Everything is piling on and I’m dropping balls and starting to fall behind, filing-wise. I’m on my first coffee and today’s first film, Carlos Moreno‘s Perro Come Perro (a.k.a. Dog Eat Dog), starts in less than an hour. I’ll try and elaborate on a couple of things later this morning. Probably. Most likely. Maybe not.
At 6:15 pm last night I saw Marina Zenovich‘s finely studied, exquisitely sculpted Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which doesn’t take Roman’s side of the mid ’70s unlawful sex with a minor scandal that led to his leaving this country as much as it slams the judge who ignored justice in his handling of the case.
HE readers of this column have never shrunk from trying to permanently blacken Polanski’s rep from here to eternity, as well as try to mischaracterize my feelings about his crime, which was horrible but needs to be considered in light of the many details of the case, and of course proportionately. Bottom line: Roman Polanski gets a pass from me. Just as he’s got a pass 11 years ago from the woman he violated when she was 13. Let it go, tub-thumpers. I’ve seen Repulsion eight or nine times, and I’m good for at least another nine. And his Macbeth totally rules, and so do all the others except for Frantic. Polanski is a genius and a near-God. Case closed.
Then came Randall Miller‘s Bottle Shock, which tells about the commercial birth of the Napa Valley wine industry in the mid ’70s. I’m going to take a pass on this one for now, but it has a splendid Alan Rickman performance.
Then came the Great Park City Blackout — a total power failure that darkened every street light, restaurant, wine bar and homie saloon in the downtown area. For about a half hour, starting around 10 pm or so. I was walking up the street in the eclipse-like gloom, illuminated only by car headlights, and loving the pandemonium when suddenly the lights came back on to cheers and whoo-whoos…and then the power went off again about four or five minutes later.
Later…