I’m in a slightly more aware place since posting my Toronto Film Festival priority list nine days ago. Picks have risen and fallen. Marc Abraham‘s Flash of Genius, panned yesterday by Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, has all but dropped off the list while Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, the hit of the just-wrapped Telluride Flm Festival, and Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, boosted by a recent Peter Howell rave, have risen to the very top.
The new priorities are as follows: (1) Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Burn After Reading (bad reviews be damned — l love me my Coens), (2) Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, (3) Ed Harris ‘s Appaloosa, (4) Guillermo Arriaga‘s The Burning Plain, (5) Steven Soderbergh‘s Che, (6) Kathryn Bigelow‘s Hurt Locker, (7) Matteo Garrone‘s Gomorra, (8) Spike Lee‘s Miracle at St. Anna, (9) David Koepp‘s Ghost Town, and (10) Guy Ritchie‘s Rocknrolla.
Followed by (11) Darren Aronofsky‘s Wrestler, (12) Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, (13) Kari Skogland‘s Fifty Dead Men Walking, (14) Michael McGowan‘s One Week, (15) Richard Eyre‘s The Other Man, (16) Jean-Francois Richet‘s Public Enemy Number One, (17) Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s Secret Life of Bees, (18) Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir, (19) Phillipe Claudet‘s I’ve Loved You So Long, and (20) Laurent Cantet‘s Entre Les Murs.
The next ten are (21) Rian Johnson‘s Brothers Bloom, (22) Barbet Schroeder‘s Inju, (23) James Stern and Adam Del Deo‘s Every Little Step, (24) strong>Stephan Elliotts Easy Virtue, (25) Bruno Barreto‘s Last Stop 174, (26) Stephen Belber‘s Management, (27) Richard Linklater‘s Me and Orson Welles, (28) Peter Sollett‘s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, (29) Matt Tyrnauer‘s Valentino, and (30) Daniel Burman‘s Empty Nest.
The final group is made up of (31) Max Farberbock‘s Woman in Berlin, (32) Jerzy Skolimowski‘s Four Nights with Anna (which I missed in Cannes), (33) Olivier Assayas‘ Heure de Ete, (34) Nigel Cole‘s $5 A Day, (35) Anthony Fabian‘s Skin, (36) Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige‘s I Want To See, (37) Scott McHehee and David Siegel‘s Uncertainty, (38) Cyrus Nowratesh‘s Stoning of Soraya M., (39) Brian Goodman‘s What Doesn’t Kill You and (40) Kevin Rafferty‘s Harvard Beats Yale….even if it played at Manhattan’s Film Forum last fall.
I probably won’t be re-viewing anything I’ve already seen here or anything I saw last May in Cannes — Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Three Monkeys, Neil Burger‘s Lucky Ones, Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth, Bill Maher and Larry Charles‘ Religulous, Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married, Mike Leigh‘s Happy Go Lucky, Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory, etc.

We’ve now reached the two-thirds mark in the 2008 calendar — eight months down, four to go. Which means it’s time for another update of the best, worst and in-betweens. I’ve mentioned 87 films here (not counting no-sees). There have been fifteen, I believe, that deserve to be called creme de la creme.
Best So Far (in order of excellence): Man on Wire, WALL*E, The Dark Knight, Tell No One, The Bank Job, The Visitor, Shine a Light, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Young @ Heart, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Son of Rambow, In Search of a Midnight Kiss. (15) If you add 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (the latter technically being an ’07 film even though it opened on January 23), the total is 16.
Decent, Solid, Respectable: In Bruges, Stop-Loss, The Band’s Visit, Cassandra’s Dream, Frozen River, Cloverfield, War, Inc., Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Incredible Hulk, Taxi to the Dark Side, Chicago 10, The Counterfeiters, Then She Found Me, Standard Operating Procedure, Red, Battle for Haditha, Speed Racer (more for its ambitious and mostly unique visual design than for what it actually was altogether), Surfwise, Encounters at the End of the World, Elegy, OSS117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, The Edge of Heaven, Mongol, Irina Palm. (24)
Only Saw Half Of It, Liked It Somewhat, Intend to Try Again: Trans-Siberian. (1)
Contains Some of the Worst (i.e., Most Infuriating) Whip-Pan Amateur Video Photography in the History of Motion Pictures: Trouble The Water (1).
Best Ridiculous-Machismo Action Movie of the year: Rambo. (1)
One of the Worst Third Acts in Motion Picture History: Hancock (1)
Fairly Good Doc with Awful ’60s and Early ’70s Rock Music Soundtrack (due to being oppressively “classic rock”-ish): Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (1)
Flawed Film, Genuinely Creepy Vibe, Righteous Theme: The Happening (1)
Best Stupid-Ass Adam Sandler Attitude Comedy In Years: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. (1)
Loathsome but Respectable: Funny Games. (1)
Not Bad but Also Bothersome, Irritating: The Tracey Fragments, The Babysitters (2)
Passable but Mostly Negligible (in order of preference): Be Kind Rewind, Bottle Shock, Semi-Pro, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Wackness, Leatherheads, Nim’s Island, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (galumph aesthetic, penis shots), 21, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (fastest fading movie of the year, death-button upon second viewing), Henry Poole Is Here, Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart, Street Kings, Garden Party. (15)
Worst So Far (in order of awfulness): Mamma Mia!, Wanted, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Sex and the City, Meet Dave, Star Wars: The Clone Wars,10,000 B.C., Vantage Point, Mad Money, 88 Minutes, Hamlet 2, My Blueberry Nights, The Hottie and the Nottie, Chapter 27, Step Brothers, The Love Guru, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns, Deception, Drilllbit Taylor, College Road Trip, Smart People, What Happens in Vegas, Reprise. (23)
Didn’t See ‘Em: Lou Reed’s Berlin, Death Defying Acts, Eight Miles High, The House Bunny, Beautiful Losers, Beer For My Horses, City of Men, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Married Life, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Redbelt, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2, The Fall, The Foot Fist Way, Babylon A.D., College, Disaster Movie, I Served the King of England, My Mexican Shivah, Sukiyaki Western Django (21)

