The following letter was addressed to Slate‘s Emily Yoffe, a.k.a. “Dear Prudence.” Read it and then consider my inserted comments and considered response, which I’ve posted under the name “Valentine Xavier.”

“Dear Prudence — Several years ago, after accepting that I’d be alone forever” — VX: Gee, I wonder why that possibility occured to her? — “I met a wonderful man. He was kind, compassionate, intelligent, hilarious, and widely respected. We were true soul mates.” VX: Good God…beware of anyone using the term ‘soul mate’…strictly for lame-o’s! “Shortly after we married he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He fought bravely for several years while I gladly worked full time, cared for him, and basically took care of everything so that he could focus on his health and the things he enjoyed” — VX: Why does this sound more like a patient-nurse relationship than a marriage?

“He recently lost his battle.” — XV: Sorry.

“While searching for information on some loose ends, I stumbled across email responses he had sent to singles and couples seeking casual sexual encounters. The three instances I found were a few months after we’d met and were falling in love, shortly after we’d declared our love, and earlier this year, after we’d been ‘happily married’ for some time. I am destroyed. I’m now grieving for the relationship I thought we had and the man I thought he was. I gave everything I had to him, and now I want to flush his ashes down the toilet. I can’t stand the thought of planning, attending, or acting sad at his memorial. I don’t want to keep his last name. I don’t want to see his family. I don’t want to scatter his ashes in places he loved. I don’t want to tell our families what he did and destroy their vision of him. But I don’t think it’s fair that I bear the brunt of this pain alone and live behind the facade of grieving widow. — Betrayed Widow”

VX to Betrayed Widow: “Good God, how old are you? How naive are you? You marry an older guy who begins his death march right after you get married and you get to be his nurse and care-giver until he passes, and you feel shocked and betrayed when you discover he had a secret online fantasy life that involved a grand total of three inquiries or conversational explorations?

“Guys are only as faithful as their options — ever heard that one? — and it’s possible your ex was just a secret hound, but almost all guys are. In their minds, I mean. Very few are 100% trustworthy if you count fantasies and dark dreams. Most dreamers haven’t the nerve to really cheat, but those that do will fuck a woodpile if they think they can get away with it. And guys who are dying are serious loose cannons because they’re figuring ‘what the hell? I’ll be worm food in a couple of years so I want to savor a last ecstatic encounter in the time I have left.’

“On top of which online flirting and fantasizing isn’t even cheating — there are at least 17 or 18 steps between establishing contact with a would-be casual sex partner and actual betrayal of a wife or girlfriend, and most guys never get beyond step #3 or #4. Largely because there are no would-be casual sex partners out there, only pros, and particularly not for guys with a fatal malady unless they’re stinking with $100 dollar bills to burn.

“The man probably sensed disease starting to envelop him, and he was simply trying to metaphorically prove to himself that he wasn’t finished on this planet, that there was a bit more to life than waiting to die and “being cared for” at home as he watches AMC and Fox News and feels the vitality draining out of him, or to overcome a feeling of futility or depression that almost certainly goes along with knowing you’re on your last couple of laps around the track.”

Thought: Maybe I could incorporate a relationship advice column called “Snakeskin Jacket” into Hollywood Elsewhere? I’ve been around, I know what goes and I could pass along a few insights. “Ask Valentine Xavier…if you want the straight dope.”

Six guys who might be in the vanguard of 21st Century stardom — Taylor Kitsch, Armie Hammer, Idris Elba, Aaron Paul, Garrett Hedlund and Aaron Johnson — grace the cover of Esquire‘s September issue. Which of these guys are likely to even be around ten years from now? And why aren’t the Hemsworth brothers, Chris and Liam, standing with this bunch?

