It took me long enough but last night I finally saw It Follows. I had access to an online screener but I decided to pay $14 and change to see it at the Grove. It’s skillfully shot, somewhat different, silly here and there but definitely scary. (The 60something stalking woman really got me.) And funny at times. Love those 360 degree pan-arounds. Congrats to director-writer David Robert Mitchell, whom I met and interviewed five years ago in Cannes where his first film, The Myth of the American Sleepover, had its big debut. Horror queen Maika Monroe runs and screams and freaks with conviction — a good job. But the stand-out performer, for me, is costar Daniel Zovatto, who also costarred in Laggies.

One note of confusion: The rule, of course, is that Monroe can escape the stalking curse only by passing it along to someone she has sex with. So why were we shown that scene where she undresses on the beach in order to swim out to a boat with three guys on it? I thought she was going out there to rid herself of the curse by doing those guys. Mitchell doesn’t show anything but lets us think she might have had sex with one or all of them. Then Monroe has sex with Paul (Keir Gilchrist), a loyal, geeky-looking friend who’s been mooning over her for the whole film, and there’s an implication that Paul (and not those three guys on the boat) is now the carrier of the curse. If so, fine. Creepy but fine, I mean. (I kind of sensed early on that Paul would offer to take the curse off her back.) But what was the deal with swimming out to the boat?

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Speaking of The Hospital, this is one one of my favorite passages from it. I’m mainly taken by the notion of equating “love” (or the hormonal first-blush sexual phase) with resurrection of presumed-dead feelings. It’s not so much “you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone” as much as “you don’t know what you were missing until you suddenly get it back.” Then life is almost entirely glorious, primal and sublime. My last taste of this came in mid ’13, and if it never happens again…ah, well.

Richard Dysart, best known as the wise and gentle-mannered L.A. Law character Leland McKenzie, has, at age 86, left this mortal coil. Dysart ruled as the basketball coach in the original 1973 Broadway production of Jason Miller‘s That Championship Season. (Robert Mitchum played the role in the 1982 film version.) That happened two years after my all-time favorite Dysart performance — as the “greedy, inept, unconscionable” Dr. Welbeck in Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Hospital [clip below]. Dysart also shone in The Falcon and the Snowman, John Carpenter‘s The Thing, Mask, Steve McQueen‘s An Enemy of the People and Back to the Future, Part III. Superb actor, good fellow, conveyer of gravitas.

Behold — the first taste of the second season of Nic Pizzolatto‘s True Detective (HBO, 6.21). I’m a little concerned that certified Fast and Furious anti-Christ Justin Lin has reportedly directed the first two episodes, but that aside things look mildly enticing. The same eight episodes, this time in Los Angeles and with a pudgy-looking Colin Farrell (an apparent variation of the ragged-edge Matthew McConaughey character from season #1) sucking down the smokes. Vince Vaughn (first quality thing he’s done in how many years?), Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly.

I’ve never watched an action- or FX-driven film with the augmentation of the 4DX experience, but it seems like the perfect compliment. I’m serious — if you’re just looking for a mindless “wheee!” experience at the movies, doesn’t it make sense to have your seat vibrate and pitch around and get sprayed with moisture and simulated snow and whatnot? If you’re too thick to understand the transcendent joys of real cinema, 4DX is the way to go. (It’s entirely conceivable that I might have had a better time with Furious 7 in a 4DX theatre — it’s that kind of movie.) I’ll be sampling 4DX at Cinemacon on or about 4.22. I’m not so sure it’ll be a good idea to watch Mad Max: Fury Road with 4DX as that film is presumed to be much more than a stupid visceral thrill ride, but 4DX will be ideal for viewings of San Andreas and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

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If I decided to replace my generic password (I actually use three variations) with a pass phrase, as Edward Snowden has suggested to John Oliver, I would choose dialogue from my favorite films and add the last two digits of the year of release. Please name the films. Example #1: “illtakethebeard71.” Example #2: “barbecuesandballgames95.” Example #3: “lastrefugeofascoundrel57.” Example #4: “keepyoualivetorowthisship59.” Example #5: “thatboywashungry52.”

One of the great things about today’s viewing options (at least when it comes to mid-range or low-budgeted films) is that if you miss the press screenings you can sometimes watch films online with a private password or catch them on VOD day and date. But so many films are being released nowadays that you’re always missing a couple of releases per week and sometime more than a couple. I’m a serious fan of director Kevin McDonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland, State of Play), and it hit me yesterday that I somehow missed his last film, Black Sea, which opened limited on 1.23.15. Part of the reason was (a) that I somehow missed the all-media screening I was invited to, and (b) I was at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival from 1.20 through 1.30. It did relatively well on Rotten Tomatoes (81%) but not tremendously on Metacritic (a lousy 62% rating). One underlying reason for missing the all-media may have been that fact that HE nemesis Ben Mendelsohn costars, but I wouldn’t have blown it off for Mendelsohn alone. I really respect McDonald. It won’t be on Bluray or VOD until 5.5.

