This morning I received an email from Criterion’s Peter Becker about the forthcoming Bluray of Richard Lester‘s A Hard Day’s Night, which was mastered off the original negative and allegedly will look and sound better than any previous version. (The TCM Classic Film Festival will show the Criterion version on the big TCL Chinese screen on Saturday at 6:30 pm.) But, as explained yesterday, I have a problem with Criterion’s decision to go with a 1.75 aspect ratio, which will needlessly trim off the tops and bottoms of the 1.66 version that has been in circulation for many decades.

Here is Becker’s letter:

“In pure technical terms this new restoration is in another league from any version of A Hard Day’s Night that has been out there before,” he began. “The source we used for the most of the film is the original negative, which is gorgeous. The film has been scanned at 4K resolution, meaning we have massive amounts more information to start with than [what] you have in a simple HD transfer, so the detail in the original negative is rendered with incredible accuracy. All the restoration work was completed at 4K resolution, which means we had extremely fine control of the restoration tools.

Real-Deal Development Announced Today by Film Independent: “Due to last-minute date and venue changes, tickets to the World Premiere of a Staged Reading by Quentin Tarantino of The Hateful Eight will now go on sale to Film Independent Members this Friday, April 11 at 12:00 noon Pacific. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.

“Quentin Tarantino is currently assembling his dream cast for this once-in-a-lifetime event, but due to unforeseen scheduling issues the event will now take place on Saturday, April 19th. Due to venue availability on this date, the location will now be the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“The Hateful Eight is the unproduced Tarantino script that made headlines when he decided to [abandon the project] after the script was leaked [by Gawker and other sites] without his approval. The event will not be recorded or live streamed.”

WHEN: Saturday, April 19, 8:00 pm

WHERE: Theatre at Ace Hotel, 929 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015 

PRICE: $200 orchestra / $150 lower-balcony / $125 upper balcony – limit two tickets per Member



Zach Braff‘s Wish I Was Here (Focus Features, 7.18) is (a) “a warm-hearted, family-embracing Emo version of A Serious Man,” (b) “a little too much into comforting meditations and family-embracing bromides to be comforting or illuminating,” (c) “a caring, open-hearted piece, but a little too calculating in that sense,” and (d) “pretty close to being the exact opposite of A Serious Man in a spiritual/philosophical sense.”

I’ll be seeing Ivan Reitman‘s Draft Day (Summit/Lionsgate, 4.11) a second time this evening. I caught it for the first time at Cinemacon a couple of weeks ago. It’s not bad — a reasonably complex, adult, character-driven Kevin Costner sports movie about the travails of a Cleveland Browns general manager as he tries to land the best players during the high-stakes draft process. But it’s basically aimed at the people who want their sports movies to be more emotionally rousing and on-the-nose than Bennett Miller‘s Moneyball, one of the smartest, most intimate and spiritually profound sports films of all time. That movie made me tingle; Draft Day made me slump in my seat. Outside of Stripes and Meatballs Reitman has always been a right-down-the-middle square, and all the older, not-that-hip types will probably love this thing. It’s a by-the-numbers ensemble piece, in some ways like the old Airport movies of the ’70s, in which all the issues get settled by the end of Act Three and the big star gets vindicated and also the girl, and all the shitheads get their asses handed to them on a plate. It’s nowhere near as authentic or well-made as Moneyball, but it’s a good Hollywood popcorn movie as far as that goes. It’s quite stodgy and formulaic in the way it wraps everything up and lets Costner be the big operator who out-maneuvers the competition. Hitfix‘s Drew McWeeny gave it a total pass for some reason. The after-vibe was complacent and relaxed among the exhibitors who saw it at Cinemacon. It’s probably be a hit among the over-40s, but the hardcore football types are going to come after it for being a bit of a hokey-dokey confection.

DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze is saying “there are some fairly big differences” between Universal Home Video’s new Double Indemnity Bluray (4.15) and the Masters of Cinema Bluray that came out in July 2012. Among these are “less grain and richer black levels” and “an overall darker presentation” in the Universal version. “Have they ‘manipulated’? Quite possibly but I didn’t find any excessive waxiness (perhaps a shade in one late scene) or unnatural flatness to the image. Personally I like the grain textures of the UK disc but I can see the appeal, for some, in the smoother, darker image of the Universal.” A 70th anniversary restoration (i.e., the Universal DCP) of Billy Wilder‘s 1944 classic will screen at the TCM Classic Film Festival on Friday at 6 pm.

