A capsule description of April Mullen‘s Below Her Mouth, a 2016 Toronto Film Festival attraction, from Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell: “Erika Linder and Natalie Krill play illicit lesbian lovers in a made-in-Toronto film that promises to push the boundaries for cinematic sex, as Blue Is the Warmest Color did before it. Shot by an all-female crew, the TIFF program calls it ‘one of the boldest and sexiest dramas of the year.'”

Wells thought: “If this scene was about (a) a guy attempting to make out with a cute girl in a bar, (b) the girl changing her mind and running outside and darting down an alley and (c) the guy chasing her down and more or less saying ‘wait, you can’t run away, I really want to fuck you’ and putting the moves on her again, a viewer might presume it’s about a predator engaged in a kind of aggressive date rape. But because it’s about lesbians, nobody raises an eyebrow.”

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Reaction among execs running A24, the distributor of Andrea Arnold’s American Honey (opening on 9.30.16): “It’s so great when this kind of buzz gets around. This is why we love this business because when a movie has the right kind of chemistry and the right kind of chops, something magical happens and it just takes off with ticket buyers…it becomes this mystical, unstoppable act of art and nature that people feel they just have to see.”

Reaction among execs running IFC Films, the distributor of Olivier Assayas‘s Personal Shopper (no U.S. release date): “Why don’t guys like Lawson leave us alone? We’re letting the Toronto and New York film festivals show Personal Shopper, fine, but we’re not sure how we feel about it. Some people in Cannes weren’t fans and that gives us the willies. The concept of releasing Personal Shopper intimidates us financially, if you want to know the truth, and so we’re almost sorry we acquired it and we’re not sure we even want to release it any time soon. Okay, maybe sometime next spring. But please, just stop it. We hate tweets like this. They just make things worse.”

Audiences took one look at Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun and said, “He’s cool, an okay guy, decent, I trust him, reminds us of a friend from college or high school, obviously good looking.” If I were gay I would think “hmm, in my dreams.” I took one look at Joe Alwyn, the lead in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and said, “Ang Lee chose this guy to be the lead? He looks like he doesn’t get it, like he can’t get it for lack of brain cells. I’ve seen guys like this working at yogurt shops, and I certainly have no interest in hanging with him…at all.”

Roughly 15 years ago I was having a chat with a professional woman of some size, and I was about to allude to people of girth when I realized I might get myself in trouble. I needed to put on my tiptoe shoes. Before I knew it I was scrambling and a bit anxious. I obviously didn’t want to say “fat” or “obese” or “overweight” — all shaming terms. It would have also been wrong to say “person with a weight problem” because in p.c. circles excess weight isn’t a problem. I also knew that “rotund” was out because it sounded snide. This was all whirring through my brain within three or four seconds, mind. So I seized on the term “calorically challenged.” It seemed respectful, no attitude or judgment implied — the equivalent of calling a short person “height-challenged.” And you know what? The professional woman took offense. She didn’t say in so many words that I was being an insulting smart-ass, but that’s what she was thinking. It was then that I realized that there’s no winning in this atmosphere. You just have to live and think in denial. Overweight people don’t exist. All shapes and sizes are beautiful. You just can’t say anything else. You realize what I’m describing, don’t you? In a sense we’re all living in that 1961 Twilight Zone episode called “It’s a Good Life,” and all the p.c. militants are a version of Anthony.

Here are my initial stabs at award-season acting contenders, as posted on Gold Derby. I’ve been saying since catching Manchester By The Sea last January that Casey Affleck is a cast-iron lock for Best Actor, but I’m also presuming that one of the stand-out supporting performances — by 19- or 20-year-old Lucas Hedges or veteran Kyle Chandler — will generate awards chatter. Likewise, Manchester‘s Michelle Williams will almost certainly be a Best Supporting Actress contender; ditto Moonlight‘s Naomie Harris, who’s allegedly the standout in Barry Jenkins‘ film. Best Actress-wise, it still seems that the likely headliners are Loving‘s Ruth Negga (saw it/her in Cannes) vs. Fences‘ Viola Davis.

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I don’t know for a fact that Clint Eastwood‘s Sully (Warner Bros., 9.9) will have its first public showing at the Telluride Film Festival, but signs are pointing in this direction. I was told a while back that a major American release about a true-life saga would debut there. Plus a certain East Coast critic has been hearing Sully-at-Telluride rumblings. As I understand it one of the factors is that Sully producer Frank Marshall has a home in Telluride and that feelings of regional loyalty and kinship kicked in. (Or something like that.) So that’s it, fellas — the other 20 (give or take) plus Sully. Sure, I could be wrong about this. But I doubt that I am. I sure wish I could attend tonight’s special Sully junket screening in Los Angeles, but that’s only for “interview” press.

