A couple of weeks ago I drove out to El Monte and bought a little white Chinese-made scooter for $1500 — brand new, tax and license and registration, all in. It costs $60 bucks to fill up my car and $5 to fill up the scooter tank, and it gets about 100 mpg. And I can get to places much faster on the scooter than I can with the car, and you never have to pay for parking, ever. And it’s a lot of fun. I rode a scooter through Paris three weeks ago and it was heaven.

I’m going to the premiere of Larry Crowne (Universal, 7.1), in which Tom Hanks plays a laid-off 50ish guy who joins an LA Scooter club, etc. I read this morning that a few dozen scooter riders “will accompany Hanks and possibly costar Julia Roberts on an escorted Scooter convoy through the streets of Hollywood en route to the Larry Crowne world premiere on June 27.”

I wrote my Universal p.r. pally about riding along with this swarm so I can shoot video and stills and whatnot.

Reggie Brown is a fairly decent Obama impersonator, but his jokes about Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann and other righties, delivered last night at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, were deemed overly scathing. And so he was booted…er, escorted off the stage. That’s the right for you — fall into lockstep and “talk the talk” and don’t be any kind of impudent smartass, or you’re gone. Here’s a longer clip.

Boxoffice.com is projecting that The Green Lantern‘s total domestic theatrical gross will top out around $135 million after earning $52,685,000 this weekend. Indiewire‘s Anthony D’Allesandro reports that Green Lantern grosses “fell 22% between Friday and Saturday with another 15% today [i.e., Sunday].”

Warner Bros. will pocket around 90% of the $52 mill and maybe…what, 75% or 80% of the grand total? Even when you factor in overseas revenue, DVD/Bluray and pay/cable, etc., it still looks like a shortfaller considering the $300 million tab ($200 million to actually make the damn thing and, according to WB honcho Alan Horn, $100 million to sell it worldwide). So it’s a loser, a down-the-holer. No sequels, go away, etc.

What factors brought the curtain down upon The Green Lantern? Unfiltered Lens observer Ray DeRoussecites four killers: (1) Comic-book movies need a singular vision, and all Green Lantern really offered was soulless eye candy; (2) 3D is dead — “Nobody wants to pay $14 to $20 a ticket to watch Ryan Reynolds fight CG fart clouds in 3D… nobody“; (3) “Ryan Reynolds is not a movie star…yet”; and (4) “Comic-book movies have hit the end of the road.”

This Jack Torrance Father’s Day card was initially tweeted (I think) by Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich.

My father (who passed in 2008) turned me on to a few films that I admire, respect and still watch every now and then: The Four Feathers, Twelve O’Clock High, High Noon, Hiroshima Mon Amour, The Gunfighter, Gunga Din, Battleground, Sweet Smell of Success. I tried to return the favor occasionally, and he was generally receptive in the ’70 and ’80s and early ’90s. But I gave up on him when he called The Limey a piece of crap. “That’s it,” I told myself. “His taste buds are shot.”

I’ve got an hour’s bike ride and other Sunday morning stuff to accomplish so I don’t know about attending the LA Film Festival’s Coffee Talk with Directors panel, which starts at 11 am (or 44 minutes from now) at Regal Cinema #12. The three panelists will be Phillip Noyce (Salt, Clear and Present Danger, Rabbit-Proof Fence), Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, The Box) and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, 30 Minutes or Less).

I’ll definitely be attending the 5 pm Coffee with Screenwriters panel with Dustin Lance Black (Milk, J. Edgar), Diablo Cody (Young Adult, Juno), Christopher Marcus & Stephen McFeely (The Chronicles of Narnia, Captain America) and Josh Olson (A History of Violence, One Shot).

I’ll also be seeing Lisa Jackson‘s Sex Crimes Unit, a doc, at 7:15 pm, and then Paddy Considine‘s Tyrannosaur at 10 pm.

This morning at 8:51 am Glenn Kenny (@ExtAngel) tweeted that “reams and reams of furious debate and still no input from @wellshwood means ‘cultural vegetables’ (being re-discussed by Dan Kois, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis in tomorrow’s N.Y. Times) is really a complete non-issue.”

I didn’t get into it because I said it all on 5.4 in response to Kois’ original N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine article, and I was re-posting an old piece at that. Because I’d addressed the issue 12 years ago in an essay that basically said that vegetable-like, ever-so-slightly boring films are generally necessary, sometimes nurturing and almost always worthwhile.

(1) “Quality movies flirt with being boring from time to time. A good kind of boring, I mean. Nutritional, Brussels-sprouts, good-for-your-soul boring. So in the backwash of our constant cultural deprivation, ‘a little bit boring’ is a serious compliment these days. You just have to mean it (or hear it) the right way.”

(2) “It’s important to understand the degree of boring I’ve speaking of here. I don’t mean sinking-into-a-coma boring. Or regular boring. Or even mildly boring. But a little bit boring.

(3) “My point is, it’s often a mark of quality if something is a little bit boring. But I do mean a little bit. Too much of it and you’ll go to sleep. There are dozens of films released every year that are wonderful sleeping aids. I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about films that are laced with boredom. Like a couple pinches of salt in a bowl of egg salad. Just the right amount of it is usually an indication that a film is doing something right.”

“Overall, the film is incredible. In the oldest sense of that word, it is awe-inspiring and grotesque. Stunning and heartfelt. It’s a love letter to a country, a time and a frowning clown singing mournfully about a weeping trumpet. We are all bad people. We hurt the ones we love. There can be no laughter without suffering.” — from a 10.5.10 Film School Rejects review by Cole Abalus.

“God gave Mitt Romney the dashing handsome looks of a commanding Presidential candidate, but he stopped at the voice.” — Albert Brooks during last night’s Drive after-party at the Standard Hotel.

I was heartbroken earlier this week when I failed to capture iPhone video footage of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discussing the issues behind The Last Mountain at the Westside Pavillion, so here’s a pretty good David Poland interview with Kennedy and Last Mountain director Bill Haney.

I talked last night to a geeky guy at the Regal as we waited for Drive to begin, and he said he “loved” The Green Lantern. I also met a 30something mom and her daughter who really liked Lantern and had no trouble following the plot threads. “But all the critics hate it!,” I said to the mom. “I mean, really hated it.” She shrugged her shoulders.

What is this? Tell me there’s not a big wave of genuine hoi polloi support for this thing. Box-office numbers for CG megaflicks don’t mean a thing on the first weekend; it’s only about marketing.

The more I stare at those intelligent ape eyes and seething expressions, the more intrigued I am. And the San Francisco ape rampage looks exciting (if a little too hard-drivey). Could Rise of The Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox, 8.5) be a decent film after all?

The IMDB says Harrison Ford has nothing lined up for the future. Cowboys & Aliens (Universal, 7.29) was his last activity. It’s probably the same old “I get my quote before I read the script” thing. If Ford was smart he’d just get to work with anyone who sounds or looks good, playing the crusty, weather-beaten oldster who can’t quiet bring himself to holster his six-shooter. Imagine Ford in a Nicholas Winding Refn film.