Forget Univeral’s plan to offer Tower Heist to VOD customers in Atlanta and Portland on 11.25, or three weeks after its theatrical release date of 11.4.11. Too many exhibitors howled and threatened Armageddon and Universal caved under duress.

From a rough draft of the release: “Universal Pictures today announced that in response to theatere-owners turning purple-faced with fury and completely freaking out and spitting saliva and throwing tantrums and slamming their fists through the plaster walls and threatening to go to the mattresses Luca Brasi and Clemenza-style a request from theatre owners it has decided to delay its planned premium home video on demand (PVOD) experiment.

“Universal continues to believe that the theater experience and a PVOD window are business models that can coincide and thrive and we look forward to working with our partners in exhibition to find a way to experiment in this area in the future.

In response a rough draft from the National Association Of Theater Owners and its CEO John Fithian allegedly says the following: “NATO would like to thank Universal for responding to various theater owners’ concerns and cancelling the PVOD test it was contemplating. They have been engaged with individual exhibitors on this test blah blah, and while it was something that many theater owners could not ultimately support blah blah, the open and collaborative nature of the dialogue is appreciated blah blah screw these bastards. NATO recognizes that those miserable prick studio fucks need to find new models and opportunities in the home market, and looks forward to distributors and exhibitors working together for their mutual benefit.”

Thanks to whomever at Paramount for not inviting me to this morning’s screening of eight scenes from James Cameron‘s 3D Titanic. I really, really would have liked to attend given the likelihood that Cameron’s demanding standards will result in an exceptional conversion.

TheWrap‘s Mike Ryan wrote this afternoon that this steroscopic Titanic “looks absolutely stunning…after watching screening after screening of shitty 3D films, it was more than refreshing to see what can be done to a film — even a film not originally filmed in 3D — if the appropriate amount of time and effort are applied.”

The 3D scenes shown: (1) Rose and Cal regarding Titanic from the dock; (2) Jack waiting for Rose at the bottom of grand staircase before dinner; (3) Jack and Rose attending white-tie party; (4) Jack and Rose canoodling on the bow of Titanic; (5) The first sighting of the iceberg; (6) Rose chopping through Jack’s handcuffs with an axe; (7) montage of Titanic passengers facing the fact that they’re about to go down with the ship and drown or freeze to death; and (8) The last portion of Titanic sinking.

Frank Sinatra crooning by Nick Amado. Music, lyrics and video editing by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan (Conan the Barbarian: The Musical, Silence! The Musical).

Actual YouTube comment by “Psychicwhoosh”: “I saw Sinatra and Dean Martin perform this at the Desert Inn in 1960. It was magical. Dean was such a ham. He kept chasing Sinatra ’round? the stage with a needle trying to prick his hand for a blood sample.”

Here we go again with the same old horseshit, and people don’t care because they want to see this thing and you can’t stop them, etc. One look at this trailer and you’ve more or less seen the movie, on a certain level. I’m developing a notion that Samuel L. Jackson has read every line in every part in every film he’s ever been in the exact same way. Robert Downey, Jr. has his Tony Stark performance down to a science, but at the same time it feels as if he phoned it in.

I’m singling out this 10.10 Henry Rollins video clip because he supplies the best thematic line since “we are the 99%,” to wit: “Obama dropped the ball and the people picked it up. I’m a fan of the guy, but he’s got some splainin’ to do.”

Edited: My general impression is that last night’s work-in-progress screening of Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo didn’t go over all that well. Well, it did for some but for others it was an in-and-outer. And given this less-than-a home-run-or-perhaps-even-a-triple response, I would have felt badly if I’d spent $600-plus to remain in New York in order to see it. (Which of course I didn’t.)

Martin Scorsese before last night’s New York Film Festival showing of Hugo.

Here’s a mildly amusing account of the Alice Tully Hall experience by Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale.

Hugo “will be a worthy addition to the upcoming awards season,” wrotes Deadline‘s Mike Fleming. “Scorsese has provided the most intriguing use of 3D since James Cameron did in Avatar; instead of the gimmicky opportunity of using 3D to have objects jump out at audiences, Scorsese employs it to subtly immerse the audience into Hugo Cabret’s world that exists behind the walls of a Paris train station, and the inner workings of the clocks he winds and maintains, that are so integral to the film’s plot.

“Scorsese has infused the film with his love of cinema history and passion for film restoration. The big question for a pricey family film is how the half-pint set will greet an old fashioned love letter to the formation of cinema.”

A friend has confided that “you’ll ultimately be glad that you didn’t shell out $600 to stay for the screening. There’s going to be a lot of stuff you’re going to like but the kids are [negative comment] and probably 65% of the movie is just them by themselves. The stuff about Georges Melies (played by Ben Kingsley) is the best part and that doesn’t happen until over an hour into the movie.”

