Ask anyone — the Sundance Film Festival award that really counts is the Audience Award, and yesterday’s (Saturday, 1.29) winner of that honor was Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow….right on. Another thing you can usually depend upon is that the Sundance jurors will give their dramatic competition Grand Jury prize to a film that a lot of people didn’t get or flat-out didn’t like. This was clearly the case when they give their big trophy to Ira Sachs’ Forty Shades of Blue, a romantic triangle drama set in Memphis. At least four times during the festival I was told in no uncertain terms that Blue is highly problematic, dislikable, tiresome, irritating, etc. A sharp industry watcher and good friend agrees with me that Blue had “no buzz” during the festival, and Hollywood Reporter critic Duane Byrge called it “a drab, minor-key melodrama.” I’m not saying the jurors are wackjobbers or off on their own cloud…but you can bet that some people are thinking this or wondering if this is the case. I’m speaking of actor John C. Reilly, director Chris Eyre (Skins, Smoke Signals), critic B. Ruby Rich, producer Christine Vacchon, and actress Vera Farmiga (Close to the Bone). Cheers, in any case, for Eugene Jerecki’s Why We Fight for taking the Grand Jury Prize in the American documentary category.
Panel Thief
Okay, so maybe a lead story about the intoxicating elements within a certain woman’s personality isn’t exactly a page-one topic, but I’m covering the Santa Barbara Film Festival this weekend and for what it’s worth and what-the-hell, here is Saturday’s earthshaker:
Oscar screenwriting nominee Julie Delpy (for her Before Sunset collaboration with Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke) totally killed at Saturday’s screenwriter’s panel at the Lobero Theatre.
Actress-screenwriter Julie Delpy during Saturday afternoon’s panel discussion, “It Starts With the Script,” at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
Delpy is — right now, in my humble opinion — the absolute coolest, wittiest and most radiantly attractive actress around. Her Sunset performance had me half-convinced of this, but yesterday’s panel dazzle brought the house down and amounted to a total closer.
She was quick, hilarious and unabashedly confessional. Her mind was here, there and everywhere…but always amusingly and never scattershot. She said at one point that she’d lost the ability to think because she was listening too much to the sound of her own voice, and she had everyone in stitches as she described the disorientation. She unintentionally reduced moderator Frank Pierson to a straight-man stooge during a brief back-and-forth. Her facial expressions alone were inspired.
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And she got off a great line about how women will have truly secured their just portion of power in the film industry “when a mediocre woman is given a powerful job.”
Brian Grazer and Ron Howard erred in not hiring Delpy to play Sophie Neveu opposite Tom Hanks in the forthcoming production of The Da Vinci Code. (They’ve gone with 26 year-old Audrey Tatou, who’s too young and small and slender to play Hanks’ pseudo-love interest…he probably outweighs her by at least 100 pounds.)
Garden State director-screenwriter Zach Braff was asked the most questions and drew the heartiest applause during yesterday’s discussion, as a good chunk of the audience was composed of under-35 types, the demographic that has turned Garden State into a formidable nationwide hit.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and The Incredibles director and co-writer Brad Bird seemed to be the most popular after Braff, and all three delivered the best cracks.
(l. to r.) Screenwriters John Logan (The Aviator), Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries), Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby), Julie Delpy (Before Sunset), Frank Pierson (Dog Day Afternoon), Brad Bird (The Incredibles), Zach Braff (Garden State), Bill Condon (Kinsey), and Jim Taylor (Sideways) just prior to Saturday afternoon’s panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
That is, if you left Delpy out of the equation.
The other screenwriter panelists were Million Dollar Baby‘s Paul Haggis, Kinsey‘s Bill Condon, The Aviator‘s John Logan, Sideway‘s Jim Taylor,and Teh Motorcycle Diaries‘s Jose Rivera.
Pierson (Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon), the current president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, got shouted down at one point by an audience member because they thought he was talking too much and not letting the panelists have their say. Pierson’s moderating skills can be on the avuncular and loquacious side, but he’s also a wise and perceptive man.
A very young aspiring screenwriter — a woman — asked Braff at one point whether “this feeling of uncertainty and nervousness and not knowing what’s going to happen in my life…is this going to continue or get worse or what?” Braff said he was sorry but no, it’s not going to stop, but hang in there and don’t let it defeat you.
Pierson had a better answer. He said to the woman, “If you’re lucky, it will never stop…because your writing will be better for it.”
Elvis Mitchell interviewing Sideways star Paul Giamatti at Santa Barbara’s Victoria Threatre late Sunday afternoon — 1.30.05, 5:45 pm.
Leonardo DiCaprio addressing crowd at Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre after being presented with the SBIFF’s Platinum Award by Aviator director Martin Scorsese — Sunday, 1.30, 9:20 pm.
Piece of letter-sized paper taped to seventh-row seat at Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre — Sunday, 1.30.05, 7:25 pm.
Author, film critic and TV personality Leonard Maltin and Best Supporting Actress nominee Virginia Madsen (for Sideways, as if I had to say that) after a small luncheon at Nu, a restaurant on State Street, which followed a women’s filmmaker panel at the Lobero Theatre — 1.30.05, 2:25 pm.
Santa Barbara Film Festival artistic director Roger Durling just before Saturday evening’s Annette Bening tribute — 1.29.05, 7:25 pm.
Former New York Times critic and current Columbia consultant Elvis Mitchell interviewing Best Actress nominee Annette Bening (Being Julia) at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre — 1.29.05, 8:35 pm.
Kickoff
It’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival time again, and I say that on a note of relief as well as excitment.
This smartly constructed, smoothly run, agreeably-vibed event is the perfect Sundance antidote. Well-chosen movies, great parties, beautiful (if slightly air-heady) women and hardly anything to make you grind your teeth. I love it up here in Goyville.
Cheers once again to the exuberant Roger Durling, the festival’s artistic director, for making this festival into a vital happening all around.
Annette Bening, Leonardo DiCaprio and Paul Giamatti are dropping by the festival this weekend for tributes.
I’m especially looking forward to the Giamatti encounter, and it’ll be fun to fence with DiCaprio, whom I interviewed eleven years ago at The Grill in Beverly Hills for Movieline magazine, when he was nineteen. (Clinton had been in the White House for only a few months, and the subjects were This Boy’s Life and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?.)
(l. to r.) Exterior of Santa Barbara City Hall — Friday, 12.8.05, 9:55 pm.
