Earlier today I obliquely discussed the “whoa, mama” finale of Edward Berger’s Conclave.

When this moment arrived during tonight’s Montclair Film Festival screening, the entire audience responded with mostly pleasurable surprise….damn near the whole place went “whoa-hooaahhwwwhhh!” When this same moment unfolded during the first Telluride screening, the reaction was subdued…some quiet “hmmm” and “uh-huhm” responses but very few.

Nobody will be able to discuss this until Conclave opens commercially on 10.25, and to be extra fair not until it’s played for at least a couple of weeks.

Warning: Habitual spoiler whiners are advised to see it as early as possible. Move it or lose it.

Incidentally: Earlier this evening I was about to post a riff titled “Worst Theatre Seat of My Entire Life.” Dyian and I were seated in upper-balcony “heaven”…row W, and I mean waaay up there with very small seats and no leg room. The movie screen looked like a standard business envelope…it was like watching a film on a 13-inch MacBook Pro from the other side of the room. And the festival had the chutzpah to charge $35 each for these wretched seats.

At least the sound was strong and distinct.

And that seems to go double for Leigh Whannell‘s Wolf Man (Universal, 1.17.25).

I feel soiled just knowing that Blumhouse “product” is out there, swirling around.

N.Y. Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson isn’t what you’d call a yay-nay type of gal. She likes to steer clear of judgments, preferring to write in a circumspect way, observing this and taking note of that.

So it’s significant, I think, that she’s totally tumbled for Sean Baker Anora.

No spoilers: For the most part Edward Berger’s Conclave (Focus, 10.25), a present-tense, Vatican-set drama about cardinals choosing a new pope, sounds and behaves like a fairly traditional film.

And then the finale comes along and it’s like “whoa, mama.”

Without getting into specifics, the film is saying that the usual, centuries-old schemings and plottings won’t do, and that advanced countries are shifting into another mode or mindset.

Which is why, if you ask me, a majority of younger straight guys aren’t supporting Kamala Harris —- they can feel the subtle shifting of the cultural plates, and are sensing they’re being shunted aside. The tactile, under-educated screen obsessives, I mean.

There’s a final shot of two young nuns clucking happily about something…this kinda says it all.

Friendo: “Yeah, I get it, but all I’m saying is that it ends on a super-woke note.”

HE: “I’m not 100% delighted by the general shifting into an era of seismic change…a primal passing of the torch…but we can’t deny that this is clearly what’s starting to happen all over.

“Conclave is a cultural canary in the coal mine.”

“A typical progressive woman would say ‘WHAT? Women and LGBTQ wokesters are making a few inroads, but the world is still overwhelmingly run by dudes.’ But times are changing. The earth is moving under our feet.”