Day: January 24, 2016

With Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt Challenges Eric Rohmer for “Watching Paint Dry” Crown

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Robert Kohler tweeted today that by mining into soul-narcotizing boredom in her latest film, Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt is doing roughly the same thing with nothingness that Michelangelo Antonioni did with L’Avventura. Or something like that. I know that he suggested that Sundance viewers who are putting her latest film down are doing the same thing that the know-nothings did when Antonioni’s film premiered in Cannes 55 years ago. Okay, but I’m telling you that Certain Women has none of that undercurrent that Antonioni tapped into, and I know Antonioni’s early to mid ’60s films backwards and forwards. I’m telling you Certain Women is a flatline experience. I’m telling you that to me it seemed boring and listless and repetitive. It even felt vaguely horrific when you consider that some people who live in rural Montana are pretty much stuck there — i.e., no escape plan. With every Eccles-playing film so far I’ve stayed for the q & a, but not with Certain Women. I bolted during the closing credits.

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Everlasting Boner Buddies

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I was sitting in the downstairs Library cafe and feeling a little bored, so I tweeted the following to Jordan Hoffman over his seemingly perverse love for curious Sundance films that have so far escaped my interest or attention, probably for reliable instinctual reasons.

And so began the thread…

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Boiled Down

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Spotlight is a tribute and a true-life testament.  The Revenant is an icy, largely non-verbal, au natural pain poem.  The Big Short is a tutorial about guys who pain-profited.

Billions of Snowflakes

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Saturday, 1.23, 11:20 pm.

(l.) White Girl star Morgan Saylor, (r.) director Elizabeth Wood during last night’s post-screening q & a at Park City Library. There weren’t that many questions. Saylor’s character is presented as naive and stupid on a common-sense level. The movie is basically exploitation, a tawdry tale that I found quite frustrating. Variety‘s Peter Debruge panned it.

Immediately following today’s Holiday Village screening of Antonio Campos’ Christine — Sunday, 1.24, 1:45 pm.

It began showing around 10 pm last night, and what it’s done to Park City so far is beautiful at all hours.

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Sunday Push

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I decided right away after yesterday’s Manchester By The Sea screening that I’d be seeing it twice before leaving Park City, and this morning’s 8:30 am screening at the MARC works schedule-wise so there you go. Then comes an 11:30 am p & i screening of Christine (which drew a mostly positive reaction on Twitter after last night’s showing at the Library; ditto Rebecca Hall‘s performance). A two-hour break and then a 3:30 Eccles screening of Kelly Reichardt‘s Certain Women. And then back to the Library for a 9 pm screening of Tim Sutton‘s allegedly Elephant-like Dark Night, which is more or less about the Aurora massacre.

Post-Manchester/Eccles Screening Riffs (Affleck, Damon, Hedges)

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I tried uploading these clips early last evening from the Park City Marriott lobby but the wifi was too weak. Yes, I know — that hotel became my new best wifi friend only two days ago but I hadn’t tried the Park Regency’s 5G signal (I’d assumed it was private) until Friday night and discovered it’s actually pretty good. Casey Affleck‘s answer to the question “how did playing this quietly suffering guy make you feel?” is interesting. He knew what the questioner wanted (an emotional thing) but he didn’t feel entirely comfortable going there so he defaulted to a craft-and-technique response. Lucas Hedges‘ reply (after the jump) was more from the heart.

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