I for one am keen to see Noah Baumbach‘s untitled divorce movie, which Netflix will release…you tell me. Costar Ray Liotta provided a capsule synopsis in a Business Insider interview that ran a couple of months ago.

“Yeah…I’m a lawyer in it,” Liotta said. “Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson‘s characters are going through a divorce, he comes to me and I’m a lawyer who explains all these ways we can get stuff out of her in the divorce, and he’s, like ‘No, that’s too aggressive.’ So he ends up going to court, and there he realizes that Scarlett has a lawyer who’s really aggressive. So then he’s, like, ‘Oh, shit’ and he comes back to me to represent him.”

That Norman Mailer quote: “You don’t know a woman until you’ve met her in court.”

Principal photography happened between January and March earlier this year. Laura Dern also costars.

I noted last year that for a majority of journos with tight travel schedules and a pile of deadlines, the four-day Telluride Film Festival is actually a three-day if not a two-and-a-half-day festival. Which means that out of 30 films typically scheduled, go-getters can maybe catch 14 or 15, tops. And that’s if you’re really aggressive about it. If you’re only moderately aggressive you’ll wind up seeing 10 or 12.

The fest doesn’t begin until mid-Friday afternoon (i.e., post Patron’s Brunch), which affords an opportunity to see two or three films during the remainder of that day. Three or four pics are catchable on Saturday and Sunday for a likely total of 10 or 11 by Sunday midnight, and maybe a couple more on Monday before leaving town. And you have to review everything as you go along.

On top of which Telluride often schedules the highest-interest films against each other so you’re always missing out on Peter in order to see Paul. On top of which are the dinners and parties.

I’m given to understand that the following films are locked for Telluride ’18: Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma, Damien Chazelle‘s First Man, Mike Leigh‘s Peterloo, Orson Welles‘ The Other Side of the Wind, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite, Olivier Assayas‘ Non-Fiction, Marielle Heller‘s Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner, David Lowery‘s The Old Man and the Gun, Yann Demange‘s White Boy Rick, Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer, Joel Edgerton‘s Boy Erased, Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War and Hirokazu Kore-eda‘s Shoplifters. (14)

HE solution to Telluride gridlock: With everyone arriving on Thursday afternoon, the festival should begin on Thursday night with hottie screenings at all the venues (Chuck Jones, Werner Herzog, Palm, Galaxy, Pierre, Backlot) starting at 7 pm and then again at 9:30 or 10 pm. Hell, stage a midnight screening or two. And then more hottie screenings on Friday morning starting at 8:30 or 9 am. Those who wish to attend the Patrons picnic could squeeze it in around 11 or 11:30 am, but a full load of screenings would continue for those who’d rather catch films than eat.

By launching on Thursday night and starting screenings early on Friday morning, four or five fresh opportunities to catch the must-sees would be on every visiting critic’s plate. And for those who might prefer to take a more leisurely, old-time approach, they can still start things off with the picnic and then the first Patrons screening at the Chuck Jones at 2:30 pm, and no harm done.

Now doesn’t that make sense?

Less than a month into Donald Trump‘s presidency, Meryl Streep tore into that sociopathic blowhard during a wonderfully feisty speech at a Human Rights Campaign event in Manhattan on Saturday, 2.11.17. And this was more than eighteen months ago — things are much worse now.

If any of the apparent female contenders for the Democratic president nomination (Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand) were to deliver a speech today with even half of Streep’s passion, oratorical precision and pizazz, she/they would have the nomination all but sewn up. But of course, none of them are in Streep’s class. Aspiring but no cigar.

If Streep were to run for president…I’m just saying. We had a former B-level actor in the Oval office in the ’80s. We have a reality TV huckster in the White House now. What about an Oscar-winning actress? Why not?

The SJW admonishers and virtue signallers were out in full force yesterday. When an ethical-moral issue surfaces (such as Asia Argento having reportedly paid off a now 22-year-old actor over an apparent issue of sexual assault when he was a minor, and her apparent #MeToo hypocrisy in having done so), the Twitter police immediately huddle and establish the p.c. perimeters, usually within two or three hours of such a story breaking.

Soon after the Argento story popped last weekend, the tut-tutters had articulated the proper public (i.e., social media) posture. Once that process was completed, posting a view that diverged even slightly from their own was likely to attract slings and arrows.

In my case I was pummelled for suggesting that the victim in question had reacted to Argento’s alleged sexual manipulation in a way that diverged from the generally understood behavior of most teenaged actors, from my own teenaged experience and from that of Mickey Rooney. I basically expressed the same view as a certain SNL skit on a similar subject. In almost no time I became in some circles the poster boy for the “wrong” way to assess the Argento matter. I show you the times in which we live.

