I’m not a sports fan nor a Lakers fanatic, but even I’m upset by the violent death of legendary Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Byant, 41. TMZ Sports is reporting that the NBA legend died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas this morning. Update: TMZ is reporting that Bryant’s 13 year-old daughter Gianna Maria was also killed in the crash.

Excerpt #1: “Kobe was traveling with at least 3 other people [including his daughter Gianna Maria] in his private helicopter when it went down. A fire broke out. Emergency personnel responded, but nobody on board survived. Five people are confirmed dead.”

Excerpt #2: “Kobe has famously used a helicopter to travel for years — dating back to when he played for the Lakers. He was known for commuting from Newport Beach to the Staples Center in his Sikorsky S-76 chopper.”

Excerpt #3: “KB is survived by his wife Vanessa, and three daughters — Natalia and Bianca and their newborn Capri.” Daughter Gianna Maria is reportedly dead also, being one of the five.

TMZ 12:35 pm update: “Kobe’s daughter Gianna Maria Onore — aka GiGi — was also on board the helicopter and died in the crash … reps for Kobe tell TMZ Sports. She was 13. We’re told they were on their way to the Mamba Academy for a basketball practice when the crash occurred. The Academy is in nearby Thousand Oaks.”

Wiki generic: “Kobe Bean Bryant (born 8.23.78) played his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His final season was between 2015 and ’16.

“He entered the NBA directly from high school and won five NBA championships. Bryant is an 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, 12-time member of the All-Defensive team and was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2008. Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he led the NBA in scoring during two seasons, ranks fourth on the league’s all-time regular season scoring and fourth on the all-time postseason scoring list. Bryant is the first guard in NBA history to play at least 20 seasons.”

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In a general election N.Y. Times/Siena poll of Iowa voters Donald Trump not only out-points every Democratic contender, but he beats current Iowa Democratic caucus poll champ Bernie Sanders by six points. He’s a rancid crime-boss fascist facing impeachment, and Iowa bumblefucks prefer him to each and every Democratic contender? What is happening?

From N.Y. Times account of Lev Parnas-supplied phone video of a chat he and President Trump (along with others) had during April 2018 about the purportedly disloyal Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was then ambassador to Kyiv.

The part you want to listen to starts at the 3:35 mark.

Parnas: “The biggest problem there, I think, where we, where you, need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached, just wait.’”

Trump (following some wallah-wallah): “Get rid of her. Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”

Times: “Yovanovitch remained in her job for another year after Mr. Trump’s remarks until she was recalled on the White House’s orders, according to testimony in the impeachment inquiry. It is not clear whether the president changed his mind, forgot about his order or was talked out of dismissing her.”

I sent a draft of “Park City Kool-Aid” to a critic friend earlier today. His response just arrived:

“I think your basic take on the woke critical groupthink here is spot-on. Indiewire is now officially over the edge. It’s not that they’re always wrong; it’s that, as you say, they can no longer be trusted. They’re the Boys and Girls Who Cried Woke.

“I can’t tell you which critics at Sundance haven’t been woke body-snatched. I’m sure that some haven’t been. Variety‘s Peter Debruge is still calling them honestly (he panned the woke-ish Zola, which Eric Kohn loved), and so, I think, is THR‘s David Rooney.

“But yes, the bubble is more hermetic, and more fake, than ever. And it all just helps Trump…”

All I’m hearing from people on the Sundance ’20 beat so far is “duds”,” “wait until Monday or Tuesday”, “nobody’s really flipped for anything yet,” “nothing better than a B” and so on.

The general feeling I’m getting is (a) “we want to be as enthusiastic and attuned as possible to whatever people are seeing or talking about” and/or (b) “we certainly don’t want to post any flatline responses to films that others are digging or getting off on on some level, as that would indicate we don’t get it and therefore might not return to Sundance next year.”

