Upside: Another effervescent, perfectly calibrated, spot-on Judy Greer performance. Positive Indicators: Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon. Downside: Spending half of the film thinking about Jason Segel‘s weight issues.

Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, Jeff Who Lives At Home is out March 16th via Paramount Vantage.

I’ve liked all Duplass ventures so far so here’s hoping. But it was a bad idea to tell/allow Segel to load up on the Hostess cupcakes and Ben and Jerry’s before filming. The man is a walking billboard for fat-titude. He doesn’t need to underline this by actually packing it on for a role. We all know/believe/trust that he’ll be overweight sooner or later (and that he’ll be an Orson Welles sea lion by the time he hits 40 if not sooner — he’s only 32 now) so all we need to do is be with him and right away we’re thinking what the Duplass brothers want us to think.

A New York friend wrote to ask what Sundance 2012 films have really been worth seeing, “for real.” I replied as follows:

Heidi Anderson at last night’s after-party for The Raid, held at Gray Goose space on Main Street.

My big “miss” so far is Beasts of the Southern Wild, which everyone tells me is masterful. Fox Searchlight has acquired it. Seeing it Wednesday or Thursday.

Josh Radnor‘s Liberal Arts is a step up in somewhat (but not quite) the same way Annie Hall was a step up for Woody Allen. Almost. Mature, at times melancholy, dialogue and character-driven, not overtly “comedic” (and thank God for that). I really didn’t care for Radnor’s happythankyoumoreplease, so I went expecting not too much and was pleasantly surprised. A huge hit with the Eccles audience I saw it with.

I was entirely caught up in and enjoyed the hell out of Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage, which to me is a solid Sidney Lumet New York potboiler. Familiar, yes, and not “great” but tough and real and very nicely done. Richard Gere‘s best performance in a long time. Tim Roth is amusing as a Colombo-type detective

I absolutely admired and was throughly engrossed by Amy Berg and Peter Jackson‘s West of Memphis.

Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer, which I saw last night, is a real “Spike Lee film”…and it’s good to have him back. Colorful, vibrant, spiritual, values-minded, community-based with an impassioned God-current score by Bruce Hornsby. Spike plays the same “Mookie” pizza guy he was in Do The Right Thing.

The Queen of Versailles, a doc about absurd financial waste and clueless conspicuous consumption, was/is nicely done and entirely absorbing (if appalling).

To my partial surprise and/or partial embarrasment, I choked up a couple of times as I watched Ethel, the HBO-Rory Kennedy doc.

The two hipster movies that I was supposed/expected to like if (in the view of Glenn Kenny) I want to hold on my to edge credentials, Simon Killer (endorsed by Karina Longworth!) and Ry Russo-Young‘s Nobody Walks, did not cut it all in my book. In fact, knowing that these two are dweeb-hipster faves makes me feel almost elated that I’m not a fan of either.

The other stinkers are too numerous to list. I’m not a fan of The Raid but all the cool kidz (Rocchi, McWeeny, etc.) are telling me I’m blind to feel this way. I’ve been told to avoid Stephen Frears‘ Lay The Favorite. I could go on and on and on.

I don’t follow (i.e., give that much of a shit about) acquisition stories but here’s a Movieline summary from yesterday.

I’m blowing off this morning’s 9 am screening of the Paul Simon doc, Under African Skies in favor of a press screening tomorrow at 3 pm.

Today is an Eccles marathon — The Surrogate at 12:30, LUV at 3:30, 2 Days in New York at 6:30 pm and Bachelorette at 10 pm.

I’ve only been seeing films here for 3 and 1/2 days so far. Today is day #4 — four and 1/2 more to go including today. I leave on Friday, 1.27, in the late afternoon.

Ry Russo-Young‘s Nobody Walks just finished screening at the Eccles, and my sense during the q & a was that relatively few audience members got much from it. Ray Pride has called it “a tactile, tensile, bittersweet bruise…a terrific Teorema riff”…naah. I couldn’t see how it meant much. Cute little girl with a pixie haircut fucks this guy and then this guy and that guy…uhhm, wow…okay, uhm, yeah.

