Two encounters in one day

After my Mr. Bill meeting, I'm guess I'm on a roll.

There's a little dive bar I'll take Mojo to once in a while. They let him come in because he pays his tab. Today there were four bikers there on their way back to New Port Richey where I'm from, so that seemed like a good conversation starter to keep them from kicking my dog.

One whose name escapes me but I gave him a better one before he left, told a great story about how one of the other guys -- think Easy Rider starring Wilfred Brimley -- got his name "Pork Chop." The dude-to-be-named later didn't like Pork Chop before this ZZ Top concert but someone they knew named James who knew someone got them backstage passes.

Therefore, Pork Chop was originally known as "James' Dickhead Friend."

Everybody gets along now. That way, the first guy doesn't mind telling the long version of how Pork Chop got another name while Pork Chop knows he can't stop him. With my tropical shirt and flip-flops with bottle openers on the soles, neither can I.

Funny story, well told, about them finding the backstage catering tables unsupervised and Pork Chop earning his name and the other guy's respect by carrying out a full tray of "the other beef." Right before they run into ZZ Top, who they can't shake hands with because they're too greasy and the band's going onstage. Nice story and, from my experiences, easy to believe.

"So," I say after the laughs die down, "you're Pork Chop's Dickhead Friend."

Did you ever want to grab words like a scenic overlook guardrail?

The good news is that the first guy now has a name that he accepted with enormous humor, and Pork Chop, after all these years, has a story to throw back. Plus two other highly amused bikers as witnesses who were already helping to rub it in.

My work here is done.

The host from another coast

Over 18 years, the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival changed leadership several times because, frankly, staging an event of this magnitude can wear out anyone.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the festival’s purpose, says first-year programmer Roberta Munroe, a Los Angeles filmmaker whose art, organizational skills and jury tastes have taken her from Sundance to Cannes.

Munroe has racked up lots of air miles between coasts to get the job done here. “There is no better way to bring the community together, across race/religion/class/age and gender lines than to provide a diverse selection of some of the best queer film available,” Munroe said in an e-mail from her California home.

Add the parties and panel discussions on gay, lesbian and transgendered issues, and you have the ingredients of a 10-day festival that alters lives -- and occasionally straight perspectives.

“There isn’t one person on staff or on the board who doesn’t view this festival as a way to bring us ALL together through the medium of film,” Munroe messaged.

A preview of this years festival will be published in next Thursday's Weekend.

This isn't about movies...

... but maybe it is. As a football fan, I've heard everything that has been media-fied on the OklahomaState/Jenni Carlson story  at this time.

Why is this possibly about movies? Because movies are about being perceived as something you're not, and making other people want to be like what you really aren't.  Coaches and journalists have movies made about them all the time. When reality isn't what it appears to be on screen, I'm intrigued.   

I've played football (with mediocre results even in not small but mini-college) and coached it (with about the same results) at the high school level before taking this job. When I wasn't coaching in 16 years of public school I was teaching students who play, not only football but other sports. I'm not an expert at the game but I know the emotion and expectation that comes with it. I can imagine what magnification the NCAA status adds to that.

I've reported for the Times -- with no explanation needed for its journalistic integrity -- as a stringing sports writer for as many years as a full-time film critic , 30 years total. I'd say just about the same way I played and coached football but the folks who pay me are kinder.

What Jenni Carlson wrote about OSU's now-backup quarterback wasn't right. Maybe accurate, but not right. I don't follow the team but I read, not only the column in question but her front page follow-up.

What OSU head coach Mike Gundy did at his press conference wasn't right, for himself and his team and most of all to the object of all this attention, QB Bobby Reid. Maybe as much to Reid's former backup, now replacement, Zac Robinson. I don't coach anymore but I see the clips on YouTube and ESPN.

I can imagine a TV movie-of-the-week now, but I don't know what the plot, or who the villain, should be.

But I will say that Carlson's column was out-of-bounds. If she had such inside information that Reid is too soft to be a starting quarterback on a so-so team she should have written it earlier. Doing it when the kid is benched -- and bringing his mother feeding him chicken after a game into it -- wasn't necessary.

