In the wake of my Anomalisa riff, here’s my 5.25.08 Cannes Film Festival review of Charlie Kaufman‘s Synecdoche, New York: There’s no way around saying that Charlie Kaufman, the director-writer of Synecdoche, New York, is a gloom-head. A brilliant and, in his past screenplays, hilarious one (by the standards of dryly perverse humor), but a gloom-head all the same. Who, for now, has put aside his sense of humor. The problem with his film, which I loved in portions, understood the point of and was intrigued and somewhat amused by in the early rounds, is the damn moroseness of it.

And the title is impossible. I would actually say commercially suicidal. I finally learned how to pronounce the damn thing — Syn-ECK-duh-kee — but if the folks who wind up distributing believe that average moviegoers are going to do anything but run in the opposite direction when this puppy opens, they’d best think again. Titles should always convey something that your average dumbass can understand — this one doesn’t. And they sure as shit can’t be tongue-twisters on top of this.

I nonetheless said to myself during the first 50 minutes or so, “This is my kind of deal.” Okay, maybe into the first hour. Smart-guy material, wise and witty, at times almost elevating, at times surreal, performances that strike the chords just so.

But it began to wear me down. I could feel my interest ebbing. This had something (okay, a lot) to do with the archness and obsessiveness of the characters caught up in various fickle head trips and never saying “uncle.” I didn’t hate what was going on — it’s an imaginative Alice in Wonderland-type thing — but I found myself wishing nonetheless that all these dithering neurotics (Caden especially) would get over themselves and…I don’t know, go rob a bank or move to rural China or something. The story tension in Synecdoche, New York is zilch.

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Charlie Kaufman‘s Anomalisa, a stop-motion animated drama about “a man crippled by the mundanity of his life,” is going to play the 2015 Toronto Film Festival and also (maybe, hard to say) Telluride. The voice actors are Jennifer Jason Leigh (Lisa), David Thewlis (Michael) and Tom Noonan. Duke Johnson is the co-director but Kaufman is the sole author of the screenplay and therefore, one presumes, the guy who thought up the title. Which reminds you of another unspellable, not-easy-to-pronounce, all-but-impossible-to-remember title, Synecdoche, which was a morose, somewhat arresting 2008 film that Kaufman directed and wrote. I honestly don’t remember much about Synecdoche except for the capturing of a certain feeling of middle-aged lethargy and not one, not two but three shots of a toilet bowl.

Ken doll contemplating existential gloom in Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s Anomalisa.

No one and I mean no one outside of Kaufman’s immediate circle (friends, family, attorney, agent, therapist) is going to remember Anomalisa. It’s barely pronounceable, all but impossible to remember and kinda difficult to spell. Go up to Tom Luddy or Todd McCarthy or Kris Tapley during the Telluride Film Festival and say “what’s the name of Kaufman’s film again?” and they’ll probably say “uhm, aroma…animal…Animal Crackers for Lisa?” And totally forget Joe Popcorn — he’s going to take one look at the lobby poster and go “anomawhassa?” It’s actually quite simple. It’s Anomaly + Lisa. But nobody’s going to give a shit, trust me.

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In this morning’s Toronto announcement story (“TIFF vs. Telluride: Intrigue Intensifies, Plot Thickens“) I failed to highlight two films that appear to warrant special attention — Hany Abu-Assad‘s The Idol, which appears to be more of a lighthearted, less melodramatic film than Abu-Assad’s widely praised Omar, and Sebastian Schipper‘s Victoria, which premiered at last February Berlinale and which just popped a trailer.

Otherwise the just-announced Toronto galas and special presentations that nobody is particularly interested in (at least for the time being) are as follows:

GALAS: Beeba Boys (dir. Deepa Mehta, Canada, World Premiere), Forsaken (dir. Jon Cassar, Canada (World Premiere), Hyena Road (dir. Paul Gross, Canada, World Premiere), Lolo (dir. Julie Delpy, France, World Premiere), The Man Who Knew Infinity (dir. Matt Brown, United Kingdom, World Premiere), Remember (dir. Atom Egoyan, Canada, North American Premiere), Septembers of Shiraz (dir. Wayne Blair, USA, World Premiere), The Dressmaker (dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse, Australia, World Premiere).

