“The Best Picture Oscar is going to La La Land, an uncontroversial and safe film about actors (a large majority of Oscar voters) from one of the big upcoming directors too. Moonlight has a decent shot but in a year with not only La La Land but a new Scorsese film as well it’s going to be really difficult.” — Nicholas Joseph Lemos on Facebook.

“Not to sound crude, but Moonlight appeals to black as well as the gay/lesbian voters, so it may get more votes than Loving. Then again, the older conservative voters may not like Moonlight‘s  gay-friendly theme, which also hurt Brokeback Mountain‘s chances. I think it’s a two-way race between Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight.” — Jeffrey Wang, ditto.

The Savannah Film Festival launched last night, as if HE readers weren’t aware. This morning Rodrigo Santoro (Dominion, The 33, Jesus in the catastrophe known as Ben-Hur) was having breakfast near my table at the Brice Hotel restaurant, and that was that. I keep to myself, hold my own. Dozens upon dozens of dogs were wearing Halloween costumes last night as they strolled along Broughton Street, and I mean costumes that involved a lot of thought, effort and creativity. I had never before seen this many costumed dogs in a single area in my life, no shit.

Once again, hats off to the marketing team behind Tom Ford‘s Nocturnal Animals (Focus Features, 11.18) for making this ambitiously conceived but mostly uninvolving psychological drama seem more intriguing than it is. The new trailer is flat-out masterful, and the mildly spooky one-sheet nails it also. I’m not sure if Focus used an outside agency or what, but this is the kind of sell-job that every distributor wants.

Jennifer Lawrence playing Zelda Fitzgerald, based on a screenplay by Emma Frost (The White Queen)?  Presumably embarked upon as a prestige acting project that will showcase Lawrence’s range, but sure, why not? And yet Ron Howard‘s interest in possibly directing the biopic sounds, no offense and due respect, like a pay-grade reach. Former Lionsgate exec Allison Shearmur, who worked with Lawrence on the Hunger Games franchise, will produce. Really?

In the view of Variety‘s Peter Debruge, Doctor Strange (Disney, 11.4) “shares the same look, feel, and fancy corporate sheen as the rest of Marvel’s rapidly expanding Avengers portfolio, but it also boasts an underlying originality and freshness missing from the increasingly cookie-cutter comic-book realm of late.”

Okay, maybe…

Debruge then calls Doctor Strange “Marvel’s most satisfying entry since Spider-Man 2, and a throwback to M. Night Shyamalan’s soul-searching identity-crisis epic Unbreakable, which remains the gold standard for thinking people’s superhero movies.”

That’s a recommendation?

I distinctly recall not being especially impressed, much less feeling “terrifically satisfied”, by Spider Man 2, which is otherwise known as “the Alfred Molina Doc Ock one.” And I regard Unbreakable, which arrived in the immediate wake of The Sixth Sense, as a quirky non-starter in the Shyamalan canon. I felt distinctly underwhelmed as I shuffled out of the Los Angeles all-media screening and saying “that’s it?” to a couple of colleagues. I remember Gregg Kilday repeating “they call me Mr. Glass!” during a post-screening discussion on the sidewalk, and my saying that any film that announces the fate of a major character with a freeze-frame title card at the conclusion is doing something wrong.

In honor of Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie and Antonio Campos‘ Christine, which played back-to-back at the Savannah Film Festival this evening, my initial reviews are linked above.

Tomorrow I’ll see Keith Maitland‘s Tower, Matthew Brown‘s The Man Who Knew Infinity (online link, preparation for Jeremy Irons phoner), Scott Feinberg‘s Docs to Watch roundtable and a second look at Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land. Or something like that.

Late this afternoon I pedaled two or three miles to a Lenscrafters for an eyeglass repair job. Then I hit my favorite Savannah cafe, The Sentient Bean. There I met a couple of local girls, Emily Jordan and Melissa Burkholder, who initially thought I was Chris Walken. The conversation eventually turned to day-to-day life in Savannah, which led to their telling me about what they called “Savannah’s dirty little secret” (as least as far as visitors like myself are concerned) — the recently rising murder rate.

