Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta‘s The Leftovers (HBO, 6.29) is basically about a rapture-like event in which 2% of the world’s population (roughly 143,000,000 souls) suddenly vaporizes. Or “ascends,” if you’re a believer. Based on Perotta’s 2011 novel, it would appear to be a close relation of Michael Tolkin‘s The Rapture (’91), hands down the most horrific film about born-again Christians ever made. The pilot was directed by Peter Berg. The lead costars are Justin Theroux (what’s be been doing besides lying around with Jennifer Aniston?), Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston, Liv Tyler and Ann Dowd.

A half-hour ago the U.S. population was 317,947,517 — 2% suddenly disappearing would mean an out-of-the-blue absence of 6,358,950 people. The world population is 7,162,622,670 so a 2% reduction would be roughly 143,000,000. Honestly? There are too many on the globe as it is so a 2% reduction isn’t such a bad thing. How about 10% of the population ascending to Heaven? How about 20%? The more the merrier. As long as I don’t get picked, I mean.

The 2014 Cannes Film Festival jury members were announced earlier today — Carole Bouquet, Iranian actress Leila Hatami, Willem Dafoe, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nicholas Winding-Refn, director Sofia Coppola, South Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon and Chinese director Jia Zhangke plus previously announced Jury boss Jane Campion. Is it unfair to suspect that the women will probably vote as a bloc, favoring films that engage with the usual female concerns (families, emotions, relationships)? Bernal is an engaged liberal humanist who’s probably inclined to reward engaged liberal humanism in films. Dafoe is an adventurous actor but at the same time one suspects that he might be an obliging metrosexual go-alonger (i.e., loves to work and very much wants to stay in the game so no obstinate, against-the-grain opinions). Refn is the only certifiable loon (no other term applies if you’ve seen Only God Forgives) in the group. I don’t know what Jia Zhangke’s deal is but…naah, I shouldn’t say. By and large it doesn’t feel like any kind of contrarian, thorny-minded group. I’m getting a vibe that they might be a bit on the mushy, accommodating side — the kind of jury that mainly wants to show love whenever and wherever possible. But you never know.

With Gareth Edwards‘ Godzilla (Warner Bros., 5.16) just around the corner, Edwards‘ Monsters (’10) is worth recalling. I loved the look of the trailer but for some reason I never got around to the feature, which Magnolia distributed. It earned a lousy $237,301 domestic and $4,005,677 international. So nobody saw it including me. As part of my Godzilla prep I intend to see it this week on Netflix.

“The one film you must see if you haven’t is Monsters,” Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy wrote this morning. “I saw Edwards introduce the restored original Godzilla at the TCM festival a couple of weeks ago and he’s very impressive — a smart, quite self-deprecating young Brit who, on Monsters, directed, shot, wrote, did the production design and all the effects himself. It was shot on location in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the U.S. The camerawork is fantastic, the sense of being on the road and living by your wits in Central America, the music and the uncliched and novel approach to making a monster movie — all exceptional.

A Bluray of Robert Zemeckis‘ Used Cars (’80) has been out since April 8th. Easily one of the funniest and most pungent social farces ever cranked out by semi-mainstream Hollywood. Written and created in the tradition of the great Preston Sturges. World-class performances by Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, Frank McRae and Gerritt Graham. “Used Cars is a lot of things — sloppy, juvenile, cynical — but Zemeckis and Bob Gale absolutely refuse to soften or second guess the insidiously wicked spirit of the idea originated by John Milius. While the movie is hilarious, its running theme of the American dream as a con job is what endears it on repeated viewings.” — posted in January 2008 by This Distracted Globe.

The Knick is a 10-episode period drama (set in the early 1900s) from director Steven Soderbergh.and starring Clive Owen as Dr. John W. Thackery: “We live in a time of endless possibility…more has been learned about the treatment of the human body in the last five years than was learned in the previous 500…that is where we’ll start unlocking the mystery.” Costarring Andre Holland, Eve Hewson, Cara Seymour and Juliet Rylance.

