“Dow’s 512 point drop [earlier today] underscores the state of unreality in DC.,” Howard Kurtz more or less tweeted about a half-hour ago. “Pundits felt crisis was over when a deal, however lousy, was reached.” If you consider the perspective offered by a ten-year graph, what happened today doesn’t seem quite as bad.

This morning the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced a special New York Film Festival showing of William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur (’59), or more specifically a digitally restored 8K version that is the source of the upcoming Warner Home Video Bluray that streets on 9.27. I’m told that the NYFF showing will probably happen on Saturday, 10.1, starting sometime in the morning.

The interesting angle is that the NYFF will be showing the Biblical epic at the full Camera 65 aspect ratio of 2.76 to 1, which may (emphasis on that word) be the very first time it’s been commercially projected on a big screen in this particular format. Maybe.

According to James Bond, president of the Chicago-based Full Aperture Systems, Inc., as well as a respected film expert and historian who asked not to be identified, the 1959 reserved-seat roadshow versions of Ben-Hur in New York and Los Angeles were probably projected at 2.55 to 1. That’s still pretty damn wide (2.55 was the aspect ratio of Fox CinemaScope films from The Robe, which opened in 1953, until sometime in the mid to late ’50s), although not as wide as Cinerama presentations.

“2.55 was the more common way to show [a film of this type],” says Bond. “The original wide screens of the mid 1950s were set up to handle 2.55 to 1.”

The other guy, hedging his bets, says Ben-Hur “may have opened in New York and Los Angeles at 2.76 to 1…I was too young to have noticed.”

The only way 70mm prints of Ben-Hur could have been seen in their full 2.76 to 1 widescreen splendor would have been to project the epic onto an extra-wide Cinerama screen, or like the one that was built for L.A.’s Cinerama Dome in 1963. New York’s Loew’s State, where Ben-Hur premiered in late ’59, never had a Cinerama screen, and I don’t think that the old Egyptian, which is where Ben-Hur opened in Los Angeles, did either.

Why, then, did 70mm prints of Ben-Hur allow for a 2.76 to 1 aspect ratio if no big-time theatres actually showed it this way? Beats me. I’m only passing along what Bond and the other guy have told me, which is that 2.55 to 1 was probably the format.

If Bond and the other guy are wrong and Ben-Hur did show at 2.76 to 1 in 1959, then at least the New York Film Festival showing at Alice Tully Hall will mark the first time the classic will be presented in a super-duper-wide format on a big screen in roughly 52 years.

Unless, you know, HE reader Cadavra is correct when he writes that Ben-Hur “screened at the Cinerama Dome about 15 or 20 years ago at 2.76:1 (and in 70mm, of course).”

Yes, the 2.76 to 1 version has been viewable on DVD versions in the past, but minus the big-screen pizazz. Even if you watch the Ben-Hur DVD or the forthcoming Bluray on a 50″ or 60″ screen, you’ll be looking at an image that isn’t very high (i.e., really thick black croppings on the top and bottom) and is clearly diminished compared to what Wyler and his cinematographer, Robert L. Surtees, wanted audiences to see. And watching the film at this aspect ratio on 40something- or 30something-inch screens is pretty close to ridiculous. Don’t even go there.

FSLC/NYFF co-honcho Scott Foundas says the widescreen image at Alice Tully (and at the earlier press screening at the Walter Reade) will obviously be less high than standard 2.35 to 1 widescreen projections, but only slightly.

The other thing that needs to be cleared up is that while Warner Bros. archivists have digitallly remastered the restored Ben-Hur at 8K, the NYFF projection (via a Barco) will be shown at 4K. But that will still deliver loads of incredible clarity and detail, probably more than the naked eye can fully detect or appreciate.

The most distinctive things about Henry Cavill‘s appearance in Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel are (a) the subdued rosey-pinkish tone of red in the cape and chest logo, (b) the gray body suit with the criss-cross texture, and (c) the knife pleats fanning out from the shoulder-origin section of the cape. There’s no point in wearing knife pleats unless you drop the suit off at the cleaners each and every time after wearing it. Christopher Reeve and George Reeves‘ Superman capes were more natural looking…they just hung loose.

I read a riff the other day that said the American Dream used to include a nice home in the suburbs with a white picket fence, but that today’s big dream is just to survive (i.e., keep up with the payments) with maybe a little mad money on the side. Like it or not, that’s the 2011 reality that the best and the brightest are looking to fulfill. Eat healthy, stay in place, no falling off the treadmill.