Variety‘s Nic Vivarelli and Ari Jaafar delivered a combination fact-and-spurious-criticism piece yesterday afternoon when they reported that int’l financier-distributor Wild Bunch is “in advanced negotiations with three stateside companies for North American rights” to Steven Soderbergh‘s Che, “according to sources close to the production.”
They explained that a “new version” of the Che Guevara epic, which will have its North American debut at the Toronto Film Festival on 9.9, will be some 17 minutes shorter than the Cannes version. Then they said that “the latest cut is reputedly easier to follow, with a new title sequence that engages auds from the get-go.”
Bully for the new title sequence, but trust me — the Cannes version was never hard to follow. Some critics complained (if you boiled the snow out of what they wrote) that it lacked familiar comforts by way of “movie moments” — conventional dramatic strategies, emotional engagement, causing tears to well up, etc. Che is first and foremost a movie about the experience of “being there” with Guevara through triumph and disaster with no instructions how to feel about it one way or the other.
Anyone who watched the Cannes version and came out at the end saying, “Whoa, I don’t know, kinda hard to follow” was either suffering from serious movie-comprehension issues or blowing deliberate smoke — there’s no third assessment

For all those intending to see Steven Soderbergh‘s Che at either the Toronto or New York film festivals, here‘s a chance to see Richard Fleischer‘s Che! (1969), a famously loathed exploitation pic from 20th Century Fox with Omar Sharif as Che Guevara and Jack Palance as Fidel Castro. For free, I mean.

Sample line of Che dialogue, spoken by Sharif: “The peasant is like a wild flower in the forest, and the revolutionary like a bee. Neither can survive or propogate without the other. There is one essential difference between us and bees, however. In this hive, I will not tolerate drones!”

“While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around [Sarah] Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question John McCain‘s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.
“‘They didn’t seriously consider [Palin] until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,’ said a Republican close to the campaign. ‘This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe Liberman or Tom Ridge.'” — from Elizabeth Bumiller‘s 9.1 N.Y. Times article, “Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process.”
And look at all the stories dogging Palin on her special Huffington Post page.

Obama-Biden over McCain-Palin, 48 to 40 — CBS News poll. Up 3 from the last one. Go for it, righties — spin this asunder.

Here‘s to the late, great Barnard Hughes, whenever or however you may find him.

Jett’s first London photo arrived a few minutes ago. He’s just starting a term at Syracuse University’s London annex, two or three blocks southeast of Russell Square. My first comment/reply after I first saw it: “You were in the Paul McCartney position (i.e., third in line), so you should have done it barefoot and carried a cigarette!”

From the looks of this dead caribou, it looks like crackshot Sarah Palin shot him right in the mouth, or at least in the neck. I wish my two boys were toddlers again so I could teach them about the joy of killing large grazing animals. If you can’t slay wild beasts and then string ’em up and gut their warm bellies with a hunting knife, what kind of stand-up, free-thinking American are you?

It looks like the big guy bled in a few places before leaving the realm. Did Palin take him down with a single shot, or did she riddle him with automatic fire from an AR-15, just to make sure?

Still another take on the surging fortunes of Danny Boyle‘s recently-screened indie-India flick, by “Risky Biz” blogger Stephen Zeitchik, on the Hollywood Reporter site.

The guy playing the bald, bespectacled movie-poster designer is fairly convincing, except for the breakdown part at the end.