I had a couple of opportunities to see Julianne Moore‘s performance as a psychologist and college professor coping with “Al Z. Heimer” (a Norman Mailer term) in Still Alice. If I’d gone I could offer an assessment or two, but I decided against seeing it because I have a problem with “surrender to the void” movies in which the main character is totally doomed from the get-go. The young organ donors in Never Let Me Go, Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad, Edmond O’Brien in D.O.A.. It’s great that Moore is now back in the conversation as a potential Best Actress contender, but I’m going to have to overcome my resistance to what sounds to me like a feature-length version of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which Keir Dullea disconnects HAL’s higher brain functions.

I just did a phoner with Love & Mercy director Bill Pohlad, who was calling from his home in Minneapolis. We covered the usual bases. I emphasized that it would be a shame if his film isn’t released this year, at least on a platform basis, so as to qualify for awards and nominations and whatnot. (Pic was acquired during TIFF by Lionsgate/Roadside.) I went apeshit for Love and Mercy and particularly Paul Dano’s phenomenal performance as the younger version of Brian Wilson. The film time-flips between the mid ’60 and mid ’80s; John Cusack plays a 40-something Wilson in the ’80s portion. As Variety‘s Andrew Barker wrote, Love & Mercy is “a wonderfully innervating cure for the common musical biopic.” Again, the mp3.

Paul Dano in mid ’60s Brian Wilson mode, Bill Pohlad during filming of Love & Mercy.

“Once in a while, though, you see a biopic that brings off something miraculous, that recreates a famous person’s life with so much care that the immersion we seek is achieved. When you watch Love & Mercy, a drama about Brian Wilson, the angelic yet haunted genius of The Beach Boys, you feel like you’re right there in the studio with him as he creates Pet Sounds. And it’s a little like sitting next to Beethoven: the film is tender and moving, but also awe-inspiring. Paul Dano, the audacious young actor from There Will Be Blood and Little Miss Sunshine, plays Wilson in the mid-1960s, when he was becoming the greatest creative force in American pop music. The moment we see Dano in the film’s daringly off-kilter opening shot, which is just Brian noodling around at the piano and talking to himself, the actor seems to transform into Wilson’s very being. The pale, cute moon face, the smile with a hint of a grimace, the disarming spaciness — this isn’t just acting, it’s channeling of a very high order.” — from Owen Gleiberman’s 9.11 BBC.com review.

“It’s hard to say if Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader give wonderful comic performances with a tragic dimension in The Skeleton Twins, or wonderful dramatic performances with a comic dimension. What’s easy to say is the key word wonderful, which applies equally to the film. This short, sweet and stirring feature, directed by Craig Johnson from a script he wrote with Mark Heyman, sweeps away any distinctions between funny and serious. It plays to the antic gifts of its stars, two Saturday Night Live luminaries reunited in the roles of troubled twins reunited by near-tragedy, yet it also turns them loose to explore deeper regions of hurt and love. Johnson’s work with his actors is impeccable, and his style is freewheeling — from the delicacy of the twins’ first tentative encounters to serial explosions that include a crazed adventure in dental hygiene and a triumphant duet, lip-synced to Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, that transports Maggie and Milo to a happier time.” — from Joe Morgenstern‘s 9.12 Wall Street Journal review.

With a new trailer for Tommy Lee Jones‘ The Homesman (Roadside, 11.14) having popped, here’s a condensed version of my 5.18.14 Cannes Film Festival review: “Just because it’s a feminist western with an oddly unusual story that regards the plight of Old West women in a compassionate light…that doesn’t mean it gets a pass. It basically says that life on the prairie could be so brutal and unforgiving that some women went plumb out of their heads; it also says some were so gripped with despair that they offed themselves. That’s a new kind of sadness to bring into a western, and that’s what The Homesman is selling. But it only warrants a modest salute.

