Early this afternoon Sasha Stone and I pedaled over to the Sentient Bean for an easy lunch with Chad Newsom, who teaches in the Cinema Studies department at SCAD. Around 2:30 or 3 pm we pedaled over to the set of Ben Affleck‘s Live By Night, which was definitely (as I’d been told) filming at Savannah’s Railroad Museum. We sauntered over to the shooting area like we owned the place. No security worries, no “I’m sorry but who are you?”…easy vibes all around. Ben was sitting in a canvas chair under a tent while a shot was being prepared inside a nearby warehouse-type building and chatting with costar Chris Messina. Both were dressed in period costume (early 1930s-era light-colored suits with tan hats and spiffy shoes). Neither Sasha nor myself made any attempt to talk to anyone — we just wanted to stay out of everyone’s way. But then Ben came close on his way to a port-o-potty so I said “hey, Ben!” He waved, smiled, came over, shook hands, etc. 20 seconds of shit-shooting. Sasha told him he’d done a commendable thing by hosting a screening for Beasts of No Nation a couple of weeks ago. And that was it. No biggie, no harm, no foul.

Portraying Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, M.D.) in David Ayer‘s Suicide Squad (Warner Bros., 8.5.16) reps a major career potential for Margot Robbie, or at the very least a significant revenue stream if Quinn re-appears in other D.C. Comics franchise films down the road. Here’s hoping that things work out for Robbie in this regard — a seriously flush lifestyle, real-estate and stock options, financial security, two or three dwellings, etc. Created 22 years ago, Quinn is (a) a Batman adversary with a pronounced New York accent, (b) a frequent accomplice and lover of the Joker (Jared Leto) and (c) a close friend of the supervillain Poison Ivy from whom she gained an immunity to poisons and toxins. Quinn originally met the Joker while working as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, where the Joker was a patient.

I lasted an hour with Burnt. It’s not that I couldn’t stand Bradley Cooper‘s egoistic rock-star chef, Adam Jones, who’s looking to make a comeback after self-destructing a couple of years earlier due to (what else?) drugs and hubris. My three-and-a-half years of sobriety has taught me to respect the idea of making amends, turnarounds, forgiveness. So I had nothing against the character. On the other hand I just didn’t give a shit.

Maybe it was the moment when I realized Cooper’s Jones was a kind of dry drunk who was capable of rants and temper tantrums and throwing stuff at the walls regardless of his sobriety. Maybe I just got sick of his personality. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. All I know is that after 45 minutes or so and I started to ask myself, “Am I going to stick this out or do something better with my time between now and 10 or 11 pm or so?” I started to pay less and less attention to the film as I began to make a list of things I could get to. So at the 60-minute mark I slipped out of the screening room as quietly as I could.

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I’m told that Ben Affleck‘s Live By Night, an adaptation of Dennis Lahane‘s 2012 novel about a Depression-era bootlegger, is shooting today in the vicinity of Savannah’s Railroad Museum. Their call was for the ungodly hour of 4:30 am. I have a bicycle — maybe I’ll pedal over there and nose around. Portions of Live By Night are being shot in Brunswick, about 30 miles south of Savannah.

An early shot from Live By Night that was tweed by Affleck a day or two ago.

Affleck is directing, having co-adapted the screenplay with Lahane. He’s also playing the title role of Joe Coughlin, “the prodigal son of a Boston police captain turned criminal [who], after moving to Florida’s Ybor City, becomes a bootlegger and a rum-runner and, later, a notorious gangster.” Costars include Sienna Miller, Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper and Elle Fanning.

Pic is produced by Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson Killoran and Jennifer Todd. It will be distributed in late ’16 or sometime in ’17 by Warner Bros. Principal photography began two days ago. Here are link #1 and link #2.

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The Savannah Film Festival is one of the finest and classiest second-tier festivals on the fall circuit. “Second-tier” is in no way a dismissive term. It’s a cool, classy regional festival that doesn’t need to be Cannes or Berlin or Sundance or Telluride. The vibe is always smart and sophisticated; never anxious or strained. Screenings + seminars + strolls and bike rides + great food. Well-attended, smartly programmed and lots of shade. Last night was a rematch with Meg Ryan‘s Ithaca, which I saw and reviewed at the Middleburg Film Festival. Tonight’s big attraction at the SCAD trustees theatre is HE’s own Room.

