I saw about 80% of Jennifer Aniston‘s Cake at the Toronto Film Festival, but I caught it again today (12 noon screening, Pacific Design center) start to finish. It’s basically an acting showcase drama with a highly commendable performance from Aniston, for which she’s currently taking bows around town in hopes of landing a Best Actress nomination. The film over-plays the meditation card and eventually becomes tedious — everybody just ambles along in this thing, behaving and commenting and sometimes weeping and arguing but never doing all that much. (Except, that is, when Aniston and her long-suffering assistant, superbly played by Adriana Barraza, drive to Mexico for pain pills.) But given that it’s a relatively weak year for actresses it’s not that crazy to suggest that Aniston, on the merit of her performance alone, could make the cut. And in so doing she might develop a new career groove in which she makes fewer crap-level successes like We’re The Millers and Horrible Bosses.

Cake star & exec producer Jennifer Aniston during this afternoon’s q & a at the Pacific Design Center. She’s dropped the weight she put on for the film, and her blonde hair looked fantastic. (Seriously, if I was a blonde female I’d want my hair to look just like hers. Really.) A young woman from the audience asked if she could have a hug, and of course Aniston obliged…but it felt a bit weird.

Cake is basically an indie slog about acute pain management and working past emotional anguish over some really bad stuff that happened a year or so back. The problem is that Aniston’s middle-aged character, deglammed and scar-faced and dropping handfuls of Percocets for the pain, wears out her welcome around the one-hour mark. The movie fails to pivot (in the Howard Suber sense of that term), and as much as you may enjoy her sharp-tongued commentary about anyone and anything she happens to find irritating or infuriating (including, to her immense credit, Orange County righties), you just don’t want to hang with this suffering crabhead any more. Enough.

But at least Aniston (who exec produced) really gives it hell. She can be quite deft and subtle when she wants to be, always letting you know what’s happening inside with just the right amount of emphasis. And she certainly looks like a wreck with her stiff movements and brown stringy hair and somewhat heavier appearance.

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Note: Incorrect Best Director and Best Actor charts were posted Sunday morning. These are the correct ones.

The Boyhood screener arrived last night. The fold-out jacket is quite elaborate and almost flamboyant by IFC standards. Obviously IFC Films honchos and their award-season strategists sat down a couple of months ago and agreed to put a big chunk of their funds into this. “Screeners are key,” somebody said, “and if we play up Boyhood‘s importance by emphasizing rave reviews on an attention-getting jacket, it’ll be money well spent.” IFC Films screener jackets have never looked this swanky. This one equals if not betters the usual award-season screener packaging from the major distributors.

It’s interesting to note that the 11.22.63 Dr. Strangelove screening would have happened at the former Leow’s Orpheum (now AMC Leows Orpheum 7), which is way the hell up on Third Avenue and 86th Street. Nowadays nobody holds screenings north of 68th or 72nd Street on either side of town. I don’t think I attended an invitational screening on 86th Street during my entire 2008-to-2011 New York experience. And note the time — 8:30 pm. No invitational screenings start at that hour these days. For as long as I’ve been a journalist they’ve all begun at 7 or 7:30 pm. This harkens back to the ancient theatrical tradition of Broadway plays starting at 8:30 pm.

Rob Marshall and Stephen Sondheim‘s Into The Woods was screened for a crowd of mostly mild-mannered types at 4 pm on the Disney lot. (I’ll be seeing it Monday night.) Deadline‘s Pete Hammond: “Ad line for Into The Woods says ‘be careful what you wish for’. If your wish was a smart, charming, witty Sondheim film, it’s been granted.” (The ghost of Gene Shalit?) Sam Adams: “Into The Woods overstays welcome & bleeds its many charms. Meryl Streep kinda grand, but third act drag undoes what was a slight but enjoyable film.” Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “Gorgeous & expensive Sondheim. Applause for Meryl Streep and the opening number. Johnny Depp is fine in short bit as The Wolf.” Wait…”gorgeous & expensive” are sidestepping terms, don’t address how good it is. Jenelle Riley: “I loved Into the Woods though the tone veers between theatrical and realistic. Whole cast is great…especially Streep, Chris Pine.” Hammond again: “Into The Woods defines what a great ensemble cast really is. They all shine but Streep soars. Kendrick. Blunt, Pine, James Corden all terrific.” Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone: “You could call this a darker interpretation of Into the Woods. Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick standouts. And Streep, of course. Wins costumes walking in the door. More serious and sad than the stage show I saw. Teared up a few times.” Wait…costumes?

