NYFF Memories from Film Society of Lincoln Center on Vimeo.

The Rolling Stones were no raunchier or hornier or more insolent or sullen and/or more inclined to experiment with exotic weeds or chemicals than the Beatles or the Kinks or any other British band in the early to mid ’60s. They were just bluesier mostly. More honky tonk. Who said “women should be obscene and not heard”? None of the Stones.

Crossfire Hurricane will debut on HBO on November 15th.

There’s nothing wrong with Indiewire‘s Peter Knegt running an article about the perceived strengths and demerits of Ang Lee‘s Life of Pi. But calling it “The Case For And Against The Front-Runner Status of Life of Pi” is like reading a piece in The New Republic that begins with an acknowledgement that Mitt Romney‘s election as U.S. President of November 6th is a distinct possibility. On what planet?

At best Life of Pi is the Hugo of 2012, and perhaps a bit less than that. It’s probably destined to be nominated a Best Picture nomination, okay, and maybe Best Adapted Screenplay…possibly. But calm down. Strictly tech awards.

“It’s stolen the buzz from Silver Linings Playbook, Argo and The Master” = it opened the New York Film Festival four nights ago and made a big splash in our minds, and then we all went to the after-party at the Harvard Club…whoo-hoo!”

This new Killing Them Softly one-sheet is not just effective marketing but a great piece of commercial art. (Who’s responsible? Weinstein in-house or an agency?) It tells the viewer that Andrew Dominik‘s melodrama has a head on its shoulder, that it’s more about serious content than popcorn, and is some kind of political metaphor crime flick with style to burn. Sight unseen (save for those of us who saw it in Cannes) it ups the prestige factor. Part hair-on-the-walls, part Jackson Pollock.

“Surprisingly, Andrew Dominik‘s Killing Them Softly isn’t your father’s tough-talkin’ George V. Higgins gritty crime pic,” I wrote on 5.22 from Cannes. “Well, it is but it persistently and rather curiously pushes concurrent political commentary about the ’08 financial collapse, Obama, hope, cynicism, ruthlessness and American greed.

“So this isn’t The Friends of Eddie Coyle, mon ami, but a Metaphor Movie. The political newscast and Obama-speech clips are interwoven a bit more persistently than is necessary. But the ending of Killing Me Softly, no question, hits it right slam on the head. I chuckled. I left the theatre with a grin.

“The plot is basically about Brad Pitt‘s Jackie Cogan, a hard-as-nails hitman, being hired to rub out a few guys involved in the robbing of a Boston poker game, as well as an unlucky rackets guy (Ray Liotta) who didn’t really do anything but tough shit — he’s on the list regardless. And yet the first 25% to 30% of the film is Pitt-less, focusing on the perps and their grubby, slip-shod realm.

“Cogan, a down-to-business, cut-the-shit assassin, is about doing the job, period. Rationality, efficiency, no personal issues or baggage — an exemplar, in a sense, of ‘clean living,’ which is what Dominik, during the just-finished press conference and somewhat flippantly, said the film is partly espousing.

“Above all Cogan is no believer in community and equality and Barack Obama’s high-falutin’ talk about sharing and ‘we’re all in this together.’ Eff that.

“Killing Them Softly, then, is a fairly novel thing — an ‘Obama’s rhetoric is full of shit’ crime movie. Okay, not Obama’s per se, but his inspirational come-together theme of the ’08 campaign (a clip from his acceptance speech in Chicago is used at the beginning and end) or the generic uplift rhetoric of ‘America the beautiful.’ Pull the wool off, take the needle out, wake up to what America is.

“Most of Softly, like any good crime pic, is about character, dialogue, minutae, this and that manner of slimeball scumbag, rain, sweat, snack, bottles of beer, guns and old cars (i.e., ratty old buckets, classic muscle cars, ’80s gas guzzlers). Nobody in Killing Me Softly ever heard of a Prius.

“Pitt delivers a solid, snarly performance as the bearded, leather-jacketed Cogan. But running a close second is Scoot McNairy as a scuzzy thief who’s out of his depth. He does more than just scuzz around and suck in cigarette smoke. He exudes fear and anguish along the usual cocky irreverence required of any bottom-tier criminal. He should and will be seen again, and often.

“Other stands performances come from Richard Jenkins, Vincent Curatola and the Australian Ben Mendelsohn, acting with his native accent, as the sweatiest and gunkiest no-account junkie west of the Pecos.

“Given a choice between an unfettered, down-to-basics George V. Higgins crime drama and what Softly‘s double-track variation is, I’m mostly pleased with the latter. We all know the about the lure of rugged, tangy, straight-punch crime films, which much of Softly is. We’ve been there many, many times. So why not a crime film that goes for something else on top of the usual-usual? Ladies and gents, it’s okay with me.”

Pennsylvania judge Robert Simpson has temporarily nulllified Pennsylvania’s voter identification requirement (which is essentially about suppression of minority and youth votes), ordering that it not be enforced in the presidential election on Tuesday, November 6th.

Simpson also said he “will not restrain election officials from asking for photo ID at the polls; rather, I will enjoin enforcement of those parts of Act 18 which directly result in disenfranchisement.” In other words, righties can harass voters who lack the right kind of ID but they can’t stop them from voting.