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With the exception of Michael Moore‘s Where To Invade Next, the films announced the morning as galas and special presentations at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival were expected. (Where did Moore’s doc come from? I hadn’t read squat about it until this morning.) It’s welcome news, of course, that Tom Hooper‘s The Danish Girl, Ridley Scott‘s The Martian, Brian Helgeland‘s Legend (the launch of Tom Hardy‘s Best Actor campaign), Moore’s doc, Jay Roach‘s Trumbo (the launch of Bryan Cranston‘s Best Actor campaign), Stephen Frears‘ The Program, Roland Emmerich‘s Stonewall, Carey Fukanaga‘s Beasts of No Nation (definitely not looking forward to this one!), Rebecca Miller‘s Maggie’s Plan and Peter Sollett‘s Freeheld are getting the red-carpet treatment as either world or North American premieres. Looking forward, champing at the bit.

But what has my attention are the Canadian premieres, which are indications that the films in question will play Telluride first.

I’ve been hearing for a few weeks that Thomas McCarthy‘s Spotlight would play Toronto but not Telluride, and then last week Spotlight costar Mark Ruffalo disclosed to Italian journalists that the film would debut at the Venice Film festival. But this morning TIFF announced that Spotlight, to be screened as a special presentation, is a Canadian premiere. TIFF wouldn’t describe it as such if it wasn’t being premiered somewhere else on the North American continent before TIFF begins on 9.10, so…right? Okay!

John Crowley‘s Brooklyn (Fox Searchlight, 11.6) has also been called a Canadian premiere, but it’s been forecast all along that this tenderly rendered period romance (which debuted at last January’s Sundance Film Festival) would play Telluride so no biggie. The launch of Saoirse Ronan‘s Best Actress campaign, you bet.

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It’s just been announced that the 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival will open with Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition…which Fox Searchlight recently decided to remove from award-season consideration by giving it a release date of 4.8.16. Before that curious announcement it seemed to make sense that the solemn-sounding Demolition, a drama about loss and recovery starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Namoi Watts and Chris Cooper, would open later this year and maybe kick up a little dust, especially given that Vallee’s Dallas Buyer’s Club and Wild were in the Oscar derby in 2013 and ’14. But no. And now the opening-night Toronto booking has people scratching their heads and going “what the…?”

When was the last time that an earnest, serious-minded drama from a name-brand director and a major-league U.S. distributor was given an opening-night TIFF slot without a subsequent opening before the end of the year? Obviously FS decided to bump Demolition because they felt it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi award-season quality, and we all know, of course, that TIFF opening-nighters have often been softer-edged, easy-on-the-sensibilities fare. At the very least this makes Demolition one of the most interesting, essential-to-catch TIFF openers in recent memory. Everyone attending the screening will be saying to themselves, “Okay…we’re about to see a film that Fox Searchlight didn’t think was good enough to compete during award season, and now we’re only minutes away from discovering what that shortcoming was.”

TIFF’s opening-night presentation of Demolition, brought to you by Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders.

The 53-seat Charles Aidikoff screening room, located at 150 So. Rodeo Drive for the last 33 years, shut its doors today and may not open again until February 2016. This is according to an associate of founder Charles Aidikoff, who celebrated his 100th birthday on 2.22.15. The history of the business isn’t vague but the reasons for what went wrong sure are. Charlie began the business in 1966 with the original screening room at Sunset and Doheny, and then moved the operation to the current location in ’92. But then he lost control of the business four or five years ago due to the recession. So he sold or split control of the operation with six partners, and then disagreements between said partners somehow manifested and then worsened, and then finally a court order arrived today instructing the business to be dissolved. Whatever the issues it makes no sense whatsoever to shut down an in-demand Beverly Hills screening room between now and February (award season kicks off just after Labor Day and things always get really busy in November, December, January and February) but that’s the shot. I’m sure there’s more to the story but that’s all I got over the course of a four-minute phone call, two minutes of which I spent on hold.

There are reportedly at least 45 women who have accused Bill Cosby of mickey-finn rape. There are probably still more who haven’t yet spilled the beans. Now there’s a New York cover story, reported and written by Noreen Malone, that’s comprised of testimony from 35 Cosby victims. It’s titled “‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen.” The photos are by Amanda Deene. And by the way, the term “the Cosbies” came from friend Joan Tarshis, who is one of the 35 and who “came out” in a Hollywood Elsewhere story on 11.16.14.

