Now that Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a sizable hit ($73 million this weekend with a possible domestic cume of $200 million in the near future, not to mention foreign) and beloved by most of the critics and, apparently, most paying moviegoers, is there anyone out there who had a problem or two with it? My only beef was that there was no second- or third-act kicker or deepener. The fatalistic scheme of the story (i.e., the militant warmongers among humans and apes are going to kill any chance of peaceful co-existence) is never challenged — it just plays out. That said, the beat-by-beat delivery is polished and mechanized, and the framings and textures of each and every shot (noirish, drizzly…dryness is anathema) are rapturous, and Andy Serkis‘s melancholy performance as Ceasar is so deft and subtle that…well, I couldn’t submit to any negative impulses. It wasn’t in me, but perhaps others…? Just to kick it around.

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In his review of Kino Lorber’s Witness for the Prosecution Bluray (streeting on 7.22), Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kaufman actually tiptoes around the big third-act twist. He’s actually afraid of spoiling a 57 year-old film that anyone with a passing interest in the courtroom genre or the films of Billy Wilder or Marlene Dietrich…anyone who isn’t a complete movie dilletante knows this film like the back of their hand. Kaufman also says that Bluray detail makes it obvious that the identity of the middle-aged woman who provides the crucial “love letters” to Charles Laughton and Henry Daniell in Euston Station is…uhm, that she’s wearing a get-up. “Suffice to say the film hinges on much the same artifice that was used later in Sleuth,” Kaufman writes, “and much like the film version of that play, the artifice simply doesn’t hold up under the cold, clear light of film close-ups.” I’ve seen a Vudu HDX version of Witness and I can’t say I agree. Note: I’ve posted the following clip because I worship the way Laughton says the line “for what it is worth.”

In a 7.13 “Bart & Fleming” chat, Deadline‘s Michael Fleming offers what seems to me like a brilliant suggestion for Melissa McCarthy, one that could possibly save her career from the post-Tammy backwash.

“Hollywood tried forever to remake the brilliant British miniseries Prime Suspect, but could never find the formula,” Fleming reminds. “Helen Mirren shone as Inspector Jane Tennison, subtly using her smarts to overcome workplace sexism and alcoholism. She solved crimes and earned respect and authority in most believable ways. How about McCarthy in the remake? Each of her movies introduces her in an increasingly unflattering visage until her true self shows through. Then she shines like a new penny, and we get a glimpse of how good an actress she really is. Imagine her as Tennison, overcoming disrespectful underlings who marginalize her appearance and gender.

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It’s not surprising that Variety‘s Scott Foundas has panned Rob Reiner‘s And So It Goes (Clarius, 7.25), calling it the kind of adult relationship film that prefers “cheap punch lines” and “easy pathos” to real feelings, and a viewing experience in which “you never feel anything significant is at stake for anyone — save for a paycheck.” The surprise is that Foundas has reviewed the film from, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the Jerusalem Film Festival, which is probably not the safest place to be right now.

Douglas: “I hate to admit this but it’s almost a kind of aphrodisiac to be flirting and contemplating hot septugenarian sex while bombs are exploding nearby and any moment could be our last.” Keaton: “Eeeee!…let’s go upstairs right now.”

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I realize, of course, that it’s gauche and tacky to eyeball an attractive woman in a public setting. In any sort of obvious way, I mean. If I’m sitting in a cafe and a looker walks in, I automatically go into covert mode. I steal quickies, frown, pretend I couldn’t care less, etc. But when an Exceptional Hottie is accompanied by a boyfriend or husband, he always gives me that aggressive “keep your eyes to yourself, buddy!” look. I’m getting a little bit irritated when they do this. I can’t even glance at her quickly? No, apparently. The boyfriends seem to be basically saying, “I’m naturally proud and delighted to be with a super-fox but I have to protect her from all visual attention. Not just the glares of the overt creeps. I have to discourage even discreet ogling….that’s the manly thing to do.” Today a guy gave me the standard visual admonishment, but just to be perverse I ignored him. I flat-out stared at every anatomical square inch of his girlfriend as if to say, “I’m getting sick of you guys and your manly protection death-ray looks. So I’m kind-of half fucking with you. As a dry exercise. If you want to do something about it, go to town.” He backed off.

