Before the Sundance Film Festival woked itself to death, it was the indie pathfinder and trailblazer — the greatest-ever springboard for American indie cinema. And in my 24 diligent years of covering that January celebration (’95 to ’18), one of the most exciting Sundance premieres was Karyn Kusama‘s Girlfight on 1.22.00.

A great boxing flick, a first-rate relationship drama and the film that launched Michelle Rodriguez, it won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize and the Best Directing Award in dramatic competition. Produced for $1 million, Girlfight‘s distrib rights were bought by Screen Gems for $3 million.

I saw a proud and tough feminist film, and one that could really connect with Latinas and women of color along with indie film fans.

Girlfight opened eight months later (9.29.00) and promptly flopped. Latinas and women of color stayed away in droves. After a five-week run it had tallied a total domestic haul of $1,565,852 plus a lousy $100,176 overseas. I’ve never understood why this happened. I’ll bet that a fair percentage of HE readers never even saw it.

Few Broadway musicals have melted my heart like Stephen Sondheim‘s Sunday in the Park with George. It opened in ’84 with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters in the lead roles, and was revived in ’17 with Jake Gyllenhaal. I managed to miss both.

I’ve watched the DVD a couple of times (hence my enthusiasm), but both it and the streaming version have been removed from Amazon. It’s never even been transferred to HD.

This Act Two song — “Putting It Together” — is especially sharp and elegant and so wise. Excerpt: “Having just a vision’s no solution/everything depends on execution!”

I’m so glad to have absorbed the often miraculous Sondheim groove, starting with Company. Everyone, all of us, all there.

Ringo Starr has composed a portion of a tune that will become “Octopus’s Garden.” Not much of one — “that’s all I’ve got,” he says. And George Harrison, sensing that his bandmate may not be able to climb out of the hole on his own steam, generously lends a hand. Which is what a good soul (or good samaritan, if you will) does for a friend. Harrison, in short, was a real human being.

Harrison quote: “‘Octopus’s Garden is only the second song Ringo has ever written, mind you, and it’s lovely [and] so peaceful. it’s so peaceful. I suppose Ringo is writing cosmic songs these days without even realizing it.”

Omicron is the new variant, allegedly more infectious than the Delta. No definitive word about how dangerous or fatal it may be. These variants are going to keep coming until the entire world is vaccinated. The first known case was detected in Botswana about two weeks ago. I’m sure it’s already here in the U.S., and I don’t give a shit. Well, I do but I’m triple vaxxed, dammit, and I’m really, really sick of this crap. Said it many times, saying it once again — damn our domestic antivax bumblefucks. Damn them all to hell.

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Whatever may be good or not so good about Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (the word on the street is “don’t expect too much”)…let’s let that go for the time being. I haven’t watched Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 original since the Bluray came out…what, eight or nine years ago? I’ve always felt that the Wise-Robbins was too middle-class, too prettified, too brightly lighted, at times even antiseptic feeling. But there’s one unassailable portion, and that’s the first ten or twelve minutes — that magnificent overture, those sky-high helicopter shots of Manhattan, the Jets vs. Sharks street ballet.

There are a few relatively cheap and tolerable places to crash in Manhattan, but none, I’ll wager, are as storied or aesthetically pleasing in an old-world sense as the Jane Hotel (113 W. Jane, next to West Side highway). Georgian-style architecture, century-old wooden walls, a pleasing yesteryear vibe. Built in 1906, a sailor’s hotel. Not to mention the Jane Ballroom, which was jumping when I arrived last night around 11:30 pm. Their tiny standard room (not recommended for couples) will set you back $99. Shared bathroom, but the spacious shower stalls have locks.

HE’s LAX-to-JFK journey was no picnic. Jet Blue is the Trailways of the skyways. Zero wifi — what airlines don’t offer this in 2021? The electric outlet next to the seat worked initially, and then changed its mind. Plus half my power charge cords turned moody and fickle. Plus we’ve been sitting on the tarmac for 30 minutes — no available gate.

