When Javier Bardem snagged a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing the malevolent Anton Chigurh in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men (’07), he knew he’d be at the top of the list to play flamboyant bad guys in big-studio flicks, which of course would mean hefty paychecks. How many paycheck villain roles has Bardem played over the last six and half years? Only one — “Raoul Silva” in 2012’s reportedly signing to play another paycheck baddie in another big-budet flick, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, which will open in June 2017. Bardem and wife Penelope Cruz have two young kids, kids are expensive, they have to put them through college…I understand. Bardem is cool. He’s no Liam Neeson.

Journos who missed the initial Los Angeles screening of 3D Exodus footage on Tuesday, 9.30 (which I couldn’t attend due to covering the New York Film Festival) will get another looksee on Thursday at 1 pm on the 20th Century Fox lot. The exact same presentation will be shown to New Yorkers that day, screening three times (10 am, 1 pm, 6 pm) at the AMC Empire on 42nd Street. Except Thursday’s footage will include more material than what was shown two weeks ago, which consisted of eight scenes that ran 37 minutes.

If Zach Galifianakis can drop 50 pounds, so can LexG. Totally achievable if you stop drinking and stop eating crap and work out two or three times a week. I’m presuming ZG did this to up his success rate with the ladies…fine. He has my temporary respect for not only the weight-drop but for not playing a repulsive diaper-man in Birdman, but let’s see how this goes. I suspect it may be a phase. I know that he’s the least funny guy I’ve ever watched in my life and that I despise Between Two Ferns. He’s on the right path but I don’t trust him.

I’m always watering my plants too much or too little — I’m good at misting but I never water them just enough. And I’m always putting off scooping out the cat shit. Not to mention taking out the garbage. Instead of doing that I put my foot in the trash can and cram it down. That always buys me an extra day or two. It usually takes me three to four days to do a wash…make that four or five days. A couple of days of thinking about it, and then thinking about it a little more and making sure I have enough liquid detergent, etc. And then doing the first wash and then forgetting about putting it in the dryer for a day or so, and then finally doing that and starting the second wash. I also have to go down to the Cole Avenue DMV on 10.29 and renew my driver’s license and get my motorcycle license and also add my Yamaha 400 to my AAA insurance and yaddah-yaddah. And poor Zak has a castration appointment at Laurel Pet Hospital next Tuesday. I hate all this stuff. Well, I don’t “hate” it but I wish it would just go away. I just want to write and fiddle and ride my sickle and see movies and pet my cats. But it won’t.

I missed Andrew Rossi and Kate Novack‘s Ivory Tower, an allegedly striking examination of the appalling student-loan situation, at last January’s Sundance Film Festival. Having been urged by Jett (struggling himself with a massive Syracuse University Bachelor’s degree debt) to see it, I’m finally renting it on Vudu and catching it tonight. Elizabeth Warren recently told Bill Maher that the U.S. government realizes an annual $60 billion profit on student loans? It’s a big corrupt racket and for what? So some college buddy will will tell you about a job or recommend you to someone? Edward Snowden never even graduated from high school. I’m self-educated (I barely attended college) and look at me….”made it, ma! Top of the world!”

This morning’s question from Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil: “Can Big Hero 6 take down Lego Movie for Best Animated Feature? Please sign in and update your predix.”

HE answer: I respect the animated realm as far as it goes (including, if you must, anime) but I hate watching it for the most part, and that definitely includes anime. Anything drawn or dreamt or hard-drivey. If I never see anything swirly or magical or shimmering or visionary-for-vision’s-sake again, it’ll be too soon. Aside from the usual welcome exceptions from the world-class visionaries (Hayao Miyazaki, Fantastic Mr. Fox‘s Wes Anderson, the Lego Movie guys, Brad Bird, the Disney/Katzenberg run of the late ’80s to mid ’90s, etc.) and the usual high levels of craft, animated films are mostly about the Big Shill — selling tickets and merchandise to families. Take your corporate family neckrubby pitty-pat hucksterism and shove it. It’s an open coin toss as to which I hate more — animated or just about anything Asian (excepting the rare exceptions).