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Among the Gurus of Gold spitballers, the “friends” of Birth of a Nation (i.e., those who’ve afforded it a marginal recognition) are Vox.com’s Gregory Ellwood, Toronto Star critic Peter Howell, TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, The Film Experience‘s NathanielR, Susan Wlosczyna (a.k.a. “Suzie Woz”), L.A. Times‘ pulse-taker Glenn Whipp and Daily Beast‘s Jen Yamato. In this, the first round of all-but-meaningless Oscar speculation, Manchester By The Sea, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, La La Land, Fences, Arrival, Loving and Moonlight are leading the Best Picture pack. The Gold Derby gang is just starting to be heard from, but Birth of a Nation support is faint with them also. Right now GD honcho Tom O’Neil is Nate Parker‘s best friend with Birth in sixth place among his Best Picture spitballs.

I’ve just committed to the second biggest Hollywood Elsewhere travel expenditure for the purpose of seeing an award-season movie with the first wave. I’ll be flying to Manhattan in early October to catch the New York Film Festival’s 10.14 world premiere of Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. That’s right — no concurrent showing for Los Angeles critics. I’ll actually be arriving on 10.7 to catch a few NYFF attractions as well as hang in Connecticut a bit, but Billy Lynn at 120-frames-per-second will be the main order of business. HE’s flight to London in October 2013 to catch an early showing of Saving Mr. Banks remains the most exorbitant thing I’ve ever done for professional purposes.

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A succinct capturing of the degraded state of American cinema has been provided by a Forbes article announcing that Dwayne Johnson was the highest paid actor between mid-2015 and ’16, raking in $64.5 million samolians. There’s something really wrong with the world when a guy whose most dependable trait is starring in shitty movies becomes the highest paid. Seriously.

From 6.28 HE piece, “Drawn To The Stink“:

“When Dwayne Johnson is starring in a film, you know there’s a decent chance that Johnson’s character will smash through a plate-glass window and drop three or four stories to the ground without injury. You know the film will be crude, submental, loud, never good enough. Every single film he’s starred or costarred in over the last 15 years has been the stuff that headaches are made of.

“Be Cool (’05) was half decent, but Johnson’s casting in that F. Gary Gray film was a cosmic accident. Since then he’s shown an instinct for shit that few have even approached, much less rivalled.

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Earlier today Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh reported that Denzel Washington is “eyeing” the lead in Dan Gilroy‘s Inner City, which is “being billed as a character study in the vein of Paul Newman’s performance in The Verdict,” Setoodeh wrote, especially given that Washington will play a lawyer “in an ambulance-chasing firm.” I’ve since been told by an insider that while Inner City may be Verdict-like in this or that regard, the ambulance-chasing description is “inaccurate.”

I’ve noted before that while the Telluride Film Festival (9.2 thru 9.5) is billed as a four-day festival, it’s really a three-day thing. They always wait until 3 pm or thereabouts on Friday afternoon (i.e., after the picnic) to kick things off, and they know that many people are gone by Monday lunch or early afternoon, so it’s (a) a half-day on Friday, (b) two full days over the weekend, and (c) a half day on Monday. If you have to file and pack on Monday morning it’s more like a 2 and 1/2 day festival.

If the Telluride fathers wanted to make it more time-efficient, they would start with a screening or two on Thursday night (when most people arrive) and then jump right into the first showings on Friday morning.

Approximately 20 films will play within this three-day time frame, which means even if you can hit four per day (if you hit five you’ll have no time to file) you’ll only catch about twelve. HE Priorities: Arrival (d: Denis Villeneuve), La La Land (d: Damian Chazelle), Neruda (d: Pablo Larrain), Bleed for This (d: Ben Younger), Moonlight (d: Barry Jenkins), Manchester by the Sea (d: Kenneth Lonergan), Una (d: Benedict Andrews), Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (d: Joseph Cedar), The B-Side (d: Errol Morris), Into the Inferno (d: Werner Herzog), Frantz (d: Francois Ozon) and Fire at Sea (d: Gianfranco Rosi).

Plus there’s a slot for a major American film showing that isn’t on anyone’s list right now, or at least none that I know of. But it’ll be there.

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