I had intriguing discussions earlier today about the Ben-Hur restoration and Bluray with Warner Bros. mastering vp Ned Price and director Fraser Heston, and I recorded them even. But I have to get over to the New York Film Festival opening-night screening of Carnage and then the after-party at the Harvard Club, so the substantive Ben-Hur filing will have to wait.

Ned Price, vp mastering for Warner Bros. Technical Operations, earlier today at Manhattan’s Essex House — Friday, 9.30, 2:20 pm.

Director Fraser Heston, son of late Ben-Hur star Charlton Heston.

From master film restorationist/preservationist guru Robert Harris on Home...

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When Herman “the Hermanator” Cain said two days ago that African-American voters vote overwhelmingly liberal due to “brainwashing and people not being open-minded, pure and simple,” he was stating a basic fact. Substitute “brainwashing” for “cultural conditioning” and he was describing how most of us are shaped by our native cultures, at least in our youth. There are specific reasons for African-American political allegiances that don’t apply to some of us, but we’re all “brought up” to think and vote in a certain way.

I was conditioned to be a liberal because of the left-liberal views of my parents and the left-liberal values of Westfield, New Jersey, and Wilton, Connecticut, where I was living when I figured out what my cutural and political values were...

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In one fell swoop, Hollywood Elsewhere has significantly altered the imbalance between the greedy haves and the desperate have-nots. By going down to Zuccotti Park (Broadway and Liberty Street) this afternoon and taking pictures of the Occupy Wall Street crowd and posting them, I’ve…well, at least helped somewhat. Storm the barricades!

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Jonathan Levine‘s 50/50 and Jeff Nichols‘ Take Shelter are far and away the best new films to see this weekend.

But please understand that 50/50 is not a comedy, despite what Lou Lumenick and others are saying.

I explained it thusly earlier this month: “All mature art is mixture of drama and comedy. Any film that insists on being a drama-drama or a comedy-comedy doesn’t get this. Life is always a mixture of the two, and so naturally 50/50 is flecked or flavored with guy and gallows humor here and there plus one or two anxious-mom jokes and/or chemo jokes and/or jokes about being in denial,...

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It doesn’t matter if Occupy Wall Street (which has expanded to Boston and San Francisco and elsewhere) is lacking a specific goal, or if it feels unfocused or futile or whatever. The fact that a miniscule speck of GenY anger is being expressed is at least something. Or…you know, is better than watching Jimmy Kimmel. Any expression of dismay or loathing or rage about the sociopathic stacked-deck, rich-favoring U.S. economy led and exploited by the Wall Street machine gets my vote. That’s why I’m going down there this afternoon…yeah!

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I spoke last night to a guy who caught a research screening of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close last Sunday night at Leows’ Lincoln Square (B’way at 68th). And he agrees with Kris Tapley’s guy that Max Von Sydow‘s wordless performance as Thomas Horn‘s grandfather “will certainly get an Oscar nomination, perhaps the award itself.”

And he has a slight dispute with Stu Van Airsdale’s guy about the opening with “falling bodies, crushing thuds, and other vividly horrifying reminders of the initial scene at the World Trade Center.” My guy’s dominant impression is “an obliquely falling body in a white suit. If this wasn’t a 9/11...

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Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale has spoken to a guy who’s allegedly seen Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and one of his reactions, Van Airsdale writes, is that “the film’s current introduction — which features falling bodies, crushing thuds, and other vividly horrifying reminders of the initial scene at the World Trade Center — was less emotionally affecting than just inappropriate” and “too soon.”

Ten years later is too soon? I got fairly angry with people who were saying this five years ago when United 93 was about to open, but anyone who says this now is taking the post-traumatic thing into obsession. “Too soon!” is the mantra...

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I think that the close-up image of Thomas Horn in the Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close poster is oddly intriguing. Hands to the face means shock or alarm, but Horn’s eyes are laid-back, almost serene. He could be listening to a lecture by a teacher or watching a TV show or staring at a sleeping cat. An opaque expression in the midst of heavy drama about 9/11 and death and whatever else…cool.

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At the 40-second mark in the just-released traiier for Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Warner Bros, 12.25), we see Thomas Horn, who plays the son of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, react to the sound of an overhead jet. As this is a 9/11-related drama, it’s naturally presumed that Horn is hearing (and perhaps seeing) American Airlines #11, the Boeing 767-223ER...

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I always thought that DreamWorks’ decision to open Steven Spielberg‘s War Horse on 12.28 was a little strange to begin with, so switching the opener to Christmas Day feels like a shoulder-shrugger.

“After seeing the film, it became clear to us that War Horse is something audiences should be able to see when they’re together with their families on Christmas Day,” DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan told EW‘s Anthony Breznican. “They have the time to see multiple movies during the holidays, and we want to be one of their choices when they are most available.”

