The lack of architectural intrigue…the banality, really…and the general feeling of a community of small-time, limited-vision merchants congregated on a sloping, smoggy thoroughfare. The only places I recognize are the Whisky a Go Go (“Welcome to the Party”) at Sunset and Horn, and Gil Turner’s, which appears at the very end. You can almost feel the atmosphere of oppressive ’50s mediocrity in the unexceptional sunlight. The “’60s” had only begun a few months earlier (the assassination of JFK was the kickoff) and were just starting to take shape. Lyndon Johnson in the White House, “Freedom Summer”, the first year of the Beatles, etc.

I happened upon Gravity on HBO this evening, somewhere around the 30-minute mark. George Clooney was already dead (right?) and the terrified Sandra Bullock was tumbling head over heels and going “aahh! aahh!” For some reason I watched the remaining two-thirds. The fact that this technically impressive thrill ride managed to get serious traction for the Best Picture Oscar is even more of a head-scratcher now than it was earlier this year. Now more than ever it’s clear this was essentially a high-tech perils-of-Pauline movie. It dazzled by virtue of the first-rate VFX, and that’s what classed it up and made it seem so special to the easily impressed. I will always respect the exacting, highly skilled efforts of director Alfonso Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, both of whom won Oscars, but their real masterwork was Children of Men…c’mon.

Now that things have calmed down and we’re less than two months from the start of a new season we need to admit for the record that Gravity became a highly favored Best Picture nominee because it was expertly sold and hyped as something it really wasn’t at the end of the day — i.e., a movie that had a soul. I just watched it and I’m telling you that it’s just about gears and levers and buttons that were pushed exactly the right way. And a good portion of the Academy wanted to bypass (or more precisely had decided to ignore) 12 Years A Slave to give this thing a Best Picture Oscar because the tech stuff was so cool?

For whatever reason I’d never watched Woody Allen‘s Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story until yesterday (’71). An anti-Nixon mockumentary. The short was produced as a television special for PBS and was scheduled to air in February 1972, but was pulled shortly before the airdate. PBS officials feared losing government support. Allen cited the experience as an example of why he should “stick to movies”. It has a Take The Money and Run after-vibe.

If you ask me, the reputation of David Cronenberg‘s Scanners (’81) is better than the film actually is. Take away the exploding head shot and I’m not sure it’s all that much. I’m therefore thinking about passing, no offense, on the Criterion Bluray, which pops on 7.15

Now that Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a sizable hit ($73 million this weekend with a possible domestic cume of $200 million in the near future, not to mention foreign) and beloved by most of the critics and, apparently, most paying moviegoers, is there anyone out there who had a problem or two with it? My only beef was that there was no second- or third-act kicker or deepener. The fatalistic scheme of the story (i.e., the militant warmongers among humans and apes are going to kill any chance of peaceful co-existence) is never challenged — it just plays out. That said, the beat-by-beat delivery is polished and mechanized, and the framings and textures of each and every shot (noirish, drizzly…dryness is anathema) are rapturous, and Andy Serkis‘s melancholy performance as Ceasar is so deft and subtle that…well, I couldn’t submit to any negative impulses. It wasn’t in me, but perhaps others…? Just to kick it around.

In his review of Kino Lorber’s Witness for the Prosecution Bluray (streeting on 7.22), Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kaufman actually tiptoes around the big third-act twist. He’s actually afraid of spoiling a 57 year-old film that anyone with a passing interest in the courtroom genre or the films of Billy Wilder or Marlene Dietrich…anyone who isn’t a complete movie dilletante knows this film like the back of their hand. Kaufman also says that Bluray detail makes it obvious that the identity of the middle-aged woman who provides the crucial “love letters” to Charles Laughton and Henry Daniell in Euston Station is…uhm, that she’s wearing a get-up. “Suffice to say the film hinges on much the same artifice that was used later in Sleuth,” Kaufman writes, “and much like the film version of that play, the artifice simply doesn’t hold up under the cold, clear light of film close-ups.” I’ve seen a Vudu HDX version of Witness and I can’t say I agree. Note: I’ve posted the following clip because I worship the way Laughton says the line “for what it is worth.”

In a 7.13 “Bart & Fleming” chat, Deadline‘s Michael Fleming offers what seems to me like a brilliant suggestion for Melissa McCarthy, one that could possibly save her career from the post-Tammy backwash.

“Hollywood tried forever to remake the brilliant British miniseries Prime Suspect, but could never find the formula,” Fleming reminds. “Helen Mirren shone as Inspector Jane Tennison, subtly using her smarts to overcome workplace sexism and alcoholism. She solved crimes and earned respect and authority in most believable ways. How about McCarthy in the remake? Each of her movies introduces her in an increasingly unflattering visage until her true self shows through. Then she shines like a new penny, and we get a glimpse of how good an actress she really is. Imagine her as Tennison, overcoming disrespectful underlings who marginalize her appearance and gender.

It’s not surprising that Variety‘s Scott Foundas has panned Rob Reiner‘s And So It Goes (Clarius, 7.25), calling it the kind of adult relationship film that prefers “cheap punch lines” and “easy pathos” to real feelings, and a viewing experience in which “you never feel anything significant is at stake for anyone — save for a paycheck.” The surprise is that Foundas has reviewed the film from, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the Jerusalem Film Festival, which is probably not the safest place to be right now.

Douglas: “I hate to admit this but it’s almost a kind of aphrodisiac to be flirting and contemplating hot septugenarian sex while bombs are exploding nearby and any moment could be our last.” Keaton: “Eeeee!…let’s go upstairs right now.”

I realize, of course, that it’s gauche and tacky to eyeball an attractive woman in a public setting. In any sort of obvious way, I mean. If I’m sitting in a cafe and a looker walks in, I automatically go into covert mode. I steal quickies, frown, pretend I couldn’t care less, etc. But when an Exceptional Hottie is accompanied by a boyfriend or husband, he always gives me that aggressive “keep your eyes to yourself, buddy!” look. I’m getting a little bit irritated when they do this. I can’t even glance at her quickly? No, apparently. The boyfriends seem to be basically saying, “I’m naturally proud and delighted to be with a super-fox but I have to protect her from all visual attention. Not just the glares of the overt creeps. I have to discourage even discreet ogling….that’s the manly thing to do.” Today a guy gave me the standard visual admonishment, but just to be perverse I ignored him. I flat-out stared at every anatomical square inch of his girlfriend as if to say, “I’m getting sick of you guys and your manly protection death-ray looks. So I’m kind-of half fucking with you. As a dry exercise. If you want to do something about it, go to town.” He backed off.

Pauline Kael‘s review of the original Planet of the Apes reminds that this science-fiction landmark and franchise-starter wasn’t released in May, June or July but in February — a dump month by the standards of 2014 or for that matter the 21st Century. February has had this rep since at least the mid ’90s. I know that Silence of the Lambs was released on 2.14.91 and that a small group of money-makers have opened during the same blah period (Cloverfield, Tremors…what else?), but February has been designated as a time of resignation for so long it looks like up to me.

This is going to sound petty and neurotic (what else is new?), but when I give an HE commenter the heave-ho as I just did a few minutes ago, I recite Richard Burton‘s excommunication speech from Peter Glenville‘s Becket (’64), and particularly this passage.