Who can be trusted? Is there anyone up there with a Hollywood Elsewhere-type attitude? Anyone who constantly struggles with his/her negative feelings about wokesters and has to really fight to tap out fair-minded reviews because they don’t want to sound too toxic or dismissive? What critics or columnists can be semi-reliably counted upon to not swim with the school of little fishies? Who’s most likely to write “take it or leave it but this is what I think about a Sundance film that everyone is giving a pass to or flipping out for”?

My basic reaction to Team Indiewire so far is one of absolute distance. I don’t trust a single word they’re saying about any film debuting in Park City. I believe they’re in the tank for just about anything and everything, and if they have a less-than-enthusiastic response they’ll downplay or muffle it as much as possible.

In my mind Indiewire is basically Woke Pravda — an organ of the p.c. commentariat that hands out approval notices based largely on WHAT a movie is saying as opposed to HOW it is saying it.

Tell me I’m misguided or prejudiced against them and that I need to hit reset and flush my head out.

I really hate critics who seem determined to smile all the time and radiate as much positivity as they can at all times, and have rarely if ever posted a mezzo-mezzo review of anything, much less a pan. I’m thinking of one critic in particular who smiles so much she makes my own facial muscles ache. A determination to be relentlessly positive and borderline euphoric about damn near everything is much, much worse than having a generally negative attitude.

All this aside, I remain hopeful, based on the last 25 or 26 years of attending Sundance, that four or five worthwhile films will have emerged by next Tuesday or Wednesday.

I don’t know from Janicza Bravo‘s Zola as I’m not in Park City, etc. But last night at the Eccles (a) the mob went apeshit for it and (b) certain black critics got on certain white critics for not liking it and/or using the wrong terminology in their positive reviews.

I’m imagining that Zola might become the next Tangerine…right? Hipster filmgoers have room in their heads for this kind of thing. Absurd humor, Floridian sleaze, based on a 2015 Twitter tale, etc.

Zola “is all about escalation. Bravo is a talented filmmaker, but there is nary a subtle moment in her overtly stylish frames. One imagines that with a better screenplay she will eventually give us a special film someday.” — from Jordan Ruimy’s World of Reel review.

HE friendlies are hereby asked to regard the sweater worn last night by costar Nicholas Braun, 31, and render an honest verdict. Purple, tan and cream-biege. You can’t order a person to show taste in this realm. You can’t slap them into submission. I’m not the only person to suggest that Millennials may be the most atrociously-dressed generation in American history.

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Clip from last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher, at the beginning of the panel: “I was watching the impeachment [hearings] all week and thinking what would movies about Trump be called? There are so many titles that come to mind. A Clockwork Orange. Say Anything. Hairspray. From Russia With Love. But honestly? The movie is Julius Caesar. That’s where we are.

“If you remember Roman history, and I’m sure very few people do. But Shakespeare wrote a play about it, there have been movies about it, and before that it was real history. This is the moment in America that Rome faced with Julius Caesar. When the Republic became a dictatorship. I know they’re going to acquit him. But the fact that we had this trial, and there were no witnesses [and no evidence allowed]. And we don’t care about laws any more. Or rules. Or what matters.

“When it goes from ‘nation of laws’ and ‘republic’ to ‘Senate that just goes along” and “might is right’…this is that moment.”

“The Clinton impeachment trial began with a Presidential blowjob. The Trump impeachemnt trial will end with one.” — Bill Maher last night.

Incidentally: I understand people calling the years of the first decade of the 21st Century (2000 to 2009) as “twothousand-something.” Even I was doing this in the early stages. But over the last decade there’s been no excuse for people not saying “twenty-something”…twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve. And yet tens of millions persisted with the twothousand. Three or four times I’ve asked when this idiocy will stop. Back in the 20th Century people didn’t refer to the year that the U.S. entered World War I as “onethousand nine-hundred seventeen” — they called it nineteen-seventeen.

Has anyone noticed that all of a sudden everyone is referring to the current year as twenty-twenty? The third 21st Century decade has only begun and all of a sudden the “twothousand” loyalists gave abandoned their post and run for the hills. I haven’t heard a single person say “twothousand-twenty”…not one.