Now and again, after a lot of digging – and we are doing more digging than ever – you find a simple, perfect gem. Such is The Comey Rule.

We have been down this road before. And not without some real aesthetic value. There is an entire series of films by Oliver Stone, but the most similar in immediacy was W., a film of mixed strengths and weaknesses. Just last year we had the dueling looks at Roger Ailes and Fox News with Bombshell and The Loudest Voice. We have gone to various forms of reality with Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the best being The People v. OJ Simpson, though that took 20 years of simmering before it came together in such a thoughtful, complex way. Bernie Madoff has been dramatized multiple times. Jack Kevorkian. Steve Jobs has 2 films in the can already.

What draws you in so profoundly in The Comey Rule is that Billy Ray, who wrote and directed based on Comey’s autobiography, never asks the audience to go far from the indisputable. Like who you like. Hate who you hate. You can argue all day long about whether you believe the motivations that are presented fro each character in this limited series… or really, whether the various individuals believe the motivations that are offered or are liars. But you can’t fairly walk away from this show claiming that Billy Ray is “taking Comey’s side” or “going easy on Hillary” or whatever posture you take into the viewing.

If you have convinced yourself that the FBI and everyone working for Obama before Trump arrived were openly conspiring against Trump from the beginning because they hated Trump, yeah… you will be disappointed. You are also somewhat delusional. But that movie won’t get made for a few years yet.

Unlike Stone’s W., no one is really doing an imitation in The Comey Rule. Brandon Gleeson, obviously, has a lot of make-up in playing Trump. But his performance will be the most subtle take on Trump you will ever see. And really, it’s rather sympathetic. He isn’t the lunatic currently on display, barnstorming the contested states spewing insane accusations and self-indulgent lies. This is early Presdient Trump, arriving in Washington with his ideas of how the world should work and feeling his way through.

The theoretical lead of the story, Comey, played by Jeff Daniels is a variation on Daniels, not remotely a detailed approximation of Comey. For starters, Daniels is a lanky 6′ 3″… but Comey is 6′ 8″ and usually has the awkward physicality which that height offers. I was looking forward to the scene of Comey trying to hide in the curtains of the Oval. I have no idea whether Billy Ray considered it, but I could understand that it wouldn’t have felt the same without a gawkily tall guy.

All the players you have probably read about are there. And there is that moment when you are amused by the casting of somewhat familiar actors in most roles. But they take their place in an ensemble that lives the story, not as dramatically as an Aaron Sorkin might have made it or masked in mystery like Oliver Stone, and all become as banal and frustrating as any workplace drama.

The portraits of power ebbing and flowing, whether a very subtle Holly Hunter as Sally Yates or Michael Kelly as a hard-edged and driven Andrew McCabe or Scoot McNairy as a more-political (non-party)-than-he-suggests Rod Rosenstein. Strzok and Page (Steven Pasquale and Oona Chaplin) each has a very strong personality, fallibility, and a sex life that gets in the way. And Amy Seimetz is the glue in the FBI office, playing Trisha Anderson, who is the arbiter of legal truth for both the office and the audience.

It makes sense… but it is also clearly a dramatic choice that Billy Ray doesn’t introduce Trump until the very end of the ninety-five-minute long first episode of the twi-parter.

Gleeson’s turn here is like a subtle, perfect custard. An endless treat. But you need that first 1:35 to prepare yourself for this new, game-changing character. Also, the first half is really about Comey and the Hillary Clinton (who is not dramatized) e-mail drama. So it is hardly inconsequential. It is what establishes the baseline, high and low, for the next 2 hours.

The secret sauce for The Comey Rule is Comey’s home life, where his wife is played by the always-great Jennifer Ehle. Her role reminded me greatly of Patricia Clarkson in The Untouchables. Not quite as ethereal. And in this case, a strong voice with a strong sense of the history into which her husband is wading.

There is something oddly comforting and deeply shocking about reliving the time that The Comey Rule covers. Four years later, it feels almost quaint, as so many strings coming from those early days have gone in so many previously incomprehensible directions.

Billy Ray is the superstar here. Jeff Daniels as Comey is in a rather thankless role, though he does as well as I can imagine with it. Brendan Gleeson should be a prohibitive favorite for Emmy next year (or maybe thinking of anything Trump will be too much for voters). Chaplin, Seimetz, Kelly, and McNairy all get enough screen time and big enough challenges to be remembered for years to come, while other great actors doing wonderful work just aren’t in showy enough roles to have much more than the pleasure of having been part of this.

An epic of restraint. Can’t wait to watch it again.

I thought it would be worth doing a deeper dive into Unhinged‘s weekend “win” because the trades are being indulgent in their coverage and this is the start of a few weeks, at least, of the effort to reopen theatrical.

The most generous reading of the Unhinged weekend is that the film did $2,195 per theater. Why is this generous? Because the “screen count” we were used to is really a count of theaters, most of which are now multiplexes, and thus, the window for this “B” movie is wider than it would ever be in a normal time for distribution. In places where it would normally appear on one or two screens, it is on three or four.

No one should expect pre-pandemic numbers from any movie opening for some time to come. New York, California, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, North Carolina and Arizona are all still closed for movie theaters. Still, that is less than half of the Top 30 markets in America.

$2196 per theater is still just 75 tickets sold per day per theater. And that math gets thinner as you spread it out over multiplex screens.

The #1 theater in the country for Unhinged was The Paramount Twin Drive-In. With social distancing accounted for, they have room for about 600 cars at two screens, each of which has two showings a night. The ticket cost is $10 per adult. So if they did $25,000 this weekend, that would be 2500 people over 12 screenings, averaging 209 people per screening or, say, 100 cars per screen or 33% capacity. This estimate could be a little high or a little low. I don’t have the exact figures for The Paramount or the average viewers per car.

It’s hardly an embarrassing number… especially for this movie. But as the only theatrical window in the Los Angeles area… protected by staying in your car… is… meh. It seems like good business for Solstice Studios, which has taken a terrible, offensive movie with a fallen star and turned it into a classic B movie success by the standards of the moment.

I don’t know if WB will book The Paramount Drive-In for Tenet. Apparently, The Paramount doesn’t know either, as its screening schedule stops on Thursday. I would drive the hslf-an-hour, even though they don’t have digital ticketing (so, no guarantees about getting in), to see Tenet in a second.

I would also go see Mulan, even with the PVOD option on Disney+. But it seems that Disney isn’t going to let that happen.

I agree with Anthony D’Alessandro of Deadline that reflexive dismissal of this box office number is wrongheaded. But I also think that treating it as some big win is also iffy, at best. It fits right in with Trolls World Tour and The King of Long Island and the other experiments in varied releasing methods. There is no North Star yet. None of the efforts have been a disaster.