Olivia Thirlby plays Martine, a 23 year-old Manhattan artist who comes to Los Angeles to get some technical help on the sound design of a black-and-white art film about insects (or partially about insects). She’s not only getting this help from sound guy Peter (John Krasinski) but also staying at his home along with his therapist wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) and their two kids.

And then (this is straight from the hilarious press notes) “like a bolt of lightning, her arrival sparks a surge of energy that awakens suppressed impulses in everyone and forces them to confront their own fears and desires.” Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck, fuck, fuck, etc.

I didn’t “hate” it but I never felt aroused or intrigued or anything like that. I just sat there and watched and waited and ho-hummed.

Okay, I responded to the sex scenes. Somewhat. But they were just sex scenes. There was nothing going on underneath other than “uhhm, you’re, like, kinda hot…wow…I’m kinda feeling…uhmm…uhmm…wanna fuck?” and then wham.

Nobody Walks “is a rather fluttery, aimless, meandering domestic drama about unruly, haphazard erotic attraction,” I tweeted just after it ended.

The best performances are from DeWitt and Justin Kirk as an amorous patient. I can’t say I found Thirlby’s performance all that interesting and/or attractive. Her mallspeak accent — “Umm…I…umm, yeah…do you, like, wanna…? Ummm” — was a bit of a problem. I was also put off by her boyish, oddly half-sexual and yet desexualized 1964 Paul McCartney soup-bowl haircut.

And I was persistently annoyed by Fall On Your Sword‘s overbearing soundtrack. Their music is all fluttery, oodly-doodly, boopity-boop, xylophone hipster-band shit.

Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire, the most enjoyable action thriller I’ve seen in a long time and the first film ever to convince audiences that a female action star (i.e., Gina Carano) is really and truly capable of kicking all variety of male ass, hasn’t exactly set the box-office aflame…but it’s done moderately well.

Haywire‘s weekend tally is around $9 million in 2439 situations, which averages out to $3690 per screen. Relativity is saying in a staement that the $9 million is “just slightly above both internal and industry expectations.” The statement also says that “the film’s production budget is $23 million, but after foreign sales, tax rebates from shooting on location, and ancillary deals, risk is mitigated by a $1.5 million net investment.”

Why are Joe and Jane Popcorn not showing up in greater numbers? The trailers are hot and the reviews have been 85% enthusiastic. Is it because they don’t know Carano ? Because costars Michael Fassbender, ERwan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas aren’t doing it for them? What’s the problem exactly?

Any reactions from HE regulars?

I’m seeing Ry Russo-Young‘s Nobody Walks at 12 noon at the Eccles. And then, with more than a little trepidation, Josh Radnor‘s Liberal Arts at 3:15 pm, also at the Eccles. Or maybe So Yong Kin‘s For Ellen instead. And then Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer at 6:30 pm. Or maybe “the Frears” if I change my mind. And then we’ll see. A voice is telling me to calm down and get a little rest today.

In a 1.22 N.Y. Times interview with former (i.e., recently canned) Village Voice film critic Jim Hoberman, co-authors A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis include a quote that struck a chord with me. Hoberman mentions Francois Truffaut‘s Shoot The Piano Player as “the first movie I really wanted to live.” He meant that Truffaut’s film was the first “sacred text…a kind of synthesis” that he really want to live in.

That’s about the most passionate thing anyone can say about a film they’ve fallen in love with. Not that they merely admire it, per se. Or adore what it’s saying about this or that aspect of life, which is fine in itself. Or are deeply impressed by the mood or style that informs it, or the craft or cunning or instinct that went into its making. But that they would be happy to unhook themselves from their own life (at least temporarily) and literally take up residence in the world of this film, like Mia Farrow briefly did in The Purple Rose of Cairo.

I like my life a lot and don’t want to leave it, but when I was younger there were definitely films I’ve wanted to take brief vacations inside of. I used to dream about submerging myself in the 1959 world of North By Northwest, providing I was well dressed and had lots of cash in my pockets. In the early ’80s I wanted to live inside Michael Mann‘s Thief, and inside Heat and The Insider in the ’90s. I do know that one realm I would never, ever want to live in would be the world of Jason Statham movies. That would be hell.

