Doug Liman‘s Justice, a last-minute addition to Sundance ’23, is reportedly a deep-dig investigation into the behavior of Brett Kavanaugh during his beer-drinking hooligan days at Yale. It will screen this evening at 8:30 pm at the Park Avenue Theatre (aka the former Yarrow hotel at 1800 Park Ave, Park City, UT 84060). We all understand that Kavanaugh is a pernicious Trump conservative (he voted to overturn Roe v. Wade) and that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth, etc. But post-confirmation the general feeling seemed to be that despite Kavanaugh’s gross fratboy behavior, no adult should be hung out to dry over alleged louche college behavior he may have been guilty of in his late teens and very early 20s.
And then he goes on Colbert and blows a significant percentage of his cool-kat cred by wearing whitesides. Yes, I’m kidding but on another level I’m not. Okay, he’s still Adam Kinzinger and still a man of substance, but why would someone with his integrity and moral fibre thumb his nose at the Italian suede lace-up crowd? He surely understands that whitesides are a sartorial equivalent of a red flag. They certainly are on this site.
Wiki excerpt: “Kinzinger voted in line with President Donald Trump about 90% of the time and voted against Trump’s first impeachment, but he subsequently became a critic of Trump and made headlines as a rare Republican officeholder willing to criticize him. In summer 2020, Kinzinger denounced QAnon and other baseless conspiracy theories that gained currency among Republican voters. After the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, Kinzinger denounced Trump’s claims that the election was stolen and criticized Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Robert Evans on aging, spoken directly to HE back in ‘96 or thereabouts: “Your hair turns gray, your nose gets softer, your ears get longer and your teeth get smaller.”
But noses don’t change their basic shape. Or at least mine never has. If you have, say, a button nose as a 22 year-old, you’re not going to end up with a Basil Rathbone nose when you’re 70.
Because he’s smooth, gracious, good-natured, soulful, self-effacing, offhandedly frank, confident, obviously likable. His Banshees of Inisherin performance is respected, but Farrell the good fellow will win because he’s an elegant package and he knows how to sell it.
GUY: Excellent, thank you. So the car is safe to drive?
BRAKES R US MECHANIC: What did I just say?
GUY: Brakes are vitally important, you know.
BRAKES R US MECHANIC: A very astute point. I should have that on a poster above the toilet.
GUY: I mean, I’d hate to drive off the lot and have the brakes fail….
BRAKES R US MECHANIC: You and me both.
GUY: …and plow through a farmer’s market or something.
BRAKES R US MECHANIC: Exactly. Who needs THAT aggravation?
GUY: Okay, then. I’m trusting that my brakes have been fixed.
BRAKES R US MECHANIC: Ayy! Would I let you drive outa here with faulty brakes? My reputation, as well as the lives and fresh produce of hundreds of local farmers, is at stake here.
GUY: Great!
[guy drives off, brakes fail, car plows through farmer’s market, many perish]
DA: I hereby charge you with involuntary manslaughter for driving with no brakes.
I’m very sorry about the death of David Crosby, 81, but he enjoyed one of the most amazing, up-and-down-and-back-up-again runs of any legendary rock star-slash-troubadour-slash-crazy man. I loved his truth-telling with all my heart. Sail on, brother.
“Triple grade-A doc…the antithesis of a kiss-ass, ‘what a great artist’ tribute, but at the same time a profoundly moving warts-and-all reflection piece…hugely emotional, meditative, BALDLY PAINFULLY NAKEDLY HONEST…God! There’s a special spiritual current that seeps out when an old guy admits to each and every failing of his life without the slightest attempt to rationalize or minimize…’I was a shit, I was an asshole, how is it that I’m still alive?,’ etc. Straight, no chaser.
“And this isn’t because I’m partial to boomer nostalgia flicks or because so many are being shown here, or because I grew up with the Byrds (12-string twangly-jangly), JoniMitchell, Crosby, StillsandNash and thatwholelonglyrical–frazzledhistory. It’s about the tough stuff and the hard rain…about addiction and rage and all but destroying your life, and then coming back semi-clean and semi-restored, but without any sentimentality or gooey bullshit.
