With getting specific or even geographical I’m hearing Ben Affleck‘s Argo, Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson, Noah Baumbach‘s Frances Ha, Wayne Blair‘s The Sapphires, Robert Lorenz and Clint Eastwood‘s…wait, not Trouble With The Curve? I thought that sounded right, made sense. Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone, Ken Burns‘ Central Park Five and what else? What about a little wackadoodle Terrence Malick action?

I know how the Cannes Film Festival tends to go. If I’m lucky I’ll fit in maybe 23 or 24 films over a nine-day period. Nonetheless I’m choosing 26 and hoping for the best. I’m not listing the discards but the ones I definitely intend to see. As explained before, N means neutral, HE means special interest and M = meh.

Competition (17): Moonrise Kingdom, dir: Wes Anderson (N), Rust & Bone, dir: Jacques Audiard (HE), Holly Motors, dir: Leos Carax (N); Cosmopolis, dir: David Cronenberg (HE); The Paperboy, dir: Lee Daniels (N); Killing Them Softly, dir: Andrew Dominik (HE); Reality, dir: Matteo Garrone (HE); Amour, dir: Michael Haneke (N); Lawless, dir: John Hillcoat (HE); Like Someone In Love, dir: Abbas Kiarostami (M); The Angel’s Share, dir: Ken Loach (N); Mud, dir: Jeff Nichols (HE); Post Tenebras Lux, dir: Carlos Reygadas (M); On The Road, dir: Walter Salles (HE); Paradis: Amour, dir: Ulrich Seidl (N); The Hunt, dir: Thomas Vinterberg (M); Beyond The Hills, dir: Cristian Mungiu (HE).

Un Certain Regard (1): 7 Days In Havana, dirs: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabio, Gaspard Noe, Laurent Cantet (HE)

Out of Competition (2) Io E Te, dir: Bernardo Bertolucci (HE); Hemingway & Gelhorn, dir: Philip Kaufman (N).

Special Screenings (4): Polluting Paradise, dir: Fatih Akin (HE); Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, dir: Laurent Bouzereau (HE); The Central Park Five, dirs: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon; Les Invisibles, Sebastien Lifshitz.

Restored Revivals (2): Once Upon A Time in America, Lawrence of Arabia.

Okay, finally…wait, what? The 2012 Cannes Film Festival selections were announced early this morning. Too early to be Johnny-on-the-spot in LA. Leave me alone. I’d crashed at 1:15 am, and I like to get six hours. But a text message alarm woke me at 4-something, and so I read the rundown selections in the dark on the iPhone. Damn, no Master and no Malick. Malick is such a pain in the ass. The man lives to meditate first, hide in the shadows second and make films third. Bleedin’ Christ.

I’m assigning an HE special interest designation to those films that have I’m particularly hot for, an N for neutrals and an M for “meh.”

Competition:

Moonrise Kingdom, dir: Wes Anderson (N)
Rust & Bone, dir: Jacques Audiard (HE)
Holly Motors, dir: Leos Carax (N)
Cosmopolis, dir: David Cronenberg (HE)
The Paperboy, dir: Lee Daniels (N)
Killing Them Softly, dir: Andrew Dominik (HE)
Reality, dir: Matteo Garrone (HE)
Amour, dir: Michael Haneke (N)
Lawless, dir: John Hillcoat (HE)
In Another Country, dir: Hong Sangsoo (N)
Taste Of Money, dir: Im Sangsoo (M)
Like Someone In Love, dir: Abbas Kiarostami (M)
The Angel’s Share, dir: Ken Loach (N)
Im Nebel, dir: Sergei Loznitsa (M)
Beyond The Hills, dir: Cristian Mungiu (HE)
Baad El Mawkeaa, dir: Yousry Nasrallah
Mud, dir: Jeff Nichols (HE)
You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet, dir: Alain Resnais (M)
Post Tenebras Lux, dir: Carlos Reygadas (M)
On The Road, dir: Walter Salles (HE)
Paradis: Amour, dir: Ulrich Seidl (N)
The Hunt, dir: Thomas Vinterberg (M)
Therese Desqueyroux, dir: Claude Miller (closing film, M)

Un Certain Regard:

