It’s lazy of me to re-post a review only 40 days after the initial but I’ve done lazier things on a drizzly Sunday while sitting in a cafe. Rupert Wyatt‘s The Gambler is opening four days hence (on Thursday, 12.25) and I can’t think of anything else to post before driving into the city in the light snow and rain…a not-very-friendly December day.

“I know what this sounds like but Rupert Wyatt, William Monahan and Mark Wahlberg‘s The Gambler isn’t as interesting or eloquent as Karel Riesz, James Toback and James Caan‘s The Gambler (’74). It deals faster, flashier cards, but it misses the meditative soulful aspects of the Reisz-Toback version, which is partly to say it takes no pleasure in occasional wins and the power and glory of that.

“The new Gambler is almost entirely about staring into the abyss. Character-wise it delivers a relentless obstinacy and a smug-punk attitude in Mark Wahlberg‘s gambling-addicted character, and story-wise it furnishes a constant cycle of losing and doubling down and then losing a whole lot more, and then borrowing from ugly Peter to pay even-more-terrible Paul and so on. And it blows off those charming tidbits of Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s philosophy that lent a certain spiritual élan to the ’74 version.

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If you’re paying any attention to social attitudes and etiquette among 25-and-under GenYs and more particularly to those raised in liberal educated homes, it’s almost considered rude to refer to anyone being of a particular gender. It’s not quite verboten to say “boy” or “girl” or “man” or “woman,” but it almost is. This goes hand in hand with an absolute taboo on any hint of homophobia or a less than fully accepting attitude towards omnisexuality. Everyone’s everything, man…oops, sorry. I was talking about this with old friends on Saturday night and then an hour or so later this photo popped up and it seemed to fit on some level. The striking Shiloh Jolie Pitt, whose features suggest an amazingly even-steven splicing of Brangelina, wearing a male suit and allegedly wanting to be one of the guys and be called “John”, etc. Cool, whatever, go with the times, etc.

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During yesterday’s visit to Saugerties I stopped by the fabled “big pink” house to pay respects and take a couple of snaps. I’m speaking, of course, of the legendary abode where Bob Dylan and The Band recorded the Basement Tapes in ’67 and from which The Band’s “Music From Big Pink” album sprung in ’68.

And I must report the truth, which is that “big pink” is a lie — it’s not pink but a mild rose mixed with beige. Pink is pink — an eyesore color for girly-girls. Shocking pink, punk-hair pink, pink underwear, Angelyne’s pink Corvette, Elvis’s soft pink Cadillac from the late ’50s. And then there is the realm of rose, which is a gentler, somewhat earthier, more natural shade. Mix rose with a bit of fleshy soft biege from the women’s make-up counter at Bloomingdale’s and you’ve got the color of “big pink.” I understand that “big pink” sounds cooler than “big rosey beige” and that’s cool, but someone had to tell the truth and I guess it had to be me.

“Big pink” house at 17 Parnassus Lane in Saugerties, New York — Saturday, 12.20, 12:20 pm.

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Ridley Scott‘s Exodus: Gods and Kings opened domestically on 12.12 with around $24 million and is projected to hit…I’m not sure. But I know Box Office Mojo has it ranked fifth behind the weekend’s top four attractions — The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Annie and The Hunger games: Mockingjay, Part 1. (Can it be safely assumed that if a movie title has a colon in it, that it probably blows to some extent?) It also appears as if Exodus has done better overseas than domestically with the total foreign county at $45 million or thereabouts. One thing that’s apparently happened in this country is that yahoo Christians, smelling a non-religious approach, haven’t come out in droves. Scott’s instincts told him to stay way from a reverent approach and make some kind of anti-Cecil B. DeMille, non-believing version of Moses’ tale. That was probably a mistake all around. Now that Exodus is officially a domestic under-performer and can probably be called an all-around failure, do we have any final assessments as to what went wrong?

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This is a greeting-cardish sentiment, but a generally true one. I’d like to dispute but I can’t think of a single film in my personal pantheon that hasn’t moved me emotionally on some level. Even Betrayal. Mediocre or bad films generally put me in a stupor, which usually results in walking out or turning them off. I won’t sit through crap, and I always know a film is a dumper less than ten minutes in and frequently less than five.

