My Sundance activities have interfered with a timely awareness of some interesting reactions to the recently revised Academy rules that are basically about taking the vote away from older white members, or more precisely those who haven’t been “active” within the last decade, and increasing the membership roster among African Americans, Latinos and somewhat younger people. For the last four days The Hollywood Reporter has posted several reactions to this change, and a clear majority of the posts have been intensely negative.

Four reactions were posted yesterday (1.27) — three negatives written by actress Rutanya Alda, short film and feature animation committee member Nancy Beiman and visual-effects guy John Van Vliet, and a stand-alone positive from The Color Purple costar Margaret Avery.

Four previous essays were posted on 1.25 — three negatives from director’s branch member Stephen Verona, public relations branch member Mark Reina and writers branch member Stephen Geller; the only 1.25 positive was written by directors branch member Rod Lurie. Another negative response, written by documentary branch member Milton Justice, was posted on 1.24.

Six negatives and two positives obviously argues with an assertion from the Academy that responses to the membership and voting rules have been largely positive/favorable. Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg tells me that the essays were only partly solicited (some members got in touch on their own), and that the identities of the authors were carefully vetted.

Read more

Nine Lives, a French-produced comedy about a shitheel billionaire (Kevin Spacey) trapped in the body of cat, could have been a comedic cross between Charles Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol” and Franz Kafka‘s “The Metamorphosis” — a moral-redemption tale flavored with sharp, socially-resonant humor. Instead, to go by this Europa Corp. trailer, it’s been made into a coarse, low-rent Barry Sonnenfeld family comedy in the vein of those Look Who’s Talking? comedies. The Eurocorp production costars Christopher Walken, Jennifer Garner, Talitha Bateman, Mark Consuelos and Robbie Amell. Christophe Lambert and Luc Besson are listed as producers. Pic was going to open in April but was bumped to August 5th.

There was less of a pulse prior to yesterday’s 6 pm screening of Meera Menon‘s Equity than I’d felt during Sundance Film Festival screenings over the previous five days. “Everyone goes home on Tuesday,” an entertainment attorney explained. The buyers, she meant, plus much of the talent plus the party/entourage crowd. “Really? I thought they all went home on Wednesday,” I said, “but whatever.” Today things are barely percolating. You can definitely feel the absence of juice. But a downshifted festival has its advantages — more seats, less crowded buses, more of a devoted cineaste atmosphere.

Park City Marriott — Wednesday, 1.27, 11:20 am.

Nate Parker and The Birth of a Nation team on Eccles stage following Monday evening’s premiere screening.

Bedroom in HE’s 1-bedroom abode at Park City Regency.

Jim director Brian Oakes (far right) with (l. to r.) John Foley, Diane Foley (parents), French journalist who shared cell with James Foley (can’t pinpoint his name), former Syrian-coverage colleague of Foley’s (her name could be Manu Brabo or Clare Gillis…you tell me). Pic taken following Monday afternoon’s screening at Library.

Read more

Sundance reactions to Louis Black and Karen Bernstein’s Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny have been entirely favorable. The Hollywood Reporter‘s John DeFore called the doc “one of the most enriching and enjoyable about a filmmaker in recent memory.” Well and good, but when a publicist friend asked yesterday if I’d seen it I responded candidly. Linklater is definitely one of my favorite artists in this business, I said, but why is it worth my time during this super-busy festival to watch a kiss-ass portrait of the guy? I don’t need a sum-up tribute piece and neither, I would think, does Linklater. He’s nowhere near the end of his career — he’s in the thick of it and going great guns. I’ll watch it on cable when it pops a couple of months hence.

“The other day Bill Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders’ proposal for a single-payer health plan as unfeasible and a ‘recipe for gridlock.’ Yet these days, nothing of any significance is feasible and every bold idea is a recipe for gridlock. This election [must be] about changing the parameters of what’s feasible and ending the choke hold of big money on our political system.

“I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have. But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.” — from Robert Reich’s Salon piece, posted today (1.27), titled “Bernie Is Our Only Hope For Real Political Change.”

Read more

“A Los Angeles Times study of the 5,765 Academy members concluded that 94 percent are Caucasian (77 percent male), 2 percent are black, and less than 2 percent are Latino. The average age is 62, with only 14 percent younger than 50. Looking at this pasty gray demographic, one can’t help but wonder whether or not they saw the lovely little coming-of-age film Dope, or were at all interested in the powerful N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, or cared about Spike Lee’s insightful Chi-Raq, or marveled at Samuel L. Jackson’s mesmerizing performance in The Hateful Eight. Why Concussion‘s Will Smith was ignored is still a head-scratcher. Maybe they thought his previous two nominations were enough.” — from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar‘s 1.27 Hollywood Reporter guest column titled “Why Black People Are ‘Invisible’ to Oscar Voters.”