I love it — welcome to NYC. You know where they don’t pull this sit-and-wait-at-the-gate shit? Almost anywhere else in the world. New York City — the finest and proudest crumbling-infrastructure town in the Western hemisphere. Plus the world’s (often) slowest, shittiest subway system by far. Not to mention the wounding…all right, I’m over-venting.

9:40 pm: We’re still waiting to disembark. 50 minutes since landing.

9:48 pm: Finally stretching my legs! Thanks, guys. Now let’s see what we can do about delaying the carousel luggage.

I just landed at JFK, and the first blast out of the phone was the death of the great Stephen Sondheim, age 91. Shattering. All my life his songs and scores have been casting spells — wonderful, mesmerizing, heart-melting poetry…complex, urbane, delicate and sophisticated. And just before the opening of Steven Spielberg’s screen version of West Side Story, which Sondheim (along with Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins) co-created 64 or 65 years ago. I’m very, very sorry. Then again 91 years, and many of them rhapsodic or historic or at least ebullient.

“Stephen Sondheim: The Last Word,” N.Y. Times. 11.26.

Three years and eight months seems like a long time ago in this context. It’s kind of startling to consider how so many people were convinced that Jordan Peele‘s Get Out was the absolute shit, and that it looked like a Best Picture Oscar winner. Imagine. Time sure does change perceptions. Woke-think had only begun to flex its muscles a few months earlier.

Posted on 2.26.18: Yesterday on Facebook HE’s own Jordan Ruimy again predicted that Jordan Peele‘s Get Out will win the Best Picture Oscar. Then he doubled-down on Twitter this morning.

What he means is that Get Out, a half creepy, half satiric, racially-stamped Stepford Wives, will slipslide into a win because a huge number of Academy members have it down as their #2 or #3 choice, and that the “kooky” preferential ballot will do the rest.

Hollywood Elsewhere says no way. I’m not even sure that Get Out will win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, which will most likely be won by Three Billboards‘ Martin McDonagh. It might win in this category, but forget Best Picture — the apparent momentum of the last week has all been with Three Billboards with everyone assuming that The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro will take Best Director.

I’ll say this much: One thing favoring Get Out is that the people who love it really love it, while the Three Billboards and Shape of Water crowd is more composed of likers and accomodationists.

HE arguments & agreements with Facebook comments:

“That would be great but I doubt it” — Alex Conn. HE: “What exactly would be ‘great’ about Get Out winning Best Picture? Great in what way? And how likely is this? A clever, financially successful genre film that says upscale liberal whites are just as odious as Charlottesville racists — who in AcademyLand really believes that?”

“It’s a good movie but not Oscar-worthy. The academy will give it the old ‘good effort, good try’ treatment come Oscar time. My money is on Three Billboards.” — Trexis Griffin. HE to Griffin: “But that’s the new thing — a significant portion of the new membership does consider genre fare like Get Out to be Oscar-worthy.”

“Nah. Too genre for Oscar. This one screams Best Original Screenplay.” — Tim Fuglei. HE comment: And possibly not even that.

“Jordan, will you eat a bug if wrong?” — Jay Smith. HE to Ruimy: Seriously — what act of contrition will you actually perform if you’re wrong?

“It’s Get Out or Three Billboards. There are good and bad reasons for both. Three Billboards is actor-driven and actors dominate [in the voting]. Get Out could win, but you have to wonder how the BAFTAs had the option of choosing it to win Best Picture but went with Three Billboards for both Best Picture and Best British film? Between that and having no SAG ensemble nom is why I am not predicting Get Out to win, but it is one of three that could. I have no idea what will win.” — Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s LAX-JFK flight leaves at 1:40 pm Pacific, arrives at 9 pm eastern. I’m presuming I’ll be online during the flight. NYC/NJ/CT temps in the low 40s as we speak, probably in 30s when I land. Every time I fly back east, the same question hovers in my mind — do I take the cowboy hat or not? If the weather was extra cold, mid 20s or below, I’d say yeah. The 10-day forecast says it won’t drop below 35.

“In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Christopher Columbus flew Jet Blue…”