The keepers and the growers are Hammer, Hedlund and Elba. Hedlund delivers a Dean Moriarty (i.e., Neal Casady) in Walter Salles‘ On The Road that isn’t great but is a lot better than you might expect, especially after Tron — eager, gentle, probing, carnal. Elba is a big maybe but I can sense….I don’t know what I can sense but something tells me “yeah, he might happen…just wait.” Hammer is obviously hunky, intelligent, appealing, uncomplicated. He just needs to get lucky with a really good role that doesn’t ask him to smile too eagerly or kill anyone premeditatively.

Forget Kitsch — too much of a glib-hustler vibe, too party-boyish, too short, two bombs in a row (John Carter, Battleship) plus a flashy drug-dealing movie with an absolutely horrific ending (Savages). I don’t think Johnson has it — Savages didn’t help him any more than it did Kitsch — but he’d be on a whole ‘nother level if he could use his natural English accent. And forget Paul because (a) he looks like a guy who might shoot up a multiplex, (b) he’s too short, (c) he’s merely the new Ben Foster and (c) he hasn’t done anything outside of Breaking Bad — he needs to star in a couple of good films or be in a good B’way play…something.

I don’t know anything about longterm relationships, much less keeping the fires going in the midst of one. My marriage lasted four years. My other relationships (including the affair with the married journalist) have all lasted two or three years so what do I know? But I’m asking myself about the premise of Hope Springs, which I was mostly okay with, and wondering how common it is for couples in their 50s or 60s or older to re-ignite and get things going again.

The film suggests at one point, humorously, that very few over-40 types are having sex with any regularity. When I was married I knew couples in their late 30s and 40s who, I learned or was told, were maybe once-a-weekers. At best. I’m presuming (though I don’t know) that once-a-weekers in their 50s or 60s are less common. Once-a-monthers?

Relationships are hard. You have to reach deeper and deeper within and give it up Delbert McLinton-style, and if you hold back and retreat into yourself for some selfish reason you’ll gradually lose her. Because you have to give it up even when you don’t feel like it. And sometimes that’s difficult. “Show me a beautiful woman, and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of fucking her,” etc. How do you work it, I’m wondering, when you switch out the beautiful woman with a woman you love, respect and care deeply for, but whom you’re no longer panting heavily for, at least not in an Elvis Presley “Burning Love” way?

So I wonder how much I really believed Hope Springs . But I liked the idea of it, at least, and the feeling of going with it as far as that went, and I quite enjoyed the performances by Meryl Streep and the always solid Tommy Lee Jones.

But I was asking myself, “Why is the movie telling me that Jones and Jones alone is the one causing all the trouble? Why can’t Streep’s character be contributing in some way, however passively or unintentionally, to their sexual enervation or dysfunction or laziness?”

Hugs and sad condolences for the friends, family and former colleagues of Breena Camden, the 20th Century Fox publicist who’s died from breast cancer at age 49. Too young, two kids, rotten luck…very sorry.

This is stupid and lame, I admit that, but in one respect Justin Beiber and I park our cars in the same garage. I’m referring to the 18 year-old pop star having dissed Prince William for not doing something about his thinning hair. “There are things to prevent that,” Beiber recently told the Daily Mail‘s “Rolla Coaster” magazine. “You just take Propecia and your hair grows back.” When William and Kate got married in late April 2011, I ran a riff called “I Take Thee, Baldie.”

I don’t know why I’m posting this. I guess it’s comforting on some level to have someone in your corner or to be in theirs, even if it’s Justin Beiber. I know. Lame. Yes, if was Prince William, I would definitely do “something” about it….but who cares? He can be as bald as he wants.

High-frame-rate cinema has the potential to dramatically improve moviegoing and turn exhibition around by increasing the impact of movies. HFR movies are a new kind of wow, a hyper-real experience that is extremely immersive. It’s a brave new world, ladies and gents, so put on your brave face, buy your ticket and get on the train.

And if you’re feeling discomfort about the super-clear, un-filtered, you-are-there look of 48 frames per second, “don’t worry because that goes away” and when you go back to a normal 24 fps film, “you’ll ask yourself how could I watch movies like this for so long?”

