Fox Home Video will be releasing a Great Escape Bluray on May 7th following a special screening of a new 4K digital transfer of John Sturges‘ 1963 film at the TCM Classic Film Festival (4.25 through 4.28). But all the Bluray extras listed in the press release are the same ones offered in the 2004 special collectors edition DVD. In fact, the DVD had a few more. So we’re just talking about a better-looking version of the feature, which is fine.

The one thing I’ve never been able to tolerate in The Great Escape is Angus Lennie‘s performance as RAF officer Archibald “Archie” Ives, the Scottish jockey who befriends Steve McQueen‘s Hilts. I instantly hated his twee Scottish accent — too Brigadoon. And his smiling, cheerful attempt to hide the fact that he was on the verge of cracking up. My first reaction when I saw this film as a kid was “fuck you, Ives…I hope you get machine-gunned to death by the krauts.” I wasn’t elated when this happened at the end of Act Two, but I wasn’t displeased. Is it too much to ask for a deleted scene in which Ives is tortured by the SS?

As a huge fan of Rodney Ascher‘s Room 237, I’m urging everyone to please read a week-old “Vulture”/New York piece by Mark Jacobson called “The Shining Cult at the Overlook Hotel.” Great passion! And as a prelude to a chat I had this morning with Marshall Fine about Room 237, please read Fine’s piece in which he kind of pisses all over the movie and Jacobson’s piece in particular.

I guess you could my 26-minute discussion with Fine the latest Oscar Poker, if you’ve a mind to.

Here’s a nifty Huffington Post discussion about “Movies That Divides Us”, focusing mainly on Spring Breakers. MSN’s Glenn Kenny (“Eeww, here’s a subversive Harmony Korine film finally making its way into the mainstream market!”), Huffpost movie wag Chris Rosen, The Inquisitir‘s Niki Cruz and director William Friedkin. Ricky Camilleri moderates.

Wells to Friedkin: Have you given any thought to joining the good-guy team and offering the Sorcerer Bluray at 1.66, even though you don’t have to and can fully justify mastering it at 1.85? It’s a free-thinking movement, Billy. And the philosophy of this movement is, “We can watch movies any way we want.” To hell with projection standards from 40 or 50 years ago. This is 2013, and if we like the way an older film looks at 1.37 or 1.66 then we can bloody well show it that way. Eff 1.85…unless, of course, we really and truly like 1.85 and are not just being cowed by the 1.85 fascists.

Update: Friedkin to Wells: If you want to see my movie in 1.66 you can mask your display. What is a 1.85 fascist? I’ve never heard of such an animal.

Variety‘s Jon Weisman is reporting that the 2014 Oscar telecast will happen on Sunday, March 2nd, or a week later than the 2013 Oscars which happened on Sunday, 2.24. And yet…and yet!…the 2015 Oscar telecast will happen a little bit earlier on Sunday, February 22nd.

Nominations voting will begin on Friday, 12.27.13 and end on Wednesday, 1.8.14 at 5 pm, or a little less than two weeks’ time. The 2014 Oscar nominations will be announced on Wednesday, 1.16. Final voting will begin a month later on Friday, 2.14.14 and end on Tuesday, 2.25.14.

Note: Either I need glasses or Wiesman’s initial blast initially stated — incorrectly — that the 2015 date would happen on February 2nd.

Jim Carrey‘s Funny or Die video is titled “Cold Dead Hand”, and yet the late Charlton Heston‘s famous NRA statement used the plural — i.e., the only way the proverbial and ignominious “they” could take his guns away would be to pry them “from my cold head hands.”

Rightie bloggers have reacted angrily to Michael Moore’s recent comment that “90% of guns are owed by white people,” the implication being that they’re looking to protect themselves from disadvantaged minorities. The gun-ownership stats shouldn’t be hard to prove or disprove. (A site called Statisticbrain offers a survey stating that 44% of gun owners are white, 27% are “non-white” and 27% are black.) But even if Moore’s claim is even partly true his conclusion seems reasonable and intelligent. Older rural whites have this thing about wanting to protect themselves from the “other.”

A 2.1.13 Gallup poll doesn’t seem to address the racial gun-ownership issue in cut and dried terms, but it states the following: “Non-Hispanic whites (33%) are significantly more likely than nonwhites (22%) to own guns. Hispanics (18%) in particular show below-average gun ownership. Twenty-one percent of blacks own a gun. Younger Americans (20%) are much less likely to own guns than older Americans. There are only minor differences among adults 30 and older by age group (ranging between 31% and 34%). Gun ownership is much higher among those who are politically conservative (39%) than among those who are politically liberal (17%).”

