Yesterday’s viewing of Saving Mr. Banks reminded me once again that the lead performances that win the most applause are (a) almost always from name-brand actors and (b) those that they haven’t stretched or reached for but have relaxed into like an old shoe. We all respect and admire the effort and artistry that goes into an exotic transformational performance, but most of the time we prefer the company of “friends” whom we’ve come to know and feel comfortable with. This is what movie stars do, and why we pay to see them in films and will often praise their “performances”, when in fact they’re mainly just sharing with us in a way that we like. They’re using a little bit of vocal or body English to pass along a feeling of “performing” and that’s fine, but we’re mostly paying for an agreeable hang-out.

In short, movie stars basically play themselves, and that’s all we want them to do. The movie-star performances that win Oscars tend to be those in which the consensus is that “this is the best fit yet — the most natural and filled-out act of self-portraiture this or that actor has ever given us.”

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In yesterday morning’s “What, Me Cancer?” piece, I referenced remarks attributed to Saving Mr. Banks star Tom Hanks during Saturday night’s BAFTA tribute about how Disney execs refused to allow any images of Walt Disney, a three-pack-a-day man until his death from lung cancer in late 1966, smoking in the film. Hanks said there was a “negotiation” about whether or not he could be filmed holding a lit cigarette in a scene, and that the decision was that “he could not.” Actually the film does include a very brief bit in which Hanks/Disney is shown stubbing a butt out in an ashtray. Not holding it or inhaling, God forbid, but at least you can see a flash of a cigarette and a thin plume of smoke before Hanks extinguishes it. So the negotiations yielded something, at least.

Early last May I ran a rave review of Kelly Marcel‘s script of Saving Mr. Banks. The name of the piece was “If Saving Mr. Banks Is As Good as The Script…” Well, I saw Saving Mr. Banks in London this morning, and I’m sorry to say that the movie I “ran” in my head as I read Marcel’s script seemed a little better than the version I saw today, which has been directed in a cautious, somewhat rote fashion by John Lee Hancock. I didn’t hate or dislike it. I felt reasonably engaged. It pays off reasonably well at the end. But it tries very hard to please, and you can feel that effort every step of the way. And it’s aimed at the squares.

This isn’t to say that Saving Mr. Banks, which will open the AFI Film Fest on 11.7, lacks feeling or spirit or finesse. It has these qualities plus two stand-out performances from Emma Thompson as “Mary Poppins” creator and author P.L. (i.e., Pamela) Travers and Tom Hanks as the legendary Walt Disney. It will be popular, I’m guessing, with those who love the 1964 film version of Mary Poppins as well as the patented Disney approach to family entertainment. And it may snag Oscar noms for Thompson, Hanks and Marcel. And it may make a pile of money from a blend of family and general audiences. But it’s not my idea of a Best Picture contender…sorry. It doesn’t feel carefully measured or focused or shaded enough to warrant that honor. It’s too hammy, too family-filmish — it approaches a farcical tone at times. And it tries too hard to make you choke up.

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London Film Festival press-passers (myself included) saw Saving Mr. Banks at 10 am this morning at the Leicester Square Odeon, and then a percentage of same attended the Banks press conference at the Dorchester at 2:45 pm. It also rained a lot. I’m tapping out my review and will post it around 11 pm London time, as requested by Disney publicity. In the meantime here are some diversionary photos and videos — ugly car, beginning of Banks press conference, Dorchester visitors stranded on front steps by rainstorm, hazy head shots, etc.

The ugliest Lamborghini in world history was parked outside the Dorchester this afternoon, obviously owned by someone filthy rich (some Middle-Eastern guy?) and clueless beyond belief. It has to be a guy — no woman would drive around in something like this. I’m also guessing that the style is borrowed from Joseph Kosinski‘s Tron. The guy who bought this car needs to have his wealth impounded and then it needs to be given to the poor.

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It’s good that Benedict Cumberbatch has been enjoying his big emergence moment since…what, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? My personal shorthand is that he’s the new lizard-eyed Richard Burton. Cumberbatch is planted and vivid and very “right now” but he does look like a brilliant fellow with rather cool blood in his veins. That’s not a putdown. It’s just something in his vibe and genes. The feeling of acute intelligence within him is quite fierce. I could be wrong but he’ll never be able to costar in anything dumb or downmarket.

One morning about a week ago I started feeling a sense of something bad around the corner. I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe my mother had suffered another stroke and taken a turn for the worse. (We’ve all heard stories about parents and wives sensing it when a son or husband has died or been hurt in a war zone.) Then I thought it might be girlfriend trouble, but I decided against that possibility. (Things are always in flux on that front.) Then I thought that my obese Siamese cat Mouse had been hit by a car — nope. All I knew was that something was causing this queasy-gut feeling. And then the day passed and the sun came up the next morning and the feeling went away. So much for premonitions, but for a while there I was sure something was up.

Nobody does cruelty and savagery like teenagers in high school. Especially those in their early to mid teens. I was thinking about this in the wake of Kimberley Peirce‘s Carrie, about a teenaged girl with exceptional powers being picked on by venal female classmates, and the recent suicide death of 14 year-old Rebecca Sedwick, the Floridian girl who jumped to her death after being bullied online about some inane matter. (Her taunters, one or two of whom are now being prosecuted, were apparently ragging on Sedwick because she had been seeing somebody’s ex-boyfriend.) I was also thinking back to the grief I went through in high school because I was “different” in my own way. What a joyful experience that was! I remember the taunting and the cruelty like it was yesterday.