That, in a nutshell, is what the three big guns on today’s High Frame Rate panel at SIGGRAPH — FX and HFR pioneer Douglas Trumbull, ILM’s Dennis Murren and Lightstorm’s Jon Landau — had to say about this new Hollywood technology. True, they waited until the very end of the panel to say it, but at least they stepped up to the plate and explained the deal.

That was the vibe inside Hall K at the L.A. Convention Center…cool. I loved it. But the mood elsewhere, as well all know, has been different.

At last April’s Cinemacon the 48 frame-per-second Hobbit footage was greeted with derision by at least half of the audience. Warner Bros. was so freaked by this that they declined to show 48 fps Hobbit footage at ComicCon last month and yesterday Variety‘s David Cohen reported that when The Hobbit opens in December WB plans to keep the 48 fps venues “fairly small” in “select locations.” It’s therefore no stretch to say things aren’t going especially well for HFR movies right now.

But you’d never know that to judge by comments heard this morning. The 11 panelists — Trumbull, Muren, Landau plus Christie’s Paul Salvini, Park Road’s Phil Oatley, DreamWork’s Lincoln Wallen and Jim Beshears, Digital Doman’s Darin Grant, ReadlD’s Matthew Cowan, Side Effects Doftware’s Luke Moore and Screen Industries’ Research’s John Helliker — were full of optimism, hope and excitement and vision-sharing.

High-frame rates are very cool, and will deliver filmmakers and moviegoers, finally, from the shackles of 20 Century filmmaking technology, etc. And once the public gets a taste of high-frame rates…blast-off! Boom!

Landau screened a Lightstorm-produced 3D instructional short in which James Cameron (who will be shooting Avatar 2 and 3 in 48 or 60 fps) showed and explained the differences between 24 fps, 48 fps and 60 fps. Footage of a medieval banquet and then a sword fight, shot and projected at these frame rates, was shown. Cameron also presented show-mo footage of dancing medieval maidens shot at 120 fps and projected at 60 fps…very cool.

It was pretty damn beautiful, to me. Like I said last spring, 48 fps (or 60 fps) is the only way to go with big-canvas movies that are heavy on action, effects, CG, big explosions and scenery. The Avengers would have been much, much cooler in 48 or 60 fps.

Which is fine in and of itself, but what about the elephant in the room, guys? What about the people out there who are booing, sneering, scared and unsure of HFR cinema? What about the chickenshit posture of Warner Bros. regarding The Hobbit? I asked this at the very end of the panel (SIGGRAPH allowed about ten minutes for questions) and then some guy from the audience got up and said he was “disturbed” by the high-def video look of 48 and 60 fps in Cameron’s demo film. And finally the panelists got into it.

Trumbull’s answer was that high-frame-rate cinema, which he called “hyper cinema” becaise it’s so real and immersive, is not a one-size-fits-all type of thing, and if filmmakers want to shoot a film in 24 fps, fine, and if they don’t, fine. But Peter Jackson is doing a great thing by having shot The Hobbit in 48 fps, he said, and once people get a taste of what 48 fps is, everything’ll be jake. Let’s hope so.

Of course, nobody on the panel even mentioned the very first form of high-frame-rate cinema — Mike Todd‘s 30 frame-per-second Todd A-AO, which debuted in 1955 and was used for two films — Oklahoma! and Around The World in Eighty Days — and was a dead format by 1958 after exhibitors whined about cost and Todd AO was downgraded to a 24 fps process.

I have to run down to the 2012 SIGGRAPH gathering at the Los Angeles Convention Center to try and get myself a temporary media badge so I can attend a 10:45 am panel discussion on high-frame-rate production and projection. Warner Bros.’s modified retreat from its commitment to 48 frames-per-second presentations of The Hobbit in December is sure to be a particular focus.