Miss Lovely, Ashim Ahluwalia (N)
La Playa, dir: Juan Andres Arango (N)
God’s Horses, dir: Nabil Ayouch
Trois Monde, dir: Catherine Corsini
Antiviral, dir: Brandon Cronenberg (HE)
7 Days In Havana, dirs: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabio, Gaspard Noe, Laurent Cantet (HE)
Le Grand Soir, dirs: Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Laurence Anyways, dir: Xavier Dolan
Despues De Lucia, dir: Michel Franco
Aimer A Perdre La Raison, dir: Joachim Lafosse
Student, dir: Darezhan Omirbayev
La Pirogue, dir: Moussa Toure
Elefante Blanco, dir: Pablo Trapero
Confessions Of A Chile Of The Century, dir: Sylvie Verheyde
11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate, dir: Koji Wakamatsu
Mystery, dir: Lou Ye
Beasts Of The Southern Wild, dir: Behn Zeitlin

Out of Competition:

Io E Te, dir: Bernardo Bertolucci (HE)
Madagascar 3, Europe’s Most Wanted, dirs: Eric Darnelle, Tom McGrath (M)
Hemingway & Gelhorn, dir: Philip Kaufman (HE)

Midnight Screenings:

Dario Argento’s Dracula, dir: Dario Argento
Ai To Makoto, dir: Takashi Miike

Special Screenings:

Polluting Paradise, dir: Fatih Akin (HE)
Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, dir: Laurent Bouzereau (HE)
The Central Park Five, dirs: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
Les Invisibles, Sebastien Lifshitz
Journal De France, dirs: Claudine Nougaret, Raymond Depardon
A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim, dir: Nelson Pereira Dos Santos
Villegas, dir: Gonzalo Tobal
Mekong Hotel, dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Last night I watched episodes #6 and #7 of Steven Zallian’s Ripley, and what a soothing, transporting dream trip this series is…a silky and serene monochrome soul bath…a reminder of how much better life was and still is over there in certain pockets, and (this is me talking and comparing, having visited Italy six or seven times) what an ugly and soul-less corporate shopping-mall so much of the U.S. has become this century…the contrasts are devastating.

Ripley is an eight-episode reminder that there really is (or was during the mid-20th Century) a satori kind of life to be found in parts of Italy and Sicily, better by way of simplicity and contemplation and quiet street cafes, better via centuries of tradition, pastoral beauty and sublime Italian architecture…grand romantic capturings of Napoli, Atrani (the same historic Amalfi Coast city where significant portions of Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer 3 were shot), Palermo, Venezia and Roma.

Life doesn’t have to be dreary and banal and soul-stifling, Zallian is telling us in part…you can find happiness standing downstream, as the great Jimi Hendrix once wrote, especially if you’re an elusive sociopath living on a dead guy’s trust-fund income and therefore not obliged to toil away at some sweaty, shitty-ass job to survive.

The exceptionally gifted George Segal was a necessary, nervy, highly charged actor for over 50 years (early ’60s until 2014). In his heyday he was an explorer of urban Jewish neurotics with underlying rage…half superficial, half pained and always guilty or bothered about something…at other times Segal was a smoothie…an amiable grinner with sandy brown hair and an eye for the ladies.

Segal’s two best roles were in Paul Mazursky‘s Blume In Love (’73) and in Robert Altman‘S California Split (’74).

Segal worked hard and dutifully and never stopped pushing, but honestly? His leading-man peak period lasted only nine or ten years. Or if you want to be cruel about it, he was The Guy Everyone Understood and Related To for only about five years, between ’70 and ’75.

The golden period began with Segal’s breakout performance in Ship of Fools (’64), and then as a crafty prisoner of war in King Rat (’65). This was followed by his career-making performance as Nick, the ambitious and randy biology professor who beds Elizabeth Taylor but can’t get it up, in Mike Nichols‘ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (’66). Segal’s streak ended with his lived-in performance as compulsive gambler Bill Denny in California Split, opposite the wonderfully on-target Elliot Gould.

Segal didn’t catch serious fire until neurotic Jewish guys became a hot Hollywood commodity in the early ’70s. His first serious breakout came when he played a vaguely unhappy cheating commuter husband in Irvin Kirshner‘s Loving (’70). This was followed by his guilty, lovesick moustachioed Jewish attorney in Carl Reiner‘s Where’s Poppa? (’70).

After this Segal starred in six winners — The Owl and the Pussycat, Born to Win (drug addict), The Hot Rock (Kelp the locksmith), Blume in Love, A Touch of Class, The Terminal Man and finally California Split — my favorite of all his films.

