I’m sorry but I can’t see how this old-guy version of The Hangover can escape mediocrity with a script by the dreaded Dan Fogelman, who will live in infamy forever for having written Stupid Crazy Love, and the likelihood of rote, by-the-numbers direction by Jon Turtletaub, who gave us National Treasure and Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Straight paycheck work for Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and supporting players.

Michael Douglas, who presumably plays the older guy who’s about to get married, looks terrific.

Prediction: Gaiety, booze, hookers, madness…and one of them croaks.

Hats off to Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted and Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott for successfully cutting back on early voting in their states and thereby creating long agonizing voting lines and suppressing the Democratic vote as much as possible. The rightwing view these days is that you do what you need to do is help your guy win. Echoes of South American generals and goon squads favoring the oligarchs.

For the 179th time, George Lucas has spoken about how he plans to one day make his “own little personal films.” He conveyed this intention, which he has voiced for many years without actually doing making any small personal films, while attending Ebony magazine’s Power 100 Gala last Friday night. Lucas said that his last film, Red Tails, “barely got into theatres [but] I’m going to go further out than that. The [films] I’m working on now will never get into the theaters.”

It’s not Romney’s silence in response to the “End Climate Silence” guy asking about the connection beteen climate change and Hurricane Sandy. And it’s not his idiotic Ken Doll expression when the crowd boos the questioner. It’s the “USA! USA! USA!” chanting in response to the climate-change guy. It’s un-American and un-patriotic, in short, to warn about climate change because it’ll get in the way of job growth. Reducing greenhouse gases is a metrosexual European thing. We’re Americans, and we drive muscle cars!

A thought hit me during Sunday night’s dinner at Bouchon for Beyond The Hills and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days director Cristian Mungiu that he could be in the Terrence Malick business if he wanted it. His rep as a woman-friendly, deep-focus, introspective helmer is such he could make indie-fashioned pics in this country with any in-demand actress in the business. They’d all work with him at the drop of a hat, Meryl Streep on down, because he’s a celebrated, Bresson-like perfectionist.

Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu at Bouchon — Sunday, 11.4, 10:07 pm.

I asked Mungiu about this and he said that he’s heard from more than a few American actresses, all saying they’d love to work with him. But he really is a Bressonian in that he prefers (or has so far preferred) to work with non-actresses. He also says there’s something about the aura of an established or famous actress that might impose itself upon his process…maybe. But he’s open to the right thing if it seems right, he said, so no doors are firmly closed. He said he recently got an email from director William Friedkin about wanting to meet, partly because they’ve both shot films about exorcisms. But he’s leaving Los Angeles tomorrow with no plans to return anytime soon.

Mungiu, dp Svetlana Cvetko — Sunday, 11.4, 10:10 pm.

Three of these films deliver drop-dead beautiful images of wide-open, arid, non-green landscapes, courtesy of dps Freddie Young, James Wong Howe, Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn.

I consider The Limey to be a “comfort film” — one that I can pop in any time of day (but usually late at night) and just settle into for pleasure.

Two or three days ago I did a brief sitdown with Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu, whom I consider to be a major, world-class talent and a master of plain, austere minimalism. I had last spoken with him during promotion for the great Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. I’m off to see Beyond The Hills again right now; a dinner with Mungiu and other admirers will follow.

The 65th Cannes Film Festival jury gave the Best Actress award to Beyond The Hills costars Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur.

Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas and I got along so well on 10.21 that we decided to
go again this afternoon. Weekend box-office, Wreck-It-Ralph, Skyfall, Silver Linings Playbook, Anna Karenina, Beyond The Hills and the leading Best Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress contenders. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.

I rarely venture into, much less dwell upon, box-office cheerleading, but you have to pay tribute to the worldwide monster haul of Sam Mendes‘ Skyfall, which doesn’t even open here until Friday. The 23rd film in the 007 series pulled down a wowser $156 million this weekend, which puts the 10-day overseas total at $287 million. If that’s not staggering news, it’s fairly close to that. And the Skyfall revenues have given Sony Int’l its all-time biggest year ever — $2.6 billion through today. Overall Sony has sold $3.6 billion in movie tickets and a shot at reaching its first $4 billion year ever.

An 11.3 column by N.Y. Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called “How Romney Would Treat Women” says it pretty well, I think.