I attended last night’s Brian Wilson concert at L.A.’s Greek theatre, courtesy of the Love & Mercy team at Roadside. I went with mixed expectations. One, I’d seen Wilson and his backup band give a pleasant but not-exactly-knockout show at a UCLA venue about nine or ten years ago, and who knew if this show would be as good? It might be worse. And two, I’d been told by a friend that a typical Wilson audience these days is wall-to-wall oldsters — baldies, pot bellies, white hair, neck wattles, tent-like Hawaiian shirts — and the thought of being part of such a throng depressed me to no end. I loved the drive up to the Greek (the weather was warm and dry and the various fragrances in the air were to die for) but as I approached the main entrance I was asking myself, “Do I really want to be here?”

Well, my fears were unfounded. The crowd was definitely younger than expected (a healthy blend of people of all ages) and the show was far and away the best Beach Boys/Brian Wilson concert I’ve ever been lucky enough to savor. Paul Merten‘s tight ten-piece band (eleven counting Wilson) just knocked the shit out of 32 Wilson songs, and I’m sorry but it felt truly joyful start to finish. Nobody was cutting the band any slack — they were delivering like champs, gloriously smooth and clean and confident.

About three or four songs into the show I turned to Madelyn Hammond (there with Pete) on my right and said, “Wow, the band is really good!” She agreed 100%. Two seconds later a bewigged Paul Giamatti leaned over and said to me, “What? What did you say to Madelyn?” I looked at him and said, “It’s none of your fucking business!” I’m kidding — Giamatti wasn’t there.

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So Will Ferrell‘s the dorky step-dad and Mark Wahlberg‘s the cool, natural, Esquire-reading dad all the way through, right? Black and white, cool and uncool, relaxed machismo vs. anxious pathetic…sharp divisions observed. Up until the third act, of course, when Wahlberg shows his vulnerable flaws or twitches and Ferrell quietly mans up in some gracious, compassionate way. I know this movie before I’ve seen it. But I have to say that I honestly laughed at the motorcycle gag. And knocking out the cheerleader with the basketball…that too.

Steven Spielberg‘s Jaws opened exactly four decades ago — 6.20.75. I still say that Laurent Bouzereau‘s two-hour “making of Jaws” documentary is more engrossing than the film itself. John Milius reportedly wrote Robert Shaw‘s recollection of the Indianapolis shark slaughter (740 men eaten), which is easily the film’s best scene. You know what I miss? That slightly woozy feeling you’d get after sundown on a hot July night when you’d gotten too much sun that day. Your skin was red and hot and maybe peeling, but in a certain way it felt wonderful with the aroma of suntan oil and Noxzema sunburn spray. Those were the days.

I’ll bet you $100 bucks that 97% of those who consider themselves horror fans have not only never seen this scene but have never even heard of The Orphanage, etc. I could watch this scene 100 times and it would get me every time. When we hear the sound of the door opening…God! This is the genius of director Juan Antonio Bayona and producer Guillermo del Toro.

Jeffrey Wells to Grantland‘s Wesley Morris: “As a fellow disser of Dope, what are your reactions to its underwhelming box-office performance this weekend? MCN’s Len Klady is eyeballing $6.5 million this weekend and a final theatrical gross of $18 to $20 million. I know that people I spoke to at Sundance thought that Dope would be the next Pulp Fiction or at least a Pulp Fiction in Inglewood, and that it would perform very, very strongly on both sides of the cultural aisle. But maybe not? Maybe it’s too “white” in a certain sense?

Dope “has been the most hotly auctioned film of the [Sundance] festival,” you wrote. “I don’t know whether Open Road and Sony Pictures, who’ve acquired Dope, went for it because it feels, to them, authentically black or because the blackness is familiar to the world’s marketplaces.” Or because Famuyiwa is supplying the kind of “black shit [that] white people like.”

A final theatrical tally of $20 million is better than nothing — it’s not “bad” — but it’s not that great for a movie that was hailed by so many fluttery-voiced Sundance critics as something akin to the Second Coming. Then again maybe it’ll become a sizable hit when it starts streaming. What do I know? I’ll tell you what I know: Dope is nowhere near as good as the Sundance critics were claiming. I was one of the very few (along with Morris) to call bullshit on this particular strain of Park City hype.

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The realm of Only Angels Have Wings is all-male, all the time. Feelings run quite strong (the pilots who are “good enough” love each other like brothers) but nobody lays their emotional cards on the table face-up. Particularly Cary Grant‘s Geoff, a brusque, hard-headed type who never has a match on him. He gradually falls in love with Jean Arthur but refuses to say so or even show it very much. But he does subtly reveal his feelings at the end with the help of a two-headed coin. It’s not what any woman or poet would call a profound declaration of love, but it’s as close to profound as it’s going to get in this 1939 Howard Hawks film. If Angels were remade today with Jennifer Lawrence in the Arthur role she’d probably say “to hell with it” and catch the boat, but in ’39 the coin was enough. Easily one of the greatest finales in Hollywood history.

Kris Tapley isn’t admitting this in so many words, but his sage industry-centric column, In Contention, has been cut loose at Hitfix, which has been dumbing itself down and cranking up the fanboy content in attempts to increase traffic and profitability. The owners of Hitfix have been unsuccessful in attempts to sell the site and so, a source says, they’ve been “cutting the fat” to make it as attractive as possible to buyers. I’m told that they’d come to regard Tapley’s column as too hip and upscale to appeal to the knuckle-draggers they’re now looking to focus on.

Tapley’s contract had ended and he’d allegedly stalled in re-upping for some reason. I’m told he’d met with Variety‘s Claudia Eller to discuss some kind of adoption or alliance. The Hitfix honchos told Tapley a week or two ago that they’d “decided to go in a different direction, this is what we’re doing, we’re not doing award-centric coverage any more…thanks a lot,” as a source puts it.

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Insect antennae signals are telling me that Barry Levinson‘s Rock the Kasbah (Open Road, 10.27) (a) is definitely good and possibly better than that, party due to Mitch Glazer having penned the screenplay, (b) might turn out to be Bill Murray‘s best role since Lost in Translation and maybe even Rushmore and (c) a theatrical comeback for Levinson. Costarring Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Leem Lubany, Scott Caan, Danny McBride, Arian Moayed, Taylor Kinney and Beejan Land.

After nearly a four-day absence Zak returned this morning. Out of the effing blue. “Oh, hi…you losers didn’t miss me, did you? I was catting around, adventuring, living the life of Ernest fucking Hemingway. What’s doing on the boring-ass home front?” I was half overjoyed, half pissed. Part of me wanted to say “you fucking asshole, where were you?” but I suppressed that. We made out for a half-hour straight. My guess is that the local kidnapper saw one of my “lost cat” signs and felt guilty and let him go. That or Zak escaped. Food, whipped cream, grooming, more backrubs, neck massages, ear kisses. He’s sleeping now. All is well.

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