“I have seen one of the wisest films I can remember about love and human intimacy,” Roger Ebert wrote a couple of days ago about Jeff Lipsky’s Flannel Pajamas…which I just saw this afternoon. “It is a film of integrity and truth, acted fearlessly, written and directed with quiet, implacable skill. [And] I will not forget it.” Nor will I. Pajamas is a very smart and probing film about an adult relationship that eventually goes bad. But after a while (after about 90 minutes, give or take) I started to really, really hate it, and I finally couldn’t stand another minute and left. What I really mean is, I couldn’t tolerate the character played by Julianne Nicholson, who plays one of the draggiest pain-in-the-ass bad girlfriend/death-wife characters ever created for the screen. She is the sort of woman-with-very-bad- baggage who frowns like it’s going out of style and always has a bug up her ass about something and has no sense of humor and has a very cold mother and who brings everything and everyone down with her pissy moods. Nicholson is so convincing that I don’t want to ever see her again. Seriously — if she is in a film I will think seriously about not going to it. I don’t mean to say I didn’t respect Flannel Pajamas. It’s up to something real and different and chilly and complex, but I had to leave and I’m glad I did. Justin Kirk‘s lead character is no day at the beach either. She wants a dog and he says no? What’s his problem? Ebert said in the same piece that the film “is so truthful and observant, so subtle and knowing about human nature, that it may be too much for most audiences. Moviegoers demand a little something in the way of formula, if only for reassurance, or as a road sign.” No — the problem is that the two main characters become more and more of a migraine headache, and it finally gets so bad you want Nicholson to get killed in a car crash so the film can take a different turn.

Goran Dukic’s Wristcutters: A Love Story is playing noon on Friday (1.27) at the Eccles, so now I don’t have an excuse to miss it. That’s too bad. I don’t want to see any movie of any kind about post-mortal purgatory, or about anyone cutting their wrists… fuck that shit and send it to hell. And the lead guy Patrick Fugit (who was completely perfect in Almost Famous) has been rubbing me the wrong way in his last couple of films. Everyone’s been telling me to see it though, so I guess I’m stuck. “I’m saying that Wristcutters is the best film in the festival…it is a very specialized play,” David Poland wrote sometime last night. “It is not quite as weird as Napoleon Dynamite [and] it’s a little like last year’s Everything Is Illuminated, though it promises less and delivers more.” Again I’m telling myself, “Always be wary when Poland likes something.” But this line got me: “Dukic doesn’t put a spotlight on his most interesting choices. He allows the audience to find them all for themselves. And that is how you end up with a true cult film. It leaves a funny sensation. I can feel in the pit of my stomach how strong it will play with young audiences, in great part because it doesn’t have the easy marketing hooks that some of the other films have had. It respects its audience, even as it pushes the envelope.” Fuck me…I’ll be there tomorrow.

This just happened, just now…right across from me. A guy sitting on the couch in the lobby of the Yarrow hotel said to a critic friend who just wandered over: “Hey, how was I for India?” The critic answered, “B for boring.” Bad news for the filmmaker, right? Maybe, but you need to take into account a certain tendency that critics and journalists have when speaking to each other in groups, which is to always be clever.

I sat right outside the Yarrow press screening room when Right At Your Door was being shown late Wednesday afternoon…obviously wanting to see it but also needing to freshen the column material and put up new photos. Duty prevailed. Door, a futuristic thriller about terrorist destruction hitting Los Angeles, has been acquired by Lionsgate, and at least six others have been bought also. Little Miss Sunshine has been acquired by Fox Searchlight, Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep by Warner Independent, The Night Listener by Miramax (I haven’t seen a less commercial- seeming film at this festival), Wordplay by IFC Films, Factotum by Picturehouse…no, Picturehouse’s deal fell through and then IFC picked it up…and Momentum Pictures has acquired Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way, which I declined to see a day or two ago because I won’t do f***ing midnight screenings that keep me up until 2:30 or 3 am.

A dead-certain acquisition to come: the quietly moving and intriguingly measured Stephanie Daley, which I saw early Wednesday afternoon at the Eccles. My hat is sincerely tipped to director Hilary Brougher, and especially for eliciting such superb performances from Tilda Swinton and especially Amber Tamblyn, who is now on the Big Map because of this film. (It’s too bad after giving such a finely textured dig-deep performance in Daley that she’s agreed to star in the lowballing Grudge 2). Other Sundance pickups in the wings include Bobcat Goldwaithe’s Stay (which is nominally about the ramifications of a woman having given a blowjob to a dog), Slamdance’s Sasquatch Dumpling Gang (which I had a chance to see yesterday at 3 pm but Sundance is all about tough choices and I had to make one), Half Nelson (some- thing’s approaching in the distance…it’s…oh, God!…it’s the immaculate sensitivity and tasteful inclinations of Ryan Gosling!), and the widely admired Wristcutters: A Love Story.