Answers will start to come with Tenet, for better or worse. We won’t be at 100%. But that issue is overblown. Very few theaters do 50% occupancy outside of Friday or Saturday night or Saturday and Sunday morning for kids movies. The limitations in the theaters may prevent old highs. And NY/LA/etc being closed is also a slowing factor. But Unhinged doing $8 million instead of $4 million this weekend was not caused by seating limits. (And by the way, suggesting that $8m would be a good open for Unhinged in normal days is false.)

With the release of the Toronto International schedule a couple weeks ago, the unveiling of the Telluride un-schedule today, Venice’s refusal to do any streaming for media or anyone else, and New York announcing that it will open with a TV series (not unlike TIFF opening with a movie The Academy apparently won’t qualify as a movie), the picture of just how much of a non-starter (save Tenet and a Zhao or two) this September is going to be for cinema lovers.

What surprises me is that it is getting more frustrating, not less.

The overlap between the “cooperative” Venice and Telluride is four titles in the Venice competition and two more in the Horizon section. Pending the New York list, 22 of the 29 of the Telluride selections have no North American festival placement scheduled in 2020, with Venice failing to offer streaming of any kind for their features.

And don’t look to Toronto to alleviate the problem. Only seven Venice titles are scheduled for TIFF.

But hey… Going to Venice is now a wide-open opportunity with Telluride out of the picture, right? Hold your horses.

Entry into Italy from countries outside the EU and/or the Schengen Agreement continues to be allowed only for:

• proven work requirements
• absolute urgency
• health reasons
• proven study requirements.

All travelers arriving in Italy from abroad must self-isolate for 14 days unless they are traveling from an exempted country or for a purpose that falls under current exception.

So… If you can show that you are required by work to enter Italy with a U.S. passport (we are not exempt in any way), you are then supposed to quarantine for two weeks. That gives you two weeks to start your trip to the festival if you want to be out of self-isolation for opening night.

Among familiar names whose films will be at Venice and whose new films have no North American home yet are Andrey Konchalovskiy, Majid Majidi, Amos Gitai, Nicole Garcia, Alice Rohrwacher, Abel Ferrara, Gia Coppola, a documentary from Luca Guadagnino, Orson Welles interviewing Dennis Hopper, an Alex Gibney doc on a forensic psychiatrist, and a TV episode from Alex de la Iglesia.

A whopping 13 of the 29 Telluride selections have no other festival commitments or impending North American distribution. These include a doc on Tarkovsky by his son, an Agnieszka Holland film (now showing in Transylvania… not kidding), the next doc from Keith Maitland (The Tower), and a recreation of a conversation between Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote by the filmmaker who premiered Love, Cecil at the fest in 2017.

At this point, the only inside-the-kvell-way players daring the circuit are Searchlight (Nomadland), Neon (Ammonite), and Sony Classics (The Father).

And now, we wait for the New York list. TIFF took on eight of the 27 Cannes selections. One of those (Nomadland) is set for NY. How much more overlap might there be? And how accessible will NYFF make their festival outside of New York? So far, they have suggested the festival will try all kinds of ideas.

For ten days, between September 10 and September 20, getting through the 50-plus TIFF titles will be challenging, exhausting, and sure to offer some happy surprises. But how will be I be participating in advancing film culture for the rest of August until September 2 and then until September 9?

Waiting.

Mostly waiting.

A few of the films will come my way via publicists. And they they will deservedly get my attention.

But mostly… waiting.

It didn’t have to be this way.

I am beyond sick of reading about every minor move by any studio with any theatrical movie being hailed as a paradigm-changing event. It’s absurd.

But I realized I haven’t broken down what there is and where it is likely to land. So here we go.

I made a list of 107 studio releases (Disney / Universal / WB / Sony / Paramount) and high-profile titles from indies like A24 and MGM that are ready to go or in some stage of post-production that suggests they will be available to release in the next 15 months. Please feel free to send in corrections. There are details that I know and details that I don’t know. Some of these titles won’t be ready. Some will. But mostly, this should be a pretty fair picture of the content on hand.

First, the nineteen 2020 movies that are unlikely to be repurposed for VOD or any other reduced-profile release, based on expectations. (Ten of the 19 have already had to move at least once.) Anything that is expected to gross more than $400 million in worldwide theatrical isn’t going anywhere. The closer to that number — or the more shaky the prediction -— the more of a chance that it will be converted.

As I started writing in June, there may be an experiment or two in Foreign-First release. But the danger of this remains that the U.S. is underwater, specifically, four of the five largest cities in America (NY, LA, Houston, Phoenix) and eight of the Top 10 (add San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and San Jose) and piracy is a real issue, especially since there is no clear date for theaters to release in NY, CA, TX or AZ.

THE UNTOUCHABLES (alphabetical order)

The next group is studio movies that the studios absolutely want to hold for theatrical, but under the right circumstances, could push out in some other way… such as by streamer or by sale.

Please be clear… inclusion on this list does not come with any specific assumption that any of these studios are not committed to these films. But budget and relatively limited theatrical upside make them titles that could be considered for commercial experimentation.

POTENTIALLY TOUCHABLE

(Paramount’s Without Remorse is dated 2021… and is being discussed for a sale to Amazon. 7/23)

Next is the High Art group. Established filmmakers with strong reputations, but susceptible (in spite of contracts committing to theatricals) to potential reconsideration of their distribution windows.

HIGH ART MEANT FOR THEATRICAL BUT THAT COULD SCORE ON VOD OR STREAMING

DOCS THAT COULD BE CONVERTED

HORROR THAT COULD BE CONVERTED

GAY-POSITIVE COMEDIES THAT COULD BE CONVERTED

FILMS WITH STUDIO DISTRIBUTION THAT SEEM LIKE POSSIBLE VOD TITLES

FILMS WITHOUT THEATRICAL DISTRIBUTION BUT WITH STUDIO-LEVEL ELEMENTS THAT MIGHT GO VOD AFTER MISSING FESTS

That covers 2020. It is possible that there are some unsold films that, like Broken Hearts Gallery, could be bought and converted to 2020 VOD product.

Looking at 2021, most of the titles are in the “untouchable” category. The list is not anywhere close to complete.

But there are already 20 sequels/spin-offs on my list of 38. None are close to finished. Some need more shooting. Others, elaborate post-production.

So… I end this piece here for now and spend time considering how the back-up of 2020 films will affect 2021. (One amusing note is that some still have the moved F9 and the shot-at0the-same-time F10 both coming out next April.) This should give you a fair amount to chew on.

I started writing this two weeks ago. I was interrupted and never finished… for all the reasons I started writing it.

I am not afraid to shoot off my mouth. I have strong opinions. And even if you disagree with my analysis, I have educated, researched opinions.

But all the thoughts cascading through my mind and my heart and some days, my very soul… right now, they feel meaningless.

