and then hopped into a Vidotour van for a three and 1/2 hour drive to Hue.

Jett and Cait weren’t in the mood but I roamed the city for a couple of hours, walking along the Perfume river, snapping photos of the Citadel and whatnot. It’s quite warm here and humid — you can work up a sweat just by walking at a leisurely pace. We leave tomorrow morning at 9 am for a six-hour scooter voyage to Hoi An, which is roughly 125 kilometers or 77 miles.

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33 year-old Federico Fellini and 32 year-old Giulietta Masina during 1953 filming of La Strada.

Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina.

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Yesterday morning we flew from Hanoi to Dong Hoi, a modest-sized coastal city, and then were driven inland past some profoundly calming, wonderfully aromatic countryside up to the Phong Nha Lakehouse. An hour from now we’re embarking on a day-long hike into the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, which will happen under the professional guidance of a Phong Nha Farmstay guys. The day will include all kinds of good stuff including the exploring of Paradise Cave.

Monday, 3.21 — public Dong Hoi beach.

The rice paddy vistas outside the Phong Nah Farmstay headquarters.

Yesterday afternoon we scootered 20-plus kilometers into Dong Hoi and flopped on the beach for a couple of hours. Jett’s scooter stopped starting once we arrived, but we were twice saved by the kindness of strangers — a young Vietnamese guy helped us to kick-start it in town, and an Australian guy came along and suggested a running jump-start, which worked.

Obviously this is why I’m not filing much. I can’t seem to fit much in, but I can’t leave it alone either. Come hell or high water Hollywood Elsewhere posts every damn day, and with jottings of at least some substance. When we return late this afternoon we’re driving straight down to Hue (over four hours), and the next morning we’re doing a nine-hour scooter journey down to Hoi An.

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Filed from Cannes on 5.15.15: “Gus Van Sant‘s The Sea of Trees “was initially greeted with one or two souls applauding, but this was immediately followed by a chorus of boos, loud and sustained for a good five or six seconds. I wasn’t feeling the hate as much as lethargy and disappointment, which began to manifest fairly early. I was getting the wrong vibes even before it started due to the word ‘The’ in the title. That in itself told me plenty.

“The symphonic, rotely soothing score by Mason Bates (i.e., the kind of music that tells the audience ‘you’ll be okay…this is a film about caring and compassion…no rude shocks in store’) told me right away that Trees would be one of Van Sant’s Finding Forrester-like films — an initially solemn, ultimately feel-good drama about ‘redemption’ and rediscovering the joy and necessity of embracing the struggle rather than dying by your own hand blah blah.

“It’s not ineptly made or anything. It starts smoothly and delivers what most of us would call professional-level chops along with an emotionally earnest lead performance from Matthew McConaughey as a Massachucetts high-school teacher and widower looking to commit suicide under the shade of Japan’s Aokigahara forest. But Chris Sparling‘s screenplay jerks the manipulation chain once or twice too often, and the general scheme of the thing just felt tired and pat to me.

“Some were complaining that only McConaughey’s woes seem to matter to Van Sant with scant attention paid to the anguish of Ken Watanabe‘s character, whom McConaughey encounters in the suicide forest and whose life he tries to save all through. This observation isn’t quite true because as there’s a third-act twist…forget it.”

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