I’m seeing Ry Russo-Young‘s Nobody Walks at 12 noon at the Eccles. And then, with more than a little trepidation, Josh Radnor‘s Liberal Arts at 3:15 pm, also at the Eccles. Or maybe So Yong Kin‘s For Ellen instead. And then Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer at 6:30 pm. Or maybe “the Frears” if I change my mind. And then we’ll see. A voice is telling me to calm down and get a little rest today.
In a 1.22 N.Y. Times interview with former (i.e., recently canned) Village Voice film critic Jim Hoberman, co-authors A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis include a quote that struck a chord with me. Hoberman mentions Francois Truffaut‘s Shoot The Piano Player as “the first movie I really wanted to live.” He meant that Truffaut’s film was the first “sacred text…a kind of synthesis” that he really want to live in.
That’s about the most passionate thing anyone can say about a film they’ve fallen in love with. Not that they merely admire it, per se. Or adore what it’s saying about this or that aspect of life, which is fine in itself. Or are deeply impressed by the mood or style that informs it, or the craft or cunning or instinct that went into its making. But that they would be happy to unhook themselves from their own life (at least temporarily) and literally take up residence in the world of this film, like Mia Farrow briefly did in The Purple Rose of Cairo.
I like my life a lot and don’t want to leave it, but when I was younger there were definitely films I’ve wanted to take brief vacations inside of. I used to dream about submerging myself in the 1959 world of North By Northwest, providing I was well dressed and had lots of cash in my pockets. In the early ’80s I wanted to live inside Michael Mann‘s Thief, and inside Heat and The Insider in the ’90s. I do know that one realm I would never, ever want to live in would be the world of Jason Statham movies. That would be hell.
45 minutes from now I have to leave for my first screening of the day, Stephen Frears‘ Lay The Favorite, which starts at 8:30 am. I could stay here and file and catch “the Frears” (similar in a Denby-esque sense to “the Daldry”) at a 7:30 pm press screening but in so doing I’ll have to miss Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer, which has a public screening at 6:30 pm. I’ve heard that Lay The Favorite is light and nimble but…let’s not go there. Eff it. I’ve just decided to see “the Frears” at 7:30 tonight and catch Spike’s film tomorrow morning at 8:30.
The Artist‘s latest triumph, having last night won the Producers’ Guild Daryl F. Zanuck award from the Producer’s Guild, totally cinches the Best Picture Oscar. Michel Hazanavicius‘ lightweight bauble has had it in the bag since early December (thanks to a steamroller effect begun by several critics groups), and now it’s really a done deal.
I was at a Sundance after-party for Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage and having a pretty good time when I heard the news, and I wasn’t even moved to tweet. Game over, let it go, drink up, watch the snow.
For me, there’s one upside in this otherwise disappointing story. It’s a good thing that a film that has so far made only $10 million and change has more or less swept the season. The spineless sheep who are cheering on The Artist are settling, obviously, for a very slight gimmick movie, but at least they’re not dismissing it because it’s not a big earner. This on top of The Hurt Locker ‘s Best Picture triumph two years ago is a positive indicator. It makes it a little easier for the next first-rate “little” film.
Matt Ross‘s 28 Hotel Rooms, which I saw yesterday afternoon, is a two-character drama about a longterm affair that happens entirely in hotel rooms and never really “goes anywhere,” story-wise. The lovers, richly portrayed by Chris Messin and Marin Ireland, are both attached in the outside world. And yes, naturally, they gradually fall in love with each other.
But they never leave the realm of hotel rooms, and after a while (sometime around the 15th or 18th vignette) this starts to feel confining and unsatisfying. It’s a fairly absorbing film as far as it goes — there’s a spherical world of feeling and experience in Ireland’s eyes alone — but it should been called 18 Hotel Rooms or 21 Hotel Rooms or something along those lines.
I knew I was feeling antsy when Marin’s character announces at the beginning of vignette #20 or #21 that her husband is in the hotel — he’s spontaneously travelled with her to have some romantic-getaway time — so their meeting is off. The instant I heard this I knew I wanted the husband to barge into the hotel room and bust them or plead for understanding or try to beat up Messina. That told me something. I really, really wanted something more than just these two in another hotel room. Which isn’t a putdown of the actors or their performances — far from it. I just needed to escape from the concept.