The 2014 Telluride Film Festival is four months off, but the place I stayed last year (i.e., the Mountainside Inn) is already booked solid and another option (i.e., crashing with a producer friend) is up in the air. So I’ve popped for a two-story, three-bedroom crib that’s perfectly located. I’m looking for two journo friendlies to co-rent at $750 a head between three.

My initial reaction to The Other Woman was colored by low expectations based on the downmarket trailer. I’m presuming that the HE community steered clear of this Nick Cassevetes-Julie Yorn-Melissa Stack film, but did anyone find it at least a little better than expected? Like the Boston Herald‘s James Verniere and the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Mick LaSalle did? A $24,700,000 gross expected by tonight. “Insiders at the studio tell me that it played well to an audience over 25, but [this] also shows signs of potential growth with 18-34 audiences, and with males,” Deadline‘s Mike Fleming wrote today. “There really hasn’t been a female-driven edgy comedy since last summer’s The Heat and maybe We’re The Millers, and clearly there is an audience here that will show up.”

John Ford‘s sentimentality has always been his aesthetic Achilles Heel. I’ve mentioned the permutations before but here goes again. The “gallery of supporting players bristling with tedious eccentricity” as critic David Thomson put it in his Biographical Dictionary of Film. The old-school chauvinism and racism, the thinly sketched women, the Irish affection for loutish boozy behavior. I’m especially irked by Ford’s fondness for sappy-sounding ballads sung by male choral groups like Stan Jones and the Sons of the Pioneers. Ever time I watch (or try to watch) Ford’s The Searchers Jones’ music devalues it just a little bit more. I remember watching a laser disc of The Searchers with Guillermo del Toro in ’96 or thereabouts and flinching when Jones’ music began playing during the opening credits. Imagine if Ford had decided to avoid Jones’ balladeering and just let Max Steiner‘s score stand alone. This 1956 classic would seem a lot less problematic by 2014 standards.

N.Y. Times columnist David Carr has done more than just write about Jon Favreau, the director, producer, writer and star of Chef (Open Road, 5.9). He’s also eaten a Favreau-prepared meal. Chef is currently enjoying a 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating but it’s opening in less than two weeks and I’ve received no screening invites. (I couldn’t attend the 4.22 Tribeca Film Festival showing.) I’m on a plane to NYC next Thursday night and then I have a week at my Brooklyn rental before leaving for France. Friend to HE: “Dude, Open Road has had a TON of L.A. Chef screenings. I saw it here a month ago. I don’t think you are on their press list if you have missed it. Betting there’s probably another next week, Plus it’s really a fun movie. Best food shots ever!”

I generally steer clear of docs that appear to be blowjob profiles of showbiz types, but Mike Myers‘ Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon seems amiable enough, and perhaps a bit more than what I’m expecting. (I should have tried harder to catch it at last September’s Toronto Film Festival.) The only grating part arrives at the end. The trailer has sold us on the idea that Gordon is this likable, spiritual, trustworthy heavy-cat manager, and then a prolonged loop of Gordon’s heckle-and-jeckle laughter kills the mood.

2014 is all but one-third over, and by my yardstick there have been ten commercially-released films thus far that have definitely cut the mustard (Locke, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ida, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Noah, Omar, Only Lovers Left Alive, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Tim’s Vermeer, Fading Gigolo). To these you need to add nine film-festival stand-outs — Yann Demange‘s ’71 (which I saw in Berlin) along with eight from the Sundance Film Festival for a grand total of 19 — par for the course for any January-to-April season.

The Sundance picks, once again, are Damien Chazelle‘s Whiplash, (2) Craig Johnson‘s The Skeleton Twins, (3) Steve James‘ Life Itself, (4) Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood, (5) Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies, (6) James D. Cooper‘s Lambert & Stamp, (7) Charlie McDowell‘s The One I Love and (8) Chapman and Maclain Way‘s The Battered Bastards of Baseball.

What other films should I have included? And don’t mention The LEGO Movie. I don’t want to to know about that film, ever. However rich and spiritual it may be, its success has lowered the bar in the Hollywood mainstream industry and made it cool for any puerile kid-distraction concept to be made into a film. It might be cool on its own terms but it has polluted the waters. In my mind it’s a chemical plant dumping toxic substances into the Hudson.