Meg Ryan at lecturn prior to last night’s screening of Ithaca. For the occasion the Savannah Film Festival gave her a Lifetime Career Award. Born in ’61, Ryan has been at it for 35 years, give or take. The peak years were ’89 (When Harry Met Sally) to ’00 (Proof of Life — her last reasonably good film). Other highlights: Joe Versus the Volcano, The Doors, Prelude to a Kiss, Sleepless in Seattle, When a Man Loves a Woman, I.Q., French Kiss, Courage Under Fire, City of Angels, Hurlyburly, You’ve Got Mail, Hanging Up.

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I have to share something. Harrison Ford‘s soft-edged voice and careful, slowish speaking style are somewhat like Warren Beatty‘s. Ford is roughly of the same generation as Beatty’s (i.e., pre-war Baby Bust) but neither has ever been a compulsive blabbermouth or wordslinger. This was my second thought after contemplating (i.e., deciding whether to believe) Ford’s description of Stars Wars: The Force Awakens.

Late this afternoon I scootered down to Wormsloe, a three-century-old plantation with a long straight driveway shaded by an entwined canopy of moss-covered oak trees. As beautiful as expected. The famous “run Forrest run” scene from Robert Zemeckis‘s Forrest Gump (a movie that I mostly hated from the get-go for its dismissive portrait of ’60s counter-culture types) was shot here. I was accompanied by Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg. We rode on rented 50cc put-puts — a maximum of 35 mph.

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I thought last weekend that the whole Quentin Tarantino-calls-certain-cops-“murderers” thing would subside after two or three days, but it hasn’t. So far New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles police unions and associations have called for a Tarantino boycott following strong (some would say inflammatory) remarks the director-writer made last Saturday at a New York City rally. “I’m a human being with a conscience,” Tarantino said. “And if you believe there’s murder going on, then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.” How will the Weinstein Co. defuse this? Also: Some are presuming that an “n” word controversy will kick in once The Hateful Eight starts screening and certainly after it opens on 12.25. Were Tarantino’s remarks about an attempt to preemptively fortify his position with the African-American community?

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Morgan Spurlock‘s Call Bullshit experience (interactive, infographic, fact-supplying) is fun, educational and fast moving. 15 or so hours since last night’s Republican debate and Spurlock has already sussed and inserted all the major non-facts pushed by Rubio, Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Christie, etc. This’ll serve as a handy tool over the next twelve months and beyond, but it could also be used to measure the truthfulness of statements made during movie-industry press junkets. Filmmakers and actors lie for the gentlest and most sensitive of reasons (not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, natural privacy instincts, political caution), but you can’t attend any junket without a sense that pigs with wings are fluttering out of buttholes.

“Despite some bumpy tonal shifts and inconsistencies of characterization, Hello, My Name Is Doris impresses as a humanely amusing and occasionally poignant dramedy about a spinsterish office drone (Sally Field) who develops a romantic fixation on a much younger co-worker (Max Greenfield). The plot could have been played as a flat-out broad comedy or an anxiety-inducing psychological drama, and there are times when it feels like helmer Michael Showalter is striving for a mash-up of both. But Field keeps the movie on an even keel, for the most part, with an adroit and disciplined lead performance that generates both laughter and sympathy, with relatively few yanks on the heartstrings.” — from Joe Leydon‘s Variety review, posted from SXSW on 3.14.15.

“Gently alerting” is one way to describe Howard Shore‘s all-piano Spotlight score. It indicates that the movie is up to something solemn and real and worth your time. You hear a few bars and right away you’re saying to yourself, “Okay, there’s something going on here…I’m gonna focus because something of substance will probably come of it….I can just tell.” And yet at the same time it doesn’t instruct you how to feel; nor does it emphasize or underline. It’s one of those scores that watches the film with you. It musically reiterates what you’re feeling or thinking from point to point. Here are samples.