There’s nothing wrong with being an intelligent, pruned-down, HBO-level biopic, which is pretty much what you get with Jay Roach‘s Trumbo (Bleecker Street, 11.6). A political biopic, I should say. I saw it last night from a balcony seat at the Elgin, and it just flew right by. Call it an above-average portrait of the Hollywood blacklist era, and a better-than-decent capturing of one the most gifted and industrious blacklisted screenwriters ever. A moustachioed, sandpaper-voiced Bryan Cranston portrays the stalwart titular hero; I felt completely at home with the guy. Trumbo was one of the most gifted wordsmiths in Hollywood history — a winner of two screenwriting Oscars (Roman Holiday, The Brave One) during his under-wraps period, and also the author of A Guy Named Joe, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Cowboy, Spartacus, Exodus, Lonely Are The Brave…the list is quite lengthy. He was also a man of balls and honor. I just wish that Roach and screenwriter John McNamara had paid at least some attention to the legendary Gun Crazy (’50), which Trumbo co-wrote under an alias. My favorite supporting performances (in this order): Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson (particularly during a scene in which he explains to Trumbo why he became a friendly HUAC witness), Helen Mirren as the maliciously right-wing Hedda Hopper, John Goodman as schlock producer Frank King, Louis C.K. as Arlen Hird, and David James Elliott as John Wayne.

Sasha Stone and I got right down to things in the latest Oscar Poker. We only had a half-hour as I had to leave for a 2 pm TIFF screening of Truth, but then Sasha and I spoke again after I saw James Vanderbilt’s film. We covered how Telluride and Toronto have clarified matters regarding the Best Pic chances of Black Mass (nope), Bridge of Spies (Sasha thinks it’s at least half-likely), Brooklyn (yes), Carol (ditto), The Danish Girl (odds are ebbing as we speak), Our Brand Is Crisis (not that kind of film), The Revenant (lock), Spotlight (lock), Steve Jobs (maybe), Beasts of No Nation (deserves Best Pic consideration), Trumbo (very good HBO-level drama) and Truth (yes!). Again, the mp3.

“Just spit it out, Jeff. Except for Alicia Vikander The Danish Girl is dreary, dreary, dreary. What a bore! I was at yesterday’s morning press showing at the Princess of Wales, and it’s first such screening this year at which there was no applause or any other audible reaction at the end. People just shuffled out. It exposes Tom Hooper as the high-art hack he is. It should immediately be taken out of the ‘discussion’, as it’s called.” — email received from a critic friend after I posed my measured, half-and-half review.

24 hours ago I was nursing a vague suspicion that James Vanderbilt‘s Truth (Sony Pictures Classic, 10.16) might be a shortfaller or not-so-hotter of some kind. The advance word had been dicey, and then Sony Pictures Classics didn’t open it at Telluride, which struck several know-it-alls as curious. Then it screened last night in Toronto and everything changed. Now Truth is regarded as a major bulls-eye journalism drama and a likely (or certainly formidable) Best Picture contender.

An exacting, well-ordered account of the Rathergate episode of ’04, Truth is easily as good as Michael Mann‘s The Insider. It has the same kind of disciplined, upscale vibe.  It’s also a thematic equal of that 1999 drama as both are about real-life stories for CBS’s 60 Minutes that were challenged, watered-down or otherwise diminished by CBS corporates. Obviously not without fault in the case of Truth but still…

Cate Blanchett‘s flinty, tough-as-nails performance as former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes easily puts her into the Best Actress race (it actually nudges aside her Carol performance, incredible as that may sound). Robert Redford‘s performance as former CBS anchor-reporter Dan Rather is confined to a few scenes, but it’s one of the most pared-down and appealing things he’s done in a long time — he glows with dignity and grace. Costars Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, David Lyons and John Benjamin Hickey all deliver like champs.

It’s very unusual for a first-time director like Vanderbilt to display these kinds of chops, but that’s what he’s done here. The structure, timing, tension and pitch of this film are all spot-on. Mandy Walker‘s widescreen cinematography, the editing by Richard Francis-Bruce, Brian Tyler‘s score — all ace-level.

Pic is a dramatization of Mapes’ 2005 memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.” It’s basically about how and why Mapes and Rather lost their jobs in the wake of a 2004 60 Minutes report about a young George Bush having allegedly received preferential treatment in an attempt to duck military service in Vietnam.

The notion that Eddie Redmayne might win a second Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Einer Wegener/Lili Elbe in Tom Hooper‘s The Danish Girl (Focus Features, 11.27) died last night in Toronto.

Okay, it didn’t die but it certainly downshifted. And the cause of that downshift was the film itself, a reasonably decent effort which screened for press & industry yesterday morning and the public last night. It seemed to play well enough, but it didn’t seem to lift anyone off the ground either. And Redmayne seems caught in a kindly web of calculation. As submissive and devotional and brave as his performance is — you have to give him credit and respect for really letting Lili into his soul — the effort is gently muffled by Lucinda Coxon‘s script (based on David Evershoff‘s same-titled book) and Hooper’s direction, which feels overly poised and burnished and finally confining.

