Arrived at 8:30 this morning at Bell Lightbox for the 9:15 press screening of A Star Is Born. Hit press lounge (good wifi, free food, decent free coffee) at 11:30 am to write review. Attended 2 pm screening of Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum and then, for old time’s sake, an hour’s worth of Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War. Currently catching Hotel Mumbai at Princess of Wales theatre. Final diversion will be an 8 pm Elgin screening of Beautiful Boy with a SoHo House party at 10 pm.

I have an hour to tap out reactions to Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born before my next screening, and I have two basic things to say.

One, Variety‘s Kris Tapley oversold the situation three days ago when he wrote that the Warner Bros. release has “the muscle to win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay)…it’s that kind of accomplishment.” And two, Cooper’s version of this age-old tragic romance (this being the fourth version and the third remake) struck me, no lie, as the most engaging, least problematic, best acted and most skillfully assembled of them all.

That sounds like a contradiction, right? The most satisfying and well-tuned Star Is Born I’ve ever seen that’s nonetheless been over-hyped by a certain columnist?

What I mean is that Cooper’s film is the kind of ace-level production that will seem hugely impressive to Academy members who are pre-disposed to tumble for this kind of thing sight unseen, who love the idea of a swoony pop massage-weeper, and who aren’t cultured or hip enough to realize that as technically assured and emotionally affecting as A Star Is Born is, it’s still a rehash of an old romantic tale, and you just can’t call it crackling or new or reach-for-the-heavens in a 2018 sense. Well, you can try but it won’t sell.

Put another way, A Star Is Born can’t hope to sink into our souls or our anxious, Twitter-jitter, Trump-besieged ADD culture in a way that’s truly head-turning in a right-now way. At the end of the day it’s still a classic cheese casserole, still A Star Is Born, still the same basic sappy saga (alcoholic star launches fresh talent, sinks into worsening addiction, gets in her way, decides to off himself) that was shot and released in ’37, 54′ and ’76, blah blah.

It’ll be Best Picture-nominated for sure, but only the easy lays and none-too-hips are going to say “whoa, Tapley was sooo right!…this is not only the best film I’ve seen all year but it might win five Oscars!”

How good is Lady Gaga as Ally, the new Esther Blodgett? Pretty damn good, I’d say — she gives the kind of carefully measured, open-hearted performance that you can’t help but succumb to. For the first time since she became a major brand, I feel I know who Lady Gaga is deep down.

How good is Cooper as Jackson Maine, the 2018 version of Fredric March and James Mason‘s Norman Maine, not to mention the version played by Kris Kristofferson? Excellent — some have called it his best performance ever, although I have a special place in my heart for Cooper’s unstable, self-deluding protagonist in Silver Linings Playbook.

How good is the screenplay, which was co-written by Cooper, Eric Roth and Will Fetters? It’s very well honed, very believable, often eloquent, nicely understated. A pro-level job top to bottom.

So what am I saying? A Star Is Born is a very well-done musical drama, and will wind up being nominated in a few categories, but it’s not (to use a classic Steve Pond term) “the one.” It’s an expertly assembled film for what it is, but keep in mind that it’s basically big-studio schmalz of a very high, very hip and musically pleasing order.

Kris Tapley wasn’t wrong about a certain kind of Academy member falling for this film, but after everyone sees it they’ll need to step back and take a breath. They’ll need to look in the mirror and ask themselves, “Do I really think that a reconstituted high-end romantic tragedy that works all around the track as far as it goes…do I really think this is the absolute cat’s meow?” Some people will say “yes!” without thinking, but others will think twice.

Said it before, saying it again: everyone needs to calm the eff down.

What grade am I giving A Star Is Born? Somewhere between an A-minus and a B-plus. It’s very good but it’s a remake that throbs with wall-to-wall music, for God’s sake. Control yourselves.

A journalist colleague said last night that “people tend to over-estimate musicals…they don’t often play across the board…they touch people who want to be touched by them, but that’s not everybody.”

Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 11/9, which screened Thursday evening at the Toronto Film Festival, slices and dices Donald Trump in rousing, unequivocal, almost joyful fashion. And I loved it for that. Trump evisceration is what most ticket-buyers will expect to see, of course. And yet this complex, tough-minded doc drills into Trump for only about 1/3 of its running time. Okay, maybe 40%.

Orange Cheeto, it turns out, isn’t the primary villain of Fahrenheit 11/9 as much as the ultimate demonic expression of a general climate of corrosion, corruption and (this is interesting) laissez-faire, moderation-favoring attitudes among complacent Democratic normalists and media types over the last quarter-century.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are portrayed as the principal causes of a general lack of trust and proliferation of cynicism among the body politic about mainstream liberal governance. The mainstream media is culpable also, Moore says. He also champions the hardcore, anti-corporate left (Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, David Hogg and the other activist Parkland massacre survivors, the legendary Bernie Sanders). And a good portion of the doc focuses on the mind-boggling, all-but-deliberate poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water supply.

The doc basically says that Trump is a malignant force and a lying, blustering, Hitler-esque authoritarian, but the political system is full of enablers, and we all have to get real and throw these bums out and stand with the gutsy activist lefties of the moment and make this country into a semblance of an actual Democracy again….no more Obama-styled “hope” but action, action and more action, and no more half-measures or liberal pussyfooting.

Moore’s ties to the working-class people of Michigan have always been his ace in the hole in terms of political-cultural insight and humanistic compassion. He was raised in the Flint suburb of Davison. In Moore’s youth Flint’s economy and General Motors factories were closely intertwined. His uncle LaVerne was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936 and ’37.

Moore knows, of course, that much if not most of Trump’s support is rooted in demagoguery — in his skillful manipulation of racial resentments and anti-blue-state animus among the bumblefucks. Moore knows full well that racism is part of the mix, but he doesn’t touch it in Fahrenheit 11/9. He doesn’t want to pick at that ugly scab. But it’s obviously there, and the film would have been that much better if Moore had dealt with it to some extent.

How popular or influential will Fahrenheit 11/9 prove to be in terms of the upcoming midterm elections? It’ll help some, but the U.S. is a different culture than the one Fahrenheit 9/11 blew away 14 years ago.

I know the Brett Kavanaugh handshake blowoff moment happened a couple of days ago, but I can’t get over the look of complete terror on the Supreme Court nominee’s face. All he seemed to sense was that the guy who wanted to shake his hand (i.e., Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland shooting victim Jaime Guttenberg) wasn’t a Republican pally, and he freaked. “Aaaagghh!…it’s one of them!” Kavanaugh seemed to say to himself. Look at his face. What kind of reprehensible scumbag ignores a handshake reach-out? What did Kavanaugh think was going to happen? That Guttenberg might try to stab or shoot him?

The Hollywood Elsewhere-Jordan Ruimy pad (NE corner of Elm and McCaul street) is a two–bedroom shoebox on the 11th floor of a grim high-rise full of warm, stale air in the hallways. The place is roughly the size of two semi–spacious prison cells with queen-sized beds plus a small bathroom and a kitchen made for the Wizard of Oz midgets.

It’s not a bad place — I just need to get used to it.

I conked out for a couple of hours this morning, and then picked up my press pass at the Bell Lightbox, and then hung out in the press lounge for an hour or so, and then arranged to attend the opening-night showing of Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 11/9. I wanted to also catch a 6:30 pm showing of Outlaw King but Albert Tello couldn’t get me a ticket — I might attend the Outlaw after-party though.

The first big press screening of A Star Is Born happens early tomorrow morning (9:15 am) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Wakey-wakey at 6 am, write for 90 minutes or so, arrive at the Lightbox around 8 or 8:15 am, write a bit more while waiting in line, etc.

All hail the late, once-great Burt Reynolds, who passed this morning at age 82. Reynolds enjoyed a 13-year run at the top from ’72 to ’84 or thereabouts, and kept plugging away over the next 34 years (and who tasted a brief comeback after his porn-producer performance in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Boogie Nights). But now he’s gone, a physical being no more, floating in the clouds…a spirit flooring a ghostly Trans Am through the bayou with a wailing bubble-gum police car chasing his ass.