Another thing that needs to change is people who work at offices always going to lunch. I just tried to reach three of four people at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and they’re all at lunch, networking and texting and yaddah-yaddah. Between lunches and arriving at work at 9:30 or 10 am and water cooler chit-chat and interminable staff meetings and personal calls there’s only…what, three or four hours to actually do the job and deal with the public (i.e., people like me)? Less?

I hardly ever “do lunch” and I’m fine. Lunch is just (a) a time-out tension reliever, (b) focused yoga time, (c) a 60-minute sensual rest-stop and (d) a daydream. I’m all for slacking…don’t get me wrong. But I have a 24/7 column to write.

With this morning’s announcement about Simon Curtis‘ My Week With Marilyn (Weinstein Co., 11.4) having been chosen as the Centerpiece for the 2011 New York Film Festival, Manhattanites will get an early look at what I’ve been told is an extraordinary, highly enjoyable Kenneth Branagh performance as Laurence Olivier.

Laurence Oliver, Marilyn Monroe sometime during the moderately hellish ordeal that was the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.

Last April an HE reader attended a New York research screening of Curtis’s film, which stars Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, and had this to report:

“Branagh is the surprise of this,” the guy wrote. “He’s wonderful as Laurence Olivier — just brilliant. Like Williams, he doesn’t look much like his real-life character but unlike her, he’s aided by superior writing. He also perfectly mimics Olivier’s facial mannerisms and voice and hamminess to the extent that you forget you’re looking at Branagh. He steals every scene he’s in and is the reason to see this movie.”

So in the Best Supporting Actor race, it beginning to seem probable if not likely that it’ll be Branagh vs. Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ Andy Serkis.

Why can’t I find a decent shot of Branagh-as-Olivier in this film? It wrapped last winter and not a single JPEG has turned up online. What’s that about, Sarah or Pantea?

My Week With Marilyn is based on two books by the late Colin Clark about Clark’s relationship with Ms. Monroe during the making of The Prince and the Showgirl, which was released in 1956.

“I had three reactions to Asif Kapadia‘s Senna, an absorbing, somewhat affecting doc about the late Ayrton Senna, the legendary Brazilian race-car driver and Formula One champion who was killed during a race in 1994 at the age of 34. They were (a) ‘very well-made film, stirring story,’ (b) ‘Senna’s death was very sad’ and (c) ‘shit sometimes happens when you drive at exceptionally high speeds in the pursuit of beating others to the finish line.”

“A race-car driver who dies in a pile-up is like a mountain climber who falls into a crevasse or a combat soldier who catches a bullet or a wild-animal tamer who gets clawed to death.

“I realize Senna is regarded as perhaps the finest driver who ever lived, and that he was religiously adored in Brazil and by racing fans the world over, and that his death (due to a mechanical malfunction in the race car he was driving) was tragic. He was a hard-core athlete and very competitive and technically savvy, but — let’s be frank — he was also a bit of a hot dog and a guy who banged into other race-cars a lot. He often spoke about God helping him with his driving and steering him to victory — a common enough feeling that’s analogous to musicians talking about being ‘in the groove,’ but a bit weird all the same. Plus he came from a fairly rich family and was apparently a major hound who never got married or even spoke about having kids.

“You want a really tragic sports figure? Consider the tale of Columbian soccer player Andres Escobar, whose story is quite movingly told in Jeff and Michael Zimbalist‘s The Two Escobars. Now, that’s a sad story plus one that looks beyond the perimeters of the sport realm.” — from my 3.12.11 SXSW review.

The line is from Tom Stoppard‘s Hapgood, a 1988 play about double and triple agents and quantum physics and making audiences feel lost and clueless. Aaah, for the simplicity of a story about the uncovering of a mere double! A popcorn movie in relative terms. TTSS being set in the ’70s is like extra butter.

Warner Bros. has announced that Clint Eastwood‘s J. Edgar will open on November 11th, and that Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will debut on December 25th. They obviously have big Oscar campaigns in mind for both. The latter is an emotional 9/11-related drama costarring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. All kinds of nommies will presumably be sought for Eastwood’s Hoover biopic — Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Armie Hammer) and so on.

The new Moneyball trailer isn’t much different from the first one, which surfaced on or about June 16th. What about Robin Wright, Kathryn Morris, Tammy Blanchard? Don’t they have any good lines? I think it’s time to show this sucker. Just lay it out there. Any sports movie that doesn’t end with rowdy jowly guys yelling “we’re number one!” gets my vote.

