It was announced today that the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival (6.14 through 6.24) will close with Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike, the Channing Tatum stripper film. Woody Allen‘s To Rome With Love will open it, of course. Seeking A Friend For The End of the World and Beasts of the Southern Wild will also screen. I’m going to miss the whole thing due to being in Switzerland.

“There’s something almost stunning about the straight-up realism in Haywire‘s fight scenes. Or nostalgic, I should say. As director Steven Soderbergh has acknowledged, the fight-scene realism is a kind of tribute to the train-compartment battle between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love (’63). Either you’ve seen and remembered what was great about that fight scene, or you haven’t.

“With their phony, fetishy, high-flying action-ballet bullshit, most Asian martial-arts films (efforts like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon excepted) get it so completely wrong, for whatever reason not understanding or unable to deliver Haywire‘s simple aesthetic.

“Soderbergh’s shooting and editing of the Haywire fight scenes is exquisite. Haywire is faster and more furious than Drive, but Soderbergh is clearly coming from the same ‘tone it down, think it through and make it real’ school of action cinema. At no time do Haywire‘s action scenes give you that awful feeling of being artificially adrenalized and jacked-up for the sake of coherence-defying Michael Bay-o sensation.” — from my 11.7.01 review.

I was shruggingly okay with Joss Whedon‘s The Avengers (Disney, 4.11), which I saw last night. I mean, it’s corporate CG piss in a gleaming silver bucket but I just sat there and went “okay, whatever, fine…I don’t hate it or anything.” I agree with MCN’s David Poland that “it doesn’t suck” but it’s “not actually a really good, memorable summer Movie Movie.” I looked at my watch only once, and that says something, I guess.

But I don’t think The Avengers is important enough to warrant an in-depth review, especially given my general loathing of comic-book superhero movies (with the exception of Chris Nolan‘s Batman flicks and maybe two or three others). So no general summary-and-synopsis. But I’ll share a few thoughts:

(1) Although funny at times, it’s basically a bludgeoning. You walk away feeling spent and anti-exhilarated. “Wow…that was loud,” i said as I shuffled out. “And big. And noisy as shit. And determined. With 7 or 8 funny lines. Did it kill midtown Manhattan worse than Michael Bay killed Chicago in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon? Or does that matter? I don’t know. Where do you wanna eat?”

(2) About 12 or 13 years ago I came up with an idea for one big super-parody of all CG superhero/disaster/monster/zombie films. A movie that would hit you with everything — tidal waves and earthquakes and an asteroid slamming into earth, and thousand-year-old zombies being awoken by the rumbling as well as dinosaurs — dinosaurs battling zombies! — and vampires and wolf men and slithering CG serpents, and each and every world-famous landmark being destroyed (including the Egyptian pyramids) while zombies eat Frankenstein alive and Dracula has his head bitten off by a T-Rex. And then another big meteor hits and the earth suffers further onslaughts of super tidal waves and earthquakes, and everything is just buried and drowned and burned all to hell. This is kind of what The Avengers would secretly like to deliver. The problem is that Joss Whedon and the Marvel honchos and the other corporate whores who made this are too tied to corrupt, pre-realized geek-faith “reality” jails and way too invested in maintaining and fortifying revenue streams. If they were truly free of heart and spirit they might go in my direction and just pull out all the stops and go full whacko.

(3) I agree with Amy Nicholson‘s opinion, expressed in a 4.20 Boxoffice.com review, that Mark Ruffalo‘s Bruce Banner/Hulk is the coolest and most agreeable element in the whole thing. Up with Ruffalo!

(4) Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Tony Stark/Iron Man has the best quips…surprise! But he’s still a Republican, and I just couldn’t shake that as I watched. “Tony Stark is a Republican who probably supports Romney,” etc. Over and over and over in my head.

(5) No comic-book fanboy has ever explained to me the appeal of watching superheroes duke it out as such battles ALWAYS deliver the same back-and-forth. One superhero will assert temporary superiority by pounding the other and then throwing him/her backwards through a wall or a plate of glass or whatever, and then this briefly humbled combatant will recover, shake it off and pound his/her opponent and then throw him/her through a wall or a plate of glass or whatever. Repeat ad infinitum. This is all that ever happens. Have the people who write and make these films descended to the level of dumb beasts?

