I’d love to know the real story why Devin Faraci is departing CHUD as of this Friday. The Scott Pilgrim-adoring columnist is a major geek brand, as far as it goes. It seems odd that he and owner Nick Nunziata would part ways. Faraci announced his departure this afternoon, adding that he’s part of “an exciting new venture that launches this fall, which will offer lots of interesting partnership possibilities, both online and in the real world. I’ll be able to share more details in a couple of weeks.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews did a pretty good job yesterday of slapping down Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who’s been trying to inflame the anti-muslim 9/11 mosque issue to get a bump in the polls.

My very first act of film criticism in a public arena was in late ’70, or seven or eight years before I started writing. I was sitting shotgun in a car that was cruising past Westport’s Fine Arts theatre, and in front of it and wrapping around the building and way down the alley was a line of people waiting to see Love Story. I rolled down the window and yelled, “You effing milquetoasts!”

Some people turned and looked stunned, or hurt even, and I felt a little badly about that. But then I told myself, “Well, somebody has to say it.” It was common knowledge, after all, or commonly believed, that anyone who fell for that movie or the pablum behind it was being a total sentimental sap.

“What can you say about 25 year-old girl who died?”

That’s the second most famous line from Erich Segal‘s Love Story, which actually began as a screenplay before being turned into a book as a promotional tie-in for the Arthur Hiller-directed film, which opened in December 1970.

The most famous, of course, is “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That line has probably made more people retch than any other in the history of motion pictures.

Thomas Vinciguerra‘s 8.20 N.Y. Times story about the annual Harvard rite of mocking Love Story is what brought it all back. I always though it a bit odd that the 25 year-old girl who died, a Radcliffe music student from Providence named Jenny Cavalleri, was played by Ali McGraw, who was pushing 32 when the film was made. McGraw is now 72 — amazing.

Angelina Jolie isn’t just the once-estranged daughter of Hollywood’s worst saliva-drooling Tea Party nutter, Jon Voight. She may also be a closet ally of Voight’s, at least in terms of despising Barack Obama. (Call this a flimsy maybe.) She also seems to be a supporter of America’s military adventures in Iraq and perhaps also Afghanistan and…well, basically anywhere that the poor are suffering due to the deprivations of war.

Jolie’s reasoning seems to be that because these conflicts are in some ways politically and governmentally linked with humanitarian support for the downtrodden, anyone who talks about withdrawing from these areas (like President Obama) is somehow anti-humanitarian. Or something like that. Because people whose lives have been torn to shreds by the horrors of war need to be sheltered and cared for, and who better to do this than a really rich hottie who wants to provide for as many of the bruised and battered as possible?

It’s well known that Jolie has a strong personal belief in humanitarian work — a general compassion for those whose lives have been ruined by war and famine, and the ceremonial UN Goodwill Ambassador thing, of course. So her plan to spend the fall directing a low-budget love story set against the Bosnian-Serbian war of the ’90s, a conflict which devastated the lives of tens of thousands, falls right into line.

Gregg Kilday‘s 8.22 Hollywood Reporter piece about the film said Jolie “was in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this past weekend, meeting with the country’s leaders to discuss the plight of the more than 113,000 displaced persons living in the country.

But Jolie’s official quote about the film, calling it “a love story [and] not a political statement” is, of course, horseshit. Anyone who has ever said these words (and they’re hardly original) has more or less lied. All movies about wars and revolutions are political statements, and…well, think about it for five or six seconds. How could Jolie make a film of this sort without her political sympathies becoming part of the mix?

I don’t know how Jolie plans to weave her allegedly conservative views into a war-torn love story (maybe weave in information about the liberal Clinton administration doing very little to help end the Serb-Bosnian slaughter?), but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this happens.

I only know what Jon Voight has said and stands for, and that I saw him standing near his daughter and Brad Pitt inside a roped-off area at the Salt premiere after-party. And the old cliche about the acorn not falling too far from the tree flew into my mind, especially considering her rep as a closet rightie (including her alleged support for McCain during the ’08 campaign) and that “stay the course in Iraq” Washington Post article she posted in ’08. And being…okay, maybe she’s more of an Ayn Rand libertarian, given her interest in making a film version of Atlas Shrugged.

It’s fair to say that if Rush Limbaugh is singing your praises, something stinks in the kingdom of Denmark.

The basic conservative impulse is to bow down and show total allegiance to authority. This obviously links up with the old cliche about right-wing women (like Rand) being especially passionate about worshipping strong males, which is incidentally why they’re said to be so great in bed. This could be one possible explanation for those reportedly overheard sounds that suggested “an animal being killed.”

I’m not one to take unsourced Us magazine quotes as anything to rely upon, but combine the Washington Post op-ed piece with this 11.09 non-attributable quote that Jolie considers Obama to be a “closet socialist,” and I’m at least thinking “hmmm.”

The term “closet socialist”….well, what’s so bad with that? FDR was one, and he had it right in my book. Anyone who uses such a term is clearly a closet rightie. I mean, that’s a symmetrical way of looking at it.

“‘She hates [Obama],” a source close to Jolie told an Us reporter, according to the article. “She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise.”

Two years ago I said Michael Cera would be “completely done within two or three years.” Was I right ? Maybe not. Cera could still be kicking around in 2012 and beyond. But an 8.23 box-office analysis article by TheWrap‘s Brent Lang, called “Five Reasons Scott Pilgrim Tanked,” suggests that swirling gray clouds are forming.

“Scott Pilgrim‘s fate may have been sealed the moment Michael Cera nabbed the lead role,” Lang says halfway through.

