For me, the throbbing, bassy sound mix at New York’s Alice Tully Hall killed a good half of the dialogue during the 10.4 screening of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice. Which I mentioned that night and in a morning-after piece the next day. I noted in the second riff that “I was able to understand somewhere between 15% and 20% of Katherine Waterston, Joanna Newsom and Jena Malone‘s dialogue, largely because they all seem to converse in hippie-chick fry.” Well, deliverance has arrived with the Inherent Vice screener, which the UPS guy dropped off an hour ago. I popped it in and watched the first scene (i.e., between Waterston and Joaquin Phoenix) and could hear 95% of the dialogue without the slightest difficulty. I still don’t understand what’s going on and Phoenix still sounds slurry-muttery here and there, but I can hear the words. Finally! Don’t even suggest that the Avery Fisher problems were about my own ears. Some readers tried this after I moaned about the Interstellar sound mix, and look what happened with that one. In all modesty I’m a Zen master of theatrical sound assessments.

The first trailer for J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney, 12.18.15) will screen in theatres nationwide on Friday, 11.28. I’m guessing it won’t simultaneously appear online. This means that I’ll be humping it down to the AMC Century City or Hollywood’s El Capitan and paying full ticket price just to see it. Which is what happened on 11.6.98 when hundreds (including Paul Thomas Anderson) poured into Mann’s Village in Westwood to see the world premiere of the trailer for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I was there. Every Los Angeles film fanatic with blood in his or her veins was there. The movie that nobody stayed to see was Edward Zwick‘s The Siege. The late Tom Sherak, Fox’s top marketing guy at the time, introduced the trailer. I remember how the mostly geek crowd was mocking the Zwick film…”Siege! Siege! Siege!” And then The Phantom Menace opened on 5.19.99, and the whole thing came tumbling down. It doesn’t matter how much money that mostly tedious movie made. It destroyed the Star Wars theology. True believers were shattered, crestfallen.

There’s no excuse for having posted the wrong Best Director and Best Actor Oscar Balloon charts last weekend, but somehow I managed it. Jett sent me the latest on Saturday. I saved the damn things, re-sized them, refined them and posted them…and they were the wrong charts. Fatigue, frenzy, too many balls in the air, hurly-burly, time-outs, replacing my HDMI cable switcher, shopping, briefly disappeared cat, exercise. I don’t know what happened but it’s infuriating. These are the currently correct versions.

Far From The Madding Crowd (Fox Searchlight, 5.1.15) is basically about the dreamy, cultured allure of Carey Mulligan‘s Bathsheba Everdene, and which suitor she’ll finally end up with — the earthy, well-muscled sheep farmer (Matthias Schoenhaerts) who probably climaxes too quickly, the somewhat rakish military man (Tom Sturridge) who’s heavenly in the sack, a giver of quaking orgasms, and the somewhat stuffy rich guy (Michael Sheen) who’s steady and reliable but who probably comes too quickly also. Always choose the dull, dependable guy. My personal blockage, to be perfectly honest, is that in real life Mulligan married a beefy, non-glamorous musician. I understand and respect that she married for trust and comfort, but Marcus Mumford is the guy who got in the way of the Mulligan mystique. It’s obvious that Charlotte Bruus Christensen‘s cinematography — exquisite, sophisticated — obviously knows from light and shadows. Could Bathsheba Everdene be the great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother of Katniss Everdeen? I’ll never forgive Dean Martin for changing the original Thomas Hardy title to “away from the maddening crowd” in “Volare.”

In the latest Mike Fleming-Peter Bart discussion riff on Deadline (posted today around noon), Bart puts down Birdman because it doesn’t play with Average Joes. “Critics don’t like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion,” he says. “Birdman is a good example. If you see a film like this with a pack of cinephiles like at Telluride, everyone gets every inside joke, and you instinctively go along with the crowd. I made it a point to see Birdman with a paid civilian audience and it was like screening it in a mausoleum. No laughs, just occasional grunts and lots of walkouts.”

No shit, Peter? The average ticket-buyer has always been on the common side of the equation. He/she is simply less sensitive and attuned to wit and innovation and “da coolness” than movie-mad festivalgoers, and so a film that plays well at Telluride or Sundance is naturally going to have less of a heartbeat in front of a crowd of popcorn-munching Joes. Never judge a film by how it plays with those guys…please.

I saw about 80% of Jennifer Aniston‘s Cake at the Toronto Film Festival, but I caught it again today (12 noon screening, Pacific Design center) start to finish. It’s basically an acting showcase drama with a highly commendable performance from Aniston, for which she’s currently taking bows around town in hopes of landing a Best Actress nomination. The film over-plays the meditation card and eventually becomes tedious — everybody just ambles along in this thing, behaving and commenting and sometimes weeping and arguing but never doing all that much. (Except, that is, when Aniston and her long-suffering assistant, superbly played by Adriana Barraza, drive to Mexico for pain pills.) But given that it’s a relatively weak year for actresses it’s not that crazy to suggest that Aniston, on the merit of her performance alone, could make the cut. And in so doing she might develop a new career groove in which she makes fewer crap-level successes like We’re The Millers and Horrible Bosses.