There are people in this industry who have solid ground under their feet. The television business is a place where they should be doing all the infrastructure work that hasn’t been done properly for decades, so that when production restarts in earnest, they are ready to be the very best platforms possible. Writers can write. Producers can work on writers’ work and make deals that are on shaky ground, but it’s something to do.

But people like me? Putting aside the specific weirdness of specifically being me, I am an analyst and strategist. I am a journalist, though the word never sits comfortably in my mouth. I get information. I contextualize information. I offer information.

And COVID-19 is a giant “fuck you” to anyone who thinks they know anything right now. Unless you are managing something that already exists, you are wishing and hoping and dreaming.

On issue after issue after issue, taking an absolute position on the future is Russian roulette. Movie theaters. Movies themselves. The future of streaming. Non-TV awards. Film festivals. International vs domestic. production. Distribution. Unions.

There is a media obsession with selling the notion—fundamentally stupid—that the entire filmed entertainment universe is going to be on our television sets with 5000 IMAXs for Marvel movies. Idiotic. On its face. But putting that aside… COVID-19 could make that happen. Not directly. But none of us can be sure that traditional brick & mortar—not just cinemas, but every mall and restaurant—is going to look the same after this all settles in however long it takes. I don’t know if theaters will survive another 15 months of the virus. If Los Angeles’ Century City Mall becomes a condo, I wouldn’t expect an AMC, or maybe a much smaller AMC.

The question of whether people would want to change their primary content provider in the midst of the pandemic was up in the air a couple months ago. I leaned towards more conservative choices by consumers. But time and the virus may change that dramatically. As people have less money from working, the $50 each month that cable or DirecTV costs over cutting the cord might look attractive, even if it requires effort. But access to a strong internet connection is also part of this equation and do people want service people coming into their homes to manage higher-quality internet service? The longer this goes on, the more pressure points exist and the harder they are pushed upon.

Many of my opinions are unchanged since March. Others have changed dramatically. My position on the now-cancelled Telluride Film Festival started with spreading the event into 12 days, with one-third of passholders invited to the section of their choice. It seemed like this would narrow the danger and discomfort. Soon, I added to that the idea that media should be eliminated from the mix, included by a digital offering, which could also be the basis for building a full-festival digital footprint as needed. By June, I was 100% in on Telluride going 100% digital, with the outside hope of some local event in Telluride. Last week, the knife was shoved in for the festival, as the local school board disallowed the use of two of the the festival’s three largest venues. But that was a predictable outcome. The festival chose to roll the dice, but the dice were loaded from the start.

Toronto, on the other hand, announced — without asking me, for the record — that they would push all of Press & Industry to streaming. And unsaid, though I expect it may be what happens, is the notion that the entire festival may eventually expand into a virtual event. Same ticket price for a movie and Q&A, but stay home.

Of course, there was another major variable in these festival choices… The Academy. By pushing the Oscar Show two months (which still is 50/50, at best, to happen), they undermined an already problematic situation for the August and September festivals. It allowed the distributors to bow out because the fests were suddenly way too early for launching awards efforts, which they have relied on for hoopla in recent years. So the show can go on… but if there are more than a handful of ambitious awards movies, it will be a surprise.

That brings up the comical date change by The Academy. How will this work? If they are waiting for theaters to open, are theaters more likely to be open in January and February than in November and December? If Academy members are watching movies online and via screener, why delay? If it’s about the show itself, what makes anyone think it will be any safer to do a show live in Southern California in April than in February? All I see is magical thinking… and a shift in the pressure to actually have a competitive Oscar show, as if, in February there is a good chance it would be cancelled but in April there is less of a chance. But based on what? Whim. It’s strategy by awards consultants, not anything grounded in reality that anyone has been able to explain to me.

Look. Maybe Toronto will have a local event that works great. Maybe New York will be a great outdoor festival. Maybe theaters will open in the fall and winter and The Oscars will be a huge winner in April. Maybe distributors will feel compelled to raise the bar higher and higher regarding what they are willing to push to their streaming platforms. Maybe American studios will start prioritizing international distribution in countries that are open and start overseas, then figure out America. Maybe NATO — the National Association of Theater Owners — will make an agreement with distributors to get a piece of the VOD for a films that were intended for theatrical. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe…

I don’t need to predict the future perfectly. I have always been about the ongoing conversation and not about the insta-answer. But I don’t want to do it right now. I don’t want to add to the noise. There is so much noise. And so little reality.

So… thanks for caring. (I assume if you bothered to get this far, you do, either way.) But I don’t want to piss in the wind. And there is a lot of wind right now.

“After months of intense due diligence around physically holding an event, we’ve come to the heartbreaking but unanimous conclusion to cancel this year’s Labor Day celebration of film in Telluride.”

I love Jon Stewart. He is earnest and smart and funny and on the same side of politics as me.

But he’s not a very good director.

Not everyone has that skill set. And it shows in the most basic ways. How he frames a single, a two-shot, a joke. How he likes his films cut. How he manages the visual rhythm of his films.

I also watched a silly little film from a first-time director this week that had many flaws… but this person has a legitimate sense of how to direct a movie. A couple more films and they could be completely solid. But Stewart… you can feel his intellect in his directing. This has made for 2 interesting movies with some strong moments… but if you gave Frank Oz the script for Irresistible, the movie would improve by 20% before he made any of the script changes he would make. Oz happens to be one of the modern masters of farce on film. But any other skilled director would improve the film by 10% or more right off the bat.

And part of why this directing issue sticks with me is that Irresistible has the ambition of being a modern Capra film before it turns a bit on that idea. And it has all the pieces. Carell, check. Chris Cooper, check. Small town, check. Rose Byrne, check. It’s all there. But it’s doesn’t quite work the way your movie-loving brain wants it to… knows it should.

The film needs to be close to letter-perfect in creating the very familiar film genre. It needs to draw us into the pleasure of that genre. And I had no idea what the goals of the film were when I watched it (happily). I just knew that it was taking me down a sweet, old-fashioned road I had not expected. But pretty quickly, I was finding myself trying to feel that energy instead of being bathed in it by the film.

And then, Stewart adds more elements, which are funny at moments, but don’t fit in the film. Ultimately, he decides to take you somewhere you don’t expect… but it doesn’t work for 2 reasons. First, the turn is not incredibly well thought out. Second, we weren’t drawn far enough into the pleasure to be shocked in the way a story structure like this aspires to shock.

I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to linger in spoilers.

But here is an analogy. When Psycho came out in theaters, the idea that Janet Leigh didn’t even consider that the place she stopped for the night was creepy as hell and run by a psychopath was not a laugher. We hadn’t seen what was to come in a movie before. If you do a thriller/horror film in 2020, the red flags would seem so extreme as to be funny. Modern horror films are all built on the foundation of Psycho and others. But they have to be aware that everyone else is aware of “the rules” as well.