Ben Brafman, attorney for accused rapist and former Hollywood hotshot Harvey Weinstein, released a statement today about an 8.19 N.Y. Times report about Asia Argento having paid off a 22 year-old ex-actor after he accused her of sexual assault five years ago, when he was 17:

“This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, one of the most vocal catalysts who sought to destroy Harvey Weinstein. What is perhaps most egregious, is the timing, which suggests that at the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years.

“The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty.”

In the interest of saving a few bucks, next week I’ll be driving to Telluride with hotshot Variety music reporter and AARP magazine film critic Chris Willman. We’ll begin our return trip on Monday, 9.3.

The Telluride Film Festival begins on Friday, 8.31, but you have to get your pass, buy groceries and get squared away the day before. We’ll be departing in the early morning of Wednesday, 8.29. The idea is to reach Gallup, New Mexico by dusk or thereabouts, and then cruise easy to Telluride the next day or Thursday, 8.30.

Chris has made this trip this several times and is therefore The Authority, but this is how it seems to me:

El Lay to Gallup is an estimated 9 and 1/2 hours, according to online authorities. Obviously the idea is to avoid L.A. rush hour traffic. That means leaving no later than 7 am or waiting to leave at 10 am. 7 am departure = 5:30 or 6 pm arrival with allowances for an extra 90 minutes for gas, rest stops, maybe a lunch. A 10 am departure = 8:30 or 9 pm arrival in Gallup with same allowances.

Right now we’re both leaning toward an early morning departure. Our current plan is to stay in Gallup’s Econo-Crap Lodge. Seriously, we’re looking at the El Rancho.

The Gallup-to-Telluride trip is estimated at 3 hours, 45 minutes. Call it four, four and a half hours with gas stops and whatnot. Leave at 9 am, arrive at 1:30 pm.

The webmasters of the Telluride Film Festival website are still running last year’s data, and the ’18 gathering begins 12 days from now. Hubba hubba, get the lead out, etc.

Vulture‘s Hollywood guy Kyle Buchanan is the new “Carpetbagger” for the New York Times. He’ll be the fourth to carry that brand, the previous three being Cara Buckley, Melena Ryzik and the late, great David Carr.

The carpetbagger term fit Carr because he was basically a brainy, independent-minded New York guy (lived in Montclair) who never really played the Hollywood game. Buchanan, on the other hand, has been playing it all along, Los Angeles-based in more ways than one, schnorring and observing his way through the six-month-long award season with the rest of us.

Buchanan will launch his Times coverage with the early fall film festivals — Telluride, Toronto, New York. This morning I asked Buchanan who will succeed him as the new Vulture award-season person. “To be determined,” he said.

It always bothered me when Buckley and Ryzik would declare that Oscar season begins in December….no! It begins with Telluride and ends with the Oscar telecast, which this year will take five and a half months. Get that through your heads.

Buchanan quoted by Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “I’m excited to cover Hollywood out of Hollywood. Mostly, though, I hope to bring the same wit and curiosity to the job that my predecessors did. Yes, there are a lot of silly things about the Oscars — and trust, I love covering the silly things too — but I believe that when you really understand awards season, this is a continually exciting and surprising beat where the stories lend us a prism through which we can better know the world. Even a simple snub isn’t always just a snub: It can tell us a lot about what we canonize as a society and reveal where our blind spots still lie.”

Well said, Kyle. This is what L.A. Daily News critic and Oscar disser Bob Strauss is either incapable of understanding or refuses to consider.

Are The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both released in ’03) the least satisfying, most ruinously awful sequels ever made? Not just because they blew chunks on their own terms, but they tarnished the reputation of The Matrix (’99), the perfect, almost-jewel-like original that launched the mini-franchise.

This led me to contemplate a list of stand-alone films that never should have given birth to a sequel or sequels or a spinoff TV series. The Jaws movies after Steven Spielberg‘s 1975 original. The Jurassic Park sequels. The Hangover sequels. The Terminator sequels. A voice is telling me Jim Cameron should have left Avatar alone and not gone on to commit to…what is it, three sequels? But of course everyone has written about these.

What about the reverse? What first-rate films that never inspired any follow-ups should have spawned a sequel or cable series? I honestly would’ve loved to see a Michael Clayton series on Showtime, Hulu or HBO, perhaps not with George Clooney in the title role but then again why not? He arguably delivered his career-best performance in Tony Gilroy’s 2007 legal thriller, and the film itself is surely his finest ever. I would’ve been down with a mid ’80s TV series about the continuing legal adventures of Frank Galvin, the wounded Boston attorney played by Paul Newman in The Verdict.

Which others?

David Mackenzie‘s Outlaw King is obviously made in accordance with the traditional realism standards of Mel Gibson‘s Braveheart. Or, if you will, a lot more like Ridley Scott‘s Robin Hood than Otto Bathurst‘s “rancid Hood fantasy,” as I put it several weeks ago.

