This is one of the greatest “no laugh funny” films ever made. I can watch it over and over and never make a sound, and discover something fresh about it every time. I actually laughed out loud three or four times when I first saw it 12 and 1/2 years ago, but only at the odd stuff like (a) Orson Bean‘s scenes, (b) John Cusack slowly tongue-mouthing his way toward guessing Catherine Keener‘s name and (c) Mary Kay Place mis-hearing things.

Charlie Kaufman will never write anything like Being John Malkovich ever again. He was at a very particular place in the mid ’90s that led him to the sucking-mud-tunnel concept and being coughed out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike and all that, but he’ll never, ever find that particular kind of inspiration ever again. He’s creatively moved on and become a hot-shot director, the culture has moved on, we’ve all moved on…nevermore.

The Criterion Bluray is out May 15th. Meaning that I’ll be begging Criterion to slip me a review copy before I leave for Cannes, etc.

Safe House, Phantom Menace 3D, The Vow, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, Act of Valor, Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. Take Safe House off the list and none of these films are worth writing home about, and yet they’ve all made exceptional coin. There’s always been an aesthetic disconnect between Joe Popcorn and people like myself, but it seems much more pronounced recently. These are the February-March doldrums. I’m levitating with pride over my complete disinterest in The Lorax, which made $70 million this weekend.

I rarely make a sound when something is funny. I laugh inwardly for the most part, and I’m fine with that. I’ve sincerely praised many films (i.e., Greenberg) for being “no laugh funny.” But Saturday Night Live‘s humor is rarely even that. I don’t even titter inwardly. The writers are obviously sharp and clever and attuned to the culture but all the performers do in these skits is portray smug, clueless and/or arrogant assholes by way of tabloid fixtures and cultural stereotypes.

Here’s how I put in September 2009: “I almost prefer the kind of comedy that is clearly coming from a place of modest merriment (perverse or otherwise) but which you don’t really laugh at. Call them smirkers or half-chortlers or simply no-laugh comedies. Films that seem to float along on a charged-attitude high — a frame of mind that’s clearly dispensing amusement but not quite to the point of inspiring audible reactions. (Except from those awful people in theatres who laugh too loudly and too often.)

“And I’m not talking about flagantly and painfully unfunny films like The Year One, any of the Rush Hour movies, any of the ‘comedies’ by the Wayans brothers, anything starring Anna Faris or Will Ferrell or anything like Duplex or Rumor Has It or Gigli or what-have-you. I’m talking about movies that know what they’re doing and have a fine sense of dry humor but aren’t actually ‘funny.'”

Having read and seriously pondered the thoughts of Rush Limbaugh and particularly HE commenters “Moo Type” and “Duluoz Gray” in response to yesterday’s “First Draft,” I’ve come to realize that perhaps lefty liberals do look the other way while wanton sluts disrobe and hyperventilate and moan with pleasure as they writhe on top of men they’re not married to. But deep down what angers the right is that the p.c. left has condoned slutty behavior to the extent that it’s not slutty anymore.

“Is sex dirty?” Woody Allen was once asked. “It is if you do it right,” he replied. This, I suspect, is what the right longs for more than anything else. They miss having genuinely dirty sex, which can only be enjoyed with an actual slut (as opposed to, say, your wife pretending to be a loose woman as part of a role-playing thing that some couples do to spice things up). They miss the scent of sordid atmospheres and the taste of forbidden pleasures. They want their sex lives to resemble a 1958 Samuel Fuller film.

As Limbaugh indicated when he said Sandra Fluke should provide video sex tapes if her contraception is going to be paid for by the government and/or taxpayers, what these righties are really saying is that they miss the time when sluts actually walked the streets in see-through blouses and gave them hard-ons like they’ve never known since, before liberals spoiled everything by giving sluts a hug and telling them there’s no such thing as slutty behavior and “you go, girl…have a contraceptive.”

Righties are always…okay, often about “golly gee gosh” and pretending to follow Christian white-bread tradition on the surface (i.e., offering lip-surface loyalty to same), but indulging in dark, creepy, cum-stainy behavior in back alleys and cheap motels when no one’s looking. They can’t get themselves off in an open-hearted liberal way — they need to feel guilty about it or it’s no good. The righties long for the days when sluts were sluts and guys like Dulouz Gray and Moo Type occasionally knew the foul, perverted pleasure of coveting sluts and sometimes flirting with them and taking them out to dinner and then taking them back to their rundown apartments and doing things that their straightlaced, God-fearing wives would never consider, much less condone.

Righty males are too screwed up and twisted around to admit it (or even realize it) but that’s what they really want. They want sluts back to be part of the culture again (along with Confidential and Police Gazette magazine) and they hate the left for taking sluttiness away.

If a movie title sounds cool, sometimes that can be half the game. I’ll bet a lot of people decided they half-liked Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket even before they saw it because the title had that schwing. Same with Richard Lester‘s A Hard Day’s Night. And double ditto for Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty, the currently-rolling action drama about SEAL Team Six’s killing of Osama bin Laden.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is “a military term for a non-specific hour when it’s still dark outside,” according to a 3.3 Screen Rant piece. That’s a little too opaque and sprawled out. How about just saying it means “pitch black outside” or “dark as fuck”?

Zero Dark Thirty reportedly costars Joel Edgerton, Kyle Chandler, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Mark Strong, Chris Pratt and Fares Fares.

“For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, the words I chose in my analogy of the Sandra Fluke situation led to the loss of advertising dollars from Sleep Train Mattress Centers, Quicken Loans, Select Comfort and AutoZone.

