Aaron Johnson gave a decent performance as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, but my dislike of that film instilled a collateral animus toward the guy. Perhaps I can get past this with the help of Matthew Vaughn‘s Kick-Ass (Lionsgate, 4.16).

I’ve always felt that the late Jean Simmons peaked with her luminous performances as Julie Maragon in The Big Country (’58), Sister Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry (’60) and Varinia in Spartacus (ditto). To some her British accent suggested a prudish nature, but her scenes with Kirk Douglas in Spartacus had a potent erotic current.

Simmons was married to Stewart Granger and director Richard Brooks. She was treated for an alcohol problem in the ’80s, and she apparently smoked for several years. She died on 1.22 at age 80 — she was born on 1.29.29 — from lung cancer. Classy lady, beautiful eyes.

Echoing comments I heard last night at a Killer Inside Me after-party at Zoom, Screen International‘s David D’Arcy has written that Michael Winterbottom‘s “staggeringly violent” adaptation of Jim Thompson’s 1952 novel “reaches a new extreme in the cinematic depiction of a psychopathic murderer. It is hard to watch — and for some will be impossible — regardless of any psychological logic behind its many killings.

Kate Hudson, Casey Affleck in Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me.

“Audiences up to their ears in serial killers may enter this film thinking they already know them all. Winterbottom will prove them wrong.

“Distributors everywhere will be shy of this film, despite Winterbottom’s established reputation. Anyone releasing it will be dogged by its violence, especially towards women. Theatrical response should be similar to Antichrist, another film whose violence is at the extreme of what is watchable. He adds that “audiences [may] attack the film on grounds of misogyny.”

I decided not to attend last night’s Killer Inside Me screening at the Eccles in order to retire to the close-to-freezing Yarrow hotel lobby in order to write my Runaways review.

Retired Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates has written about attending Sundance, mainly due to an interest in seeing Davis Guggenheim ‘s Waiting For Superman. He calls Redford’s Ordinary People his “all-time favorite,” and adds that he “really like[s]” every movie Redford has directed. (Including The Legend of Bagger Vance, a.k.a. Bag of Gas?) He also mentions that The Great Gatsby is among his favorite Redford performances. Gates’ writing is bland, to put it kindly.

For the most part Floria Sigismondi‘s The Runaways (Apparition, 3.19) is an absorbing, highly charged, better-than-average ’70s rock saga. I’m giving it a solid B. Maybe a B-minus. The reasons for the voltage are Kristen Stewart‘s scrappy performance as Joan Jett, the Runaways co-founder who went on to become a solo rock legend in the ’80s, and Michael Shannon‘s as L.A. rock impresario Kim Fowley. And the music, of course.

The Runaways costars Dakota Fanning (who plays Cherie Curie) and Kristen Stewart (who plays Joan Jett) at Eccles lecturn following this evening’s screening of Floria Sigismondi’s above-average ’70s rock saga,

Former Runaways stars Joan Jett, Cherie Curie on stage during post-screening q & a.

As long as the film is focused on Stewart and Shannon and the generally pungent ’70s atmosphere, it radiates badass attitude and seems authentically plugged in to the spirit of ’70s rebel rock.

Unfortunately, Sigismondi’s script is primarily based on Currie’s autobiography, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story, which tells of her background plus her drug and alcohol problem that arose from her success with the Runaways.

This means that in too many portions we’re stuck watching Curie’s fairly boring story, since no rock-industry cliche is more mind-numbing than the one about a famous rock star burning out on drugs. Which also means we’re stuck with Dakota Fanning , who gives an opaque, space-case performance as Curie — blankness personified. That’s my opinion, at least. Some journalist pallies in the Eccles lobby were differing with me after the film, but that’s what makes a ballgame.

Update: I was recalling this morning how Kim Fowley, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie bitch about each other in George Hickenlooper‘s Rodney Bingenheimer documentary The Mayor of Sunset Strip.

Tonight The Hurt Locker won the Producer’s Guild of America’s Daryl F. Zanuck award…yippee! This creates a major upping of the suspense factor in the all-important Academy Award face-off. Suddenly, it seems, Avatar is not a foregone conclusion to win the Best Picture Oscar. The Hollywood Reporter’s Gregg Kilday wrote earlier this evening that The Hurt Locker “now seizes the moment.”

“Welcome to the Rileys follows a familiar trope with James Gandolfini as an Indiana plumbing-parts entrepreneur taking a fatherly interest in a young stripper (Kristen Stewart) he meets while at a convention in New Orleans. To the credit of writer-director Jake Scott, it’s a chaste relationship that builds in affection and mutual trust, although Gandolfini and Melissa Leo, as a married couple, have a history we’ve seen before — i.e., going through the motions since their teen daughter was killed several years earlier.

James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart

“Rileys doesn’t make any Hollywood plot turns, preferring to focus on the realistic prospects of a Midwestern couple suddenly trying to assume a parental role in the life of this young runaway.

“It’s also smart enough not to make a big deal out of the emotional estrangement between Gandolfini and Leo: no simmering recriminations, or angry venting of years-old anger. They instead offer beautifully modulated performances as a couple that has lost its way, although would like to find it back.

“Stewart attacks her role with a clarity and ferocity that is compelling. Stewart brings an emotional nakedness and spirit to the role that is reminiscent of certain male actors when they were young: Sean Penn for one, Leonardo DiCaprio for another.” — from Marshall Fine‘s recently-posted review.

