Somebody tell me what Clint Eastwood is actually saying here. Let’s stand up and pull together? Not with the Tea Party nutters coloring the conversation. Clint has been an Eisenhower conservative almost all of his life and I respect that, but there can be no coming together with the wacko Cantor right — they’re demonizers and toxic liars and shills for the corporate malignants who have all but crippled this country.

I’ve written plenty about the problems afflicting Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s Cleopatra. But the multi-region British Bluray is visually beautiful, and if you can somehow make yourself ignore the film’s elephantine, glacially-paced, dialogue-driven nature and just focus on the lavishly expensive Todd-AO splendor and the large-format clarity, it’s a nice high-def bath.

And as always, the highly intelligent “making of” doc, Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood, is more than worth the price.

I’ve been susceptible to the perceptions of UCLA film professor Howard Suber since the mid ’90s, which is when I first listened to his incisive commentary on the Criterion Collection laser discs of The Graduate, High Noon and Some Like It Hot. Three months ago I asked Suber for specially burned DVDs of these. When I returned from Santa Barbara this morning I found discs of Suber’s Graduate and High Noon commentaries laid on top of the films. Here’s a small portion of the Graduate disc:

I chose this portion because Suber points out the highly significant contributions of The Graduate‘s production designer Richard Sylbert with the black and white wardrobes and interior design, etc. There’s a lot more to this 1967 classic than just story, dialogue and performances. It’s really quite an integrated audio-visual tour de force.

The Graduate images in the clip are a third-generation dupe of an old laser disc so naturally it doesn’t hold a candle to more recent DVD and Bluray versions. I don’t know what the reason is for the skips and the speed-ups.

Suber’s latest book is called Letters to Young Filmmakers.

Leaving aside my oft-vented feelings about the Oscar worthiness The Artist, I succumbed to the charms of Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo during Saturday night’s appearance at Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre. Their visit was my final Santa Barbara Film Festival event, and it was probably the most pleasant. The word is actually “fizzy” — they gave off a kind of contact high. I sat down in my seat thinking “oh, God, here we go” and left with a very different attitude.

Tweet #1: “What I got from Dujardin and Berenice Bejo tonight was something along the lines of ‘we’re Europeans…all the praise & hoopla is fine but what do you expect us to do?’ Tweet #2: “It’s very nice to be loved and applauded, but this is all bullshit, no? It’s fine & we like it but can we get real? No?” When a reader expressed astonishment, I replied that “I’ve never said Dujardin or Bejo or The Artist aren’t likable or charming. It’s the excessive Oscar adulation I can’t stand.”

I was driven back to Los Angeles early this morning by Brigade’s Adam Kersh. We left SB at 4:30 am. I was dropped off at the corner of Riverside and Coldwater at 6 am. (Kersh had a 7 am plane to catch.) West of Memphis principal Mark Byers shared the ride.

I caught Joe Berlinger‘s Under African Skies, an okay doc about the history and legacy of Paul Simon‘s Graceland, at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. And I liked…well, went with it for the most part. But I couldn’t settle into the substance for a reason that some might find superficial. But I don’t think so.

Under African Skies has two narratives — the making of Simon’s landmark 1986 album and a 2010 South African reunion with the original musicians, and Simon coming to grips with the political blowback to Graceland. Simon was criticized for having swooped in and exploited a South African sound (and the musicians he hired to play it) for selfish or myopic careerist ends, and for ignoring a United Nations-enforced boycott against the apartheid government of South Africa.

Berlinger’s film is a decently constructed recollection and exploration as far as it goes. I felt myself drifting from time to time as the talking heads (South African musicians, engineer Roy Halee, Quincy Jones, friends and flunkies) all seemed to be reading lines from the same script, lines that recalled the elation and excitement of recording Graceland 25 years ago and the delight in everyone getting back together for some new performances, etc. The review of the political climate 25 years ago felt sufficient but rote. A sense of familiarity (we’ve all seen docs like this before) and orchestration began to gather around me like a shroud. But it played well enough. I stayed with it as much as I could.

