Antonio Campos‘ Christine (The Orchard, 10.14), which I saw at last January’s Sundance Film Festival, is a smartly assembled if decidedly glum character study of Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall), a frustrated, chronically depressed TV news reporter who felt stymied by the then-emerging tendency among local news stations to deliver froth and diversion rather than serious news or in-depth human-interest stories. She was lonely, bitter and pissed off, and on 7.15.74 the poor woman shot herself during a live broadcast. She died 14 hours later.

Christine is a good film, but it’s about ironies compounded within a hall of mirrors. Irony #1 is that Chubbuck would be unknown today if she hadn’t shot herself (she was never going to be Judy Woodruff), and that the film wouldn’t have been made if not for her tragedy. Irony #2 is that Campos’s film wouldn’t be all that engrossing without the on-air-shooting. Take away that sadness and it’s just a story of a gloomy woman who desperately wanted to do a good job but who wasn’t brilliant, lucky or charming enough to make it in a brutally shallow racket that was just starting to understand that superficial giddiness and bubbly personalities were far more valued by viewers than in-depth reporting.

That said, Christine is a well-written, believable, reasonably engrossing thing. Hall captures the testy anger and increasing desperation that Chubbuck was apparently experiencing on a drip-by-drip basis. It’s the best performance of her career, but God, it’s a downer to hang with this woman. We know from the get-go she has nowhere to go but down, and the film, really, is about how she has to go through eight or nine dispiriting episodes before she accepts this fact herself, and we, the audience, are basically stuck with this process.

Christine is tapping into general feelings of anger and frustation that we’ve all tasted from time to time, but after 90 minutes the downswirl starts to engulf you. I found myself muttering to Hall, “Look, this isn’t going to work out…you’re too pissed off, you lack the necessary charm and you might even get canned by Tracy Letts if you don’t watch it…it’s time to do something else with your life. Become a teacher or a newspaper reporter or sail to Cuba or move to Mexico, but get off the pot and blow this popstand.”

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Yesterday afternoon I caught Vikram Gandhi‘s Barry, a modest but sharply etched character study of young Barry Obama between ’81 and ’83, when he began and completed his junior and senior years at NYC’s Columbia University as a political science major, and more particularly when he began to grapple with his half-white, half-black identity.

Yes — another young Obama flick on top of Richard Tanne‘s commendable and charming Southside With You. Barry is obviously smallish but quite fluid and specific — carefully made, nicely layered, more observing of small details and generally a looser, craftier film than Southside, which (don’t get me wrong) I felt respect and affection for on its own terms.

Devon Terrell as 20 year-old Barry (i.e., pre-Barack) Obama in Vikram Gandi’s Barry.

Barack in ’81 or thereabouts.

Barry, in short, is basically a “who am I?” flick about social conflict, racism (both the benevolent and hostile kinds), hesitancy and uncertainty start to finish — a whole lotta frowning and meditating on Barry’s part.

It basically studies this athletic, mild-mannered young dude and gives him the time and the room to find his own way as he becomes friendly with a variety of black, brown and white characters on the Columbia campus and near his off-campus apartment on West 116th Street.

It ends on a note of self-acceptance, as you might expect, along with Obama’s decision to embrace his African-descended side by calling himself Barack, which happens at the end of the film, or sometime towards the end of his Columbia period.**

In his screen debut, Australian actor Devon Terrell plays Barry with enough of a physical resemblance to pass muster along with the right manner, voice and speaking style. It’s a confident, well-rooted performance. Qualifier: Terrell’s nose is a bit too Roman and his eyes indicate some kind of Hawaiian or Maori heritage — his features remind you a little bit of Dwayne Johnson‘s.

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I’ll be seeing only two films on this, my last full day of the 2016 Toronto Film Festival. The first will be Walter Hill‘s pulpy (Re)Assignment (formerly Tomboy), which has not only been trashed by almost every critic except for THR‘s Todd McCarthy but appears to the reigning calamity flick of the festival. The second, beginning at 9:15, will be Kelly Fremon Craig‘s The Edge of Seventeen, a teen-angst dramedy produced by James L. Brooks and costarring Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson. (A friend assures me it works.)

Challenging as it may be, Hill’s film sounds like the more interesting of the two.

Using a plot that seems to resemble Pedro Almodovar‘s The Skin I Live In (’11), (Re)Assignment about a low-rent male assassin (Michelle Rodriguez) who is changed into a woman by a revenge-seeking surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) because Rodriguez has killed her brother. The controversy, of course, makes it feel like essential viewing. Most of the pans are calling it bad or inept or horribly misjudged, and of course the transgender Twitter harridans are screeching about it being politically incorrect, etc. I can’t wait.

The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee writes that (Re)Assignment has been “made with such staggering idiocy that it deserves to be studied by future generations for just how and why it ever got made.” Variety‘s Dennis Harvey says it “gracelessly mashes together hardboiled crime-melodrama cliches and an unintentionally funny ‘Oh no! I’m a chick now!’ gender-change narrative hook.”

