Excerpts from Damon Linker‘s “How Twitter Could Be The Death of Liberal Democracy,” posted yesTerday (1.22) on The Week:

“In 1984, George Orwell famously described a totalitarian political order in which people were kept as docile subjects in part by a daily ritual called ‘Two Minutes Hate’ in which the population directs all of its pent up fury at ‘Goldstein,’ a possibly fictional enemy of the state.

“Thanks to Twitter, we now know that the same dynamic can arise spontaneously, with fresh ire directed at a new manifestation of the partisan enemy nearly every day. It shows us that under certain circumstances — our circumstances — people can and will fasten onto an endless succession of real-life Goldsteins for the sheer, addictive joy of it — for the pure, delirious pleasure of denouncing manifestations of evil in our midst. Nothing, it seems, is quite as satisfying as singling out our fellow citizens for their moral failings and indulging in fantasies of their fully justified punishment.

“Too little attention has been paid to what may be the most potent facet of the social media platform: its ability to feed the vanity of its users. There’s always an element of egoism to intellectual and political debate. But Twitter puts every tweeter on a massive stage, with the nastiest put-downs, insults, and provocations often receiving the most applause. That’s a huge psychological incentive to escalate the denunciation of political enemies. The more one expresses outrage at the evils of others, the more one gets to enjoy the adulation of the virtual mob.”

“They display an impulsiveness and unhinged rage at political enemies that is incompatible with reasoned thinking about how we might go about governing ourselves, heal the divisions in our country, and avoid a collapse into civic violence that could usher in tyranny.”

Sundance-wise, Park City-wise, today (Wednesday, 1.23) is for preparation, contemplation, buying groceries, schmoozing, filing and so on. As long as you’re bundled up, I mean. The air is like ice-cold steel — it’s Antarctica out there.

I really don’t know how many films I’ll be able to see. Maybe 10 or 12, maybe 15…who knows? Even if the number is low, it’ll still be a worthwhile quest. Better this than sitting around Los Angeles. It all begins tomorrow afternoon.

It would be correct and appropriate if the Sundance Film Festival could somehow arrange for some kind of special tribute to the late Jonas Mekas, the “godfather of American avant-garde cinema” who passed this morning at age 96. Mekas is a major historical indie-realm figure, and it would just seem…well, curious if Sundance didn’t make an effort to honor the guy.

The Lithuanian-born Mekas was a filmmaker, journalist-critic, poet and creative collaborator of Andy Warhol, Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Salvador Dalí. He stood up and articulated a vision and a platform for alternative cinema in the mid ’50s, and he kept that torch burning for the rest of his life.

Until recently Mekas was presiding over the AFA as artistic director and was planning “a long-dormant expansion plan to build a cafe, a rooftop terrance and a library to house decades of film materials gathered around the world,” according to a 2017 Indiewire profile. At the time Mekas had “raised around $4.5 million from donations and silent auctions” with a target goal of “just over $12 million.”

I know Mekas best as the co-founder of the Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003), which he and colleagues Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, James Broughton and P. Adams Sitney launched in 1970. As the managing editor of the short-lived Thousand Eyes Cinema Guide (’78 and ’79), I would publish Anthology program plans on a monthly basis. The last time I visited the AFA was for a screening of John Flynn‘s The Outfit (’73).

Here’s a warm-hearted essay on Mekas by seasoned journalist-critic Robert Koehler.

Notice how a half-second after this Wisconsin cop realizes that an SUV is skidding towards him, his first reaction is to reach for his nightstick. Discipline that SUV, show it who’s boss, etc.

SLOW DOWN: Authorities are warning motorists about the potential dangers of driving in icy conditions after a deputy's dash camera captured this close call on a Wisconsin highway. https://t.co/B2m7HQZVw6 pic.twitter.com/N9GYw9sJwt

— ABC News (@ABC) January 23, 2019

A 1.23 N.Y. Times story reports that three weeks before the November 2018 election former Vice President Joe Biden accepted a $200K speaking fee from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan, and during his speech supported Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican “who in 2017 helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”

Except from article, written by Alexander Burns: “Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience. Alluding to Upton’s support for a landmark medical-research law, Mr. Biden called him a champion in the fight against cancer — and “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”

“Biden’s remarks, coming amid a wide-ranging discourse on American politics, quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.

“As Biden considers a bid for the presidency in 2020, the episode underscores his potential vulnerabilities in a fight for the Democratic nomination and raises questions about his judgment as a party leader. Biden has attempted to strike a balance since leaving office, presenting himself as a unifying statesman who could unseat President Trump while also working to amass a modest fortune of several million dollars.