Ireland is truly a superb actress. I last saw her on-stage two years ago in Neil Labute‘s reasons to be pretty.
28 Rooms director Matt Ross, Messina, Ireland.
Today’s West of Memphis press conference started 20 minutes late…grrrr. The participants were director Amy Berg, producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the formerly incarcerated Damien Echols and Jason Baldiwn, Echols’ partner Lorri Davis, and lawyers Stephen Braga, Dennis Riordan and Don Horgan. MCN’s David Poland moderated.
The above clip is of Jackson and Echols offering final thoughts about the case, and what value the movie has to everyone right now. The final statement is a request for anyone with additional hard evidence to please call the West Memphis 3 tip line.
This is the first peek I’ve had of Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage, which will screen four and half hours from now at the Eccles. The synopsis (hedge fund trader trying to unload his company before fraud is revealed) makes it sound like similar to Margin Call. Costarring Richard Gere, Nate Parker, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Laetetia Casta and Tim Roth. (Vimeo clip posted by Deadline‘s Brian Brooks.)
Everyone and everything from the beginning of time has existed in color…but we tend to forget that. Here are an assortment of colorizations. Nice stuff, although some seem overly “painted.”
The best looking representation of Abraham Lincoln in color that anyone’s ever seen…right? Seems that way.
For me, Atticus Coffee/Teahouse/Books on lower Main Street has the only really really fast wifi in town. Park Regency wifi is sluggish, Park City Marriot wifi is passable, Eccles wifi is shit and Yarrow Hotel wifi is covered in molasses. But Atticus wifi is smooth and clean and just about perfect…thank God. I’m there right now, the blizzard coming down outside, sipping a hot chocolate.
I felt a little iffy about attending this morning’s screening of Rory Kennedy‘s Ethel, an HBO-funded doc about her famous and revered mom, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy who became known as a force of nature in he own right beginning in the 1950s, and certainly since the ’60s. I was wondering what could be historically new in this, and whether it might feel a little too tidy and boilerplatey.
Rory, Ethel Kennedy and grandkids somewhere in Park City with the last 24 hours.
Ethel director Rory Kennedy during this morning’s post-screening q & a at the Park City Library — Saturday, 1.21, 10:40 am.
The answers are “very little” and “it sorta kinda is.” But it’s a beautiful sonnet regardless — a funny, warm and deeply affectionate family tale that slips inside and, I swear, churns it all up again. Damned if it didn’t make me melt down a couple of times.
It’s focused, of course, on Ethel — her life with Bobby, the 11 kids (she was pregnant for 99 months all told), the White House and U.S. Senate years of the early to late ’60s, etc. But it’s primariy about Rory’s legendary rockstar dad. His political career and his marriage to Ethel are the spine of the doc, as they were so closely intertwined. The doc more or less ends with his death in June 1968, and barely touches Ethel’s life for the last 40-plus years. Her mom is very honestly and bluntly presented as very private and guarded, and amusing snippy at times. She “hates” introspection, she says at one point. Anyone who’s ever had a feisty grandmother will chuckle at this.
But it must be said that Rory Kennedy’s decision to only briefly summarize her mother’s life after 1968 and not explore any particulars (such as Ethel’s bout with alcoholism) makes this a lesser film than it could have been. It’s more than a bit of a gloss. But it’s such a charming and emotionally affecting one that almost all is forgiven. I couldn’t believe I was weeping at this, a significant portion of the the most familiar and widely told romantic tragedy of our times — the Kennedys who lived and soared and triumphed and made elective office sexy, and then were cut down. But I guess we all have our vulnerable spots.
I was struck by how closely Rory resembles her father — eyes, nose, jawline, teeth. She looks like him a little more than any of her siblings, and on some level I felt a vague RFK contact high from being relatively close to her this morning and taking her picture.
I’ve been up since 6 am. It’s 7:22 am right now. I have an 8:30 am screening of Ethel, an HBO doc about Ethel Kennedy, at the Library, and then a noon press conference for West of Memphis (moderated by David Poland!) followed by 28 Hotel Rooms (I think) at the Yarrow at 3pm and then Nicholas Jarecki‘s Abitrage at 6:30 pm, and then an Aribtrage after-party with the usual filings in-between and whenever.
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