I felt next to nothing last night as I watched Guy Ritchie‘s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Warner Bros., 8.7) with a crowd of second-string, all-media loser types at the Arclight. I didn’t “hate” it and I’ll admit that I chuckled two or three times, but I mostly felt anesthetized — suspended in the tepid depths of the thing. The screenplay (written by Ritchie and Lionel Wigram) delivers a form of dry meta-comedy mixed with the same old running-around-Europe action spy stuff, but I have to acknowledge that stylistically and attitudinally it’s up something that’s lightly skewed — an aloof cool-cat vibe that sets it apart from the usual usual. The problem is that this stuff doesn’t kick in very often.

(l. to r.) Alicia Vikander, Army Hammer, Henry Cavill in Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

About halfway through I was thinking about hitting the head but I talked myself out of it for fear of missing something (a good joke, a clever bit). If you put off a bathroom break it doesn’t mean that a film is necessarily stupendous, but it does suggest it might be doing something half-right.

And yet U.N.C.L.E. is a kind of light genre comedy with a split personality. On one hand it seems to despise action-flick conventions by ironically satirizing them and making dry little jokes, and on the other it subjects the audience to the same formulaic bullshit that you’ve seen in a hundred spy movies.

I was also telling myself that I like Henry Cavill‘s Napoleon Solo. He’s cool to hang with for his good looks and take-it-easy vibe, but mainly because of his droll, meta-blase way of saying his lines. He’s adapting to the basic meta attitude, of course, but I felt relaxed when he was in the room. I also admired Cavill’s performance in Man of Steel, despite having despised the film. I was saying to myself, “We need more guys like Cavill in movies and fewer schlumpies and dumpies.” Cavill just has to be careful to avoid that flirting-with-Ernest-Borgnine look that he exhibited last year at ComicCon.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. contains three scenes that exude an amusingly detached “humor” element. The quotes mean “not exactly funny but enough to make you grin slightly.”

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Update: I earlier wrote that Anton Corbin‘s Life more or less bombed with critics at last Feburary’s Berlinale. What I should have said, more fairly and accurately, is that the reaction was on the mixed or lukewarm side. Pic opens in France on September 9th, and then in Belgium on 9.21, in Germany on 9.24, and in England on 9.25. Cinedigm will reportedly release Life sometime in the fall.

This is an overworked thread but three or four days ago Cinemaholic‘s Amal Singh posted a list of the worst films by ten top-tier directors. Here’s Singh’s list along with my own choices or disputes, followed by a few career-worsties of my own. My heart isn’t really in this but I thought I’d post it out of boredom.

1. Oliver Stone‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Alexander. HE disputes: Savages, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Heaven and Earth.
2. Tim Burton‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Planet of the Apes. HE disputes: Agree on Planet of the Apes but also Alice in Wonderland.
3. Steven Spielberg‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: 1941. HE dispute: Always, The Terminal.
4. Ridley Scott’s‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Exodus: Gods and Kings. HE dispute: Prometheus, G.I. Jane
5. Coen brothers‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: The Ladykillers. HE agrees.
6. David Fincher‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Alien 3. HE agrees.
7. Clint Eastwood‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Hereafter. HE dispute: Firefox.
8. David Lynch‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Dune. HE agrees.
9. Woody Allen‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Scoop. HE agrees but feels Curse of the Jade Scorpion is just as bad.
10. Francis Coppola‘s worst according to Cinemaholic/Singh: Dracula. HE disputes: Jack.

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Tom Hiddleston seems to offer a near-perfect physical reincarnation of the late Hank Williams in Marc Abraham‘s I Saw the Light (Sony Pictures Classics, 11.27). He’ll most likely be impressive in other respects. Directed, written and produced by Abraham and based on “Hank Williams: The Biography” by Colin Escott, George Merritt and Bill MacEwen. The question is when & where will I Saw The Light start to be seen…Telluride, Toronto or you-tell-me?

Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams in Marc Abraham’s I Saw The Light (SPC, 11.27)

Hank Williams sometime in the late ’40s.

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Only two small things gave me pause in this trailer for Jay Roach‘s Trumbo (Bleecker Street, 11.6) — Dean O’Gorman‘s portrayal of Kirk Douglas [explained in previous item] and John Goodman‘s Frank King (the real-life producer of Gun Crazy, The Brave One, Gorgo) violently swinging a golf club in defense of Mr. Trumbo’s honor. Otherwise it looks and sounds terrific — smart, stirring, well-written. You can feel it. I’ve been offering presumptions that Bryan Cranston will be a likely Best Actor contender for his performance as the legendary screenwriter-director; this offers concrete evidence that such a scenario may come to pass. Diane Lane, Elle Fanning, Louis, C.K. and Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper, etc.

I nearly had a heart attack as I watched and listened to Dean O’Gorman portray Kirk Douglas in the new trailer for Jay Roach‘s Trumbo. Why use an actor who conveys a certain movie-starrish machismo but who mainly looks like an older Ryan Gosling? Douglas wore his thick blondish-reddish hair swept back and didn’t starting parting it until the early to mid 60s, and Douglas hired Trumbo to write Spartacus in late ’58 or early ’59. Why didn’t they give O’Gorman a more distinct hole in his chin? And why didn’t they hire an actor who could do a decent impression of Douglas’s voice and then dub O’Gorman, like Tim Burton did when Vincent D’Onofrio portrayed Orson Welles in Ed Wood? I’m sorry but O’Gorman’s Douglas impression just doesn’t cut it — it takes you right out of the film.

(l.) Dean O’Gorman as Kirk Douglas in Trumbo; (r.) Kirk Douglas in the early to mid 60s.