Hell, I wish my Mom had chicken waiting for me after games, and I hadn't worked up much of a sweat.

Then again, I wouldn't. No football player wants to be seen as a mama's boy. And they don't want the sight of laughing off a bad play described as weakness. Players are told to forget the last play and move on. Sometimes, as in the movies, that involves laughter.

That's where Gundy's 3 1/2-minute tirade comes in, and why it was wrong.

The only person, besides his or her mother, who a player doesn't want to take up for him or her in public is his or her coach. But as a former coach I can understand the bond, even affection, that coaches build with any player, even the last sub, especially when you've made them one.

What concerns me is that, in this media age when impressions are made in a single sound byte and they stick, both Gundy and Carlson are going to set back their professions a few years.

Gundy has the least to worry about, though. People will soon understand the heat of the moment, the game, the team loyalty, yadda, yadda, yadda, and call him fiery. A few hours ago, folks called him crazy. I heard the transition on ESPN and Fox sports radio, then even on Inside Edition.

But some people will use that as an example of how coaches are out of control with their self-deified authority.

Carlson's transitioning image will be stickier. I remember when women first gained access to press boxes and locker rooms for male sports; the snide jokes (I told some) and expectations of failure. Almost to a woman, they succeeded.  I'm not saying Carlson was showboating to make her bones when previous women did it the tough way but other, less enlightened people will. And it will cast suspicion upon female sports reporters to come, however misguided that is.

That will come in the next wave of knee-jerk responses.

The answer? An apology from both sides, no matter what kind of bristle-back legacy they're trying to emulate. And a common understanding that both sides of the public/media dynamic should think about the results of their expressions of their individual truths.

When Gundy said 3/4 of Carlson's column was inaccurate, he was desperately exaggerating to save face, for himself and a player who failed by starter standards. Carlson vehemently calling him on that fraction, in person and in print, seems like a desperate attempt to save face for a lapse of common decency.

Which is worse?

Feast of Love; famine of rhythm

Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear in "Feast of Love." [AP Photo/MGM/Peter Sorel]

Feast of Love is really just a sampler platter of good writing and performances, none presented in a fashion to be emotionally nourishing. It is a rare film that is dully fascinating, always shifting focus at any moment when the material is getting interesting.

Director Robert Benton crams too much on his plate, attempting to cover all the crazy things people do for all kinds of love. Honestly, the movie didn’t make much sense until Googling the term “Greek myth love” and discovering the template that is so inscrutable on screen.

The tip-off is the opening voiceover by Morgan Freeman, and a better narrator likely never existed in movies. He speaks with honeyed wisdom about the gods being bored so they created humans, then getting bored enough to invent love. Then the gods tried it for themselves, got bored and invented laughter. Each of those mythological steps is covered in Feast of Love except the laughter part.

We’re treated to snippets of classical Greek romance: brotherly love, selfish love, Sapphic love, and such, with a little puppy love tossed in. It is a cleverly esoteric idea run into the ground by director Robert Benton’s scheme.

Feast of Love never finds a rhythm, composed of revelatory snippets that fade to black then are dropped for another. If one story line is appealing, you’ll likely endure another that isn’t before returning to the good stuff. I’d suggest that Benton should’ve adopted a chapter format like The Ten or Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (but Were Afraid to Ask) except none of these petty romantic displays would hold up as a story line.

Feast of Love opens Friday and will close soon after that. Read the full review Thursday in Weekend.

Legendary mime Marcel Marceau dies

Oddly, there were no last words.

Weekend box office report from the best Web source

Resident Evil: Extinction pulled enough game boys from their La-Z-Boys to win the weekend box office race with $24-million, Chuck needed better luck and Into the Wild posted crazy huge numbers in only four theaters.

Read all about it on Box Office Guru, the only site that interrupts my fantasy football pages on Sunday afternoons.

Connie Stevens

The name may not mean much to folks who read blogs. But Connie Stevens was probably No. 3 on the list of stars who held my hand through puberty, just a shade above Stella Stevens. Kitten with a Whip/Viva Las Vegas Ann-Margret was first, edging out the Parent Trap combo of Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills (let me tell you about my childhood sometime).

