Congrats to Regina Hall for winning the NYFCC’s Best Actress award for her performance in Andrew Bujalski‘s Support The Girls. Which I didn’t bother to see, frankly, because it didn’t seem substantial enough, and because it opened two days before the start of the 2018 Telluride Film Festival.

Nobody and I mean nobody had put Hall’s performance on their Best Actress short list over the last several weeks– the NYFCC honor is totally out of the blue.

Wiki anecdote: “In 2010, at age 40, Hall unsuccessfully tried to become a nun after a bad break-up. Hall had previously wanted to become a nun at the age of 14. She was refused for being too old, as the cut-off age is 39.”

Lee Chang-dong‘s Burning is mainly about an uneasy fraternal tension between Jong-su, a young, none-too-bright writer (Yoo Ah-in), and Ben (Steven Yeun), a rich, laid-back sociopath who drives a Porsche. Jong-su is intensely interested in Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a pretty 20something he vaguely knows from childhood, and yet she’s totally attached to Ben, who has much more of a comme ci comma ca attitude about women and in fact about everything.

The poster image is from a scene in which Hae-mi impulsively disrobes and does a primitive dance in front of Ben and Jong-su. It’s interesting that the designer decided to focus on this one moment, which doesn’t feel like anyone’s idea of an “important” scene while it’s happening. And yet the silhouetted image sinks in.

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This is supposed to be a Mars sunset, but where’s the amber-orange tint? Why does it look so gray and ashy-smoggy? This could have been snapped on the 60 going out to Palm Springs, or taken from a camping site in Twenty-Nine Palms or in the middle of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains on the way up to Park City.

Trump repeatedly says Cohen is lying, but then adds: "Even if he was right, it doesn’t matter because I was allowed to do whatever I wanted during the campaign."pic.twitter.com/xncmtKKFmH

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 29, 2018

Remember the good old days when the New York Film Critics Circle’s website had a live-blog that would tap out the winners as they were decided upon? Now everyone just follows the blow-by-blow on Twitter or via Gold Derby. Voting is underway as we speak. 11:55 am: Things have stalled with ony three awards decided upon. Let’s get this show on the road, guys…hubbah-hubbah! 12:50 pm: All is forgiven with First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke having taken the Best Actor prize, Paul Schrader winning the Best Screenplay trophy, and Can You Ever Forgive Me‘s Richard E. Grant having won for Best Supporting Actor. Not to mention Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma cinematography having also triumphed.

Best Picture: Roma. HE response: Yowsah.

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma. HE response: Yup.

Best Actor: First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke. HE response: Yes! I had Hawke on my Gold Derby Best Actor roster from the get-go while the go-alongers (i.e., the vast majority) ignored him. Why? Because First Reformed opened last May and was therefore not on their Oscar radar. Do you understand how completely embarassing this kind of thinking is?

Best Actress: Regina Hall, Support The Girls. HE response: I never saw it.

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk. HE response: I don’t get it — King delivers a standard “mother courage” performance — but whatever. I would have voted for Amy Adams‘s Lynne Cheney performance in Vice.

Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?. HE response: All hail the glorious cat killer!

Best Screenplay: First Reformed, Paul Schrader. HE response: 100% agreement and then some.

Best Cinematography: Roma (Alfonso Cuaron). HE response: There was no other choice except for Łukasz Żal‘s lensing of Cold War. Hearty congrats to Cuaron.

Best Animated Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. HE response: I don’t care how good it supposedly is. I don’t do animated, especially anything to do with superheroes.

Best Foreign Language Film: Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War. HE response: 100% agreement, landmark film, exquisite cinematography

Best Documentary Feature: Minding The Gap. HE response: Haven’t seen it.

Best First Feature: Eighth Grade. HE response: Agreed, well deserved. HE would have preferred: No, no…Eighth Grade is a nakedly honest, highly focused film…no complaints.

YouTube guy: “Everyone remembers that scene from The Lion King when Simba is cornered by hyenas, and then Mufasa appears out of nowhere and comes to the rescue. This is almost exactly the same!”

The clip (posted on 11.27.18) has atrocious camerawork, but it’s heartening to see those two or three lions charging in and chasing the hyenas away. More thrilling, I’ll bet, than anything I’m likely to see in Jon Favreau‘s Lion King remake.