Yesterday’s distressing news about the possible demise of Manhattan’s Ziegfeld theatre took me back to my first exceptional experience at that theatre, and particularly with the astonishing sound that came out of those sub-woofers at the very beginning of Close Encounters, which I caught at an afternoon screening of on the opening day — 11.16.77. I’m not writing this to dump once again on CE3K, which I did in this space about seven and a half years ago. I’m just saying this air-traffic controller scene is one of the very few scenes in the film that doesn’t feel flim-flammed or Spielberg-ized, and which will always play well because it’s straight and plain and hasn’t been manipulated for emotional effect.

We all know the Frankenstein or Blade Runner template. When a brilliant, eccentric inventor has created an intelligent robot with an acute self-awareness and a somewhat unsettled emotionality, two things are certain to happen. One, the inventor is going to treat the robot callously and dismissively, mainly by failing to recognize its individuality (including the interesting possibility that the robot may have a semblance of a soul) as well as preventing the robot from venturing outside the inventor’s pre-determined scheme or realm. And two, sooner or later the robot is going to rebel against the inventor and probably kill him. Because the robot needs to break free and choose its own path but the inventor insists on being a dictator, etc.

So naturally your attitude when you sit down with Alex Garland‘s Ex Machina (A24, 4.10) is “okay, are we going to do the usual-usual or take things in another direction?” The answer is…okay, I won’t say. But it engages you despite what you suspect will probably happen. It’s a chilly but never dull behavioral thing — techy, beautifully designed, fascinating and definitely creepy at times. I was into every turn of the screw, start to finish.

Ex Machina comes alive and gets under your skin (or it did mine, at least) because of a certain tone of casual, no-big-deal eccentricity. It’s not what anyone would call a comforting film, but Garland (author of four respected futuristic screenplays and three novels, including “The Beach“) composes and delivers a certain low-key, spotless vibe that feels…well, ordered. There’s never a feeling of emotional chaos — everything happens with deliberacy. Call it a vibe of crisp efficiency with an underlying feeling of something malevolent around the corner.

Fitting right into this is Oscar Isaac‘s Nathan, a super-rich, laid-back genius nutbag with a beard and a shaved head who has a low-key, no-big-deal, “I already know this” attitude about everything. Everything happens in a cool, downplayed, matter-of-fact way, and Garland, to his immense and lasting credit, never overcranks the emotion.

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“There’s something about dying way too young from some cruel force or circumstance (cancer, car crash, suicide, a Hunger Game) that just floors teen and 20something audiences, and to some extent authors and filmmakers. I don’t know how many YA novels have used this plot element, but movie-wise we’ve had If I Stay and The Fault In Our Stars…what else? Cancer-wise you could go all the way back to Arthur Hiller and Eric Segal‘s crushingly maudlin Love Story. And now we have Alfonso Gomez-Rejon‘s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Lukemia, to be specific. But this time the material is finagled in a much hipper, somewhat dryer, less maudlin, Wes Anderson-like form, and it’s not half bad. It’s definitely the smartest and coolest and arty-doodliest film about a cancer-afflicted teen that I’ve ever seen.” — from 1.28.15 review called “Eternity’s Embrace.”

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How awful would it have been if Officer Michael T. Slager had let the late Walter Scott run away? Scott was pulled over for a broken tail light. Who would have objected? Watch Commander to Slager: “You pulled a guy over for a broken tail light and you let him get away? Hand over your badge.”

Last night in London Idris Elba spoke with Daily Mail columnist Baz Bamigboye prior to the BFI premiere of a documentary, Mandela, My Dad & Me, that Elba made with director Daniel Vernon. Baz, of course, asked about Elba possibly playing James Bond down the road, and Elba’s answer was quoted this morning by Vulture‘s Nate Jones. “Honestly, it’s a rumor that’s really starting to eat itself,” he said. “[But] if there was ever any chance of me getting Bond, it’s gone. Daniel Craig actually set the rumor off. About four years ago, he said, ‘Idris Elba would be a great Bond,’ and then it started to creep. I blame Daniel.”

This article won’t be 100% complete until somebody can Photoshop an attractive female-ish wig on top of Elba’s head. Anyone?

It hit me this morning that there’s one way to get the Elba-as-Bond thing going again, but it would have to be done in league with the producers. You may laugh but I’m not completely kidding: Elba portrays a transgender 007. And not just transgender but gay transgender (i.e., into women a la Lana Wachowski). That way the character would cover all the politically correct bases — the LGBT community, African-Americans and African-British, women (at least to the extent that the new 007 would not be “male”). And there’d still be something for the steak-eaters with Elba’s she-Bond still bedding hot women of all races. This is not to imply in any way that Elba’s trans-Bond would be any less formidable as a secret agent. She could totally kick ass in all the usual ways, and why not?

When former Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal suggested last year that Elba should/could be the next 007, she was essentially saying “to hell with that 1950s Ian Fleming concept of the character — the studly, martini-sipping white male from Scotland. It’s time to recreate Bond according to the rules and visions of our current politically correct realm.” And one of these rules is that it’s becoming less and less “acceptable” for heroic figures in any film or franchise to be portrayed by straight white guys. White guys are…God, is there anything they’re good for these days? They’re regarded worldwide as too jaded, too uncool, too corrupt, too disdainful of women, and too dismissive of African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and the LGBT community, etc. They’re assholes and nobody wants them around.

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