A few pithy reactions to David Mamet‘s Phil Spector, which premiered last night on HBO, would be welcome. Almost everyone saw it, I presume. Team Metacritic is 2/3 positive, 1/3 negative. My impressions, condensed from my 3.15 review (“Guilty of ‘We Don’t Like You’“), are as follows:

(a) Phil Spector is “not so much about story-telling as the wielding of a blade that cuts in and around like a sushi chef…it’s all ‘factual’ in a sense, but it’s also a fantasia of sorts…it’s a visit to Mamet-world, and is therefore far from a typical big-murder-trial, guilty-or-innocent movie…great skill and theatrical pizazz have been brought to bear…at a mere 91 minutes, it’s very tight and taut“; (b) “It contains a pair of compelling, at times amusing, charismatic performances from Al Pacino as Spector-the-nutbag (brilliant, flamboyant, fickle, rambling of speech, bewigged, gnome-like) and Helen Mirren as his flinty defense attorney, Linda Kenney Baden” and (c) The film suggests “that in a certain foolish or theatrical way Lana Clarkson may have been holding the gun and that it may have gone off accidentally…it does seem likely that what happened was accidental, and that there would have been more blood found on Spector’s white jacket if Spector had been holding the gun…the evidence is the evidence.”

And yet one important piece of evidence isn’t mentioned in Mamet’s film. Four days ago L.A. Times reporter Harriet Ryan, who covered both Spector trials, noted the following:

“What [the film] doesn’t mention is that Clarkson died with her purse strap on her shoulder. If that seems inconsequential to you, perhaps you are a man. Ladies, I ask you: Is shouldering a purse the gesture of a woman who intends to a) commit suicide; b) play a sex game; or c) leave?”

Last night I looked at an assemblage of clips of Pacino yelling or shouting his way through a scene. My hands-down favorite is the legendary “because she has a great ass!” moment from Heat. But each and every clip has the embed code blocked. That’s Warner Bros. legal, I presume, but why? How can it possibly be a negative thing for people who haven’t seen Heat to watch this and other key scenes from it? They’re just tasters.

I passed on seeing Jordan Vogt-Roberts‘ Toy’s House at Sundance ’13 because it seemed, in my blithe ignorance, to resemble Lord of The Flies and I didn’t want that shit in my head. But then I met Vogt-Roberts at the Spirit Awards and he was cool. And then I saw this. Pic is now called The Kings of Summer (CBS Films, 5.31).

Approach the cinematic oeuvre of Louis Letterier with caution. To me he’s strictly a popcorn-level operator who makes escapist megaplex ghoulash. The Incredible Hulk (i.e., the one that came out in ’08 with Edward Norton) wasn’t half-bad, but Clash of the Titans (’10) was punishment. And my God, the paycheck vibe coming off these performers! Yes, of course — we all get paid and so what? But something about this particular group says “we are slick salesmen — pay us what we want and we’ll be in your movie.”

Hi, I’m Jesse Eisenberg. You may recall my intense, mercurial performance as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network but that was then and this is now. I agreed to make this film because I liked the script (by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt), but also, let’s face it, because they met my quote.

Hi, I’m Morgan Freeman and I’ll act in almost anything, even Olympus Has Fallen, as long as you pay me handsomely. All I care about is hanging out on the farm with my horses so nothing matters.

Hi, I’m Michael Caine, and if I have to explain that I’ll appear in almost anything (including Jaws 4: The Revenge) for the right price, you haven’t been paying attention.

Hi, I’m Woody Harrelson…hi, I’m Isla Fisher…hi, I’m Mark Ruffalo…and so on.

Summit/Lionsgate is releasing Now You See Me on 5.31.

Synopsis: “The Four Horsemen, a magic super-group led by the charismatic Michael Atlas (Eisenberg), perform a pair of high-tech magic shows, first astonishing audiences by robbing a bank on another continent, and then exposing a white-collar criminal and funneling his millions into the audience members’ bank accounts.

“FBI Special Agent Dylan Hobbs (Ruffalo) is determined to make the magicians pay for their crimes—and to stop them before they pull off what promises to be an even more audacious heist. But he’s forced to partner with Alma Vargas (Melanie Laurent), an Interpol detective about whom he is instantly suspicious. Out of desperation he turns to Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), a famed magic debunker, who claims the bank heist was accomplished using disguises and video trickery.