 HE to Roach, producer Michael London: Please fix this. It’s not a tragedy in and of itself but why hurt the move with something that clearly doesn’t work? Dub O’Gorman with someone who sounds like Douglas — can’t be that hard. Trumbo also features Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson and David James Elliott as John Wayne, and I’ll tell you right now I’m scared shitless of what may be in store.

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In a just-released Franklin Pierce-Boston Herald poll of likely Democratic voters, Bernie Sanders is leading Hillary Clinton 44% to 37% with Vice President Joe Biden running third at 9%. In other words 53% of the respondents chose somebody other than Clinton. And yet a majority expects Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. Big deal — who would say otherwise at this stage? Pretty much everyone is depressingly resigned to the Clinton inevitability but nobody likes her much…nobody. Clinton stands for the right semi-progressive things but is inspiring no great love except from women in love with the metaphor of a female president. Will I vote for her? Yes, but with a sagging heart and no special enthusiasm.

The new teaser for Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight (Weinstein Co., 12.25) tries to suggest that a fair-sized portion happens outdoors. Maybe the first 10 or 15 minutes but this is mostly a sittin’ around and talkin’ shit indoors movie. After attending the 4.19.14 read-through in downtown L.A., I called it “a fairly minor and almost dismissable thing — a colorful but mediocre Tarantino gabfest that mostly happens on a single interior set (i.e., Minnie’s Haberdashery, located in the Wyoming town of Red Rock during a fierce blizzard), and which unfolds in the vein of The Petrified Forest.” But oh, that Ultra Panavision 70 photography! For the record the aspect ratio of this teaser is 2.74 to 1 whereas classic Ultra Panavision 70 is 2.76 to 1…but no biggie. Good thing that Minnie’s is the size of the first-class lounge on HMS Titanic. Gives the actors room to spread out, swagger around.

In an 8.11 N.Y. Times piece about F. Gary Gray‘s Straight Outta Compton (Universal, 8.14) and more particularly about a screening of the Universal film last night, Michael Cieply observes that “those who have already seen the film have been quick to make a connection with the recent unrest in cities including Baltimore and, again this week, Ferguson, Mo.” On 7.31 I posted the following: “Apart from it being a tight, satisfying, straight-ahead telling of the N.W.A. saga (roots, breakout, success, conflict and falling apart, concluding with the death of Easy E.), it’s quite an indictment of police racism and brutality. And what a time for this to arrive in the wake of a string of video-captured police shootings and unwarranted arrests, the most recent being the shooting of Samuel Dubose. ‘Fuck Tha Police’ and then some. Expect highly charged reactions.”

Rod Lurie was asking for Best All-Time Top Ten Albums on Facebook two or three days ago. I didn’t post in time so I thought I’d tap out a few. These are the first albums that came to mind and in this order, but ten is ridiculous — gotta make it 25. Obviously I stopped discovering or even listening to new stuff eons ago, but just as obviously (or at least arguably) music was much, much better between the late ’60s and mid ’90s. So here we go, starting with stuff that came to mind without any research or second guessing, the standard being albums I’m most likely to listen to on a long car trip (if I’m not in a random song mode).

1. Excitable Boy — Warren Zevon; 2. Aftermath — Rolling Stones; 3. So — Peter Gabriel; 4. Nevermind — Nirvana; 5. Rubber Soul — Beatles; 6. Smile — Beach Boys; 7. The Nightfly — Donald Fagen; 8. Hejira — Joni Mitchell; 9. Heroes — David Bowie; 10. Disraeli Gears — Cream; 11. Velvet Underground & Nico — Velvet Underground; 12. Revolver — Beatles; 12. Synchronicity — The Police; 13. Colour By Numbers — Culture Club; 14. Full Moon Fever — Tom Petty; 15. Nirvana Unplugged MTV in New York; 16. The Town and the City — Los Lobos; 17. The Band — The Band; 18. Sticky Fingers — Rolling Stones; 19. Brothers in Arms — Dire Straits; 20. My Aim Is True — Elvis Costello; 21. Truth — Jeff Beck Group; 22. Permanent — Joy Division; 23. Learning to Crawl — Pretenders; 24. Trouble in Paradise — Randy Newman; 25. Emotional Rescue — Rolling Stones.

New trailer accompanied by Cannes Film Festival review, posted on 5.18: To me Joachim Trier‘s Louder Than Bombs, an ennui-laden, Euro-style Ordinary People stuffed with the usual suburban, middle-class downer intrigues and featuring one of the most reprehensible teenagers in the history of motion pictures, felt contrived and gently infuriating. Too many aspects felt wrong and miscalculated or even hateful, and once the tally reached critical levels I began to sink into my usual exasperation (faint moaning, leaning forward, checking my watch).

“Uh-oh, this isn’t working,” I began saying to myself at around the ten-minute mark. Later on I was saying, “Wow, this really isn’t working.” Later on I was muttering worse things.

Bombs is about a father and two sons grappling with the death of their wife/mother, and the dysfunctional behavior that emerges in her absence. Dad, a Long Island-based high-school teacher, is played by aging, overly sensitive, watery-eyed Gabriel Byrne. Son #1, a mild-mannered college prof and mystifyingly irresponsible young dad, is played by Jesse Eisenberg, wearing a bizarre straight-hair wig instead of his usual curlies. And son #2, the above-mentioned demon from Hades, is played by Devin Druid.

Isabelle Huppert plays the dead wife/mom — a renowned, N.Y. Times-endorsed war photographer who died some months ago in a local highway accident.

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