Night on the Town

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After picking up our passes and buying some groceries, we checked into our spacious Airbnb rental at 26 Deep Creek Road (a little past the notorious Telluride airport)…unpacked, showered, learned the ins and outs, plugged everything in, etc. We went back to town around 7 pm, roamed around and hit La Marmotte for a nice pricey dinner and a slightly premature celebration of Tatiana’s birthday.

Our first encounter was with Picturehouse CEO Bob Berney and wife/partner/marketing hotshot Jeanne Berney about Liz Garbus‘s Becoming Cousteau, a Telluride attraction that Picturehouse is distributing. We then chatted with Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling and partner Daniel Launspach, who just happened to stroll in as we were being seated — they sat down about 12 feet away. When Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and critic Clarence Moye dropped by to say hello, Durling strolled over and said, “This is starting to feel like dangerous liasons.”

Have I stated lately that Durling and Launspach are excellent human beings, large of heart and spirit? No getting around that, I’m afraid.

Weather permitting, we’ll be hitting the outdoor Telluride brunch around 10 am or thereabouts. Then comes the usual press orientation schmooze at the Werner Herzog theatre at 1:30 pm, followed by a secret Patron’s screening at 2:30 pm. (I’ve heard it might be Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch.) Then comes a 6:30 pm screening of Joe Wright‘s Cyrano plus a Peter Dinklage tribute. Finally at 9:30 pm will be a screening of Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket.

Calm Down

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Certain scenes in certain films melt some of us down. Not all of us — some are built differently in terms of emotional thresholds and whatnot. I have a shortlist of scenes that choke me up (the finale of Carousel, the last 20 minutes of The Best Years of Our Lives), and no one is obliged to say “me too.” At the same time it’s fair, I think, to occasionally remark “that movie made you cry?” I respect CODA for what it is (i.e., a family sitcom with a would-be lump in its throat) but…

Who Said Covid Was Killing Cinema?

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What the pandemic managed to do was all but kill the communal watching of quality-grade movies — i.e., theatrical — outside the rarified environs of film festivals and elite special-venue houses. Multiplexes have been devolving for years into gladiator arenas, showing only mostly lowest-common-denominator gruel for the grunts. Covid finalized that process. Cinema has obviously “survived”, but (festivals aside) largely through streaming. And don’t get me started about the shuttering of Hollywood’s ArcLight plex plus the Dome.

Big “Belfast” Premiere at Telluride

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11.1, 9:05 am update: Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast is a Telluride lock. The Toronto honchos lied.l about their world premiere, etc.

Earlier; So the Toronto Film Festival is lying about a so-called world premiere of Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast (Focus Features, 11.12.21). The TIFF screening is slated for Sunday, 11.12.21, but it will have its actual world premiere, I’m hearing, at the Telluride Film Festival.

I can’t say “take it to the bank” because I’m not holding a 2021 Telluride Film Festival brochure in my hand as I write this, but it appears that the TIFF guys have been fabricating on this particular matter.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, which will debut at the Venice Film Festival on 9.2, will also screen in Telluride.

And Rebecca Hall‘s Passing, by the way, is not playing Telluride.

Too Much John Cale?

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And not enough Lou Reed? Put another way: Todd Hayne‘s Velvet Underground allegedly has more Cale than it should. It’ll play soon in Telluride, and then we’ll know.

Posted on 7.7.21: Honestly? I’d much rather see a smart, sexy, well-layered, in-depth documentary about the late Lou Reed than a doc about the Velvet Underground. Because all my life I’ve had to deal with John Cale‘s jagged, screechy-ass electric violin, and while I know (and respect the fact) that Cale’s tonally abrasive playing was an essential component in the Velvet Underground sound, it always bothered me regardless.

Telepathic HE to Cale while listening to “Venus in Furs”: “Yeah, I get it, man…you’re a brilliant string-saw, an avant garde musician who’s moved past the tired milquetoast game of trying to comfort or ear-massage your listeners…but every now and then I wish I could shut you up, no offense.”

I loved the Velvets because of Reed and Nico and most of the songs, but I liked Reed a lot more when he was free of Cale–screech and began cutting his own albums with David Bowie, Mick Ronson and his own musicians — Transformer, Berlin, Sally Can’t Dance, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, Magic and Loss.

I’m therefore a little bit sorry that Todd Haynes‘ The Velvet Underground doc, which premiered Wednesday night in Cannes, allegedly focuses a bit more on Cale than on Reed. Or at least, it does according to Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman. That’s unfortunate, if true.

Best “Die” Trailer Yet

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I’m now fully persuaded that No Time To Die (UA Releasing, 10.8.21) will be an above-average Bond flick. At the same time I understand that it can’t break the mold — that it has to do the usual Bondy-Bondy things.

Keep in mind that principal photography for No Time To Die began during April 2019 — nearly a full year before the pandemic kicked in. Principal photography finished in October 2019, or just under two years ago.