Yesterday’s pleasant surprise was realizing that Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy (Warner Bros., 12.25) is not a run-of-the-mill “get an innocent guy out of jail” diligent do-gooder thang, but a carefully made, better-than-decent, stirringly acted, emotionally affecting drama of a slightly higher order.

We have to check out of the Salamander by 11 am (40 minutes hence) but I’ll try to elaborate later today.

Thanks so much to Susan Koch, Dana Bseiso Vazquez and the Middleburg Film Festival for a hugely enjoyable three and a half days. A brilliant gathering with all the right films…comforting, stimulating and exciting at every turn. The Irishman is the final screening (1 pm) but we’ll be catching it on Thursday in Los Angeles.

Alexander Payne at Middleburg Film Festival on 10.21: “You want your movie to be as short as possible. There are too many damn long movies these days…if your movie’s three and a half hours at least let it be the shortest possible version of a three half hour movie…like The Godfather Part II [and] The Seven Samurai are super tight three and a half hour movies and they go by like that. So there’s no ipso facto judgment about length.”

I’m not saying the director of The Holdovers was specifically refererring to Killers of the Flower Moon when he said the above, but is there anyone on the planet earth who didn’t immediately presume that he was referring to Martin Scorsese‘s elephantine murder saga?

The truth is that relatively few three-hour-plus movies are regarded as painfully slow. Most of them work on their own sprawling terms.

I wouldn’t have said a word if Michael Mann‘s 170-minute Heat had been 10 minutes longer…hell, a half-hour longer! There’s a certain endless splendor to Sidney Lumet‘s Prince Of The City, which runs 167 minutes….it could have easily run 15 or 20 minutes more withut diminishment. The 227-minute Lawrence of Arabia is pure butter, pure icing, pure symphony…it never lags or drags, Ditto the 197-minute Spartacus.

Some three-hour-plus films, however, contain drop-out moments — plot triggers that encourage a sudden lack of interest or prompt viewers to space out or otherwise disengage.

For me, the drop-out moment in Killers of the Flower Moon begins at roughly the half-hour mark…I’m sorry but when I realized I was more or less stuck with Leonardo DiCaprio‘s dumb-as-a-fencepost Ernest Burkhart and Robert DeNiro‘s drawling, tedious and endlessly repetitive King Hale…when I realized I would be hanging with these fucking dolts for the next three hours I fell into an increasingly deep depression. Not during the first viewing, mind (I was moderately engaged or at least respectful of the film when I saw it in Cannes) but when I saw it for a second time last Thursday night.

Part One of Gone With The Wind is fairly riveting — the drop-out moment comes when Scarlett O’Hara marries Frank Kennedy, or roughly 35 minutes into Part Two. It’s all downhill from then on.

The Barry Lyndon drop-out moment comes when Ryan O’Neal blows pipe smoke into the face of Marisa Berenson. It marks the beginning of Lyndon‘s “dead zone,” which I explained in detail nearly seven years ago.

The drop-out moment in the 212-minute Ben-Hur comes after Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) vanquishes the evil Messala (Stephen Boyd) in the climactic chariot race. Ben-Hur is basically a betrayal-and-revenge movie, and once Judah’s revenge has been achieved there is no more movie. Nobody cares about Judah’s sisters being cleansed of leprosy or Judah being purged of his anger and bitterness by the blood of the crucified Jesus Christ. It doesn’t fucking matter!…nobody cares!…the post-chariot-race stuff is pure denouement.

Put another way, life is hard no matter how you slice it, and, to quote John Lennon, “there aren’t no Jesus gonna come down from the sky.”

“American Fiction” (Amazon MGM, 12.15) is simply brilliant – a hilarious and incredibly intelligent crowd-pleaser. I may be jumping the gun a bit, but it's taking the top spot in my Best Picture rankings for the Oscars. #AmericanFiction #mff2023 pic.twitter.com/GFGcPlxWeN

— Mark Johnson @ Middleburg Film Festival (@MarkLikesMovies) October 21, 2023

Rian Johnson‘s Glass Onion (Netflix, 12.123) screened last weekend at both the Hampton’s Film Festival and the Middleburg Film Festival. I’ve spoken to a couple of fellas who saw it but there’s plenty of time to get into reactions down the road. Okay, I’ll share a few.