Industry friend: A colleague was at the Academy’s Goldwyn theatre yesterday and put up a reel of 2001:A Space Odyssey and found no problems. I have no idea what you saw [at the Academy on Monday night], as I spoke with someone else last night, a director, who was also there, and he thought it looked fine.

Me: I know exactly what I saw, and those guys are either lazy or clueless or full of it…or are looking for simplicity and calm in their lives and “don’t want to know.” The 2001 images I saw Monday night were dark, inky, shadowy and underwhelming. An array of visual values captured by Stanley Kubrick 45 years ago were almost completely unmanifested and unrealized. You couldn’t savor any of the hairs on the ape coats. No exceptional specificity to speak of.

I went home and watched my 2001 Bluray….finally, the way it’s supposed to look!

Your two pallies are just being polite or bland or whatever. I wouldn’t take their word for anything henceforth. I know what I saw. I hate people who work in this industry and are therefore presumed to know a thing or two, and then you show them something and they go “huh? really? I didn’t notice that.”

Industry friend: I need to ask the obvious question, only because [my colleague] said what he saw after a timing session. Did you take off your sunglasses?

Me: Yes, my sunglasses were off and stuffed in my breast pocket.

Indoor personal hygiene options were at a relatively early stage when Abraham Lincoln lived in the White House. While sources contend that Millard Fillmore was the first U.S. President to enjoy indoor plumbing while residing in the White House from 1850 to 1853, a 1989 article about White House plumbing in Plumbing and Mechanical magazine reports that Lincoln may have been “the first President of the United States to splash his way to cleanliness in a White House bathtub, the first tub having been installed during his presidency.”

This is precisely the kind of thing that I like to see and learn about when I see a historical film of any kind. What did everything smell like back then? How well did contraptions work? What kind of soaps, perfumes, bath towels and scented fragrances did they use? Did bathrooms have absorbent floor mats or did water just collect in pools on the marble or hard-tiled floors? Did the toilets function fairly well for the most part or were there issues? Did general stores sell rounded rolls of toilet paper like they do today, etc.?

This is what I want, partly, from Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln. Not just toilet and bathtub information but various hints of the quality and texture of life in the 1860s. Imagine how amazing it would be if Spielberg had decided to present the film in Smellovision or Aroma-rama, then we’d have an idea of what the White House might have actually smelled like from time to time. Think of the transportation!

Will we get this kind of thing from Lincoln? Of course not. Will there be even a fragmentary amount of quality-of-life information? Doubtful. You know Spielberg. Half the time he was shooting Lincoln he was probably preparing for Robopocalypse.

This clip of Steven Soderbergh discussing conservative-minded resistance to digital filmmaking is a Side by Side outtake, but it’s an indication of the film’s spiritual and intellectual energy. Chris Kenneally and Keanu Reeves‘ doc, easily one of the best of the year and certainly the most historic, peeks out in Los Angeles on 8.17, on VOD 8.22, and then on 8.31 at Manhattan’s Quad Cinema.

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Warner Bros.’s 48 frame-per-second Hobbit rollback was first announced at ComicCon on 7.12…”scared rabbits,” etc. Eight days ago I predicted that WB and Hobbit director Peter Jackson “are probably going to limit 48 fps venues when The Hobbit opens in December and characterize 48 fps as some kind of eccentric experiment.”

Today Variety‘s David Cohen reported that Warner Bros.will be “keeping the first high-frame-rate release of The Hobbit fairly small [in] select locations, perhaps not even into all major cities…hoping to test the marketplace and expand the HFR release for the second and third installments…provided auds are enthusiastic.”

In other words, WB has next to no confidence in 48 f.p.s. Adverse reactions from old-fart exhibitors and big-mouth bloggers at last April’s Cinemacon scared them silly and they still haven’t recovered. So they’re going to peek out with the 48 fps Hobbit and test the waters and determine if Joe and Jane Popcorn are going to approve or not…and if they don’t, 48 f.p.s. goes under the bus. Or something like that.