(l. to r.) One of many ornate areas inside Santa Barbara City Hall deployed for the purposes of shmoozing, drinking, chit-chatting — Friday, 12.8.05, 10:15 pm.
I drove up late Friday afternoon, checked into a Holiday Inn and went straight to the Arlington Theatre on State Street to catch the festival’s opening-night attraction — Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda.
Most of the reviews out of Europe (it played last fall at the San Sebastian Film Festival and has since opened commercially in Spain and other territories) called Melinda a return to form for Allen, and I seem to recall someone saying it was his best since Mighty Aphrodite.
That’s close to an accurate statement, or at least not far off the mark. Melinda and Melinda is a very good…make that a slightly-better-than-very-good Woody.
It’s a half-downerish, half-amusing piece about the fine line between comedy and tragedy. It basically says that the two opposite poles are made of the same story material, and the difference essentially lies in the attitude we bring to this or that situation or circumstance.
Revelers at Santa Barbara City Hall during Friday’s (1.28) opening-night soiree.
The piece is framed by a couple of playwright/screenwriter pals (Wallace Shawn, Larry Pine) discussing the differences between comedy and tragedy. They expound by talking about a real-life story they’ve heard about an actual New York woman named Melinda (who’s known to a friend of theirs), and riffing on how her story might turn out as a tragedy or comedy.
These writers proceed to entertain each other by telling parallel tales about Melinda (which we see dramatized, of course) that are similar in every respect except for the fundamental slant.
Only Melinda (Radha Mitchell) appears in both versions. The downer piece costars Chloe Sevigny, Johnny Lee Miller and Chiwetel Ejiofor (the doctor from Dirty Pretty Things) while the comedic piece costars Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet.
The two stories explore themes and plot turns that Allen fans will quickly recognize. Anxious and lonely New Yorkers, lovers at cross purposes, spouses cheating on each other, and the constant dodging and lying that goes on between significant others.
“Of course we communicate,” Peet says to Farrell, her live-in partner, at one point. “Now, can we not talk about it?√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩ
(l. to r.) Will Ferrell and Radha Mitchell in Melinda and Melinda.
I wouldn’t quite place Melinda among Allen’s very best (Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives). I would, however, put it in roughly the same realm as, say, Sweet and Lowdown or Bullets Over Broadway.
It’s not quite a nine-course meal, but is undeniably nutritious. It’s been written with a fairly sharp quill, gets right down to business in short order, and delivers the philosophical goods, gags and witticisms in an agreeably absorbing fashion.
It provides Mitchell, who portrays two versions of the same character of Melinda, with a chance to shift between Bergmanesque edge-of-suicide emoting and Annie Hall-like bubbly-goofy stuff, and she delivers with assurance and buoyancy on both counts.
And Ferrell has fun playing the neurotic, emotionally frustrated, wittily judgmental Woody character. The idea of an actor hired by Woody Allen to deliver a performance that literally channels Allen’s spirit and personality will always be an extremely weird confection, but Kenneth Branagh and John Cusack have obviously done it before and I suppose we’re all getting used to this.
The comic highlight is a would-be seduction scene between Farrell and Vinessa Shaw (the prostitute in Eyes Wide Shut). The gags in this scene aren’t profound, but they’re funny as hell.
Wallow In It
On Wednesday evening, at the end of my last full day at the Sundance Film Festival, I saw what has to be, content-wise (as opposed to form-wise), the most astoundingly disgusting film in human history. And oh, yeah…one of the funniest.
I wasn’t reacting in any particular way at first, but I started to laugh a bit, and then I laughed a bit more, and then I threw my hands up and gave in somewhere around the halfway point and just surrendered to the whole flatulent lower-intestine Elmer’s Glue-All vomit bag vein of it.
(l. to r.) The Aristocrats director Paul Provenza and producer-comedian
Penn Jillette in a shot possibly taken in Park City (but don’t quote me).
And it felt okay. I was in an excellent mood the rest of the night.
Sitting in that theatre at the Yarrow and watching this verbally fecal-smeared objet d’art may have contributed in a tiny way to the ongoing implosion of 21st Century western culture, and I may have felt a little bit closer to the slimy ooze out of which which we originally crawled, but at the same time it made me feel vulnerably human and loose and open to all kinds of good stuff.
I’m speaking of a perverse documentary called The Aristocrats, which just got acquired at the festival by ThinkFilm.
At the risk of sounding like Peter Travers, this is one of those movies you just have to see. Partly just to see how you’ll react to it. It’ll probably reveal something about yourself…something you may or may not want to know.
And partly so you can say to yourself “my life-absorption foundation has now devolved into a state of ca-ca infantilism,” and so you can (try to) tell your friends about it, and so you can tell the joke…a wheezy hairy thing that squats at the center of this movie like a naked and odorous 290 pound woman from East Harlem with pus-filled boils on the back of her neck and multiple hemmorhoids the size of golf balls.
It’s a strangely liberating thing to be sitting with a group of people and accept or acknowledge (by the evidence of constant laughter) our gross animal commonality.
This experience is made extra-palatable by watching all these very Olympian big-name comics with their worldly cool-cat attitudes talking about a family of four sliding around in…you don’t want to know.
(l. to r.) Comedian Gilbert Gottfried delivering the “Aristrocrats” joke at the Hugh Hefner roast three and a half years ago in New York City, not long after 9/11.
Or do you?
Cooked up by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, The Aristocrats is basically about numerous comedians — George Carlin, Paul Reiser, Martin Mull, the great Gilbert Gottfried, Robin Williams, Bob Saget, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Eddie Izzard, Drew Carey, Eric Idle, et. al. — telling the joke and elaborating on their willingness and ability to totally filth out.
The Aristocrats joke isn’t really a hah-hah joke. It’s more like a format that gives the teller an opportunity to free-form his or her ass off.
It’s basically about a family sitting down with a showbiz agent and claiming they have a great act and telling him to sit down and watch them perform it. The act is foul…rancid…in defiance of every tenet of civilized, moralistic behavior.
But the joke isn’t about following a script — it’s about where the teller dares to go. Into, you know, whatever kinds of stool-mashing, anus-invading, semen facials, urine showers…whatever.
(I realize I’ve just offended some readers, and I’d like it understood that I tried to figure ways to describe what The Aristocrats is without using these terms, and none of the polite ways seemed to make it. I’m sure Manohla Dargis’ editors at the New York Times will come up with a vaguely effective diluting, but it won’t be easy.)