“Based on a 1988 novel by Glendon Swarthout (The Shootist, Where The Boys Are), it’s a well-made, handsomely-shot drama (set in Nebraska territory) with a few plot turns that are just too what-the-fucky to add up or calculate in a way that feels right. It’s an odd, minor-key effort at best.

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Here’s how I replied when I received this morning’s EPB vs. ETP piece: “Yes, Boyhood is basically a stunt film, but does that make it synonymous with esoteric (i.e., ‘intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest’) and thinky? I think not. Thematically and gut-wise Boyhood is an emotional sweep piece about the changes and struggles and evolutions that we’ve all been through, especially as parents. I know you weren’t that taken with it, but I don’t see how esoteric and thinky fits into that. The whole movie is an Emotional Push Button (i.e., EPB) experience. You could also call Birdman a stunt film by virtue of the one-take, no-visible-cutting visual scheme (or the simulation of same), but again, does that make it thinky or esoteric? It’s the new 8 and 1/2…it’s all about acting and the fear of failure and irrelevancy and trying to get back and the chasm between the Hollywood cultural genocide machine and the risky, snap-crackle-pop humanistic stage…plus it’s funny. Plus it ends with a great EPB moment.

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A Voice From the Gulf (i.e., an industry-savvy guy I’ve known for several years) wrote this morning to remind that most Academy voters tend to vote like abused, emotionally-needy children and that when push comes to shove the Best Picture contenders that offer emotional comfort-blanket assurance tend to win. I think a few of us may have pondered this one before but fine. I was going to post my response at the tail end but nobody will read that far so I’m posting it subsequently (i.e., see above). Here’s how Gulf Guy puts it:

“No offense to Sasha Stone, but your friend is out of her mind for thinking Boyhood is going to win Best Picture. Didn’t she watch your Huffpost interview with Brad and Anne? Anne thinks Birdman has it in the bag for Best Picture. They’re both nuts. Thank God Brad pointed out the obvious fact, which is that these are CRITICS CHOICES, not OSCAR CHOICES. By and large, Birdman, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, et al. are going to be Critics’ Choices and there’s nothing wrong with that, but critics awards don’t always correlate with the guilds and the Oscars.

“Look to the British biopics (The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game) and possibly Unbroken (if I were to hazard a guess) for your Oscar winner. The Academy goes for Emotional Push Buttons (EPB), not Esoteric Think Pieces (ETP). There is the very rare exception and that one that comes to mind is the Coen brothers‘ No Country for Old Men, which falls into the Way Overdue Artist (WOA) category. But that’s rare.”

Quick Wells response: I hear this same EPB vs. ETP dynamic every year, and it profoundly nauseates and infuriates every time. For decades members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have made themselves infamous for succumbing to soft, tepid emotional impulses in their voting for Oscar winners. The problem with the Academy can be boiled down to the ‘deadwood’ members — the over-the-hill crowd that doesn’t work that much (if at all) and whose tastes are conservative and smug and myopic. Again, from a piece I wrote on 10.31.13: “If the Academy wants to be part of the world as it is right now and have the Oscar winners reflect this, it has to reduce the influence of people whose professional peaks happened 15 or 20 or more years ago. These people will retain membership and all the priveleges that go with that, but their votes won’t count as much as those who are actively working and contributing to the films of today, or at least films made within the last five to ten years — simple.”

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In a recently-posted piece about the award-season competition as it now stands, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone offers the following about Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Birdman: “Talking about this film is how the whole process gets dumbed down. No one should come out of Telluride saying Birdman won’t win because it will be too divisive. That might be true but they say that like it’s a bad thing. That it’s divisive means it’s doing SOMETHING RIGHT. It’s pushing buttons, challenging its audience. In short: delivering brilliant, groundbreaking, unforgettable CINEMA.

