As I said a couple of weeks ago, my initial concern about Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Paramount, 3.4) was that it would play its cards in a formula way — Tina Fey finds it hard to be Tina Fey while covering the Afghanistan conflict. The less-schticky second trailer seemed to indicate a slightly more complex approach. The night before last I finally saw the film and I have to say that it’s not half bad. It’s pooh-poohable, but it’s not fair to be overly dismissive given the built-in restraints and the source material.

Tina Fey in Glenn Ficarra and John Requa‘s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

It may sound like damning with faint praise to call Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Fey’s best film, but it really is that. No one will dispute that her best work has happened on 30 Rock and SNL. What half-decent features besides WTF can be singled out? Mean Girls wasn’t my cup. I can’t even remember if I saw This Is Where I Leave You.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which has been directed with a kind of semi-anonymous proficiency by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is the most honest and open-to-reality thing Fey has ever done. It has some schtick elements but they’re kept in check. Fey will never be Meryl Streep, and to be honest this film reminds you of her limited range, but she seems to understand this and stays within her zone. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is an imperfect but honorable attempt to grapple with the unruliness of things. Not Werner Herzog-level unruliness, of course, but the kind that happens when you ease up on formula.

To put it another way, this is a tolerable, semi-plausible attempt to blend grity war realism (the film is based on Kim Barker‘s “The Taliban Shuffle,” an account of her Afghanistan experience in the early aughts) with the mentality or expectations of a Hollywood-funded, Tina Fey dramedy.

Fey’s character (called Kim Baker), a Chicago-based TV copy editor, leaves behind her boyfriend (Josh Charles) for a brief news-reporting assignment in Afghanistan, which eventually evolves into a much longer commitment. Shit happens, rough and tumble, dust in her hair, she has to earn her bones, watch out for predators and IEDs, relationships evolve, she mans up and does good work, etc.

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Paul Feig‘s Ghostbusters reboot (Sony, 7.15) is obviously low and coarse. Aimed at families. Cartoon-level ghosts rendered with intentionally shitty CGI. Bill Murray‘s material aside, I hated the original Ghostbusters from the get-go. I despised screenwriters Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis for refusing to dream up a reason why ghosts were suddenly swirling all over Manhattan…why? Two years earlier ghosts had attacked Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams‘ home in Poltergeist, but that had something to do with their home having been built upon a Native American burial ground. (Right?)

In a statement to the Guardian‘s Catherine Shoard, Revenant/Birdman director Alejandro G. Inarritu has defended what some have regarded as a seemingly snooty or disdainful reaction to Mad Max costume design Oscar winner Jenny Beavan during last Sunday’s Oscar awards.

“I think Jenny Beavan is a masterful costume designer and very deserving of the Oscar for Mad Max: Fury Road,” Inarritu says. “By editing and omitting the full reality and suggesting I felt anything but admiration is mean-spirited and false. What you don’t see in the 10-second clip being circulated is my applause for Jenny as she ascended the stairs to the stage.”

Inarritu added: “I’ve learned a lot this awards season…that I should never cross my arms when I am sitting down.”

It wasn’t just Alejandro, of course — Revenant/Spotlight producer Steve Golin and Revenant costar Tom Hardy also appeared to express less-than-respectful reactions to Beavan as she walked past them. Spotlight director-writer Tom McCarthy grinned as he put his hand to his mouth — something between slight disbelief and “oh, wow.”

It seems clear to me that all these guys were thinking the following as they heard Beaven’s name being announced and then caught their first glimpse as she walked down the aisle: (a) “I don’t know Jenny Beavan but whatever…fine,” (b) “Wait…that‘s Jenny Beavan? Where’s the stunning designer gown? She’s short and older and has gray brillo hair! Is this a possible impostor or maybe a friend of Beaven’s accepting in her absence? I think I’ll wait and see what develops”; (c) “Oh, that really is the winner of the Best Costume Design Oscar!” and (d) “Okay, I’ll clap then….better later than never!”

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In a 3.1 N.Y. Times analysis piece titled “As Donald Trump Rolls Up Victories, the G.O.P. Split Widens to a Chasm,” reporters Jonathan Martin and Michael Barbaro quote Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor and Republican candidate for president, as follows: “If the Republican Party were an airplane, and you were looking out a passenger window, you would see surface pieces peeling off and wonder if one of the wings or engines was next.”

I’m presuming that Donald Trump and his supporters are going to love London Has Fallen (Grammercy/Lionsgate, 3.4). This London-based sequel to Olympus Has Fallen is a crude, gut-level, kill-the-terrorists flick that shows 80 or 90 bad guys getting drilled for their lunacy — the kind of justice that every Trump voter pines for. And yet the movie doesn’t, in the end, have the balls to cut off heads. It wants to but hasn’t the courage of its convictions. I know that sounds weird but hear me out.

London Has Fallen definitely struck me as a reflection of aggressive Trump values — racism, rage, intemperance, militancy. The bad guys are a small army of Middle-Eastern terrorists, and boy, does Gerald Butler‘s Mike Bannon waste these America-hating fucks like there’s no tomorrow…die, die, die, assholes! 90, 100…I lost count.