“Biden’s appearance in Michigan plainly set his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party, linking him with a civic group seen as tilting to the right and undermining Democrats’ effort to defeat Upton.”

Biden definitely has a problem. If and when he announces his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President, he’s going to be hit hard on this. The story obviously reeks of implications of corruption.

A couple of weeks before the 11.2 opening of Bohemian Rhapsody, director Bryan Singer posted an Instagram statement about a long-in-the-works Esquire article about the director’s whole checkered history with twinks, some of which have been called into question.

Singer wrote that the Esquire article would “rehash false accusations and bogus lawsuits” about the sexual assault allegations that have been thrown upon his doorstep.

“I have known for some time that Esquire magazine may publish a negative article about me,” Singer said. “They have contacted my friends, colleagues, and people I don’t even know. In today’s’ climate where people’s careers are being harmed by mere accusations, what Esquire is attempting to do is a reckless disregard for the truth, making assumptions that are fictional and irresponsible.”

Esquire‘s expected publishing of the piece would have presumably been timed to coincide with 20th Century Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody promotion. Except the article, written by Alex French and Maximillian Potter, never appeared. Not last year, I mean. Now it finally has, but in the Atlantic, not Esquire.

The piece, currently on the Atlantic website, is well-sourced and quite brutal.

Singer’s latest statement, given to Variety‘s Gene Maddaus: “The last time I posted about this subject, Esquire magazine was preparing to publish an article written by a homophobic journalist who has a bizarre obsession with me dating back to 1997. After careful fact-checking and, in consideration of the lack of credible sources, Esquire chose not to publish this piece of vendetta journalism.

“That didn’t stop this writer from selling it to The Atlantic. It’s sad that The Atlantic would stoop to this low standard of journalistic integrity. Again, I am forced to reiterate that this story rehashes claims from bogus lawsuits filed by a disreputable cast of individuals willing to lie for money or attention. And it is no surprise that, with Bohemian Rhapsody being an award-winning hit, this homophobic smear piece has been conveniently timed to take advantage of its success.”

Excerpt from French and Potter’s Atlantic piece: “We spent 12 months investigating various lawsuits and allegations against Singer. In total, we spoke with more than 50 sources, including four men who have never before told their stories to reporters.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s Southwest flight arrived in Salt Lake City around 3:15 pm. A Canyons shuttle dropped me at the Park Regency a couple of hours later. I told the desk clerks that I’m sharing with Jordan Ruimy and Bob Koehler, and they gave me a key to a second floor two-bedroom suite — #209.

I let myself in and noticed that both bedrooms had been slept in and that a lot of ski gear was lying around.

The clutter was bothersome. I’ve paid the lion’s share of the rent, and was therefore expecting that the bigger bedroom would be, you know, all pristine and unsullied and ready for Jeffy. I felt disappointed and a bit puzzled, but what the hell. I sat down at the kitchen table, took out one of my laptops and began to file.

Email to Jordan & Bob: “I paid more than you guys so I get the nicer bedroom, right?  But somebody’s occupying it.  I’m not trying to go all Alpha Dog on you, but I did pay more so I do have seniority.  I mean, I’m the daddy.”

After 45 minutes a 50ish guy and his wife entered. Boing!! They were surprised to see a stranger making himself at home in their private abode, and I was surprised to see them. Nobody freaked but the vibe was naturally weird. The wife put her hands to her mouth when she saw me. “It’s okay, it’s cool, just a mistake,” I told her.

The Park Regency guys had given me the wrong key — Koehler and Ruimy were actually in suite #309. I apologized, made a couple of bad jokes, gathered my stuff and wished them a good day.

“I leave it to the movie gods, and the gossip columnists, to debate how much Bradley Cooper is personally liked or disliked in Hollywood. But his omission from the best director roster didn’t happen in a vacuum.

“It crystallized the slow but steady fade of A Star Is Born over the last month or two, from Oscar slam-dunk to solid-but-hardly-sure-fire Oscar front-runner to middle-of-the-road Oscar contender to hanging-on-by-its-fingernails Oscar movie that’s still sort of in the game to the place it now holds: Oscar toast.

“And that, in a way, is a much bigger story than the issue of whether Cooper came off as too serious and self-involved over the course of awards season, especially in a certain much-talked-about newspaper-of-record magazine profile.” — from “The Message of the Oscar Nominations: You’d Better Have a Social Message,” posted by Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman on 1.22.

When Sundancers (even those without a press badge) arrive at Salt Lake City airport they need to grab a shuttle to Park City, which costs a tiny bit more each year. Express Shuttle and Canyon Transportation (same outfit, different routes) are charging $41. Way things are.