I’ve discussed the exquisite restoration of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks, which I saw last May in Cannes and which Criterion will “street” on 11.22, many times. One final issue remains. Before the Bluray hits it would be great to see it shown in a sizable, first-rate Los Angeles venue on a one-night-only basis. Alas, Universal has arranged to screen it theatrically at Cinefamily on Friday, November 11th.

Really? All those months of hard work that went into the One-Eyed Jacks restoration and it ends up showing at an amiable but down-at-the-heels rep house? From a high-impact perspective Cinefamily brings zip to the table. Like the New Beverly, the screen in that Fairfax Avenue house is smallish. It’s a couple of steps up from 4K projection on an 80-inch screen in some guy’s living room.

The Academy theatre wasn’t a possibility? Or at the Linwood Dunn on Vine? The Hollywood Arclight shows classic films now and then — why not a one-off at that venue? Or the one in Sherman Oaks?

Donald Trump has inspired Manhattan’s Film Forum to run a “Demagogues” series from 11.4 through 11.10. This includes films in which demagogues are lead characters as well as supporting. HE’s favorites, in this order: Elia Kazan‘s A Face in the Crowd, John Frankenheimer‘s Seven Days In May, Robert Rossen‘s All The King’s Men, Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (James Gregory‘s Johnny Iselin is supporting) and George Clooney‘s Good Night, and Good Luck. Honest admission: I’ve never seen Frank Capra‘s Meet John Doe.

Donald Trump‘s “grievanceburg address” (the term was coined by CNN’s Jim Acosta less than an hour ago) was delivered in a small setting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Same old “up with protectionism, let’s stick it to China, up with fossil fuel industry, down with NAFTA and Obamacare” crap. The only thing I liked was the proposed prohibition of government heavies becoming lobbyists for foreign governments. Trump pledged to sue all of the women who’ve accused him of sexual assault “after the election is over”…bullshit.

The 2016 Savannah Film Festival kicks off today. Hollywood Elsewhere arrived in Savannah last night (Friday) around 7 pm. I’m staying in room #353 at the Brice Hotel. It’s 1:15 pm as we speak. The plan is to rent a bicycle, pick up my press pass, buy some stuff at CVS, visit the local Lenscrafters and then…the festival! Tonight’s picks are Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie (7:30 pm) and Antonio Campo‘s Christine (9:30 pm). Yes, I caught the latter in Park City last January and the former in Toronto last month, but what do you want me to do? Not see them? Both can easily stand a second viewing.

I’ve never seen J. Clay Tweel‘s Gleason (4:30 pm), and I never will.  I won’t submit to this kind of shameless disease-and-parenting documentary. Consequence of Sound‘s Paul Goble called it “an exemplary, sometimes artificial act of emotional manipulation.” Many people have found it affecting, but I won’t go there. 

Parker’s Urban Gourmet Market (which is also a gas station) is a great place to saunter into in the wee hours. Great deli food, all the basics. I’ve been coming here for years.

The climate control system in my Brice hotel room refuses to put out heat. It got a little cool last night but the mode control kept refusing to generate even a slight amount of warmth. I’ve complained to no end. Maybe I can find a space heater somewhere.

I’ve never forgotten an alleged Francois Truffaut quote about his concept of success. In 1957 at age 25, Truffaut launched a production company, Les Films du Carrosse, and went on to produce 35 films. (Truffaut died in 1984 at age 52.) What he said was that “when one of our films goes into profit, we open a bottle of champagne.”

From a 2016 American perspective, that’s an attitude of a loser, a small-timer, a producer who doesn’t have what it takes. But I think it’s great. Because it tells you that all Truffaut and associates wanted was enough profit to stay in the game. Because they loved making films, and the process of making them was its own reward.

I think we all understand that Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel and Zack Snyder, who are emblematic of a kind of cancer in today’s film industry, couldn’t understand Truffaut’s attitude.

Yesterday Gael Garcia Bernal (Neruda) articulated a similar fraternal philosophy during a opening-night event at the Morelia Film Festival:

“There’s a culture of friendship in Latin American cinema, between people like Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro, which they in turn inherited from others. They’re a sensation of brotherhood, that people care about you, look after you, which we’ve sought to maintain consciously. That ‘brotherhood’ is the best way to survive, to make better films, but it also a way of coming close to the biggest reason to make films.