Lovers and gay men and inspirational high-school teachers and the crowded streets of Heaven. Everyone looked so effing young 20 years ago. Look at Emma! Ralph Fiennes (brief glimpse) looks like he’s 17. Larry Fishburne was a Best Actor nominee for What’s Love Got To Do With It? (which I’d frankly forgotten about) and Anthony Hopkins was Best Actor-nominated for Remains of the Day. Quite the time for Liam Neeson with Schindler’s List and Husbands and Wives under his belt, and Michael Collins two years into his future. Neeson’s name and the word “paycheck” would be all but synonymous 20 years later, but this was the beginning of Bill Clinton‘s second year in the White House and all seemed well for the time being. (No one was quite sensing the coming of Newt Gingrich and the first stirrings of Republican insanity.) I was doing a weekly column for the N.Y Daily News Sunday movie section back then plus Entertainment Weekly and L.A. Times “Calendar” filings. Clunky IBM desktop computers, not much internet activity, pre-Harry Knowles and Matt Drudge. Glenn Kenny‘s association with Premiere wouldn’t begin for another two years. Jett was only five and a half and Dylan was four.

Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neill to Jeffrey Wells: “You’re slacking off again, Mr. Elsewhere! Last night Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuaron won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures…which means that you and all the other Oscarologists have to re-think and re-post your Oscar predictions! C’mon, Jeff…hubba hubba! Only five weeks until the Oscars and…(audibly sighs, imperceptibly slumps)…who am I kidding?

“Cuaron’s win means…what does it mean? That DGA members didn’t like the experience of watching the obviously superior 12 Years A Slave enough to give the award to Steve McQueen…despite the disapproving scowls of the Movie Godz? That they lacked the character and clarity of mind to give it to Martin Scorsese, director of the ballsiest, go-for-broke social indictment film of the century (and incidentally the best film of 2013) — The Wolf of Wall Street? And that they felt at the end of the day that Cuaron, director of a technically groundbreaking “Sandra Bullock in a haunted house” movie (in the words of Alexander Payne) that was “supposed to be an amusement ride” (in the Bullock’s own words), should get it because Cuaron and dp Emmanuelle Lubezki worked so hard to deliver an exceptional FX movie, even though they originally wanted to make a more austere, less emotionally cloying, more 2001-ish experience. And because a win for a Mexican-born filmmaker makes them seem…what, culturally magnanimous? Alfonso is one of the finest and kindest-hearted directors around today, but he should have won for Children of Men.”

Every time someone asked me what my Sundance favorites were, I started off with Whiplash. Each and every day: “Well, definitely Whiplash and also, uhhm…” The other person always said in response, “Yeah, hearing that a lot.” Over and over and over. So what a slap-down shocker that Damien Chazelle‘s manic, sweat-stained drumskin flick won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award at last night’s Sundance 2014 award ceremony. I never even thought to see Rich Hill, the winner of the U.S. Documentary Award…nobody told me “hey, you should see this.” And Justin Simien‘s Dear White People, winner of a Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Talent, never gets beyond the level of nice try — trust me. I couldn’t be bothered to see Difret, the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award winner. And Nick Cave‘s 20,000 Days On Earth, winner of the Best Directing and Best Editing in the World Cinema Documentary category…? I’m fairly certain I won’t see it on Netflix four or six months from now. That’s mean, unfair. I might.

The Movie Godz are demanding a Wolf of Wall Street Oscar upset. We all know Dallas Buyer’s Club‘s Matthew McConaughey has the Best Actor Oscar in the bag, but think radically — what about Wolf lizard king Leonardo DiCaprio (a guy who’s paid his Oscar dues and then some)…you know? And maybe Jared Leto doesn’t have the Best Supporting Actor Oscar locked down? Maybe Jonah Hill…? The bit isn’t bad but last night’s hype led me to expect a bit more. You can’t oversell these monologues.