So I asked a GenZ desk clerk (elfin, thin) when the next Park City shuttle would depart, and she said “about a half hour.” Which didn’t sound too bad. “Or you could check with Ascent,” she offered, except she pronounced it “AYsent” — accent on first syllable. I looked at the Ascent sign (about 70 feet away) and said, “Ascent, you mean?” — second syllable accent. Half nod, half shrug.

So I walked down to the “AYsent” desk and asked the clerk (also GenZ, on chubby side) about their next Park City shuttle. “Leaving in about…uhm, 20 minutes?” Sounds good, I said. “And the fare is $40…?” AYsent GenZ clerk: “We charge $55 dollars.” HE cowboy hat: “Whoa!”

Back to Express Shuttle. HE: “Your competition is $14 more expensive.” Oh, she said. “Higher fares are usually a factor. Why didn’t you just…you know, mention that before sending me down there?” GenZ stringbean : “I didn’t know they were that high.”

Imagine working every day as an SLC shuttle clerk — hour after hour, day after day — and having no clue what your competitors charge, and no curiosity about this. If I was stuck with this kind of job I’d figure out the competition situation and the fare discrepancies (if any) right away. But that’s me — a Type A. A lot of people operate as Type Bs. Tunnel vision. Way things are.

In my view Spike Lee‘s best film ever was Malcolm X (’92), and if industry consciousness had been where it should have damn well been back then, Malcolm X might well have won the Best Picture Oscar. Who knows?

As Spike Lee celebrates his first Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, I'm reminded of the 1989 Oscars, when presenter Kim Basinger went off-book to blast the Academy for snubbing Spike's DO THE RIGHT THING pic.twitter.com/JXEMwhaBdd

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) January 22, 2019

At 7:22 am, Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh posted “Oscar Nominations: The 15 Biggest Snubs and Surprises.” Hollywood Elsewhere, currently waiting for a McCarran Airport flight to Salt Lake City, respectfully differs with some of Setoodeh’s assessments.

Snub #1: Bradley Cooper‘s direction of A Star is Born fails to land a nomination.

Setoodeh: “Cooper got Afflecked. The Academy director’s branch is notorious for snubbing actors who step into the director’s chair. Cooper was considered a lock for A Star Is Born, has now joined the ranks of Barbra Streisand (Yentl), Ben Affleck (Argo) and Angelina Jolie (Unbroken), as actors-directors who failed to receive their proper due.”

HE: One, Cooper got shafted in part because he’s perceived in some quarters as aloof and self-absorbed. Two, A Star Is Born was over-hyped by celeb-filmmaker endorsements (Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro, Barbra Streisand) followed by Kris Tapley‘s notorious pre-Toronto testimonial piece in Variety. Three, it was obvious from the first screening that Unbroken was a whiff. Why should Jolie have been Best Director-nominated for delivering Japanese POW camp torture porn with a weird Christian undercurrent?

Snub #2: A no-go for Beautiful Boy‘s Timothee Chalamet.

Setoodeh: The star of Call Me By Your Name and the forthcoming Dune was “due” a nomination for playing a drug addict, blah blah.

HE: No, he wasn’t — he wasn’t effing “due” because his meth-head performance was (a) all strenuous “acting”, and (b) it didn’t emotionally connect with anyone. Plus the film was torture to sit through, and was doubly painful for Steve Carell‘s mope-a-dope dad character. Only now can it be said: Beautiful Boy blew chunks when it opened in Toronto, and it still does. Plus Chalamet hasn’t yet paid off the piper for throwing Woody Allen under the bus when the matter of his guilt has never been close to conclusive, and is actually doubtful if you read Moses Farrow‘s essay.

Snub #3: John David Washington in BlackKklansman.

Setoodeh: “While Spike Lee’s drama picked up six Oscar nominations, Washington somehow failed to crack the best actor category for playing real-life police officer Ron Stallworth.”

HE: Washington’s performance was okay, but he was the weak link in that film. Why? His face is uninteresting, opaque. Look into his eyes and there’s nothing burning or churning underneath. He’s just good looking, and that’s never enough.

Snub #4: Academy shafts Ethan Hawke‘s award-showered performance in First Reformed.

Setoodeh offers no thoughts so allow me. A sufficient number of voters simply didn’t like the idea of a pastor strapping on a suicide vest as a way of addressing environmental pollution. Plus they didn’t like a bare-chested Hawke bloodying himself with barbed wire, and they didn’t much care for the drinking and the cancer threat. And they strongly disliked the cruel way Hawke’s character treated that mousey middle-aged woman who cared for him. News flash: Academy voters aren’t especially deep or thoughtful.

