All I said in yesterday’s riff about Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson putting Dune at the top of her Gold Derby slate of Best Picture contenders…all I said was that (a) I’ve been seriously dreading sitting through Denis Villeneueve‘s film for many months now, being no fan of dense, multi-part sci-fi sagas taking place in distant exotic realms and blah blah, and that (b) this prejudice coupled with a friend’s dismissive reaction to Dune resulted in my not trusting Thompson’s vote of approval, especially given the fact that (c) Thompson saw it at a lah-lah Warner Bros. lot screening augmented by wine, cheese and crackers.
I just don’t trust Anne’s response, is all. I feel that it’s better to wait for the reactions of free-thinking, clear-light people who have no investment or agenda or any kind, or better yet sci-fi haters.
That doesn’t mean that Anne isn’t a sharp, wise, intelligent observer — she certainly is that. But she occasonally tends to be overly obliging (she was oddly supportive of Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life when everyone else was saying “this again? more wackadoodle?”) and the phrase “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth” arguably applies depending on your temperament or point of view so that’s all I’m saying. We all have our way of seeing things and working the town, etc. Anne’s judgment is fine, and she’s a first-rate human being. I’ve known her for a very long time.