Martin Scorsese deserves to win the DGA’s Best Director award tonight, for the simple reason that he made the year’s best and boldest film — The Wolf of Wall Street. But he won’t, I gather. The betting seems to be favoring Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuaron, which is…whatever, fine, why fight it? (Cuaron should have won six years ago for Children of Men, not Gravity.) If it can’t be Scorsese I would prefer a win by 12 Years A Slave‘s Steve McQueen, but I wouldn’t be shocked or displeased if American Hustle‘s David O. Russell takes it. The only guy who hasn’t a prayer (no offense) is Captain Phillips‘ Paul Greengrass.

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival award ceremony begins about three hours hence (6 pm Pacific), and will be viewable on the Sundance website. A friend told me this morning that she sensed an undercurrent of disappointment from my Park City filings. I don’t how where that came from. I saw eight exceptional films (exciting, well shaped, urgent, affecting in one way or another) that definitely got 2014 off to a crackling start. Eight! Most Sundance slates yield five or six keepers, or so it has always seemed.

For a final time and in this order, they are (a) Damien Chazelle‘s Whiplash, (b) Craig Johnson‘s The Skeleton Twins, (c) Steve James‘ Life Itself, (d) Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood, (e) Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies, (f) James D. Cooper‘s Lambert & Stamp, (g) Charlie McDowell‘s The One I Love and (h) Chapman and Maclain Way‘s The Battered Bastards of Baseball.

If there’s an image-quality difference between the 2011 French Gaumount Bluray of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi (a non-English-subtitled version that I bought in Paris in May 2011) and the new subtitle-option Criterion version, which I watched last night, I can’t spot it. A Criterion pally says the latter version has been cleaned up (dirt, scratches)…fine. The grain levels are in no way bothersome. It looks like it was shot on film, and I have no issue with that.

Loaded guys will always be able to relate to other loaded guys. They meet in first class…”hombre!” Any subject, no problem, comfort vibes, selfies. But if you were Zach Braff and your film, Wish I Was Here, hadn’t done all that well with the critics at Sundance (a warm-hearted, family-embracing Emo version of A Serious Man, “a little too much into calculated bromides to be comforting or illuminating…a little too conservative”), would you have done the old buddy-buddy with Mitt Romney? I guess it doesn’t matter that much, but I would have politely kept my distance. If there’s anyone in the world who’s “over,” it’s Romney. I would be afraid of catching that virus.

Last Monday night I saw Chapman and MacLain Way‘s The Battered Bastards of Baseball, and soon after wrote that it could and should be adapted as a feature film. The doc is about a scrappy-ass minor-league Portland baseball team called the Mavericks, which was owned and managed by the late character actor Bing Russell from ’73 to ’77. Actor Kurt Russell, Bing’s son and in his early 20s at the time, served as co-manager and an occasional designated hitter. Russell is an impassioned and entertaining talking head in the doc.

Headline for Kevin Jagernauth’s incorrectly reported story that was posted earlier today.

I was going to tough it out at the Sundance Film Festival until Saturday, but there’s almost no energy here…nothing. Every year it thrives and throbs for six days (Thursday to Tuesday) and then dies on Wednesday. Why did I decide to ignore this and plan to remain until Saturday? Last night I saw James D. Cooper‘s Lambert & Stamp (good doc but not now). Variety ‘s Peter Debruge had urged me to see Steven Knight‘s Locke (Tom Hardy on a cell phone, in a car) but I guess not. My plane leaves at 11-something..later.

Olivier Dahan‘s Grace of Monaco has been announced as the opening night film of the 67th Cannes Film Festival (May 14 thru 25). Okay but honestly? If I was Thierry Fremaux I would have held out for a film that doesn’t seem like damaged goods. The Weinstein Co. release never looked that great, especially with Tim Roth as Prince Rainer. It was going to open, remember, on 11.27.13. Then it was bumped into March 2014. And now this.