Simpson’s ruling can be appealed to the state’s Supreme Court (and you know it will be) but Simpson deserves a round of applause.

Yesterday’s Sasha-breakup recriminations got rough at times. Many French grenades and shells were lobbed at the German trenches and vice versa. I fully realize, of course, that it wasn’t Sasha talking as much as her loyal surrogates. her attack dogs. Anyway, I imparted a skeptical view of friendship as embraced and practiced by under-35ers, and before you knew it guys like Ghost of Kazan were writing that I’ve put “people who think friendship is important” on my disdain list alongside those who take long showers, wait for photo takers, wear sandals and recline in airline seats.

There is almost nothing I’ve ever written in this space, good or bad or silly or profound, that hasn’t been absurdly, ridiculously misinterpereted by the scrambled-egg minds of HE commenters.

What Ghost of Kazan said isn’t even occasionally true. I greatly value my friends — old, new, casual, business-oriented, developing. I just don’t bank on them as much as I used to. I take them as they come and I always offer a warm hand, a friendly wink and a nice pat on the back from time to time. But I am the captain of my ship, and there are very few people I can really and truly count on to take the wheel when I need to take a nap or hit the head or grab some grub. Especially in rough seas.

Investment in friends is absolute in your teens, when they are as vital as breathing. And friends are very, very important in your 20s when you need allies and comforters because life tends to kick people around a bit more during that period. But gradually friends thin out. They get consumed by this or that, move to other cities, have kids, become despondent or less attentive or ardent (sometimes due to alcohol, other times over some spiritual crisis or aadness that comes along). I hate to break it to the 20somethings out there, but a lot of them disappoint and lose faith and fall away.

Thank God for the ones who stand by you through thick and thin, but they are relatively few and far between. It’s hard for 20somethings to foresee this, but this is how it goes.

Ask anyone who’s been around the track a few times long enough to suffer bruises and an occasional laceration or scar…anyone who’s been used, sued, abused, subdued and tattooed…about the value of friends, and he/she will probably say “as far as they go friends are great…great nourishers, great comforters, wellsprings of joy, providers of warmth, balms for the soul.” It’s those first five words that separate the men from the boys. Friends are rainwater as far as they go, but many of them are fair-weatherish and they all have problems of their own. They will listen and smile and invite you over for dinner, but they are grace notes. They will not save you.

The older you get, the more you take it as it comes. And the more you listen to the hum and act accordingly. There is a cosmic hum within and without, and that sound, that well, that vibration, that universal rumble of the ship’s engine not only tells you everything you need to know, it pretty much gives you everything you need to know. Especially if you write for a living. I will extend all the good will and good cheer I can share with friends, acquaintances and strangers alike, but I do not live for whatever profound comforts they may offer from time to time (which they do, of course), and I certainly don’t look for them to make things right in my corner. That’s on me.

I said yesterday that “I have two sons, good friends, my sweet mom, girlfriends, chums, old friends, tons of friendly business-level acquaintances, ex-girlfriends, healthy alliances and two great cats, but the days when I defined my self-worth and feelings of satisfaction and emotional comfort based on inter-personal alpha contact with intimate friends and pallies (‘does he/she like me as much as he/she did last year or five years ago?,’ ‘what’s that vibe about?,’ ‘should I have handled this situation differently?’, blah blah) have been over a for a lonnnng time. That way of processing life peaked for me in my 20s.”

A couple of hours ago The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg posted news that the Oscar chances of Beasts of the Southern Wild have been compromised by the Screen Actors Guild on a technicality. The Fox Searchlight release “has been ruled ineligible for the Screen Actors Guild Awards because it was not made under the terms of SAG Low Budget Feature Agreement, which mandates the use of professional actors.

“Out of financial necessity (he had a budget of just $1.3 million) and a desire for the greatest possible sense of authenticity,” director Benh Zeitlin “used locals who had never acted before and therefore were not SAG members,” Feinberg reports.

Feinberg calls this “a small roadblock” in front of the film’s Oscar chances “because the SAG Awards sometimes mirror the Academy’s selections” but I don’t know. I think this is more of a mid-sized to significant roadblock. This is a movie, remember, that was being called an “iffy” contender already. I think it should definitely be a Best Picture contender plus a Best Actress for whatsername…Quvenzhane Wallis…for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. Forget the guy who plays her dad…too much yelling and boozing.

David Poland, a fan of Anna Karenina, too often takes things in a glib, chit-chatty, hoo-hoo direction, but this sitdown isn’t too bad. I’m seeing it again next Tuesday night, and after all the fighting I can’t wait to re-encounter.

Last Friday morning I posted a shot of the new Zero Dark Thirty one-sheet, but later that day a Sony rep asked me to take it down because of an exclusivity deal they have with Yahoo! Movies. Sure, I said, but if you don’t want people to discuss a new poster don’t hang it in the lobby of the Jimmy Stewart building.