And the reason for the previous determination that War Horse shouldn’t be a Christmas holiday option was what again?

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In a 9.29 piece called “Generation Next: The Realignment,” Marshall Fine makes various calls about where certain actors are in their careers, sinking- or rising-wise. Most of Fine’s assessments are no-brainers, but I’m wondering if HE readers generally agree or not.

Assertion #1: “Larry Crowne marked Tom Hanks, who is now 55, as a star who can no longer open a movie. [He] isn’t a star who is attractive to the demographic — the 18-to-34 crowd — that crowns box-office stars. And the audience that is interested in Hanks — i.e., those closer to his own age — aren’t rushing out to see movies on their opening weekend.” Wells response: Larry Crowne fizzled because it wasn’t good enough.

Assertion #2: Hanks “had...

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For about 40 years Arthur Krim (1910 – 1994), the distinguished chairman of United Artists and then Orion Pictures from the early ’50s to early ’90s, put out a run of quality-level, award-winning films that eclipses the record of Harvey Weinstein in terms of Oscar nominations and awards.

On top of which the soft-spoken Krim never took a producing credit and because of that “he was trusted by talent,” a former confidante says.

Under Krim’s guidance and final approval a long healthy run of Academy Award-winning productions as The African Queen, Marty, The Apartment, West Side Story, Tom Jones, In The Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, Amadeus, Platoon and The Silence of the...

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In an interview posted today (9.29), Empire‘s Helen O’Hara quotes Steven Spielberg saying a couple of things about Lincoln, which begins shooting in October. Spielberg begins by explaining that the source material, Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s Team Of Rivals, “is much too big a book to be a movie, so the Lincoln story only takes place in the last few months of his Presidency and life.

“I was interested in how he ended the war through all the efforts of his generals…but more importantly how he passed the 13th Amendment into constitutional law. The Emancipation Proclamation was a war powers act and could have been struck down by any court after the war...

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It took me a while to upload this clip from yesterday’s New York Film Festival press conference with A Separation director-writer-producer Asghar Farhadi, moderated by NYFF honcho Scott Foundas.

During a Telluride Film Festival chat Tilda Swinton mentioned her admiration of Farhadi’s About Elly. A questioner at yesterday’s press conference brought it up also. I’ve never seen it so I obviously need to man up and buy the DVD on Amazon.

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A little less than a month ago Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern mentioned an alleged fact to myself and a few others at a Telluride Film Festival dinner. He said that the colloquial term “loser” was first coined in Walter Tevis‘s 1959 book “The Hustler.” It caught on in a bigger way two years later when Robert Rossen‘s The Hustler, an adaptation of Tevis’s book, opened.

The line was spoken at the end of Act One by George C. Scott, referring to Paul Newman‘s Eddie Felson: “Stick with this...

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My attention was elsewhere when it was announced last May that Catfish co-helmers Henry Joost and Ariel Schuman would co-direct Paranormal Activity 3 (Paramount, 10.21). I felt Paranormal-ed out after part 2, but the...

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Five’ll get you ten A.O. Scott decided to do a “Critics Picks” assessment of Karel Riesz and James Toback‘s The Gambler (’74) when he heard about the reported Paramount remake that became briefly notorious when Toback, who based his script partly on his gambling-addicted life, complained that no one from Paramount had given him so much as a courtesy call. If the remake happens, Martin Scorsese might direct with Leonardo DiCaprio in the James Caan role.

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I saw Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin That I Live In once again this evening, having initially seen it five months ago at the Cannes Film Festival. Review excerpt: “It’s more of a wicked-camp thing. More than a few times the crowd I saw it with erupted in giddy chuckles. And yet Skin, after a fashion, is played more-or-less straight. Always the best way to go with a wink-winker.”

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Deadline‘s Michael Fleming is reporting that the new life-of-Moses movie, which Warner Bros. is allegedly trying to get Steven Spielberg to direct (yecch!), is “not a remake of the 1956 Cecile B. DeMille-directed The Ten Commandments.” And yet it covers “Moses from birth to death” including “his awakening to the plight of the Hebrew slaves that led Moses’ struggle against the Pharaoh for their freedom out of Egypt, the Burning Bush, the Ten Plagues, the daring escape across the Red Sea, receiving the Ten Commandments, and delivery to Israel.” Which is precisely what the DeMille film covers, so what’ll different about this one, Mike, besides less corny dialogue? We all know the answer: better visual FX.

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I saw Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation at this morning’s New York Film Festival press screening, and yes, it hit the mark again. This well-honed, deep-well family drama is now the official Iranian submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and is destined to be among the five nominees…unless the foreign language committee gives it the same kind of blowoff that they did with Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. Let’s call that highly doubtful.

(l. to. r) Sony Classics co-prez Tom Bernard, A Separation director Asghar Farhadi, Sony Classics co-prez Michael Barker at Gabriel’s — Wednesday, 9.28, 2:05 pm.