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A hero or good-guy protagonist is always more interesting if he has weaknesses or flaws of some kind. If you can portray a basically honorable fellow with problems or vulnerabilities, it always enriches the flavor of the character and the portrayal both…no? Which is why I was intrigued when I read about possibly erroneous assertions by Maersk Alabama crew members that the real-life Captain Richard Phillips, portrayed by Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips, may have ignored or unwisely dismissed reports about Somalia pirate threats prior to the 2009 hijacking and hostage crisis.

It may be, as noted, that these allegations are untrue, but if I’d been in the shoes of Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray, I probably would have seized upon this material as it’s always more engaging when you have a slightly blemished, less-than-true-blue hero.

In a recent Reddit discussion Greengrass said he’s “confident that Captain Phillips did not take an irresponsible route along the coast of Somalia and ignore a specific warning, as alleged in the press. We spoke to every member of the Alabama crew bar one, all of the U.S. Military responders that played a leading role in these events, and thoroughly researched backgrounds of the four pirates and the issue of Somali piracy generally. And I’m 100% satisfied that the picture we present of these events in the film, including the role playing by Captain Phillips, is authentic.

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In a 10.16 N.Y. Times piece about Saving Mr. Banks, the upcoming John Lee Hancock film about the fierce debate between Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) about the tone and emphasis of the Mary Poppins script, Brooks Barnes reports that Walt Disney Studios adopted a more or less hands off, comme ci comme ca attitude regarding the film’s portrayal of the studio’s founder.

Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson in John Lee Hancock and Kelly Marcel’s Saving Mr. Banks.

The article, titled “Forget the Spoonful of Sugar: It’s Uncle Walt, Uncensored — Saving Mr. Banks Depicts a Walt Disney With Faults,” says that Hanks’ Disney “acts in a very un-Disney way. He slugs back Scotch. He uses a mild curse word. He wheezes because he smokes too much.” And Banks producer Allison Owen all but shudders with pleasure when she says to Barnes, “Wow, this was so not the battle I anticipated…Disney behaved impeccably.”

Not really. Or at least, not entirely. According to remarks attributed to Hanks by Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione at a BAFTA tribute last night in London, Disney execs were not only skittish but downright censoring when it came to any thoughts of showing Disney actually smoking.

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It’s 11 pm in London. With less than three hours of “sleep” on the flight over (the best anyone can manage in coach is a form of slumber that’s more about willpower and Advil PM than actual rest) I’ve been forcing myself to stay up all day. London is not an easy town. It’s huge and sprawling and crowded and expensive as hell. And they have something against precise numerical addresses that defies GPS and makes it difficult to find this and that. I actually had to ask directions from people, which I haven’t done in years. Plus I was having trouble finding free wifi. Plus the Starbucks outlets I found aren’t very large and they don’t have any wall outlets, and that pissed me off. I’m figuring if I wake up around 5 am (or 9 pm L.A. time) I can tap out two or three articles before leaving for the 10 am Saving Mr. Banks screening.

I flirted for about 45 seconds with buying a ticket to this Old Vic production of Much Ado About Nothing, but the jet lag would’ve gotten in the way. I would have been nodding. The last time I bought a seat at the Old Vic was in early December of 1980, when I saw Peter O’Toole in a heavily panned production of Macbeth.

I’ll wager that no movie theatre in the United States has ballyhooed Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said to this degree. I came along this evening and went, “Whoa…the size of that marquee! You can see it three or four blocks away. This is like Times Square in the ’50s or ’60s.” James Gandolfini is looking down from heaven and saying to himself,. “Those Londoners know how to make a movie feel special.”

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Two days ago I had one of those Hollywood Elsewhere this-is-how-things-look-now spitball discussions with Blackfilm.com‘s Wilson Morales. We didn’t digress into personal passions or dig into any subject with any kind of corkscrew device. We just hopped from category to category, assessing and yap-yapping and skimming across the pond. But we didn’t beat around the bush either. Hanks (Best Actor) vs. Hanks (Best Supporting Actor), Nyong’o vs. Winfrey, the Dern calculus, etc. If nothing else our chat reminded me to (a) give serious thought to Captain Phillips costar Barkhad Abdi as a Best Supporting Actor contender and (b) Jennifer Garner as a Best Supporting Actress contender for her performance in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Again, the mp3.

Late Thursday afternoon I spoke to 12 Years A Slave screenwriter John Ridley about…well, everything I could think of. The critical acclaim, Ridley’s expert recreation of formal mid 19th Century dialogue (which I haven’t heard done this well since Ed Zwick‘s Glory), the milqetoast pushback factor (i.e., older industry voices expressing reluctance to sit through Slave’s “tough medicine” scenes), Ridley’s Jimi Hendrix film All Is By My Side. For some inexplicable reason I didn’t ask Ridley about one of Slave‘s most riveting scenes — a wordless, almost agonizing moment between Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Solomon Northup character and a woman with whom he briefly has sex, both of them desperate to escape their tormented reality as slaves. No love, no familiarity, no intimate connection — their coupling is strictly about “we’ve gotta get ourselves out of this situation for at least a couple of minutes.” In the annals of sex scenes it’s classic stuff, and is one of the reasons Ridley is sure to land a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Again, the mp3.

12 Years A Slave screenwriter John Ridley.