President Trump‘s inaugural address was just another pugnacious campaign stump speech — combative, simple-minded, egoistic, inelegant, no soaring oratory or vision to speak of — basically a declaration of an intention to right perceived wrongs, settle old scores, drain the swamp, lay waste the bureaucratic hordes, restore the lives of the hinterlanders who voted for him, etc. Thank you, God, for making it rain just as Trump took the oath.
I’ve just returned from Sundance press headquarters with a pair of Eccles tickets for Sunday — a 3:15 pm screening of Craig Johnson‘s Wilson, which looks problematic, and a 6:15 pm of Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name. Right now I’m watching the Park Regency’s lobby flatscreens (two of them, both showing distorted taffy-pull images) with a mixture of numb resignation and paralyzing grief, but I’ve got three films on today’s slate — Margaret Betts‘ Novitiate at 12 noon (Eccles), Michael Showalter‘s The Big Sick at 6:15 pm and Charlie McDowell‘s The Discovery at 9:30 pm. If I want to be hardcore I could also catch a press screening of William Oldroyd‘s Lady Macbeth aT 2:30 pm.
Note to snoring journo, sent at 5:43 am: “Your snoring woke me up at 4:30 am. Right through the closed door. I really, really don’t want you to share this place any longer. It’s awful to have to deal with this. I’m happy to return your money immediately. Please vacate at your convenience. I’m sorry that I offered an invitation for you to stay here.”
I’ve just seen Al Gore, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk‘s An Inconvenient Sequel, a sequel to the nearly eleven-year-old, Oscar-winning doc that he and director Davis Guggenheim created. And I’m afraid that the general opinion is “nice film but meh…we know the climate crisis is mostly worsening, the 2015 Paris climate accords aside, so what else is new?”
That’s what a critic friend was saying at least (“I’ve seen a lot of climate-change docs, and good as this was it’s basically more of the same”), and even though I liked Sequel I couldn’t argue all that strenuously. It’s a nicely done, intelligently assembled film but it is more or less a rehash of the original brief, which is that we’re all doomed unless climate criminals (primarily the leaders of India, China and other developing countries) wake up, man up and begin the process of switching to renewable energy sources.
The difference between An Inconvenient Truth and An Inconvenient Sequel is that the latter (a) takes a fresh look at what’s going on now (i.e., things are worse), (b) provides hope by focusing on the Paris Agreement, which Gore was very much a part of, and (c) acknowledges despair that a climate-change-denying beast is about to move into the White House.
In the mind of Hollywood Elsewhere the career of the late Miguel Ferrer deserves high praise on the strength of two big-screen performances — the busted drug dealer Eduardo Ruiz in Steven Soderbergh‘s Traffic (’00) and avaricious yuppie Bob Morton in Paul Verhoeven‘s Robocop (’87). Everything else Ferrer did was fine but workmanlike. Ferrer has passed from cancer at age 61 — respect, condolences.
My first Sundance 2017 film, presumably, is the 6 pm Doubletree press screening of Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk‘s An Inconvenient Sequel. If I run out of that screening and make the Eccles press line by, say, 8 pm, I could see Macon Blair‘s I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore. Maybe. If I get there in time. I really love strategizing about press lines!
James Mangold‘s Logan (20th Century Fox, 3.13) will presumably be the last Wolverine flick to star Hugh Jackman…right? Would this have been made if big paychecks were not a consideration? We all know the answer. Boilerplate: “In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hideout on the Mexican border. But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.” Costarring Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Eriq La Salle.
Every day the Sundance press office passes out a small allotment of free public-screening tickets to journos. You have to show up at 7:40 or 7:45 am inside the Park City Marriott (which is what Jordan Ruimy and I did) to get a decent spot in line, and then at 8 am they let you into the press office in order to fill out a ticket-preference form. One ticket per journo per day until Tuesday, which is when the corporate lah-lah crowd clears out and things ease up a bit. My first screening of the day is Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk‘s An Inconvenient Sequel — a 6 pm press screening at the Doubletree. Which means I’ll have to line up inside the tent around 4:30 or 4:45 pm. I love it.
For reasons best not explained I decided last month to invite a fourth party to share unit #108 at the Park Regency — a large one-bedroom condo with a pair of bunk beds plus a not-very-comfortable fold-out couch. So we’re talking two guys in the bunks and another in the living room. (I have my own bedroom-and-bathroom with a recent-model TV.) Last night one of the bunk guys began to loudly snore, and it was bad enough to result in the following letter being sent to the offender:
“Dear snoring journalist,
“[Unnamed non-snoring journalist] barely slept last night due to your snoring, which he has described as quite loud, persistent and horrific. He tried earplugs and then a white-noise app to try and block out the sound, but your grizzly bear growling still kept him from slumber for the most part.
“[The other journalist] was able to sleep, but said he had some trouble with this also.
“We have to do something about this. We can’t deprive everyone of their much-needed sleep during this very demanding festival. This is non-negotiable. You have to go to the nearest Rite-Aid and buy whatever remedies they might have to arrest your snoring. If you don’t have the money for this or that remedy we will gladly chip in to help.
“If you can’t arrest your snoring we’re going to have to return your rent money, and you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay. I’m sorry, man, but big snoring is something that JUST CAN’T HAPPEN during the festival. Let’s hope you can find the right remedy and all will be well.”
Not much has changed since late November/early December, but a couple of things have. The Hidden Figures surge, for one. La La Land rules, of course, and the big four runners-up are Manchester By The Sea, Moonlight (I am unable to accept that a majority of Academy members believe that the entirely admirable but modestly scaled Moonlight is a more formidable achievement than Manchester…no!), Hell or High Water and Hidden Figures. In what ways am I deluding myself, if at all? What needs to go up or down?