“You’re never alone / You’re never disconnected! / You’re home with your own / When company’s expected / You’re well protected!” — from “Jet Song,” music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Woman producer friend to HE: “That quote is jaw-dropping-level offensive. If I was at NPR, I would have cut him loose. It’s a ‘no going back’ quote. And if I were Tamara Jenkins, I would have cancelled the q & a unless he was out. Should he be put out to pasture at New York? Minimally a time-out to mull the insensitive fucking idiocy of his quote. Should he be let go permanently? Maybe. Probably won’t save his misogynist soul, but it would make a good point. Rape jokes aren’t funny. I’m not part of the twitter mob, and this is not just about one quote either. It’s about the institutionalization of misogyny. This was a line crossed. Caning is not enough.”

HE to producer friend: “Was there something in what I wrote that suggested people should automatically give rape-jokers a pass? Or that Edelstein wasn’t or isn’t an idiot for having posted what he posted?

Do we really have to kill people when they say something callous or hurtful or grievously misjudged?

Your attitude is exactly that of the ’50s commie haters and the witch-burners of Salem. Fire them, burn them, wipe them out, firing squad, zero tolerance. The Bolsheviks had the same thought about the Czar’s family. Do you honestly think that urban lefty culture is 100% behind the idea of instantly lopping off heads whenever someone says something thoughtless or stupid? The applicable terms are (a) ‘purist political hysteria’ and (b) ‘excess of zeal.'”

Producer friend responds: “You’ve missed the point. Then again I just read a good quote: ‘Maybe getting fired is better with butter.'”

Listening-in friend (also a woman): “Ugh…I just can’t. My eardrums are bleeding from having been shrieked at by people like this. I swear to God. It was a stupid joke. Gross, dumb, icky…but it was on Facebook. If it’s on NPR, sure, it’s a problem. But Facebook? They’re going to police everything people think, say and do in their private time? Really?”

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Hollywood Elsewhere attended two good-time Manhattan soirees last night. First up was the Fox Searchlight holiday party at the Nomad Hotel (B’way and 28th) where I spoke with Can You Ever Forgive Me? director Marielle Heller and “cat killer” Richard E. Grant. The second stage was the Roma after-party at The Pool, or the former location of The Four Seasons (99 East 52nd). Thanks to Fox Searchlight reps and Netflix’s Lisa Taback and Albert Tello for the invites. A splendid time, excellent food and drink, superb coatrooms, etc.

Six or seven old typewriters, dating back to the 20s and 30s, were available for the Fox Searchlight guests at the Nomad. It’s not easy typing on these things.

Gold Derby hotshot and all-around Manhattan gadfly Bill McCuddy (r.) and wife Sue.

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I’m not going to offer any sweeping judgments about the just-announced 2018 Sundance Film Festival slate, except to suggest that with a competition slate that is 53% female (i.e., nine of the 17 directors eligible for the festival’s top prize are women) it would appear that 2018 Sundance is going to be just as progressive-minded (i.e., “socialist summer camp in the snow”) as last year’s festival, if not more so.

I’m going to take it two or three sections at a time. Today I’m pasting Premieres (feature and documentary), Midnight & Spotlight. I’ve bold-faced the titles that I have a special interest in seeing, but I’d appreciate thoughts about anything I might be unfairly dismissing. I’l consider the other sections tomorrow.

Premieres (18):

After The Wedding (Director and screenwriter: Bart Freundlich, Producers: Joel B. Michaels, Harry Finkel) — Seeking funds for her orphanage in India, Isabelle travels to New York to meet Theresa, a wealthy benefactor. An invitation to attend a wedding ignites a series of events in which the past collides with the present while mysteries unravel. Based on the Academy Award-nominated film by Susanne Bier. Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Billy Crudup, Abby Quinn.

Animals (U.K.-Ireland-Australia – Director: Sophie Hyde, Screenwriter: Emma Jane Unsworth, Producers: Sarah Brocklehurst, Rebecca Summerton, Cormac Fox, Sophie Hyde) — After a decade of partying, Laura and Tyler’s friendship is strained by Laura’s new love and her focus on her novel. A snapshot of a modern woman with competing desires, at once a celebration of female friendship and an examination of the choices we make when facing a crossroads. Cast: Holliday Grainger, Alia Shawkat.