Pauline Kael‘s review of the original Planet of the Apes reminds that this science-fiction landmark and franchise-starter wasn’t released in May, June or July but in February — a dump month by the standards of 2014 or for that matter the 21st Century. February has had this rep since at least the mid ’90s. I know that Silence of the Lambs was released on 2.14.91 and that a small group of money-makers have opened during the same blah period (Cloverfield, Tremors…what else?), but February has been designated as a time of resignation for so long it looks like up to me.

This is going to sound petty and neurotic (what else is new?), but when I give an HE commenter the heave-ho as I just did a few minutes ago, I recite Richard Burton‘s excommunication speech from Peter Glenville‘s Becket (’64), and particularly this passage.

If a film is solidly well-made and affecting and eloquently written and acted, then it will acquire a reputation as a good or very good film. Nothing can ever take that basic fact away. But a film with one wrong scene — something miscalculated, under-sold, not quite there, overplayed — can take that film down a notch. It will always be haunted by “if only they hadn’t,” etc. Obviously a single tonal misstep can’t hurt that much but it can leave a bruise. In short, the flip side of the old Howard Hawks rule still applies. A first-rate movie has three great scenes, and no bad ones.

I got on this jag because a first-rate film I’ve just seen has one small wrongo. I’m not going to mention the film but I’m asking the readership for examples from the past. Name one scene in a universally praised film that could have been cut before the film opened, and without anyone noticing and the producers kind of glad that it’s gone and the star going, “Ahh, all right…I guess we didn’t need it.”

What is the essential quality of a wrongo in an otherwise excellent film? You’re not going to taste awfulness or mediocrity in a quality-level enterprise. What you might encounter, however, will be a scene that doesn’t need to be there. A scene that isn’t a necessary component but a “darling” — something that’s in the film because one of the principals is in love with it and doesn’t care if it contributes profoundly to the whole or not…it’s staying.

There hasn’t been much reaction to yesterday’s stalled Alamo restoration story that focuses on a mildly astonishing misrepresentation of the facts by an MGM spokesperson. I probably wouldn’t pay much attention myself if I was a reader. How many Alamo stories have I run so far, six or seven? But reconsider for a second. Restoration guru Robert Harris is too much of a genteel diplomat to just spit it out so I will. An official statement from an established motion-picture distributor has blatantly misrepresented the facts. They’ve been asked about the slowly rotting fruit on a pear tree, and their response has been “Well, those Magnolia blossoms sure look good to us!”

My attempts to see Craig Gillespie‘s Million Dollar Arm continue to frustrate. As regular readers know, the Hand of Kumudu kept me out of an early May press screening at Manhattan’s Regal E-Walk on 42nd Street. Today I figured I’d try to see an HDX version on Vudu, but (a) it’s not yet viewable and (b) their pre-order tickets are $22.99 a pop. That’s a bit rich, no? So I checked to see if it’s still playing in some sub-run craphouse theatre in Los Angeles. It is but too far away. It’s playing in Long Beach at the AMC Marina Pacifica 12 (afternoon shows only) and at the AMC Fullerton 20 (ditto)…no, thanks. If only that Regal manager had said to himself, “Aahh, what the hell…the guy’s a journalist, he came all the way from Prospect Park on a slow-arriving, slow-moving F train and he’ll just be missing the first-act set-up stuff with Jon Hamm‘s career on the ropes plus a scene or two with Lake Bell…the movie doesn’t really kick in until the 30-minute mark so I guess I can let him in.”

The closest I ever got to Andy Warhol was on a warm July night in 1978 at Studio 54, which of course was dark all over and very pleasantly air-conditioned. I was standing behind a banquette with a tall, good-looking guy I knew very slightly named Gary Fekete, and he was talking to Warhol — shades, white-blonde wig, Holy Cross blazer, etc. — about, I was later told, some kind of sexual opportunity or possibility or whatever. I was standing to Fekete’s left, half listening but at the same time not wanting to look like an uncool snoop. And that was it. But at least…well, that wasn’t much, was it? For a short while Fekete was an occasional supplier of quaaludes to some of us when I still lived in Connecticut in ’77, so that was the initial connection.

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