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Some thoughts upon seeing A Single Man on the last night of its improbable run...

at a chain multiplex by the interstate that's conveniently Hooters adjacent. [True!]

Will I be the only one in the theater?

You see, the 'Fesser and I went to see Up in the Air at the same joint recently and had the place to ourselves. Sorry, Reitman.

No such luck this time out. I shared Tom Ford's strong clear vision with one other single woman and a [heterosexual!] 50something couple whose whole self-congratulatory mien just screamed, "We are open-minded supporters of public radio!" Oh, and, "Nevertheless, we will rudely talk through the ENTIRE MOVIE as though we were in our living room because we are old and inconsiderate."

Wow, Tom Ford would fucking HATE this.

You can art-direct the fuck out of your film, but you still have no power over the trailers that precede it. Case in point: Upon entering the theater I was assaulted by the preview for upcoming animated abomination Despicable Me. Indeed. Fat kids. Shudder. Oh, child-having parent-friends. I am so sorry.

Ford might be OK with Brooklyn's Finest. Snipes looks great in jewel tones. Cheadle's a little bit of all right. Richard Gere, um, BreathlessArmanihello? And he'd make Hawke shave but would probably approve of his overall gaunt look.

The Date Night trailer was presented in the wrong aspect ratio/using the wrong lens, stretching out Steve Carell, Tina Fey, even Marky Mark -- saints preserve us -- and making them look FAT.

As far as the Babies trailer?  Breeders. Shrug. Whatever. On to A Single Man itself. Excelsior!

• This movie is a Fade to Black and a Depth of Field production? Really? Have we learned nothing from Coco Chanel? Take one thing off before you go out the door.
• Jump cuts. J ump cut s. Ju mpc uts. I get it, pal.
• I just realized who Firth looks like shot in sepia [and he is shot in sepia in EVERY present-day reverse shot because he is SAD]: Chris Cooper. Discuss.
• And let's not get into how many times he's shot through glass. Brotherman even lives in a glass house. Speaking of which...
• Apparently, I have been going about this whole teaching literature to college students thing ALL WRONG. Perhaps if I had a clothing/sports car/architecturally pleasing domicile allowance. Or even one that kept me in vintage Hershey bars, Bayer aspirin, and desk-drawer handles of booze.
• The whole Psycho[man]candy magic-hour bit was pretty. Although, Psycho, released in 1960, still advertised on an LA building's facade on what titles have told us is Friday, November 30, 1962?
• Whooo boy. Nicholas Hoult. So pretty now! Still stuck in unfortunate sweaters, though, I see.
• Oh, Tom Ford. La Wally? For George's suicide soundtrack on the sweet hi-fi? Please do not intimate to me that all you know about opera you learned from the shiny surfaces of Diva.
• Nicholas Hoult doing an American accent. Julianne Moore doing a British accent. 
• Speaking of Ms. Moore, I kept wishing she'd trill "Que ridicolo!" [Or sleep with her son.] But let's not talk about the way Ford shot her lovely ginger visage. I'll get mad all over again.

For a much more thorough review, go to The Awl and let Choire and Dan set you, er, straight? It was all I could do to remember I'd seen this not even 24 hours after it ended.

Hellzapoppin'

Last-minute notification to Third Coasters: Doc Films is screening Hellzapoppin' tonight! at 9:35 p.m. CT! presented by Ivan Brunetti! Yes, the same man responsible for one of the four covers gracing the anniversary edition of the New Yorker [on newsstands now, etc.]. Oh, Eustace Tilley, you lovable fop.

The remainder of this post will be beyond random. Consider yourself warned.

• Fun fact: It was at Ivan's place, back in '92-'93 that the cinetrix first saw Apocalypse Pooh. Learn the thrilling story behind this mashup avant la lettre.
• The cinetrix is dying to see The Imperialists Are Still Alive. Oh, Elodie! Internets, please make it so!
• Cultural Histories of Cinema, a new book series from BFI Publishing, sounds like all sorts of sexy, with editors and an editorial board to die for.
• Bugs Bunny is back at the Brattle for school vacation week. Another fun fact to know and shout: When Connie and Marianne launched the series years ago, they handpicked the cartoons and presented one program as "Bugs in Drag." Warner Bros. was not amused and has ever since offered its Termite Terrace cartoons in preselected programs. The More You Know!
• The recent selection of Whip It! as GreenCine's DVD of the week reminded me that I once harbored hopes of writing an epic post pairing Drew's debut with Hadewijch. C'mon, moon-faced girls bucking convention to find fulfillment in fringe groups? Who's with me?

That's all, ffffffolks!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Corrigan!

From the Onion A.V. Club's Random Roles interview with Kevin Corrigan comes the best news I'm likely to hear all day:

AVC: On the Big Fan DVD, you explain your own “big fan” experience with Robert De Niro. What was that like?

KC: We were at the Boston Film Festival, and it was just me and Rob doing the Q&A. Patton couldn’t be there. When he is there, I say very little, because I just want to hear Patton talk, you know? When he does a Q&A, it’s like watching him do a stand-up gig. But this time it was different, because it was me and Rob and someone asked if either of us had had a “big fan” experience, and I pulled out the story about meeting Robert De Niro that I’d told a hundred times, but I had never shared it with a group that large. And it was fitting. It fit the occasion. I told it and it went over nicely.

What goes unmentioned is that the rhythm of his delivery of the story [below] out-Walkens Walken in cadence and odd emphasis. I was there, and it was magical.