Anyway, after the act is over, the agent says, “Wow, that’s a hell of an act. What do you call it?” And the father-of-the-family says it’s called “the Aristocrats.” And that’s it.
Comedian George Carlin as he appears in The Aristocrats.
It doesn’t sound all that funny, I know…but it gradually gets there, and then it gets better and better, and eventually grows into something else.
The funniest bit of all is a tape of Gilbert Gottfreid telling the joke at a Friars Roast of Hugh Hefner that took place in New York only a few weeks after 9/11. I’ve always thought of Godfrey as howlingly funny, but his “Aristocrats” delivery is flat- out mythic. He’s like Zeus up there on the mike…like Alexander the Great.
The second funniest bit is Kevin Pollak telling the joke like he’s Christopher Walken.
The third funniest bit is Martin Mull telling the “kiki” joke (the one with the two anthropologists captured by loin-clothed natives and being told they can either die or suffer “kiki” and…you know how it goes), but with “aristocrats”-style sexual assault substituted for “kiki.”
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly “proud” of having enjoyed this film but letting it in provides a kind of opening-up experience of a curiously surprising nature.
Sundance honcho Geoff Gilmore expressed part of the film’s weird appeal when he wrote that it “has a seriousness of purpose that places it dead center in any discussion about values and mores and even more specifically the nature of taboo.
“The Aristocrats is one of the most shocking and, perhaps for some, offensive films you’ll ever see,” Gilmore concluded. “But its provocativeness is never gratuitous…it creates in its own singular fashion an absolutely arresting portrait of comic art.”
ThinkFilm’s Aristocrat‘s deal was negotiated by company topper Jeff Sackman and senior acquisitions vp Randy Manis, and on behalf of the filmmakers by Ken Weinrib (of Franklin, Weinrib, Rudell and Vassallo) and Peter Golden.
Howie Mandel, Gilbert Gottfreid.
“I have rarely been more excited about a film and its potential,” Sackman said in a press release. “The Aristocrats audience runs the gamut from frat boys to intellectuals, and we’re going to have a great time reaching out to both ends of the spectrum and to everyone in between.”
I don’t usually run with Variety-type trade paper quotes, but I wanted to convey that other semi-credible industry people (besides myself) are behind this film in a deeply sincere (i.e., money on the table) way.
As long as we’re dealing with deeply offensive material, perhaps someone can explain to me — simply, plainly — why the following racist joke is supposed to be funny, and what it friggin’ means, for that matter.
The joke is this: [insert racial slur of your choice] goes into a bakery and asks for a loaf of bread. And the baker says “Brown or white?”. And the [racial slur] says, “It doesn’t matter — I’m on my bike.”
What is that?
Mad About It
Hooray for Paramount Classics’ chutzpah and sharp eyeballs in picking up a Slamdance film I was too bogged down to even hear about until I was in a van heading toward Salt Lake City airport, on my way back to L.A., around 1:30 pm on Thursday.
It’s called Mad Hot Ballroom, a doc about a bunch of New York City public school kids getting into ballroom dancing and revealing aspects of themselves and their world along the way.
The idea of dance being transformative and transcendent is not new, but the journey these kids take from their various stations and attitudes on their way to a big-deal dance competition is said to be extra-special.
(l. to r.) Mad Hot Ballroom kids as depicted in crappy, not-enough-pixels shot copied off the Slamdance website.
Marilyn Agrelo is the director-producer. Amy Sewell is the writer-producer.
Paramount Classics, which also picked up Hustle & Flow wll be using its corporate hookup with MTV and Nickleodeon to promote Mad Hot Ballroom sometime later this year, although I know nothing about when it might come out.
Word is that all the major buyers crammed into the under-ventilated Slamdance theater at the Treasure Mountain Inn to take a look at it. The reactions were (said to be) quite exceptional, even by mountain-air standards.
Paramount’s Ruth Vitale, David Dinerstein, Jeff Freedman and John Sloss of Cinetic Media worked on the deal from late Tuesday into Wednesday’s wee hours. And blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. Great for everyone involved. But, well…can I see it sometime soon?
Rock-Ribbed
“I’ve just seen Million Dollar Baby and want to comment on the supposed ‘rightist, traditionalist’ reaction to the film — the third act, I mean to say — that you spoke of earlier this week.
“First, I would like to thank critics for keeping the lid on the ending of this movie. I hope that I can express my opinion about the film without letting the cat of the bag.
“There are some definite conservative values coming into question in this film. In truth, I think that Clint Eastwood’s character, Frankie Dunn, is quite a conservative man. He has turned to his Catholic faith to help with his past demons and he initially refuses to train a girl boxer.
“The main reason for his not wanting to train her, of course, are old-dog sexist opinions. Just by body language alone you can sense his disgust at Maggie’s family. They are the epitome of why conservatives absolutely despise the welfare system, as Maggie’s mom would rather live in a dumpy trailer and abuse the system then live in a nice house that a family member cared enough to buy them.
“I am a conservative, religious person, and yes, Frankie’s final decision with Maggie is not something that most conservative religious people would do.
“That is the part of the religious right that I cannot agree with. Sometimes the right thing to do is, unfortunately, painfully immoral.
“And by the way, just because the Academy screwed up 20 years ago with Martin
Scorsese not getting a Best Director Oscar for Raging Bull doesn’t mean he should get what amounts to a `pity’ Oscar.
“It’s obvious that Eastwood has become a much better director at this point than Scorsese. Baseball gives the MVP award to the guy with the best year, not the guy who should have won three years ago.” — Derek DiCiccio, Dallas, Texas.
Echoes
“My wife and I recently saw Sideways. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and it hit home as no other film has for a long time.
“In lieu of a bachelor party, last July my best friend Dan and I embarked on a weekend road trip prior to my wedding the following week. While the video chronicle of our trip is, thankfully, far more serene than Sideways, the similarities were hard to miss.
“I’m a freelance automotive journalist and part-time video guy — considerably more successful than the Giamatti character, I might add – and my buddy Dan is and always has been the go-getter lady’s man with the line of shit as long as his arm.
“With many Haden Church lines, Pam whispered, ‘That’s just what Dan would say!’ She’s only known Dan for a few years, but she had him pegged.
“As much as I could relate to the film, I suppose, like a lot of guys, I was also happy to be able to say, `Am I ever glad that’s not me!'” — Jeff Johnston, Eugene, Oregon.
View outside my Park City condo as I waited for the van to pick me up early Thursday afternoon. You can’t tell from the photo but it was snowing and beautiful everywhere at the moment of capture.