And yet THR‘s McCarthy claims that while (Re)Assignment is “a disreputable slice of bloody sleaze, there’s also no question that Hill knows exactly what he’s doing here, wading waist-deep into Frank Miller Sin City territory and using genre tropes to explore some provocatively, even outrageously transgressive propositions.

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The last three minutes of this Cenk Uygur election rant is brilliant in the sense that it cuts right to the heart of things. The first seven minutes focus on Hillary Clinton‘s recent downward poll trajectory (i.e., losing in Ohio and Florida) and the possibility of further weakening in other battleground states, but the last three minutes focus on the hubris of the Clinton campaign and more particularly the attitude of denial within her staff and among supporters in the media.

The money portion comes when Uygur speaks to or rather pleads rhetorically with HRC, to wit: “Remind me what you’re running for. ‘I’m With Her’ is not a thing…that’s not a thing that you run for. We all knew why Bernie Sanders was running…income inequality, which he’s been fighting for 40 years. And Trump is a madman, he’s running for his ego, we all know that…but Hillary Clinton, what are you running for? ‘Stronger Together’, whatever that means, but what are you running for? What does Hillary Clinton care about? I don’t know. Do you know? Does she know? Has she communicated this to the American people?

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I forgot to mention in my 9.9 review of Tom Ford‘s Nocturnal Animals, in which I shared mostly negative reactions, that the final scene is rather good. It’s decisive and final, and yet leaves the final interpretation in the audience’s lap. Otherwise my verdict stays the same: “I’m fully aware that Animals is an ambitious, experimental thing (certainly from a structural standpoint) but I never felt fully drawn in. It keeps you at a distance. Half 21st Century elite ennui and half ‘fictional’ flashback, it scores in a fleeting, in-and-out fashion but mostly sinks into mud.”

Was this N.Y. Times survey of likely voters, which gives Hillary Clinton only a slight edge (46 to 44) over Donald Trump, conducted in the wake of Hillary’s fainting episode last weekend? If not the race could be even tighter. I’m guessing that the 100% accurate but ill-considered “basket of deplorables” quote is a factor in this. Millions despise her. Yes, Sasha Stone, she’ll almost certainly win, but it’ll most likely be a squeaker. Hillary needs to get down on her knees and thank God she’s not running against a semi-sane, sensible-sounding Republican lunatic. If that was the case she’d almost certainly lose. She plots, she deceives, she connives, she faints, etc.

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I know next to nothing about John Madden‘s Miss Sloane (EuropaCorp, 12.9). Written by Jonathan Perera, it feels like a smart, flinty Aaron Sorkin-like piece about tough Congressional hombres in conflict. Apparently the plot has to do with Jessica Chastain‘s titular character trying to push through gun-control legislation. Strong, classy costars (Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sam Waterston, John Lithgow) but Madden’s previous liking for emotionally soothing material (Shakespeare in Love + two Best Exotic Marigold Hotel flicks) scares me a bit.

Friend #1 who’s seen it: “I liked it a lot. NRA will hate it. Chastain great.” Friend #2: “Miss Sloane is indeed very good: Michael Clayton by way of Aaron Sorkin. A super-smart Black List script written by a British-born lawyer who lives in Singapore. Chastain is phenomenal, but so is the whole supporting cast. And it’s probably the best directing of John Madden’s career. I was like…wait, John Madden directed this?”

What kind of mouth-breathing, mandal-wearing, three-toed sloth would even think of buying a bag of ketchup-flavored chips? Until yesterday I’d never heard of them. They were being offered free in the third-floor press room at the Bell Lightbox. Apparently Canadian Lay’s ketchup chips aren’t well known in the States. Buzzfeed ran a story about them 20 months ago — one of the quotes was that the ketchup chips “taste like a mistake.”

Yesterday afternoon I ordered a bowl of cream of broccoli soup at a sports bar on John Street. I don’t like sports bars, partly because they attract jowly conservative types who are living in the ’70s or ’80s and partly because Sports Bar food is always old-fashioned — too fatty, too meaty, lotsa fries — or otherwise doesn’t taste right. The below photos show what a standard bowl of the stuff looks like — little bits or chunks of broccoli floating inside a white creamy broth. The soup they served me yesterday was light brown and tasted like mushrooms.

HE to waiter: “No offense, dude, but what is this stuff? It’s okay but it sure isn’t cream of broccoli soup, I can tell you that.”

The guy offered to take it back & asked if I wanted to exchange it for something else. I politely declined. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant you know it’s not unheard of for chefs to spit into dishes that people have asked to be reheated or exchanged. I’ve worked as a waiter and busboy in restaurants and charcoal grills, and I know what goes. If you don’t like the taste of something, just send it back and pay the bill and leave it at that.

