I do the same kind of easy-default Sundance Film Festival spitballing every December. I checkmark the titles, directors and actors I know or trust on some level and work outward from there. Per longstanding tradition, I’ll be able to see around 20 to 25 films during my nine days in Park City, depending on stamina and whatnot. (The festival runs from 1.21 to 1.31.) I’m naturally looking for tips from anyone who knows anything about potentially cool obscuros. So here goes with the boldfacing primes vs. shoulder-shruggers — so far I’ve got 20 prime titles, and that’s not including any Dramatic Competition titles:

PRIME PREMIERES:

Ali & Nino / United Kingdom (Director: Asif Kapadia, Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton) — Muslim prince Ali and Georgian aristocrat Nino have grown up in the Russian province of Azerbaijan. Their tragic love story sees the outbreak of the First World War and the world’s struggle for Baku’s oil. Ultimately they must choose to fight for their country’s independence or for each other. Cast: Adam Bakri, Maria Valverde, Mandy Patinkin, Connie Nielsen, Riccardo Scamarcio, Homayoun Ershadi. World Premiere.

Certain Women / U.S.A. (Director: Kelly Reichardt, Screenwriter: Kelly Reichardt based on stories by Maile Meloy) — The lives of three woman intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail. Cast: Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone. World Premiere.

Complete Unknown / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Marston, Screenwriters: Joshua Marston, Julian Sheppard) — When Tom and his wife host a dinner party to celebrate his birthday, one of their friends brings a date named Alice. Tom is convinced he knows her, but she’s going by a different name and a different biography—and she’s not acknowledging that she knows him. Cast: Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates, Danny Glover. World Premiere.

Frank & Lola / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Matthew Ross) — A psychosexual noir love story—set in Las Vegas and Paris—about love, obsession, sex, betrayal, revenge and, ultimately, the search for redemption. Cast: Michael Shannon, Imogen Poots, Michael Nyqvist, Justin Long, Emmanuelle Devos, Rosanna Arquette. World Premiere.

I was near the Cinerama Dome last night when a big, nicely-designed Where To Invade Next bus pulled up and parked right on Sunset. At first I was expecting director-writer Michael Moore to step out but no — the bus just sat there. Presumably it’s a kind of roving billboard thing, making its way around town and parking near  big movie theatres…something like that.

Sunset near Ivar — Sunday, 12.6, 8 pm-ish.

SAG and Golden Globe nominations will be announced on Wednesday, 12.9 and Thursday, 12.10, respectively. Several publicists have written, as always, asking if I’m interested in doing reaction interviews with nominees. My stock reply: “You know me, guys. I just like to stick to analysis. The nominees are, of course, obliged to sound modest and thankful, and that plus two Excedrin PMs always puts everyone to sleep. Rules of the game. Thanks for offering. — Jeff.”

If and when HE’s own Paul Dano gets nominated by SAG and/or the HFPA, this URL will be vibrating (undulating?) with happiness and satisfaction. And if not, the Wrath of Khan. Will Carey Mulligan make the SAG cut for Best Actress? What will be the biggest potential shockers due to this or that presumptive nominee getting the shaft from either org?

As much as I regard David Erlich as an appalling personality on Twitter, I have to respect his year-end compilation video, most of which is about Erlich clipping his top 25 of 2015. Included are The Hateful Eight (appealing for 2/3 of its length until the self-destructive third act), the dolorous Phoenix (which I finally saw last night on Bluray), the obviously substandard Magic Mike 2 and the indulgent, all-but-unwatchable James White. The Erlich favorites that I agree with are boldfaced: Carol, World of Tomorrow, Phoenix, The Look of Silence, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, The Duke of Burgundy, Eden (2014), Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Mistress America, Mad Max: Fury Road, Clouds of Sils Maria, Magic Mike XXL, Tokyo Tribe, Anomalisa, Listen to Me Marlon, Black Coal, Thin Ice, Heaven Knows What, The Hateful Eight, The Mend, James White, The Forbidden Room, Junun, Mustang, Tangerine, Girlhood.