Danced Out
And so begins my eighth and final day in Park City, Utah, and I can’t think of a common thread or theme that fits the experience. The days have burned through like a lit dynamite fuse in a Sam Peckinpah film, only there hasn’t been any kind of explosive finish and I don’t expect there to be. I’m just looking for a clean exit.
All I want to do today is see two or three more films (Hustle & Flow again, just for fun…and then Heights, This Revolution or Ellie Parker), tap out some final thoughts on Thursday morning, and fly home.
(l. to r.) The Ballad of Jack and Rose costars Paul Dano, Camilla Belle and Ryan McDonald at Newmarket’s Chumscrubber party at the Village at the Lift — Tuesday, 1.26.05, 12:05 am.
And then, 18 hours later, around mid-afternoon on Friday, drive up to the Santa Barbara Film Festival and catch the opening-night showing of Melinda and Melinda, the new Woody Allen film.
I’ll guess I’ll be seeing Saturday’s award ceremony on the Sundance Channel like everyone else, and saying to myself, as I do every year, “Darn…I should’ve tried harder to see that one.” Like an atomic clock, like a dependably dull accountant who’s never gone to Italy and never will, I miss several cool films with every new Sundance Film Festival. They’re hot, playing, everyone’s on ’em…I miss ’em.
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Having nothing vital to say, I’ll say this…
* After Monday’s screening of The Squid and the Whale at the Racquet Club, I asked director-writer Noah Baumbach about the similarities between this film and the last three efforts of his colleague Wes Anderson — Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic, which Anderson and Baumbach co-wrote.
All four (a) are about a group of extremely bright and precocious types who are gathered together over family ties, school or work, (b) use lots of dry, deadpan dialogue, (c) use a selfish and immature father figure in his 50s at the axis of things, (d) include people at cross-purposes over sexual intrigues, and (e) use selectively-chosen ’60s and ’70s pop tunes on the soundtrack.
I noted these similarities and asked Baumbach in what ways he and Anderson diverge. He seemed uncomfortable with such comparisons, and said he would in fact “dispute” them.
I mentioned to Baumbach after the q & a that while Wes’s films seem to take place in slightly unreal milieus (a place I’ve called “Andersonville”) and are a bit on the oblique, less-than-fully-revealing side when it comes to emotional matters, The Squid and the Whale, which is a partly autobiographical piece based on the strife between Baumbach’s parents when he was a kid in the mid ’80s, is more plain- spoken and even wounding regarding matters of the heart.
* The hot-ticket ensemble flicks that were at least partly about teen angst — The Chumscrubber, Brick, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Thumbsucker — all seemed to rank as interesting attempts rather than accomplished successes. None exuded the abundant clarity of purpose or confidence or stylistic brio that wakes you up or turns your head around.
The best liked, for what it was worth, appears to be Thumbsucker. And the least successful, to judge by the technical questions asked at Tuesday night’s post-screening q & a session at the Eccles, was The Chumscrubber. (Technical questions always indicate that people are flummoxed about what a film amounts to, or just flat-out don’t like it.)
* John Maybury’s The Jacket (Warner Independent), which was exec produced by Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Peter Guber (whose support is supposed to convey the notion that this is a smart, above-average enterprise, which it is) was the second high-grade horror-thriller I saw in connection with Sundance ’05, the initial entry being Wolf Creek.
This is Adrien Brody’s best film (and includes his best performance) since The Pianist.
If it has a spiritual as well as visual cousin, it’s David Croneneberg’s The Dead Zone — another downbeat drama set in a wintry Vermont about a decent, kind-hearted guy tormented by disturbing visions of the future. The fact that Maybury’s film concludes on a note of caring and compassion (the theme is about the relative shortness and instability of life) only adds to its stature.
* I feel especially badly about not trying harder to see Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight, which two or three people have recommended to me; Marcos Siega’s Pretty Persuasion, which I wanted to see because it angered or turned off so many; Steve James’ Reel Paradise (although John Pierson has offered to help get me a screener copy); and Kirby Dick’s Twist of Faith, which was just Oscar-nominated for Best Feature Documentary.
* The most satisfying Sundance films I’ve seen over the last seven days, in this order, are Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek, Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul, Suzanne Bier’s Brothers and Sebastian Cordero’s Brothers.
Flyer vs. Boxer
Whether or not Million Dollar Baby or The Aviator wins the Best Picture Oscar on February 27th is not, I feel, a vitally important matter.
Nonetheless, Martin Scorsese’s period film was handed 11 Oscar nominations this morning (Tuesday, 1.25), including, naturally, one for Best Picture. This means it will now be the recipient of a psychological bandwagon effect among lazy-minded media types and Academy voters.
Not to be disrespectful, but if that emotionally obtuse, atmospherically un-genuine, overly CG-ed, 1930s dress-up, urine-milk-bottled, Gwen-Stefani-as-Jean-Harlow movie about Howard Hughes wins I will feel very badly.
Not quite as awful as I did when Return of the King and Chicago won, but pretty damn bad.
Any film lover with any kind of fair-minded insight into this competition will most likely feel the same way. An Aviator win will be an occasion for moaning and mourning, except, of course, for interested parties like Gold Derby.com’s Tom O’Neill, a devoted Scorsese ass-muncher since last November.
The Aviator is a “good” film, but nowhere near good enough to be named as the year’s best.
The concept of its alleged superiority is obviously a stretch, but guess what? To a lot of industry watchers who should know better, this doesn’t matter.
“The Oscar’s been going to bigger productions lately, like Chicago, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings,” Entertainment Weekly‘s Dave Karger told a USA Today reporter for a story that went up today. “And no film is bigger than The Aviator.”
Sentiments like these are grotesque…appalling. Karger may be right, but he should be ashamed of himself for airing views of the Oscar race that are short-sighted and wrong and retrograde.
The Aviator has the numbers, a certain admiration and, judging from what I keep hearing, rote Academy support, but Million Dollar Baby has the edge on quality, serious art-film chops, and a straight-to-the-heart component.
Finding Neverland and Ray have never been serious Best Picture contenders, not really, and there are apparently people in the Academy who actually hate Sideways. (I spoke to a former studio bigwig a few weeks ago who used the “h” word, believe it or not, to describe his feelings about it).
The anti-Sideways sentiment is really an anti-Miles sentiment. Some Academy members (i.e., enough to constitute a serious voting block) don’t relate to a lonely pudgy loser who drinks too much wine at the wrong moments, although critics obviously feel differently.
