Every time someone asked me what my Sundance favorites were, I started off with Whiplash. Each and every day: “Well, definitely Whiplash and also, uhhm…” The other person always said in response, “Yeah, hearing that a lot.” Over and over and over. So what a slap-down shocker that Damien Chazelle‘s manic, sweat-stained drumskin flick won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award at last night’s Sundance 2014 award ceremony. I never even thought to see Rich Hill, the winner of the U.S. Documentary Award…nobody told me “hey, you should see this.” And Justin Simien‘s Dear White People, winner of a Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Talent, never gets beyond the level of nice try — trust me. I couldn’t be bothered to see Difret, the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award winner. And Nick Cave‘s 20,000 Days On Earth, winner of the Best Directing and Best Editing in the World Cinema Documentary category…? I’m fairly certain I won’t see it on Netflix four or six months from now. That’s mean, unfair. I might.
Daily
Big Shots
The Movie Godz are demanding a Wolf of Wall Street Oscar upset. We all know Dallas Buyer’s Club‘s Matthew McConaughey has the Best Actor Oscar in the bag, but think radically — what about Wolf lizard king Leonardo DiCaprio (a guy who’s paid his Oscar dues and then some)…you know? And maybe Jared Leto doesn’t have the Best Supporting Actor Oscar locked down? Maybe Jonah Hill…? The bit isn’t bad but last night’s hype led me to expect a bit more. You can’t oversell these monologues.
How Interested?
Martin Scorsese deserves to win the DGA’s Best Director award tonight, for the simple reason that he made the year’s best and boldest film — The Wolf of Wall Street. But he won’t, I gather. The betting seems to be favoring Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuaron, which is…whatever, fine, why fight it? (Cuaron should have won six years ago for Children of Men, not Gravity.) If it can’t be Scorsese I would prefer a win by 12 Years A Slave‘s Steve McQueen, but I wouldn’t be shocked or displeased if American Hustle‘s David O. Russell takes it. The only guy who hasn’t a prayer (no offense) is Captain Phillips‘ Paul Greengrass.
Sundance Backwash
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival award ceremony begins about three hours hence (6 pm Pacific), and will be viewable on the Sundance website. A friend told me this morning that she sensed an undercurrent of disappointment from my Park City filings. I don’t how where that came from. I saw eight exceptional films (exciting, well shaped, urgent, affecting in one way or another) that definitely got 2014 off to a crackling start. Eight! Most Sundance slates yield five or six keepers, or so it has always seemed.
For a final time and in this order, they are (a) Damien Chazelle‘s Whiplash, (b) Craig Johnson‘s The Skeleton Twins, (c) Steve James‘ Life Itself, (d) Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood, (e) Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies, (f) James D. Cooper‘s Lambert & Stamp, (g) Charlie McDowell‘s The One I Love and (h) Chapman and Maclain Way‘s The Battered Bastards of Baseball.
There’s A Difference?
If there’s an image-quality difference between the 2011 French Gaumount Bluray of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi (a non-English-subtitled version that I bought in Paris in May 2011) and the new subtitle-option Criterion version, which I watched last night, I can’t spot it. A Criterion pally says the latter version has been cleaned up (dirt, scratches)…fine. The grain levels are in no way bothersome. It looks like it was shot on film, and I have no issue with that.
Millionaires
Loaded guys will always be able to relate to other loaded guys. They meet in first class…”hombre!” Any subject, no problem, comfort vibes, selfies. But if you were Zach Braff and your film, Wish I Was Here, hadn’t done all that well with the critics at Sundance (a warm-hearted, family-embracing Emo version of A Serious Man, “a little too much into calculated bromides to be comforting or illuminating…a little too conservative”), would you have done the old buddy-buddy with Mitt Romney? I guess it doesn’t matter that much, but I would have politely kept my distance. If there’s anyone in the world who’s “over,” it’s Romney. I would be afraid of catching that virus.
Justin Lin + Battered Bastards = Bad Fit
Last Monday night I saw Chapman and MacLain Way‘s The Battered Bastards of Baseball, and soon after wrote that it could and should be adapted as a feature film. The doc is about a scrappy-ass minor-league Portland baseball team called the Mavericks, which was owned and managed by the late character actor Bing Russell from ’73 to ’77. Actor Kurt Russell, Bing’s son and in his early 20s at the time, served as co-manager and an occasional designated hitter. Russell is an impassioned and entertaining talking head in the doc.
Headline for Kevin Jagernauth’s incorrectly reported story that was posted earlier today.
The Flatness
I was going to tough it out at the Sundance Film Festival until Saturday, but there’s almost no energy here…nothing. Every year it thrives and throbs for six days (Thursday to Tuesday) and then dies on Wednesday. Why did I decide to ignore this and plan to remain until Saturday? Last night I saw James D. Cooper‘s Lambert & Stamp (good doc but not now). Variety ‘s Peter Debruge had urged me to see Steven Knight‘s Locke (Tom Hardy on a cell phone, in a car) but I guess not. My plane leaves at 11-something..later.
Monaco-Cannes Connection
Olivier Dahan‘s Grace of Monaco has been announced as the opening night film of the 67th Cannes Film Festival (May 14 thru 25). Okay but honestly? If I was Thierry Fremaux I would have held out for a film that doesn’t seem like damaged goods. The Weinstein Co. release never looked that great, especially with Tim Roth as Prince Rainer. It was going to open, remember, on 11.27.13. Then it was bumped into March 2014. And now this.
Slimer Looking For Redemption
Now that The Blaze has made me richer than ever before and I don’t have to jump through ratings hoops to please Roger Ailes, I’d like to be candid about something. I’ve enriched myself enormously over the last several years by exploiting the fears and prejudices of aging rural white idiots, but I’d like to tone it down just a bit and maybe share my warmer, more compassionate side. Because…well, I don’t know exactly but possibly because I have concerns that when I die a pack of growling wolverine gremlins will take me down to hell.