London Has Fallen is also dumb as a pile of rocks, but what’s a little idiocy between fans and filmmakers? It doesn’t do the spade work, it doesn’t care about logic or realism…nothing. It’s just recycling cliches and humiliating the cast.

At least a couple of hundred ruthless, well-funded terrorists kill a lot of government leaders and security guys and all but reduce London to Fallujah, but except for the appearance of a squad of British SWAT guys who show up in Act Three there is next to no response to the attacks by the British military. Which struck me as bizarre. The resistance mostly boils down to Butler and Aaron Eckhart‘s President Benjamin Asher — a couple of armed bros vs. a gang of ISIS-like demon fiends. (Yes, the baddies are technically doing the bidding of a ruthless 50something arms dealer but we all know what the shot is.)

Yes, London Has Fallen is occasionally “funny” (guys were chortling now and then during this morning’s press screening) but not, for my money, funny enough. By which I mean truly self-lampooning. And why not? Nobody takes this shit even half-seriously so why not go full comedy? Instead all we get are the usual hard-boiled, self-regarding macho quips (straight out of the classic Die Hard playbook) but London never really cuts loose like Roland Emmerich‘s White House Down, which didn’t make as much money as Olympus Has Fallen but was a far more enjoyable film.

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All-media screenings happen on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. (Especially Tuesdays.) Family-friendly flicks will sometimes show at all-media screenings on Saturday morning or afternoon. But nobody and I mean nobody books an all-media screening for 4 pm on a Wednesday, which is what the Sony guys have done for Louis Leterrier‘s The Brothers Grimsby. Pic opens on 3.11. It opened in England on 2.24 under the title of Grimsby, pulling a 50% Rotten Tomatoes rating and 46% on Metacritic.

Yesterday Entertainment Weekly‘s Clark Collis filed an “exclusive” but clueless report about the 4.22 opening (theatrical, VOD) of Nina, an allegedly underwhelming Nina Simone biopic with the clearly miscast Zoe Saldana (as opposed to, say, the great Viola Davis) portraying the troubled singer.

The fact that director Cynthia Mort filed a lawsuit nearly two years ago against producer Ealing Studios Enterprises should tell you plenty. Here are some of the lawsuit details.

I don’t want to see Nina anyway. Self-destruction is boring, and I’ve already done time with Liz Garbus‘s Oscar-nominated What Happened, Miss Simone? — a respectable effort in this equation.

Here’s how Collis idiotically puts it: “How could we cheer up Nina Simone fans about the documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? losing to Amy at the Oscars last Sunday? Well, how about this: EW can exclusively reveal that Nina, a years-in-the-making biopic of the so-called ‘High Priestess of Soul’, will be released to theaters and on VOD, April 22. Directed by Cynthia Mort, the movie stars Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar actress Zoe Saldana as Simone and Selma actor David Oyelowo as her assistant-turned-manager, Clifton Henderson.”

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In anticipation of Universal Home Video and the Film Foundation’s forthcoming Bluray of Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (’61), which will probably street between early summer and early fall**, here are two images — one from a lobby card, another a publicity still — of a tragic ending that was filmed but discarded. I’m speaking of the death of Luisa (Pina Pellicer) from a bullet fired by a wounded Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) after being drilled twice in the back by Brando’s Rio. In the 141-minute release version Longworth fires at Rio and Luisa as they ride out of town after a gunfight, but he misses. In the much longer but long-ago-destroyed Brando cut Luisa catches a bullet and dies. It’s odd that photos of a death scene that wasn’t meant to seen were printed, but here’s the evidence.

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For Los Angeles-based journos like myself, or more precisely the kind that doesn’t get invited to elite trade-critic screenings, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and London Has Fallen are screening against each other tonight. (Thankfully London has a follow-up screening tomorrow morning.) They’ll open against each other three days hence (3.4). Nobody’s written about London but we all know the deal. Meanwhile credible critics have spoken against the Tina Fey-goes-to-Afghanistan comedy, leaving it with a 60% and 43% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. I’ll try to keep the moaning down out of respect for those seated nearby.

Yesterday morning Sasha Stone and I discussed Sunday night’s Oscar telecast — general assessments, the coming effects of a diverse Academy (along with the already in-progress degradation and downswirling of theatrical cinema culture due to indifferent Millenials who see “Oscar movies” as a half-boring, semi-disreputable genre), the Stallone shocker, how the preferential ballot was crucial to Spotlight‘s big win, etc. This should have been posted yesterday afternoon, but Sasha didn’t send it along until early last evening when I was out and about. As per custom, Sasha will be taking it a bit easier for the next few months while Hollywood Elsewhere will push on as usual. Again, the mp3.

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In my 2.29 “Oh, What A Night” riff I failed to post the best snap of the night — Spotlight director-cowriter Tom McCarthy coming down the main stairs at Palihouse and being cheered by the crowd.

Spotlight‘s Tom McCarthy — Sunday, 2.28, 11:35 pm.