Call it a genetic-aversion factor, but this, in a nutshell, is why Paul Giamatti didn’t get a Best Actor nomination, although he obviously deserves it as much as Jamie Foxx, Clint Eastood or Leonardo DiCaprio…and somewhat more, if you ask me, than Johnny Depp or Don Cheadle.
This, then, is the Best Picture dynamic on the morning of the Oscar nominations, which, obviously, has left me feeling vaguely bummed, cynical and dismissive of mainstream tastes.
We’re looking at a showdown between an eye-filling, reasonably decent film in certain respects vs. a powerful relationship film with a devastating finale that — I’ve been hearing — has prompted some folks of a rightist, traditionalist bent to pull back a bit and look elsewhere.
It’s a choice between an epic-sized, conventionally grandiose period drama about a twitchy oddball Hollywood pioneer…a movie that nobody but nobody feels is any kind of genuinely great film (but which many people in the technical branches feel compelled to vote for because for this or that political reason) vs. a shadowy, relatively quiet father-daughter drama that actually touches the heart and sticks to the ribs.
One of the enduring sentiments out there is that Martin Scorsese deserves his Best Director Oscar because it’s been denied him so long, etc. Scorsese should have won it for Raging Bull 23 years ago, yes, but Oscar handicapper Pete Hammond noted this morning that many great directors (Alfred Hitchcock, et. al.) have been given the Academy cold-shoulder.
“Scorsese is owed an Oscar? Well, get in line,” Hammond said. Using the logic of the Scorsese supporters this year, Hammond asked, “Does this mean that Hitchcock should have won a Best Director Oscar for his work on Family Plot?”
Hammond noted that “if Scorsese loses the DGA Best Director award this Saturday to Eastwood, all bets are off.”
He agreed that “it’s always an uphill climb for a smaller movie like Million Dollar Baby or Sideways to go up against a big juggernaut movie like The Aviator, especially with this morning’s bandwagon effect and all.”
However, he said, there are factors favoring the Eastwood film.
#1: “There has never been a movie about Hollywood that has won the Best Picture Oscar.”
#2: “I was there at the Producers Guild Awards ceremony last weekend when The Aviator won for Best Picture, and the enthusiasm factor was very low…very little applause…the level of enthusiasm isn’t there and yet it’s the kind of movie that people expect should be a Best Picture nominee.
#3: “The fact that Clint got nominated by the actor’s branch for Best Actor this morning is indicative of big support for the film by the actor’s branch, which of course is the largest.
#4: “A lot of The Aviator‘s nominations were technical ones. Baby
doesn’t have costume design, and there’s not much to get into production design-wise when you just have a boxing ring and a gym.”
#5: “People vote for movies they love…that they can get excited about…and the fact is that admiration and enthusiasm levels seem to be much higher for Million Dollar Baby than for The Aviator. People admire The Aviator but they don’t love it.
Hammond says “it’s basically a three-way race between Baby, The Aviator and Sideways. Five nominations for Sideways is a typical slot for that kind of small film…it’s very tough for a dark-horse comedy to pull off a win.”
Special Congrats to…
Catalina Sandino Moreno for nabbing a Best Actress nomination for Maria Full of
Grace. She won’t win (Hilary Swank is a near-lock) but this is a great score for an actress who’s relatively new to this country, and who deserves to be in more films of Maria‘s calibre. She’s been holding off on committing to the next film — here’s hoping the right one comes along soon.
More Visual Push
The Dying Gaul writer-director Craig Lucas in ground-floor atrium of Sundance Film Festival headqarters at one of three Marriott hotels (don’t ask me to give the exact designation) — Monday, 1.24.05, 2:10 pm.
The backside of Baker-Winokur-Ryder publicist Chris Libby (reddish-orange bag slung over left shoulder) as he decides which journalists to hand out complimentary tickets to in parking lot/congregating area of Park City’s Racquet Club — Sunday, 1.23.05, 3:35 pm.
The Squid and the Whale director-writer Noah Baumbach during post-screening q & a at Park City’s Racquet Club after debut showing of his film — 1.24.05, 7:10 pm.
The Strangers With Candy gang on Main Street (l. to r.): co-writer and director Paul Dinello, co-stars & co-writers Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert, and some guy who’s probably had something significant to do with the making or selling of the film but I don’t know his name. (Publicist Jeff Hill informed me and I wrote it down, but it disappeared when the computer crashed without warning on Tuesday afternoon, wiping out over three hours of painstaking work in the blink of an eye) — Monday, 1.24.05, 3:35 pm.
Jeff Feuerzeig, director of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary that David Poland is calling the “masterpiece” of this year’s festival (whoa…be very careful whenever a critic uses the word “masterpiece”) — Monday, 1.24.05, 8:25 am.
Cronicas director of photography Enrique Chediak, star John Leguizamo, director-writer Sebastian Cordero at Palm Pictures’ party at Riverhorse Cafe — Monday, 1.24.05, 10:25 pm.
Legendary, much-admired German helmer Werner Herzog prior to screening of his latest film, Grizzly Man, at Holiday Village Cinemas — Monday, 1.24.05, 8:25 pm.
The Squid and the Whale costars Jeff Daniels and Owen Kline (son of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates), director-writer Noah Baumbach (r.) during post-screening q & a — Monday, 1.24.05, 7:05 pm.
Actress Eddie Daniels (Open House, Ken Park) on the Riverhorse dance floor at Cronicas party — Monday, 1.24,05, 11:05 pm.
Blue Tuesday
“I can understand your feelings about a possible win for The Aviator or Marty Scorsese. But I was wondering about your thoughts on the nomination of Finding Neverland and Depp. I know there seems to be positive critical reactions to this movie, but I found its sentimental manipulation to be off-the-charts.
“I found myself returning, over and over, throughout the overlong third act, to the most compelling question presented by the film: is Johnny Depp’s eyeliner permanent, since it seems to be the same stuff he had on in Pirates?
“Contributing to the oppressive schmaltz factor was Winslet, whom I usually love… but watching her torture her kids for two hours by telling them nothing’s wrong with mommy, then coughing up her lungs made me again return to the central enigma of Depp’s perfectly lined eyes.
“As for Giamatti, I had to laugh when I read your comments that Academy members don’t relate to a lonely pudgy loser who drinks too much wine at the wrong moments, although critics obviously feel differently. My first thought was that you might be implying that critics identify with Giamatti because they often include many pudgy, over-imbibing loser types. I have never met a critic (a respected film-focused one, I mean) and since you have, I was wondering if this is so?” — Zoey.
