If a film is solidly well-made and affecting and eloquently written and acted, then it will acquire a reputation as a good or very good film. Nothing can ever take that basic fact away. But a film with one wrong scene — something miscalculated, under-sold, not quite there, overplayed — can take that film down a notch. It will always be haunted by “if only they hadn’t,” etc. Obviously a single tonal misstep can’t hurt that much but it can leave a bruise. In short, the flip side of the old Howard Hawks rule still applies. A first-rate movie has three great scenes, and no bad ones.

I got on this jag because a first-rate film I’ve just seen has one small wrongo. I’m not going to mention the film but I’m asking the readership for examples from the past. Name one scene in a universally praised film that could have been cut before the film opened, and without anyone noticing and the producers kind of glad that it’s gone and the star going, “Ahh, all right…I guess we didn’t need it.”

What is the essential quality of a wrongo in an otherwise excellent film? You’re not going to taste awfulness or mediocrity in a quality-level enterprise. What you might encounter, however, will be a scene that doesn’t need to be there. A scene that isn’t a necessary component but a “darling” — something that’s in the film because one of the principals is in love with it and doesn’t care if it contributes profoundly to the whole or not…it’s staying.

There hasn’t been much reaction to yesterday’s stalled Alamo restoration story that focuses on a mildly astonishing misrepresentation of the facts by an MGM spokesperson. I probably wouldn’t pay much attention myself if I was a reader. How many Alamo stories have I run so far, six or seven? But reconsider for a second. Restoration guru Robert Harris is too much of a genteel diplomat to just spit it out so I will. An official statement from an established motion-picture distributor has blatantly misrepresented the facts. They’ve been asked about the slowly rotting fruit on a pear tree, and their response has been “Well, those Magnolia blossoms sure look good to us!”

My attempts to see Craig Gillespie‘s Million Dollar Arm continue to frustrate. As regular readers know, the Hand of Kumudu kept me out of an early May press screening at Manhattan’s Regal E-Walk on 42nd Street. Today I figured I’d try to see an HDX version on Vudu, but (a) it’s not yet viewable and (b) their pre-order tickets are $22.99 a pop. That’s a bit rich, no? So I checked to see if it’s still playing in some sub-run craphouse theatre in Los Angeles. It is but too far away. It’s playing in Long Beach at the AMC Marina Pacifica 12 (afternoon shows only) and at the AMC Fullerton 20 (ditto)…no, thanks. If only that Regal manager had said to himself, “Aahh, what the hell…the guy’s a journalist, he came all the way from Prospect Park on a slow-arriving, slow-moving F train and he’ll just be missing the first-act set-up stuff with Jon Hamm‘s career on the ropes plus a scene or two with Lake Bell…the movie doesn’t really kick in until the 30-minute mark so I guess I can let him in.”

The closest I ever got to Andy Warhol was on a warm July night in 1978 at Studio 54, which of course was dark all over and very pleasantly air-conditioned. I was standing behind a banquette with a tall, good-looking guy I knew very slightly named Gary Fekete, and he was talking to Warhol — shades, white-blonde wig, Holy Cross blazer, etc. — about, I was later told, some kind of sexual opportunity or possibility or whatever. I was standing to Fekete’s left, half listening but at the same time not wanting to look like an uncool snoop. And that was it. But at least…well, that wasn’t much, was it? For a short while Fekete was an occasional supplier of quaaludes to some of us when I still lived in Connecticut in ’77, so that was the initial connection.

Variety‘s Scott Foundas has filed a report from the 28th edition of Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato (6.28 through 7.5), which of course ended six days ago. He also provided video footage of an interview conducted with A Hard Day’s Night Director and Aspect-Ratio Slicer (having reduced that 1964 classic from 1.66:1 to 1.75:1 in one fell swoop with the help of the Criterion guys) Richard Lester.

I had a few responses after seeing Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood at last January’s Sundance Film Festival — “historic,” “unique,” “really quite special,” “mild mannered,” “fascinating” and “a human-scale, life-passage stunt film.” But for whatever reason the word “masterpiece” never quite came to me. I’m not disputing this judgment. It just never tapped me on the shoulder as I initially sought to describe this dreamy, expertly woven, time-dimensional saga. And yet a fairly sizable group of critics have used the “M” term, and in so doing they’re laying down the gauntlet to the Academy: “This…yes, this is Best Picture material, Academy, and don’t you dare try and push this one off to the Spirit Awards! We the undersigned are saying this…really!” So far the masterpiece crowers include Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir, N.Y. Times‘ Manohla Dargis, Variety‘s Ramin Satoodeh, Vanity Fair‘s Matt Patches, Hitfix‘s Drew McWeeny, TheWrap‘s Greg Gilman, The Daily Beast‘s Marlow Stern, USA Today‘s Claudia Puig, etc. I’m sure there are many others. What HE-reading ticket-buyers have seen it today, and what do they think?

Here’s Armond White’s reaction in the National Review.

The Alamo restoration campaign was idling this week. HE’s effort to gather more signatures of brand-name directors in support of Robert Harris‘s attempt to persuade MGM honchos to allow an independently-funded restoration of 65mm elements was…well, awaiting the next adrenaline shot. Darren Aronfosky, JJ Abrams, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Rian Johnson, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Bill Paxton, Bob Gale and Matt Reeves were still wearing Team Alamo T-shirts, so to speak, but others were thinking it over. And then something happened. I heard about an article being prepared about the Alamo situation for a major publication, and then a friend graciously suggested that I write MGM’s p.r. reps at Rubenstein Public Relations for a clarification of MGM’s position.