I’ll be in Manhattan for six days starting on Sunday, and one of the things I’d like to do is catch Jake Gyllenhaal and The Affair‘s Ruth Wilson in Nick Payne‘s Constellations, which opens officially on 1.13.15. A likely Best Actor nominee (but who knows?) for his bug-eyed sociopath role in Dan Gilroy’s critically hailed Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal will be topline three (and possibly four) 2015 films of a seemingly significant nature — Antoine Fuqua‘s Southpaw, Balthasar Kormakur‘s Everest (9.28.15) and Jean Marc Vallee‘s Demolition, a romantic drama that doesn’t involve any kind of physical demolition activity. The possible fourth is David O. Russell‘s long-absent Nailed, which will receive British theatrical distribution next year and will probably be available stateside as a VOD concurrently or soon after.

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The combination of widespread condemnation of Sony and exhibitors for caving to an emailed threat from the hackers plus a lot of chatter yesterday about alternative distribution options for The Interview indicate, to me, that the Seth Rogen-James Franco film will probably be downloadable or otherwise viewable in some fashion before long. And when that happens the heat around this film will start to cool. Because it’s not that good or thrilling or buzzy. Diverting in some respects but generally repetitive and underwhelming. Here’s my 12.13 review for those who skipped over.

Nine foreign-language features have been shortlisted as part of a process that’ll eventually result in five nominees for the 87th Academy Awards. I’ve seen five of the nine. Of these I heartily approve of Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan (Russia), Paweł Pawlikowski‘s Ida (Poland) and Damian Szifron‘s Wild Tales (Argentina). I’m mezzo-mezzo on Ruben Ostlund‘s Force Majeure (Sweden) and Abderrahmane Sissako‘s Timbuktu (Mauritania).

I haven’t seen Zaza Urushadze‘s Tangerines (Estonia), George Ovashvili‘s Corn Island (Georgia), Paula van der Oest‘s Accused (Netherlands) and Alberto Arvelo‘s The Liberator (Venezuela).

The Dardennes brothers’ Two Days and One Night was blown off. Ditto Xavier Dolan‘s Mommy, which so many critics did apeshit somersaults for in Cannes. Some attendees at last May’s Cannes Film Festival were dismayed by the jurors giving the Palme d’Or to Nuri Bilge Ceylon‘s Winter Sleep instead of the more deserving Leviathan, but the Ceylan wasn’t even shortlisted. Jane Campion is slapping her forehead in amazement.

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When I glanced at the news about President Obama having clearly said that Sony Pictures Entertainment’s decision to yank The Interview was “a mistake,” I had to get off the northbound New York State Thruway and post something. SPE is now the first movie studio in Hollywood history to be chastised by a U.S. President for turning yellow in response to threats from cyber terrorists in the employ of a foreign power. Okay, that’s a mouthful so let’s simplify. It’s the first time a Hollywood studio has been respectfully spanked by a U.S. President about anything, if I’m not mistaken.

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“Sony’s a corporation, it suffered significant damage, [and] there were threats against some of its employees,” Obama said. “I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.”

Five’ll get you ten Obama was on the phone with George Clooney not long before he spoke.

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or a news report that they don’t like.

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“Two women (Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna) do some role-play that involves some kind of librarian–grad student dominatrix fantasy. Wigs are worn, sheets are grabbed. There are bugs and butterflies and a big black box into which one of the women climbs and is locked up while whispering to be let out. A colleague labeled this a class movie: Who but the gentry can spend whole days looking at bug books and dressing up in corsets and capes and having sex this sensual? He’s right, but that’s not what struck me. The Duke of Burgundy is both a vertiginously styled relationship movie and an erotic fable about being in a relationship (the fear of routine, of boredom, of limits). [Director Peter] Strickland keeps pushing the tight quarters further and further so that the fantasy starts to grow domestic wrinkles. One of the women actually complains to her lover about the costumes she asked to wear. The other complains about how not-hot her pajamas are.” — from a Toronto Film Festival review by Grantland‘s Wesley Morris.