So, imagine my surprise when I'm scanning Web stuff and see that a "Connie Stevens" is making her feature film directing debut with a movie titled Saving Grace, currently in production in Missouri.

It couldn't be, could it?

Turns out that it is, as you can read on Hollywood Reporter right here.

I feel an interview coming on.

Summer b.o. wrap-up/slap-up

Hollywood Reporter has a wrap-up of the summer movie boxoffice that proves three things:

1. Audiences will buy anything if they've bought it before (see all the sequels and brand name bait and switching).

2. If a movie doesn't make back its investment, or close, in the first weekend, it is a flop. (Look up the reported budgets vs. B.O. results).

3. Good ideas only make money if they're realized first, even if the latter version is superior (see Surf's Up compared to the other penguin/animated flicks).

Discuss among yourselves.

Harry Potter gets schooled by an Oscar winner

Good days for fantasy geeks, with another major casting announcement, this one for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due next November.

Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent (Iris) -- who can make an onion cry in his upcoming drama When Did You Last See Your Father that I caught in Telluride -- has been added to the already formidable cast of British actors who have become Potter fodder.

Broadbent will play Professor Horace Slughorn, a new Hogwarts instructor in potions that'll be needed for the inevitable final showdown with Voldemort.

Read all about it here.

 

Zoe Saldana going where Nichelle Nichols has gone before

Now, this could make me interested in seeing another Star Trek flick:

Zoe Saldana, the creepy (but curiously hot, even 50-feet-tall and covered with seaweed) voodoo queen in the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, has signed on for J.J. Abrams' new enterprise, due Christmas Day, 2008.

Read all about it here.

Will (Packer) power

One of my favorite times in this job was the day, about seven years ago, when a pair of Florida A&M grads named Will Packer and Rob Hardy cold-called me with a cockamamie scheme. They were downstairs at the Times, hoping I'd have a cup of coffee with them to talk about it.

Ninety minutes later, I was enormously impressed. Will (shown at left) and Rob had a plan to bypass the traditional distribution system with their second film, a sexually-charged thriller titled Trois. Rather that wait for a distributor to pick up Trois and probably waste it, the duo and their newly formed Rainforest Films would make their own deals with individual theaters across the country, focusing on African-American neighborhood theaters.

It was an audacious idea that worked. Trois opened on Valentines Day weekend and in only a couple dozen theaters posted the largest per-screen average of any movie that weekend. Sony took noticed and signed a development deal with Rainforest. One of their first efforts under that banner was the minor inspiration-themed hit The Gospel.

That was Will's first movie that his sweet mother Birice felt comfortable telling her church friends about, as I wrote at the time.

The Sony/Columbia Tri-Star deal hit its peak last year when Rainforest's production Stomp the Yard was No. 1 on the box office charts for two consecutive weeks. Their next project is This Christmas, a family drama starring Delroy Lindo due in November. In 2008, Will plans an urban remake of The Big Chill.

Now comes word that Will -- a St. Petersburg High School graduate -- was honored by Variety magazine as one of its 10 producers to watch, with the award presented last week at the Toronto Film Festival. I recently spoke with his parents about how proud they are, preparing an update for an upcoming Floridian piece.

This morning, Will e-mailed this message about his reaction to the award:

"When I first heard about the Variety designation I thought 'Wow, good thing I beat #11!'. But in all seriousness it represents  great validation for the early work in my career. I've always had very lofty aspirations so I know I've still got a long way to go but it feels really special to be acknowledged by the industry.

"For myself and my company it means that we'll get a few more calls returned! But it also means that expectations will be greater. Now that I've been called 'One to watch' people may actually 'watch'. So I guess I'd better keep it up!"

Toronto honors a homeboy

Toronto's annual film festival/junket bordello ends this weekend and homeboy David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises was voted the audience award.

Imagine that.

Cronenberg, a longtime Toronto native, made an interesting Russian mob drama (that's something, considering Police Academy: Mission to Moscow and Bad Boys II) that opens next Friday. I've never admired Cronenberg's films as much as people I wouldn't wish to sit near would like. But I like his shock style -- and the occasional twisty plot that isn't in Eastern Promises.