I’ve never in my wildest dreams detected any reason to associate the cinematic realm of Woody Allen with Jefferson Airplane‘s “Volunteers,” a street-revolution song that was one of the standout tracks on their Volunteers album, which popped in late ’69. But rules are made to be broken. New York-area Jews are naturally liberal-minded, but like most Americans they didn’t know what to do with the radical mentality that permeated urban-left culture between early to mid ’68 (LBJ’s resignation, MLK and RFK’s assassination) and late ’74 (the resignation of Richard Nixon). Allen’s Crisis in Six Scenes, a half-hour Amazon-produced series, will debut on 9.30.

Note: That’s Elaine May and not her daughter Jeannie Berlin (The Night Of) in the role of Allen’s wife. They sound alike, look alike and are only 18 years apart in age.

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I won’t be seeing Rob Reiner‘s LBJ until this evening, but it apparently covers Lyndon Johnson‘s transitions from ’60 to late ’64 — Senate Majority Leader to JFK’s Vice-President to the Oval Office after Dallas to the passage of the Civil Rights Bill. This is more or less what HBO’s Emmy-nominated All The Way covered, and that Bryan Cranston-starrer premiered only four months ago. If Reiner had focused on LBJ’s Vietnam War-related downfall (’66 to ’68), it would at least have a fresher feeling. But you can tell right off the bat that Woody Harrelson‘s accent ain’t right. He doesn’t have that Texas hill country drawl, which had a specific Huckleberry Hound-like tonality. On top of which Woody sounds awfully similar to Carson Wells, the bounty hunter he played in No Country For Old Men. (You know who came close to nailing Johnson’s accent? Randy Quaid in LBJ: The Early Years.) So right off the top, pre-viewing, there’s a certain amount of trouble.

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I caught Peter Berg‘s Deepwater Horizon (Lionsgate/Summit, 9.30) a few hours ago. It’s not subtle but not too difficult to sit through, and at least it’s over in 107 minutes. It’s an FX-driven fireball thing, mostly predictable in terms of story beats and cloying emotion. Call it a blend of Godzilla, Backdraft and The Towering Inferno. And based, of course, on a true story many of us know backwards and forwards — the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. Yes, just the explosion and how all those oil-rig workers in red jumpsuits managed to escape the resulting inferno, and then a little postscript info over the closing credits.

The film isn’t interested in the massive oil spill and the environmental catastrophe that followed. Sorry, that’s for your earth-friendly lefties. Deepwater Horizon is a megaplex movie for pizza-eating Americans.

The reason Berg has directed this film and not J.C. Chandor (who was canned off the project in early ’15) is because the Lionsgate/Summit guys wanted it kept simple and popcorny. Who cares about that boring ecological stuff? All the popcorn-munchers and Coke-slurpers want are those oil-rig inferno effects (crash-bam-BOOM!) plus a few hero-saves-the-day moves by Mark Wahlberg as real-life survivor and truth-teller Mike Williams…right? And that’s what this is — one of those event films that leave your head and become vapor 90 seconds after you leave the theatre.

But like many Hollywood films about complex subjects, Deepwater Horizon requires two immersions — one, the watching of the film and two, researching the facts online. Because the film is mainly for the grunts (morons, lazybrains, teenagers, under-educated 20 somethings, viewers from the People’s Republic of China) who want their boilerplate elements — explosions, fireballs, mud, grease, good-guy workers, asinine BP execs, guys screaming and groaning, etc.

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Two nights ago I visited the La La Land party at the ultra-swanky Lavelle, an open-air rooftop club with a pool and great views of the city. I didn’t see Damian Chazelle but costars Ryan Gosling (currently filming Denis Villeneuve‘s Blade Runner sequel) and Emma Stone were sitting wihin their own private banquettes, surrounded by the usual array of friends, sycophants and lookie-lous.

Before venturing into the elite area I was standing outside near the pool. I noticed right away there were almost no waitresses offering the usual hor d’oeuvres. Without something to nibble on people who haven’t had dinner get hungry around 9:30 or 10 pm. Lavelle management knew that, of course, but they were almost solely focused on taking care of the swells.

Twice I asked a waitress near the pool “are you guys serving any food?” and I was twice told “it’s coming right out.” Translation: “We’ll get around to serving hors d’oeuvres for pool-hangers like yourself only after the specials have been given their fill.”

I eventually gave up and wandered into the swell space, and of course there were trays upon trays of luscious sushi and whatnot being placed on top of various reserved-banquette tables. Other starved guests had the same idea as myself and were hovering like starved urchins in Calcutta. All at once we pounced on those trays like locusts. One waitress looked concerned as a tray of food meant for some producer or La La Land costar was devoured in a matter of seconds.

HE to Lavelle management: If you don’t want your invited celebrities getting upset because the serfs are eating their food, try giving the serfs some food at the same time. Don’t over-cater to the lah-lahs. The battle between Average Joes and the 1% rages on.