Tatiana and I just saw Encounter with Riz Ahmed — a reasonably effective action melodrama / road movie about an unstable dad (Ahmed) kidnapping his kids, getting into gunfights and car thievery — everything is violent and anxious except for the very end.

No one’s idea of a “Telluride flick” — a lot of it feels rote, familiar…the old PTSD blues. (With insects.). I didn’t care for the over-reliance on extreme close-ups and the high-impact sound editing.

The Wikipedia page calls Encounter a “British sci-fi thriller” — it’s not sci-fi, trust me. Directed by Michael Pearce from a screenplay by Pearce and Joe Barton. It costars Octavia Spencer, Janina Gavankar, Rory Cochrane and Lucian–River Chauhan.

The actor who portrays Ahmed’s older son is especially good.

At 6:30 pm we’ll be catching Joe Wright‘s Cyrano + a Peter Dinklage tribute, and then Sean Baker‘s Red Rabbit Rooster Rocket at 9:30 pm.

For me, Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus was a hate watch — easily earning a slot on my “ten most despised films of the 21st Century” list. There have been many, many films released over the last 20 and 2/3 years that I didn’t care for or couldn’t muster interest in, but which I half-respected or could shrug my shoulders h. But from the moment when I first recoiled in horror when I realized that Michael Fassbender was wearing “space mandals” in the opening scene…well, I’ve said it.

I was therefore taken aback when I read Dom Nero‘s “It’s Time To Redeem Prometheus,” which appears in the 9.1 edition of Esquire. He calls it a “masterpiece,” in fact.

From “I Remember Prometheus,” posted on 10.5.12: “In my mind, Prometheus happened so long ago it doesn’t even feel like it came out this year. I saw it in Prague on a rainy afternoon. Mostly I remember the humidity and how warm it was in the lobby as all the journos and media people stood around and waited for the doors to open. And how I was sweating under my baseball cap and shades. And then wondering why the projectionist was showing it in 1.85 and not 2.35. And then trying to make sense of it…and failing.

“Prometheus is visually striking, spiritually frigid, emotionally unengaging, at times intriguing but never fascinating. It’s technically impressive, of course — what else would you expect from an expensive Scott sci-fier? And the scary stuff takes hold in the final third. But it delivers an unsatisfying story that leaves you…uhm, cold.

“It’s a gray, forbidding film about howling winds and chilly people. It’s a watchable, well made, at times better-than-decent ride, but it really doesn’t hang together. I’m sorry but anyone who says ‘wow, this is really great!’ is just full of it. But there’s no way to kick this around without dropping all kinds of spoilers so I’m going to keep things vague.:”

“For what it’s worth Scott shoots the hell out of Prometheus, but the script isn’t integrated. It’s half-assed and lacks a clear hard line. The fault, I hear, is mainly with Damon Lindelof‘s rewrite of Jon Spaihts‘ straightforward Alien prequel script. Roughly 40% delivers some absorbing futuristic technological razmatazz and exposition on a long voyage to a distant planet, 30% to 35% is proficient scary-icky stuff (slimy alien snakes) and 20% is some kind of half-hearted spiritual quest film on the part of Noomi Rapace‘s Shaw character, a scientist who wears a crucifix.

“The spiritual-religious angle is what disappoints the most because it’s only flirted with. The script starts off in a semi-solemn, semi-thoughtful vein, asking questions about the origin or spawning of humanity and the possibility of alien creators or “engineers”, but none of this develops or pays off, and things eventually devolve into standard shocks and creep-outs.

“Most ticket-buyers will go looking for a standard alien flick and come away going ‘hmm, I dunno but this isn’t quite it.’”

Earlier this evening I spoke to a friend who’s seen Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog (Netflix, 11.17), and he said “it’s longish but I loved it.” On the other hand some are tracking mixed reactions out of Venice. The first Telluride screening is on Saturday at 7 pm. I don’t mean to mix animal metaphors, but let’s hold our horses for three days. Okay, until the Venice reviews break.

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman:

THR‘s David Rooney:

After picking up our passes and buying some groceries, we checked into our spacious Airbnb rental at 26 Deep Creek Road (a little past the notorious Telluride airport)…unpacked, showered, learned the ins and outs, plugged everything in, etc. We went back to town around 7 pm, roamed around and hit La Marmotte for a nice pricey dinner and a slightly premature celebration of Tatiana’s birthday.

Our first encounter was with Picturehouse CEO Bob Berney and wife/partner/marketing hotshot Jeanne Berney about Liz Garbus‘s Becoming Cousteau, a Telluride attraction that Picturehouse is distributing. We then chatted with Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling and partner Daniel Launspach, who just happened to stroll in as we were being seated — they sat down about 12 feet away. When Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and critic Clarence Moye dropped by to say hello, Durling strolled over and said, “This is starting to feel like dangerous liasons.”

Have I stated lately that Durling and Launspach are excellent human beings, large of heart and spirit? No getting around that, I’m afraid.

Weather permitting, we’ll be hitting the outdoor Telluride brunch around 10 am or thereabouts. Then comes the usual press orientation schmooze at the Werner Herzog theatre at 1:30 pm, followed by a secret Patron’s screening at 2:30 pm. (I’ve heard it might be Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch.) Then comes a 6:30 pm screening of Joe Wright‘s Cyrano plus a Peter Dinklage tribute. Finally at 9:30 pm will be a screening of Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket.

Taste-wise, Criterion elites live in their own realm.

Certain scenes in certain films melt some of us down. Not all of us — some are built differently in terms of emotional thresholds and whatnot. I have a shortlist of scenes that choke me up (the finale of Carousel, the last 20 minutes of The Best Years of Our Lives), and no one is obliged to say “me too.” At the same time it’s fair, I think, to occasionally remark “that movie made you cry?” I respect CODA for what it is (i.e., a family sitcom with a would-be lump in its throat) but…

What the pandemic managed to do was all but kill the communal watching of quality-grade movies — i.e., theatrical — outside the rarified environs of film festivals and elite special-venue houses. Multiplexes have been devolving for years into gladiator arenas, showing only mostly lowest-common-denominator gruel for the grunts. Covid finalized that process. Cinema has obviously “survived”, but (festivals aside) largely through streaming. And don’t get me started about the shuttering of Hollywood’s ArcLight plex plus the Dome.

The El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico, needs a spell-checker. Desi Arnaz‘s name is misspelled on the menu, and the website announces that “Fred MacMurry” (sic) stayed there once.