12 or 13 days ago Anton Corbijn‘s blog about the making of The American revealed that the film did some “late stage” extra shooting in Abruzzo, Italy (presumably within the last few weeks) and that this final phase introduced a new character played by veteran Belgian actor Johan Leysen. “It was a wonderful experience and Johan’s work in the film will be the icing on the cake,” Corbijn writes. Last-minute shooting with a brand new character? Hmmm.

My Providence-to-NYC Amtrak office this morning. No wifi (unless you take the Acela) but the AT&T Air Card works fine. Lots of table space, several wall outlets, and a relatively smooth ride if compared to a stagecoach journey across Kansas in the 1880s.

I spent the weekend with an old friend who lives in Little Compton, Rhode Island. An affluent hamlet, large trees and sprawling extra-large lawns, private beaches, flat Hamptons-style typography. Last night we visited her slightly older sister, who lives a full and ordered life but doesn’t “get out” much and rarely if ever goes to movies. But her eyes brightened when Eat Pray Love came up, which older sis definitely plans to see. Moments like this tell you more than any tracking report.

Nobody in my realm has seen Eat Pray Love…no screenings, no nothing. And yet it opens 11 days hence (8.13), or the same day as The Expendables, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Animal Kingdom, etc., which have all been liberally screened. We’re obviously past the appropriate time to let people like me see it unless…you know, there’s a problem. I’m not implying anything; I’m just wondering.

Eat Pray Love is incidentally rated PG-13 for “brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity.” Whose ass, I wonder? Richard Jenkins would naturally be out of the running so the most reasonable assumption would be either James Franco‘s or Javier Bardem‘s.

Myself, my friend’s older sister (not to be named without permission) and a guy she was seeing at the time. Pic taken way back when in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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“In its willingness to simply show people having feelings without talking about them, Ruba Nadda‘s Cairo Time (IFC Films, 8.6) is reminiscent of Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation,” writes Marshall Fine. “Yet, thanks to a marvelously nuanced performance by Patricia Clarkson and a smoothly engaging one by Alexander Siddig, we feel both the heat of the Egyptian desert and a warmth growing between these two people.

“The film lives and breathes through Clarkson. With her butterscotch hair, sleepy eyes and quietly husky voice, she’s [playing] a woman in full possession of herself — but one who longs to let herself go, even if just a little. It’s a stunning performance of many facets, in which Clarkson conveys as much in a look as many actresses struggle to reveal with overt histrionics.

“Cairo Time seduces the viewer with its beauty, with its wealth of emotion that doesn’t have to be discussed to be felt. It pulls you into another world so deeply that you are disappointed at having to leave it at the end.”

In other words, it’s an adult-romance chick flick that’s probably too subtle and intelligent to pull in the mainstream older-female audience that paid to see the last Sex and the City flick and can’t wait to see Eat Pray Love. What does the average over-30 female moviegoer think about heavy breathing with a good-looking Egyptian guy with a nicely trimmed beard? I wouldn’t know, but don’t you need to dispense giddy-giggly GTO humor and lush material fantasy to snag this group?

Jason Bateman with a slight “eew” expression vs. Jennifer Aniston not responding to him or whatever’s in the cup but to Bateman’s hair. And right away you’re thinking, “What’s she seeing in his hair? Or is it…what, something crawling on the wall? Something’s not right here.” On 7.30 Real Time with Bill Maher writer Chris Kelly riffed on this and other aspects of the poster for The Switch (20th Century Fox, 8.20).

“What typeface do you want?”

“Oh, I don’t care, whatever you’ve got, as long as it doesn’t say comedy, or anything else about the movie.”

“Done. And the images?”

“Again, don’t care. This thing’s a dead loss. You got any pictures of Jennifer Aniston, but sort of busy and uninteresting, like a screen grab, so people will know this is one of those in-between Anistons with like Woody Harrelson, that goes straight to video?”

“We can do that. Who’s the guy?”

“Some guy from TV. Whatever picture you’ve got is fine. Just so long as their eyelines don’t match.”

“Got it. Hey, What’s he doing?”

“That’s a cup of his own spooge.”

“Wow, that’s really unappealing. Why’s he smelling it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he thinks if it smells bad he’s got cancer. Who gives a shit. Just paste it in.”

“You got a lot of white space…”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I. Don’t. Care.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve got room for a tag line.”

“Okay… uh… from the people who brought you Juno and Little Miss Sunshine.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes. The people who made those movies were Americans, and the people who made this movie were also Americans. The American people.”

“Okay. Here you go. What do you think?”

“I think I don’t care.”

“So you’re happy?”

“Yep. Thanks. This is a really nice Kinko’s.”

“You’re welcome.”

Update: Lindsay Lohan was released from jail around 1:35 am this morning, so the following comments from Merle Haggard about how she ought to deal with other inmates is moot.

Earlier: In a 7.30 interview with country legend Merle Haggard, Vanity Fair‘s Eric Spitznagel asks for helpful prison advice for Lindsay Lohan to perhaps consider.

