I wasn’t expecting all that much from Terminator Salvation, but I found it half-tolerable — occasionally stirring and decently crafted, and propelled by a reasonably compelling story by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris. It’s basically a grab-bag tentpole whore piece (Terminator shards and remnants blended with The Road Warrior, Transformers and The Road), but it’s also the best film McG has ever done, mainly because of a humanistic theme (i.e., what finally separates men from machines) that’s agreeably delivered.

It’s a curious thing to go into a film ready to hate only to feel gradually disarmed, at least to the point that discomfort isn’t a factor. It wasn’t blown away but I can live with respectably crafted apocalypse-event films of this pedigree. At least Terminator Salvation tries to do the right thing in a reasonably stand-up way. It’s not crazily edited; you can follow what’s going on. It’s a long way from visceral Bayo sludge, or at least is a county or two removed.

And what a surprise that the film doesn’t belong to Christian Bale but to Sam Worthington, playing a cyborg who doesn’t know he’s a cyborg. His character’s moral growth arc actually got to me. The film’s salvation is that it’s not about John Connor but Marcus Wright. Worthington’s upcoming lead performance in Avatar will almost certainly close the deal on his being….well, I’m not sure what he is. He’s a bit of a mutt Australian who isn’t quite charismatic in a young-Mel-Gibson way, but there’s something vaguely Eastwoodish about him.

The headless giant cyborg was obviously thrown in to match the spectacle of Transformers, the Arnold Schwarzenegger CG-borg looks slapdash, and Moon Bloodgood, who plays the strongest female character with the most screen time, looks and acts like a model on a weekend campout.

For years it’s been a settled issue in my head that McG is a demonic Hollywood shill for having injected those legendarily poisonous Charlie’s Angels movies into the communal bloodstream, but now I don’t know what to think. He’ll always be a big-studio hack but I’m now willing to consider him as a non-satanic force. Terminator Salvation is a decently made film as far as it goes.

European jet lag always throws you off for two or three days. It plays hell with concentration. The guys and I went to a double-header yesterday at Leows’ 84th Street — Terminator Salvation and Drag Me To Hell. We got back home in the early evening and I immediately went online, but all I could do was surf like a zombie. And an hour from now I have to drive Dylan and his stuff to Philadelphia, where he’s enrolled in the University fo the Arts and where he’ll be working and living thissummer Out of commission until sometime this evening. 5:25 pm Update: Heading back from Philly as I speak, filing from a moving car.

This CNN deer-jumping video summons a traumatic event that I’ve been suppressing for the last nine days. I was driving my rental car on a dark country road in Denia, the Spanish port town located a half-hour south of Valencia, around 10 pm or so, and going about 30 or 35 kph when I suddenly hit a dog. A smallish mutt ran right in front of me….whump. He/she was chasing a dark cat, which had run in front of the car a split second earlier. There was no time to stop. Over before I had a chance to react.

The dog wasn’t killed — it ran down the road and into the brush three or four seconds later — but you know how adrenaline works. Howling and crying, obviously badly hurt. There was nothing to do or say, but every time my mind flashed on it over the remainder of the Spain trip I shuddered. The accidental, blame-free, unavoidable nature doesn’t matter. The fact of an animal suffering because of something I did, however unwittingly…

We all feel awful over the hurtful things we’ve done, whether they were our fault or not. I’ll never get over my having beaten a turtle when I was seven or eight with a heavy stick and causing its shell to bleed. I’d had a nightmare about being bitten by a snapping turtle and I thought that the turtle I ran into might be a dangerous cousin of some kind. A stupid little-kid thing to have done, but I’ve never forgotten it or gotten over it.

“But really, what makes Pontypool worth watching is that fascinating (and often underutilized) actor, Stephen McHattie. With his sunken cheeks and eyes that burn with a kind of canny madness, McHattie, playing the reluctant hero, is completely believable, a guy with demons who suddenly finds that the world is even scarier than his interior landscape. Language is a virus, Laurie Anderson once sang – and Pontypool takes that notion to frightening extremes.” — Hollywood & Fine‘s Marshall Fine in a 5.29 review.

“The harrowing truth remains unchanged from what it was before Dick Cheney emerged from his bunker to set Washington atwitter. The Bush administration did not make us safer either before or after 9/11. Obama is not making us less safe. If there’s another terrorist attack, it will be because the mess the Bush administration ignored in Pakistan and Afghanistan spun beyond anyone’s control well before Americans could throw the bums out.” — from Frank Rich‘s column in today’s N.Y. Times, called “Who Is To Blame for the Next Attack?”

If you were casting around for an actor to play a good-time 30something guy with a beard, a barrel chest and a wisecracking mouth, would you go with The Hangover‘s Zach Galifianakis or Humpday‘s Joshua Leonard? Appearance-wise the differences are mainly about weight (Galifianakis is bulkier) and hair color (Leonard’s hair is blondish). Is the Galifianakis similarity the reason Leonard’s beard was shaved off for the Humpday release poster?

(l.) The Hangover’s Zach Galifianakis; (r.) Humpday‘s Joshua Leonard

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If you’re in LA, Jack Morrissey says it’s absolutely essential to visit the Rubber Room’s Monsterpalooza at the Burbank Marriott Convention Center, which features the work of Drag Me To Hell model/prosthetic guy Greg Nicotera (also the creator of “Bruce” in Jaws and Dirk Diggler’s appendage in Boogie Nights). But today’s the last shot! Here’s Nicotera talking to Time Out.

Taken Friday night on Barcelona’s La Rambla, maybe six or seven blocks north of the harbor.

My son Dylan and I happened to be standing on 6th Ave. and 36th Street around 7:35 or 7:40 pm when President Barack Obama‘s motorcade came howling by. He and Michelle had been to dinner at a West Village restaurant called Blue Hill, and were on their way to the Belasco theatre for a performance of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

I didn’t know what was up at first. Something obviously was with all the cops around and the cross streets blocked off. More and more people began to congregate on both sides of Sixth Avenue. The word got around fast. By the time the motorcade made its way through the area it almost felt like we were watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Lots of sirens, a good 20 or 30 motorcycles, eight or nine cops cars vans and SUVs came before and after the two Presidential limousines. People clapped and cheered when they finally came by. Which one carried Barack and Michelle? Most likely the second.

With all the hullaballoo over the last several months about John Madden‘s Killshot being delayed, regionally released (barely) and generally being shown little love by the Weinstein Co., you’d think there’d be a bit more reaction to this adaptation of an Elmore Leonard thriller coming out four days ago on DVD. Apparently it’s a bit underwhelming, but are there any HE reader reactions?

“Killshot hasn’t enjoyed the easiest road to a suitable release,” wrote DVD Talk‘s Brian Ondorf. “Filmed nearly four years ago, the picture suffered through endless rounds of editorial indecision, reshooting, and the embarrassment of a pathetic five-screen theatrical release earlier this year. While the feature’s unpleasant personal history shouldn’t be at play during a viewing, it’s hard not to spot the sloppy stitch marks on the motion picture. While certainly endowed with a few startling moments of tension, Killshot is messy and unfocused, taking the stinger out of this Elmore Leonard adaptation.”

This is going to be a super-busy catch-up weekend watching this one plus Drag Me To Hell and Pontypool in theatres.