There are, it turns out, a few Last of Sheila echoes but it does opt for its own plot, which restarts and constantly goes back upon itself toward the end. Somebody dies, yes, but not whom you might think. Yes, Daniel Craig‘s Detective Benoit Blanc is depicted as gay but so what? Janelle Monae is very good, one opined. Ditto Kate Hudson, said another. Longish, they both said. The title refers to the all-glass Greek island home owned by Ed Norton‘s “Miles Bron”, an Elon Musk-like tech billionaire. Dave Bautista plays “Duke Cody”, a YouTube star and men’s rights activist in the Joe Rogan mold.

Speaking of suspected or supposed gayness, here’s a Peter Ustinov Spartacus story [starts at 15:59]: “The [unit] publicist, Sonia Wolfson, said to me, ‘Oh, Peter, steer clear of the commissary today…Hedda Hopper is there and she doesn’t want to see you.’ Well, this was like a red rag to a bull. I didn’t want to see Hedda Hopper either but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be seen by her. So I said ‘what’s wrong?’ and Sonia said ‘no, it’s too embarassing’ but I eventually wheedled it out of her. Hedda Hooper had said to someone that I was so brilliant as Nero in Quo Vadis that I’ve got to be queer. Well, of course, I went straight to the commissary, went up to her and said ‘how are you….hah-hah-hah-hah!’ and behaved in the way of a rather gross English sergeant, and we never had [any such trouble from Hopper] again.”

Another excellent Ustinov story begins at the 23:00 mark.

I took this video inside the Cannes press conference salon on 5.17.15. Call it a period of relative calm before the storm. The #MeToo movement would launch two years and five months later, and over the following year the first stirrings of the woke Robespierre plague began to be felt. Peak terror was felt during ’19,’20 and ’21. All in all the plague has been with us for four and a half years now, going on five. It’s just about run its course, but the real death throes won’t be felt until the November ’22 midterms.

From “The Moment I Realized Carol Was Toast With Older Viewers (i.e., Academy Voters)“, posted on 2.2016: Todd Haynes‘ Carol may have been, for me, the most emotionally affecting relationship film of 2015. I’m not going to rehash all the praise-worthy elements (Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara‘s fully felt performances, Ed Lachman‘s 16mm cinematography, the early ’50s vibe of repression and propriety). It so perfectly captured, for me, what it feels like to be in love (“I know how it feels to have wings on your heels”). I particularly remember what a high it was to see it in Cannes…everyone was levitating, it seemed.

“Then I saw it again six months later — in late October, or a month before it opened commercially on 11.20 — at the Middleburg Film Festival. Middleburg is a more conservative town than Los Angeles, of course, but it’s similar to the Academy in that it’s full of wealthy over-50 white people. And the instant Carol finished playing in the main conference room of Middleburg’s Salamander Resort and the lights came up, you could feel the vibe. They ‘liked’ and respected it, but they didn’t love it. The atmosphere was approving and appreciative, but a bit cool. And I said to myself, ‘Okay, that’s it…not even Christine Vachon dreamed that Carol could win Best Picture Oscar but after Cannes I thought it would probably be Best Picture-nominated because it’s so affecting and classy and poised….now I don’t think that’ll happen.’

“It went on to win big with critics and industry groups, but older whites never embraced it. They somehow didn’t see themselves in it.”

Is there something exceptional about Steven Yeun‘s performance in Lee Isaac Chung‘s Minari (A24)? Is he a potential Best Actor contender? Just wondering.

Okay, I’m not “just wondering.” I’ve been goaded by a 10.23 Clayton Davis Variety piece about how Yeun “could become the first Asian American Best Actor nominee.”

Apart than the name-checky Asian representation wokester angle that Davis is all hopped-up about, is there something fundamentally wowser about Yeun’s performance? He plays a struggling South Korean paterfamilias in this 1980s American heartland drama, which apparently won’t open until sometime in early ’21.

A week or two ago I had a chance to stream Minari via the Middleburg Film festival streaming site. But like an idiot, I forgot to watch it. The link has since expired.