“Remember cinema? Remember when movies were judged on how great they were rather than their so-called ‘Oscar potential’? Think about what James Rocchi always says about how little he cares about the Oscar race because of WHO THEY ARE. Remember who the Oscar voters are, he meant. Remember how little what they think actually matters. If they huddle up to a film like Birdman (or if they had for Inside Llewyn Davis last year) that makes THEM look GOOD, not the other way around. They need to catch up to the artists, have their own realities shaken a bit, be given something other than a warm blanket and a cuddle and a goodnight kiss from mommy saying it will all be all right.

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In a 9.10 piece called “Deathbed State of Film Criticism Plays Key Role in Endless Awards Prognostication,” Fishbowl NY‘s Richard Horgan suggests that awards-blogger coverage by the top few is…well, it’s a little complex as he acknowledges the death of old-style film criticism as practiced by Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel, which is nothing to jump up and dance about, but he’s being more or less complimentary toward myself and a few others.

“If you filter the enterprising work of folks like Anne Thompson, David Poland, Jeffrey Wells, Sasha Stone, Roger Friedman and Anthony Breznican through the prism of changing-with-the-film-criticism-times, awards season journalism becomes suddenly a very different animal,” he states. “It’s not just an attempt to keep the ad dollars rolling in. It’s also a clever and necessary way for film journalists to keep their opinions relevant. Not an easy feat in a world where most people no longer cite or read long-form reviews but rely instead on the briefest of Smartphone glances. In conclusion, film criticism is dead. And alive. And well.”

Here’s a HuffPostLive discussion (recorded at 4:30 pm Eastern) about how the Toronto Film Festival may impact award season. Hosted by Ricky Camilleri and featuring Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet and myself. The Theory of Everything was/is the festival’s big Best Picture contender, but it’s not on the level of Birdman and doesn’t try to be — it plays its own game. Nothing else that played here challenges Birdman either. You can take that to the bank. We also kicked around Men, Women and Children, While We’re Young, Love and Mercy, The Judge, Nightcrawler. I was intending to mention Mike Binder‘s Black and White but didn’t…brilliant.

Lisa Cholodenko‘s Olive Kitteridge, a four-hour adaptation of Elizabeth Strout‘s novel about a somewhat testy New England math teacher (Frances McDormand) and her marriage to a small-town pharmacist (Richard Jenkins), will debut on HBO over two nights — Sunday, 11.2 and Monday, 11.3. Bill Murray obviously costars; ditto Zoe Kazan and John Gallagher, Jr. Produced by Tom Hanks‘ Playtone.

I went to see Daniel Barber‘s The Keeping Room last night, mostly due to prodding from Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn. I’m not sorry I saw it as Barber and particularly dp Martin Ruhe, who collaborated on Harry Brown, are fans of flavor and especially handsome, subtly-lighted photography. It’s given a classy treatment with period trappings (rural South in 1865, the end of the Civil War) and a few meditative detours. The latter refers to interminable dialogue scenes that are only half-decipherable due to the actors speaking in a kind of whispery Southern drawl fry (especially when Hailee Steinfeld has the floor…good God). But the film is basically a cabin in the woods horror-violence flick about evil, almost-foaming-at-the-mouth Union soldier invaders trying to defile and murder three Southern women (Brit Marling, Steinfeld, Muna Otaru). Kohn bought into it but I didn’t. There isn’t the slightest trace of half-sensible motivation or recognizable humanity driving the bad guys (Sam Worthington, Ned Dennehy) — they’re just doing the old Jason Voorhees thing with a couple of rapes thrown in plus some personality sauce, period clothing, old rifles and so on. Marling delivers the most substantial performance but that’s almost damning with faint praise in this context. Say it again: I hate, hate, hate “evil” behavior that lacks a semi-discernible motive. Cut away the art-film pretensions and it’s clear that The Keeping Room is pandering to the slobs who like their exploitation tropes the way low-rent Los Angelenos like their pickles and mayonnaise at Fatburger. Final warning: Beware of filmmakers who love burning things (wagons, homes) around dusk — it’s a sure sign of hackery.