Michael’s Telluride Blog has polled several know-it-alls and asked them to rate recently screened Telluride hotties. They corrrctly put Sean Baker’s Anora at the top of the heap, but strangely rated Edward Berger’s ultra-brilliant Conclave in fifth place.

Trust me, trust me, trust me — the second-place September 5, the third-place Emilia Perez and the fourth-place Saturday Night are not — repeat, NOT — better than Conclave. They’re all commendable but aren’t quite as good as indicated here.

I began hearing about an anti-Conclave snobbery virus hours after the first showing. Snoots! These wankers (including Awards Watch’s Eric Anderson) definitely have their heads lodged in their posteriors. Don’t trust them! I know whereof I speak.

The first Telluride T-shirt was supposed to be for three year-olds, but the storekeeper sent an infant-sized one instead. So I called the store to report the error, and asked them to please send a second shirt in the correct size. It cost me an extra $20 or so.

Clint Eastwood‘s Juror No. 2 seemed like an obvious fall release, but then word began to circulate that perhaps Warner Bros. might delay the opening until sometime in early ’25. Which was deflating news.

Now we’re told that the jury deliberation drama will (a) be the closing night attraction at AFI Fest, screening on Sunday, 10.27, and then (b) will open modestly on Friday, 11.1 (technically on Thursday night, 10.31).

Five days between the AFI closer and the first screening at your local AMC? Will there be critic screenings before the AFI Fest debut, or will WB keep the film totally under wraps before 10.27?

I’m not sensing great churning emotion or excitement from Team WB on this puppy. I’m sensing “okay, fine, we’ll release it already but calm down.”

Set at a writer’s retreat in Morocco, Susannah Grant‘s Lonely Planet (Netflix, 10.11) is about a fiftysomething, semi-blocked novelist (Laura Dern) flirting with and then having it off with a 30something dude (dashing Liam Hemsworth as the bored husband of a younger female writer).

Imagine the howls of protest and revulsion if the story was about a 57 year-old male writer having a mad affair with a bored, youngish and profoundly attractive wife of a male writer. “He’s over 20 years older!…a shameless hound taking advantage of her…she has no agency in this relationship!”, etc.

The bottom line is that progressive feminist culture approves of older women being pleasured by brawny dudes with washboard abs and and rock-hard phalluses…the way of our world.

Honest confession: If I was a 34 year-old guy being flirted with by a pretty 50something woman, the sight of long, bony feet might gave me pause. I don’t know which is more problematic — fleshy, pudgy feet or overly prominent big toes with crimson nail polish. The ideal middle ground is exemplified, I feel, by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Donald Trump’s closing statement during Tuesday night’s debate: “[Vice-President Harris] is going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for three and a half years. They’ve had three and half years to fix the border…they’ve had three and half years to create jobs.”

Answer: Her job was to be President Biden’s smiling, ceremonial stooge, and she performed that task (including serving as the border czar) as best she could, given the inherent limitations.

Any eigth-grader who’s paid attention in government and civics class knows that vice-presidents have no agency of their own. They’re one heartbeat away from the presidency, but aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate the vice-presidency is an empty, officious, ceremonial job.

Please listen to Bobby Baker:

Like most vice presidents in this era, vice-president John Nance Garner (’33 to ’41) had little to do and little influence on President Roosevelt’s policies. He famously described the vice presidency as being “not worth a warm bucket of spit“.

Lyndon Johnson hated being JFK’s vp. (Sometime in mid ’63 he told friends that “my future is behind me.”) Ask Al Gore if he felt that being Clinton’s No. 2 was a satisfying gig. Ask Mike Pence if he felt great about being Trump’s backup. The only vp who made the job into something with real power was Dick Cheney.

…the private plane freak-out scene, in which everyone confesses something deep down in order to clean their slate, the Stillwater drummer would blurt out “I’m a woman!”

[Initially posted on 4.21.21]: My vocabulary isn’t sophisticated enough to describe the alternating tempos, sudden slowdowns and shifting rhythms in “Stop” (’66), a standout single from the Moody Blues and cowritten by Denny Laine and Justin Hayward. (Or was it Laine and Mike Pinder?)

The song reportedly reached #98 in the Billboard charts during April 1966 after getting lots of airplay on NYC AM rock radio (WABC, WNEW), and then it kind of slipped away.

Relatively unknown to even hardcore MB fans — i.e., the ones who only know them from the ’67 to early ’70s period of Days of Future Passed (“Nights in White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon”), In Search of the Lost Chord and On the Threshold of a Dream.

I know that a lot of breakthroughs happened in ’66, and this, in its own small way, was one of them.

Selena Gomez is a multiple Emmy nominee for her conributions to Only Murders in the Building. If she wins something, great, but OMITB is a chore to watch and about as insubstantial and surface-skimmy as it gets,

Emilia Perez has two headliners — Best Actress contender Zoe Saldana and Best Supporting Actress humdinger Karla Sofia Gascon. Gomez plays Jessi del Monte, the clueless trophy wife of cartel monster Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Gscopn) who HAS somehow never noticed that her husband was undergoing pre-surgical hormone therapy for a long period. Her character is inconsequential, doesn’t add up, etc.

…that floods your system when you realize that certain canine bruthahs from Ohio may (I say “may“) have been killed, carved up, barbequed and eaten by Haitian immigrants.

THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS pic.twitter.com/lQqMW5l8pT

— Tarquin (@Tarquin_Helmet) September 11, 2024

This was my favorite moment in the debate.

It was 100% true and Trump couldn’t handle it. pic.twitter.com/i6EGN90JdC

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) September 11, 2024

Deadline‘s Mike Fleming is reporting that Judd Apatow has inked to direct Cola Wars. Steven Spielberg is onboard as a producer.

It’ll be a presumably straightforward, dryly humorous account of the intense rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi during the mid 20th Century but mainly, I’m gathering from Fleming’s article, during the mid ’80s. The script is being written by Jason Shuman and Ben Queen.

I’m sorry but what’s where’s the fun or fascination in this saga? I’m not intrigued by the idea of watching soft-drink marketing guys try to out-hustle each other.

The only hook I can think of is the strategy of Pepsi Cola execs to focus on the African American market, starting in the 1940s.

According to a 1.18.13 N.Y. Times op-ed piece, Coke’s recipe was heavily influenced by white supremacy and it was marketed mainly to the white middle class. Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, the company “studiously” and purposely ignored the African-American market.

What was the first major commercial film to dig into the Coke-vs.Pepsi thing? Obviously Billy Wilder‘s One Two Three (’61). It contains two scenes that riff on the rivalry.

The second most noteworthy acknowledgment of Pepsi branding was that Pulp Fiction scene when drug dealer Eric Stoltz says that when it comes to the quality of Cholo, the Harz mountain heroin that he’s trying to sell to John Travolta, he’ll “take the Pepsi challenge” alongside any other heroin on the market.

What other cinematic references?