KC: I went to see this play at the Public Theater in 1986. De Niro hadn’t done a play since 1970, or something like that. So it was a big deal. The show sold out. I caught it twice. I saw it once in previews and then once again after it opened. I actually used to draw and paint and was pursuing that… I picked acting, finally. And I could still draw, pretty well, back then. And I really wanted to meet De Niro. And I thought the way I’d get to meet him was if I drew a picture of him. I got the usher to help me get backstage, and that’s pretty much how it happened. This usher took the picture backstage and he said he would see if he could get permission for me to come back. He liked the picture. That’s what it was. I don’t think he was interested in helping me out, but I had some friends with me, and they were like, “Show him the picture!” ’Cause he was trying to blow us off. And then I showed him the picture and he liked it a lot. So he agreed to help me. And he did. He came back, after about 10 minutes. He reappeared and said, “You can come backstage, but your friends gotta wait here.” So I went backstage, and that’s how I met him. 

I was lost back there. I didn’t know anybody. There’s no reason why I would have. I was 17. I’d never met a celebrity or seen one in person. There were a bunch of them back there. I was studying acting at the time in a young people’s program. I was really starstruck. I mean really starstruck. I didn’t know how to process the experience at all. I got very, very nervous and tongue-tied. I should have just walked away. That’s what I would do now, but at the time, I was so determined to get backstage. It was just that my ability to deal with getting backstage didn’t match my determination. I was able to get in there, but I couldn’t handle being there. Meeting him was something I was not prepared for. Back then, he wasn’t doing any interviews and he still had this mystique, you know? No one really knew anything about him. So I tried to have a conversation with him. It didn’t really go well. I asked him a question that came out really inarticulate and it wasn’t the kinda thing he wanted to deal with, anyway, after coming offstage. I think his character tries to commit suicide with a gun. He didn’t want to make small talk. I think I asked him a weird question. I was trying to get in his head and I don’t think he liked that. He declined to answer my question. And that was it. It was very awkward.

AVC: The picture you made for him was De Niro and Marlon Brando. 

KC: I put them together because they work together in people’s imagination. At the time, he was considered to be the heir to the greatness of Marlon Brando. But he had won an Oscar for playing the same character Brando had played. He was like Son Of Brando.

Focus pullers

Trust me. You don't want any part of me teaching Casablanca for the umpteenth time -- an experience akin to flight attendants hearing themselves announce [with gestures] the location of the exits, keeping in mind that the closest ones may be behind you -- so we'll leave that aside for now. Forthwith, some divertissements that have kept me from proper prep or grading of late.

• Above: Bette Davis, first-rate potty mouth. Who's surprised? A blooper reel featuring outtakes from Dark Victory, Jezebel, and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Son of a bitch! Which is to say, NUTS! [via]
• This second item comes courtesy of the increasingly invaluable Vulture blog: cryingwife.com, "the official wife crying at movies site." Really. [Shudders] Its existence brings to mind A.S. Hamrah's invaluable contribution to crush video literature, and reminds me of the 'Fesser's musings regarding the "black cowgirl" phone sex ads in the back of our local alt weekly in Boston. Namely, which came first, the outre fodder or the fetish for it?
• The Siren lets her hair down with this assertion: "It is much easier to proclaim dislike for a popular movie than to admit to liking an uncool movie." Then she backs it up with her own "uncool" faves. The comments number 79 and counting. Chime in, won't you? [My answer: My Best Friend's Wedding. Yes. Julia Roberts. As a food critic. Paul Giamatti in a bit part as a bell boy at, sigh, The Drake. Burt fucking BACHRACH. Cameron Diaz in sorbet colors playing - cough - a U of C undergrad named Kimmy. But! In my defense: Rupert Everett coming the closest he ever will to playing the gay James Bond he was born to assay.]
• In honor of my anniversary Groundhog Day, the Onion A.V. Club examines the philosophy of Bill Murray. [I am left wondering how they'd categorize his neck-braced shyster turn in Wild Things. Ah, well. Perhaps next February 2nd.]

Finally, I feel it incumbent upon myself to laud FOC Dana Stevens for her debut appearance on Charlie Rose last night. If you click through, you'll note that although Annette Insdorff [of Columbia, as she'd be the first to remind you, but more on that and the sequined jacket she and Bob Mackie appeared to have killed and skinned Liberace for some other time, perhaps], Dana, and Stephanie Zacharek were holding it down avec M. Rose in New York, it's remote-from-Chicago Tony Scott's* mug that graces the thumbnail. I'm shocked, SHOCKED, etc. That said, a good, thoughtful Oscar discussion, with Dana especially -- I'd like to think even were she not she was opposite C. Rose and thus with SZ and AI to either side -- being her measuredly opinionated but always gracious and inclusive self.

UPDATED: Anne Thompson likens Dana to Louise Brooks; a Twitter regarding Insdorff's appearance that invokes QVC.

*Confidential to Scott. I haven't seen the Tolstoy flick, but calling out the leads' performance as British actors trying too hard to be Russian, when Russian emigre Helen Mirren plays the missus? Chicago's a little too close to chalk that up to jet lag, no matter HOW early you left Park Slope for Chicago that morning. Just sayin'.

Can't explain...

Why I find this so funny, from new-to-Twitter At the Movies co-host Michael Phillips, but there you go:

Noon Tues: Siskel Film Center hosts free Oscar noms panel w A.O. and me, 'mong others. First 25 attendees get a free Chipotle burrito.