Stewart makes it clear in a variety of ways that he knows “the rules” and he wants to make sure you are not comfortable in making the assumptions people have made in such films for decades. It’s not a lack of intelligence or knowledge. He just doesn’t have the directing skills to do it like a master, seeing every moment connect to every other moment, from start to finish.

I will offer this one example, based on the TV ads and trailers you have all seen. Carell seeing Mackenzie Davis, arm deep in a cow’s ass. There is a lot going on in that beat, which happens very early in the film. He sees a woman much younger than him, but it still showing sexual attraction. But seeing her arm in the cow seems to freak him out. But what do we now know that will take us through the rest of the movie? Is he afraid of animals or excrement or is he just a city rube? How can he have fought so many political wars and still be shy around the kind of animal handling he has seen at a hundred state fairs with candidates? Will he still be attracted to The Girl? Why does the 69-year-old military guy have a 33-year-old daughter and what does that mean about him and how he feels about a 57-year-old eyeballing his daughter? And by the way, one possible love interest in the film is 41… how does that all fit?

And it isn’t this one gag that threw me off. How does a guy who is so prepared and professional… he is the guy who knows things… show up in a town and completely miss everything that is right in front of him. No wi-fi at the hotel. HA! He landed in town not knowing that there are places in America without easy wi-fi? Seriously?

Roger Ebert used to talk about how mediocre/bad horror movies needed characters to do stupid things to keep the threat alive. Likewise here. Characters have to do things that just don’t make a lot of sense in the effort to make them funny.

Genius filmmakers can make things I would never imagine work, so take this with a grain of salt. But the two ways to go, normally, with a character who is a fish out of water is to either make that character adept at overcoming problems or completely unable to overcome problems. The gray in between those things may be realistic, but it tends not to be cinematic… certainly not Capraesque.

But the real trouble comes when the audience doesn’t get a sense that the lead character is either in control or wildly out of control. In Irresistible, it often feels like Carell is just grinding it out. And when the moments come where Stewart is going to make a commitment one way or the other, he tends to punt. Or to reverse it the next morning. So as an audience, you are never fully comfortable committing to any idea.

Stewart finally gets decisive in the third act, as I have hinted repeatedly. But by then, you don’t trust the story. You don’t much care about the characters, whether because they keep flipping or because Stewart has hidden their realities to keep the surprises surprising. And the conceptual switch is a slap in the face… much in the style of some very great films. But this feels (almost) unforgivable when it doesn’t work like a perfect Rube Goldberg device.

Which brings me back to the director. He needed someone who is a master at complicated farce storytelling. Almost no one in this era does it well. And I would blame the producers in most cases, but the excellent producers of this film are the kind of producers who support the filmmaker’s vision, first and last. In this case, too much.

I don’t hate Irresistible. But I wanted to love it. And I tried to love it. I tried and tried and tried. I laughed out loud at jokes, realizing I was overdoing it in my very own living room. I wanted to go there with a guy who I so admire and love hearing.

Please. Next time. Write a script then find a great director to work with.

There is nothing more frustrating to me than a film that could have been everything and comes up short. One of Stephen Frears’ few missteps as a director, Hero, comes very much to mind. It too was a spin on Capra. I loved Dustin Hoffman as the truly angry variation on Gary Cooper. Geena Davis was perfect for her role. Andy Garcia was right for the real Gary Cooper guy. But it was all just a step too clever and cynical to take from an anti-Capra movie to a Capra movie. Back in 1992, when I first saw the film, I thought that it was something about Frears being British and not understanding Americana. But that thought faded over time. Frears understands people. But the script had just one too many tricks, trying to make Capra modern, but losing the emotional simplicity that is so key to Capra’s best films.

Anyway… I will still look forward to Jon Stewart’s next film. I will just hope that he finds a directing partner who he trusts and can share a project with fully. Or that he proves me wrong.

What’s playing at the Roxy?
Nothing’s playing at the gawd-damned Roxy.
A video stream sharing revenue with an indie exhib that can’t pay the rent  That he rationalizes because they can see the film all the way in Biloxi.
That’s what’s f-ing playing at the Roxy.

What’s in the frickin’ trades?
I’ll tell you what’s in the frickin’ trades.
Story about how festivals will happen in September
When people are afraid to leave their houses to buy groceries in June.
That’s what’s in the frickin’ trades.

What’s happening all over?
I’ll tell you what’s happening all over.
Guy sitting home by a television set
That used to be something of a rover.
That’s what’s happening all over.

COVID is the thing that has nipped them.
And now The Ac-ad-emy’s just another victim.

When you see a group pulling dates from their poop
You can bet that their doing it for some dough.
When you spot a fest waiting out the disease
Chances are they’re insane as all of their hopes hang out in the breeze.
When you see execs giving up on their checks
For those flats that could flatten the Taj Mahal.
Call it sad, call it funny.
But it’s better than even money
That COVID’s gonna be with us through the fall.

When you see a Joe unsure if launch will go
You can bet they’ll be cutting back on the dough.
When a film sets dates that exhibs may not make
It’s a cinch that the film is into the red and desperate for breaks.
When you see a fest putting out their face best
And they’re still selling platinum passes, oh!
Call it hell, call it heaven
But it’s probable twelve to seven
That the fest’s only doing it for some dough.

When you see exhibs thin on cash to their ribs
Make a bet they’d do anything for some dough.
When they’re des-per-ate to get the release date just right
Will the crowds wear their masks and splurge on popcorn on Saturday night?
When a blogging slob takes a goody steady job,
Cause when ad dates will start he just doesn’t know.
Call it dumb, call it clever
Ah, but you can get odds forever
Industry’s only doing it for some dough
Some dough, some dough
Industry’s only doing it for some dough!

This movie should have been called, “The Non-Graduate.” That’s what it is… a 2020 take on another era’s Ben Braddock. There is no Mrs. Robinson, because the faux stability of the suburban household is long gone. The closest we get to that character is the ex of our hero’s mother’s romantic interest… who our hero doesn’t sleep with, but through whom our hero gathers nasty intel on his assumed rival.

To extend the comparison, The Graduate focuses on a child of privilege who comes home from university to a malaise of comfortable inaction. Plastics. He acts out in the most violent way of which he is capable, having an affair with the wife of his parents’ close couple-friends, all the while pining for the pure romance of her daughter.

None of this fits The King of Staten Island, because Pete Davidson’s Scott Carlin is already destroyed at the start of the movie. His mother is a widow. He is already self-destructive. He, like Ben Braddock, has settled into the place where he is comfortable and unchallenged. Ben was floating in the pool, tanning. Scott is sitting in his basement, getting baked.

Scott’s ambition is to get through the day, the hour, the minute. He’s not okay. But he’s not looking to go anywhere. Even his sex life is barely a tick beyond complete passivity.

The firehouse his father passed away as part of is his Elaine in this telling of the story. It is profoundly connected to his pain, but it is also the place where he could find a reason to start living again.

Surprise!

