Denzel Washington‘s Fences, an adaptation of August Wilson‘s play, will be going mano e mano against 20th Century Women, a family film of a different caste, when they both open on Christmas day. All this time I’ve been hearing about Viola Davis‘s performance, but the trailer is all Denzel. Costarring Jovan Apedo, Stephen Henderson, Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby and Saniyya Sidney.

I never had the impression that my father liked me a great deal either. He loved his advertising job, I was told, but he was sullen around the house. When I was really young he seemed mostly irked or bored by my presence when he wasn’t barking orders or telling me to mow the lawn or sending me to my room for some infraction. When I got into my teens and started mouthing off he became testy and at times hostile. He often took refuge in reading, TV shows and alcohol.

But he provided the shelter, clothing and food, and he always paid the bills. And then we became friendly when he went into AA.

I was resigned to catching Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women at the end of next week at the New York Film Festival, which I’ll be attending between 10.7 and 10.15. But now there’s a trailer out and and a local look-see happening this week. The Santa Barbara-based period dramedy (set in 1979) stars Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann and Billy Crudup. A24 will open it on 12.25.

It’s telling that NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke has put out a statement praising Lester Holt’s moderating of last night’s Clinton-Trump debate. He obviously did so because Holt wimped. Throughout most of the debate Donald Trump ignored or brushed him aside. Okay, Holt pressed Trump on a couple of points later in the debate, but barely spoke up for the most part. Seemingly afraid of projecting bias against a compulsive liar, Holt over-compensated by letting Trump run roughshod. Variety acknowledged in the Burke story that “some commentators criticized as being at times too passive.”

Summing up: Hillary was the adult, Trump was the bully, Holt was the wimp. She was calm, measured, factual. Trump blathered on, lied, blustered and lied some more. Chris Matthews believes it was A Few Good Men — Trump was Jack Nicholson, Hillary was Tom Cruise. I think by the measure of adult-level facts and seasoned judgment, Hillary out-pointed Trump. Will this matter to Trump voters? Not a bit. Possibly some Gary Johnson voters will be moved somewhat. The main thing is that Hillary stood up and said the right things. She wasn’t knocked off balance, and there were some moments in which she definitely ruled. The loser of the night? Lester Holt.

10:36 pm: Trump: “I saw the polls come in today and I’m either winning or tied.” Hillary: “I hope the people out there understand that this election is really about you. I sure hope that you will get out and vote.” Holt: “Will you accept the will of the people in this election?” Trump: “I will absolutely support her.”

10:30 pm: Hillary: “It is essential that America’s word be good. My answer to the world leaders who are concerned about this, is that our word is good. Donald never tells you what he would do. He has no plans to defeat ISIS. Are we going to lead the world with strength and in accord with our values? I wont to lead a country that our allies can count on.” Trump: “I don’t believe she has the stamina. ” He’s referring to the fainting episode. Holt, your deft and deferential manner is an embarassment.

Hillary: “Try testifying for 10, 11 hours…talk to me about stamina.” Trump: “She’s got experience but bad experience.” Hillary: “This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs. One of the worst things he said was call a woman in a beauty contest, he called her ‘Miss Piggy’ and ‘Ms. Housekeeper.’ And this woman is going to vote in this election.”

10:22 pm: Trump: “I have better judgment than she has. Of course I do. I also have a better temperament. That may be my biggest asset.” Hillary: “Whoo! Okay!” And then she doesn’t mention his blustery, lying bullshit — all the lies he’s been called on, all his intemperate statements, all his goading of his ugly followers at rallies. Hillary: “The worst part is his attitude about nuclear weapons. His cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply troubling. A man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his hands anywhere near the nuclear codes.”

Grow some balls, Holt! Properly mannered candy-ass. Trump is occupying this debate, hoarding 65%, 70% of the air time.

So far Woody Allen‘s Amazon series, Crisis in Six Scenes, is flunking with critics. It isn’t being killed (most are saying it comes together during the last two episodes) but no one, it seems, is feeling much excitement. I’m just going to binge-watch this Friday (9.30) and tap out my reaction then. It’s not like the world is waiting with bated breath. Screenings this week include Voyage of Time, Miss Sloane, Girl on the Train, a LACMA showing of Christine, maybe a second look at Denial.

Rod Lurie‘s Killing Reagan doesn’t debut on the National Geographic channel for another 20 days (10.16), but at least now I can settle into it and bang something out when the time is right without any undue pressure.

Flashback: I was startled and concerned by Reagan’s shooting but not, truth be told, wildly distraught. The day it happened (3.30.81) I was working inside the McGraw Hill building (1221 Ave. of the Americas at 49th Street) for an MG division called the Product Information Network. For two or three months I researched and wrote a long, detailed report on the effectiveness of landfill compactors (tractor-like vehicles used in garbage dumps) and what the costs and benefits were to local governments.

George Finnegan, a McGraw-Hill exec whom my father was chummy with, gave me this freelance gig. Before he hired me I was desperate. Soon after I was hired as managing editor of The Film Journal. My economic situation became a little easier to handle after that. From ’78 through ’81 I’d been through three years of hand-to-mouth hell.