It was announced last Friday that Warner Bros. will release David Gordon Green, George Clooney and Grant Heslov‘s Our Brand Is Crisis, a political dramedy with Sandra Bullock, Scoot McNairy and Billy Bob Thornton, on 10.30. To me this indicates a possible debut at one of the early September film festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto) as a movie with this kind of dry political material (pic is about American political consultants helping out a presidential candidate during a Bolivian election) is probably too hip for Joe Popcorn and needs ahead–of–the–curve journo buzz to raise awareness.

Sandra Bullock as “Calamity” Jane Bodine in David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis.

On 7.14 I listed Our Brand Is Crisis as one of my Telluride wishies. If it plays Telluride Clooney, Bullock, Heslov, Green and Thornton could attend. One would presume this, I mean.

On 6.21 I reported that Crisis was about to be research-screened on Tuesday, 6.23, at the Arclight Sherman Oaks. It was previously screened for a test audience in Pasadena’s Old Town on Monday, 4.27.

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Congrats to N.Y. Film Festival director Kent Jones for landing Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin and Scott Rudin‘s Steve Jobs (Universal, 10.9) as a festival centerpiece screening on Saturday, 10.3. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that this suggests it may not screen first in Telluride, but maybe not. On one hand I’m presuming that Jones wouldn’t accept sloppy seconds, but on the other a NYFF insider has reminded me that a centerpiece slot doesn’t require that the film be a world premiere. Plus the N.Y. Times announcement story doesn’t use the term “world premiere.” Plus L.A. Times reporter Steve Zeitchik has tweeted that “indications are Steve Jobs will be at either Telluride or Toronto first.”

On the other hand I’ve been firmly told that it’s “not true” that Jay Roach‘s Trumbo (Bleecker Street, 11.6) will play Telluride. This feels unfortunate from my perspective as Trumbo, a modestly-budgeted, character-driven period drama, seemed like a perfect Telluride headliner. The no-Telluride conveyance indicates, of course, that the producers have accepted a big Toronto Film Festival premiere slot during the first four days on the condition that their film wouldn’t play in the Rockies first. Maybe it’ll play Venice first?

Originally posted on 2.6.12: One of the most historic red-carpet interviews of all time happened when Bert Parks, a glad-handing red carpet gadfly, interviewed director Joseph L. Mankiewicz before the June 12, 1963 premiere of Cleopatra, and got these three quotes: (a) “You must know something I don’t” (in response to Parks calling the film “a wonderful, wonderful achievement”), (b) “Everything connected with Cleopatra is beyond my control at the moment” and (c) “I feel like the guillotine [is] about to drop.”

I’ve spent most of the morning listening to Camille Paglia YouTube videos — an interview she did seven weeks ago with Reason.com’s Nick Gillespie, a lecture she gave during the 2012 Chicago Humanities Festival and a 1996 interview she did with Politically Correct‘s Bill Maher. I’ve been a rapt admirer of her contrarian puncturing…her radical, libertarian, anti-leftist-Stalinoid views since the early ’90s. I don’t agree with everything she says, but she’s one of the few truly unshackled, bold-as-brass cultural critics, and I love her obviously valuable, fully considered opinions mixed with her shoot-from-the-hip, motor-mouth way of speaking. She’s always a turn-on. A mind like a bullwhip.

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Yesterday’s post about an apparent decision by Paramount Pictures to open Martin Scorsese‘s Silence in 2016 (and possibly to debut it in Cannes next May) makes sense all around, and is hardly surpising. Wikipedia and the IMDB have been calling this a 2016 release all along. The only person who’s projected a late-2015 Silence release has been David Poland, to my knowledge. There were natural expectations that it would receive some kind of late-breaking award-season release, being a Scorsese film and all. But not if you look at the particulars.

Silence would be coming out at year’s end only if it was seen as some kind of natural award-season wowser (as The Wolf of Wall Street clearly was to anyone with half a brain), and I’m presuming this is not what the Paramount gang is detecting. Scorsese and his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, may be close to finishing it for all I know, but I don’t believe that’s a key factor. The key factor is that Silence will almost certain be a “critic’s movie“, hence the possible Cannes scenario. Because everything I’ve read about Silence tells me that it’s dark and pained and weighed down with suffering. It may be beautifully made and contain a spiritual current that redeems or balances out the religious persecution stuff, but it doesn’t seem to be any kind of galvanizing, accessible film that will reach out and really touch people where they live.

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