“Boston police began arresting scores of Occupy Boston protesters who refused to leave a large part of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway early this morning,” the Boston Globe‘s John M. Guilfoil and Derek J. Anderson reported at 2:55 am this morning.

“At 1:20 a.m., the first riot police officers lined up on Atlantic Avenue. Minutes later, dozens of sheriff vans and police wagons arrived and over 200 officers in uniforms and riot gear surrounded the Greenway.

“Police Superintendent William Evans and Commissioner Edward F. Davis watched from across the street. Evans gave the crowd two minutes to disperse from the park, warning that they would be locked up if they did not comply.

“The crowd of protesters, energized by the sudden appearance of the Boston and Transit police officers, chanted, ”The people united will never be defeated,’ ‘This is a peaceful protest,’ and ‘the whole world is watching.”

3:10 am tweet from Keith Olbermann: “Police conduct overnight raids on Occupy in Boston, Seattle. At risk: St. Louis, Seattle, Dallas. This is the Night Of The Long Batons.”

I’m sorry but this scene is amusing, perfectly acted and shrewdly written, like the film itself. And the cool, calm and collected Christoph Waltz rules here like he never ruled in Inglourious Basterds.

A failing aspect-ratio grade is hereby given to Sony Home Video’s new Bluray of The Caine Mutiny, and particularly to Sony’s restoration guy Grover Crisp for approving a 1.85 masking of a film that was absolutely intended to be seen in a 1.33 or 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio.

Image from the recently released Bluray of Edward Dmytryk‘s The Caine Mutiny.

Same scene (although perhaps not same shot) with boxier cropping. What do we gain as viewers from not seeing a bit more sky, and a fuller view of the lecturn that Humphrey Bogart is standing behind?

Wider aperture plates were only just being introduced to theatres in 1953 and ’54 with The Robe, the very first CinemaScope film, debuting in ’53 and the need to simulate widescreen images relatively new. The Caine Mutiny was released on 6.24.54, and there’s no way in the world that Caine dp Franz Planer expected viewers to see this film within a 1.85 frame. Okay, maybe some stickler exhibitors in New York and Los Angeles might have projected it with 1.85 aperture plates, but Planer knew that most of the country would be looking at a boxier version. And Crisp knows that.

George Stevens‘ Shane was also shot in 1.33 and released only about 15 months before The Caine Mutiny, and you can bet no one at Paramount Home Video ever considered putting that classic on DVD with a 1.85 or 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio. Not a chance. You can bet that the people mastering the Gaumont Bluray of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi, which had its European debut in 1954, never dreamt of masking it off at 1.85.

Loyal Griggs‘ Shane cinematography won an Oscar, and I recall Pauline Kael writing that it was thought to be some kind of sick joke that the tops and bottoms of his images had been severed with a fake panoramic cropping of 1.66 to 1 when Shane played at the Radio City Music Hall.

The 1.85 Caine Mutiny Bluray is following the lead of the two or three DVD versions that came out between ’98 and ’07. The VHS and laser disc versions of The Caine Mutiny presented the film at a full 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio, which made it look very handsome indeed. But you know the old story. People want their 16 x 9 high-def screens to be completely filled when they watch their Blurays so the tops and bottoms were chopped off and to hell with what Planer and director Edward Dmytryk wanted people to see.

This is the worst mis-masking of a Bluray since Psycho, which also should have been released in 1.33. Or at least in two versions — 1.33 and 1.85.

I don’t believe for a second that Crisp would approve a 1.85 cropping of On The Waterfront, which was released on 7.28.54, or a month after The Caine Mutiny. And I don’t think Crisp would be crazy enough to approve a 1.85 masking of the long-delayed Bluray of From Here To Eternity, which opened in August of ’53. Can you imagine the outcry if a 1.85 cropping of Eternity on Bluray was released? But a 1.85 cropping of The Caine Mutiny draws nary a peep.

William F. Buckley‘s voice had a wonderfully deep timbre, and his chilly blue eyes had a faintly demonic glint as he was making his points against opponents. I’m asking myself if any TV interviewer today introduces guests in this slightly jaundiced way that seems to be saying to the viewer “this man or woman doesn’t pass muster according to my sights, and is possibly not be trusted.”

Nobody would dare do this today, and yet there was something delicious in Buckley’s way of putting his guests down. He was like a man who was masterful with a bullwhip snapping a fly off a horse’s ear.

Leaving aside the merits of the view that Obamacare and Romneycare are two sides of an evil coin, you have to give some creative credit to Perry’s advertising team for delivering a horror-film, lightning-flash, evil-twin image in Perry’s Romney-takedown ad, which has just been released. If a presidential candidate has ever used a horror flash-cut in a political ad before, I’m not aware of it. Here’s the ad, and Michael D. Shear‘s N.Y. Times story about it.

The way to understand establishment hostility towards the Occupy Wall Street-ers, in the view of N.Y. Times columnist Paul Krugman, “is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

“Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

“Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

“This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

“So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.”