I began explaining my lack of interest in the Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival two years ago. I respectfully blew it off again this year, and will most likely do the same again next year. Who cares? It’s just a big glossy event that mainly attracts red-carpet media types. No culture, no intrigue, too many limos, not for me.

“I’ve been attending the Palm Springs Film Festival for the last few years,” I wrote on 1.3.16, “and at the end of every one I’ve asked myself ‘was that really worth it?’ I used to think of the PSFF as a warm-up for Sundance. Now it’s basically a big-media paparazzi pigfuck that every significant Oscar contender is obliged to attend, and all you can do as a columnist is…well, not much. Write observations, attend the events, listen to try-out acceptance speeches, snap a few photos.

“You drive all the way out there and stay in some old-style place for two or three nights for $400 or $450 bucks and for what? It’s a tax write-off and not entirely unpleasant (Variety‘s Sunday brunch party is always agreeable), but I decided to ignore it this year. Too much grief for too little yield.

A 2015 HE headline said it all: “Puttin’ On Ritz in Chilly Corporate Bunker Once Known as Palm Springs.”