Between the mid to late ’60s Segal starred in five films that were somewhere between interesting and pretty good but at the same time not great — The Quiller Memorandum (’66), The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
(’68), Bye Bye Braverman, No Way to Treat a Lady (’68), The Bridge at Remagen (’69) and…well, that’s it.

Segal’s last decently written role was as Ben Stiller‘s dad (and Mary Tyler Moore‘s henpecked husband) in David O. Russell‘s Flirting With Disaster (’96).

Yesterday a N.Y. Times interview with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, written by Ashley Spencer, appeared. I was somewhat interested in Kurt’s thoughts about guns or rightwing issues of any kind, or about Trump perhaps. (Five years ago there was a slight hoohah about a spirited discussion Kurt and I had during a Hateful Eight interview.) But there was nothing.

My main interest, honestly, was how this long-lasting couple (they’ve been together since ’83) are holding up appearance-wise. That’s all I’m going to say.

In late ’81 or early ’82 Russell and I happened to attend the same private Manhattan party. It was thrown by a female PMK publicist of some standing. Everybody was buzzed and having a raucous old time, and there seemed to be a certain spark or current between Russell and the publicist. Maybe. None of my business.

In any event I left at a reasonable hour. The next morning I decided to call the publicist and thank her for inviting me. Bad idea, as it turned out, because I’d called around 9:30 am, which was too early. The publicist answered, barely. She didn’t say “hello?” when she picked up — she said “hrmmph.” That told me to hang up right away as I didn’t want to be the bad guy who woke her up. I was calling from a pay phone at Grand Central so she never knew.

My spirit wilted as I read “Sundance Wish List: 60 Films We Hope Will Head to Park City in 2020,” written by Team Indiewire. As I scanned the descriptions I came upon four that I’m half-interested in — Sean Durkin‘s The Nest, Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted, Behn Zeitlin‘s Wendy and Todd Haynes‘ Velvet Underground doc.

Otherwise, to go by Indiewire’s spitballing, we’re talking about the usual Stalinism in the snow…a festival that serves awareness as much as imaginings, observations, reflections and/or mind-bendings. The enforcement of visions of how the world needs to be, and the fulfilling of its own self-created image, and making real (at least temporarily) its own Neverland vibes.

Sundance is a default venue for progressive, Bernie and AOC-admiring Millennials and GenZ-ers with a smattering of wealthy boomers and GenXers…a place for the sharing of 21st Century, lefty-concentration-camp values…the right kind of legends…struggles and celebrations of women, LGBTQs, people and cultures of color, and a corresponding absence of anything that’s even a little contrarian in terms of, say, white-male experience or straight perspectives. The whole festival is a safe space, and anyone who’s afraid of being overthrown or cancelled or at least strongly challenged…well, it’s your call.

Last year there were eight Sundance films that mattered: Julius Onah‘s Luce, Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland, Gavin Hood‘s Official Secrets, Madds Brugger‘s Cold Case Hammerskjold, David Crosby: Remember My Name, Memory: The Origins of Alien, Steven Soderbergh‘s High Flying Bird, Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale and Blinded By The Light.

How many of these connected with Joe and Jane Popcorn?

I said this last year also, but I miss the old snide elitist Sundance vibe, that hippest-crowd-in-the-world clubhouse feeling that I remember oh so well from the ’90s and the aughts and…well, basically the Sundance that we all knew and loved up until People’s Central Committee vibes started to seep in around ’15 or thereabouts, certainly by ’16 and most definitely by the ’17 festival, more or less concurrent with Trump’s inauguration..

At the end of the day Sundance ’20 will screen at least four or five head-turners that will matter to those of us who appreciate conversational stimulation…they always do.

I’m sick of saying this repeatedly, but have you renewed your party membership card?…have you made friends with the Stasi agent who’s been following you on Twitter?

“You know you woke me…you woke me all night long.” — written by Muddy Waters, and recorded in ’62.

What defines a really successful comedy? Being funny, of course, and preferably in a way that’s not too coarse or lowbrow. Clever, witty, feel-goody. You want it to be accessible enough for Joe and Jane Popcorn to have a good time with it, but you also want film critics to stand up and salute. And you definitely want it to turn a healthy profit. Some comedies do well with critics but not so much at the box-office. Or vice versa. And some fizzle all around the track — cruddy reviews, low grosses, unpopular with popcorn munchers, etc. Very few comedies hit it on all four burners.

