NY Times Obsessed with Meek's Cutoff

"OMG you guys are SO obsessed with us!"

My beloved Manohla Dargis started the fire at the New York Times for "Meek's Cutoff" back in early February when she made Kelly Reichardt's austere Oregon Trail saga her Sundance pet, devoting most of her annual festival wrap feature to singing the praises of Michelle Williams & Moaning Myrtle in bonnets on wagons. There was the adoringly observed making-of profile in last Sunday's Arts section. There is the fittingly spare slideshow of images from the film, nine to be precise, all suitable for framing. And of course, finally, we are treated with the official Times review of the real deal, a mighty task undertaken by A.O. Scott and executed masterfully. "“Meek’s Cutoff” is built around a dialectic of freedom and constriction," Scott writes, explaining in a single sentence the nature of the paper's infatuation, no, respect for the Oregon Trail movie du jour. It opens today on 2 screens in New York, where it will remain for two whole weeks to make the rest of the liberal cities in America furious with jealous anticipation. "Meek's Cutoff" opens in Portland on April 22.