The fact is that a factor completely out of left field kept interfering with my concentration. I don’t mean to sound cruel or cutting, but the honest truth is that Simon’s curious appearance kept messing with my head. He’s clearly had work done, and there’s something “off” and unnatural about his eyes — something faintly Asian — and his face in general, especially the area under his chin. It just doesn’t look right, and for this reason I was unable to fully settle into the film. Lord knows we all get older but there’s always some kind of rapport between a person’s appearance at age 44 or 45 (i.e., Simon’s age when Graceland was released) and 70, which Simon turned last October. He just looks oddly different, and this fact keeps competing with the other stuff. The result is an off-balance sensation. I kept telling myself to focus on the creative and spiritual, but it was a battle all the way.

Earlier today I sat down with West of Memphis director Amy Berg, former West Memphis 3 defendant and currently free-as-a-bird Damien Echols and wife Lorri Davis. We sat at an outdoor table behind Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre for a little more than 20 minutes. Echols and I talked mostly about right now and what’s coming, and only a little bit about the past. I’ve posted five or six riffs about Berg’s film since Sundance so I’ll let the mp3 speak for itself.

(l. to r.) West of Memphis director Amy Berg, Damien Echols, Lorri Davis.

I wrote a few hours ago that during the q & a portion of today’s SBIFF Directors Panel “three enterprising and obnoxious assholes (one wearing a black cowboy hat) took the mike together and basically asked the panel for help with their filmmaking careers.” They were booed and shouted down. Three hours later the same cowboy asshat tried the same routine during the Movers and Shakers panel. Watch the sudden reaction of moderator Patrick Goldstein as the guy goes into his schpiel.

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson has posted a video except of a 9.18.70 Dick Cavett Show interview with Husbands costars John Cassevetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. Cavett is fine but his guests are all gone now, Gazzara’s death yesterday sealing the deal. Here is part #2 and #3.

The just-concluded Santa Barbara Film Festival directors’ panel discussion was a dud for the most part. The only directors I found likable and interesting were Bridesmaids‘ Paul Feig, a clever, well-spoken, fast-on-his feet fellow, and Terry George, helmer of a currently-playing short called The Shore. Moderator Peter Bart did what he could, but the panelists included three helmers of animated film (including the ogre-ish Gore Verbinski, the paycheck-driven director of Rango, two Pirates movies and the forthcoming Lone Ranger) so it was almost an animation panel, which are always boring if you’re not an animation fan.

Today’s Directors Panel at the 2012 Santa Barbara Film Festival.

The exception to the boredom came during the q & a portion when three enterprising and obnoxious assholes (one wearing a cowboy hat) took the mike together and asked the panel for help with their filmmaking careers. This despite Bart having specifically stated that such questions were unwelcome and wouldn’t be allowed. Some people are shameless and some are unreachable — this trio was both. They were hissed and booed down and all but thrown out of the theatre.

During last night’s post-Virtuoso Awards after-party West of Memphis director Amy Berg showed me a mock magazine-cover illustration recently drawn by former West Memphis 3 defendant Damien Echols. It depicts himself and partner Lorri Davis. Echols and Davis arrived here last night to do interviews and take part in a post-screening q & a this evening.

Young Adult‘s Patton Oswalt was the absolute star and the life of the party during last night’s Virtuosos Awards presentation at Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre. Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ Andy Serkis took a close second for apperaring on-stage shirtless, and A Better Life‘s Demian Bichir was charming and affable. Dragon Tattoo‘s Rooney Mara seemed politely subdued. The Descendants‘ Shailene Woodley was fine. And moderator Dave Karger was typically smooth and engaging.

My favorite photo-editing app isn’t an app — it’s a website called Picnik. It’s clean and efficient and dumb enough for the likes of myself. Cropping, resizing, sharpening, tinting, contrasting and red-eye fixes are a snap. And yet Google, the fascist insect that bought Picnic a year or so ago, is closing it down on 4.19. I’m guessing it’ll still be available for Google Plus users, but many people are furious. I’m now looking for an app that’s comparable in terms of ease and simplicity.

At the very least Google should offer a purchasable Picnik app. I would happily shell out. It’s unconscionable to remove a popular photo-editing software without offering some kind of replacement option. Here’s a petition form protesting the Picnik shutdown.