Day: September 16, 2018

Toronto Voters Tumble for “Green Book”

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Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book has won the Toronto Film Festival’s Grosch People’s Choice Award for most popular film! Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma and Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk were the second and first runners-up. A Star Is Born came in…what, fourth? Astonishing. (What happened to the suspected ballot-stuffing thing?) HE’s mind is officially blown. Downside for Green Book: It’s now in danger of being labelled the Best Picture front-runner.

Documentary Award: Free Solo. The Biggest Little Farm and This Changes Everything were the second and first runners-up.

Midnight Madness award winner: The Man Who Feels No Pain. Assassination Nation and Halloween are the second and first runners-up, respectively.

Scratch The Old Guys and Who’s Left?

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Yes, Joe Biden feels and looks too old (that over-sized neck wattle is a real problem), but my insect antennae are sensing that he would win the allegiance of 50-plus conservative hinterland guys, and would therefore beat Donald Trump handily in 2020. Mark Harris nonetheless feels he’s too old, and he’s not wrong about the problem of Biden or Bernie running for a second term. Eliminate those two and who’s left? Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Meryl Streep. Yes, Streep.

Posted on 7.15.18: “I resent Warren for not mounting a tough challenge against Hillary Clinton in ’15 and ’16. If she had she might’ve saved us from Trump. That aside she has a passionate, humanist schoolmarm voice, and is tough and scrappy.

“I like Sen. Kamala Harris a little more than Warren because she’s even scrappier — you could use the term prosecutorial — and I love the idea of a whipsmart mixed-ethnic woman of 53 (she’ll turn 55 on 10.20.19) running against the dessicated, pot-bellied, none-too-bright Donald Trump, who’ll turn 74 on 6.20.20.”

This Is Not Cinerama

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The Cinerama Dome is commemorating their 55th anniversary by showing four seminal Cinerama features — The Battle of the Bulge (9.30), Grand Prix (10.7), How The West Was Won (10.21) and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (11.7). They’re all being projected in “Digital Cinerama.” All but one debuted at the Dome, and three were single-camera, faux-Cinerama 70 mm presentations. How The West Was Won was originally shown via the classic three-projector, three-panel celluloid system of yore, but not this time. This is apparently the first time that “Digital Cinerama” has been presented at the Dome.

Waiting With Bated Breath

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The winners of the Toronto Film Festival’s Grolsch People’s Choice awards will be announced at 1 pm eastern. The most popular movie award is almost surely between A Star Is Born and Green Book. Everyone is presuming that Toronto’s Lady Gaga fans have avalanched the voting but maybe not. Peter Farrelly knows the odds are against his film, but if Green Book wins…eureka! The suspense is in the air and bearing down…nails are being chewed as we speak. HE reminder: Even if A Star Is Born wins (which I’m assuming will happen), Green Book is still a Best Picture contender. It can’t not be.

Backed Into A Corner

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Panos Cosmatos‘ Mandy opened two days ago. Between Telluride and Toronto I haven’t had a chance to see it. Am I looking forward to seeing this alleged gonzo revenge bloodbath flick? No. Do I feel obliged to see it regardless? Of course. You can’t ignore ironically fetishized cult-frenzy films in this day and age. Am I equating Mandy with major dental surgery? Yes. Will effete know-it-alls like Bob Strauss make fun of me if I don’t see it? Yes. So Mandy-wise I’m between a rock and a hard place. I have to man up and see it, and I will do that.

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