Day: September 17, 2010

“Nowadays, when you hear people talking about ‘the Facebook movie,’ chances are they mean The Social Network, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin‘s soon-to-open inquiry into the rise of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook. But the description might be even better suited to “Catfish,” a documentary by Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman.” — from A.O. Scott‘s 9.17 N.Y. Times review.

Same riff in lead graph of Catfish assessment piece in current Esquire (i.e., the one with Javier Bardem on cover).

I slept late this morning, piddled around, didn’t start work until noon. My flight leaves around 7 pm so I have to start packing and get rolling. No more filing until late this evening, if then. I’ll miss the cool Toronto weather. Back to the razmatazz.

I don’t have time to discuss my brief chat last night with Patricio Guzman, director of the elegant and poetic documentary Nostalgia for the Light, which I saw here last weekend. It’s basically a double-track exploration of two uses of Chile’s Atacama Desert — an ideal place for astronomers to watch the stars, and a location where the victims of Augusto Pinochet’s reign of terror in the ’70s were buried decades ago.

Nostalgia for the Light director Patricio Guzman and translator — Thursday, 9.16, 9:35 pm.

Guzman (who knows Guillermo del Toro from way back) struck me as an artist full of the right stuff. He’s thoughtful, perceptive, careful with words, a world-class gentleman, and has an aura of spiritual calm. We agreed at one point that people should always refrain from talking unless they can improve upon the silence. Good fellow.

I don’t know if the just-announced casting of Sacha Baron Cohen in a biopic about late flamboyant Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is an inspired idea, or a dreadful one. The producers presumably reached out to Cohen not just because he physically resembles Mercury but because image-wise he’s steeped in the realm of gay flamboyance. Mercury was fairly Bruno-ish himself — one of the first openly gay performers in mainstream rock, making no bones about being a Taxi Zum Klo-ish enthusiast.

GK Films’ Graham King is co-producing the Mercury biopic with Robert De Niro‘s Tribeca Productions and Queen Films. Screenwriter Peter Morgan (Hereafter, The Queen) is reportedly working on a script. The as-yet-untitled film will not end with Mercury’s death but “Queen’s barnstorming appearance at the 1985 Live Aid concert in London,” according to this HuffPost story.

I’ve always found “Don’t Stop Me Now” — written and sung by Mercury — one of the more touching Queen songs. It’s basically a celebration of a lifestyle fueled by a series of mad sexual adventures with a string of partners. Mercury is singing about what makes his life worth living and what turns him on and how he loves it, and it killed him. He essentially died as a result of promiscuity during the peak AIDS danger era (late 80s, early ’90s).

I just finished a 15-minute phoner with 127 Hours director Danny Boyle, who was calling from London. There’s always a feeling of vigor and relish in Boyle’s voice — a general mood of “can’t wait” (or “couldn’t wait”) excitement. We covered several topics. I was telling him that my general impression of the film, looking back a week or so, is one of sensual delight — it’s full of explosive color (sandy ambers, reds, blues, browns) and ripe with aromas, secretions, tastings. And is nothing if not emotionally intense each step of the way.

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Hollywood Elsewhere will either (a) find a way to attend and cover Jon Stewart‘s Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert‘s March To Keep Fear Alive (despite plans to attend the Tribeca Qatar Film Festival from 10.26 through 10.30) or (b) at least be there in spirit. The Stewart/Colbert event will happen on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, 10.30. Any mass-supported statement about how pathetic the hee-haw Teabag fatass fungus-on-their-toenails contingent is will be good for the soul, and a balm in the eye of history.

On top of which it’ll be cool to mix it up with tens of thousands of like-minded people. Plus I haven’t been down to Washington since the ’90s, and I know some journalists who live and work vthere, etc.

The only thing that gives pause is that a rally about “taking it down a notch for America” sounds an awful lot like an early 21st Century version of Richard Nixon‘s “Silent Majority” movement.

Early in his first administration (i.e., the late ’60s) President Nixon began enshrining the milquetoast middle-classers who, he said, were silent, modest, not demonstrating, and not shouting anti-Vietnam War slogans. The salt of the earth, the moderate backbone of the nation, etc. During last night’s Jon Stewart Show Stewart asked, “Why don’t we hear from the 70-80 percenters? [who don’t have extreme nutbag political views]?” He said that he wants his Sanity rally — “a million moderate march…a clarion call for rationality!” — to articulate a middle-class response to “the loud folks.”

So I don’t fancy myself as one of the new Silent Majority. I don’t like or want the linkage. I see myself as one who despises the pitchfork racist nutter selfish-idiotic-pig crowd…no offense. So I don’t want to take things down a notch. I want these people rounded up in trucks and incarcerated in green reeducation camps. I’m perfectly serious.