One thing I gathered after telling friends how knocked out I was by Laura Poitras‘s Citizenfour (Radius/TWC, 10.24) was that some of them (including, to my slight surprise, my older son Jett) have reserved if not skeptical attitudes about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Honestly? I was a bit on the fence myself about the former NSA contractor before catching the doc, but now I feel differently. I’m now persuaded that Snowden is a highly moral, exceptionally intelligent guy with cast-iron cojones. His life right now is anything but simple and is obviously fraught with uncertainty, but he seems rock-steady in his belief that he did the right thing. If nothing else the doc will probably convince you, the future viewer, of Snowden’s integrity also. Not to mention the fact that Citizenfour, as noted in my 10.11 review, is a great piece of spooky cinema — a real-life, real-time noir about how Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald broke the story. Here’s a chat I had with Poitras late Sunday afternoon.

Citizenfour director Laura Poitras

Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald during their initial discussions in Hong Kong.

My apologies to Kino Lorber and publicist Sasha Berman for not posting my recent chat with Vanessa Lapa, director of The Decent One, until today. Lapa has assembled a fascinating and commendable film, and deserves respect for having devoted six years to making it happen. I posted a short riff about the Heinrich Himmler doc after catching it at Manhattan’s Film Forum. Evil always carries a certain fascination, but Lapa’s film dilutes this effect somewhat by constantly quoting Himmler’s views of himself, which of course were positive. As noted earlier, “We all understand that evil always figures out a way to justify or at least live with itself…so Himmler’s letters and journals merely underline the human capacity for self-delusion.” In short, all monsters see themselves as decent guys who did what needed to be done. Again, the mp3.

The Decent One director Vanesa Lapa during last Thursday’s chat at the Farmer’s Market (i.e., right outside Dupar’s).

Update: The guy who did a little digging about Box-Office Mojo‘s mysterious Ray Subers has “just heard from someone who has heard from Ray, and and he is still at Box-Office Mojo as Editor,” he says. “I’m not quite sure why Subers didn’t just say what the deal was instead of being all enigmatic and not just making a clear statement.”

Previously posted: A friend who’s done a little digging has offered a working theory about the recent vanishing of Box-Office Mojo and Ray Subers‘ mysterious refusal to explain what happened. With no explanations from Suber, IMDB or Amazon it’s all guesswork but here’s the leadoff: “Look at these screenshots I got from last Wednesday, 10.8 [i.e., the second image] and compare it to the site now [i.e., the top image]. What’s missing in the most recent capture? The entire ‘Top Stories’ section written by…Ray Subers.

“The next day [i.e, Thursday, 10.9] Ray tweeted a bunch of things about Dracula Untold and then this very enigmatic tweet:

Ray Subers @raysubers · Oct 9
“Raymond and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

With The Gambler (Paramount, 12.19) set to world premiere on Monday, 11.10 during AFI Fest, it’s time for a trailer. Or at least a teaser…something. Everyone’s expecting a little Mark Wahlberg Best Actor action, right? That’s the presumption. Absolute worst thought of the day (from In Contention‘s Kris Tapley): “I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the thinking on campaigning The Gambler is to keep Wahlberg happy and on board for another rock ’em sock ’em robots charge.” Jesus…yecch!

The remake of Karel Reisz and James Toback‘s 1974 original was directed by Rupert Wyatt, written by William Monahan and produced by Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, David Winkler, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff. Costarring John Goodman, Brie Larson, Michael Kenneth Williams and Jessica Lange.

Posted last night as part of a thread about the seeming lack of grizzly Wild Bunch-type actors (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jaime Sanchez): “I know this is a common refrain where we all say how all the Gen X and Y actors are bunch of 90s blonde pretty boys or 00s weirdos or (at the moment) asexual British dweebs like Eddie Redmayne or Domnhall Gleeson…

“But The Wild Bunch was played by a bunch of awesome, stinking, grizzled character actors in their 40s and 50s, no? People leap to this argument, but it’s not like today’s ERNEST BORGNINE is somehow DANE DE HAAN or the LQ JONES of 2014 is ANDREW GARFIELD. It’s kinda not fair to say “THE WILD BUNCH TODAY WOULD BE A BUNCH OF PANSIES!” because the Wild Bunch of 1969 weren’t [that era]’s 20-somethings. It would probably be more warhorses in the Jeff Bridges-Viggo Mortensen-Woody Harrelson character wheelhouse.

“Plus this whole ‘everyone today is a pussy!’ thing always vaguely smacks of the OLDER BROTHER FROM 1977 WHO PULLS HIS SISTER’S PIGTAILS by goofing on her Leif Garrett posters.