Is there any straight guy out there who’s sincerely into Auschwitz chic? Does anyone want a girl just like a girl who looks like she might die from malnutrition?

DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg has said that “everyone” will see the Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates three-quels, “but the key will be which one gets the most multiple viewings,” writes Slate‘s Kim Masters. “His argument, not surprisingly, is that Shrek will prevail because it’s only 81 minutes long. The math, at least, is on his side: Pirates is a butt-numbing 170 minutes [and] Spider-Man is 140 minutes.

“A distribution executive at a studio that has nothing to do with any of the films just mentioned predicts that Spider-Man 3 will open huge, at about $120 million,” Masters continues. “The film is an event with a following, and there is nothing in theaters right now that anyone wants to see, according to this executive. But the question is the strength of the movie’s eight legs.

“Shrek and Pirates have broad, broad appeal,” this executive says. “With Spider-Man, the word is out that it’s dark.” Taking into account the movie’s cost, our veteran believes that could mean trouble.”

So we’ve got the numbers game set up now. Anything less than $100 million in earnings this weekend means Spider-Man 3 is a short-faller and $120 million will be regarded as somewhere between pretty good and par for the course. Is that fair, or should box-office handicappers be jumping up and down if this happens? If the columnists and critics keep pissing on it and the “dark” word-of-mouth continues unabated, we could be looking at a very signficant (45% to 50%) second-weekend drop.

David Poland (or someone with a herky-jerky, raggedy-ass camera sense) videotaped Roger Ebert‘s appearance last week at the Overlooked Film Festival, and you have to love the guy — Ebert, I mean — for his buoyant and unstoppable spirit

Sam Raimi has told Fox 411‘s Roger Friedman that there will be a Spider-Man 4. As Ned Beatty‘s character says in the second act in Deliverance, “My God…there’s no end to it.” Raimi told Friedman that “it’s all about getting a script.” Beware of any franchise in which a supporting player confides to a columnist at a premiere party, “It turns out I may not be completely dead.” Ugh!

Mel Gibson has gotten too old (51) and too weathered-looking to play a sexy smoothie in a Maverick sequel, as he’s indicated he’d like to do. He’s gotten chunky-framed and his hair has been thinning like crazy. Plus he’s regarded as too much of a nutter to play light and frothy — he can’t go home again after the drunken Malibu rant. Gibson was always great at playing eccentric nutjobs along the lines of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon — that was always his home turf because he’s always been in touch with that side of himself, and he probably has no choice but to stick with that now. I remember describing Richard Donner‘s original Maverick (1994) as “a $75 million dollar Elvis Presley film.”

I’ve been thinking so much about the musical nature of John Carney‘s Once (Fox Searchlight, 5.18) since seeing it at the Sundance Film Festival last January that it didn’t hit me until this morning that it’s a 21st Century Brief Encounter. No exaggeration or reaching — it really is that at its emotional core.

Hansard, Irglova in Once (l.); Johnson, Howard in Brief Encounter (r.)

The essence of David Lean‘s 1946 classic is the notion of love found and love lost — a love between two people (Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson) that’s clearly in their eyes and hearts but not quite in the cards, largely due to an inability or unwillingness to break free from another lingering relationship (i.e., Johnson’s marriage). The relationship between Once‘s Glen Hansard and Marketa Itrglova is similarly charged and similarly constrained. And — I love this — both films run exactly 85 minutes.

I did a phone interview with Carney, Hansard and Irglova this morning. They were in Boston last night, they’re doing press chats today in Manhattan, and they’re about to embark on a cross-country promotional tour that will take them to I’ve-forgotten- how-many-cities, but the trip will span about 18 days, give or take. They’ll hit Los Angeles on 5.15 or 5.16.

The interesting thing is that due to Carney’s fear of flying they’ll be driving the whole way in a van (i.e., paid for by Fox Searchlight) that will have a Once banner on the side. At each screening they’ll be doing a q & a and performing a couple of songs “and maybe going out for a drink with whomever wants to come,” says Carney. I asked John to please send me a photo of the vehicle once they’re on the road, and he said sure.

An electrifying, must-watch trailer for Asgar Leth‘s Ghosts of Cite Soleil (ThinkFilm, 6.27). Superb in all respects — ThinkFilm should adopt this as the U.S. trailer. Here’s my original review that ran in March ’06.

