“Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic,” Roger Ebert tweeted tonight. “He didn’t need to do this to himself. It’s unworthy of him.” Here’s an assortment of reactions, mostly funny.

During his acceptance speech this evening before the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney blew another dog whistle by saying “when the world needs someone to do really big stuff, you need an American.” I’m presuming the import of that statement doesn’t need explaining. (And no, I can’t figure why the embed code won’t adapt to the 460 pixel width I’ve assigned it.)

Update: I’ve just hit Telluride and I’ve learned that Ben Affleck‘s Argo is indeed playing here, albeit as a sneak preview.

Earlier: I got out the iPhone the instant my Phoenix-to-Durango plane landed (about 50 minutes ago) to review the final Telluride 2012 lineup…and I was soon feeling faint. The blood had drained from my cheeks. This?

Why isn’t David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook showing here? There’s a reason, of course, but I wanted that kind of film here and it’s not. What happened to the rumor about Trouble With The Curve and a possible Clint drop-by? People were tweeting “wait, wait…this is it?”

No Master, no Malick, no Clint, not even DePalma…no established power-hitters.

In recent years Telluride has become known as an elite, pre-Toronto, first-out-of-the-gate place to sample at least a smattering of award-season contenders. Well, not this year, pally! This year it’s Tom and Gary’s Cool Little Indie-Foreign Festival plus a sampling of Cannes Hand-Me-Downs and Sony Classics servings (Amour, No) and one or two fringies. Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson will play here, but who knows what that is besides performances? I guess award season will start in Toronto this year, and Telluride will just be a nice cool place to hang and schmooze with maybe two or three pop-throughs…maybe.

2012 Telluride selections: The Act Of Killing, (d: Joshua Oppenheimer); Amour (d: Michael Haneke); At Any Price (d: Ramin Bahrani); The Attack (d: Ziad Doueiri); Barbara (d: Christian Petzold); The Central Park Five (d: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon); Everyday (d: Michael Winterbottom); Frances Ha (d: Noah Baumbach); The Gatekeepers (d: Dror Moreh); Ginger And Rosa (d: Sally Potter); The Hunt (d: Thomas Vinterberg); Hyde Park On Hudson (d: Roger Michell); The Iceman (d: Ariel Vromen); Love, Marilyn (d: Liz Garbus); Midnight’s Children (d: Deepa Mehta); No (d: Pablo Larraín); Paradise: Love, Austria, (d: Ulrich Seidl); Piazza Fontana (d: Marco Tullio Giordana); A Royal Affair (d: Nikolaj Arcel); Rust & Bone (d: Jacques Audiard); The Sapphires (d: Wayne Blair); Stories We Tell (d: Sarah Polley); Superstar (d: Xavier Giannoli); Wadjda (d: Haifaa Al-Mansour); What Is This Film Called Love? (d: Mark Cousins).

I spoke yesterday afternoon with Matthew Modine about his Full Metal Jacket app, which I downloaded last week. Great photos, haunting recollections, etc. And a nice guy to chat with. The anecdote about Kubrick’s burning of the pie-fight sequence from Dr. Strangelove broke my heart.

The Telluride flight is a two-legger — LAX to Phoenix leaving at 10:05 am, arriving at 11:25 am. (Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings.) The Pheonix to Durango flight leaves at 12:20 and arrives in Durango, Colorado (which does roll with daylight savings) at 2:30 pm, or 1:30 pm Arizona time. And then a rental car and a 100-minute drive to Telluride. Or something like that.