Wells to Zoey: Some critics have that pudgy, mopey, vaguely boozy thing going, but only a few. Some, like myself, have that perfectly toned, gleaming-white-teeth, Hawaiian tan, square-jawed thing, and yeah, I suppose most critics enjoy the occasional glass of vino, and some of them have morose outlooks on life. So yeah, I guess that accounts for some of them liking Giamatti’s Sideways performance.
“It`s too scary to contemplate to see an average piece like The Aviator win for Best Picture. I may not even see the 2.27 Oscar show just for that very fact, and I haven’t missed it since I was a little toddler. I don`t know if it`s because they`ve lost touch with reality but I just don`t get these guys anymore — every year it gets worse and worse.
“The Aviator, a biopic about this man that has neurosis and gets deeper into dementia, was far inferior to the vaguely-similar Nixon or even smaller pictures such as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Auto Focus. Scorsese didn’t show us a Howard Hughes we hadn`t seen before in many other flicks — it was all dysfunctional clich√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩs. I still think there`s a great Howard Hughes movie to be done out there, but the once-great Scorsese couldn’t swing it.
“How hard can it be to do a fascinating Howard Hughes film? Everything is there! There’s so much to him that it doesn’t even have to do be cartoonish like Scorsese provided, with a boyish guy with a wimpy voice who seemed to be just getting out of puberty. It’s also ironic that the producer is Mr. Overrated himself, Michael Mann, who did that dreadful other biopic about Muhammad Ali, which was a total bore and didn’t reveal anything new about the man. In both cases there was no joy, which is strange because I’ll bet the real Ali and Hughes had a total blast.
“I haven’t even seen Sideways and Million Dollar Baby since they haven’t come here in this part of the world. And I didn’t feel like going to see Ray. The best I’ve seen this year are Dogville( the first complete Trier film), Fahrenheit 9/11, The Passion of the Christ, A Very Long Engagement and The Bourne Supremacy. These movies made me jump out of my body and realize this is what moviegoing should be.
“And because of that what the Academy has done over the years, promoting frivolous minor movies that may or may not be quality, has been criminal.
“See ya at the red carpet…not!” — S√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩbastien Lecours, Quebec, Ontario.
Rushing It
I haven’t got time to think things through or make what I’m tapping out here sound as good as it ought to, and it pains me to just put stuff up without refinements, but…
The most satisfying Sundance films I’ve seen over the last four days, in this order, are: Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek (which I wrote about last Friday), and Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul (angrier and more bitter than it needs to be, but is nonetheless a fully felt, precisely crafted piece about denial and betrayal, a superb psychological suspense drama and a nicely tuned Hollywood backstabber).
Sculpture of Dying Gaul, created in 230 B.C., residing today in Rome’s Capitoline Museum, and a thematic motif in Craig Lucas’s film of the same name.
The other A-listers are Sebastian Cordero’s Cronicas, John Maybury’s The Jacket, Suzanne Bier’s Brothers, and Peter Raymont’s Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire.
Matthew Vaughan’s Layer Cake is an absorbing, carefully measured, constantly crackling British crime film that deliberately eschews the Guy Ritchie-esque razzle dazzle that we’ve all come to expect from movies about the criminal underworld, and offers yet another riveting, multi-layered performance from Daniel Craig.
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Mike Binder’s The Upside of Anger is perhaps a little too on-the-nose at the finish, but it’s honest and human and builds into something tangible, and it contains one of the most likably relaxed and touching Kevin Costner performances ever.
The next big achiever, I’m guessing, with be Arie Posin’s The Chumscrubber, which is screening tomorrow night (i.e., Tuesday) at the Eccles. As I’m leaving Thursday morning I’m already starting to grapple with the likelihood of not being able to see this and that film, given the workload and all.
Yesterday afternoon I caught Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker, and after it was over I can’t say I was doing cartwheels in the Racquet Club parking lot. A moderately resonant drama about teenage uncertainty and suburban angst, it’s one of those films that works on a scene-by-scene basis, but seems to wander and glide along without having a particular goal in mind. There’s no story tension or a discernible arc, but the human-scale observations about this and that (pic is based on Walter Kirn’s novel of the same name) ring true, for the most part…for what it’s worth.
I’m going to just post what I have now and maybe revisit the Intel room at the Yarrow Hotel this afternoon and add or refine or whatever. This is so friggin’ half-assed, I can’t stand it.
Far and Away
For me, so far, Hustle & Flow is still the shit.
Out of twelve or thirteen films I’ve seen here so far, none have delivered a package of this caliber — absolutely note-perfect acting (headlined by Terrence Howard’s already-legendary performance as D-Jay, a flawed, at times brutally insensitive man in a classic do-or-die struggle to make it as a rap artist), formulaic panache, a quality that feels to me like ripe atmospheric truth, exotic charm and sublime emotional satisfaction.
Some are saying Flow is too formulaic, or that it faces an uphill challenge with red-state audiences who may not want to get up close and personal with a film about a drawlin’ Memphis pimp. You know what I’m saying. A certain vaguely racist aversion.
Well, it is formulaic…but in the most intriguing way possible. To say you’ve “seen this kind of film before” means nothing. The question must always be, “How well was it made, and how much did you care?”
A deliberately arty-farty out-of-focus shot taken on set of Hustle & Flow.
At times, Hustle & Flow talks and walks like a ’70s blaxploitation film (that yellow typeface used for the opening main-title sequence is pure Sam Arkoff), but Brewer and Howard and an ace-level supporting cast (Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning, DJ Qualls, Taraji Hewnson, Ludicris) make it play true and steady and right as rain.
Every frame of this movie says, “You know what we’re doing…this guy wants to climb out of his own hole and maybe we’re gonna show him do that…but we’re gonna do it in a way that feels right to us.” And once D-Jay hooks up with Anderson and Qualls and starts to put together a sound and record a few tracks, Hustle & Flow lifts off the ground and pretty much stays there, suspended.
I find it staggering that seasoned film industry journos would suggest, as they have to me over the last 24 hours or so, that not enough paying customers will want to see this thing. Forget the funky backdrops and gritty-ass particulars — is there anyone out there who can’t relate to a character who feels stuck in a tired groove and wants to do more with his/her life? Is there anything more commonly understood these days?
