“The experience of watching Avengers: Age of Ultron — which is not just long but, in Iron Man’s words, ‘Eugene O’Neill long’ — runs as follows. First, you try to understand what the hell is going on. Then you slowly realize that you will never understand what is going on. And, last, you wind up with the distinct impression that, if there was anything to understand, it wasn’t worth the sweat. I gave up around the time that we were presented with something called the Mind Stone, yet another cosmic thingamajig, and apparently one of six ‘infinity stones,’ which sound like the kind of stuff that Bilbo Baggins would hawk on QVC.

“All of this is a bitter disappointment, not least because the movie was written and directed by Joss Whedon. He is a smart and witty operator, as was evident to anyone who saw Much Ado About Nothing, the deft little jeu d’esprit that he knocked off in between this dose of Avenging and the last. Now and then, in Age of Ultron, amid the pap about ‘molecular functionality,’ we get glimpses of what Whedon can do, as in the fine scene where Thor’s comrades attempt, in turn, to lift his mighty hammer.

Read more

Read more

My plan all along was to avoid the actual submissive experience of sitting down (or standing in the back of the theatre) and watching Avengers: Age of Ultron while selectively quoting this weekend from this or that dismissive review. Get the hate on, wear it like a sweater, run it up the flagpole. Then it hit me this morning that this won’t do and that I need to suffer through it first-hand. God help me but that’s what I’ll be doing an hour or two from now. The suffering will happen at Leows 34th Street, or a six-minute walk from the Starbucks on Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street where I’m now sitting, proscrastinating, dreading it.

The Hitfix guys have been tossing around notions about which was the greatest film year of the past half-century. They’ve apparently decided, in short, that all the significant film years before 1965 are…what, not click-baity enough? Because most online film buffs regard the ’80s as fairly musty and before that it’s pretty much the Dead Sea Scrolls. Conventional wisdom says three of the greatest years were 1999, 1962 (here’s my list of 36 films released that year that enjoy classic status) and 1939, but only ’99 cuts ice with the Hitfixers, at least for the time being. And what about that piece I ran a while back about 1971, in which I singled out 28 films released that year that live in eternity? In any case the combination of having jetlag problems this afternoon and Drew McWeeny having somehow gotten it in his head that 1988 was some kind of landmark year has stalled my brain activity. You know what 1988 was? Three films — The Last Temptation of Christ, Mississippi Burning (despite the absurd and arguably racist attitudes inherent in the film’s jaundiced re-imagining of the FBI’s role in breaking the case of the three murdered civil-rights workers) and Bull Durham. I’m more of a 1989 type of guy — sex, lies and videotape, The Abyss, Batman, Born on the Fourth of July, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Dead Poets Society, Do the Right Thing, Drugstore Cowboy, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot, Roger & Me, Say Anything, When Harry Met Sally, etc. I don’t know. I guess I don’t care all that much. I’m not much of a list queen.

With Ex Machina having caught a wave last weekend, A24 is looking for an enhanced uptick this weekend. The buzz is out there. A hot robot you’ll probably want to bang. If you missed it last weekend are you thinking of giving it a shot or is it…what, higher on your VOD list or just on it or what?

If Eddie Redmayne‘s Danish Girl performance as the transgender Lili Elbe is locked for a Best Actor nom, the Academy has to turn the other cheek and give another Best Actor nom to Tom Hardy for his dual performance as London mobsters Ron and Reg Kray in Brian Helgeland‘s Legend. Pic costars Colin Morgan, Christopher Eccleston, Taron Egerton and David Thewlis. The Krays ruled London during the ’50s and ’60s (armed robberies, arson, assaults and the murders of Jack “The Hat” McVitie and George Cornell). On top of which Ronnie was openly bisexual and probably killed his wife of eight weeks, Frances Shea (Emily Browning), in a jealous rage.  The brothers were sentenced to life terms in 1969 for two murders.

Last night’s LAX-to-JFK flight on Virgin America took off on time and was “comfortable” for the most part, but I was miserable for lack of sleep. The lack of blankets didn’t help. Popped a couple of Advils but unable to really sink to the bottom of the pond. In a certain sense it was agonizing. Early morning New York weather is a bit on the brisk side, almost (but not quite) chilly by L.A. standards. My Airbnb place is only a couple of blocks from the old Montrose-and-Bushwick apartment. The free wifi at the nearby Bread Brothers cafe (Bushwick and Messerole) isn’t lightning fast but why complain? I’m here, I’m good, etc.

Far From The Madding Crowd costar Matthias Schoenarts has spoken to Hitfix‘s Gregory Ellwood about Tom Hooper‘s brazenly, unregenerately baity The Danish Girl and particularly Eddie Redmayne‘s performance as Lili Elbe, the first man-to-woman transgender pioneer. “We finished it like a week ago [and] I had a blast,” Schoenaerts said. “Working with Hooper is an experience. Extremely sharp, committed, intelligent and has a sense of humor. And then you have Eddie Redmayne, who I’m sure [is] gonna get a second Oscar nom. It’s impossible. What I’ve seen him do. It’s probably [his] second Oscar, period. Not even just a nod, period.”

Read more

The failure of Royal Road Entertainment’s Filip Jan Rymsza and director Peter Bogdanovich to deliver a completed, full-length version of Orson Welles‘ The Other Side of the Wind in time for the 100th anniversary of Welles’ birth on May 6, 1915 is an unfortunate embarassment. At least F.X. Feeney‘s long-awaited study of the genius filmmaker, “Orson Welles: Power, Heart, and Soul,” has been written and published on time and readable as we speak, and selling for a mere $15. F.X. only sent me a copy last night so I’ve yet to get into it, but Welles biographer Joseph McBride has written that “among the many virtues of Feeney’s book is that it conveys, as no book ever has before, what it must have felt like to be Orson Welles…he manages to give us that sense through his deep empathy, understanding, and close yet still clear-eyed identification.” Here’s F.X. reading from a portion:

A reading of "Orson Welles: Power, Heart and Soul" by author F.X. Feeney from The Critical Press on Vimeo.

According to JoniMitchell.com, the first verse of “Refuge of the Roads” ends as follows: “‘Heart and humor and humility,’ he said, ‘will lighten up your heavy load’ / I left him then for the refuge of the roads.” All this time I thought the line went “hard of humor and humility,” as in “hard of hearing.” Perfect line! But all along it was mine and not hers. Ah, well. And why did she use “roads”? The road will always be a singular realm…a dream, an adventure, a thing unto itself. The plural is just a lot of red and blue lines on an old Texaco map.

Can’t write, can’t get it up, flabby, misanthropic, drinks too much, despairing…and then it all changes in a blink of an eyelash. I just realized…just now!…that Woody Allen‘s Irrational Man is (a) definitely one of his darker pieces and (b) is going to be at least pretty good. You can sense that. It’ll screen in Cannes less than three weeks from now. It opens stateside on July 17.