“Cera may have had a hit with Superbad and Juno, but the credit there may lie with Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, respectively.” (And Jonah Hill in the case of Superbad.) “Films with Cera’s name above the title since have all bombed,” Lang claims. “Year One earned $43.3 million, Youth in Revolt netted $15.3 million and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist grossed $31.5 million. Like Scott Pilgrim, all the these films featured Cera as a mumbling, geeky, and virginal protagonist.

“‘Aside from recasting, I don’t know what they could have done,’ an individual with knowledge of the marketing campaign told TheWrap. ‘I don’t know why or when this occurred, but somehow this industry became convinced without any evidence that Michael Cera is a star. Who wants to hang out with this guy? He’s the kid you shoved in a locker.'”

Oldie but goodie, taken about ten years ago. I’m the guy doing the stroll.

Somewhere in Venice’s Dorsoduro district

Right off the bat this trailer for Gareth Edwards‘ Monsters (Magnolia, 10.29) suggests District 9. Which obviously encourages. The Mexican locations (actually Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Texas), the scattershot cutting, the raggedy-ass look…you can just tell. The only thing that gave pause was the “awesome!” quote from Ain’t It Cool. It’s almost an Armond White thing with those guys. If they’re batshit over a new film, there’s a decent chance I may not be.

Last Saturday afternoon (or 29 stories ago), I dismissed Michael Cieply‘s hit-job piece about The Social Network as being a so-whatter. (It was titled “Facebook Isn’t Happy…So?”) Yesterday New York Post critic Lou Lumenick challenged the article for being scantily or insufficiently sourced.

An 8.21 Denver Post article about films starring female action heroines underlines a basic fact — women are simply not big or strong enough to defeat male opponents in hand-to-hand combat. They can wound or cripple but they cannot kick real-life butt unless their male opponent is some Woody Allen– or Arnold Stang-sized guy. Even larger-proportioned women just don’t have that upper-body-weight advantage.

Which means that it’s doubly ludicrous to see slender, smallish women like Angelina Jolie and Chloe Moretz deliver serious ass-stompings to male opponents, some of whom are bigger and brawnier with gorilla-sized arms, legs and feet.

There are dozens of ways female action stars can go bad-ass in movies (cops, assassins, soldiers, spies, MOSSAD agents, CIA agents, homicide detectives) but they really aren’t that good at beating up most guys — not in real life, they’re not. And if you ask any guy out there the suspension-of-disbelief required to buy into this is just too much to ask for. The knock-downs that Salt‘s Jolie and Kick-Ass‘s Moretz have handed out (among others) are pure hokum.

Does this mean they’ll eventually cease? Laughed off the screen by popular demand? Of course not. I went with Salt because it was so well put together, so as long as there’s a clever director at work these films will seem semi-palatable. On top of which they seem to fulfill a fantasy. Women enjoy female action stars demonstrating physical superiority over male opponents…right? And so these kick-butt sequences will continue to happen in the same way every superhero gets to jump off buildings and ignore gravity. Action has been ruined by the mid’ 90s Hong Kong influence and CGI, but no one seems to care all that much.

Film critic Lisa Kennedy , author of the Denver Post piece (which is called “Beauty Meets Brute Force“), almost says what I’ve just said in the previous four graphs, but not quite.

The process of deciding which Toronto Film Festival films are essential to see has begun. I’m starting with a list of 44, out of which I’ll have to lose at least 10 if not 12 or 13. (My festival average is 3.5 films per day x 9 days = 31 films.) Here’s the complete list, courtesy of Indiewire. The goal isn’t to deliberately bypass special films, but to absolutely not miss those familiar elements (recognizable names, likely award-season contender status) that will translate into various levels of heat in the weeks and months to come:

Special Presentations (21): 127 Hours (d: Danny Boyle); AMIGO (d: John Sayles); Another Year (d: Mike Leigh — if only I’d seen it in Cannes!); Brighton Rock (d: Rowan Joffe); Conviction (d: Tony Goldwyn), Cirkus Columbia (d: Danis Tanovic); Everything Must Go (d: Dan Rush); Henry’s Crime (d: Malcolm Venville); Hereafter (d: Clint Eastwood); I’m Still Here (d: Casey Affleck); In A Better World (d: Susanne Bier); Let Me In (d: Matt Reeves); Love Crime (d: Alain Corneau); Miral (d: Julian Schnabel); Never Let Me Go (d: Mark Romanek); Outside the Law (d: Rachid Bouchareb); Rabbit Hole (d: John Cameron Mitchell; Stone (d: John Curran); Submarine (d: Richard Ayoade); What’s Wrong With Virginia (d: Dustin Lance Black); The Whistleblower (d: Larysa Kondracki).

Galas (16): Barney’s Version (d: Richard J. Lewis); Black Swan (d: Darren Aronofsky), Casino Jack (d: George Hickenlooper — have to see the freshened-up version); The Conspirator (d: Robert Redford); The Debt (d: John Madden); The King’s Speech (d: Tom Hooper); Last Night (d: Massy Tadjedin); Little White Lies (d: Guillaume Canet); The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (d: Thom Zimny); The Town (d: Ben Affleck); Erotic Man (d: Jorgen Leth); Essential Killing (d: Jerzy Skolimowski); Nostalgia for the Light (d: Patricio Guzman); The Sleeping Beauty (d: Catheirne Breillat); Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (d: Apichatpong Weerasethakul — satirical Cannes comment opportunity); The Ward (d: John Carpenter).

Real to Reel (7): Armadillo (d: Janus Metz); Cave of Forgotten Dreams (d: Werner Herzog); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (d: Alex Gibney — dying to see it again); Cool It (d: Ondi Timoner); Inside Job (d: Charles Ferguson — seen it twice already, bit it’s showing the first night); Mother of Rock: Lillian Roxon (d: Paul Clarke); Tabloid (d: Errol Morris).

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson wrote a