Since Minari premiered at last January’s Sundance Film Festival, I’ve been hearing that Yeun’s performance is good and steady but…

Minari “is fine,” a friend told me earlier today. “[But] you won’t be doing somersaults over it. Critics are such suckers for immigrant stories these days.”

A trusted industry player who gets around and has seen Minari says that “not even in a year like this one is Minari anything but a Spirit Awards level thing.”

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy: “Minari is too subdued for Academy tastes. It’s more of a memory thing than any kind of story. Clayton Davis lives in his own world. He likes to create his own Oscar-race narratives, purely based on his own tastes. That’s not how it works. Minari was not screened at TIFF or NYFF, nor was it part of Telluride’s lineup. It’s been mostly forgotten.”

Critic pally: “I haven’t seen the movie, so I have no opinion. But here’s what we know: The media world, the movie world, and especially the Oscar world is now woke, woke, woke, and (in case that’s not enough wokeness) 27 more helpings of woke. I hate it, you hate it, but that’s how it is. So they’re looking for this movie to be this year’s equivalent of The Farewell.

“I can’t say if Yeun is deserving or not, but for this era it kind of sounds like business as usual.”

I have this vague impression that wokesters with the major domestic film festivals have been less than fully receptive cool to the established-older-white-guy contingent in terms of festival passes. (Excepting the trade critics, of course.) They — Sundance for one, Toronto for another — seem to be preferring to accredit women critics, younger regional critics, critics of color, LGBTQ critics.

I was famously stiffed by Sundance in ’19, of course, largely thanks to the delightful Scott Weinberg but also the spirit of Maximilien Robespierre. I also didn’t attend Toronto that year.

This year, needless to point out, has been a wash due to Covid. Virtual viewings + drive-in screenings just ain’t the same.

I’m nonetheless surprised to discover that a few younger critics have recently gotten the TIFF brush-off — Jordan Ruimy (World of Reel), Nathaniel Rogers (The Film Experience), @NextBestPicture’s Matt Neglia and Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales. Bizarre but true. A tweet indicates that even Monica Castillo and Beatrice Loayza were briefly denied a TIFF pass, although these decisions were later reversed.

I’m also hearing that several members of the Toronto Film Critics Association have been denied accreditation.

One dismayed suitor explains that “a lot of people got rejected…their reasoning being that they need to limit the amount of people they accept due to the virtual component of the fest this year, which doesn’t make any sense.”

Morales: “Two publicists went to bat for me and still no luck…not sure what they were looking for, given the years of experience and how much I have covered TIFF in the past.”

Has anyone else of note been stiffed by TIFF?

At least I still have Cannes, Telluride, Santa Barbara and Middleburg in my quiver!

Catholicism and the Pope are concepts that millions still cling to worldwide. Because they offer a feeling of steadiness and security in a tumbling, tumultuous world. Included among the faithful, one presumes, are thousands of movie-worshipping Catholics, and so Fernando Meirelles and Anthony McCarten‘s The Two Popes (Netflix, 11.27) is, not surprisingly, faring well as a potential Best Picture nominee. The fact that it won the Audience Award at the 2019 Middleburg Film Festival is an indication of this.

I saw The Two Popes for the second time last night, and I felt slightly more charmed and moved than I did during my initial viewing in Telluride.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for the film, and particularly for McCarten’s script (which is based on McCarten’s 2017 play, The Pope). In my humble opinion McCarten should definitely be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. And it seems increasingly likely that Jonathan Pryce‘s performance as the future Pope Francis (aka Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) will be Best Actor-nominated as well.

But honestly? I still feel emotionally removed from The Two Popes (as I wrote in my 9.1.19 Telluride review). Because I don’t feel any sort of kinship, much less a profound one, with the Catholic Church. I never have and I never will.

I don’t believe in holiness. I don’t believe in the Vatican carnival. I don’t believe in robes. I don’t believe in red shoes. I believe in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes and in Charlton Heston‘s performance in The Agony and the Ecstasy, but I haven’t the slightest belief in those Vatican City guard uniforms or the mitre or the scepter of any of the theatrical trappings. I believe in humanity and simplicity. I’m not exactly saying that I believe in Pope Lenny more than Pope Francis, but in a way I kind of do. Almost.

