“We can observe a clear-cut trend in the early 21st Century. Before then [strong] box-office and critical acclaim moved concurrently. But around 2005 there was a Great Divorce. Critical acclaim and box-office grew further and further apart with each passing year. 2005 is also the year when Crash came out.

“So are Best Picture winners getting worse? As far as the general population is concerned, yes. There was once a time when the industry produced Best Picture winners that also drew audiences to theatres and received rave reviews, but it appears that that time has passed.

“Audiences have lost the kind of movie designed to appeal to cinephiles and consumers alike while the Oscars have turned into a navel-gazing contest with no relevance to an average audience. Because in the wake of the Great Divorce, what’s the alternative? Giving a Best Picture Oscar to Black Adam because it made a lot of money? Or withholding a Best Picture Oscar from Tar because Uncle Rico’s never heard of it?” — posted yesterday by “By The Numbers” and Fandom Entertainment. Based on a 12.5.22 post by Daniel Parris.

The forthcoming 2023 Telluride Film Festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and will run an extra day in honor of that — Thursday, 8.31 thru Monday, September 4th. And of course, the price-gouging locals are charging even more than the usual arm and a leg for habitats.

A friend who was looking to rent a three-bedroom condo reports that “it’s worse this year than ever…I wasn’t going to lay out 10 grand for four days…okay, that’s a slight exaggeration…when I was looking around the rates were from $6K at the cheapest up to $15K. $15K for four days! The cheaper stuff was up at Mountain Village.”

Telluride friendo who attends every year: “The housing thing is infuriating and happening everywhere. Price gouging is among the most horrific of sins. Weird fees, surge pricing and monopolies need to be regulated. Capitalism is fine but not as it’s currently constructed.”

Hollywood Elsewhere has always stayed at the Mountainside Inn, aka “the poor man’s Telluride flophouse.” I haven’t checked the ’23 rates, but I’m guessing it’ll be something in the vicinity of $1500 or $1600. That’s a lot for a glorified Motel 6 room that would run $110 per night in any rural part of the country.

…is that it’s “great,” or so says one fellow. Another calls it “enormously entertaining and satisfying, with really strong work from Matt Damon and (especially) Chris Tucker.”

My first viewing of Gregg Araki‘s The Doom Generation happened at Sundance ’95 — 28 years ago and change.

Three months later I was working under Andy Olstein and the late Robert Sam Anson at Los Angeles magazine, and we’d all decided to run a big-spread piece about the new neo-noir fashion in movies (The Usual Suspects, Natural Born Killers, Leaving Las Vegas, the year-old Pulp Fiction, Araki’s film). I was the designated talent wrangler, and so I persuaded Araki, Bryan Singer, Benicio del Toro, Elizabeth Shue, Lara Flynn Boyle and Don Murphy to pose for photos at Smashbox.

I mainly remember the sploogey sexual stuff in Araki’s film, which I rather liked or was at least aroused by. It was basically a kind of hit-and-miss, hot-and-heavy, three-way relationship thing between Rose McGowan, James Duval and Jonathon Schaech. (An actual menage a trois happens toward the end with McGowan being love-muscled by both guys simultaneously.) The plot involved felonies and being chased around Los Angeles. If you want the chapter and verse, read the Wiki synopsis. Heidi Fleiss (whom I had done a fair amount of reporting about for Entertainment Weekly) has a cameo.

Tagline: “A Heterosexual Movie by Gregg Araki.”

McGowan was 21 or thereabouts during filming. On 9.5.23 she’ll hit the big five-oh.

A new 4K Bluray of a director’s cut will pop sometime in mid April or thereabouts. The NYC premiere will happen on April 6 at BAM. the following day it will begin shoewing at Manhattan’s IFC theatre; other bookings will follow in other cities.