“As pressure mounts and the world awaits the Horsemen’s spectacular final trick, Dylan and Alma race to find an answer. But it soon becomes painfully clear that staying one step ahead of these masters of illusion is beyond the skills of any one man—or woman.”

For some idiotic reason I paid close to $30 bucks for Criterion’s Bluray of The Blob (’58). It’s a decent low-budget monster flick, primitive and simple and appealing for that, but I felt seriously burned as I began watching it. The smooth saxophone riff during the opening credits is cool (written by Burt Bacharach and strongly reminiscent of Bill Justis‘s “Raunchy“, which was released a year before The Blob came out) but right away there’s trouble.

It’s not the action or the dialogue, but the hideous lighting on the actors’ faces in nocturnal close-ups and medium close-ups. The trouble isn’t the Bluray (typical Criterion work, smothered in grain…what else?) but the film itself. It’s the most ineptly lighted color motion picture I’ve ever seen in my life.

The Blob begins after dark in a woodsy area. No streetlamps, maybe a little moonlight. 27 year-old Steve McQueen (called “Steven” McQueen in the opening titles) is gently kissing his girlfriend, played by 24 year-old Aneta Cousault. They’re sitting in McQueen’s bright-blue convertible, and McQueen isn’t even trying for second base — his kiss is chaste and courtly, but she’s feeling betrayed and hurt and disappointed.

The look on Cousault’s face speaks volumes. It’s almost in the same realm as the look on Sen. Joseph McCarthy‘s face when he accused this or that lefty of Communist allegiances. You just want to get your hands inside my dress, Steve. I thought you cared for me. I thought you respected me. I thought you were nicer than that. But I’m not going to give you what you want, Steve. I’m not going to unzip your fly and bring you to ecstasy with the gentle caress of my fingers.

McQueen smiles and says he’s sorry, but in a way he’s lucky because one look at Cousalt tells you she’s never heard of any form of sexual activity other than the woman just lying there and waiting for the man to finish. Attempted teenaged intimacy used to be like this. So depressing. Thank God I grew up in one of the greatest nookie eras in world history, the Roman Empire included. But I’ve gotten off the subject.

The lighting in the opening scene and in every outdoor-nighttime scene in the entire film for that matter is terrible. The opening shot looks like McQueen and Cousault are sitting directly in front of 2000-lb. klieg light or a pair of truck headlights.

Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and his dp, Thomas E. Spaulding, had surely heard of “day for night” but for whatever reason they just turned the lights on. Every night scene has been flood-lighted to death. When The Blob’s first victim, an old hermit (Olin Howland), steps out of his home at night he’s all lit up like New Year’s Eve. It’s all Howland can do to not squint from the glare.

And yet Yeaworth’s film is more watchable than Larry Hagman‘s Beware! The Blob (’72), which I saw and could barely stand when I watched it on YouTube the other day. And don’t even talk about the 1988 version — garbage.

Last night I went to a 10:35 pm showing of Wayne Blair‘s The Sapphires (Weinstein Co.), which I’ve been praising up and down since catching it 10 and 1/2 months ago in Cannes. It was playing in a smaller Arclight theatre (#12) and there were 20 or 25 people in the seats, if that. I enjoyed it almost as much as that Cannes viewing. It was a tiny better in Cannes because I wasn’t expecting much and I didn’t know how good Chris O’Dowd would be. This time I was just looking for a nice repeat and I got that, but the first time is the charm.

The Sapphires is an Aboriginal Dreamgirls set in 1968, smaller-scaled and flavored/punctuated with rural Australia and war-torn Vietnam. Less flash and razzle-dazzle, no strobe lights and more emotionally restrained than Dreamgirls plus no Beyonce, Jamie Foxx or Eddie Murphy…but with the robust, note-perfect O’Dowd and ripe, live-wire performances from Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell — great singers, attractive and emotionally pronounced in every scene.

This is a smallish film with heart and charm and humor and rousing music, and yet The Sapphires made beans this weekend in four theatres ($40,9000 = $10 grand per screen or $3300 per theatre per day). I guess I knew this would happen but it still doesn’t feel right. The Weinsteiners know that a character-driven indie film about an Aborginal girl group isn’t hooky or flashy or oomphy enough for the megaplex popcorn-heads and so they’re starting out small, but…I don’t know but it feels a bit frustrating.