45 minutes from now I have to leave for my first screening of the day, Stephen Frears‘ Lay The Favorite, which starts at 8:30 am. I could stay here and file and catch “the Frears” (similar in a Denby-esque sense to “the Daldry”) at a 7:30 pm press screening but in so doing I’ll have to miss Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer, which has a public screening at 6:30 pm. I’ve heard that Lay The Favorite is light and nimble but…let’s not go there. Eff it. I’ve just decided to see “the Frears” at 7:30 tonight and catch Spike’s film tomorrow morning at 8:30.

The Artist‘s latest triumph, having last night won the Producers’ Guild Daryl F. Zanuck award from the Producer’s Guild, totally cinches the Best Picture Oscar. Michel Hazanavicius‘ lightweight bauble has had it in the bag since early December (thanks to a steamroller effect begun by several critics groups), and now it’s really a done deal.

I was at a Sundance after-party for Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage and having a pretty good time when I heard the news, and I wasn’t even moved to tweet. Game over, let it go, drink up, watch the snow.

For me, there’s one upside in this otherwise disappointing story. It’s a good thing that a film that has so far made only $10 million and change has more or less swept the season. The spineless sheep who are cheering on The Artist are settling, obviously, for a very slight gimmick movie, but at least they’re not dismissing it because it’s not a big earner. This on top of The Hurt Locker ‘s Best Picture triumph two years ago is a positive indicator. It makes it a little easier for the next first-rate “little” film.

Matt Ross‘s 28 Hotel Rooms, which I saw yesterday afternoon, is a two-character drama about a longterm affair that happens entirely in hotel rooms and never really “goes anywhere,” story-wise. The lovers, richly portrayed by Chris Messin and Marin Ireland, are both attached in the outside world. And yes, naturally, they gradually fall in love with each other.

But they never leave the realm of hotel rooms, and after a while (sometime around the 15th or 18th vignette) this starts to feel confining and unsatisfying. It’s a fairly absorbing film as far as it goes — there’s a spherical world of feeling and experience in Ireland’s eyes alone — but it should been called 18 Hotel Rooms or 21 Hotel Rooms or something along those lines.

I knew I was feeling antsy when Marin’s character announces at the beginning of vignette #20 or #21 that her husband is in the hotel — he’s spontaneously travelled with her to have some romantic-getaway time — so their meeting is off. The instant I heard this I knew I wanted the husband to barge into the hotel room and bust them or plead for understanding or try to beat up Messina. That told me something. I really, really wanted something more than just these two in another hotel room. Which isn’t a putdown of the actors or their performances — far from it. I just needed to escape from the concept.

Ireland is truly a superb actress. I last saw her on-stage two years ago in Neil Labute‘s reasons to be pretty.

28 Rooms director Matt Ross, Messina, Ireland.

Today’s West of Memphis press conference started 20 minutes late…grrrr. The participants were director Amy Berg, producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the formerly incarcerated Damien Echols and Jason Baldiwn, Echols’ partner Lorri Davis, and lawyers Stephen Braga, Dennis Riordan and Don Horgan. MCN’s David Poland moderated.

The above clip is of Jackson and Echols offering final thoughts about the case, and what value the movie has to everyone right now. The final statement is a request for anyone with additional hard evidence to please call the West Memphis 3 tip line.

This is the first peek I’ve had of Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage, which will screen four and half hours from now at the Eccles. The synopsis (hedge fund trader trying to unload his company before fraud is revealed) makes it sound like similar to Margin Call. Costarring Richard Gere, Nate Parker, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Laetetia Casta and Tim Roth. (Vimeo clip posted by Deadline‘s Brian Brooks.)

Everyone and everything from the beginning of time has existed in color…but we tend to forget that. Here are an assortment of colorizations. Nice stuff, although some seem overly “painted.”

The best looking representation of Abraham Lincoln in color that anyone’s ever seen…right? Seems that way.