An 8.19 N.Y. Times story reports that Asia Argento paid a go-away fee of $380K to former child actor Jimmy Bennett after the latter accused her of sexual assault in 2013, when he’d just turned 17. Argento is being called a hypocrite for having this episode under her belt while strongly promoting a #MeToo agenda vis a vis her assaultive encounters with Harvey Weinstein. But what she went through with Harvey — oppressive sexual intimidation that resulted in something like a form of Hollywood date rape — doesn’t sound remotely analogous to what happened between her and Bennett.

My limited understanding is that Argento manipulated the youth into submitting to oral sex and then rode him like Hopalong Cassidy. As in “come over here, kid.” Okay, maybe Bennett wasn’t into it. Maybe he found getting blown to be traumatic. Maybe on some level what Argento did with Bennett was vaguely akin to Kevin Spacey’s reported assault of Anthony Rapp. I wouldn’t know.

I have to be honest — my first reaction was “manipulated”? Five years ago Bennett was a teen actor trying to land parts. Has anyone ever heard of a male actor of any persuasion who wasn’t randy, particularly one in his hormonal prime? Has there ever been a young actor in the history of the planet whose basic attitude was “gee, I’m not sure if I’m ready for sex”?

Has anyone ever read about what Mickey Rooney was up to in the 1930s, when he was in his mid teens? Were there any half-willing older female actresses whom Rooney ran into that he didn’t have it off with? When he was 24 Rooney reportedly had a longish affair with 14 year-old Liz Taylor. Imagine what the twitter comintern would’ve done with that, etc.

I was 17 once. I got shitty grades in school because I spent half my day dreaming about some older ravenous hottie having her way with me. I started dreaming about older naked women when I was nine or ten. I couldn’t get laid to save my life in my mid teens — I was a teenage incel before anyone knew the term — and it was a very sad and lonely time, let me tell you. I don’t mean to sound callous or indifferent, but my understanding of “assault” does not include notions of some Asia Argento-level woman winking and saying “come over here, Jeffie” when I was 17.

I want credit for enduring Crazy Rich Asians this afternoon. I paid, I saw, I suffocated. But it took 45 or 50 minutes before the oxygen ran out. Asians actually begins in a reasonably sharp and springy fashion. Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim‘s clever dialogue, Vanja Cernjul‘s handsome lensing, Myron Kerstein‘s fleet editing, etc. I was saying to myself “hmmm…this has a good vibe.”

It’s a satire of the aggressively shallow values of the highly insecure moneyed classes of southeast Asia, but the satire doesn’t cut very deep because the film shares these values and in fact adores them. Each and every shot is about showcasing obscenely flush, over-the-top flamboyance (clothes, homes, interior designs), and by the one-hour mark the spirit weakens and the nausea kicks in.

Henry Golding, Constance Wu in Crazy Rich Asians.

The story tries to have it both ways by having the fate of the two main characters, Constance Wu‘s Rachel Chu (the actress is 36 and no spring chicken) and Henry Golding‘s Nick Young, turn on matters of soul, substance and parental heritage. But director Jon M. Chu is more in love with grotesque abundance.

As Rachel is driven up the driveway of the mega-mansion owned by Nick’s parents, Brian Tyler‘s swelling score tells the audience that this is a huge, huge moment. It says “oh my God, look at this…Rachel is approaching heaven!” It’s like Jerry Goldsmith‘s score in Star Trek: The Motion Picture when William Shatner‘s Captain Kirk is first approaching the Enterprise and his eyes begin to moisten.

Eventually I began to telepathically beg for mercy. “Please, Jon…can we have a quiet, unfettered scene on a simple beach somewhere or maybe at an inexpensive roadside foodstand?” I whimpered. “Do you have to pour your maple-syrup wealth porn all over everything at every goddamn turn?” Answer: Yes, he does.

By the end I was hating Crazy Rich Asians as much as any of the more recent Fast and Furious sequels.

I don’t know much about real-life murderers and serial killers, but I’ll bet very few if any were ever splattered with drops of victim blood, and if they were they washed the evidence right off or changed clothes PDQ. Also that aside from Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein and maybe one or two others, no murderer in the history of murder has ever been smeared with the stuff like strawberry jam.

But almost every movie character who commits a close-up killing in a film these days becomes a son or daughter of Leatherface — i.e., painted with red vino. And they never wash it off. A bullshit affectation. New HE rule: the more bloodspots on an actor’s face or clothing, the worse a violent movie is. I recall Dustin Hoffman being a tad blood-spattered in the last act of Straw Dogs, but Anthony Perkins never got a drop on him in Psycho.

The most famous real-life person to not wash blood off or change clothing after a killing? Jackie Kennedy.