Zero Dark Thirty is the second end-of-the-year film that explains how a possibly dodgy secret operation involving the hoodwinking of Islamic militants was pulled off. The first film in this vein is/was Argo. We had a goal, we put one over, they didn’t see us coming and wham!…we nailed it.

Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci has posted a lively, defiant and probably necessary response to Andrew O’Hehir‘s 9.28 Salon piece titled “Is Movie Culture Dead?” and subtitled “The era when movies ruled the culture is long over. Film culture is dead, and TV is to blame.”

“I think what’s bugging O’Hehir is that the ‘chattering class’ isn’t made up of the same people as in 1977 ],” Faraci writes at midpoint. “I get the mourning for a lost niche, for a specialization democratized out of existence. It’s happening with geek culture right this very minute. All of a sudden liking the third highest-grossing movie of all time makes you ‘a geek.’ That sucks. It sucks seeing the doorman overwhelmed and losing your special place in the world.

“What O’Hehir is missing on a larger scale, though, is that the era of big, centralized culture is over. The culture is fragmented in a zillion pieces, and there’s nobody leading the way anymore. There’s very little that unites us around the water cooler. Even the biggest TV hits bring in a fraction of the ratings of old shows. The same goes for movies.

“I’m not sure that there ever will be another driving cultural force the way that movies were in the 1970s. So yes, I’ll give O’Hehir the point that film was more culturally central in the 70s than it is now. Yes, to be intellectually hip you had to see the smart movies, the foreign movies, the interesting movies. But unless you long for a culture of poseurs, who cares? And beyond that, there is no cultural center anymore.

“The fracturing of the culture comes as a result of the digital revolution; now we’re living a la carte entertainment lifestyles.

“I complain about the internet a lot, and I’m not the biggest proponent of virtual democratization, but I like the way the web has taken the conversation out of the hands of the elite and let everybody have a say. Not everybody’s say is worth listening to, but just because someone was at the right cocktail parties in Manhattan also doesn’t make their say worth hearing. I think that maybe O’Hehir should try listening to those outside of the New York Film Festival crowd, though, before writing them off as ‘fanboys.’

Another worthwhile Faraci observation: “Frankly, any year that has Holy Motors and Cloud Atlas in it is the wrong year to call time of death on film culture. I know we’re going to see thrilling discussion coming from those films. I can’t even find a mention of The Master in [O’Hehir’s] piece.”

Wells to Faraci: I don’t want to hear any bitching about how I’ve excerpted too much of your piece. I’ve posted maybe 25% of what you wrote, if that.

Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg and I talked for an hour last night about everything. Scott and I talk the same language so it was a good fit. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link. We talked about End of Watch, early screeners being sent out (Arbitrage screeners should be mailed ASAP), Silver Linings Playbook pushback (which Scott may or may not be a part of) and yaddah yaddah.

I guess I’m being extra-assertive about posting Oscar Poker chats in order to assert that I almost feel liberated without Sasha because now I don’t have to sidestep the fact that she hasn’t seen this or that new film because she had to do something with her daughter.

My sound-editing skills are obviously nothing to shout about, but I probably have the ability to learn a thing or two. (Sasha really has her skills down in this regard, and her taste in music is far more sophisticated than mine.) I still haven’t figured out how to upload to iTunes but I’ll get that down eventually.

I hit my local WeHo Pavilions last night for provisions, and in less than five minutes I had donated my iPhone 4S (which I’d just bought a new battery for at the cost of $60-something bills) to some aisle-wandering sociopath. I do stuff like this. I’ll place an item of value on a shelf or a tabletop while distracted by some fleeting, absent-minded-professor thought, and then I’ll walk away and it gets stolen or it doesn’t. Most of the time the item will get turned in and everything’s cool, but not last night.

I ran anxiously and somewhat angrily from aisle to aisle in search of the damn thing, of course…pant, pant. Within three or four minutes I had asked the Pavilions manager to call my number in hopes that I might hear the distinctive ring (20th Century Fox fanfare) but no dice.

I went out to my car to see if I’d left it on the seat, and on my way back in I noticed a swarthy. greasy-looking homeless type on his way out without groceries. Who goes into a Pavilions and leaves from the entrance door without bags of food? No-accounts looking to gnosh on whatever they can find in the deli department, right? An instinct told me to stop this guy or ask him to empty his pockets (or even tackle him and search his pockets) but that would have made me look bad with the cops being called so I let it go, but I’m guessing there’s at least a 50% or 60% chance that he was the guy.

The phone was probably in reach and reclaimable, in short, but my inner Lee Marvin wimped out. In a sense this is the story of my life.

I did the tracking thing with that iPad3 “find your lost iPhone” software, but the phone has to be using wifi to be located and so far it hasn’t shown up. At least the thief (possibly that icky-looking greaseball) is smart enough to know you have to turn off a stolen phone so it can’t be tracked. I could go on Craig’s List today and respond to every new ad for a used iPhone 4S with a Westside phone number, I suppose, but the odds are not in my favor.

Now I’ll have to buy a new one so I guess I’ll get the effing iPhone 5, which I hate the idea of because I’ll have to buy three charging connectors besides. I have to have three so I don’t have to switch off between my three computers. I feel angry like Elvis Costello in the late ’70s.