Deliverance, Shamus, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, The Longest Yard, At Long Last Love, Hustle, Gator, Nickelodeon, Semi-Tough, Smokey and the Bandit, The End, Hooper, Starting Over, Rough Cut, The Cannonball Run, Paternity, Sharky’s Machine, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Best Friends, The Man Who Loved Women and Boogie Nights.

“Another Reynolds Assessment,” posted on 3.26.18: “‘Be kind’ means you can lightly allude to Reynolds having messed up his acting career by making one arrogant, bone-headed move after another after another, etc. Those fast-car movies. Blowing his post-Boogie Nights momentum. Getting bad plastic surgery, wearing those terrible rugs. But you can’t actually mention it.

Posted on 8.4.14: “Reynolds initiated his demise by making all those stupid shitkicker paycheck movies with the yokelish Hal Needham. Reynolds had a pretty good run at the top (’72 to ’84), and then he was done.

“Reynolds-the-actor (as opposed to Reynolds-the-box-office-attraction) was great in Deliverance, half-good in Shamus, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, At Long Last Love, regrettable in Lucky Lady and Hustle, good in Semi-Tough, very good in Starting Over, good in Sharky’s Machine and Best Friends, decent in The Man Who Loved Women…and that was it until he played an older thief in Bill Forsyth‘s Breaking In (’89). And then nothing came of that. And then along came Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Boogie Nights (’97) and Reynolds called it shit and fired his agent, etc.

Posted from Key West on 11.17.16: Burt Reynolds sat for a q & a this evening at Key West’s San Carlos Institute following a screening of Jesse Moss‘s Bandit (which isn’t half bad).

Good old Burt. His usual, familiar smoothie self — cool and collected, deadpan humor, mellow vibe. But with a beard and tinted shades. The audience was laughing, applauding, in love. Burt’s legs are on the frail, shaky side but he walked out without a cane — good fellow. Here’s an mp3 of the whole thing. The interviewer was Rolling Stone critic David Fear.

Variety‘s Kris Tapley is reporting that AMPAS has turned tail on its proposed Best Achievement in Popular Film Oscar, and that the expected Popular Oscar duel between Black Panther and A Star Is Born won’t be happening.

In explaining the sudden turnabout, the Academy has announced that the planned “popular” Oscar “merits further study.” Translation: Too many people (Tapley included) were appalled and hugely pissed off by the popular Oscar idea, lamenting that it would dilute or denigrate the Oscar brand, and so there won’t be a Best Achievement in Popular Film Oscar handed out at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards.

HE to Team Roma: Before today there was a likely scenario that Roma might take the Best Picture Oscar (i.e., which had recently come to be more defined as the trophy for serious achievement in cinematic art) with either A Star Is Born or Black Panther winning the Popular Film Oscar. Now…who knows?

HE to Disney’s Black Panther awards-campaign team: Before today you had only one serious competitor for the Popular Film Oscar (i.e., Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born) and a decent shot at snagging a regular Best Picture nomination. Now you won’t be taking home any gold at all because you’re not winning the regular Best Picture Oscar. You’ll be nominated but that’s all. Sorry, guys, but it’s over.

AMPAS stated that while they remain committed “to celebrating a wide spectrum of movies” (i.e., a Best Popular Film Oscar), they now recognize that implementing this new award nine months into the year “creates challenges for films that have already been released.” Translation: We got scared and decided to pull the plug for the time being, and take a fresh look at the situation next spring or summer.

Academy CEO Dawn Hudson: “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members. We have made changes to the Oscars over the years — including this year — and we will continue to evolve while also respecting the incredible legacy of the last 90 years.”

I recently conveyed suspicions and issues about David Gordon Green‘s Halloween (Universal, 10.19), but I have to acknowledge approval of this poster, which is presumably fan-created. Three wrongos: (1) the film is mis-identified as Halloween Returns, (2) it shows Jamie Lee Curtis wearing her trademark pixie cut, and (3) the physique of 60-year-old Michael Myers (aka “the Shape”) is too slender. But it’s a catchy sell regardless.

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.”