Yesterday Nextbestpicture.com‘s Matt Neglia posted what seems to me like a reasonably savvy and comprehensive guess list of what the hot fall festivals may (and probably will to a large extent) be screening. I’ve heard this and that, and Neglia’s guesses seem pretty spot-on. Boldfaced HE = exceptional interest and unseen (and in some cases Cannes-viewed) approval.

Which projected festival are giving me the slight willies? Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, for one. Aronofsky’s The Whale, for another.

Why isn’t Neglia projecting Blonde to play Telluride? Venice and Toronto but not Telluride? Doesn’t figure.

VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The Banshees Of Inisherin (Dir. Martin McDonagh) – WORLD PREMIERE
Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Blonde (Dir. Andrew Dominik) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Bones & All (Dir. Luca Guadagnino) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Don’t Worry Darling (Dir. Olivia Wilde) – WORLD PREMIERE
The Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Tár (Dir. Todd Field) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
The Whale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE

TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

Aftersun (Dir. Charlotte Wells)
Armageddon Time (Dir. James Gray) / HE
Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) / HE
Broker (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Close (Dir. Lukas Dhont) / HE
Decision To Leave (Dir. Park Chan-wook)
EO (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski)
Holy Spider (Dir. Ali Abbasi)
The Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) / HE
One Fine Morning (Dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
The Pale Blue Eye (Dir. Scott Cooper) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
See How They Run (Dir. Tom George) – WORLD PREMIERE
She Said (Dir. Maria Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Showing Up (Dir. Kelly Reichardt) / HE
The Son (Dir. Florian Zeller) – WORLD PREMIERE
Tár (Dir. Todd Field) / HE
Tori and Lokita (Dir. The Dardenne Brothers)
Triangle Of Sadness (Dir. Ruben Östlund) / HE
The Whale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) / HE
Women Talking (Dir. Sarah Polley) – WORLD PREMIERE

[Tapped out this morning in comment thread for Harry Styles story]: “I’m standing up for straight X-factor male identity in the public eye. I’m standing up for normal boilerplate hetero guyness.”

“Normal”, that is, according to social gender standards of ten years ago. Today all bets are off, at least within urban Left and East Coast cultures.

This is it, a document that contains smoking-gun proof that Attorney General Merrick Garland is committed first and foremost to political caution and squeamishness when it comes to the absolute necessity of prosecuting the only U.S. President in history to ignite mob rebellion against this country’s Constitutional system of transfer of Presidential power and scheme to overturn a legit election through manipulation and skullduggery. Donald Trump is an animal and a sociopath, and if the U.S. Justice Dept. doesn’t stand up and prosecute his loathsome ass then we are no longer a law-abiding Democracy and the concept of equal justice under law is meaningless — it’s that simple.

Variety’s Gene Maddaus has posted a 7.18.22 article that summarizes recently unsealed 2010 transcripts about the decades-simmering Roman Polanski case, and more particularly the critical views of retired prosecutor Roger Gunson.

The gist is that 12 years ago Gunson believed that Judge Lawrence Rittenbrand (now deceased) was a bad apple who had rashly reneged on a plea deal with Polanski’s attorneys.

Is there anything new in these transcripts? Not if you’ve seen Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (‘08) and her follow up doc, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out (‘12). The whole Gunson critique and the Rittenbrand history is contained, explained and examined every which way.

Maddaus excerpt:

The long and the short is that the facts about Rittenbrand’s mishandling of this case have been available for well over a decade and damn near 15 years. It was mainly a matter of watching the first Zenovich doc; the second was dessert.

Frank Capra‘s Arsenic and Old Lace (’44), a broad macabre farce set in a Brooklyn rooming house, began as a hit Broadway play that opened in January 1941. (Here’s Brooks Atkinson’s N.Y. Times review.) Capra’s film shot sometime in late ’41 or early ’42, and was originally slated to open on 9.30.42. But the contract with the play’s producers stated that the film would not be released until the Broadway run ended. The play ran for for three and a half years (or until the summer of ’44), so the film wasn’t released until 9.1.44.

I first watched the Capra flick as a kid, and found it okay. I streamed a 480p version two or three years ago, and while I enjoyed Raymond Massey‘s performance (in the part created on the New York stage by Boris Karloff) and Peter Lorre‘s, I found it hyper and strenuous. It charges you up at first, but then it gradually wears you down. And how many thousands of times has the play been performed in high schools?

Criterion is releasing a “new 4K digital transfer” Bluray version on 10.11.22. It’ll look better than ever before, I’m sure, but would want to shell out $31 and change for a copy? Not I.

Chris Nolan wasn’t always a big-deal, big-budget, IMAX-fortified mythologist whose movies were invariably greeted as events. Once upon a time he was just a clever, regular-guy filmmaker. We’re talking about a five-year period when he made Following (’98), Memento (’00) and Insomnia (’02). That Nolan no longer exists, of course. He became CHRIS NOLAN in ’05 with Batman Begins and never looked back. But I miss the 29-year-old Memento guy…I really do.