The lawyers representing Kirby Dick and This Film Is Not Yet Rated have been making a curious call since the film first press-screened two days ago (i.e., Tuesday). As noted in Wednesday’s article about the film, it reveals the names and backgrounds of the MPAA’s previously anonymous film raters and appeals board members. But the lawyers and the good publicists at Falco Ink, obviously conerned about a possible MPAA blowback, are declining to provide these names for print purposes. The press notes, which they wrote three or four weeks ago, don’t provide the names, and an informal attempt to get this information sent to me hasn’t panned out. It’s not that big a deal and not the end of the world, but it seems fair to ask that the names be provided by the film’s reps to anyone interested in exploring the issues raised in the film from another angle. The cat’s out of the bag, right? I tried scribbling down the names at the Eccles theatre Wednesday night as they flashed on the screen, but it was too dark and I could barely see the note pad.

The only gay cowboy joke I’ve half-chuckled at since Brokeback Mountain opened some eight and a half weeks ago is that one in The New Yorker…know it? Shows a guy lying in bed and working on a laptop, and he’s saying to a guy in long johns and cowboy hat standing nearby, “And what if I don’t want to be Jack or Ennis?” This 1.25 piece by USA Today‘s Susan Wloszczyna is one of the best Brokeback Mountain cultural-impact readings I’ve come across since the film opened. It’s basically about how and why the spread of Brokeback jokes across the country means Middle America has accepted it. With $42 million in the till as of last Monday and last week’s Golden Globe wins, more and more industry watchers are saying that Ang Lee’s film could reach $100 million between next Tuesday’s (1.31) Academy Awards nominations and the 3.5 Oscar telecat. “When [Utah exhibitor] Larry Miller pulled it, he won the Oscar for it,” comic and oscar joke-writer Bruce Vilanch says. “It didn’t have any effect on the [film’s box-office] and only made it stronger.”

I think it’s fair to at least ask if there’s such a thing as the Curse of Ryan Gosling. Excepting The Notebook and The Believer, every film Gosling has made has been very well chosen — i.e., hip, smart, serious, indie-level…but they’ve all turned out a bit precious and unsatisfying. Murder by Numbers, The United States of Leland, Stay, The Slaughter Rule…all smart-and-sensitive, all problem movies. Which is why I haven’t yet gone to see Gosling’s latest, Half Nelson, whcih I’ve heard is pretty good. I’m getting used to his type of film and I’m sorry but I’m starting to cool off.

Right at Your Door, an economically produced, realistically scrappy drama about what happens when a bunch of terrorist “dirty bombs” are exploded around Los Angeles, has allegedly been picked up for theatrical distribution by Lionsgate. You didn’t hear it from me.

David Poland is too much of a hard-ass in his critique of Kirby Dick‘s This Film Is Not Yet Rated, but he makes some good points here and there. One thing I felt absolutely should have been acknowledged in Dick’s film (but isn’t) is the fact that filmmakers routinely look for ways to push the envelope in terms of sexually kinky and/or aberrant behavior, or, in the Michael Bay/Robert Rodriguez realm, for new ways to depict ultra-violent, super-stylish action. They need to do this so moviegoers won’t be bored — we all know they do this — but no one in Dick’s film mentions this even in passing…even as a joke.

Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth, which I saw this afternoon, is about as succulent and brilliant as a “spinach documentary” — i.e., one that’s very good and nutritional to watch — can possibly be. It’s basically a documentary presentation of Al Gore’s global-warming slide show, which the former President candidate and vice-president has been presenting to audiences around the globe for the last few years. Everyone on the planet needs to see this film, even if they think they know everything there is to know about the harm being done to this planet. Gore’s teaching style is folksy, straight and quite personable….if only he had been this charming during the 2000 Presidential election. I’ll have more to say about this doc tomorrow morning (probably), but in the meantime go to this Gore-sponsored website to research the facts. Participant Productions, Lawrence Bender and Laurie David produced.

Here’s Roger Ebert saying more than a few flattering things about Jeff Lipsky’s Flannel Pajamas, which I am now committed to seeing at the Park City Racquet Club tomorrow evening (Thursday), no matter what.