Here's a preview of Thursday's review:

David Cronenberg’s history of violence continues with Eastern Promises, a transparent mob drama marked by his signature fascinations for flesh and grotesque ways of maiming it. Not that Cronenberg makes gore flicks but he usually devises at least one visceral scene that mere slashing can’t top.

In Eastern Promises – a vague, benign title for such an abrasive work – that scene is a knife-and-knuckles brawl in a London steam bath. It wouldn’t be different from others except that Cronenberg drops one combatant’s towel, exposing more than his throat to his enemy’s blade and viewers’ eyes.

The explicit scene goes on long enough to linger in your mind and overshadow everything else in the movie.    If the purpose of cinema is drawing reactions for viewers, Cronenberg does it masterfully, especially in that sequence. If cinema is intended to tell a meaningful story while inducing such shocks, Cronenberg misses his target this time.

Across the Universe? Let it be

   

Across the Universe, opening next Friday, is a Beatles songbook movie that needs a little Help!

The Fab Four’s 1965 hit isn’t included in this sporadically dazzling musical, probably because it is bouncy and bouncy doesn’t suit director Julie Taymor’s vision of Vietnam-era America.

This is a movie in which I Wanna Hold Your Hand is slowed to a lesbian cheerleader’s lament and I Want You comes from Uncle Sam on a draft board poster rather than a longing lover. No less than 30 Beatles songs are featured, fitfully linked by a lackluster love story and counterculture politics lifted from Hair.

There isn’t a bad singer among the mostly unknown actors although Eddie Izzard is a terrible Mr. Kite but he’s known.

Across the Universe isn’t awful like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and we can be thankful for that. It comes perilously close with Izzard’s garish number and Bono as a trippy guru proclaiming I Am the Walrus, when Taymor employs silly psychedelic stunts straight from a Roger Corman flick. Goo, goo, g’joob, indeed.

Read the full review in next Thursday's Weekend.

The food bloggers have their movie picks and I have mine

Check out Laura Reiley's current blog posting with her picks for the best food-related movies of all time. The Snack Pack bunch in TBT chimed in with their choices.

Me, I like to be different, and gross.

Here are my fast choices for the best vomit-related movie scenes of all time:

The Exorcist -- The greatest movie puke of all time, limited in its color and consistency by the pea soup effects but certainly memorable.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life -- If Linda Blair is the queen of movie barf, Mr. Creosote (Terry Jones) is the king. "Get me a bucket!"
Team America: World Police -- Marionette sex got even kinkier on the unrated DVD version. Messier, too.
Stand By Me - Wil Wheaton's campfire story about a blueberry (I think) pie eating contest gone grossly wrong.
The Witches of Eastwick -- Veronica Cartwright projectile barfing cherries on the devil's -- i.e. Jack Nicholson's -- command.
The Invasion - The most recent regurgitation flick (and Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake), with an extraterrestrial virus spread by puking into victims' faces.

So, what are your (urp) best Technicolor yawn choices?

Hitting the ground running

The worst part about vacation is the work awaiting your return. Had a double feature Monday, another this morning at 10, banged out three reviews and still maintained my six fantasy football teams (going 4-2 on the NFL's opening weekend). Oh, yes, I have good judgment about more than movies.

But that's why we're here. Here are some impressions from three movies --   The Brave One, The Hunting Party and The King of Kong -- slated to open Friday. Read the full reviews Thursday in Weekend.

The Brave One is Death Wish warmed over, an urban vengeance flick boosted by Travis Bickle’s little girl pulling the trigger.

Jodie Foster stars as Erica Bain, a radio commentator whose life-in-the-street monologues proclaim Manhattan is “the safest big city in the world.” Erica is successful, engaged to a swarthy Chippendale doctor (Naveen Andrews), loves her job and her faithful dog.

Of course, things will go horribly wrong.

The resemblances of The Brave One to such quintessential revenge movies as Taxi Driver and Death Wish are unfortunate and possibly unavoidable in a Big Apple setting. And we’re talking about films released three decades ago, so moviegoers under 30 may not notice. They’ll groove on the timeless, vicarious thrill of seeing bad people suffer what the legal system won’t do, administered by a character who could be any of us.