I’ve been susceptible to the perceptions of UCLA film professor Howard Suber since the mid ’90s, which is when I first listened to his smooth, buttery commentaries on the Criterion Collection laser discs of Mike Nichols‘ The Graduate, Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon and Billy Wilder‘s Some Like It Hot. In 2012 I asked Suber to pass along some specially burned DVDs of these discs, but they didn’t look so hot and they skipped from time to time. Now, lo and behold, a YouTube post does it right — the entire Graduate synched with Suber’s commentary, the exact same trip offered to those who watched and listened to the original Criterion laser disc.

If you love and value The Graduate, this version will add to your appreciation of the film in ways you never quite gathered on your own, I swear. And it’s a perfect opportunity for a seance with the spirit of Mr. Nichols, who left us three days ago.

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On 11.9 I missed, to my everlasting discredit, a 100th birthday party for the great Norman Lloyd. So as a make-up I went to the Aero last night to hear Lloyd speak about Alfred Hitchcock‘s Saboteur (in which he played the villain, Fry, who fell to his death from the Statue of Liberty at the finale) and to hear any other recollections he had a mind to share. Lloyd is a legendary raconteur. I hadn’t spoken to him since I visited his home nine years ago, so it was a slight surprise to realize that Lloyd is just as sharp now as then. My mom, bless her, is not the woman she was a decade or two ago (whose elderly parents are?), but Lloyd is amazing. After the interview an Aero employee presented him with a birthday cupcake and 150 people sang “Happy Birthday.” A great moment. Note: In the video Lloyd is talking about director Lewis Milestone, who liked to gamble, and the making of A Walk In The Sun (’45), in which Lloyd costarred.

Aren’t most discerning moviegoers over the age of 35 ignoring The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1? Shouldn’t they be? I am, I can tell you. My general interpretation from the get-go is that the Hunger Games trilogy is a big “fuck you” to the Boomers who are sending GenY and GenX into a future laden with economic doom and despair. I might hate the films but I’ve no argument with the metaphor. Here’s my initial 3.20.12 review of the first Hunger Games flick. Confession: Jennifer Lawrence‘s a cappella singing of “The Hanging Tree” is oddly affecting.

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This morning Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and I talked for 74 minutes about all the angles and dangles of the Best Picture situation. Expanding Selma glow, Birdman dazzle, slight Boyhood droop, ongoing Gone Girl backhanding despite aesthetic chops and impressive commercial success, The Theory of Everything vs. The Imitation Game, etc. Plus a detour about the collapse of Bill Cosby‘s career. Sasha’s best remark: The movie that wins the Best Picture Oscar is (a) the puppy you can’t hate and (b) the movie that gives you something to vote for. Again, the mp3.

I went to a Selma screening on the Paramount lot last night. I wanted to see if it would expand or sink in a bit more. Honestly? It did somewhat. It went up on my approve-o-meter. Somewhat. A lady I was with gave it a 9. I had it at 7.5 after my first viewing but I bumped it up to an 8 last night. I still think it’s a little too talky or speechy (and scenes that aren’t about speeches are mostly about situational assessments and strategy sessions, mostly by MLK and his homies, secondarily by Tom Wilkinson‘s LBJ and Tim Roth‘s George Wallace), too self-regarding at times, generally too slow and too darkly lighted in too many indoor scenes. The lady friend said that for her, many of the talky scenes actually delivered serious emotion. Okay. I recognize again that I’m in the minority and that I should probably just shut up from here on. I respect Selma, I have no argument with Selma, I want Selma to do well, etc.

(l. to r.) Ava DuVernay, David Oyelowo, producer Dede Gardner during post-screening q & a.

Selma director Ava DuVernay, Monique Thompson following last night’s Selma screening at Sherry Lansing Theatre on Paramount lot.

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Three or four days ago an especially malicious form of adware got into my Macbook Air. Before I knew it pages for Mackeeper kept popping up out of nowhere and strange ads were occupying the spaces of regular ads on the HE home page. [See below] It seemed wiser not to download just any adware-blocking or adware-expunging software unless it was recommended by a trusted source, so I decided to start with Apple tech support. Two of the tech guys I spoke with (out of a total of five) were “helpful” and conscientious as far as it went, but the adware still remained. I asked each one if they could recommend any particular adware-destroying software, but they said they didn’t know of any or couldn’t say, etc. Thanks, fellas! Yesterday afternoon I went down to the Mac store at the Grove and asked a Genius Bar guy, and he said no problem — we just have to download and install Adware Medic, which he promptly did. The adware fungus was erased and out of my Macbook Air ten minutes later. Thank you very much, Apple tech support, for keeping mum about Adware Medic despite my repeated pleas.