If you look at Nate Silver’s latest graph you’ll notice an obvious pattern that began in mid August, which is that Hillary’s support began to wither (except for a brief surge just before her “basket of deplorables” + fainting episode week) and Trump’s began to slowly surge. I don’t know if Trump will land any zingers tonight or whether he’ll bluster his way through and maybe lie himself to death, but I know for damn sure that Hillary HAS to land a few good ones or she’s in serious trouble. At the very least she has to arrest the trend of the last five or six weeks — she has to hold the Maginot line.

Like everyone else I was knocked flat when I saw Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men on 5.19.07 at the Cannes Film Festival, and I think the venue — the cavernous Grand Lumiere — was part of the reason. The screen is huge, the projection perfect, the sound crisp and clear (if sometimes overly bassy). Plus I was in the company of a few hundred whip-smart journalists who were absorbing every line and scene like world-class connoisseurs. I was on a cloud when it ended.

Welcome to the Fairbanks screening room and stretch out.

Then I saw it again a few months later inside one of the shoebox rooms at Raleigh Studios — the absolute worst way to see a film outside of watching it with a crowd of sandal-wearing, popcorn-munching mooks at that shitty Regal plex just south of Union Square. It was still No Country For Old Men, of course, but it was like listening to Beethoven’s ninth on a tinny, ’60s-era Japanese radio. If you want to severely reduce if not nullify the impact of your movie, by all means screen it for critics inside one of the Raleigh shoeboxes — the 36-seat Douglas Fairbanks or 38-seat Mary Pickford room. (The 161-seat Chaplin theatre is, on the other hand, a generally okay facility.)

I won’t be seeing Terrence Malick‘s 40-minute Voyage of Time (Broad Green, 10.7) until this evening, and I recognize, of course, that it’s a cosmic travelogue of a much higher and more complex order than the legendary “Stargate” sequence in Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey (’68), which ran roughly nine and a half minutes. Obviously Malick’s visual compositions are more varied, naturalistic, sophisticated, etc. But it’s hard not to associate the two when you watch the Voyage trailer. Boiled down, they’re both atmospheric zone-outs.

When 2001 hit nearly 50 years ago, the “Stargate” sequence was a revolutionary groundbreaker — no feature film had ever delivered a sequence that even came close to that kind of nonverbal mindsweep. But by today’s standards, Malick’s doc looks passive and behind the curve. Malick has been working on this thing (“One of my greatest dreams”) for over 40 years, and the trailer makes it feel that way. An enjoyable thing to take the kids to in an IMAX theatre on a Saturday afternoon, but where’s the nerve or the provocation? So far the 90-minute Cate Blanchett-narrated version (i.e., “mother”) has tallied a 65% RT score.

On top of which Kubrick’s sequence delivered a chilly, discomforting feeling. The only unsettling thing about Voyage of Time is Brad Pitt‘s less than exacting diction.

Three days after a Paramount spokesperson said that Gold Derby‘s 9.23 report about Martin Scorsese’s Silence being set for a December release wasn’t necessarily valid as the film “hasn’t been dated,” Variety‘s Brent Lang has announced a firm release date of 12.23 with an expansion in January. I guessed last Friday that the platform release would happen “in mid to late December, a minimal break in NY and LA…and then open it in mid to late January.” Question: What length has Scorsese whittled it down to? It was reported a few weeks ago as being three hours-plus.

France’s decision to submit Paul Verhoeven’s Elle as their official contender for the Foreign Language Oscar offers a tantalizing possibility — a notorious Dutch-born, bad-boy provocateur primarily known for unsubtle, big-budget envelope pushers in the late ’80s and ’90s (RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers) snagging an Oscar at age 78 and revitalizing his career in one fell swoop. The comeback kid!

People vote for this or that film, yes, but they also vote for the best narratives, and in this year’s foreign film realm you really can’t beat Verhoeven’s…c’mon.

Not that Elle won’t be up against some tough competition. My presumptive spitballs include Asghar Farhadi‘s The Salesman (Iran), Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s Aquarius (Brazil), Pablo Larrain‘s Neruda (Chile), Christi Puiu‘s Sieranevada, Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann (Germany) and Martin Zandvliet‘s Land of Mine.

From my 9.8 TIFF review: “Elle is one wickedly perverse, end-of-the-world, ice-cold erotic whodunit. It’s not really a thriller as much as a fascinating character study of Isabelle Huppert‘s Michele, a 50something owner of a Parisian videogame company that creates violent rape fantasies, and how a series of assaults and shocks that befall her are reflective of Michele’s pathology and that of the general drift of social mores these days.

Hillary can’t be Bruce Willis as that would mean she’ll destroy the Trump asteroid tonight at the cost of her own life…doesn’t work. And she can’t be Ben Affleck or Steve Buscemi…forget the casting. On top of which Armageddon seems like an unsavory analogy considering that a Republican (Jerry Bruckheimer) produced it. Face it — this one of those tweets that doesn’t expand or hold up to scrutiny.