(6) It’s a bit odd that The Avengers was shot in 1.85 rather than 2.35, which is how most many superhero movies are captured. Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was shot and projected at 2.4 to 1, I believe, but The Dark Knight was shot in 1.85….I think. The Avengers cost $200 million to make. What was the least super-expensive spectacle movie to be shot in 1.85? My memory tells me Waterworld but I’m not entirely certain.

(7) The best scene happens in Act One when the moronic, one-note Loki (Tom Hiddleston) asserts his power in a plaza in Stuttgart, Germany. He orders a crowd of people to drop to their knees and says, “You were made to be ruled!” And then one brave old guy, probably a Holocaust survivor, stands up and says something to the effect that tyrants are all the same. Loki is the reigning villain (if you don’t count the aliens hovering above), and it’s the best retort to a bad guy that i’ve seen or heard in a long time.

I’ve felt so saturated — fatigued — with Prometheus teasers and trailers that I initially pushed this latest version away. But it’s the most plot-explicit trailer yet. Ridley Scott‘s film opens 36 days hence in the U.S. (6.8), and on 5.30, 6.1 and 6.2 in much of Europe and the Middle East.

There’s obviously a general trend among major releases to open commercially overseas before they open in the U.S. I’m presuming this is intended to minimize piracy biting into legit revenue streams. At least I’ll get to stay abreast of things while I’m in Europe, which will be for a fairly long period — 5.4 through 6.30.

Warner Bros. publicity has invited me to press screenings of Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows next week…thanks! But they won’t let me see it this week despite my informing them that I’m flying to Berlin on Thursday…much obliged! Via Berlin is having a press screening of Dark Shadows next Monday at Cinestar Potsdamer Platz, but it’s a German-dubbed version. Astonishing. (U.S. film publicists never show dubbed versions of anything.) So my only option is to catch a non-dubbed version commercially on Thursday, 5.10 — a day before it opens in the U.S.

The irresponsible party-animal dad teaches his disciplined and resentful son a thing or two about kicking back and getting a little fun out of life. Really? Parental influence is constant, but nobody guides or persuades anybody to act in a more alpha, slap-happy way. People find their own way into behavioral adjustments…or they don’t.

This morning Sasha Stone and I welcomed AICN contributor (and also former HE columnist) Moises Chiullan to discuss the revolutionary 48 frame-per-second process that was unveiled last week at Cinemacom. It actually debuted at last year’s Cinemacon, but this year a ten-minute reel of 48 fps footage from Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit was shown.

Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.

The only thing going on is a 7 pm all-media screening of The Avengers on 42nd Street…that’s it. Which I’ll be late for if I don’t leave now.

How metrosexual do you have to be to even think about buying one of these jackets?

A restrained, decently crafted drama about growth and awakening, The Girl, which I saw Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival, gives Abbie Cornish a chance to bite into a meaty part. She plays Ashley, a not-blazingly-bright San Antonio mom who’s lost custody of her son due to a drinking issue, with quiet intensity and, to a large extent, authority. This is Cornish’s best part since…what, Candy? She’s a solid actress trying to do the right career thing, and she’s definitely scored here.

And yet Ashley doesn’t act in a way that exactly elicits sympathy or identification. She’s always a beat or two behind the audience in figuring out her next move. She gradually wakes up and flies right, but a lot of stumbling happens along the way.

Director-writer David Riker begins with Ashley losing her low-rent job at an Austin (or is it San Antonio?) super store due to pissing off her boss. Ashley is pretty and bilingual, but right away you’re noticing she’s not all that together. She’s trying to get her son back through the courts but is emotionally impulsive and undisciplined and seething about everything. Right away you’re saying “I don’t know if she’s going to make it through all the hoops.”

And then along comes Ashley’s boozing, bewhiskered truck-driver dad (Will Patton) with an offer to join him at his Mexican home for a night of tequila and celebration. Ashley knows that she has to fly straight if she wants her son back, and that child services will be paying unexpected visits to her trailer home to check on her habits…and she drives down to ole Mexico to throw down some tequila with her grungy loser dad?

Patton tells her the next day that he’s making good dough by smuggling illegal aliens across the border into the U.S.in his truck. This plants a seed. Ashley needs money badly, and eventually decides to bring four or five illegals across on her own. But she hasn’t thought things through and is rather stupidly presumptuous about the conditions of a river that the illegals will have to cross, and tragedy strikes a mother in the group, leaving her young daughter (Maritza Santiago Hernandez) alone and destitute.