“For me David Crosby: Remember My Name has EASILY been the most emotional experience of the festival thus far. Not to mention [Crowe’s] best creative effort since Almost Famous.”
Crowe: “SO HAPPY you were there, thrilled at your reaction. How amazing that Crosby got up there [after the screening] and shared his total shock at what we’d put into the movie. Such a real moment. He was emotionally devastated up there for a good three minutes — I don’t know if you could see that. Felt like the audience wrapped their arms around him at that point, and then he was okay. Amazing.”
From Steve Pond’s Wrap review: “As much as the film celebrates Crosby’s creativity and gazes unflinchingly at his failings, it also functions as a valedictory, almostarequiemofsorts. Think of it as the film version of the final albums made by Leonard Cohen and David Bowie, who made wrenching final statements that they likely knew would be their last.”
“I attended Utah’s Sundance Film Festival before the pandemic, then started watching its offerings online. This year’s festival begins [today — 1.19], and I looked forward to seeing new, small-market films from my recliner. But when I logged in to buy tickets, I was stopped at the virtual door.
“The site wouldn’t sell me tickets unless I affirmed the festival’s ‘Community Agreement.’ Among other things, I had to promise to be ‘vigilant in the fight against the spread of COVID-19,’ to avoid ‘unwelcome sexual attention, harassment, stalking, and inappropriate physical contact of any kind,’ and to refrain from ‘abuse or intimidation including that related to race, gender, position, or wealth.'”
HE interjection: What the hell is wealth intimidation? [Sing to the tune of “Mama Don’t Allow“] “Mama don’t want no wealth intimidation ’round here…I said mama don’t want no wealth intimidation ’round here…we don’t care what mama don’t allow, gonna wealth intimidate anyhow!”
“What if I slipped up and engaged in ‘intimidation related to wealth,’ whatever that means? Someone could squeal using a ‘name-optional reporting form,’ and the complaint would be ‘taken seriously and reviewed carefully by Sundance Institute’s Safety & Belonging team.’ The team has the authority to impose ‘exclusion from Sundance Institute programs, platforms, or spaces—including a complete ban on further participation in any Institute program or event.’
“I asked if I could buy tickets without affirming the agreement and was denied via an anonymous email. The damage I might have done to someone’s sense of ‘belonging’ while watching films from my Indiana basement, 1,500 miles from Park City, Utah, apparently was too much to risk.
“As a classical liberal with conservative sensibilities, I was often challenged and sometimes offended by Sundance films. Good. Movies can open our minds and make us think—as most good art does. But this depends on the freedom to think for ourselves and question established orthodoxies without fearing anonymous informers and Orwellian enforcement teams.
“Writing in the past tense about Sundance makes me sad. But more of us — patrons, donors and especially liberal-minded board members of arts organizations — have to learn to echo Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: ‘No, not through me.’
“If we don’t, we can prepare for the Sundance loyalty oath to become the norm at cultural venues. And we should prepare our imaginations for whatever comes after that.”
I’m not suggesting there might be a connection between Netflix CEO Reed Hastings suddenly quitting the company (he’s being replaced by Netflix COO Greg Peters) and the company’s strange promotional focus upon Rian Johnson‘s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery at the apparent expense of Eric Berger‘s much more deserving All Quiet on the Western Front. I don’t actually believe that such a connection exists. But it’s nonetheless odd that Netflix seemed to not understand what they had with All Quiet, and right when everyone is realizing that Netflix miscalculated, Hastings jumps ship.
Kohn is not given to put-on humor and is, I presume, in a dead-serious mode. He actually believes that a term which is universally understood to signify the most malicious social and political cancer since the domestic Red Scare terror of the late ’40s and ’50s…Kohn actually believes that the word smacks of “loaded, right-wing propagandistic implications,” and is therefore illegitimate and hysterical and has traction only within the rightwing media realm. He therefore believes that anyone who uses the term is some kind of Fox News wackazoid.
There’s obviously no talking to Eric on this topic, despite the fact that I’ve known him for years to be an obviously bright and genuinely decent and considerate fellow.