Whatever you might expect to feel about D-Jay, he is, by the force of Howard’s acting and Brewer’s behind-the-camera input, utterly real and believable, and even with his anger and brutality you can’t help but root for him. And, for that matter, the film.
Meanwhile…
Mike Mills (r.), director-screenwriter of Thumbsucker, fielding questions after Sunday afternoon’s screening at Park City Racquet Club, with costars Lou Pucci (l.) and Tilda Swinton (middle) — 1.23.05, 6:55 pm.
Thumbsucker costar Keanu Reeves (r.) on Racquet Club stage after Sunday’s screening, next to charming actress who plays a very small role — 1.23.05, 6:50 pm.
Can’t Beat It
I feel whipped, anxious and extremely behind schedule this morning.
Okay, I always feel this way…but it’s more pronounced during Sundance. The question each day is, “How many bowling pins will fall to the floor today? How many films I’d like to see or parties I’d like to attend or quickie interviews I’d like to do will I be forced to blow off due to having to feed this bear of a column?”
I started writing this early Monday morning (just before eight), and at one point I thought I had about two hours before having to run off to see the first film of the day — Steve James’ Reel Paradise, a 110-minute doc about indie film maven John Pierson’s experience running a small movie theatre on the island of Fiji.
But I didn’t make the Pierson screening, and now, at 11:25 ayem, I’m trying to finish in time to make the noon screening of Pretty Persuasion at the Eccles. And I’m wondering if I can even make that.
Flow Chart
Sunday’s big news, to recap, was the charged response to Hustle & Flow after a Saturday night screening at the Park City Racquet Club, along with the subsequent announcement, some eight or nine hours after the screening began at 8:30 pm, that the film has been acquired for $9 million by Paramount.
The MTV execs went home around 4 ayem, but the deal closed at roughly 5:30 am this morning, partly as a result of a certain Paramount executive remarking to UTA’s Jeremy Zimmer, “We can’t do this anymore…I have to go to bed.”
No immediate word as to whether Hustle & Flow will be distributed by “big” Paramount or “little” Paramount (i.e., Paramount Classics), but the answer sounds like a no-brainer. Indie-type Sundance movies need the kind of TLC that is generally not dispensed (no offense) by big-studio marketing departments.
The $9 million is part of a $16 million, 3-picture deal that will cover two other films to be produced and directed by Flow producer John Singleton for $3.5 million each.
Part of the Hustle & Flow posse after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club: (l. to r.) Terrence Howard, producer Stephanie Allain, costar Taryn Manning, director-writer Craig Brewer — 1.22.05, 10:45 pm.
The unofficial word is that Hustle & Flow will probably open over the 4th of July weekend, which would be an appropriate date since celebration of this holiday figures into the plot.
Paramount publicist Nancy Kirkpatrick called to say that Paramount’s newly-installed chief Brad Grey, plus Par marketing head Rob Friedman and production president Donald De Line, saw Hustle & Flow in Los Angeles on Saturday night while Viacom co-president and COO Tom Freston was catching it at the same time at the Park City Racquet Club.
I found it interesting that Howard, who was the last Hustle cast member to be called to the stage after Saturday’s screening, seemed more comfortable on the edge of the spotlight than occupying it front-and-center.
There’s no question that his performance as D-Jay, a Memphis pimp in a midlife crisis with musical aspirations, has put him on the map in the exact same way that Morgan Freeman’s performance as a pimp in Street Smart (along with Pauline Kael’s rave in The New Yorker) turned him into “Morgan Freeman.”
Anyway, the JPEGs now and the copy on Monday morning sometime….along with some new photos I’ll probably snap during my Sunday adventures after I finish posting (which always takes longer than expected).
Visual Push
Brothers director and story co-author Suzanne Bier with star Connie Nielsen after Saturday afternoon’s screening at the Egyptian theatre on Main Street — 1.22.05, 2:10 pm.
Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor and columnist Anne Thompson (l.) and film business editor Nicole Sperling (r.) in foyer entrance to a truly deafening party for Layer Cake, held on Park City’s Main Street — Friday, 1.21.05, 10:35 pm.
The Dying Gaul screenwriter and director Craig Lucas (r., on the mike) and (l. to r.) cast members Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson after late Saturday afternoon screening of the drama, which is Lucas’s filmmaking debut — 1.22.05, 7:15 pm.
Exotic dancer at party for party for Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s Inside Deep Throat, held inside garage space adjacent to Park City Library — Friday, 1.21.05, 11:35 pm.
Relatively small container of pre-popped popcorn selling for $4 dollars at Park City’s Egyptian theatre — taken just before Brothers screening on Saturday, 1.22.05, at 11:55 am.
Hustle & Flow producers Stephanie Allain (middle) and John Singleton (r.) stand with writer-director Craig Brewer after after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club — 1.22.05, 10:50 pm.
The Chumscrubber and Dear Wendy star Jamie Bell (l.) with unidentified (but obviously spirited) woman during latter stages of Inside Deep Throat party — Friday, 1.22.05, 12:25 am.
Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughan seated during interview inside atrium space on first floor of Park City Marriott — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am..
Congenial and photogenic Dear Wendy director Thomas Vinterberg with an apparently significant other outside Eccles theatre just before screening of his film — Saturday, 1.22.05, 2:45 pm.
Hustle & Flow star Terrence Howard (also in Lackawanna Blues) during post-screening interview before audience at Park City Racquet Club — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am.
Flora outside Hollywood Elsewhere condo — Thursday, 1.20.05, 11:05 am.
Brothers director Suzanne Bier after Saturday’s showing at the Egyptian theatre, before she introduced Connie Nielsen — 1.22.05, 2:05 pm.
Inside Deep Throat dancers at post-screening party — 1.22.05, 12:05 am.
Erratum
“Just to let you know that Nathan Phillips isn’t the whacko in Wolf
Creek — John Jarrat is. Phillips plays the twentysomething guy. Jarrat’s been on Australian TV for years. Phillips has also been on the tube for a while, but he’s only about 24 or 25.
“And you’re right about the outback police force, by the way. But then any force would have trouble patrolling an area where people own farms that are bigger than some European countries.” — John Truslove, Melbourne, Australia.
Wells to Truslove: Thanks for offering the correction. I’ll fix the error right away.
Stupid Spoiled Whore
“If you have not seen it, hunt down the South Park episode called ‘Stupid Spoiled Whore,’ about Paris Hilton and the utterly ruthless and unforgiving attitudes about her, especially as they seem to be manifesting in force these days. It’s definitely worth 23 minutes of your life.” – Gabriel Neeb.