“I always say whatever I want to say, but in characterizing Ms. Fluke as a ‘slut’ and ‘a prostitute’ for testifying to lawmakers about wanting the school to amend its health insurance to cover contraception, I incited a situation that endangered my show’s financial health and the security of my family. So obviously my choice of words was not the wisest. I therefore apologize to Ms. Fluke with the hope that this will all go away and I can revert back my usual usual.”

By clapping your hands three times you can (a) rid the world of God-fearing Christians like Kirk Cameron, (b) rid the world of Islamic fundamentalist wackos who believe in the stoning of women and regard the U.S. as the Great Satan, (c) both or (d) achieve nothing at all.

A highly questionable source informs that a select group of 1.85 fascists met in Manhattan this morning to discuss the impact of Acorn Media’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Bluray (4.24), which will be presented in its original 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio. The source surreptitiously recorded part of the meeting and provided a transcript.

Fascist #1: So what’s this about again? I don’t have a lot of time.

Fascist #3: Neither do we but…please, sit down. This’ll just take a moment.

Fascist #1: (Exhales) This was a 1979 BBC show that was made for TV screens, so the idea of Acorn presenting a cropped version at 1.66 or 1.85 is absurd.

Fascist #2: It’s just a concern we have about 1.33 or 1.37 in general. As illogical as it might sound, we have to enforce a standard. I think we really have to nip this kind of thing in the bud. We have strong connections with the folks at Criterion and with C.C. Baxter and Glenn Kenny, and we’ve maintained cordial relations with Robert Harris.

Fascist #3: Malleable aspect-ratio standards will just lead to chaos. This is the essence of any fascistic philosophy. Uniformity is vital. If there’s any way a boxy image can be whacked down to 1.85, it has to be whacked down to 1.85…no ifs, and ands or buts. I mean, down to 1.78.

Fascist #1: Oh, for heaven’s sake!

Fascist #2: Between this and the Masters of Cinema dual-aspect-ratio release of Touch of Evil…I’m just saying that if we don’t do what we can to block this, things could get out of hand.

Fascist #1: What are you guys so threatened about? We’ve got the world thinking that almost all non-Scope films exhibited after 1953 should be shown at 1.85 or 1.78. C’mon, we’ve won!

Fascist #3: “Winning” isn’t enough. We have to exterminate every last dissenter.

Fascist #1: A couple of nutters like Jeffrey Wells are the only ones screaming about this, and nobody listens to Wells anyway. 1.85 or 1.78 rule the roost so what difference does it make if Acorn puts out a 1.33 aspect ratio Bluray now and then?

Fascist #2: And if someone else releases a 1.33 Bluray of a United Artists film for some perverse reason, we just…what, say nothing?

Fascist #1: Yes! Ease up!

Fascist #3: If we’re going to control this thing, we’ve got to really control it. It has to be 1.78 or 1.85 all the way. No exceptions. It took us a long time to win over Leon Vitali on that 1.78 Barry Lyndon Bluray — that was a major victory. Do you think that just happened?

Fascist #1 (getting up, putting on coat): You guys do what you want. I think you’re being excessive. I have to take my daughter to a swimming lesson. Have a nice Saturday.

From the TV Shows on DVD copy: “After releasing it on DVD format in 2002, 2004 and 2011, and following the popularity of the recent film remake starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, Acorn Media has decided to release the 1979 BBC mini-series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in high-def Blu-ray Disc format.

“Available at general retail on April 24th, the 2-disc set with all 6 episodes starring Alec Guinness (Star Wars, The Bridge on the River Kwai) for $59.99 SRP in the USA, and CA$74.99 SRP in Canada. Running time is 324 minutes for the main feature, which is presented in the original full screen 1.33:1 video aspect ratio, but at a 1080p resolution. Audio is English 2.0 Dolby Digital, and English subtitles are also on board.”

Deadline‘s Mike Fleming is reporting that 31 year-old Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman will play the Peter Weller “Murphy”role in Jose Padilha‘s Robocop remake for MGM. But why Kinnaman exactly? This strikes me as a left-field call.

The video interview above shows Kinnaman to be an intelligent, appealing fellow, but at the same time it doesn’t exactly suggest that he’s any kind of rock star in the making — let’s be frank here. A safe box-office hire would have been Jeremy Renner or Michael Fassbender or someone in that realm.

The apparent bottom line is that MGM doesn’t want to pay for a name-brand action star, and Kinnaman is affordable.

Fleming writes that Kinnaman “most recently turned in a memorable performance in the Daniel Espinosa-directed Safe House.” Translation: Kinnaman had a rock-solid fight scene with Ryan Reynolds, but it wasn’t exactly a career-making appearance. Fleming says he “burst on the scene in the AMC series The Killing,” but if you check the trailer Kinnaman clearly had a secondary role. Prior to The Killing he starred in the Espinosa-directed Snabba Cash (’10), but nobody ever saw Snabba stateside so whaddaya whaddaya?

If Padilha’s Robocop is anything like Paul Verhoeven‘s 1987 original, Kinnaman will spend at least half of his screen time be clomping around in robot garb anyway. It’s not like he’s being hired to play Stanley Kowalski or costar in a remake of My Dinner With Andre.

Fleming writes that “Hollywood is desperately trying to find male stars that studios can build movies around” — that much is definitely true.

The terms “medieval siege” and “slaughter,” used by a reporter in Syria for tonight’s episode of Anderson Cooper 360, caught my attention a few minutes ago. And then I began searching YouTube for evidence of Assad government atrocities, and I came upon this, shot in the recently-fallen city of Homs and taken on 1.26.