/////

(Afternoon update: The Hunting Party's opening has been pushed back to Sept. 21.)

Wobbling between satire and serious politics, Richard Shepard’s The Hunting Party never attains firm grounding in either camp. It isn’t funny or scathing enough to be considered even moderately successful with either approach.

The Hunting Party is based on an Esquire magazine article concerning a quintet of journalists who set off in Bosnia’s backwoods five years after wartime to capture an ethnic cleansing criminal. They accomplished more than NATO and UN forces assigned to the task, uncovering a diplomatic arrangement to let the sleeping dog lie. That is choice material for a movie, just not this one.

////

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a treat, whether you’re a video game warrior or still can’t get the hang of Pong. Director Seth Gordon reveals the immaturely cutthroat world of joystick jockeys whose existence entirely depends upon their scores.

That is, except for nice guy Steve Wiebe, whose decency and the fact he has a life – a sweet family, a middle school teaching job – sets him apart from the pack. Representing the dark side is reigning champion Billy Mitchell, looking like an extra from Interview with the Vampire, playing juvenile head games unbecoming someone his middle age.

The King of Kong traces the detached rivalry between these two men, conducted through hearsay and Donkey Kong scores that may not be reliable. Accusations of cheating are common; snotty comments from Mitchell more so. Somehow, director Seth Gordon makes the beeping confines of a game room as grandly combative as a Monument Valley vista.

Bitter Miss Sunshine

Spent the last few hours of vacation Sunday flipping through TV channels until my role model Larry David started his new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Came across the conclusion of Little Miss Sunshine, when that adorably pudgy Abigail Breslin was clumsily clumping through Rick James' Super Freak with nowhere-nearly erotic moves choreographed by her heroin-addicted grandpa.

Sorry, that was Britney Spears opening the MTV Video Awards.

Abby and Brit: Separated at girth?

Two days 'til the beat, but the Disney beat goes on

I'll be back at work Monday with enough to keep me busy, but I must comment on this hubbub with the properly cynical truths in reddened parentheses based on facts from the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- The Walt Disney Co. is sticking with the 18-year-old star of its wildly successful "High School Musical" franchise (because money means more than morals), despite her "lapse in judgment" in posing for racy photos that were leaked to the Internet (as less famous girls-gone-wild have done).

Vanessa Hudgens apologized Friday for the photos (on the Mouse's urging or her timid hindsight), which show her smiling as she posed naked and in underwear in a bedroom with a red curtain (she's an "autumn," you know) behind her.

"Vanessa has apologized (on her accountants' advice) for what was obviously a lapse in judgment," said Disney Channel spokeswoman Patti McTeague (who is now America's Mom, judging by the follow-up:) "We hope she's learned a valuable lesson." (Thanks, Mrs. Cleaver.)

She said negotiations were ongoing to land all the actors for a "High School Musical 3" feature film — including Hudgens (who Disney knows the franchise can't do without, so she'll get a lighter slap... and now a smaller payday for the trouble. Co-star/boyfriend/alleged photographer Zac Efron, too. Could Disney have set this up as a cost-saving measure?).

Hudgens, who played the brainy Gabriella (apparently not typecasting) in the first two made-for-cable TV movies, told her fans she was sorry (she got caught).

"I am embarrassed over this situation (becoming public while negotiations are going on) and regret having ever taken these photos," she said. "I am thankful for the support of my family and friends (and my meal ticket)."

Hudgens' (suddenly important) publicist, Jill Fritzo, wouldn't say anything about who took the pictures (frisky Zac???) and how they slipped out onto the Internet (risky Zac???).

The bookworm Gabriella was the love interest (fill in your own euphemism) of Troy, the basketball star played by pinup king Zac Efron. The sequel's premiere on Disney Channel last month attracted more than 17 million viewers, making it the summer's most-watched TV program (and more have seen the racy photo in question online by now).

Hudgens is a superstar (oh, c'mon!)  among the preteen set, and Disney has spun a wide merchandising net around the series with albums and concert tours (like Oliver & Co. and Home on the Range?). She and Efron reportedly date (that's what the kids call it these days) in real life (which they know nothing about with their fame), making them big attractions for celebrity magazines (which would otherwise be covering Angelina Jolie's newest maternal fling).