Variety‘s Peter Debruge — the guy who wrote an impassioned thumbs-up review of the reprehensible Crazy, Stupid, Love — seems unsettled by Rise of the Planet of the Apes offering a “curious chance for humans to revel in their own destruction.” He also wonders if audiences “[will] mind witnessing the annihilation of their own species” as “there’s something undeniably subversive in asking auds to cheer” as humankind begins to lose the battle for earthly dominance.

And yet for a film that “could have been a disastrous gamble,” Rise of the Planet of the Apes “makes for an impressive, if predictably downbeat prequel to a franchise famous for unhappy endings,” he says.

What the hell is Debruge talking about? Rise isn’t the least bit downbeat. It doesn’t have an unhappy ending. There isn’t the first hint of trepidation about humans being annihilated on-screen….nothing. And the revelling is not about our defeat but from sharing the spirit-lifting triumph that kicks in when the apes break out of their cages, Spartacus-style.

So Debruge likes “upbeat”…is that it? The man likes to feel happy and cuddled and reassured, which is apparently why he went for Crazy Stupid Love. He doesn’t like mankind being threatened by apes. He’d rather get a nice hug from Steve Carell or Ryan Gosling.

At least Debruge understands that the Andy Serkis‘s performance as Caesar-the-chimp is a very significant score. “So nuanced and specific is Serkis’ performance that his digital avatar shows far greater emotional range than any of his human co-stars, even without the aid of dialogue,” he writes.

More interesting is Sasha Stone‘s view that Rise of the Planet of the Apes is 2011’s “best film so far.” I wouldn’t go quite that far but I admire any critic or columnist sticking their neck out.

“The best movies you never see coming,” she writes. “Expectations weren’t running high [for this film] — the thinking was it would be as campy as the old Planet of the Apes movies or worse, as bad as the Tim Burton one.

“What most weren’t expecting, of course, was that the Rise of the Planet of the Apes would be so character driven. Because the technology is now seamless, there is very little separation between our awe and our emotional reaction.

“Half of the exhilaration here is [director] Rupert Wyatt‘s sleight of hand. It isn’t so much that the apes are faithfully rendered and seemingly real — so real you can’t believe you are not watching reality — it’s how he keeps the action moving. It’s that the director has such a command of the pace and the action, the film only slows down when we must head back into the human world and follow those stories. But any time it’s on the apes it exists in startling rapid-fire time.

“What’s most frightening about it in the end is how it reminds us that we’ve trapped even ourselves in a prison of our own making. When the apes decide they’ve had enough, something in us makes us wonder what would it take before we too have had enough?”

So the reason Martin Scorsese‘s George Harrison: Living in the Material World wasn’t included in today’s announcement release about 2011 Toronto Film Festival docs is that it’ll probably wind up debuting at the 2011 New York Film Festival instead. NYFF honchos didn’t reply so no confirmation, but I was told earlier today that discussions are underway for Scorsese’s 210-minute doc to premiere at their festival.

I was expecting the Harrison doc to play Toronto because Scorsese’s Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, which also ran long (208 minutes) and was cut by the same editor (David Tedeschi) who cut Material World, played Toronto in 2005. Tradition and all that. But the NYFF guys have apparently stepped in and said to the HBO reps, “No…our festival, not Toronto’s…because we’re cooler.”

So that means I definitely have to stay in Manhattan for a good two weeks after the 2011 Toronto Film Festival ends on 9.20. I don’t feel I can miss early ganders at Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy or Scorsese’s Harrison doc, even though the latter will air on HBO on 10.5 and 10.6.

The Toronto doc list includes Wim Wenders‘ Pina, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb‘s This Is Not A Film (which will again raise questions about why Panahi and his family just blow that Teheran popstand and move in to Paris?), Morgan Spurlock‘s Comic-Con: Episode IV — A Fan’s Hope, Frederic Wiseman‘s Crazy Horse, Bill Duke and D. Channson Berry‘s Dark Girls, Rithy Panh‘s Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon‘s Girl Model, Jonathan Demme‘s I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful, Werner Herzog‘s Into The Abyss, Jessica Yu‘s Last Call at the Oasis, Alex Gibney‘s The Last Gladiators, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinfosky‘s Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Stephen Kessler‘s Paul Williams Still Alive, Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill‘s Sarah Palin — You Betcha!, Mark Cousins‘ The Story of Film: An Odyssey, and Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin‘s Undefeated.

God, it killed me to type and code that last graph!