Davidson co-wrote the film (with SNL writer Dave Sirus) based on his own story and Judd Apatow directed it. This is not your expected Judd Apatow movie either. It’s his darkest work, a smidgeon more so than Funny People.

The thing about the Apatow-directed titles is that there are usually a bunch of pals, hanging around playing videogames and smoking pot. And those pals are in this film too. But unlike previous JuddFilms, they aren’t used for comic respite here. And aren’t benign. Yet he and the writers don’t scapegoat them either. The movie is not about getting away from his people to save himself. It’s not that movie either. Every time you think you see the easy out coming, they go somewhere else.

The character that is Pete Davidson, Scott, doesn’t get easy redeeming moments, yet he is consistent through the picture. He is never not a decent human, even though he does some dumb stuff. So it is not a journey of miles, but of inches (like The Graduate).

I won’t get into spoilers. The other actors are good, though Bill Burr as a sex object was not on my to-do list for this lifetime. Bel Powley is perfectly real. Marisa Tomei tones down her charms enough to play a subtle parental role. Maude Apatow is building a fine resume (still not over her having children on Hollywood). There are a lot of bigger-role actors doing small parts and they underplay and aren’t trying to steal scenes that they could steal. And my favorite surprise was Robert Smigel as… not Triumph! See if you can spot his shot.

There is a dark charm to this film and to Davidson that is winning in an unexpected way. Apatow has become masterful at bringing out the very specific personalities of comics, like Amy Schumer, Pete Holmes, and in death, with his poetic, cinematic doc, Garry Shandling.

I understand why this film is on VOD this week, as it is a difficult sell. The SXSW premiere and the hip audience the festival has delivered for Universal most of the last decade could have helped the studio marketing team figure it out. But it’s not the Apatow movie you expected. It’s not the Pete Davidson movie you expected. Selling a lovely small film about a young man’s journey to peace with himself isn’t easy. “Sandler on coke” is a lot easier (though that was heavy lifting and A24 did a great job).

In many ways, “Pete Davidson on coke” would have been easier, too. A comic mockumentary about him being emotionally disconnected and a parade of starlets, young and not-so-young lining up to see if the rumors about his penis are true would be a much easier sell. Because that is what the media created. Who the hell knows what is true?

This is the second time I have been surprised by Davidson. His stand-up special on Netflix (Alive From New York) blew me away in a way I never saw coming. He wasn’t distant. He wasn’t full of shit. And he was not without feelings. He isn’t the most skilled stand-up. He isn’t super-smooth. But he is raw and from that rawness comes great humor. And he makes it seem a lot more casual than I believe it was.

I don’t know where Pete Davidson will go next. I hope somewhere happier for himself. But this is a fine marker of a young man, not afraid to go where he knows he must. For Apatow, there is a level on which he has been working — coincidentally or not — since he returned to stand-up. (Will Ferrell, by the way, has a terrific new piece coming to Netflix in a few weeks… classic Ferrell… but not Judd’s — or Adam’s — thing anymore. Unexpected roads.)

Whatever the delivery system, I am happy this film exists and that people will see it. I look forward to seeing it again.

The horror of 100,000 American dead (and counting) from the Novel Coronavirus and the grotesquerie of watching a man murdered before our eyes by a white policeman applying the pressure of body weight and a knee to the neck of an already under control black man will certainly bring us a wave of documentaries to sadden the soul in the years to come.

But on this very week, there are 3 new documentaries that speak to the plight of young women in our nation through the last six decades. They couldn’t be much more different in style or substance. But each packs a punch that cannot be denied and should not be avoided.

The story that has the earliest origin is AKA Jane Roe (FX/Hulu), which is both a history of Norma McCorvey’s life, her struggles as the famous Jane Roe in the Roe v Wade case, her late conversion to born again Christianity, and her confession of intentionally misleading others in the final days of her life.

Nick Sweeney is a relatively new documentarian, the first of his 5 films coming in 2014. And it is apparent in the film in various ways. His approach on this one, in terms of new footage, is very Maysles, following around McCorvey for what she proclaims as her deathbed confession. But the research and found footage elements are quite excellent, especially with McCorvey to narrate much of it. Who was this woman before, during, and after Wade. And then who did she become when the attention subsided a bit?

For me, the alternative title of the film could have been, “That’s So Norma,” because the personality was so strong and distinctive from early on in her life. She was abused. She was self-destructive. But she was also daring in strong in a ways we take for granted these days… or perhaps we have forgotten what that looks like.

It’s one of those narratives that is deceptively simple, because it always feels so sincere and undeniable. McCorvey is, somehow, both Forrest Gump and all the famous people he meets and all the pain that never quite seems to register in him, all in one.

It was fitting that I watched this right after the closing episode of Mrs America, a series I quite liked in all its kinks, and which ended with footage of the real-life version of the women whose lives together in the struggle had been dramatized. I miss those women. Women of their spirit are certainly around and growing in power every year. But one of the beautiful things about that era was that those women were not cleaned up so much. In fact, Gloria Steinem’s concern about her looks made her am interesting outlier in the series, much as she was a leader. I grew up hearing men frame Friedan and Abzug and others by their prejudiced standards of beauty. But this so missed the point.

And so it was for Norma McCorvey, who was not a traditional beauty, but carried herself with a power that was always apparent. Remarkable for a person who was so often victimized and who so often victimized herself.

On The Record (HBO Max) is the third documentary on sexual abuse by the team of Kirby Dick and Amy Zierling. The first, The Invisible War, is about abuse inside the military. The second, The Hunting Ground, is about sexual abuse on college campuses. And their latest is about really about workplace sexual abuses, particularly as it regards women of color, though it does center around media mogul Russell Simmons.

The skill set here is at the highest level of this group of films. The structure, editing, and imagery qualifies as artistic. But the facts are laid out, as in any quality doc. Drew Dixon was a soul-deep music lover and knew tahts he wanted to make a life out her passion. And she did. In her early 20s, she was a rising star behind the scene in the urban music scene. She had the ear for it. She understood the artists. And she was backed by Russell Simmons, who was an ascendant star-maker and star in his own right in that world. By the time she was 26, she was out, depressed, a bit broken, and a victim of acquaintance rape. In fact, the relationship the two had was used by Simmons to create the opportunity for the rape that happened.

But then the film also takes us back through what seemed like a magical era for black culture in America and addresses the dangers of success, especially for men who felt their power grow to the point where asserting that power became a daily habit, no matter what the cost to others.

Not unlike AKA Jane Roe, a big part of disarming the cynic in all of us is the intimacy the central figure allows. We spend enough time with Drew Dixon that we feel like we know her, more than a little. You can see the pain of her journey in her eyes. And then in the eyes of other women. We all have bullshit detectors. But unless you came to this film with your mind already made up to disbelief the women, I’d dare you to show me where you think these women are insincere. And when you have a long list of women, telling very similar stories, details connecting without rough edges, offering the camera their truths, it is not like taking one rape accusation and wondering if it is accurate. Five percent or so of rape accusations, like all accusations of violent crime, are expected to be falsely reported. It does happen. But it doesn’t happen to 30 women at a time.