The films' wholesome nature(as opposed to natural in the whole) — for a company that has made its name on family-friendly fare for generations (that the company has trashed through media integration) — is a big part of its success. Parents can relax with their children watching, knowing it won't make for any uncomfortable questions (oh, yeah?).

Gabriella and Troy coo, they make googly eyes, they barely kiss. Gabriella would doubtlessly blush at the idea of a young actress posing for nude photos (maybe she's a better thespian than I thought). If Disney executives had cut ties to Hudgens, not wanting the company's name associated with anything not G-rated, they would have run the risk of upsetting a formula that has made the company millions upon millions of dollars (which is why Hudgens isn't fired right now... if HSM were only a moderate success she'd be made an example of the wholesome image Disney has smudged).

How would parents (as if they're around or listened to anymore)explain to the show's young fans that the old Gabriella was being replaced by another actress?

"That's her private life, not her public life (is there a difference with a "superstar" these days?). That picture got leaked by somebody who broke a trust with her (Zac???)," said Michele Smith of Westborough, Mass., whose 8-year-old daughter Kathryn is a devoted "High School Musical" fan (and in whom she has invested modern parent's time and money that she doesn't want wasted).

Dropping her from future movies or other "High School Musical" projects would not only be unfair to Hudgens but to fans such as Kathryn, Smith said. (Because, of course, there will never be anyone else as lovely or talented as she.)

"If Vanessa is not in the movie, my daughter would not be so excited to see it," she said. (Which is why Disney is being so lenient in nudgin' Hudgens to an apology they can comfortably spin.)

Bottom line: If this were Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a middling success that faded fast and whose star also posed provocatively, Hudgens would take her lumps and move on to a fast payoff in another, more mature vehicle. Maybe Cruel Intentions 4. Disney and Hudgens are desperate enough to candy-coat, keeping the gravy train on its biscuit wheels.

We're back in Kansas, Toto

Just flew in and, boy, are my arms tired. Ba-dum-dum. Left Telluride yesterday after the Labor Day feed and drove most of the way to Denver for the return flight. Might've gotten farther if we hadn't stopped in Ridgway, CO where John Wayne's classic True Grit was filmed. Went to the True Grit Cafe where the Duke's memory plasters the walls, including one of brick and aged general store paint that's the only wall left from shooting in 1969.

The cafe is homebase for this weekend's True Grit Days, a 2-day (albeit several months late) 100th birthday party for Wayne and a celebration of the mining region's biggest claim to fame since someone found a use for gypsum.

Met a guy named Mr. Bill (Calhoun, I later learned) who owned a livery stable back then and saddled up a horse for John Wayne whenever he wasn't filming or chugging whiskey with his posse at the White Stallion Saloon down the road a piece. Mr. Bill, 77 and a 58-year Ridgway resident, says the Duke never let anyone else pay but that meant he called the shots.

"John Wayne never bought me a beer," Mr. Bill said, "but nobody around him ever paid for any drinks."

About a half-hour later, I noticed Mr. Bill's Bud was running dry and asked Joni the bartender to give him a beer. You don't have to do that, he told me. I tapped his arm and said: "I want to do something John Wayne never did in his life." Mr. Bill understood.

As you can tell, the resolution on my photos isn't good. But I have to share this one from the Labor Day feed. After taking his photo, I impulsively asked director Werner Herzog if he'd honor me by using my cameraphone to take my picture; being even a brief subject for a master filmmaker is a hoot I couldn't resist.

He loved the idea -- although having to teach a world class director how to use the camera was an odd delight. I won't show you that photo. Then he suggested we take one together with me clicking the shutter. Then he started directing me; where to hold the camera, the pose, etc. Herzog directing me. Now I have something in common with Klaus Kinski.

Dianne caught that moment in another mildly blurred photo:

Telluride unveils the best film of 2007

I know that's an out-on-the-limb posting title and it may come back to bite me in the Raisinets. But I can't imagine any forthcoming movie to top Sean Penn's Into the Wild on my top-10 list at year's end.

