“Gray Surprise,” posted on 5.19.22

After debuting at the Toronto Film festival on 9.12, Edward Berger‘s All Quiet On The Western Front will stream on Netflix on 10.28.22. Germany’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar costars Daniel Brühl, Albrecht Schuch, Sebastian Hülk, Felix Kammerer, Aaron Hilmer, Edin Hasanovic and Devid Striesow.

Thanks again to Telluride’s Julie Huntsinger for her classy, cultured programming picks (corralled under tough circumstances), gracious hospitality and never-say-die ebullience.

The last four days felt warm, familial and kinda glorious. For the most part I managed to put aside my enraged feelings about wokester critics (many of whom won’t even admit to their prejudicial “big changes!” agenda) and just submitted to the high–altitude satori of it all. Happy to be here…to be alive.

In terms of genuine movie excitement did Telluride ‘22 seem relatively thin? Aside from HE’s idea of the Big Five — Empire of Light, Close, Tar (despite certain reservations), Bardo (ditto) and Armageddon Time — some felt that way.

I would’ve loved to have seen The Whale, She Said, Banshees of Inisherin, Blonde, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, White Noise, The Fabelmans and even Don’t Worry Darling. But that’s the rough-and-tumble of programming early fall festivals.

The most interesting aspect of Owen Gleiberman’s Venice Film Festival review of Don’t Worry Darling is his enthusiasm for Harry Styles:

“What’s convincing is how easily Styles sheds his pop-star flamboyance, even as he retains his British accent and takes over one party scene by dancing as if he were in a ’40s musical.

“There’s actually something quite old-fashioned about Styles. With his popping eyes, floppy shock of hair, and saturnine suaveness, he recalls the young Frank Sinatra as an actor. It’s too early to tell where he’s going in movies, but if he wants to he could have a real run in them.”

The Styles film to really watch, in other words, is My Policeman:

Capsule description of Wilde’s film: “A kind of candy-colored Stepford Wives in the Twilight Zone meets The Handmaid’s Tale.”

HE on 7.22.22:

Variety‘s Clayton Davis has gone apeshit over Lukas Dhont‘s Close, which I raved about from Cannes on 5.27.22. Clayton may not have seen Casablanca, but he’s definitely speaking the truth about Close. There’s no ducking it — this film is a masterpiece, and the people who are saying it’s too triggering are looking at it from an overly political perspective.

The elite Telluride critic community feels it has no choice but to worship Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking. Politically speaking there’s no upside to not praising it. Naysayers will have to suffer some degree of rejection, and it’s just safer to play along.

I said the other day that Polley’s film is nicely handled as far as it goes, but sitting through it feels confining and interminable. For me, it was almost totally about waiting for it to end.

Others feel differently, of course.

I was listening yesterday afternoon to a knowledgable journalist who believes Women Talking has picked up a headwind and will become a major Best Picture contender down the road.

Maybe, but over the last couple of days I’ve spoken to a pair of Telluride pass-holders (a wealthy 70something guy and a woman in her early 40s) who’ve told me they hated it. I’m not saying that’s the prevailing view among non-journos here, but it’s certainly a view.

I’m also personally upset and resentful about the 54% Metacritic rating for Sam Mendes‘ Empire of Light, an exquisite film that works so beautifully and movingly, and which is 10 to 15 times better than Belfast. So far three sorehead critics have lowered Empire of Light‘s Metacritic standing to the mid 50s — TheWrap‘s Tomris Laffly, IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich and Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang.

It’s going to be a much brighter story when Empire of Light opens and joins the general screening circuit…trust me. It’s easily one of the best films of the year, and far more emotionally satisfying than I’d expected. I went in a skeptic, but came away converted.

Last night I caught my second viewing of James Gray’s Armageddon Time (Focus, 10.28) at Telluride’s Chuck Jones cinema. I loved this film — honest, deeply moral, genuinely sad — when I saw it in Cannes last May. I regard it as Gray’s best ever, and feel it fully deserves Best Picture consideration.

Alas, certain wokesters out there may try to beat Gray’s film with a virtue-signaling stick. Variety’s Clayton Davis sounded the alarm in Cannes, and I felt a similar tremor last night.

There’s a scene at a snooty prep school (Kew Forest) that Banks Repeta’s Paul Graff, an 11 year-old based on Gray himself, has recently enrolled in. Jaylin Webb’s Johnny, a spirited black kid from a public school Paul had previously attended and whom Paul regards as his best friend, drops by for a chat during an outdoor recess.

