Speakeasy‘s Christoper John Farley saw Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine (Sony Classics, 7.26) last night, and he’s reporting that Cate Blanchett is more or less playing Ruth Madoff (or…you know, a Ruth Madoff-y character) and that her performance “will likely generate early Oscar buzz.” And that Alec Baldwin (also strong) is the Bernie-like figure, doing time for crooked financial shenanigans and leaving Blanchett to deal with the economic & emotional backwash. Pic also stars Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins and Peter Sarsgaard.

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It’s fitting that this review appears on rogerebert.com. Remember (and I don’t mean any disrespect) that every now and then Roger could be very friendly to films that most of the movie-reviewing community hated. The tradition of the smart, insightful reviewer with a kind or compassionate streak didn’t begin with F.X. Feeney, but he’s probably the most respected practitioner of this kind of thing. Now he has an ally in Matt Zoller Seitz. Nothing wrong with that.

The best review-compilation books contain riffs and thoughts that take you back to when this or that film was fresh out of the bakery. Review after review, film after film, they make you want to go there again. Tell me these portions of Peter Rainer‘s review of Being John Malkovich, cribbed from the currently-on-sale Rainer on Film (URL: http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2013/05/mr-cranky-with-class-insight-feeling/), don’t nudge you in this direction. Ditto a subsequent riff from Rainer’s review of Fight Club.

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Shawn Levy‘s The Internship, the much-derided Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson comedy about 40ish Google interns, is sneaking tonight nationwide at 7 pm. Will those HE readers without a confirmed hate agenda please attend and report back after the screening? Thank you. I’ll run whatever comes in, of course, but a voice has been telling me all along that this film half-works, at the very least. And maybe better than that. The online derision has been based on next to nothing. Fox wouldn’t be sneaking it if they didn’t know for sure that it plays well.

I’m bringing nothing original to the table from Switzerland but let’s review the basics. After Earth‘s Rotten Tomatoes verdict is the pits — it’s the new Battlefield Earth. And so far the public appears underwhelmed with the M. Night Shyamalan-directed sci-fi adventure expected to reach the mid $20s by Sunday night, which Deadline‘s Nikki Finke is calling a shortfall given expectations of a mid 30s-to-low 40s haul. So basically it’s a tank and a major embarassment and very possibly the end of (or certainly a roadblock to) Jaden Smith‘s big-screen career.

I don’t think ticket-buyers are hip or curious enough to smell the Scientology metaphor, which Vulture‘s Matt Patches has recently pointed out (“After Earth Is Will Smith’s Love Letter to Scientology” — URL: http://www.vulture.com/2013/05/after-earth-will-smith-love-letter-to-scientology.html). I think the rejection of After Earth is more fundamental than that. Audiences resented the idea of shelling out to see an unproven and not-all-that-charismatic or even talented teenage kid just because he’s Will Smith‘s sire.

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So that’s an unfortunate fail for the Hotel Schuetzen Lauterbrunnen (URL: http://www.hotelschuetzen.com/en/) because of their totally shitty, verging-on-nonexistent wifi. They’re fine, I’m fine, it’s nobody fault and I’m checking my ass out this morning and heading back to Berne for the night. All I know is that a cafe right next door to the Hotel Schuetzen Lauterbrunnen has absolutely drop-dead, world-class, lightning-fast wifi. They get it and Schutzenites don’t.

Most of the good people who stay in this place are retirees who wear sandals with brown socks. These people are not part of the dynamic 2013 world and are therefore content to reside in a a wifi black hole. Fine for them — not so good for a fellow like myself. No biggie. I just don’t have time for this crap. And Berne is a very spirited town.

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If I came back as a cow, I’d want to live in Lauterbrunnen. A friend said yesterday that the sight of cows gloomed her out because they all end up being slaughtered. To which I replied, “Wait…cows get slaughtered?” Then I thought about it. The basic principle of any farm is to never let anything go to waste so I guess when cows reach retirement age it’s off to the House of Death. I’m fairly certain that farmers don’t just let them get sick and drop dead on the pasture. So in a way the story of every cow is mirrored in Shohei Imamura‘s The Ballad of Narayama.

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Yesterday in Berne I came upon a small park that was used for an important scene in Smiley’s People (’82), the six-part BBC miniseries adaptation of John Le Carre‘s 1979 novel. made for the BBC. It’s the scene in which the corrupt Soviet diplomat Grigoriev (exquisitely played by Michael Londsdale) is kidnapped by Toby Esterhase (Bernard Hepton) and his men, and driven to a flat where a well-armed George Smiley (Alec Guinness) awaits. (The scene begins at 1:06 in this clip.) I happened upon it by accident, but I recognized it instantly.

Thursday, 5.30, 2:35 pm.

My son Jett, a highly sophisticated music guy, swears by Pitchfork (“easily the most cutting-edge hipster music site…the best place to read about music you can’t stand”) and is telling me I should visit The Dissolve, a Pitchfork-created, Chicago-based movie site, when it debuts sometime this summer. I still have no WordPress embed capability (although it briefly returned in Paris a couple of days ago) so the URL is http://thedissolve.com.

Led by editorial director Keith Phipps and edited by Scott Tobias, The Dissolve “will feature reviews, commentary, interviews, and news about the films of the moment, while also exploring more than a century of film history”…fascinating! “[Covering] everything from the latest studio blockbusters to American independent films to vital imports from around the world, the site will also conduct in-depth conversations with filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors while engaging in commentary that goes beyond gossip and box-office results.” Wait…I do that! Okay, I don’t talk to that many actors.

And Paul Dano plays the creepo. Hugh Jackman goes vigilante when a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) fails to find his kidnapped daughter. Paychecks for Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, etc. Directed by Incendies helmer Denis Villeneuve (Incendies) and penned by Contraband‘s Aaron Guzikowski. Whoa…Contraband with Mark Wahlberg? This is what’s known in the motion picture industry as an “uh-oh” moment. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Opens on 9.20.