I for one don’t hold with the idea that disco and the disco era (’74 to ’80) has been “gravely misunderstood”, as Jamie Kastner‘s The Secret Disco Revolution maintains. It was actually “a time of liberation for gays, blacks and women,” he’s saying. To a certain extent he’s right, I suppose, but when disco was peaking a lot of people like myself were somewhere between intensely put off and revolted. Okay, I went to Studio 54 like everyone else, yes, and I did a line or two there and even had fumbling, incomplete sex in the balcony once and yes, I loved dancing to “Don’t You Want Me, Baby?” and “Gloria.” I strangely enjoyed those times. Which is why, apart from liking the film and wanting to discuss it, I asked to speak with Kastner.

The Film Experience‘s Nathaniel R. is calling Albert Brooks‘ Lost in America (’85) a significant Independence Day film. In fact, Rogers calls it “an obvious, easy choice.” Brilliant, hilarious and endlessly rewatchable as Brooks film is, is there anyone out there who has said to themselves or their friends, “Lost in America? You have to ask? Totally great film to watch on the 4th of July!”

LIA “has a great many trenchant observations about American lives in the Reagan years in the form of its willfully self-deluded yuppies played by Julie Hagerty and Brooks himself,” he writes, “but the myths it demolishes about following one’s heart and all that cuts much deeper into the national psyche than satirizing just one decade. Constantly hilarious in a characteristically deadpan, mordant way, Lost in America is easily the most cynical title on this list, cynical enough that a less gifted comic mind might not have been able to balance out the humor with the acid, but there’s no rule that a national holiday can’t be used as a time for frank self-reflection and an acknowledgement of the nation’s character flaws.”

I’ve been waiting for years to find a decent YouTube clip of Warren Beatty as Milton Armitage, the snooty and in almost all ways superior nemesis of Dwayne Hickman in the first season (’59-’60) of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Only now with the entire series recently released on DVD can the full flavor of Armitage be re-appreciated. What a shit, and yet a shit whom Beatty (along with the writers, of course) labored mightily to mock at every turn.

I could have danced on the grave celebrated acknowledged the sad failure of The Lone Ranger to cut the box-office mustard much earlier in the day, but I was having too good a time. Pic took in less than $10 million yesterday, which translates into $40 million-plus for the weekend. Not good enough! It had to do at least $60 or $70 million! “A train wreck…another John Carter for Disney,” says Variety‘s Andrew Stewart. Failure! Anemic!

Oh, look, look…here comes Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp and Jerry Bruckheimer. Wait…is that them? Oh, God, it is. Quick — cross the street so we don’t have to commiserate and tell them we love the film and that they should all be proud or some shit. Oh, fuck, they’ve seen us. Oh, fuck, they’re waving. Okay, let’s make the best of this…wave back.

Here’s a one-hour BBC doc about Cannon Films, apparently lensed around ’87 or ’88…but it’s hard to tell. “I worked as a Cannon staff press-kit writer for much of ’86, all of ’87 and into early ’88, so I know whereof I speak,” I wrote in August 2010. “I know all about that operation and the mentality behind it. There were quality exceptions here and there (which I was very grateful for), but the films were mainly schlock. Which fostered a certain atmosphere among Cannon employees. ‘Fatalism mixed with humiliation resulting in gallows humor’ is one way to describe it.”

A Bluray of Walter Hill‘s The Driver is popping through on 7.23. A mere 3000 copies. 1.85 to 1. 89 minutes long. Move it or lose it.

Unlike Slate‘s Dana Stevens, my objection to flip-flops has solely to do with the fact that many, many people out there (mostly men but a fair number of women also) have unappealing feet. I sit on subway cars and look at the toes of people who should never be barefoot except in their own bathrooms and even then, and I ask myself “whatever happened to the concept of sartorial shame?” Or “she thinks this makes her look attractive?” I was almost surprised yesterday when I sat across from a 20something sandal-wearing couple on the A train, and they both had feet that I regarded as tolerable if not moderately attractive — a very unusual occurence.

That said, I planted my flag on anti-flip-flop soil years ago. Glenn Kenny has tweeted that I’ll now be grateful to Stevens for validating my views on this topic. No offense (and I’m sure there’s none taken) but she’s a visitor and I’m an old resident. “This is my table, man. I own it.” — Paul Newman as Eddie Felson in The Hustler.

Congrats to whomever cut and scored this trailer for Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Freidman‘s Lovelace (Radius-TWC, 8.9). Because it makes the film, a slow-downswirl tragedy that takes you down an icky and downish journey, seem a lot more engaging than it actually is. After catching it at last January’s Sundance Film Festival I filed it under “glad I saw it but if it had never been made I don’t think the universe would be any poorer or hungrier.”

So Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity, the 3D zero-gravity survival drama with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, will open the 70th Venice Film Festival out of competition on Wednesday, 8.28. So the Warner Bros. release won’t play Telluride and most of us will be seeing it in Toronto.

Honestly — does this trailer indicates that Afternoon Delight is “about the sexual awakening of a woman in a sexless marriage,” as the Wiki synopsis says? To me the trailer suggests a tale about the near-torpedoing of a sexless marriage when the wife brings home a young pretty stripper. Oh, I get it — the “sexual awakening” refers to girl sex. I didn’t see this at Sundance; couldn’t fit it in.

When people get old and/or fat they trudge up stairs. If that’s how they need to play it, okay, but I must say it’s rather unpleasant to be stuck behind a trudger on the concrete steps of a New York subway station and being more or less forced to trudge along. It’s a bit more tiring that way and it certainly does something to your spirit to be made to feel like a mass-man. The only way to ascend staircases of any kind is to bound up them like an antelope. Or at the very least ascend quickly, two steps at a time. I tend to use the left side of the stairs for passing, of course, but that doesn’t work very well. Basically I just suck it in and deal with the trudgers as best I can, but I can at least mention the annoyance.

A Michael Fleming/Deadline story popped yesterday afternoon about Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks nabbing the rights to John Steinbeck‘s The Grapes of Wrath with an interest in basically remaking John Ford‘s classic 1940 adaptation. It was clearly stated that Spielberg won’t direct, just produce.

This struck me as odd as this is the kind of material Spielberg could rock his career with if he were to shoot this 21st Century Wrath in a plain, austere, dust-bowly vein with Dorothea Lange capturings and (a really huge IF) in a way that would simultaneously suppress his sentimental instincts.

Spielberg needs another Schindler’s List on his resume, something for the ages. He needs to direct a film with material that fits him as well as he fits it. He would do well to tap into his compassion for regular Joes and at the same time (a) pay tribute to Ford, a major career influence, and (b) demonstrate that he’s grown past his need to play his usual manipulative games. Spielberg-basher that I am, I believe that a Spielberg-directed The Grapes of Wrath could be (if he doesn’t fuck it up) a possibly phenomenal achievement.