The Danish Girl is a finely rendered, exquisitely sensitive, middle-of-the-road Oscar-bait film that will win respect and applause among the 50-plus Hollywood guild & Academy set. But it’s almost bloodless — well acted, handsomely captured and intriguing to some extent, lulling and softly emotional but never fascinating and absolutely dead fucking terrified of doing or saying anything that might be construed as brash or nervy or irreverent or out of synch with today’s p.c. drumbeat.

I felt like I was outside this movie all the way through, and while it’s extremely subtle and well-tuned, I decided at the 45-minute mark that I probably don’t want to watch it a second time. It certainly doesn’t pop any corks or build enough steam to make any tea kettles whistle. I appreciated the effort but I didn’t feel engaged, and I even felt bored from time to time.

Bad buzz has been dogging Stephen Frears‘ The Program (formerly Icon) for a while now. Turned down by Cannes but screening here in Toronto early next week. As far as I know there’s still no U.S. distributor. Charisma-challenged Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong and Chris O’Dowd as David Walsh, the Irish sports journalist who busted him. Screenplay by John Hodge (Trainspotting) and based upon Walsh’s investigative book. Costarring Dustin Hoffman, Lee Pace, Bryan Greenberg, Edward Hogg, Laura Donnelly and Guillaume Canet “as notorious Italian physician Michele Ferrari, who was the mastermind behind Armstrong’s doping operation.”

Between the Swahili-like working-class London accents, which are always a problem for me in any film, and the bassy-boomy sound system at Toronto’s Princess of Wales theatre, I was able to understand maybe 15% to 20% of the dialogue in Brian Helgeland‘s Legend (Universal, 10.2). I understood the basic gist of most scenes, and I definitely heard a complete line or two (“Those who lives in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”) but not being able to savor the verbal particulars is extremely annoying. “Yeahwankerduhluffuckuhlwounday, uhm?” Again — wait for the subtitles on the Bluray. I’ve just remembered that I’ve never seen Peter Medak‘s The Krays (’90), but now I’ll be making a point of it. Honestly? If you remove Tom Hardy‘s hot-shit volcanic, at times howlingly funny performance as Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the Kray twins’ Wikipedia page is ten times more interesting than the film.

The opening credits announce that David Gordon Green‘s Our Brand Is Crisis (Warner Bros., 10.30) is “suggested” by Rachel Boynton’s same-titled, decade-old documentary. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is that it’s been transformed into a Sandra Bullock film in much the same way that the once-austere Gravity became a spacesuit-Sandy-in-peril movie for her fans. Four days ago I wondered aloud if Green’s film will be “a Sandra Bullock flick with a real-world political undercurrent, or a political dramedy in which Bullock stars?” Well, it definitely ain’t the latter. Not precisely a Bullock formula thing, mind, but fairly close to that.

All I did during this morning’s 8:30 screening was scowl and grumble and lean forward and occasionally cover my lower face with my right hand. No moaning but occasionally my mouth would pop open in astonishment, or according to Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas, who was sitting beside me.

What’s a well-respected, semi-realistic political campaign movie? Michael Ritchie‘s The Candidate, right? Well, imagine The Candidate with Robert Redford still playing Bill McKay but instead of Peter Boyle as his campaign manager you’ve got the spirited and irrepressible but at the same struggling-with-depression Barbra Streisand (half the way she was in What’s Up, Doc?, and half Kuh-Kuh-Katey in The Way We Were), and that’s pretty much what Our Brand Is Crisis is, except it’s set in Bolivia and Redford is played by Joaquim de Almeida.

Over and over and over Bullock gets her closeups in this thing, and she looks so reliably and relentlessly herself in every shot and scene. She’s playing a brilliant political consultant in a sometimes surly, sometimes pratfally way, but Our Brand is Crisis is mainly about the fact that (a) she looks burnt-out sullen and kind of Lauren Bacall-y with her one-size-fits-all deadpan glamour-puss expression, nicely dyed blonde hair and distinctive black-rimmed glasses, and (b) she has a great-looking ass for a woman of any age, let alone her own.

Before people start calling me a sexist pig, understand that at the climax of a completely absurd mountain-road race between two political campaign tour buses, Bullock drops trou and shoves her creamy biege, perfectly-shaved butt cheeks out of a side window, “aimed” at her political opponents who are riding alongside. (It’s called “mooning.”) I would have respected this scene more if Bullock’s ass (or that of the ass model who was hired for this one bit) didn’t look so CG-scrubbed. It looks like a love-doll ass. (And don’t blame me — I’m just describing what I saw.)

