I was chatting with Sammy, a 20something blonde from Chicago, during last night’s KWFF party at the Ernest Hemingway home. After about a half-hour the guy she came with (a Key West resident whom Sammy befriended when she lived here three or four years ago) walked over. I didn’t get his name but he was tall, good-looking, friendly — let’s call him Tom. The conversation turned to the film festival and Papa, Bob Yari‘s film about Hemingway which had screened earlier in the evening and which none of us had seen. I asked Tom if he’s seen Spotlight, which I said would be opening tomorrow (i.e. today) at the Tropic. “Uhhm, we have something else going on tomorrow,” he said. It’s not a festival film, I said — it’s opening commercially at the Tropic. “Oh, okay,” Tom said. So you’ve never heard of it? “No.” So you’re not much of a movie guy? “I’m a production guy,” he said with a certain pride and joie de vivre — a below-the-liner who works in the area. I asked if he knows about Atlanta being a hot place to shoot due to Georgia tax breaks and Pinewood Studios Atlanta. “Atlanta? Uhm, no,” he said. Inner dialogue: So how does that work, Tom? You’re a South Floridian in the business of making movies and commercials, and yet (a) you don’t have clue #1 about Atlanta being the hottest domestic place for film and TV production jobs and (b) you haven’t even heard of a film with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating and which has a reasonably good chance of winning the Best Picture Oscar? Talking to subdued-brain-wave guys is somewhere between stifling and infuriating. How deep is the quicksand?

Ron Howard‘s In The Heart of the Sea (Warner Bros., 12.11) has been trailering for ten months now. I’m close to numb at this point. Is there any possibility that it’s all an elaborate ruse — that Sea is just a series of impressive trailers and not actually a film? All this time it’s been portrayed as a “Chris Hemsworth and his shipmates vs. Moby Dick” thing. But now, suddenly, the focus is on Tom Holland as cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, who will eventually grow into Brendan Gleeson‘s Nickerson who, decades later, tells the Moby Dick source tale to Ben Whishaw‘s Herman Melville. What kind of marketing campaign introduces a new major character after almost a year of trailering, and with less than a month before opening? Something’s off — I can feel it.

The Boss (Universal, 4.8.16) appears to be a Melissa McCarthy programmer of no exceptional distinction — a rich-bitch-gets-her-comeuppance comedy. Expectations are modest due to the directing and co-writing contributions of Ben Falcone (McCarthy’s husband who also directed Tammy). But hats off to McCarthy for her reported 50-pound weight loss. Heavy is fine but obese is appalling, and McCarthy has finally understood that. Serious HE respect. McCarthy wears more turtlenecks in this film than Diane Keaton has in her entire screen career. Do the math.

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Andrew Renzi‘s The Benefactor (formerly Franny) has been on the festival circuit since debuting last April at the Tribeca Film Festival. I blew an opportunity to see it last night at the Key West Film Festival because (a) it hasn’t been well reviewed, (b) I have a prejudice against dramas in which the inciting incident is a car crash, and (c) I wanted to attend the big KWFF party at Ernest Hemingway’s old home instead. But you have to admit that white-haired Richard Gere looks awesome with that big red scarf looped around that natty tuxedo. Samuel Goldwyn will release this character-driven drama about grief (another one!) and obsession on 1.25.16.

From John DeFore’s 4.18.15 Hollywood Reporter review: “We all have one: That old family friend who dotes on us shamelessly, buying us houses and paying off student loans, beaming whenever we enter a room. They’re the worst, right?

“Andrew Renzi explores the worrisome side of Uncle Warbucks in The Benefactor, where Richard Gere plays a billionaire suffering addictions not just to morphine but to others’ attention and his own privilege. It’s easy to understand the actor’s interest in the part, in which charm, Gere’s bedrock asset, is a thin shell whose protection chips away painfully. But Renzi’s uneven script makes this a less sturdy vehicle than 2012’s Arbitrage, and a less marketable one given the absence of thriller elements that sustained that film’s character study. Still, there’s plenty here for Gere’s admirers to appreciate.

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I wouldn’t go to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 with a knife at my back; ditto The Night Before and the week-old Love The Coopers. I wouldn’t watch any of these if I was bored to tears on long plane flight and they were offered for free. In my mind they don’t exist; they represent only toxicity and cancer. Key West residents are out of luck, by the way, as far as catching Billy Ray‘s Secret In Their Eyes, the somber, 37%-rated, all-but-commercially-dead crime thriller. It isn’t booked at the local Regal sixplex, which is where all the mass-market megaplex crap can be found, and so I can’t even pay to see it. (My only L.A. screening opportunity was the night before last.) But here’s to to director Billy Ray for dismissing a “how much pressure?” question from Moviefone’s Phil Parrello — all journalists who ask “how much pressure?” need to be shunned.

Late this afternoon I paid $85 bills for two hours on a sizable, three-masted schooner. Me and 20 other tourists. A mild but nice experience, and well worth it for the sunset photo ops.

Key West’s Tropic Cinema (416 Eaton St.) was born in ’04 when it was converted from a department store into a four-theatre plex. All-digital, of course. Beautiful interior design design. Managed by Lori Reid.

Blue Heaven (729 Thomas St.) is a well-respected restaurant that I’ll visit tomorrow.