Cake star & exec producer Jennifer Aniston during this afternoon’s q & a at the Pacific Design Center. She’s dropped the weight she put on for the film, and her blonde hair looked fantastic. (Seriously, if I was a blonde female I’d want my hair to look just like hers. Really.) A young woman from the audience asked if she could have a hug, and of course Aniston obliged…but it felt a bit weird.

Cake is basically an indie slog about acute pain management and working past emotional anguish over some really bad stuff that happened a year or so back. The problem is that Aniston’s middle-aged character, deglammed and scar-faced and dropping handfuls of Percocets for the pain, wears out her welcome around the one-hour mark. The movie fails to pivot (in the Howard Suber sense of that term), and as much as you may enjoy her sharp-tongued commentary about anyone and anything she happens to find irritating or infuriating (including, to her immense credit, Orange County righties), you just don’t want to hang with this suffering crabhead any more. Enough.

But at least Aniston (who exec produced) really gives it hell. She can be quite deft and subtle when she wants to be, always letting you know what’s happening inside with just the right amount of emphasis. And she certainly looks like a wreck with her stiff movements and brown stringy hair and somewhat heavier appearance.

Note: Incorrect Best Director and Best Actor charts were posted Sunday morning. These are the correct ones.

The Boyhood screener arrived last night. The fold-out jacket is quite elaborate and almost flamboyant by IFC standards. Obviously IFC Films honchos and their award-season strategists sat down a couple of months ago and agreed to put a big chunk of their funds into this. “Screeners are key,” somebody said, “and if we play up Boyhood‘s importance by emphasizing rave reviews on an attention-getting jacket, it’ll be money well spent.” IFC Films screener jackets have never looked this swanky. This one equals if not betters the usual award-season screener packaging from the major distributors.

It’s interesting to note that the 11.22.63 Dr. Strangelove screening would have happened at the former Leow’s Orpheum (now AMC Leows Orpheum 7), which is way the hell up on Third Avenue and 86th Street. Nowadays nobody holds screenings north of 68th or 72nd Street on either side of town. I don’t think I attended an invitational screening on 86th Street during my entire 2008-to-2011 New York experience. And note the time — 8:30 pm. No invitational screenings start at that hour these days. For as long as I’ve been a journalist they’ve all begun at 7 or 7:30 pm. This harkens back to the ancient theatrical tradition of Broadway plays starting at 8:30 pm.

Rob Marshall and Stephen Sondheim‘s Into The Woods was screened for a crowd of mostly mild-mannered types at 4 pm on the Disney lot. (I’ll be seeing it Monday night.) Deadline‘s Pete Hammond: “Ad line for Into The Woods says ‘be careful what you wish for’. If your wish was a smart, charming, witty Sondheim film, it’s been granted.” (The ghost of Gene Shalit?) Sam Adams: “Into The Woods overstays welcome & bleeds its many charms. Meryl Streep kinda grand, but third act drag undoes what was a slight but enjoyable film.” Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “Gorgeous & expensive Sondheim. Applause for Meryl Streep and the opening number. Johnny Depp is fine in short bit as The Wolf.” Wait…”gorgeous & expensive” are sidestepping terms, don’t address how good it is. Jenelle Riley: “I loved Into the Woods though the tone veers between theatrical and realistic. Whole cast is great…especially Streep, Chris Pine.” Hammond again: “Into The Woods defines what a great ensemble cast really is. They all shine but Streep soars. Kendrick. Blunt, Pine, James Corden all terrific.” Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone: “You could call this a darker interpretation of Into the Woods. Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick standouts. And Streep, of course. Wins costumes walking in the door. More serious and sad than the stage show I saw. Teared up a few times.” Wait…costumes?

I’ve been susceptible to the perceptions of UCLA film professor Howard Suber since the mid ’90s, which is when I first listened to his smooth, buttery commentaries on the Criterion Collection laser discs of Mike Nichols‘ The Graduate, Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon and Billy Wilder‘s Some Like It Hot. In 2012 I asked Suber to pass along some specially burned DVDs of these discs, but they didn’t look so hot and they skipped from time to time. Now, lo and behold, a YouTube post does it right — the entire Graduate synched with Suber’s commentary, the exact same trip offered to those who watched and listened to the original Criterion laser disc.

If you love and value The Graduate, this version will add to your appreciation of the film in ways you never quite gathered on your own, I swear. And it’s a perfect opportunity for a seance with the spirit of Mr. Nichols, who left us three days ago.