But good God, Eric…c’mon. To deny the legitimacy of the word “woke” is to be with the crazies. Do you actually not see the parallels between the career-destroying anti-Communist right of the ’50s and the career-cancelling woke left of today? Have you ever read about the French terror of 1793 and ’94? You’re simply too perceptive to look around and say, “Naah, there are no similarities between the current terror and what happened in this country 70 years ago…none whatsoever. And there are zero Maximilien Robespierres among the progressive left. Only nutjobs like Tucker Carlson think there are any comparisons worth making.”
I know firsthand what it is to grapple with woke terror, and I’m not a rightwing dude at all. I’m a sensible center-left moderate who voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, who believes in Pete Buttigieg in ’24, who listens to excellent music while driving, who has driven rented scooters all over Rome and Paris, who wears fine Italian shoes and high-end Zara T-shirts, who dropped acid roughly 15 times in the old days and experienced satori on the third or fourth trip by way of the Bhagavad Gita, who drives a nice VW Passat (black) and owns an excellent Bluray library and loves his 14-month-old granddaughter Sutton.
…that I don’t want to hang with a 40ish therapist (Jason Segel) dealing with severe grief. (I’ve been grieving my whole life about what a shit sandwich life often tastes like.) If you’re a therapist and you feel swamped with grief because you’ve lost your wife, you need to bury it during work hours — it’s that simple. Weep and moan and act out all you want, but only on weekends and in the evenings. When you’re at work, keep that shit to yourself.
Because you don’t want to “breach ethical barriers” by telling your patients exactly what you completely think (which is a notion borrowed from Warren Beatty‘s Bulworth). I basically don’t want to hang with a big beefy crybaby. Or, if you will, a whineybaby.
Harrison Ford seems cool, and I especially like his pale green sweater. I presume the producers paid Ford an arm and a leg to do this.
An Apple+ TV series, Shrinking will debut on released on 1.27.23. The first two episodes will debut together, and the remaining eight will stream on a weekly basis.
Ford: “Nobody gets through this life unscathed.” Wait, is that another version of “into every life, a little rain must fall“?
I know nothing but a voice is telling me “beware the three top creatives on this series — Brett Goldstein, Bill Lawrence and Jason Segel.” I can smell trouble.
Within the last couple of days Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans suffered two savage bird pecks, the combination of which may prove fatal. First, Variety‘s Clayton Davisprinted a reaction to The Fabelmans from “a prominent member of the [Academy’s] producers’ branch”, to wit: “I really didn’t like it.” And secondly, the five BAFTA nominations for Best Film didn’t include The Fabelmans.
Can you feel it? Can you faintly feel it? Can you sense the velocity of the the furiously beating wings of crows flying above? Can you hear them cawing?…aahhnk!aahrrrk!
Perhaps the biggest shake-and-stir from the BAFTA noms was the 14 nominations that went to All Quiet on the Western Front.
Another noteworthy BAFTA thing was their decision to include The Woman King‘s Gina Prince-bythewood among their five nominees. She was presumably added so the BAFTAS could nominate a woman of color. The other four: All Quiet On The Western Front — Edward Berger; The Banshees Of Inisherin — Martin Mcdonagh; Decision To Leave — Park Chan-wook (FORGET IT!), Everything Everywhere All At Once — Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (NO!) and Tar — Todd Field.
HE’s preferred winners: Field or Berger.
Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking, which all the woke critics were salivating over during Telluride ’22, had been BAFTA longlisted for director, adapted screenplay, supporting actor and original score categories. It came up totally empty-handed this morning.
HE boldface obviously indicates a preferred winner or winners:
BEST FILM:
All Quiet On The Western Front – Malte Grunert / HE The Banshees Of Inisherin – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin Mcdonagh Elvis – Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick Mccormick, Schuyler Weiss Everything Everywhere All At Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang Tar – Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan / HE
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM:
Aftersun – Charlotte Wells, Producer(S) The Banshees Of Inisherin – Martin Mcdonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin Brian And Charles – Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris Hayward Empire Of Light – Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris / HE…YES! Good Luck To You, Leo Grande – Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy Brand (NOT A CHANCE!) Living – Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo Ishiguro Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical – Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis Kelly See How They Run – Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark Chappell The Swimmers – Sally El Hosaini, Producer(S) Tbc, Jack Thorne The Wonder – Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma Donoghue