Snub #5: Michael B. Jordan‘s Black Panther performance gets the go-by.

Setoodeh: “Not a single actor in its cast was recognized, [not even] Jordan as Erik Killmonger, for playing the best villain in the genre since Heath Ledger as the Joker.”

HE: Setoodeh had to have been kidding when he wrote this. If you’re playing a guy whose last name is Killmonger, you’re automatically and instantly disqualified from any sort of awards consideration.

Snub #6: Nicole Kidman passed over for Destroyer and Boy Erased.

Setoodeh: “In a less competitive year for actress, Kidman who have added her fifth (and maybe sixth) career nominations for Destroyer or Boy Erased. In the former film, playing a Los Angeles detective, she disappeared onscreen with a limp and facial prosthetics. And out of Toronto, there was a lot of buzz for her supporting role as the Baptist mother who took her son to gay conversion therapy.”

HE: Out of Toronto there was NO BUZZ AT ALL for Kidman’s Boy Erased performance…none, zero, zipposky. The reaction I heard was that Kidman wasn’t bad but that guys like Setoodeh need to calm down. As for Destroyer, Kidman’s nomination was a no-go from the start because you can only occasionally understand what she’s saying, what with her raspy, scratchy Clint Eastwood-like delivery. The makeup people who turned her Erin Bell character into a George Romero zombie should have been nominated, but they were also shafted.

By the way: Setoodeh says that Willem Dafoe “managed to sneak into the Best Actor race” for his Vincent Van Gogh performance in At Eternity’s Gate. That’s Setoodeh-speak for “I didn’t much care for the film or Dafoe’s performance.” Dafoe was in fact masterful in Julian Schnabel‘s film. Setoodeh believes that BlackKklansman‘s John David Washington was more deserving of a nomination. He really thinks that.

Hollywood Elsewhere never once yelped or cried out during this morning’s read-off of the 2018/19 Oscar nominations. I sat at my writing table, sober as a judge and going “hold on, hold on…I’m not seeing any shockers here…was there a shocker? Oh, yes, one…Bradley Cooper getting stiffed.” Nonetheless a few stand-out moments:

(a) I wouldn’t have blinked if Bradley Cooper had been Best Director-nominated for A Star Is Born as he did a first-rate job, but it didn’t happen — what say ye to this development, Kris Tapley? You said ASIB would land ten noms…not quite!;

(b) Three completely deserved nominations for Cold War — Best Foreign Language Feature, Pawel Pawlikowski for Best Director, Lukasz Zal for Best Cinematography;

(c) There’s absolutely no question that Cold War‘s Joanna Kulig deserved to be Best Actress-nominated this morning — I knew it wouldn’t happen but she should have been;

(d) Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma and Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite landed 10 Oscar nominations each (congrats to Lisa Taback and 20th Century Fox publicists!), and A Star Is Born received a totally respectable eight nominations, as did Vice;

(e) Since Telluride I’ve been an advocate of Roma‘s Marina de Tavira landing a Best Supporting Actress nomination, and today it happened!;

(f) All of those Vice nominations tell me Christian Bale is more or less locked for a Best Actor win (40% acting, 30% weight gain, 30% makeup) and…what else?

(g) Black Panther became the first superhero flick to be nominated for Best Picture — expected, appropriate, not exactly a shocker. The real triumph was/is the $1.3 billion worldwide earnings, which completely shattered the notion that predominantly black casts are financially risky propositions by the measures of international audiences.

(h) More snubs: No Best Director nom for Green Book‘s Peter Farrelly, almost certainly due to that hit piece. No Best Musical Score nomination for First Man‘s Justin Hurwitz — incorrect call!; No Best Doc nom for Won’t You Be My Neighbor?; no noms for Mary Poppins Return‘s Emily Blunt or Beautiful Boy‘s Timothee Chalamet; no makeup nomination for turning Nicole Kidman into a zombie/vampire in Destroyer.

The Oscar telecast will happen on Sunday, 2.24 on ABC.

Best Picture:

“Black Panther”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“The Favourite”
“Green Book”
“Roma”
“A Star Is Born”
“Vice”

Best Director:

Spike Lee, “BlacKkKlansman”
Pawel Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Favourite”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Adam McKay, “Vice”

Best Actor:

Christian Bale, “Vice”
Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”
Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate”
Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Viggo Mortensen, “Green Book”

Best Actress:

Yalitza Aparicio, “Roma”
Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”
Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”
Melissa McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”