Spitznagel: You know who could use some jail house pointers from you? Lindsay Lohan.

Haggard: I feel sorry for her because she’s such a lovely creature and such a talented person, and she’s also a spoiled brat. I don’t know if they’ve put her in with the rest of the inmates. I doubt that they would, but if it happens, she may have to fight her way out of a couple things.

Spitznagel: So your advice to Lindsay is, be prepared to brawl?

Haggard: She has to be honest, and she has to let the other prisoners know that she doesn’t feel like she’s any better than they are.

Spitznagel: That could be a problem.

Haggard: Well, they’ll change her mind about that. (Laughs.) When I was in San Quentin, I paid attention the whole time I was there and I made sure I didn’t borrow anything from anybody. If I told somebody I was going to meet them on a Tuesday, I met ’em. I learned that it’s better to be honest, because you can’t get away from your lie.

Spitznagel: It’s not like you just hide out at the Chateau Marmont and wait for everything to blow over.

Haggard: It won’t blow over. (Laughs.) It will blow you over.

Peter Belsito of Filmfinders, Inc. put this up on Facebook recently, having watched it via Jonathan Taplin. “The greatest three minutes of George Carlin‘s career, and I think the final three minutes of his career. The PTB are aggressively trying to keep this video off YouTube and Google, so I thought I’d upload it so it can’t get deleted as easily. Everyone needs to watch this!”

Although the Weinstein Co.’s The King’s Speech is its most visible Best Picture Oscar candidate, the company has an alternate “stealth” contender for the same award, says The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil. It’s The Concert, a French-language drama about a conductor of the Bolshoi orchestra who was fired 30 years ago for hiring Jewish musicians, and is now plotting to even the score.

The narrator of this trailer is impossible, if I may say. The tone is so pandering, the copy so cloying. Inglourious Basterds‘ Melanie Laurent costars as a precocious violinist. Pic opened 7.30 in New York and Los Angeles.

Two days ago (on 7.30) The Bat Segundo Show‘s Edward Champion posted an audio file of a Ken Russell interview. The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 7-day Russell tribute began the same day, of course.

I’ve seen Blake Edwards‘ Breakfast at Tiffany’s exactly once, but the film — or the image, rather, of Audrey Hepburn‘s Holly Golightly with the black evening grown, upswept hair and long cigarette holder — has an iconic status. And like everyone else, I’ve always thought of Hepburn/Golightly as some kind of flighty gold-digger type. But no, says N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd in today’s column. Holly is a whore.

When the producers of Breakfast at Tiffany’s chose Hepburn to play Golightly, “her real-life good-girl persona helped mask the raciness of her character.

“In the 1960 movie of John O’Hara‘s Butterfield 8, Elizabeth Taylor‘s call girl had to die in a car crash for her sins, just as 20 years earlier, Vivien Leigh, playing a ballerina-turned-prostitute in Waterloo Bridge, had to be punished for her wicked ways with a final leap off the bridge.

“It would be many years before audiences would embrace overt hookers as heroines: Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places in 1983, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman in 1990 and Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential in 1997.

“Married to the oppressive Mel Ferrer and with a new baby boy, Hepburn’s princess-swan image bled into Holly, making her seem less like a member of the oldest profession and more like a modern, fun-loving single girl.

“‘In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, all of a sudden — because it was Audrey who was doing it — living alone, going out, looking fabulous and getting a little drunk didn’t look so bad anymore,’ writes Sam Wasson in his new book Fifth Avenue, 5 am: Audrey Hepburn, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and the Dawn of the Modern Woman. ‘Being single actually seemed shame-free. It seemed fun.’

“So, as a haute hooker, Hepburn was a fairy godmother, not only to feminism but to the prevailing ethos that style and cool trump all.”

Update: Despite Dinner for Schmucks having edged out Inception on Friday, the final weekend figures have Chris Nolan ‘s dreamstate epic taking the weekend crown. Inception‘s three-day tally is expected to be $27.1 million, a drop of 37% from last weekend, for a cume of $192.9 million. The second-place Schmucks will end up with $23 million. Salt, down 47% from last weekend, is third with $19,250,000.

Earlier: A little voice was telling me on Friday morning that Dinner for Schmucks might nudge ahead of Inception and take the weekend crown. It did manage this on Friday, earning $8,400,000 to Inception‘s $8,150,000, but final weekend projections have yet to emerge. (It’s 10:25 am Sunday morning and box-office reporting sites still haven’t coughed up Saturday figures.)

Carl DiOrio‘s Hollywood Reporter “Box Office Tally” forecast guessed that Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore would “do just well enough” to be #1. In actually it appears likely to end up in fifth place with $12.5 million.

Warner Bros. refuses to issue The Devils on DVD stateside or on iTunes, but for some reason they’ve released a DVD of Ken Russell‘s film in Spain. Which I don’t get. If it’s bad for the U.S. market, why is it good for the Spaniards?