I caught most of A Separation earlier this month at the Telluride Film Festival but this time I saw the first 40...

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The Best Picture forecast in yesterday’s Gurus of Gold post-Toronto update has Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants on top, followed by Steven Spielberg‘s War Horse. The latter lost a lot of heat yesterday when everybody took a look at that Harlequin Romance horse’s-mane-with-Fabio-hair poster, but perhaps the Guru vote was counted before this.

At this juncture War Horse‘s best Guru friends are EW‘s Anthony Breznican, Hitfix‘s Gregg Ellwood, In Contention‘s Kris Tapley and Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale.

The Help, significantly, now sits one slot below the fifth-ranked Moneyball. The...

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While sitting at the bar last night at Phebe’s I accidentally knocked some water onto the keyboard of my Macbook Pro. I didn’t have a hair dryer with me, but I naturally picked up the device and wiped it off and hung it upside down and swore and hissed. Which didn’t help. The screen freaked out, flashing an insane psychedelic collage of pink and white and purple and black impulse doodles, like some kind of alien sanskrit code…meltdown, crash, finality.

I turned it on and off a few times, hoping and praying. But it seemed pretty much dead and dysfunctional. The crazy colors stopped after a couple of restarts, and then it reverted to the desktop image and all the usual-usuals, but the cursor was still and immovable. I looked into the abyss and gulped. I have an iMac back in West Hollywood but I figured I’d have to buy a new Macbook Pro right away, and knew this would set me back about $1200 and...

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My first reaction to hearing about Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, Laurent Bouzereau‘s documentary about the filmmaker recalling aspects of his life during his house arrest in Gstaad two years ago, was “why did Polanski sit down with Bouzereau instead of Marina Zenovich, whose exacting and persuasive Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired doc surely earned her Polanski’s allegiance?”

My second reaction was to search for reviews of Bouzereau’s doc, which screened last night at the Zurich Film Festival with Polanski in attendance. Others besides The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Roxborough

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I’ve just come out of a 3:30 pm press screening of Roman Polanski‘s wickedly hilarious Carnage, and on top of all the cackling and chortling and guffawing I was delighted to discover that The Playlist‘s Oliver Lyttleton was dead wrong when he wrote from the Venice Film Festival that there’s “almost nothing to enable the identification of [this] movie as a Polanski picture.” What horseshit!

Carnage felt to me as much a part of Polanski’s realm as The Pianist or Repulsion or Tess or Cul de Sac or The Ghostwriter. I felt relaxed and soothed and charmed because i knew whose world I was in right away, no question, and I felt double pleasured with all the

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October 1st is just around the corner, and New York City has been slamming me with hot weather and high humidity and occasional showers. It’s too hot to wear a suit or sports jacket or anything but slacks and a T-shirt. I’m constantly damp. It’s not like equatorial Africa but it’s in that general ballpark. I guess I’ll have to wait until I return to Los Angeles if I want a little cool fall weather. I sure as hell am not getting that here.

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“To love a film by Roman Polanski, as I know from other irate readers, is to guarantee that you will be accused of going easy on a criminal,” writes Manohla Dargis in a 9.21 N.Y. Times piece that appeared in Sunday’s print edition (i.e., the day before yesterday).

“Some of this anger can be blamed on avid Polanski supporters who assert that he did nothing wrong, or that he’s an old man now and has suffered enough. And, true, that Swiss chalet of his where he stayed after he was arrested in Switzerland in 2009 while waiting to hear if he would be deported to America sure looked as chilly as a medieval dungeon.

“Some Polanski apologists repellently portray his victim as a culpable seducer rather than a 13-year-old who was drugged and marinated in booze. Others...

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The beautiful amber-pinkish red sunset clouds and the obvious bond between Joey the horse and Albert (Jeremy Irvine) tell us that Steven Spielberg‘s War Horse (Touchstone, 12.28) is going to lay it on thick. This is basically going to be an emotional family-friendly film about caring and love and the romance of beautiful photography (by Janusz Kaminski, of course) and the always affecting strains of John Williams‘ score.

If you’re the sort of moviegoer who lives for stark, this-is-life, take-it-or-leave-it, matter-of-fact realism, chances are you’re going to feel a bit starved by War Horse in this respect. Maybe.

Which is fine in and of itself. There’s nothing wrong with making this kind of movie...

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A couple of months ago In Contention‘s Guy Lodge passed along a kind of consensus view among some London critic friends that Rachel Weisz‘s performance in Terrence Davies‘ The Deep Blue Sea “is a career-best, according to trusted sources who have seen it.”

Music Box Films acquired the film for US distribution earlier this month at the Toronto Film Festival, and is presumably intending to put it in theatres before 12.31.11 so that...

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