After that first screening, I wrote that “I now see Haiti as less of a Ground Zero for abstract political terror and more of a place where people on the bottom rung are trying to live and breathe and create their own kind of life-force energy as a way of waving away the constant hoverings of doom. In short, this excellent 88-minute film adds recognizable humanity to a culture that has seemed more lacking in hope and human decency than any other on earth.”

For what this may or may not be worth, video of red-carpet interviews with Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi and costar Topher Grace from last night’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The raw sound of the gears grinding inside the cable car tracks on San Francisco’s Powell Street

I went to a first-time-anywhere screening last night of Gary Leva‘s Fog City Mavericks — a tribute to big-name Bay Area filmmakers (George Lucas, Carroll Ballard, Francis Coppola, Chris Columbus, Clint Eastwood, John Lasseter, Phil Kaufman, Walter Murch, Sofia Coppola, Saul Zaentz, Brad Bird) and how they all broke away from Hollywood roughly 30 or 40 years ago (or became regionally self-created) and became anti-establishment, quasi-bohemian regional filmmakers, and therefore an inspiration to all independent-minded filmmakers everywhere. Guys who followed their vision, made money, did it their own way, developed their own kwan.

Blurry George Lucas, John Lasseter (r.) joshing with each other at pre-party for Fog City Mavericks

The story that Reva tells is true — these guys really did establish their own film- making shangri-la in the ’60s, ’70s and early to mid ’80s. But it’s willfully incom- plete. The fact is that the romance and vitality of the Bay Area film scene began to dissipate in the mid to late ’80s, and that with the exception of the success of Pixar, the juices — economic, regional, spiritual — aren’t flowing like they used to. And Reva’s film doesn’t begin to acknowledge this.

Fog City Mavericks, which will show up on Starz down the road, is affectionate but dishonest — a public-relations advertisement instead of a portrait with any feel- ing for depth or shadows or texture or drama. Not to sound overly harsh, but it’s basically a one-dimensional Bay Area blowjob.

The narration, voiced by Peter Coyote, is tritely written and absolutely rancid with cliches. My eyes were rolling; my sighs were constant and probably irritating to the person in the next seat.

Everyone profiled in this film (including the extremely maverick-minded Sofia Coppola) is depicted as brave, pure of heart, tenacious, gifted, full of spirit and belief in themselves — all of them pretty darn wonderful.

A doc reflecting such heavy doses of regional pride without any balancing colors or considerations would be pooh-poohed off the screen in any other city. A tough Manhattan crowd would eat this film (and its director) alive.

Fog City Mavericks (including Robin Williams, standing roughly at the center) on stage of S.F.’s Castro theatre — Sunday, 4.29.07, 7:55 pm

It’s a shame that Fog City Mavericks is such a self-fellating piece of work because, as the notes say, cinema was arguably invented in San Francisco, and that “the spirit of cutting-edge innovation that characterizes the work of Bay Area filmmakers is part and parcel of the maverick approach that drives San Francisco’s creative output, from the literature of the Beats to the technological revolutions of Silicon Valley.” Reva’s film purportedly “examines the way that the DNA of San Francisco affects and reflects the lives and work of its artists,” blah, blah.

That’s a decent idea, but to make a good doc about a culture you have to talk to at least some people who aren’t invested in the local economy. Then you have to be willing to be hard and real. You have to mix the gritty with the triumphant, the ups and the downs, the slumps and the highs….you have to forget about what will make the locals feel good and concentrate on the damn truth of it all. Some other filmmaker should take another shot at this subject some day. It’s a good story and full of great material — it just needs to be properly rendered.

USA Today‘s Scott Bowles has written a nice gentle softball profile of Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi — the midwestern upbringing, how he was first bitten by the film bug, how he climbed up the ladder, how he suffered a career setback with The Quick and the Dead and Darkman, how he got his mojo back with A Simple Plan, how he always wears suits, etc. And not a word about his financial support for certain Dark Men, including George W. Bush. Like it doesn’t matter. As if such things are peripheral.

MCN’s David Poland has ripped into Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 3 with a fervor that I haven’t picked up from one of his reviews since he thrashed Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle in ’03.

“There is so much incredibly expensive CG action in this film that many will get through it, not really dislike it, but have a vaguely displeased gut feeling,” Poland concludes. “I can’t really say it is a horrible movie. But it is quite a mess — a mess of good intentions gone terribly wrong.

“And it does, indeed, feel like the end of this franchise as we know it. Given the rote nature of this one, almost hidden by the flailing of attempted drama — flailing like a marlin on a 300 lb test line — it’s probably time to cash those checks and move along.”