Update: Hollywood Elsewhere’s Toronto-bound Air Canada flight arrived at 5:30 am. Currently sitting on UP Express train, heading for Union Station.

Earlier: HE’s plane leaves LAX at 10:15 pm, and will touch down at Pearson Airport just before 6 am. I’ll probably be at the shared pad (an 11th floor, two-bedroom place about eight blocks north of the Toronto Lightbox, a block or two west of University Ave.) by 8 am or thereabouts.

In a video that accompanies an interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Gregg Kilday, Farenheit 11/9 director Michael Moore says…

(1) “In 2016, every person who spent even a nanosecond feeling good about the fact that we were going to elect our first woman president, helped to elect Donald J. Trump.”

“As If We Needed Reminding,” posted on 2.7.17: “The primary blame for the Trump catastrophe is born, of course, by stubborn, racist, pea-brained rurals, who’ve always been and always will be fearful, gullible, low-information and dumb as fenceposts. But the real architects of the current horror are the corporate-embracing Democratic establishment machine types and particularly the evangelical genderists (‘It’s time for a woman in the White House, even one as deeply unappealing as Hillary!’).

“The fatal factor wasn’t that a woman ran for President, but that the woman who ran was the braying, testy, eye-baggy, fainting-like-a-sack-of-potatoes Hillary Clinton, who promised nothing change-y, and nothing beyond the fact that she was highly experienced (which of course she was) and would handle her Presidential duties in a cautious, responsible way (ditto).”

Moore also tells Kilday, “As things stand right now, everybody should operate as if it’s a two-term Trump,” but if the Dems are to unseat him, “we need beloved figures running. Say what you want about Trump, but tens of millions watched his show. We need Tom Hanks, Oprah, Michelle Obama. Who would not vote for Michelle Obama?”

This is exactly and precisely why (and it kills me to say this) there’s a better-than-decent chance that Trump might be re-elected — because we’re less than four months away from 2019 and there still isn’t a beloved Democrat who’s talking about running against Trump…no one. And the dumbshits won’t budge.

Michelle Obama won’t run, but if she ran she’d probably win. Oprah Winfrey could run, but she’s too chicken. Meryl Streep could run but she probably won’t even give it serious consideration. Tom Hanks could theoretically run but he won’t. Joe Biden is cool but he’s too old and his neck wattle is way too large — it’s like a Manitou head growing on the front of his neck. Elizabeth Warren is a good person but she’s a finger-wagging schoolmarm. I love Kamala Harris but the dumbshits don’t know her and she lacks charisma.

It’s been speculated that the White House insider who wrote today’s anonymous N.Y. Times op-ed piece is subconsciously or perhaps consciously looking to be outed. I realize, of course, that many D.C.-based journalists (including those who work for the Times) are looking to unmask him or her as we speak, but if I were an editor involved in this I would say “leave well enough alone…this person, among others, is trying to course-correct an unruly, adolescent, ill-informed, obviously destructive U.S. President…how does it help anyone or anything to out this person?”

N.Y. Times op-ed editor James Dao: “This was a very strongly, clearly written piece by someone who was staking out what we felt was a very principled position that deserved an airing.”

From Chris Willman’s Gold Derby Telluride wrap-up, posted on 9.4: “It may seem unlikely that the world’s shortest film fest showcased three of the next five Oscar nominees for Best Actress, but there’s a good chance that just happened.

“Emma Stone (The Favourite), Nicole Kidman (Destroyer) and Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) all have to be considered major contenders — McCarthy fitting that bill most surprisingly of all at the end of what has to be one of the buzziest weekends of her life.”

HE to Willman: Kidman hasn’t a wisp of a chance, but the person who created her Dawn of the Dead zombie makeup may be recognized.

Resume: “In two of these cases (Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Destroyer) the director was also a woman — the estimable Marielle Heller and Karyn Kusama, respectively — and largely female crews were employed, adding to the sisters-are-filmin’-it-for-themselves feel.

“Then consider that two of the very best movies at Telluride were ensemble films that you only gradually came to realize featured nearly all-female ensembles — Yorgos Lanthimos‘ wickedly funny The Favourite and Alfonso Cuaron‘s touchingly nostalgic Roma — both made by presumably highly empathetic male auteurs.

“Finally, in putting a feminist cap on Telluride, consider that probably the most celebrated documentary of the festival was Reversing Roe, a Netflix pic about the history and current import of the abortion debate.”

“At Eternity’s Gate doesn’t pretend to be ‘definitive.’ It’s a drama of moments, fragments, impressions, and though it shows us van Gogh as a haunted soul, locked in a battle with his mental problems, we hear about those demons more than we actually see them take hold.

“The film’s vision of van Gogh is honest and incisive and, at the same time, unabashedly romantic. You might call it a portrait of the artist as the world’s first flower child. I mean that as praise.

“Willem Dafoe hasn’t had a role since The Last Temptation of Christ that allows him to combine agony and ecstasy, devotion to a higher calling with…well, a messiah complex as majestically as this one does.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s 9.3 Variety review.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s pan of Errol Morris‘s American Dharma: “Steve Bannon can be specific about the things he wants to destroy (like NATO), but if Morris asks him what he wants to build in their place, he’ll cough up a homily about the people taking back their power. He’ll tell you that he’d trust 100 random rubes wearing MAGA hats at a Trump rally to run the government more than he would the 100 people who actually run it. His political ‘philosophy’ comes down to throw-the-bums-out meets Being There.

“Yet Morris doesn’t question Bannon, let alone push him to the wall, on any of this. At one point, Morris says that he thinks there’s a ‘good’ Bannon and a ‘bad’ Bannon, and that the bad Bannon is the one who would let corporations destroy pollution laws. How, Morris asks, does that serve the public? And how does it not serve the elites?