The movie kicks in when Ashley realizes that she’s responsible for this tragedy, and that she’s obliged to help this little girl in some way.

We realize, of course, that this is the point of the film — for Ashley to woman up and get past her resentments and weaknesses by helping this little girl. And of course, it’s the young girl who ends up helping her. It takes a while but Ashley eventually sets things right, and is presumably in a better frame of mind as far as getting her son back and being a good mom, etc. And Riker lets her off the hook by having the young girl’s grandmother tell Ashley that the river killed the mom, and that it wasn’t Ashley’s fault. But it was, obviously, to a large extent.

All in all The Girl is a nicely subdued humanistic tale, but I can’t honestly say that I felt all that much support for Ashley, although Cornish does a fine job of portraying her as far as she goes, warts and all. Hernandez registers as the more forceful and clear-headed of the two, truth be told.

My second and final Tribeca Film Festival screening was Lucy Mulloy‘s Una Noche, which played last night at 9 pm. It’s a little raggedy at times, but always straight, fast, urgent and honed down. It’s not on the level of Fernando Meirelles‘ brilliant City of God but is a contender in that urban realm, for sure. It’s a fine first film, and Mulloy is definitely a director with passion, intelligence and promise. Approval also for her good-looking lead costar Dariel Arrechaga.

Una Noche director-writer Lucy Mulloy, star Dariel Arrechaga during q & a following Sunday night’s screening at Chelsea Clearview Cinemas.

The reason I saw it was largely because of a lady I met on the A train who told me she was going and that she’d heard it worked, etc. And she was right. I hadn’t read up or done any research to speak of (I had a lazy Sunday), so it was a lucky break.

Shot in a darting, scattershot fashion by Trevor Stuart Forrest and Shlomo Godder (who won a TFF Best Cinematography award a couple of night ago), Una Noche is a story of three dirt-poor Havana teens (Arrechada, Javier Nunez Florian and Anailin de la Rua de la Torre) planning an escape to Miami on a raft.

Just before the festival began life echoed art when Nunez and Florian “disappeared” — i.e., apparently defected — in Miami on their way to New York from Havana.

Arrechada and Florian won TFF Best Actor prizes the other night besides. Arrechada attended last night’s screening with Mulloy and participated in the post-screening q & a along with Forrest and Godder.

Una Noche feels almost too on-the-nose at times, but at the same time it plays naturally and organically. It gets right down to it and doesn’t crap around. There’s a restless urgency and exuberance in its depiction of hand-to-mouth Havana lifestyles, and a certain sexual current that always weaving in and out.

(l. to r.) Una Noche co-dps Trevor Stuart Forrest and Shlomo Godder, Mulloy, Arrechaga.

Lila (Torre) and Elio (Florian) are twins, although not exactly mirror images of each other. Elio has the repressed hots for the good-looking Raul (Arrechaga), who’s determined to leave Havana. Elio wants to join Raul in the perilous 90-mile journey but is ambivalent about leaving his family and especially his sister.

Una Noche‘s first two thirds define the chaotic lives of these three. If it’s not one thing it’s another. Raul gets into trouble with the law after injuring a Western tourist who’s had an altercation with his prostitute mom. Elio recklessly steals goods from the kitchen where he works to help Raul. It’s all about dodging the cops as Raul prepares a rubber-tire raft while wrestling with despair, and with Elio not quite able to make his feelings for Raul known.

The hustle-bustle of Havana life isn’t just “colorful” but cruel and scrappy and desperately hand-to-mouth. Everybody has big worries and is living on the knife’s edge. Nobody’s at peace.

And then the journey finally begins with Lila deciding to join her brother and Raul at the last minute. She and Raul are attracted to each other right away, and the usual sexual-tension fighting results. The irony is that Lila’s presence (or more particularly her body) creates a threat and then a tragedy at sea. I won’t get any more specific than that. Mulloy said during the q & a that she based her script on true story that had a much darker ending than her own.

The economy of Una Noche is born out by its running time — a mere 89 minutes. Everybody looks good at the end of it. This is one of those little films that came together just right. Not perfectly or exquisitely but memorably, and that’s what counts.