I know an unfortunate number of women who have been preyed upon and raped. You probably know more than you realize, as so many keep silent. And this film speaks to the culture, as much as the act of rape. How did these women see themselves? How much were they willing to withstand? Almost all of them question their own choices about the moment in which the line was crossed.

The world is filled with abusers less obvious than Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein and Russell Simmons, and on. The shame so many (including myself) feel about not screaming out earlier about horrors that were so apparent is still fresh. There are more billionaires around than ever. But you don’t have to be a billionaire to be an abuser. Just hop on Tik Tok and see the often healthy and often terribly unhealthy ways that young women see themselves today. Some perps may be out of the game. But there is still plenty of danger.

Filthy Rich: Jeffrey Epstein (Netflix) is the most like a traditional piece of documentary. Highly produced. Beautifully directed by Lisa Bryant. Impeccably edited. This is the story of the girls who became tethered to Jeffrey Epstein, from the first girls who would accuse him to the last days of his life, all in about 4 hours.

This is the most traditional streaming series true crime doc of the group. It starts at the beginning and ends at the end, with some cleverly graphic-ed time shifts throughout. Completely solid. Each episode subtly turns out to have a specific hook, even as the overall story progresses.

The show is not coy. Audience members want to know what these girls looked like when they were girls. And we see. But first, we see them as adults. We see how many of them looked a so similar. And we see how time has changed them. We hear their pain. We see their pain. We feel their pain.

People who are steeped in this story are not going to get huge surprises. Small revelations, perhaps. But mostly, it is the consistent, clear-minded, complete telling of the tale that keeps it so very shocking. And so very sad.

The only missing gear is really three of the girls who ended up being the primary recruiters for Epstein, as named in the legal case that was settled so disgustingly. Haley Robson, who acknowledges having recruited actively, speaks in the film. Nadia Marcinkova, Sarah Kellen, and Adriana Mucinska do not.

But the central through line of the film that really holds it all together are depositions of Epstein himself. His answers are not varied much. But hearing the questioner try to push him. And listening to him plead the 6th, 5th, and 12th over and over and over again, becomes his primary voice in the film. And it is very powerful.

As the film goes on, the idea of what Epstein’s world was like becomes more and more obvious, even as the viewer is unlikely to harbor any similar thoughts like Epstein. It becomes less and less about this young woman or that young woman and more clearly as cold and callous and heartless as it was… and the damage to the women, whichever part of the history they had, be more heated and pained and inescapable.

Watching these three films in a group will not leave you warm and fuzzy. But you may never be clearer on what young women face in this world we live in, even today. We’re still debating Roe, powerful men continue to harass young newcomers, and sex trafficking is not just for billionaires (though many continue the practice).

You will come out of this experience (and I would include Mrs. America, which also offers great complexity even as it wears its politics on its sleeve) reminded where your own heart is. Not always fun. But we must never forget the pain of others or the communal significance we each bring to the world.

It’s almost June 1. And frankly, the festivals (Venice/Telluride/Toronto… and New York) are running out of time. What are they going to be in only three months?

We all have the same desire. For the festivals to go on, safely, with people sitting in theaters, watching movies. But circumstances are circumstances. The situation is not stable. No one can assure any state, town or group of festivalgoers of ANYTHING that will happen in late August and early September. The most committed filmmaker to opening his movie on screens this summer, Christopher Nolan, who has Tenet, put out a trailer this week without a date on it, even though they are on the calendar in seven weeks. For festival operators to proceed as though they can predict their future this year is nothing less than playing inverted Russian roulette, with one empty barrel and the rest loaded and ready to kill the thing we all love, the festival.

The problem is more than just putting people together in movie theaters. It’s the talent. It’s the films themselves. It’s competition, even in stasis, between distributors. It’s technology, which exists to manage all this, but is far from foolproof and requires testing and time. And it’s the pressure on these not-for-profit organizations to avoid taking on giant blocks of new debt (whether they can carry them successfully if they do is another conversation).

What would be the signal that TIFF or Telluride could have a legitimate shot at running a close-to-normal festival in any way this year? It would take the successful opening and maintenance of at least 10,000 theatrical screens in the US and Canada from July 15 until the start of those festivals. That’s your over/under.

But the trick is, if they wait until August 1 to decide, they don’t get to make the decision at all. The festival ship will have already sailed.

So what to do? My thing is… not knowing what field one is battling on means that the best plan is to build towards the most stable foundation. And if the Best Case Scenario is what comes to pass, do your best to support that in the moment, but no apologies for staying alive.

But without a small miracle, is talent coming to the festival? No.

Will movies be ready for the festival? Some yes, some no… many unknown.

Will distributors commit fall titles of significance when they don’t know the commercial endgame? That is a huge challenge.

Will smaller indie distributors be willing to send a lot of content if they are suddenly the dominant force because the bigger players aren’t ready to play? Yes.

All of this points right to digital festivals.

If TIFF can get $15 a ticket for streaming movies and the cost of delivering the movie is about $4, they should make good money, while saving a significant amount on the physical festival. Telluride and its pass system is more complex financially. If the festival were digital-only, the offer of a 20% discount for next year’s festival for Year 2000 passholders would satisfy most who shell out for the festival. Telluride is a labor of love for most attendees and I don’t know what the nut already committed for the festival is… but the only way to cause passholders to demand money back is to be too rigid.

I have written about the massive challenges for both festivals. For Toronto, it’s size and an international base of filmmakers and non-local attendees. For Telluride, it’s the glorious location and feel of the fest, which is profoundly about community and being in the 8,750-foot mountain air at a time of year where the daytime sun can deliver 90 degrees, that night can drop to 40 degrees, and rain is pretty much guaranteed for some part of the long weekend.

In both situations, upbeat estimates figure that the festivals will operate at 50% of attendance. But hearing people talking about 20% and 30% attendance isn’t rare. And in neither case is this is situation of any regular attendee who no longer loves the soul of these festivals. And it would be a huge mistake for the leadership of either festival to push either potential attendees or distributors to pick sides. That’s stress talking, not serious consideration of how difficult this is for all.

If I were a betting person, I would bet that North America will reach herd status before there is a vaccine. But that is probably late fall 2020 at the earliest.

I wrote about taking the media out of the process, by including them electronically, a month ago. But a month later, none of these festivals have taken this kind of action. Everything is still private chatter. That is the normal way that festivals run… quietly… negotiated between interested parties… presented to the media and public quite late in the game. This year, this is a suicidal approach unless you get lucky (the one empty barrel).