Last night I caught I Saw The Light, a mostly downish, spotty and not-very-enjoyable Hank Williams biopic that at least features a worthwhile performance from Tom Hiddleston as the volatile, short-tempered, alcohol-afflicted country music legend who died, stupidly, at age 29. I also caught Ridley Scott‘s The Martian, a smart, seriously enjoyable, technically satisfying and emotionally inspiring big-studio rescue + popcorn movie that’s about as deep as a jacuzzi. And it’s fine for that. As I tweeted last night, it’s aimed at the people who really love halftime shows at the Super Bowl. And it’s very amusingly written and rank with pop-music usage and commentary — it’s almost a Tarantino movie in some respects.

I’ll have to get into this late this afternoon as the clock is ticking…

It’s 7:40 am. I should have been out the door ten minutes ago for the 8:30 am Scotiabank press & industry screening of David Gordon Green‘s Our Brand Is Crisis, which, to go by initial reviews, is allegedly an in-and-outer with noteworthy performances from Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton. In order to do that I’ll need to blow off the 9:30 am screening of The Danish Girl (which I’ll be seeing an at early-evening public screening so no worries). At 12:15 pm I’ll be catching Brian Helgeland‘s Legend, the Kray brothers crime melodrama with Tom Hardy in both roles.

I’ll have about three and a half hours to tap out some thoughts and digressions before the aforementioned Danish Girl showing at 6:15 pm, which will be followed by a 9pm screening of Jay Roach‘s Trumbo.

There are several parties but I thought I’d try and drop in on the ones for The Danish Girl and Trumbo. For the first time in 15 years I haven’t been invited to the traditional Sony Pictures Classics party, possibly/partly due to my having shared suspicions about the apparently-not-so-hot quality of I Saw The Light (which I sat through early last evening) and Truth (which I’ll be catching at a p & i screening of tomorrow) or possibly because we’re all interesting but contradictory souls with fascinating personalities who will someday die and turn into dust and ash. I couldn’t fit the SPC party in anyway due to the already stuffed schedule.

I remember very clearly how delighted I was with the sound system (and particularly Huey Lewis‘s “The Power of Love”) when I first saw Back To The Future at whatever Hollywood theatre it was. (Probably the Cinerama Dome.) How many times have I seen the first-and-best entry in this franchise? Three, but I stopped re-watching back in the early ’90s so it’s been a quarter-century. Some films gain; others fade. But I’m still into seeing Back in Time, a crowd-funded doc about the cultural impact of this series, etc. “Countless hours of footage during filming,” etc. Interviews with director Robert Zemeckis, Steven “beardo” Spielberg, Bob Gale, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Huey Lewis, Dan Harmon. Pops on 10.21.15.

A few weeks ago I read an eight-year-old old draft of Bryan Sipe‘s Demolition (10.8.07). Though well written and “sensitive” in the vein of American Beauty-ish (i.e., a guy going off the track, ignoring social norms, following odd instincts), it struck me as a bit too self-consciously quirky — just a little too precious. But the movie reps a significant upgrade of the material, and credit for this, of course, goes to director Jean-Marc Vallee.

Last night I saw Demolition at the Prince of Wales. The fact that Fox Searchlight won’t release until next April has stirred curiosity about what’s wrong with it — why bump it out of award season? The answer is “who knows but it’s not half bad.”

As indicated, it’s about a youngish, day-dreamy investment banker (Jake Gyllenhaal) succumbing to all kinds of weird, self-absorbed behavior as a way of dealing with his wife’s car-crash death. He doesn’t grieve as much go inward. He ignores his job, grows a stubble beard, becomes enamored of fixing machinery and then tearing things down. In so doing he begin to increasingly mystify and then piss off his father-in-law (Chris Cooper). He also slides into a nonsexual but connected relationship with a customer service rep (Naomi Watts) for a vending machine company. She has a somewhat alienated son (Judah Lewis) and a big, suspicious, more-than-a-little-angry live-in boyfriend.

The settled-in acting never feels calculated or pushed or “performed”, and the photography (by Yves Belanger) and editing seem extra-fleet and tight and generally supplies a more sophisticated feeling than Vallee’s Wild or Dallas Buyer’s Club had.

As mentioned on 9.8, Demolition costar Judah Lewis, whose age is being kept hidden for some reason but who seems to be around 14, has a certain je nais sais quoi X-factor “star is born” thing going on. I caught Demolition early last evening, and Lewis’s scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal (i.e., “Are you fucking my mom?”) definitely pop. Edgy magnetism, the camera likes him or something, etc. Lewis plays Naomi Watts‘ son Chris, a bordering-on-too-pretty kid with longish blonde hair who may be gay. Something about his looks and acting style reminded me of Leonardo DiCaprio between Growing Pains and his costarring role in Critters 3. Lewis’s eyes have a certain “extra-alert but masking something vulnerable and uncertain” quality, and Chris has the usual rebellious, cigarette-smoking, rock-and-roll-dancing early teen thing down pat. Whatever “it” is, Lewis has it. With Demolition not coming out until April, Lewis’s first feature will be Ericson Core‘s Point Break (Warner Bros,. 12.25). He should grow his hair longer — he looks and sounds cooler in the film than he did in this red-carpet interview, which was taped last night.