“Bannon never answers him, and this sets up a softball pattern that’s repeated throughout the film: On the rare occasions when Morris gets around to challenging Bannon (once every 20 minutes or so), Bannon ducks the question, and that’s that. He never punctures his freedom-fighter-for-Joe-Sixpack firebrand congeniality, and the film moves on to something else. At one point Morris calls Bannon ‘crazy,’ but Bannon’s discourse is so rational on the surface that it’s never clear if Morris understands what Bannon’s craziness is truly about: his desire for a revolution that he’s the tipping point of. He’s an armchair megalomaniac — an elitist in warrior’s clothing.”

In last night’s “Best Picture Race Is Over Then?” piece, I expressed shock and disappointment about Kris Tapley‘s 9.4 Variety column, “Oscar Voters Are Sure to Go Gaga for Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born.” Tapley said that A Star Is Born has “the muscle to achieve what only three films in movie history ever have: Win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay)…it’s that kind of accomplishment.”

I said I’ve nothing against the idea of Cooper’s film sweeping the Oscars, but I find it deflating to read such a declaration (a) only four days into September, (b) before the Toronto Film Festival has even begun and (c) with awards season having kicked off only six or seven days ago.

Tapley comment-thread response to HE: “[What I wrote is] not a prediction; it’s a description of the film’s capabilities. I would’ve thought that obvious. Who would predict the Best Picture winner right now?”

HE to Tapley: Have you declared that one or two of the other apparent or presumptive Best Picture contenders this year “have the muscle” to achieve “what only three films” have managed in history, which is to win the top five Oscars — Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay? You said it’s “that kind of accomplishment and more.” What other 2018 award-season release has, in your opinion, brandished this kind of potential or pedigree thus far?

Tapley to HE: “I have not. But that still doesn’t make it a prediction. I also said in the year of pandering with a ‘popular’ Oscar it would be quite the moment to hand a movie like Roma the Best Picture Oscar. That’s not a prediction either. If me saying ‘I’m not predicting this will win Best Picture, I’m just saying it has what it takes to do so’ isn’t enough, well, shit. What’s a guy to do?”

Kris Tapley‘s 9.4 Variety column, “Oscar Voters Are Sure to Go Gaga for Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born,” has left me feeling stunned and a little bit down.

A Star Is Born isn’t just “an across-the-board Oscar contender,” he says, but a film with “the muscle to achieve what only three films in movie history ever have: Win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay). It’s that kind of accomplishment, and even more, it makes you realize what this well-worn, Oscar-winning material was capable of all along.”

I’ve nothing against the idea of Cooper’s film sweeping the Oscars. If a film really works and delivers the goods then so be it. But hearing a savvy industry guy like Tapley say, only four days into September and before the Toronto Film Festival has even begun and with awards season having kicked off only six or seven days ago, that the Best Picture Oscar race is over is…depressing? It’s certainly deflating.

Here’s a conversation of President Trump apparently lying to “Fear” author Bob Woodward about how nobody ever told him Woodward wanted to talk to him for the book, etc. I would respect Trump on a certain level if he’d told Woodward something like “look, I strongly suspected your book would be a hit job no matter how I played my cards so I figured fuck it, write what you want and make all kinds of mistakes but I won’t help you.” But no — Trump claims no one ever told him that Woodward wanted an interview. He always wimps out and spreads the horse manure. All kinds of rage and bluster on Twitter, but otherwise a side-stepper and a candy-ass during one-on-one discussions.

In John Carpenter‘s Halloween (’78), Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Laurie Strode was roughly Curtis’s age, or around 20. In David Gordon Green‘s Halloween (Universal 10.19), which takes place 40 years later and disregards all previous Halloween sequels, Laurie is 60 or thereabouts. And Michael Myers aka “the Shape”, principally played by Nick Castle in the original, was also supposed to be around 20, give or take. So the present-day Myers, who’s an actual human mortal, is around 60 also. (The 70-year-old Castle will play him again along with James Jude Courtney.) All killers in horror films have to be all-powerful, hard to elude, super-strong, etc. Who would believe that a 60-year-old psychopath is just as fearsome today as he was 40 years ago? Hasn’t Myers mellowed out some? Does he work out? Has he put on weight?

Loads of crappy films have been shot in Monument Valley. The worst are Gore Verbinski‘s The Lone Ranger and Seth McFarlane‘s A Million Ways To Die in the West. The last decent one was Ridley Scott‘s Thelma and Louise. For all their tedious eccentricity and Irish sentimentality, the John Ford films — My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Wagon Master, Rio Grande, The Searchers and Sergeant Rutledge — are still the best.

Hollywood Elsewhere agrees with the 44% of critics polled by Indiewire that Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma was the best film of the 2018 Telluride Film Festival, and with the 50% who named Cuaron as the festival’s best director.

I also agree that Damien Chazelle‘s First Man ranked a close second, but I differ from the pack in having chosen Marielle Heller‘s Can You Ever Forgive Me? as the festival’s third-best film.

The greatest performance, hands down, was given by Melissa McCarthy in Heller’s film. I had an amusing time with Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite, and thought Olivia Colman‘s performance as the ailing Queen Anne was Telluride’s second best. I also approved of the Favourite perfs by Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner struck me as hugely satisfying in a complex, layered, adultly-seasoned way. I’m sorry I didn’t get to Orson Welles‘ The Other Side of the Wind, and I worshipped Rob Garver‘s Pauline Kael doc. The two biggest disappointments were David Lowery‘s The Old Man and the Gun and Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer.

I meant to send my answers in to Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn, but I was furiously posting my own stuff between yesterday’s screenings, and then I couldn’t get a decent signal as Chris Willman and I were driving last night from Telluride to Mexican Hat.