The use of black-and-white and then, gradually, delicate applications of color are, of course, metaphors in Phillip Noyce‘s The Giver (Weinstein Co., 8.15). I’ve been a fool for monochrome my whole moviegoing life, and I love the tinting work here. Almost as an end in itself.

Brute Force isn’t exactly second-tier Jules Dassin but it’s one of his ground-rule doubles, I think. It suggests that prisoners were a lot more worldly and refined back in 1947, essentially decent fellows who happened to draw bad cards, and I’m not sure how valid that is. “Not having intimate knowledge of prisons or prisoners, we wouldn’t know whether the average American convict is so cruelly victimized as are the principal prison inmates in Brute Force, which came to Loew’s Criterion yesterday. But to judge by this ‘big house’ melodrama, the poor chaps who languish in our jails are miserably and viciously mistreated and their jailers are either weaklings or brutes.” — from Bosley Crowther‘s 7.17.47 N.Y. Times review.

I’m completely aware that what I’m about to say sounds like self-parody, but now that John Oliver has had his first big success with his anti-FCC net neutrality diatribe [after the jump] and the reported reaction to it, he should think about getting his teeth fixed. If he’s going to be a big-timer he has to sand off a couple of edges. He doesn’t need odd-looking chompers to double down on the British eccentricity, which is potent enough as is.

I don’t know why this is funny but it is. No-laugh funny, I mean, which is pretty much the only kind being produced these days. (And right in my wheelhouse.) The guy doing Morgan Freeman‘s voice is on the money. Not to get strange but eight pounds is light for a severed adult head. Most of the links says the average is closer to ten or eleven pounds. Just saying.

It’s 6:30 am in Manhattan, and I need to be out at JFK around 11 am for my 1 pm flight back to Los Angeles. But first I’ll be visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum (opens at 8:30 am) for a little stroll-around. No, I’m not paying $20-odd dollars for entrance to the gift shop and I’m not buying any NYFD T-shirts or any of the other knick-knacks. I just want to stand there and take some shots and look down into the two pools where the twin towers once stood. I’m giving myself 45 minutes, all in. Update: It was raining cats, dogs and raccoons when I got down there around 8:40 am. Pond-sized puddles and damp socks and still a lot of construction fences and machinery. Way too many bodies and umbrellas. Another time.

If I had been in President Obama‘s shoes when the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap deal was being cobbled together, I would have said the following: “Is this guy worth five Taliban militants? Where did we get five for one? Okay, I’ll swap two Taliban guys for Bowe but no more. But even with those terms I wouldn’t like it because Bowe is obviously not made of uncommon valor and sterner stuff. He’s basically a none-too-bright, possibly mentally unstable deserter who walked off his post without even carrying a weapon. Obviously I wouldn’t feel the same way if he was my kid, but he’s made his own doofus bed and now he’s damaged goods. Two Taliban guys, final offer. Five is out of the question, and if they don’t like it they can stuff it.”

My last night in Paris (i.e., Tuesday) was spent at the tolerably seedy Hotel Bonsejour (11 rue Burq in Montmartre). Built sometime around 1900, it’s for kids and cheapskates like me. It has decent wifi, electrical outlets galore, breakfast in the morning, a dinky little shower stall, fresh-smelling sheets, toilet down the hall — a bit of a dump. But it’s the Ritz compared to the Hotel Bowery Grand (143 Bowery, five blocks south of Houston), where I crashed last night for $90 bills. It’s one thing to offer a cheap place to stay, but the Asian-American owner of this shithole adds a few insulting twists to rub your nose in the fact that you’re staying at the dinkiest little flophouse in Manhattan. A room so small (roughly 48″ x 90″) you have to side-shuffle to move around the single bed. (There’s just enough room to stack your suitcases.) Decent wifi, yes, but not a chair in the entire joint. Electrical outlets in the room but none in the lobby. It’s clean — I’ll give it that. But thumbs down on this offensively spartan establishment and an affectionate nod to the Hotel Bonsejour, which at least has a touch of old-world charm and the aroma of good coffee. And chairs.

1:35 pm GMT Update: Heathrow-to-JFK flight leaving in 25 or 30 minutes. Arriving 4:45 pm EST or thereabouts. Earlier: Several weeks ago I booked a return from London’s Heathrow because there was something interesting to do in the London area. Then that thing didn’t pan out. Changing the flight to Paris was way too costly, or certainly less expensive than taking a Eurostar from Gare du Nord to London/St. Pancras at 8:45 am this morning, which will happen an hour from now. Then a 2 pm flight back to New York. No wifi on the train or the plane so there won’t be much filing except for what I can tap out on the phone.

Less than seven weeks before showtime, Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s Jupiter Ascending (Warner Bros., 7.18) has been yanked from the release schedule and bumped into a 2.6.15 opening, or seven months hence. The reason, according to WB distribution chief Dan Fellman, is that the Wachowskis needed more time to complete their work on more than 2,000 special effects shots in the film. All right, okay, maybe. The Wachowskis got jammed and said “to hell with the pressure — let’s downshift and get everything totally right and open Jupiter during the February doldrums instead.” That could have been it, sure, but no one will really believe that. The Wachowskis didn’t have a schedule of FX — when this and that would be done by this and that date — all planned out with plenty of time for last-minute refinements? I’m not doubting Fellman’s account as far as it goes, but there’s probably an undercurrent or two that isn’t up for discussion. When films get pushed back it’s rarely due to concerns about this or that technical post-production issue.

Hollywood Elsewhere is offering a raised-fist salute to actor John Lacy, who was canned three days ago (i.e., Saturday) for stopping a performance of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at Newhall’s Repertory East Playhouse in order to deal with a drunken bigot who was heckling the show with homophobic slurs. Lacy reportedly jumped off the stage after the drunk wouldn’t shut up (the guy reportedly shouted “fag” more than once) and physically ejected him from the theatre.

This is how all drunken assholes should be dealt with. Lacy is to be applauded, not fired. He sounds to me like a guy Denzel Washington might portray in a film. A man of slow-burning conviction who doesn’t take shit.

The show reportedly continued following the incident and concluded to a standing ovation. Lacy was fired right after the performance. The REP authority figure who did that (probably executive director Ovington Michael Owston) should be ashamed of himself and offer apologies all around. The theatre has since announced the closing of the Tennessee Williams play “due to casting loss.” The REP’s official statement notes that “cast members” have left the show, which indicates some of Lacy’s fellow cast members resigned in protest when he was whacked.

I’m as gratified as Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan that Lupita Nyong’o has snagged a somewhat marginal supporting role in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: Episode VII. (Possibly as a villain of some sort or, as a Hollywood Reporter story mentioned last January, as “a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi.”) Not because the reboot will offer a great acting opportunity but because (a) it’s a nifty, high-profile paycheck gig and we all need to pay the mortgage, and (b) it signifies, as Buchanan puts it, that Nyong’o’s “career momentum is restored, and her ascent to the Hollywood A-list now comes complete with an A-list project.”

But from a Movie Godz perspective the hire is (a) a purely practical maneuver on Nyong’o’s part and (b) a right-down-the-middle Hollywood political gesture.