There are significant advantages to working through this on the media group first. Obviously, it is a smaller group of people than your primary festival audience. Second, it is a motivated group, already dealing with content-sharing technology, and hungry for experience that can eventually lead to stories. Third, with due respect, the publicity machine has control of the group in a very real way. If there are story embargoes, they will hold. If there are exceptions, one or two voices can be contained. But the entertainment media works hand in glove with the industry., Access is everything.

Toronto could experiment with a pre-VOD/theatrical release in the next month. A studio like Universal could screen The King of Staten Island through TIFF. The festival could develop a neutral digital platform for streaming (a challenge to be discussed further), spend a couple of weeks navigating their media list and expanding it or narrowing it accordingly. TIFF could, in theory, show it to junket press when it was time and then have all-media screenings whenever Universal’s chosen time for that occurred. (It’s too late for this title now… but not for a film like Sony Classics’ The Climb, due mid-July or even something like Disney+’s Hamilton.)

Obviously, if a first experimental effort worked, they couldn’t just expand it to a thousand TIFF ticket buyers. There will be bumps in the process. Large and small. But you have to start somewhere to get the process working if there is any hope of being a successful streaming festival in a few months.

“But David… NYFF and others are already streaming movies for money, so why is this even challenging?”

This is the next big problem. The indie theaters and festivals that are presenting “virtual cinema” are promoting and thus, earning a piece of the action from companies that would otherwise be doing normal VOD business. Nothing wrong here. But a festival is a gathering of distributors. So what becomes the standard for festivals? Is there such thing as a neutral streaming site? If you set it up so every distributor allows the festival to sell a set number of virtual tickets to each film, is every distributor set up for this?

The major studios distribute by single unit rental nad sales digitally via Apple iTunes, AT&T’s Fandango, Amazon, and so on. But all these parent companies are in the content business. If you are Warner Bros. under these circumstances, would you allow your film to be exploited at a festival in any way digitally by anyone other than Fandango? What about Sony? What about Paramount?

Bell is the primary sponsor of TIFF. Another Canadian company, Rogers, is also involved. As best I can tell, neither Bell or Rogers is partially owned by AT&T. Could they be an answer? Maybe. Or maybe the delivery process is a quilt of all the different distributors and their preferred delivery systems.

Netflix has a press and industry set-up to allow private access to content on their platform. In theory, TIFF could sell tickets and give the details to Netflix and Netflix could set up access passwords for 750 people. But that wouldn’t be a cakewalk. For instance, the private access is connected to the account that started the service… but that may not be the person who is expecting access. And people have a hard time, often, with what seems like easy password access processes. So it is possible… but challenging.

Telluride is different. Many fewer films. Overall festival passes instead of ticket sales. In theory, every Telluride film would have to be available to each of the 4,000 participants over the four-day weekend. Sounds like a long rental. I would love to watch films multiple times, but Telluride tradition has been that no one can see anything more than once across the weekend. (They used to punch a hole in your pass for each film, by number. They may limit digitally now. Not sure.) That is a choice the festival could make. But with a 96-hour weekend and sixty hours of films, I would push to see every single title at Telluride, which is an opportunity you can’t physically manage at the live festival. Q&As and Honorees could easily be handled online. And to the degree that distributors want to create talent access, also easy.

(For clarity, I’m not including Venice in this because, honestly, it means almost nothing to the domestic landscape. I have no idea how that festival relates to European theatrical or even their digital universe. I would be thrilled to be educated on this, but I haven’t seen in-depth analysis of the impact of Venice on film distribution in the rest of the world. I would attribute that to the interest of writers and media that want to continue to inflate the significance of this festival as it has done for decades. My comment on the commercial value has ZERO meaning as regards the artistic value of the festival. I am not challenging that. That is a different discussion.)

Next issue… Piracy!

I don’t consider this a minor issue. In fact, it may be the death of the whole effort. I may have buried the lede.

Again, less of a problem for Telluride, as it is a smaller audience overall and in some ways, the group has been pre-qualified by their purchase of a pass that starts at $800. Push the crowd size to tens of thousands at TIFF, add high-profile titles, and you are looking at a potential piracy party. Do distributors want to deliver brand new, top-end product with visual impairment to stymie or prevent piracy? Even if they do and festivalgoers live with it as press often does, setting a camera up to shoot your TV is going to offer better quality than sneaking a camera into a movie theater, much less a festival theater where the audience is made up of film lovers who hate the idea of someone there stealing content.

A lesser but also significant problem is that a single ticketed screening of a movie could be seen by multiple people. One person could stream a screening on Zoom or the like, offering an inferior but watchable product to dozens of people without leaving an imprint to be followed later… just damage.

Of course, distributors have taken piracy into account for a long time. Perhaps they can see their way to feeling that it is not that much different from showing the film in a large festival theater.

And back to the start of this piece… time is the enemy of any of this happening. The massive endeavor of bringing together a big group of volunteers, operating as few as ten screens at Telluride or as many as forty a day at Toronto, selling tickets, moving people and talent, etc, etc, etc is no small feat. But these festivals have done that for years. They haven’t been dealing with the vagaries of delivering a digital film festival, to 4000 or 40,000.

And if we are still having the “will they or won’t they” conversation in another month, the likely answer will be “they won’t.” Either outcome, whether they commit to live festivals or try something digital, becomes a prohibitive long-shot when it comes to delivering the breadth and width of these fests.

2020 is a freakshow. I would suggest these festivals take the opportunity to build something they can rely on financially. And if there are live screenings, great. I will be the first in line. And I will be thrilled to be there in 2021 for sure, as I was in 2002, the year after so many of us walked TIFF in shock after that singular event.

The show must go on. In 2021 and onwards. Losing one year will not kill these festivals or our passion for cinema.

I never thought it would happen to me.

I wandered through Quibi’s programming selections the week it launched. A few minutes here, a few minutes there. A laugh or two. Pun titles all over, like Gayme Show and Dishmantled and Barkitecture. But nothing I felt compelled to stick with. After jumping on the app a bunch of times in the first week, it became just another app square staring from my phone.

And the app seemed dead.

But while sitting in a long Starbucks drive-thru line, wanting to distract myself somewhere outside of my home, I jumped back in. And the one show I had not watched but was intrigued by— to me, as in “why is she doing this?”—was Anna Kendrick and Dummy. The image of Kendrick and a sex doll that represented the show was off-putting. I mean, how could it be. On Quibi. The app with Chrissy Teigen as a judge, which seemed to be the natural extension of Kate McKinnon sexualizing Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But there I sat. I turned the sound on in the car, turned the phone to widescreen, and it began.

The sexualized version of Anna Kendrick, who shows up now and again. When she grooms a hair on her (unseen) breast, you know something is different. Big handful of expired pot gummies. Her boyfriend is Donal Logue (Dan), who is about a decade too old for the relationship. Hmmm. Honest dialogue. Sweet kink.