And then late Wednesday afternoon the Rubenstein guys passed along an official statement from Beverly Faucher, MGM’s VP of Asset Management and Delivery Services, and here’s what it said:

“We are proud to say that the original 65 mm theatrical elements of The Alamo are in fine condition and are not in need of restoration. We are currently restoring the additional 20 minutes found in the 70 mm ‘roadshow’ version of the film. Once this process is complete, all of the elements of the original content will be intact and there will not be a need for further restoration of the film at this time.”

I’m sorry, but as I was reading the above my eyeballs popped out of their sockets and went boiiinnnnggg!

I sent along Ms. Faucher’s statement to Harris, and he replied Wednesday night around 9 pm. For reasons best not explained I decided yesterday morning to hold this article for a day or so, but no longer. Here is Harris’s reply, chapter and verse:

“I have no idea where Ms. Faucher is getting her information, but beyond the oddly worded comment of ‘currently restoring the additional 20 minutes’, which I can’t comment upon, not one of her statements rings true.

“Everything is incorrect.

I hated Ghostbusters when it first opened. Over-produced, big-studio, effects-reliant swill for the masses. The idea that there was an epidemic of ghosts in the New York City-area…why? Caused by what? Were there ghosts in Boston or Chicago? How about Scotch Plains? Nothing had been thought through — nothing — but that’s Ivan Reitman for you. I hated Ghostbusters even more when it became a big hit. I despised the song and hated the last act with the gargoyles and the demon dogs and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Okay, I tittered at some of Bill Murray‘s seemingly improved material. One of Murray’s finest moments as a man and an actor was to say no to that proposed Ghostbusters 3 flick, which Dan Aykroyd wanted to make for the money.

A 30th anniversary Ghostbusters — fully restored, digitally enhanced — will have a one-week booking on 8.29. A special edition Bluray will street on 9.16.

I was walking along Santa Monica Blvd. early last evening when I noticed or more precisely heard a young T-shirted guy riding shotgun in a nearby moving car. The guy was looking at the driver and laughing hysterically and slapping his bare leg for emphasis. I was instantly appalled by this, and quickly took out my iPhone and tweeted the following: “I really don’t like people who clap their hands or slap their thigh while laughing at a joke told by a friend or colleague. That’s monkey body language. The clap or thigh-slap is basically a gesture of obeisance to the joke-teller. As loathsome as it gets.” The first time I noticed obsequious monkey-submission gestures was in junior high-school. The first time I noticed a celebrity slapping his leg to emphasize the wonderfulness of a joke he’d just heard was, I think, on a network TV Frank Sinatra tribute, and the knee-slapper was…who else?…Sammy Davis, Jr. I’m just reminding readers that if they want to be seen as a shameless kiss-ass, this is the way to go.

For the unpardonable sin of having directed and written a moving, strongly acted, mostly well-received and somewhat profitable Adam Sandler film called Reign Over Me (’07), Mike Binder was arrested and charged with intent to make dramadies, found guilty and sent to Movie Jail. (It’s not widely known that Movie Jail is a real-deal, privately-funded correctional facility, located just east of Bakersfield.) Binder was furloughed from time to time for acting gigs, meetings and tennis lessons, but he wasn’t fully “sprung” — i.e., allowed to direct again — until last summer when he began shooting Black and White, a racially-tinged parenting drama starring Kevin Costner, Jillian Estell, Octavia Spencer and Andre Holland. The film has been fine-tuned and will probably be part of the fall conversation, but first things first. Binder is one of the few directors left who are into character-driven, human-scale films about flawed guys enduring loss, failure, transitions, relationship breakthroughs, etc. Remember The Upside of Anger? Remember Anthony Lane’s review of Reign Over Me?

Black and White director-writer Mike Binder, Kevin Costner during filming last summer.

Kevin Costner, costar Jillien Estell.

Atom Egoyan‘s The Captive (A24, no firm release date) “makes it thuddingly obvious from the get-go that the villain is a wealthy, debonair, gray-haired creep played by Kevin Durand. How do we know this so quickly? Because he walks down staircases with his hands folded behind his back. Only bad guys do this, the movie is telling us. In fact, only bad actors do this.

“I began to lose my mind less than ten minutes in, and the insanity began with Durand’s historically terrible performance. Everything Durand does in this film says ‘I am a profoundly twisted fuck, and I am going to over-convey this fact until you are dying to reach into the screen and strangle me to death…but this is not The Purple Rose of Cairo and so you can’t. You have two choices — suffer through my performance or walk out.'” — from my 5.16.14 Cannes Film Festival review.

“It’s no surprise that watching actors naturally age on camera without latex and digital effects makes for mesmerizing viewing. And at first it may be hard to notice much more than the creases etching Ethan Hawke’s face, the sexy swells of Patricia Arquette’s belly and Ellar Coltrane’s growth spurts. You may see your own face in those faces, your children’s, too. This kind of identification is familiar, as is the idea that movies preserve time. Andre Bazin wrote that art emerged from our desire to counter the passage of time and the inevitable decay it brings. But in Boyhood, Mr. Linklater’s masterpiece, he both captures moments in time and relinquishes them as he moves from year to year. He isn’t fighting time but embracing it in all its glorious and agonizingly fleeting beauty.” — from Manohla Dargis‘s 7.10 N.Y. Times review.

Boyhood currently has a 97% Metacritic rating and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Yeah, definitely Spirit Awards material…kidding!