[Saturday, 9.1, 2:50 pm] I’m not able to share my thoughts about Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, which I caught last night (7:15 pm) at the Palm. I felt more respect than affection — I can at least say that much. I’ll try to get into it later…sorry.

HE had an absolute blast watching Sean Baker’s Anora at 9 am this morning. My second viewing, having caught the world premiere in Cannes last May. It’s so hilarious during Act Two, and the finale is so sad and touching. Mikey Madison should take the Best Actress Oscar — no question about this.

Which is to say I’ve always felt a certain degree of distaste from all things Corbet, acting and directing.

I’m nonetheless looking very much forward to seeing Corbet’s The Brutalist, which has debuted to rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival. But 215 minutes, bruh…

During this afternoon’s post-Apprentice screening q & a, which featured director Ali Abassi, costars Sebastian Stan (Donald Trump) and Jeremy Strong (Roy Cohn) and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman, Strong explained his approach to playing the demonic Cohn by quoting the opening passage from Joaquin Miller‘s “Byron“:

If I were Special Counsel Jack Smith, roaming around Telluride like an average T-shirted beardo (and with no special pass), I would have certainly attended this afternoon’s (12:30 pm) Chuck Jones screening of Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice. I was there, you bet. [Photo Credit: Sasha Stone.]

Succession star Kieran Culkin is now a likely Best Supporting Actor nominee for his performance as a hyper-obsessive, emotionally out-there, semi-Asperger’s dude in Jessie Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.

Culkin did a post-screening q&a with Eisenberg yesterday at the Chuck Jones theatre.

It followed Saturday’s 12:15 pm showing, and was full of confessional stream-of-consciousness blather about this and that. Great minds, great entertainers. I loved the film. A fascinating, character-driven, anxiety-propelled road movie (i.e., the “road” being a journey through Poland).

I can’t not acknowledge that Culkin, who’s just shy of 42, has serious, moussed-up rasta hair. I’ve never seen this kind of hair on a noteworthy white actor in my entire life. Some of those strands are almost a half-foot long.

And consider Culkin’s bloodshot eyes. The man is obviously smoking a lot of weed and maybe doing a little drinking. It’s hard to pinpoint but he definitely has that baked and wasted look.

Which is fine with me. It comes with the genius thing. I’m just familiar with this kind of biological signage…I know what it means.