And then, the sex doll. I won’t explain how she arrives. But she is found by Anna Kendrick’s Cody (same name as the writer/creator of the show) by calling for Cody.

So what is this? A fantasy? Michigan J. Frog? A set of universal rules that are outside of the norm? All of the above?

What follows for nearly an hour is a panini of the familiar and the unexpected. The Sex Doll, named Barbara (voiced by Meredith Hagner) becomes the comic driver of the piece. She is, even more than the characters we have already met, who love how super-honest they are, dead honest. Or at least she is as a reflection of the unspoken truths that Cody dare not speak.

Then there all the flavor crystals spread throughout. Dan is fully named Dan Harmon, who has been “involved with” the real Cody Heller for years. Ballsy. Though apparently Cody never met Dan’s sex doll. But the fact that she didn’t do sex doll research for the writing of this piece makes it all the more clear that it is about Cody and not about Barbara.

There is an episode where there is an exploration of feminism in terms of how women see themselves with men and how they see other women—or dolls—who are with men. And how dolls see women. The female in the Hollywood pool is a theme throughout, but most specific in the episode “The Bechdel Test.”

I really, really liked this piece. And that is really what it is. A short film with a beginning, middle and end. I like it so much that I don’t want a season two. It’s better than that.

If you are shy about words about human excretions, etcetera, this is not for you. It is rough and raw and right to the point (or the liquids left inside Barbara). But it’s fun and smart and remarkably serious at moments, though it doesn’t take itself seriously for a second.

They did take it seriously enough to hire Tricia Brock, who is a legitimate veteran TV director, to direct the piece.

I don’t know what category this fits in for the Emmys, but it is a worthy candidate for a nomination and maybe even for a win. Is Quibi going there? I don’t know. But it’s the only truly original, thoughtful, high-end piece I have seen on the app. Seriously… this could be an episode of Black Mirror and it would be all anyone could talk about for weeks.

Meanwhile, Ms. Kendrick is coming out in an HBO Max series (Love Life) in a few weeks that is already being positioned for Emmys. But I seriously hope this piece won’t be lost in the wake. It’s one of my favorite new things I have seen in these months of screening a lot of new stuff.

The single most significant public event in the possible Oscar season to come happened today. Disney and Lin-Manuel Miranda moved Hamilton into 2020.

No, I am not saying that Hamilton is a lock to win Best Picture. It is possible that it won’t be nominated. It is possible that it will be nominated and lose. Etcetera. That is not my point.

Cannes and Venice are dead for 2020. Telluride, Toronto and New York are iffy, regardless of what they say now. For there to be an Academy Awards as is traditional in February, at least three of the six months of the year, starting in July, will have to have movie theaters open and operating in a relatively traditional way, in terms of movies being released and non-industry audiences being able to see them in relative safety. And I believe that two of those three months have to be some combination of October, November and December.

The festivals are the festivals. They are the ignition to the season. They are not The Season.

The Hamilton decision is multi-layered.

First, The Oscar thing. It is a natural contender. A film shot on a stage has always been a TV thing, going back to PBS and even the early days of HBO, when shows like Camelot were a part of the Original Programming mix long before series became their groove. But welcome to 2020, where the lines are blurrier and blurrier.

And oh yeah… it is going to be a Streamer.

Second, Streaming. There is endless talk about “all options on the table” and “out-of-the-box thinking,” but it is exciting when a choice made by a big company actually allows for all options and shows out-of-the-box thinking. This is a case of that. Just a few months ago, in a culture far, far away, Disney bought Hamilton rights. The “movie” was shot in 2016 and was likely finished except for a few touches and sitting on Tommy Kail’s shelf at home, waiting for the right moment.

When Hamilton movie rights were sold, all the way back in February, the plan was to release the Freestyle Love Supreme doc (Lin-Manuel Miranda & Co’s origin story) on Hulu in May 2020, followed by In The Heights (the second act) in June 2020, followed by Hamilton, sometime in 2021.

Coronavirus flipped all that, pushing In The Heights — a hot, New York, summery movie — into Summer 2021. And what do you do with Hamilton at that point? Compete against yourself? Push it all the way to 2022? Give up what was the symmetry of the three films being released in succession, as opposed to each being in a different year?

So Disney and Miranda (& Co) took a look at the goals that each had for the Hamilton movie and flipped the script dramatically. A full theatrical release always had a plan for a lot of free screenings for kids and the ticket price-challenged. Miranda has created special opportunities with his show from the start. And even so, there was likely a $140 million – $250 million worldwide box office opportunity for Disney and partners. And having the successful theatrical launch of Hamilton as a part of the Disney+ library afterwards was a not-insignificant added bonus.

But… Coronavirus. So what to do? The finished film was sitting on a shelf. So the cost of waiting was negligible compared to a film that had a big production investment and is sitting for an extra year or two. (Or course, no interest right now… but still.) They were really free to do whatever didn’t conflict with In The Heights (at WB).

You can start to see, now that it has been a live service for six months, that the Disney+ strategy is not going to be to pile up new content like Netflix, but to try to roll out one high-profile item every month or two. Check!

The Academy changed the rules for this year so that you can release something on streaming first and then theatrically qualify it. Check!

People are hungry for event programming and no one knows how the transition back to theatrical release will work in July or August… if they work out at all. Check!

Disney+ is a premium platform that is also the cheapest premium platform. $7 a month. No ups, no extras! A couple dollars more than a normal on-demand digital rental. Check!

The film cost Disney $75 million to buy… a lot for a filmed Broadway show, but not a lot for a phenom or for a high-impact event on Disney+ (even if they have much tighter budgets overall than Netflix). Check!

By releasing the film on July 3, it fits the independence day theme. And it beats Tenet to viewers, regardless of whether Tenet lands on time or not. So it is the first serious Oscar contender of the year. And it grabs publicity for weeks before Tenet tip-toes in (don’t be surprised if their July release ends up in IMAX only or some such thing for the first few weeks as audiences consider the choice to come back to theaters). And if the film plays great and things move forward for Oscar season, it will be the first non-Netflix film to start on streaming that will then spend the effort and cash to make a serious run at Oscar nods.

What I find exciting is that it isn’t making lemonade out of lemons or throwing something at the wall to see if it sticks. This feels like a change of plans with a full strategic logic of its own. And that, my friends, is a rarity amidst the paradigm-shifting hysteria.

And so the 2020 Oscar season – real or phantom – lurches to life earlier than expected. And it starts somewhere unexpected, Disney+.

Anyone who reads me regularly knows that I believe in theatrical and that Oscar should remain as an award for theatrical movies. It’s not about Netflix so much as the wave of streaming that will become the norm for your television. Theatrical is just another thing. But the rules are what the rules are. And within that context, I will embrace the strategies and tactics and enjoy the ebbs and lows.

One thing is clear here… Hamilton is not giving away its shot.