Penn has transformed the book about Christopher McCandless' ill-fated wanderlust into a movie that honestly had me sobbing for 45 minutes after it ended; not only for the tragedy or the message(s) in McCandless' story, but Penn's perfect composition of everything as screenwriter and director. I'm too short on time now to go into detail but I can't wait for when I can.

Also saw a future best foreign language Oscar contender, a German production titled The Counterfeiters, directed by a guy named Stefan Rutzowitzky,who I spent two hours talking with over dinner Saturday night at La Marmotte. His movie has sold out three shows so far, with many others turned away. Sleeper of the festival, and one to watch out for.

Walked out of Brian DePalma's Redacted, based on an Iraq War incident involvng US troops, the rape of a young girl and the murder of her family. Didn't DePalma make this movie before? Yes: Casualties of War with Penn and Michael J. Fox ("What're we doing here, Sarge?"). Now he adds Blair Witch-style videocam conceits and an obscenely exploitive vibe that turned off much of the audience.

Saw Penn and director Werner Herzog in Elks Park in an hour-long discussion of Into the Wild and great outdoors temptations for filmmakers, moderated by former Times Xpress writer Scott Foundas. I'll pass along some of the best moments and photos later.

For now, I need to race to the Palm for a screening and then to the annual Labor Day feed for festival passholders, featuring some of the best steaks you'll ever taste. Then a couple more films, depending on how the TBA choices have been planned. We're back on the road after that and back home tomorrow night.

I don't want to leave. 

Stuck inside Telluride with those Memphis blues again

I had a very detailed account of last night and today (so far) at the Telluride Film Festival that got lost in a power failure and I won't try to reproduce again because it was splendiforous and I'm on vacation and Dianne doesn't want me doing this to being with.

Short version: Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan biopic (sorta) I'm Not There is confounding, brilliant and frustrating. In other words, it captures Dylan to a spazzy Q, if not a T. Sparking a lot of conversation here, including my tete-a-tete with a pair of comely festivalgoers (think Sandra Bullock and Daryl Hannah) over drinks and grain alcohol-soaked cherries at Tracks, located about 10,000 feet above sea level, give or take a stem or two.

Saw the Iranian animated film Persopolis -- at least half of it -- late Friday. My guess is that this autobiographical account of a girl growing up under the Shah and Khomeini with its unfriendly stance toward the U.S. earned extra credit at Cannes where Eurocentric voters gave it a prize. Dianne and I left halfway through -- from fatigue, not entirely dissatisfaction -- but I couldn't avoid quietly paraphrasing Eric "Otter" Stratton in Animal House during Dean Wormer's kangaroo court: "I'm not going to sit here and listen to her bad-mouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!"

Woke up early to attend the career tribute to Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor who I often overlook because he so good and so infrequent in his roles. A twink from NPR's Kitchen Sisters show was asking questions that had everyone rolling their eyes including -- if he'd admit it -- Day-Lewis.

Then we were off to the annual Class of Telluride photo shoot where I got shots of Sean Penn, Day-Lewis, Buck Henry, Laura Linney, Ken Burns and more that'll be posted when I get out of this Sprint-forsaken area of the Rockies. I'll get 'em online Wednesday after our return.

Sat justaboutthisclose to Penn, Haynes, Wayne Wang, Julien Schnabel and others during a panel discussion of turning real life stories like I'm Not There and Penn's Into the Wild into feature films. Got in the last audience question, wondering after all their flighty discussion about being faithful to source material, how does being faithful to the subject person figure in? Penn got a tiny bit testy but what do you expect?

Got shut out of a promising late addition to the lineup: Juno, directed by the guy who did Thank You for Smoking, starring Ellen Page from Hard Candy. That's when Tracks came into the picture then everything got blurry. I remember a filmmaker making a documentary on film festival line queues and a  U.S. district attorney from Wichita, Kansas who helps organize their film festival, telling me lawyer jokes and suggesting my attendance as a guest speaker sometime. I was almost run out of Kansas in college. Maybe he sees something in that.

Gotta get ready for the Sony Pictures Classics shindig, then wind down with the remastered Help! under the stars and peaks in Elks Park. May catch a late-night show at Chuck Jones Theatre not far from the chalet. I have a few of those cherries saved for the evening.

You should've read the longer, lost version.