Advance word on Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks” — one of the season’s few remaining big reveals — is increasingly positive ahead of its world premiere this Sunday in London: I’ve spoken to some fairly hard-to-please critics who were charmed by the true-life Hollywood tale. That might be because it’s slightly less softball filmmaking than it appears to be from the outside. Speaking to the NYT’s Brooks Barnes, director John Lee Hancock and others discuss their determination to present Walt Disney as he really was: “I was a bit afraid because we wanted to be honest about Walt … I imagined the moment when Disney would say, ‘Sorry, we like him better as a god than a human.’ To their credit, they were smart enough and brave enough to realize that a human Walt was not only a better character, but was easier to love.” [New York Times] 

 

Demanding historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives “12 Years a Slave” the fact-checking treatment — and a firm thumbs-up. [Mother Jones]

 

Ramin Setoodeh argues that the casting woes of “Fifty Shades of Grey” point to a leading-man crisis in Hollywood. Isn’t it simply that no A-list actor wants the part? [Variety]

 

Why the much-ballyhooed sex scenes in “Blue is the Warmest Color” are hot… but also kind of boring. [IndieWire]