A digitally restored 4K version of Richard Lester‘s A Hard Day’s Night is screening at 6:30 pm on Saturday, 4.12, at the TCM Classic Film Festival. The screening is basically a promotion for Criterion’s upcoming Bluray (due on 6.24) of this 1964 black-and-white film, which Andrew Sarris once called “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals.” I’m presuming that Criterion’s version, derived straight from the original negative and “approved” by Lester, will beat the pants off the Alliance 1080i Bluray that came out October 2009. Sharper detail, richer blacks, more dynamic sound, etc. And yet there’s a problem. The Criterion guys have decided to cleaver this beloved Beatles pic down to a 1.75:1 aspect ratio for no aesthetically justifiable reason. I’m told that the “leaders” say 1.75 but the eff that noise. The ’09 Alliance Bluray and the 2002 Miramax DVD went with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, which conformed to the general British standard of the time. Criterion itself masked Lindsay Anderson‘s This Sporting Life (’63) at 1.66 for their DVD; ditto John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday (’71). There can never be a justification for an arbitrary decision to eliminate perfectly good visual information, as the Criterion guys have done with A Hard Day’s Night. It’s not a criminal offense (very few will notice or care) but it’s definitely not cool in the eyes of the Movie Godz. Cleavering the tops and bottoms of classic films is an eternal no-no. When in doubt always refer to Hollywood Elsewhere’s aspect-ratio motto, to wit: More height is always right. Because Criterion has declined to respect this simple, elegant rule, I’m giving a preemptive thumbs down to this all-new A Hard Day’s Night, although I’m sure it’ll look and sound great in almost every other respect.

“Elizabeth Warren is almost certainly not running for president in 2016,” The Fix‘s Chris Cillizza wrote yesterday afternoon. “But if she did, she might be able to make it one hell of a race. Warren has the national profile, the liberal icon status and the demonstrated fundraising capacity — $40 million for a Senate race ain’t too shabby — that would, theoretically give her a chance to run as the liberal/non-establishment alternative to [Hillary] Clinton.” Her speech last weekend at a Minneapolis Humphrey-Mondale fundraiser…showed why she would create some nervousness in the Clinton ranks if she did change her mind.”

Three weeks after Bill Maher’s 3.14 Christians-and-Noah rant and two weeks after the opening of Darren Aronofsky‘s Old Testament epic, Jon Stewart finally got into it last night. What was the hold-up? Box-Office Mojo is reporting that Noah has earned almost $180 million worldwide and $73 million domestically as of 4.7. Will it end up tripling the opening weekend haul of $43 million? Nope — Captain America has killed that idea. But it’ll certainly top $100 million and probably end up between $250 and $300 million worldwide.

In response to yesterday’s embarassing story about Kate Mulgrew having narrated a rightwing doc about geocentrism, the 58 year-old actress is admitting she never did a Google search before taking the gig.

This is going to sound staid and unhip but when I’m driving late at night and looking to downshift, I sometimes listen to this. A nocturnal thing. It doesn’t work during daylight. I don’t care how unhip this sounds.

I wish I’d had the cojones to talk like Jonah to the Hispanic Party Elephant from North Bergen (i.e., between five and six years ago). That might be my problem in life. I talk a tough game but when it’s live and not Memorex, I often candy-ass out. Maybe that’s just being smart.

Like Gravity and All Is Lost, Steven Knight‘s Locke (A24, 4.25) is a gripping survival story about an isolated protagonist (in this instance an industrial construction foreman played by Tom Hardy) grappling with a series of intense, life-threatening challenges…tough terms, face up to them, do or die. But Locke is a much more engrossing drama than Gravity and the exact verbal opposite of the all-but-silent Lost. We’re only three months into 2014 but Locke is easily one of the best films I’ve seen thus far, and I’m including Captain America: The Winter Soldier and those eight Sundance films that I admired.

The 85-minute running time happens entirely inside a BMW SUV on the motorway between Birmingham and London, and it’s all about bluetooth phone calls. Hardy is behind the wheel the entire time. But what pushes the film along is the stuff of any compelling drama — character, tough decisions, adult pressures, guilt, tragedy, trauma and suspenseful twists and turns.