I don’t believe in the Bible…not really. I certainly don’t believe in celibacy for priests, and I despise the thousands of priests who’ve molested children worldwide and the countless bishops and cardinals who’ve protected them from the consequences. I believe that women should definitely be admitted into the priesthood. And while I understand and respect the fact that millions believe in the Catholic mission and its hierarchy, I myself don’t. Catholicism is more against things than for them.

“Robe, Mitre, Scepter,” posted from Telluride on 9.1.19:

Fernando Meirelles‘ The Two Popes is an interesting, mildly appealing two-hander as far as it goes. I had serious trouble with the refrigator temps as I watched, but I probably would have felt…well, somewhere between faintly underwhelmed and respectfully attentive even under the best of conditions.

It’s a wise, intelligent, non-preachy examination of conservative vs progressive mindsets (focused on an imagined, drawn-out discussion between Anthony Hopkins‘ Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce‘s Pope Francis a few years back) in a rapidly convulsing world, and I could tell from the get-go that Anthony McCarten‘s script is choicely phrased and nicely honed. But I couldn’t feel much arousal. I sat, listened and pondered, but nothing ignited. Well, not much.

Possibly on some level because I’ve never felt the slightest rapport with the Catholic church, and because for the last 20 or 30 years I’ve thought of it in Spotlight terms, for the most part.

I love that Pope Francis (formerly or fundamentally Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina) is a humanist and a humanitarian with simple tastes, and I was delighted when he jerked his hand away when Donald Trump tried to initiate a touchy-flicky thing a couple of years ago. And I’m certainly down with any film in which two senior religious heavyweights discuss the Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby” and Abbey Road, etc.

I’m not spoiling by stating that Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy (Warner Bros., 12.25), a fact-based legal drama that I caught during last weekend’s Middleburg Film Festival, ends on a positive note. Due to the efforts of a good-guy lawyer (Michael B. Jordan‘s Bryan Stevenson), a falsely-convicted innocent man (Jamie Foxx‘s Walter McMillan) doesn’t rot in an Alabama jail for the rest of his life.

But McMillan’s climatic moment of salvation, which happens in the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, doesn’t entirely work. Because Joel P. West‘s score lays it on too thick — the emotional “Hallelujah” sauce by way of a church choir and an orchestra working its ass off. It’s the only moment in the film that feels like it’s pushing too hard — the rest of it feels suitably restrained and more or less on-target.

I’m not dropping the Just Mercy grade because of West’s “oh dear God” music — it still gets an A minus or at least a B plus. But composers have to be careful not to overplay their hand. Because the right or wrong kind of music at a key moment in a film can make or break, regardless of how good or expert the overall effort might be.

To further my point I’ve pasted Max Steiner‘s main title music for Mervyn LeRoy‘s The FBI Story (’59). On one hand it’s a decent but flat-footed saga of an FBI agent’s (James Stewart‘s Chip Hardesty) career with the bureau; on another it’s a J. Edgar Hoover-approved propaganda film that Hoover almost literally co-directed. It feels like a stodgy chest–beater.

But Steiner’s music, at least during the opening credits, makes you say “wow, okay…maybe this film had some good points that I missed.” It’s spirited and proud-sounding in a marching-band way.

The Austrian-born Steiner (1888-1971) was pushing 70 when he composed the FBI Story music. His best score was for the verging-on-discredited Gone With The Wind, which he composed in his early 50s. His second and third best were for Casablanca and King Kong.

One discussion panel and two (or possibly three) films today at the Middleburg Film Festival: (a) “Talk Back to the Critics” — DC-area film critics kicking it all around — Travis Hopson (News Channel 8, WETA Around Town), Nell Minow (rogerebert.com), Susan Wloszczyna (GoldDerby.com), Jason Fraley (Entertainment Editor, WTOP)and Tim Gordon (FIlmGordon) — 2 pm at Old Ox Brewery; (b) Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy, a fact-based “noble lawyer struggles to get innocent guy out of jail” drama with Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson — 3:15 pm at Hill School; (c) toss-up between catching a 6:30 pm screening of Alma Har’el‘s Honey Boy, written by Shia LaBeouf and based on his childhood relationship with dear old shitheel dad, or just sitting down somewhere and writing for an hour or so; and (d) Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out, at long last — 8:30 pm, Hill School.