After Johnny leaves one of Paul’s snooty classmates asks if he was friendly with “[plural N-word]” at his previous school. The instant the kid says that, a white guy sitting 10 or 12 feet to my left said “whoa whoa” with a tone of alarm, as if to say “hold up there…that’ll be enough of THAT word, even in an ‘80s period drama…we don’t allow that term at the Telluride Film Festival.”

The “whoa whoa” guy, in short, was announcing to those within earshot that even within the context of a moral-minded period film about racial disparity and race-blaming, the use of such a term had crossed a line.

I was wondering how the “whoa whoa” guy might have reacted if that KF kid had (God forbid) repeated the term once or twice more. Would he have walked out in protest or perhaps complained to a TFF rep about Gray’s film having agitated the audience with an unsafe word?

“Clayton Is Offended By Armageddon Time”, posted on 5.20.22:

Variety‘s Clayton Davis has posted a torpedo response to James Gray‘s Armageddon Time, at least as far as its awards potential is concerned. Scenes conveying white elitist viewpoints from three or four odious characters have rubbed Clayton’s woke sensibilities the wrong way.

In describing the film as deeply offensive in terms of said attitudes, Davis is half-suggesting that the film’s admirers are either missing something or oblivious to same.

The autobiographical Armageddon Time is a humanist, well-honed, memory-lane film about what Gray experienced as an 11-year-old youth in Queens, and the ugly elements that he encountered after enrolling in a Forest Hills private school. It’s the first really good film I’ve seen at this technically troubled festival.

Davis excerpt #1: “Armageddon Time, a deeply personal look at how the auteur became the auteur we, or at least the French, came to know and love, debuted to warm applause on Thursday. However, the film’s problematic depiction of racial inequalities in the Reagan era may turn off awards voters.”

Davis excerpt #2: “In a one-scene surprise, recent Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain plays U.S. State Attorney Marianne Trump, speaking to a sea of privileged white children at an elite private school, where [lead protagonist] Paul eventually attends, while Fred Trump (yes, Donald’s father) is present.

“[Marianne] channels the entitlement to be superior, oozing the grotesque and vile nature of a class of people in this country who are ‘the chosen ones’ for no other reason than the tint of their skin. While never named, two boys who use the ‘n-word’ when speaking about [a young Black protagonist] when he visits the school, have the narrative DNA of young Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The cringe factor may be too much to bear for more progressive voters.”

Davis excerpt #3: “Respected critics like Justin Chang of the L.A. Times were high on it, while Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian absolutely admonished it. Unfortunately, when this tale unveils itself stateside, a new racial debate will likely ensue regarding the undertones, similar to Licorice Pizza from Paul Thomas Anderson last year in the AAPI community. That may keep many voters at a distance.”

The 21st Century version of the French terror is ebbing. Okay, weakening. Those occasional “uh-oh” expressions among the fanatical faithful tell the tale. But societal cancers don’t just evaporate overnight. So for the time being, the woke brigade still holds sway, although the whole cancelling mentality is being rethought and/or downgraded by just about everyone as we speak.

I was going to say there are three kinds of cancellations, but I’m thinking the categories may actually number four.

Category #1 is owned by Harvey Weinstein…no forgiveness, no redemption….J.J. Hunsecker to Sidney Falco, “You’re dead, son — get yourself buried.” It’s been argued that Roman Polanski is in this category, but there are some (many?) extenuating circumstances. We all know that ignoring a safe word is an awful thing to do, so Armie Hammer may belong in this slot even though he’s mainly guilty of being a sexual obsessive. He certainly didn’t eat anyone’s rib or cut off a woman’s toe and put it in his pocket.

Category #2 is for middle-range offenders for whom arguments in their favor have been made, and whom many people think got an unfair deal. In my book Woody Allen is a category #2 because it’s all over one alleged incident…one…that doesn’t really add up when you consider all the particulars. Who else in this category?

Category #3 is a soft cancel…Aziz Ansari, Louis CK. The basic thing is, you were guilty of something bad but you get to inch your way back into the swing of things after a couple of years. Others?

Category #4 is an even weaker soft cancel…for people whose careers have been hurt to some extent but who never really did anything you can point to, or whose alleged offenses were due to alcohol or substance issues but are now moot because they’ve gotten sober.