Frame capture from Paris Hilton sex video.
“I’m 100 percent behind you in protesting the appearance of tabloid trash queen Paris Hilton at Sundance. If someone told her that in order to appear at the parties she would have to watch as many films as she could showing at the festival, I’m sure she would pack up and leave ASAP. And major kudos on the use of the Hilton sex tape screen shot as your stock photo.” — Angry Dick 2.
“I think there√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s more in you yet to write about porn society, as typified by Paris Hilton. I find it interesting that on this you and I agree. Any chance you√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll write more about that issue?” — Roy “Griff” Griffis
Flow Chart
I’ll be banging out a Monday column, of course, but why not run some photos I took on Friday and Saturday right now (i.e., Sunday afternoon)?
Sunday’s big festival news is the enormous response to Craig Brewer’s astounding and immensely satisfying Hustle & Flow after an 8:30 pm screening Saturday night at the Park City Racquet Club, along with this morning’s announcement that the film has been acquired for $9 million by MTV/Paramount.
Part of the Hustle & Flow posse after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club: (l. to r.) Terrence Howard, producer Stephanie Allain, costar Taryn Manning, director-writer Craig Brewer — 1.22.05, 10:45 pm.
The MTV execs went home around 4 ayem, but the deal closed at roughly 5:30 am this morning, partly as a result of a certain Paramount executive remarking to UTA’s Jeremy Zimmer, “We can’t do this anymore…I have to go to bed.”
No immediate word as to whether Hustle & Flow will be distributed by “big” Paramount or “little” Paramount (i.e., Paramount Classics), but the answer sounds like a no-brainer. Indie-type Sundance movies need the kind of TLC that is generally not dispensed (no offense) by big-studio marketing departments.
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The $9 million is part of a $16 million, 3-picture deal that will cover two other films to be produced and directed by Flow producer John Singleton for $3.5 million each.
The unoffical word is that Hustle & Flow will probably open over the 4th of July weekend, which would be an appropriate date since celebration of this particular holiday figures into the story of the film.
Paramount publicist Nancy Kirkpatrick called to say that Paramount’s newly-installed chief Brad Grey, plus Par marketing head Rob Friedman and production president Donald De Line, saw Hustle & Flow in Los Angeles on Saturday night while Viacom co-president and COO Tom Freston was catching it at the same time at the Park City Racquet Club.
I found it interesting that Howard, who was the last Hustle cast member to be called to the stage after Saturday’s screening, seemed more comfortable on the edge of the spotlight than occupying it front-and-center.
There’s no question that his performance as D-Jay, a Memphis pimp in a midlife crisis with musical aspirations, has put him on the map in the exact same way that Morgan Freeman’s performance as a pimp in Street Smart (along with Pauline Kael’s rave in The New Yorker) turned him into “Morgan Freeman.”
Anyway, the JPEGs now and the copy on Monday morning sometime….along with some new photos I’ll probably snap during my Sunday adventures after I finish posting (which always takes longer than expected).
Visual Push
Brothers director and story co-author Suzanne Bier with star Connie Nielsen after Saturday afternoon’s screening at the Egyptian theatre on Main Street — 1.22.05, 2:10 pm.
Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor and columnist Anne Thompson (l.) and film business editor Nicole Sperling (r.) in foyer entrance to a truly deafening party for Layer Cake, held on Park City’s Main Street — Friday, 1.21.05, 10:35 pm.
The Dying Gaul screenwriter and director Craig Lucas (r., on the mike) and (l. to r.) cast members Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson after late Saturday afternoon screening of the drama, which is Lucas’s filmmaking debut — 1.22.05, 7:15 pm.
Exotic dancer at party for party for Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s Inside Deep Throat, held inside garage space adjacent to Park City Library — Friday, 1.21.05, 11:35 pm.
Relatively small container of pre-popped popcorn selling for $4 dollars at Park City’s Egyptian theatre — taken just before Brothers screening on Saturday, 1.22.05, at 11:55 am.
Hustle & Flow producers Stephanie Allain (middle) and John Singleton (r.) stand with writer-director Craig Brewer after after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club — 1.22.05, 10:50 pm.
The Chumscrubber and Dear Wendy star Jamie Bell (l.) with unidentified (but obviously spirited) woman during latter stages of Inside Deep Throat party — Friday, 1.22.05, 12:25 am.
Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughan seated during interview inside atrium space on first floor of Park City Marriott — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am..
Congenial and photogenic Dear Wendy director Thomas Vinterberg with an apparently significant other outside Eccles theatre just before screening of his film — Saturday, 1.22.05, 2:45 pm.
Hustle & Flow star Terrence Howard (also in Lackawanna Blues) during post-screening interview before audience at Park City Racquet Club — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am.
Flora outside Hollywood Elsewhere condo — Thursday, 1.20.05, 11:05 am.
Brothers director Suzanne Bier after Saturday’s showing at the Egyptian theatre, before she introduced Connie Nielsen — 1.22.05, 2:05 pm.
Inside Deep Throat dancers at post-screening party — 1.22.05, 12:05 am.
Erratum
“Just to let you know that Nathan Phillips isn’t the whacko in Wolf
Creek — John Jarrat is. Phillips plays the twentysomething guy. Jarrat’s been on Australian TV for years. Phillips has also been on the tube for a while, but he’s only about 24 or 25.
“And you’re right about the outback police force, by the way. But then any force would have trouble patrolling an area where people own farms that are bigger than some European countries.” — John Truslove, Melbourne, Australia.
Wells to Truslove: Thanks for offering the correction. I’ll fix the error right away.
Stupid Spoiled Whore
“If you have not seen it, hunt down the South Park episode called ‘Stupid Spoiled Whore,’ about Paris Hilton and the utterly ruthless and unforgiving attitudes about her, especially as they seem to be manifesting in force these days. It’s definitely worth 23 minutes of your life.” – Gabriel Neeb.
Frame capture from Paris Hilton sex video.
“I’m 100 percent behind you in protesting the appearance of tabloid trash queen Paris Hilton at Sundance. If someone told her that in order to appear at the parties she would have to watch as many films as she could showing at the festival, I’m sure she would pack up and leave ASAP. And major kudos on the use of the Hilton sex tape screen shot as your stock photo.” — Angry Dick 2.
“I think there√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s more in you yet to write about porn society, as typified by Paris Hilton. I find it interesting that on this you and I agree. Any chance you√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll write more about that issue?” — Roy “Griff” Griffis
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