I know that the weekend’s biggest hit, Olympus Has Fallen (which took in 30 million and change in 3098 theatres), is one of the dumbest, cheesiest and most depressingly low-grade Die Hard flicks ever and the people who made and distributed it are popping the champagne. The book is called “When Good Things Happen To Bad People.”

I know that the Film Week guys on KCCP didn’t even mention The Sapphires, much less discuss it, during their 3.22 discussion.

Could it be that people are assuming the film might be about a lesbian singing group? Sapphire, sappho, etc. I’m just free-associating here.

From my Cannes Film Festival review: “A healthy portion is cool, snappy, rousing, well-cut and enormously likable. (And dancable.) That would be the first 40%, when the true-life tale of an Aboriginal Supremes-like group assembled and took shape in Australia in 1968. This 40-minute section, trust me, is definitely worth the price.

“But the main reason the film delivers overall is Chris O’Dowd‘s performance as Dave, a charmingly scuzzy boozer and Motown fanatic who steers the four girl singers (Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens, Miranda Tapsell) away from country and towards soul music, and then takes them to Vietnam to entertain U.S. troops. Dowd’s manner and personality are a total kick — an absolute hands-down winner and the best reason to see The Sapphires, even when it turns sketchy in the last half or so.

“I was saying to myself during the first 10 or 15 minutes, ‘Whoa, this is pretty good…not as high-throttle razzmatzzy as Dreamgirls but I like it better.’ And then it kept on going and hitting the marks for the most part. Blair is a talented director who knows how to cut and groove and put on a show. [Even during the parts] when it’s not really working The Sapphires at least keeps the ball in the air with reasonable agility and sass. The analogy, come to think, isn’t really Dreamgirls as much as Hustle and Flow and The Commitments, at least during those first 40 minutes.

“The soul classics are delightful to savor throughout. The music put me in a good mood right away and kept me there.

“The script is by Aboriginal actor-writer Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson, and based on Brigg’s 2004 stage play, which was based on his mom’s true story (as the closing credits infom).”

During a q & a last week with LACMA’s Elvis Mitchell, Phil Spector director-writer David Mamet said that over the last few years hummable motion picture soundtrack themes have either disappeared or are being heard a lot less. This hadn’t occured to me but maybe Mamet is right. It used to be that almost every significant or ambitious film had a musical theme as well as themes assigned to major characters.

I’m not saying that Gustavo Santaolalla‘s Brokeback Mountain score was the last Oscar-winner that had a simple hummable theme, but it’s the last one I recall. Did Mychael Danna‘s Life of Pi score, which won the Oscar last month, have a hummable theme or a character theme? Not that I remember. Were there any hummable themes in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross‘s Social Network score? I don’t recall any but then it wasn’t that kind of movie. A hummable theme was built into John Williams‘ War Horse score, but my mind has expelled all memories of it. I certainly remembered the two themes that Williams composed for his 20 year-old Jurassic Park score when I saw the 3D version last week, but that was another time.

I don’t accept Mamet’s observation that movie themes are nearly extinct, but they’re certainly becoming more scarce. I think that’s fair to say at this point.

How would you like to be told on Monday that the government has seized 20% of your savings because the bankers have overplayed their hand and put the country in dutch and tough titty if you don’t like it? This is reportedly about to happen to everyone in Cyprus with secured savings totalling over $100,000.

It’s part of a plan by the Cyprus government to raise $5.8 billion that’s been required by European Union lenders before they reciprocate with a 10 billion Euro hand-over that will level things out for a bit.

“A cutoff of central bank financing and the absence of a bailout agreement could cause Cypriot banks to collapse,” says a 3.23 N.Y. Times report by Liz Alderman and James Kanter.

“It could also lead to a disorderly default on the government’s debt with unpredictable repercussions for the euro monetary union, despite the country’s tiny economy.”

It’s possible that a satisfactory deal won’t be struck, of course. One of the Times reporters asked government spokesman Christos Stylianides if Cyprus has a backup plan. Stylianides said if a solution isn’t found “we are doomed.”

The citizens of Cyprus are understandably enraged. Austerity measures are necessary, but you know what would calm things down among those who feel betrayed and ripped off? Look to Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory and the sacrificial execution of three French soldiers for their failure to take the ant hill. For their failure to play their financial cards in a responsible manner, three major Cypriot bankers should be chosen at random, lined up and shot by a firing squad.

Keep in mind that Colonel Andrea Stavrou, the character played by Anthony Quinn in The Guns of Navarone, was from Crete and only pretended to be “a poor fisherman from Cyprus.”