HE to Abdul-Jabbar: (1) My Sundance review of Dope, posted on 1.26.15, called it “smartly assembled exploitation crap — a fleet, Tarantino-like hodgepodge of fantasy bullshit in the vein of a New Line Cinema release from the ’90s (i.e., House Party), and adapted to the general sensibility of 2015…nothing is soft or subtle or indirect.” (2) HE on Compton, posted 7.31.15: “A tight, satisfying, straight-ahead telling of the N.W.A. saga from ’86 to ’95 (roots, breakout, success, conflict and falling apart, concluding with the death of Easy E.), and quite an indictment of police racism and brutality to boot. Deals tough straight cards.” (3) I never saw Chi-Raq. (4) Jackson delivered his usual ballsy-loquacious Tarantino thing in The Hateful Eight — okay as far as it goes but rote, familiar. (5) From my 11.11.15 Concussion review: “Smith delivers a better-than-decent performance, nicely augmented by what sounded to my white-ass ears like a believable Nigerian accent, but at best he’s a mild Best Actor threat. If he gets nominated, fine…but the film isn’t good enough to bounce him into contention.”

Are you now or have you ever been a reviewer with a suppressed racial bias that you don’t even know you have? Will you now atone for this by pledging full & absolute allegiance to the New Order, and more particularly to Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation and the Sundance cominterm that has recently praised it to the heavens? Will you pledge here and now to do cartwheels in the lobby the next time you see a politically significant African-American film? Join us now and we’ll forgive you. But we also want you to give us names of other reviewers with a suppressed racial bias. It’s for their own good as well as your own. We already have a lot of their names so you’ll mainly be confirming.

“While Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years a Slave was a more sophisticated, artful means of reckoning with slavery’s past, The Birth of a Nation plays like a formulaic but undeniably pointed corrective to mainstream American cinema. Its landmark Sundance deal — $17.5 million plunked down by Fox Searchlight — speaks directly to the embarrassing market gap for black history in the movies. Produced outside the system (by an actor infuriated by the dearth of substantial black roles, no less) and now grandfathered into it, the narrative surrounding Birth of a Nation holds more power than the actual film. Repurposing the title of D.W. Griffith‘s infamously racist silent epic, Parker’s Birth of a Nation is a sturdy, halfway decent piece of filmmaking.” — from Eric Kohn’s 1.26 Indiewire review.

I’m conflicted about Brian Oakes‘ Jim: The James Foley Story, which I saw earlier today at the Park City Library. Foley was the freelance American journalist who was covering the Syrian conflict when he was captured by ISIS on 11.22.12 and then decapitated — which was posted on video — by the late “Jihadi John” (i.e., Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri) on 8.19.14. Oakes is a New Hampshire-based filmmaker who was Foley’s childhood friend and had the family’s cooperation, etc. And that’s a problem, I’m afraid.

As you might expect, the doc is worshipful — Foley was a great fellow, a ballsy adventurer, clever, resourceful, generous of heart. I’m sorry to say this but two hours of adoration can wear you down a bit. Was there anything about Foley that was lacking or imperfect? Most likely but the doc won’t go there. It would have been more interesting to know a little more.

Foley’s story is passed along by family (parents, two or three brothers, a sister, friends and fellow journalists). Foley was imprisoned for nearly two years by ISIS before he was killed, and as much as I hate to say this the film loses vitality and feels claustrophobic when this awful period of captivity is described by Foley’s former journalist cellmates.

Read more

The reign of terror in post-revolutionary France happened over a ten-month period (September 1793 to July 1794), and was marked by mass executions of “enemies of the revolution.” I don’t want to go out on a crazy limb but a distant cousin of this mentality is alive and well in Park City right now, and thriving among the general community of p.c. goose-steppers who are excited/delighted by the love shown for Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation. Over the last 12 hours or so it’s been hinted a few times that my being a Birth disser (at least as far as the over-praise is concerned) isn’t good for my social, political or financial health, and that I should think about getting with the program.

The elite Sundance festivalgoer support of this film is an expression of liberal enlightenment as well as a pushback against the OscarsSoWhite mentality that has caused to much recent consternation. I’m mentioning the “terror” analogy because, as noted, I’ve heard from a few descendants of Maximilien Robespierres over the last 16 hours, or since I posted my negative review of Parker’s film. These people have hinted that my critique is possibly racist in origin (“What’s your real agenda, Jeff?”), and that I’m saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and that there must be something wrong with me not to want to join in celebrating this wonderful, Oscar-bound film, and do I want to risk missing out on a Phase One campaign buy from Fox Searchlight?

Steven Gaydos: “Of all the movies Jeff Wells has seen at festivals, all the politically correct tomes targeted to the ‘hipsters’ in attendance, all the overreactions to so-so pics and all of the rapturous sonnets to cinema that are far too generous to what’s on the screen, somehow THIS film made by an African-American about the African-American experience is the epic affront to his sensibilities, the bridge too far, and ‘one of the biggest self-congratulatory circle jerks and politically correct wank-offs in the history of the Sundance Film Festival.” Phew! That’s a tough honor to achieve. So glad the militia crowd is supporting your tough ‘stance’ on this clickbait Alamo.”

Sasha Stone: “When people say ‘thank you for fighting against the tide’ I wonder what they really mean by that.” Me: “Will you STOP with your bullshit racial-attitude baiting? You’re no different than the glee club that rose to its feet last night at the Eccles and went mad with delight.”

Read more