Last January, “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Simultaneously, by coincidence, one of Cohn’s disciples, Roger Stone, was arrested after a federal indictment in Washington on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.

The coincidence is that Stone is one of the major witnesses in “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” He lays out for Tyrnauer Cohn’s evil mind set, how he got away with committing crimes in public while all the time lying to everyone, especially the press, and how they ate it up.

Last night I attended the first screening in New York of “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” an exhausting, sad, and frightening chronicle of how Cohn, then 23 in 1953, became Senator Joseph McCarthy’s most trusted aide during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, destroyed lives, and accomplished the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn then used that episode to leverage an openly nefarious life that included the mentoring of Donald Trump. Cohn became notorious for never admitting to being gay, and then ironically dying of AIDS. Tyrnauer lays it out in detail. (And don’t forget Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.”)

Cohn’s cousin, Dave Marcus, told me last night after the screening: “Roy probably had a thing for Trump. He was his type.”

You’ll need a stiff drink after the Cohn documentary, which opens in September. His path of destruction is endless for thirty years. But the evil spreads over his face. Tynauer’s assemblage of clips from Cohn’s life depict a face that literally falls apart, or implodes, as Cohn’s lies and crimes catch up with him. (Bad facelifts didn’t help.)

One Cohn episode that Tyrnauer doesn’t completely explore: how Cohn used Barbara Walters (and maybe vice versa) to propel his fame and causes. Walters was one of several New York celebrities who testified for Cohn in his disbarment trial after he’d looted several wealthy clients’ accounts. For a time in the mid 80s, Cohn and Walters actually let it be written that they were engaged. This was hogwash. But Cohn had helped Walters’ father save his nightclub, The Latin Quarter, in the 1950s. In 1991, Walters told me that Cohn had helped her adopt her daughter, Jackie. So Walters was in Cohn’s pocket, so to speak, and he used that connection as leverage for respectability.

But it’s the connection between Trump and Cohn that makes the documentary timely. Cohn taught Trump how to obfuscate, lie, divert attention from his crimes. It’s Stone, who’s used the same tactics since his arrest and indictment, who lays this out. His prosecutors should take note.

AUGUST 30TH: Has an 18 on Rotten Tomatoes. Pretty much universally panned.

AUGUST 14TH: When John Travolta’s next movie, “The Fanatic,” is released on August 30th, it will set a record held maybe only by Nicolas Cage.

“The Fanatic” will be Travolta’s 11th movie in a row since 2012 to be a total flop– lousy reviews and no business. Directed by Fred Durst, of the rock group Limp Bizkit, “The Fanatic” comes from an unknown distributor. It’s so violent that they didn’t even offer it to the MPAA for a rating. Two weeks after its release, the movie will go to video platforms.

Travolta’s last “hit” was his appearance in Oliver Stone’s “Savages” in 2012. He wasn’t the star, and few remember it. The actual hits he was last involved with were a decade ago — “Old Dogs,” and the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3.”

Many of the 11 flops over the last decade weren’t even in real release. Their box office earnings weren’t reported because there weren’t any. “Killing Season,” in 2013, made just $39,881. “In a Valley of Violence,” from 2016 took in just $39,881.

Even if these films were extremely low budget, the losses on these films have to be astronomic. Travolta was always famous for huge “perk packages” on his movies. I reported years ago, for example, that his rider on “The General’s Daughter” was 32 pages and included a provision that the producers give him a gift worth $1,000 every week. Plus, he got a private chef.

Well, those days are over.

Travolta owes his last career Renaissance to Quentin Tarantino, who resurrected him in 1994 with “Pulp Fiction.” But if you noticed, Tarantino — who has kept a repertory company of actors throughout his films– never hired Travolta again.

Bruce Willis barely had any dialogue in Night Shyamalan’s “Glass.” If you look at the movie, he’s hidden in robes or filmed from behind.

Soon he will appear in just the first few minutes of Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn” before his character is killed off. (No spoilers, it’s based on novel.)

Now comes the first of three B movies he’s made for VOD. This one is called “10 Minutes Gone.” In the new trailer, released today, Willis is second billed to Michael Chiklis, star of the 2000s TV hit “The Shield.” Chiklis is a nice guy, but his chief attribute here is that he’s bald, like Willis, and resembles Willis. From the trailer, it sure looks like Chiklis is the star of “10 Minutes Gone.” Indeed, all the scenes with Willis in the trailer look like he was only in one scene– and has little to say.

Over the last couple of years, Willis has sold almost all of his real estate. He and his second wife, Emma Willis, and two young daughters just packed up their Bedford Hills, NY home, which is on the market. They’ve moved back to Los Angeles.

Willis — mostly from “Die Hard — was once the top box office star. Beginning with the “Moonlighting” TV series in the late 80s, he’s been a celebrity fixture. He’s starred in dozens of films, some good, some bad, and lately odd. He’s got two more of these low budget films coming over the next year, “The Long Night” and “Trauma Center,” in which he will also be “featured”– sort of in the movie and not.

It was four years ago, in the fall of 2015, when Willis had trouble remembering his lines on Broadway in the stage version of “Misery.” At the time, he was supposed to film Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society,” but left after filming for a few days. (He was replaced by Steve Carell.) Willis said it was too taxing to do both projects simultaneously.

Willis has had such a great career, and so many millions of fans, this clip just seems like the beginning of an unworthy exit. He’s too nice, and has given us too much entertainment, for things to end this way:

Mick Jagger is coming to the Toronto Film Festival. You can’t get always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. And we need Mick! Jagger co-stars in “The Burnt Orange Heresy,” just added as a gala to TIFF. Also added is “The Aeronauts” from Amazon Studios with Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. If this were a Miramax movie in 2002, it would win the Oscar. It’s about balloon racing in the 1800s.

Lots of great new special presentations, too, including the filmed version of Kerry Washington’s Broadway play, “American Son.” ​

GALAS 2019
The Aeronauts ​
Tom Harper | United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
The Burnt Orange Heresy ​
Giuseppe Capotondi | USA/United Kingdom
North American Premiere
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 2019
American Son ​
Kenny Leon | USA
World Premiere
Deerskin​
​
(​Le Daim​)​
​
Quentin Dupieux | France
International Premiere
Dirt Music ​
Gregor Jordan | United Kingdom/Australia
World Premiere
The Elder One ​
(​Moothon​)​
​
Geetu Mohandas | India
World Premiere
Guns Akimbo ​
Jason Lei Howden | Germany/New Zealand
World Premiere
Human Capital​
​
Marc Meyers | USA
World Premiere
Jungleland ​
Max Winkler | USA
World Premiere
Lucy in the Sky ​
Noah Hawley | USA
World Premiere
Lyrebird ​
Dan Friedkin | USA
International Premiere
Mosul ​
Matthew Michael Carnahan | USA
North American Premiere
Seberg ​
Benedict Andrews | USA/United Kingdom
North American Premiere
Sibyl ​
Justine Triet | France/Belgium
North American Premiere
SYNCHRONIC ​
Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson | USA
World Premiere
The Truth ​
(​La vérité​)​
​
Hirokazu Kore-eda | France/Japan
North American Premiere
Wasp Network ​
Olivier Assayas | France, Brazil, Spain, Belgium
North American Premiere
Waves ​
Trey Edward Shults | USA
International Premiere
Albert Shin’s ​Clifton Hill ​was previously announced as part of the Special Presentations programm