A word of tribute to the late, legendary Holly Woodlawn — transgender trailblazer, downtown Warholian personality in the ’60s and early ’70s, immmortalized by a stanza in Lou Reed‘s “Walk on The Wild Side,” costar of Paul Morrissey‘s Trash and Women in Revolt. Woodlawn, 69, passed yesterday in Los Angeles from brain and liver cancer. Things were tough for her in recent years. I’m very sorry. I spoke to Woodlawn on the phone a decade ago about an interview, but it never happened. Her Wiki page asserts that in 1970 George Cukor “petitioned the Academy to nominate Woodlawn for Best Actress for her work in Trash; however, nothing came of this campaign.” I can’t find a clip I once saw in which Woodlawn delivered a perfect imitation of Kim Novak calling for her Siamese cat Piewacket in Bell, Book and Candle (“Pie! Pie!”). That was her, right?

Here are the format options for press screenings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Tuesday, 12.15. Notice that Disney isn’t offering a 3D option in the evening (i.e., for people with any taste, or who can’t get away in the daytime). The bloom is off 3D and then some. It’s not something that discerning movie hounds would want to choose. Unless, you know, the 3D film in question is something truly exceptional like Baltasar Kormakur‘s Everest or Jean-Luc Godard‘s Goodbye to Language or Werner Herzog‘s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Or if it’s a question of seeing the climactic wire-walking sequence in The Walk in 3D (essential) vs. 2D (less so).

After the 11.28 Joy screening on the Fox Lot I posted some generally admiring tweets. Good as it is Joy is a little something of a mixed bag, and so I was struggling with my responses. It works but in a scattered, neurotic, off-and-on way. In my head I was giving it a grade of around 84 or 85, which is a B. Good, tasty, sharp, focused and very David O. Russell-y, but not on the level of Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter. Then I saw it again and it didn’t play quite as well, and so I downgraded it to about a 77 or 78. Joy is nonethless a very well made, grade-A film that works in fits and starts, and Jennifer Lawrence‘s performance is unquestionably strong and redeeming…so that’s where it is for me. It’s a thumbs-upper but not way up. Which I why I was shocked by Joy‘s aggregate ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic — 53% and 63% respectively. That’s an average of about 58%, and by a high-school grading system that’s a serious flunk. Joy is too expertly made to rate that. It absolutely deserves a general pass. And don’t forget that Robbie Collin Telegraph rave.

Twitter is where you go to find out how rancid some people are deep down. Twitter is a social-media form of those ugly-truth-revealing glasses that certain characters put on in “The Cheaters,” that 12.27.60 episode from Thriller. Twitter is where you find out how small, smug, lazy, stupid, tedious, hateful and sometimes even disgusting people are. Twitter has brought to me to places I never knew existed and am now very sorry I know about. The loathing I feel for those strutting, shrieking, foo-foo Twitter scolds out there sometimes manifests into stomach acid, indigestion, headaches and God knows what else. It’s all I can do to keep from spitting on the floor.

Six days ago Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva reported two things about Sylvester Stallone and Rambo: New Blood, the Fox TV series. One, that he would executive produce the series and two, that she was hearing “conflicting information whether Stallone has a deal in place to act in the project, about Rambo and his son, though he certainly has the option to do so…some sources indicate that the actor would reprise his role as the famous renegade soldier, which he has played in all four Rambo movies to date, while others say that he won’t appear in the series.”

Today Andreeva reported that Stallone is out of it entirely. “Contrary to reports, Sylvester Stallone has opted not to participate in the planned Rambo television series in any way at all,” a spokesperson for Stallone said.

Translation: Stallone, a likely Best Supporting Actor nominee for his artistic comeback role in Creed, doesn’t want to self-Norbit himself during Oscar season by bringing up Rambo associations, and so, whatever the actual particulars of the Rambo: New Blood deal, he’s publicly distancing himself. No lunkhead action flicks, no Expendables 4…none of that stuff while he’s in the Oscar race. Smart move.

Question: In industry circles “Norbit” has become a verb — to self-Norbit is to temporarily ruin one’s artistic credibility by way of tacky, low-rent associations in past, current or future films or TV series. In an outside-Hollywood sense one could self-Norbit by allowing unsavory associations of any kind to surface, although I have doubts as to whether the term will ever have any currency beyond geographical Los Angeles.

Today’s Oscar Poker chat, a three way between myself, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and Awards Watch‘s Erik Anderson, was an attempt to take stock of things in the wake of the last few award hand-outs — NBR, NYFCC, BOFCA, BFCA and LAFCA. We had plenty to chew on. Again, the mp3.

For those who’d prefer to just listen, here’s an mp3 of the whole event and an excerpt in which Quentin talks about the cop thing.