My early-morning plan was to file a couple of short stories (which I did) and then dash over to the Holiday Cinemas for a 9:30 am screening of Amir Bar Lev‘s The Tillman Story (which I wrote about last week). But then a friend called from the Eccles saying he had an extra ticket to Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Jack Goes Boating. For whatever reason I told him I’d be right over. I paid a cab driver six bucks for a ride that lasted 55 seconds.

Eccles crowd just prior to showing of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Jack Goes Boating — Sunday, 1.24, 9:25 am.

When I sat down I told my journalist pal I was a wee bit leery based on an age-old fear of first-time directing efforts by prominent actors, and especially those from the indie realm. (Obviously there have been welcome exceptions to the rule.) He mentioned that Jack Goes Boating hadn’t been slated for a press screening, and my heart sunk — I hadn’t noted that. Then the film began, and less than ten minutes later I was grumbling to myself. Four or five minutes later I got up and left.

Not because it was terribly made or horribly off its game — the opening established an amiable, easy-going tone with dabs of low-key humor — but because I really, really didn’t want to hang with Hoffman’s Jack, an oafish Manhattan limousine driver. Jack is pudgy — okay, fat — and rumpled and conversationally slow as molasses. He wears a dim and drowsy expression, and seems borderline stupid and to some degree emotionally shut down. “I don’t like this guy — he’s too doltish,” I muttered to myself. And the humor, as I heard it, conveyed a kind of low-energy flatness, reflecting the perceptions of people with somewhat diminished capacities.

And then came a scene between Hoffman and Amy Ryan, portraying a plain girl named Connie whom Jack is interested in, and costars John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega. It ends with Hoffman telling Ortiz that Ryan wants to go boating sometime, and Hoffman explaining that this might not work because he can’t swim. And then Ortiz mentions that he could teach Hoffman to swim at an indoor pool he’s been to.

That was it — I wasn’t going to watch Hoffman in bathing trunks. He’s been getting more and more corpulent lately, and it just makes me feel badly for the guy. I want him to be Capote-sized for the rest of his life. I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to be an asshole. It’s quite possible that Jack Goes Boating will be called a decent-enough film by critics and festivalgoers I respect. I just didn’t want to be in that world so I left.

I ran outside with the hope of catching The Tillman Story, which had only begun a few minutes earlier. A shuttle bus stopped but it wasn’t headed for the Holiday Cinemas. I stuck out my thumb and caught a ride. I ran into the theatre lobby about 20 minutes after the film had started, and was told by volunteers there was no room at the Tillman inn — every seat was taken. Defeat, despair. I walked over to the Yarrow and started to write some stories. And that’s where I am right now.

Early last evening I saw Chris Morris‘s Four Lions — an unsettling, at times off-putting, at other times genuinely amazing black political comedy about London-based Jihadists — Islamic radicalism meets the Four Stooges/Keystone Cops. It’s sometimes shocking and sometimes heh-heh funny, and occasionally hilarious.

Morris uses a verbal helter-skelter quality reminiscent of In The Loop, and yet the subject is appalling — a team of doofuses who dream of bombing and slaughtering in order to enter heaven and taste the fruit of virgins. It’s amazing and kind of pleasing that a comedy of this sort has been made, but I don’t want to think about the reactions in Manhattan once it opens.

At times it felt flat and frustrating (I couldn’t understand half of it due to the scruffy British accents) and at other times I felt I was watching something akin to Dr. Strangelove — ghastly subject matter leavened with wicked humor. An agent I spoke to after the screening said, “I don’t know if the American public is ready for this film.” He’s probably right, but Four Lions is an absolute original — I’ve never seen anything like it, nor have I have ever felt so torn in my reactions. I’d love to see it again, but with subtitles.

Heartfelt speech. So Bullock — all but ignored by critics groups — is now the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar? Apparently. I wasn’t focusing last night when this happened — I was having my first relaxation moment since last weekend. Somebody (Pete Hammond, Tom O’Neil) needs to canvas Academy members and explain why she overtook Streep. Is it strategically possible for Carey Mulligan to take the Oscar due to the Bullock and Street votes cancelling each other out?

Every Sundance festival you have to re-learn the same lesson — you can’t see three or four films per day plus file about them with any clarity much less eloquence if you’re also going to attend a late-evening party or freebie lunch or dinner and/or socialize and…well, not exactly chase skirt but do the dance of that. It really doesn’t work, and the tension between the usual filing requirements (which I have no trouble handling when I’m home) and the transporting ether of constant smiles and attention (particularly from devastating blondes, the company of whom I never keep in New York or Los Angeles) can really drive you nuts.

The films and the reviews are paramount, of course, but the Sundance aura can feel like a truly perfect weekend in high school with your parents away. The lah-lah must be resisted, of course. I will not allow my ship to crash on the rocks. You have to be hard and strong and face once again who you are and the degree of commitment required to do the damn job…yikes. This gig is hard enough without the siren call.

“C’mon, Wells — we’re not paying you to party and sleep,” a reader wrote last night. “Write some reviews.” Well, I’m trying to do that right now as I sit in the Yarrow Hotel lobby, dealing with the arctic blasts of air that surge in every time the automatic glass door opens. It’s 10:40 am and I’m realizing now that I’m going to have to blow off Smash His Camera, Leon Gast‘s doc about legendary paparazzo Ron Gallela, which press-screens at 11 am. I’m going to try and catch Mark Ruffalo;s Sympathy for Delicious at 12 noon, followed by Animal Kingdom at 2:30, Welcome to the Rileys at 5:30, The Runaways at the Eccles at 6:30 and 3 Backyards at 8 pm.