Not everyone realizes that Amazon’s The Big Sick, which opened on 6.23.17 after debuting at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, has done exactly that. And this, by any fair standard, drops it into the Best Picture realm.

A dryly amusing indie comedy about ethnic issues affecting a relationship between Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani), a laid-back Pakistani comic, and Emily (Zoe Kazan), a spunky, willful white girl, The Big Sick managed a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating and sold a shitload of tickets to Average Joes. It cost $5 million to make and earned $55 million worldwide, excluding ancillary revenue. Even if you throw in the “Hollywood bookkeeping” factor, you’ll still be well in the black.

The Big Sick has even become a top award contender in recent weeks. Holly Hunter‘s performance as Kazan’s mom has snagged several Best Supporting Actress nominations (the Independent Spirit Awards, several critics groups); ditto the screenplay (co-written by Nanjiani and wife Emily V. Gordon, and based on their actual romantic history) as well as the film itself being Best Picture-nominated by the Critics Choice Awards, the Satellite Awards and the Producers Guild of America.

Four burners plus the awards action makes five. Do I hear six?

I’ve seen The Big Sick three times, and each time it’s felt fresh and natural and sharp as a tack. It gains. After seeing it in Park City I called it droll humor for smarties and hipsters as well as dry and diverting. You never really know where it’s going, and that’s just how I like it. I loved the terrorist jokes (no, seriously), and it really does come together emotionally during the last 25%.

Nanjiani embroiders with a unique tone and sensibility, certainly within the realm of a modern American love story. He and Kazan hold things together for the first 40%, but it’s Hunter and Ray Romano (as Kazan’s dad) who bring it home.

Zoe Kazan, Kumail Najiani.

I’m kind of fed up with traumatic recovery movies. Hard-knock tales about the resilience of the human spirit, I mean. Protagonists walloped and nearly destroyed by some godawful tragedy only to gradually fight their way back to a semblance of a normal life. 

And so I sat down to watch David Gordon Green and Jake Gyllenhaal‘s Stronger (Roadside, 9.22) with a guarded attitude. Here we fucking go again, I told myself — the story of real-life Boston bombing victim Jeff Bauman (played by Gyllenhaal) overcoming the loss of his legs and becoming a hero of perseverance. This is certainly what’s been sold by the trailer, which is full of rah-rah uplift.

Well, guess what? Stronger includes a few inspirational moments in the third act, but mostly it’s a darker, grimmer and more despairing thing than you might expect. It’s been shot and cut in an intimate, off-angled way, and it certainly doesn’t unfold in the usual manner, at least in terms of rousing third-act recovery music and scenes designed to tug at your heartstrings. And Gyllenhaal, it must be said, really drills into Bauman’s pain, shock and despair, and I mean in a Robert De Niro-as-Jake LaMotta sort of way.

Is this Gyllenhaal’s most award-worthy performance ever? That’s a tough call for a guy who’s slammed it out of the park four or five times over the last dozen years (Brokeback Mountain, Zodiac, Nightcrawler, Demolition, Nocturnal Animals) but I honestly think it might be.

Augmented by some first-rate CG that totally convinces you that his legs are truly absent, Gyllenhaal’s Bauman is certainly more intense and blistering than Gary Oldman‘s Winston Churchill, I can tell you that. And I really admire that he never seems to be trying to charm the audience into liking him. That’s partly an aspect of John Pollono‘s script, which is based on “Stronger,” a personal recollection book by Bauman and Bret Witter, but it also comes from Gyllenhaal’s bravery.  

The overall emphasis is a lot more on “fuck me” and “this really sucks” than “I not only have the strength to improve my life and make things better all around, but I will make you, the popcorn-munching audience member, feel better about your own life in the bargain.”

Tatiana Maslany earns respect and points as Erin Hurley, Bauman’s girlfriend who later became his wife.

Maslany is not…how can I put this?…she’s not exactly my idea of an actress I’d like to hang with for long periods of time or, you know, have a couple of drinks with or whatever, and she’s certainly not the birds-of-a-feather equal of Gyllenhaal in terms of basic attractiveness, but she  knows how to make difficult situations and emotions play in relatable dramatic terms. (Last February’s announcement that Bauman and Hurley intend to divorce is ignored by the film.)

The degree to which Stronger is not a formula recovery flick can’t be over-emphasized. The trailer makes it seem like an uplift thing but the trailer lies.