Blinded by the Light (U.K. – Director: Gurinder Chadha, Screenwriters: Sarfraz Manzoor, Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges, Producers: Gurinder Chadha, Jane Barclay, Jamal Daniel) — In 1987 during the austere days of Thatcher’s Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen. Cast: Viveik Kalra, Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon, Kulvinder Ghir, Nell Williams, Aaron Phagura.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (United Kingdom – Director and screenwriter: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Producers: Andrea Calderwood, Gail Egan) — Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine. Based on the true story of William Kamkwamba. Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Maxwell Simba, Lily Banda, Noma Dumezweni, Aissa Maiga, Joseph Marcell.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (Director: Joe Berlinger, Screenwriter: Michael Werwie, Producers: Michael Costigan, Nicolas Chartier, Ara Keshishian, Michael Simkin) — A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy from the perspective of Liz, his longtime girlfriend, who refused to believe the truth about him for years. Cast: Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Haley Joel Osment, Kaya Scodelario, John Malkovich, Jim Parsons.

I Am Mother (Australia – Director: Grant Sputore, Screenwriter: Michael Lloyd Green, Producers: Timothy White, Kelvin Munro) — In the wake of humanity’s extinction, a teenage girl is raised by a robot designed to repopulate the earth. But their unique bond is threatened when an inexplicable stranger arrives with alarming news. Cast: Clara Rugaard, Rose Byrne, Hilary Swank.

Late Night (Director: Nisha Ganatra, Screenwriter: Mindy Kaling, Producers: Ben Browning, Howard Klein, Jillian Apfelbaum, Mindy Kaling) — Legendary late-night talk show host’s world is turned upside down when she hires her only female staff writer. Originally intended to smooth over diversity concerns, her decision has unexpectedly hilarious consequences as the two women separated by culture and generation are united by their love of a biting punchline. Cast: Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow, Paul Walter Hauser, Reid Scott, Amy Ryan.

The Mustang (Director: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Screenwriters: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold, Brock Norman Brock, Producer: Alain Goldman) — While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse. Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Connie Britton, Bruce Dern, Jason Mitchell, Gideon Adlon, Josh Stewart.

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No way in hell will the New York Film Critics Circle give Green Book their Best Picture prize. No way. The membership includes too many arch-backed p.c. zealots who believe that a gentle humanistic buddy film that could have been made in 1987…there are too many who feel such a film should be mule-kicked to death.

I’m presuming that Roma will take the top prize, along with Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director. And if not that, possibly The Favourite. They can’t go for A Star Is Born….not the NYFCC. It’s the kind of warm-emotional-bath film that popcorn-eaters like and therefore not a fit. And no Best Actress trophy for Lady Gaga either! I’m thinking it’ll be Olivia Colman or Mellissa McCarthy.

Maybe Bradley Cooper for Best Actor, although it should go to Christian Bale. HE’s personal favorite is Ethan Hawke, of course. I’m saying this under the presumption that the NYFCC won’t touch Viggo Mortensen with a ten-foot pole.

Richard E. Grant (the “cat-killer” from Can You Ever Forgive Me?) for Best Supporting Actor!

I’m also betting on Cold War taking the Best Foreign Language Feature prize, and RBG for the Best Documentary award.

Critic friend #1: “I think this is a Roma group, and that the other film that will figure in the most is First Reformed.” Critic friend #2: “I wouldn’t be surprised if The Favourite does something. Otherwise there’s no way to tell, particularly with the influx of younger members” — i.e., the New NYFCC Kidz. Critic friend #3: “It’s a very unpredictable year.”

Thoughts or notions about any of the NYFCC categories?

My insect antennae are telling me that four Best Actress Oscar nominations are locked down — A Star Is Born‘s Lady Gaga, Can You Ever Forgive Me‘s Melissa McCarthy, The Wife‘s Glenn Close and The Favourite‘s Olivia Colman.

I felt personally rocked only by McCarthy and Close. Colman is always strong and savory no matter the part, but if she’s playing a leading role in The Favourite I’m a monkey’s uncle. I genuinely respect Gaga’s performance and have no quarrel with her being nominated.

As for the THR round-table, Kidman’s gutted-zombie performance in Destroyer is mainly about the makeup, The Favorite‘s Rachel Weisz has been elbowed aside by Colman, and Kathryn Hahn‘s performance in Private Life has, due respect, never really been in the running.