Day: August 19, 2013

It was announced earlier today that Randy Moore‘s Escape From Tomorrow, the black-and-white Disneyland-meets-The Shining fantasia that played Sundance ’13, will be released commercially on 1.1 by Cinetic Media’s PDA. Pic will open theatrically as well as day-and-date on VOD. The public will see a somewhat shorter version than the one that played at Sundance. Here’s what I wrote after seeing it last January:

“Set entirely in Disneyland and shot in black-and-white, it’s basically a riff on The Shining with a vein of social criticism about pudgy, desperate, flabby-brained Americans indulging themselves with sugar, booze and fantasy while corporations control and exploit them like cattle. Is this not the central middle-class affliction of the 21st Century?

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Dick Van Dyke‘s hot-shit Jaguar caught on fire earlier today when he was driving on the 101 near Calabassas. The car melted but DVD got out okay and everything’s fine. But since when do late-model Jaguars, which are very expensive, very well-made cars, burst into flames? Van Dyke to Jaguar salesman: “And what are the chances…you know, just between you and me and the walls with no recording devices…what are the chances of this little honey bursting into flames when I’m on the freeway?” Jaguar salesman to Van Dyke: “Oh, fairly remote, I’d say. Okay, maybe a 5% chance. But that’s the chance everyone takes when they buy a Jaguar. Under the wrong conditions they can turn into tinderboxes. But hey…just concentrate on the 95% chance that it won’t happen.”

Dick Van Dyke

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Almost every damn year the same thing happens. Journalists who’ve attended the Berlin or Cannes festivals praise a knockout performance in a small or foreign indie release (like Adele Exarchopoulos in Blue Is The Warmest Color) and mention the idea of this actor or actress being a contender on the awards circuit, and right away the middle-of-the-road handicappers say “well, that’s very nice but veteran industry types and journalists in this country are more comfortable with nominating familiar faces, and so we think that the following brand-name actresses are the likeliest contenders.”

Except by saying and writing this crap they’re perpetuating default thinking. They’re not describing industry complacency — they’re winking at it and nudging it along.

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Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil has urged his Oscar experts (including myself) to make some predictions. It’s a bit silly to do this before Telluride/Toronto/New York but what the hell. Out of ten Best Picture spitballers, four are predicting David O. Russell‘s American Hustle, two are betting on Martin Scorsese‘s Wolf of Wall Street and two are predicting Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska. Except Nebraska is not going to win Best Picture — get real. It’s a good film, but on the Payne scale it’s a middle-ranger. Bruce Dern has a good shot in the Best Supporting Actor race (forget Best Actor) and it’s conceivable that June Squibb could prevail as a Best Supporting Actress contender.

Here are my transitional, know-nothing picks for the leading Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor contenders:

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As noted, first-time-anywhere showings of Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips, Spike Jonze’s Her and Ben Stiller‘s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty will highlight the 51st New York Film Festival (9.27 to 10.13). But otherwise the fest will screen a slew of Cannes repeats — Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis, J.C. Chandor‘s All is Lost, Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue is the Warmest Color, Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska, Jim Jarmusch‘s Only Lovers Left Alive and James Gray‘s The Immigrant.

Other Cannes pop-outs screening in Manhattan: Claude Lanzmann‘s The Last of the Unjust, Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture (winner of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Prize) and Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar (winner of a Certain Regard prize).

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