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I thought the first screening of The Revenant would be a smallish thing on the Fox lot, and mainly for Inarritu loyalists like myself. Nope. The first peek-out, happening four days hence (i.e., Monday, 11.23), will be a huge screening at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn theatre at 8 pm, complete with a post-screening q & a with the cast and crew (Inarritu, DiCaprio, Hardy, Chivo, et. al.). And the post-embargo review date is not 12.2, as I was told two days ago, but Friday, 12.4 at 1 pm Pacific. Update: There will also be an AMPAS/guild screening early Sunday evening on the Fox lot; there will also be a National Board of Review screening in NYC on Saturday, or so I’ve been told.

Nine days ago I said it was high time for Sony Pictures Classics to put up a trailer for Laszlo Nemes‘ Son of Saul (12.18), and here it finally is. And I have to be honest and say it doesn’t really convey what it’s like to watch this searing film. The visual element doesn’t seem as knockout-level as it does in the real deal. Due respect but SPC should give it another go. Saul is too good a film to be sold in a way that doesn’t fully correlate. I don’t just mean the stark, devastating fashion in which the story is told but the feeling of dazzling mise-en-scene that comes through concurrently.

Filmmakers and celebrities who admire Cary Fukunaga‘s Beasts of No Nation have been hosting NY, LA & San Francisco screenings of the Netflix release, but they don’t want to be quoted by press about their support. Films like Beasts and Love & Mercy need all the help they can get, but generally speaking noteworthy industry names who worship these Oscar contenders (or who would like to work with Fukunaga or Bill Pohlad down the road) like to keep things private. I tried going through regular channels to get a quote about Love & Mercy from Jane Fonda (I’d been told she’s a big fan) but her rep wouldn’t even respond to my request. I finally asked Jane directly during Monday’s Youth press conference and she shared her feelings. Here’s a roster of celebrity talents, producers & players who’ve hosted Beasts screenings:

Tuesday, 10.6 — Hosted screening by Sting, Trudie Styler & James Schamus at the Celeste Bartos Theater at MoMA in NYC.
Friday, 10.9 — Hosted screening by Hossein Amini at the SOHO Hotel in London.
Sunday, 10.11 — Hosted screening by Debbie Allen at IPIC Theaters in Westwood (LA).
Tuesday, 10.13 — Hosted screening by Ben Affleck, Elizabeth Banks, Jen Todd, John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorius at the DGA Theater and Chateau Marmont in LA.
Sunday, 11.8 — Hosted screening by Josh Gad, Dana Brunetti, Bryan Singer and Mike DeLuca at Universal Studios screening room in LA.
Monday, 11.9 — Hosted screening by Sally Field at Malibu Jewish Center in Malibu.
Tuesday, 11.10 -– Hosted screening by Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Sid Ganis and Chris Columbus at the Vogue Theater and Osteria in San Francisco.
Wednesday, 11.11 — Hosted screening by Bill Condon, Naomi Foner, Scott Frank, Nicholas Pileggi and Richard LaGravenese at Tribeca Film Center in NY.
Friday, 11.13 — Hosted screening by Jake Gyllenhaal, Kerry Washington, Nnamdi Asomugha, Lawrence Bender and Gus Van Sant at The London Hotel and Lounge in LA.
Monday, 11.16 — Hosted screening by Ben Stiller, Edward Norton and Anna Wintour at the Signature Theater in NY.

Received yesterday from Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy: “Well, now I guess the cat is out of the bag concerning my double life and my negative review of Spotlight. After all, I can’t go around writing raves of my own films.”

CNN and MSNBC are beating the “ISIS is coming, beware of their bullets and bombs” drum over and over. Obviously the ISIS threat is real and horrific, but the media is hammering this story like the scariest thing since 9/11 or Hurricane Sandy. They’re not reporting anything inaccurately, but they’re playing into the hands of these crafty psychopathic losers, it seems, by exaggerating their strength. Fear drives ratings. Note: The video was captured just before Hasna Aitboulahcen, a 26 year-old female cousin of the recently-wasted Abdelhamid Abaaoud, blew herself up. French SWAT-like policewoman: “Where is your boyfriend?” Hasna: “He’s not my boyfriend!” French policewoman: “Where is he?” Hasna: “He’s not my boyfriend!” And then BOOM…intestine wall-splat. Abaaoud was killed soon after, his body so riddled with bullets that he reportedly could only be identified with a fingerprint check.

Yes, the Key West Film Festival actually intends to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Paul Verhoeven‘s Showgirls. They’re selling this, I gather, on the basis of this 1995 debacle being some kind of post-ironic, “so bad it’s good” camp classic…something like that. The screening will happen Friday night, and Verhoeven, 77, is here…whatever. Last night I met KWFF founder & chairman Brooke Christian, KWFF director of programming Michael Tuckman and vice chairman Stephen Ananicz — goodfellas. Thanks also to guest services chief Lauren Luberger, who put me in the Marker. I missed the KWFF‘s opening-night screening of Spotlight at the San Carlos Institute, but then I’ve seen it four times. I also missed a post-screening interview between Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and ex-Boston Globe editor Ben Bradlee, Jr., who’s charismatically portrayed in Tom McCarthy‘s film by John Slattery.

(l.) KWFF director of programming Michael Tuckman, (r.) founder & chairman Brooke Christian.

KWFF program chief Michael Tuckman and son Tito during last night’s opening-night soiree at Audubon House.

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