There was supposed to be an embargo on Sweeney Todd reactions until Monday, but then Envelope guy Tom O'Neil posted last night and then N.Y. Times Oscar columnist David Carr (a.k.a. "the Bagger"), let go. So I called my Paramount guy this morning and begged for a release from bondage, and he said okay.

Then David Poland posted this morning, mentioning also the embargo and being careful to point out that the film "plays a lot better on multiple viewings." (Mutliple viewings because, you know, Poland is so important and well-connected.) The only guy who's ...Read More

I went to last night's screening of Sweeney Todd (Dreamamount, 11.21) with a guarded attitude. Here we go, another flush of the downward Burton swirl, get ready for it. The man has been in a kind of losing-it mode since Planet of the Apes and he's had his day...live with it. And then it began, and less than two minutes in I knew it was exceptional and perhaps more than that.

Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter

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A fresh slate of Sundance '08 titles were announced again today -- premieres, spectrum, etc. The pop-through titles are Martin McDonagh's In Bruges (opening nighter), Bernard Shakey's CSNY Deja Vu (closing-nighter), Brett Simon's Assassination of a High School President, Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, Steven Schachter's The Deal, Rupert Wyatt's The Escapist, Sean McGinty's The Great Buck Howard, Mark Pellington's Henry Poole Is Here, Sharon Maguire's Incendiary, Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, Bill Maher's Sleepwalking, Noam Murro's Smart People,

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's decision to put Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages, Margot at the Wedding, Juno, The Darjeeling Limited, Waitress and Lars and the Real Girl into the comedy/musical category for the Golden Globes Awards is, of course, a bizarre call. Because the HFPA is committed to filling an annual slot of comedy/musical contenders, they seize upon any dramedy they can find and call it a comedy.

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Late to the table on Michael Cieply's 11.28 N.Y. Times piece about Disney and Pixar wanting to push Ratatouille for Best Picture rather than the "less prestigious," ghetto-ized Best Animated Feature Oscar. Answer: the Best Animated Feature Oscar is a very high honor and should be regarded as such. Only the very best animated films are considered so what's the problem? The friends of Ratatouille should leave well enough alone and stay on their side of the fence.

The first Sweeney Todd L.A. media screenings are happening today -- one at 4 pm, another at 7 pm -- but there will be no reactions like the ones posted after last Monday's Charlie Wilson's War showing. The trade review date is 12.17 -- Paramount is otherwise saying no reviews "until time of release." Tongiht's second high--voltage event is a post-screening q & a with Zodiac director David Fincher at the Arclight. Variety's Todd McCarthy will deliver the questions following a showing of the Zodiac Director's Cut.

I need to take a little credit for pushing an idea with Entertainment Weekly when I freelanced with them ('91 to '96) that they totally ignored, but are now finally going with -- a Hollywood "Smart List" that champions "the savants and the wunderkinds whose ideas are driving the film industry forward," according to EW copy.

In '93 or '94 (it may even have been '95), I sent at least a couple of faxed memos urging my then-editors (Cable Neuhaus, Maggie Murphy, Jim Seymour...Read More

Manhattan hotshot journo Lewis Beale is the latest smart guy to allow his personal feelings to get in the way of acknowledging the malignant greatness of There Will Be Blood. In his not-yet-posted Film Journal review he admits it's "a major work from an extremely talented director that's been "meticulously made and contains some astonishing set pieces," and another one of Daniel Day-Lewis's "astonishing, burrowing-into-the-role performances." But it "centers on a pretty reprehensible human being whose actions become less sympathetic, and more bizarre, as the story unfolds." Beale calls it "a flawed, at times distasteful...Read More

Michael Fleming's Variety story about Jake Gyllenhaal agreeing to play famed quarterback Joe Namath put me to sleep when I read it two days ago. The fact that Namath was "the first football player to find rock-star status" means zip in terms of a strong story ingredient. I remember Namath and the reports about his big-star swagger -- fame, girls, money, endorsements. But nothing happened in his life that would make for strong drama.

The most exciting thing that happened in Namath's life was beating the Colts in the '69 Super Bowl...Read More

After seeing Charlie Wilson's War last Monday night I wrote that I liked it, and I meant that. I said "there is edge and attitude in this Mike Nichols film -- certainly irony upon irony. And it does stay with you." I also said that if you can "kick back, chill down and enjoy what's awfully well-crafted and efficient about it (which isn't hard), you'll be fine with it too."

But the honest fact is that I like Aaron Sorkin's 5.25.05 version of his Charlie Wilson's War script somewhat more.

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In his 11.29 article about the '08 Sundance Film Festival, N.Y. Times reporter David Halbfinger quotes festival honcho Geoffrey Gilmore as saying that more than half of the 2008 lineup emerged "from the pile." The term "pile" is usually accompanied by the adjective "slush," and taken together they mean films that have been submitted by unconnected nobodies. Or, as Halbfinger writes, "without the benefit of advance buzz from the festival's network of talent and sales agents, established filmmakers and other scouts."

The Paramount Vantage guys finally straightened out the embedded code for that new There Will be Blood trailer -- the best of the bunch -- without the other PV trailers looping in.

Two positive trade reviews for Charlie Wilson's War went up today. Variety's Todd McCarthy called it "a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups...snappy, amusing and ruefully ironic." And the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt said...well, it's hard to find a tight summation of opinion, but he notes that this "outrageous tale of 1980s-era good corruption, apparently largely true and all the more outrageous for that, might be the perfect antidote to today's shrill political scene with Republicans and Democrats staking out intractable positions and accomplishing little."

Another thoughtful letter about No Country for Old Men came in today, this one from HE reader Matthew Leicht. "I saw it yesterday, and it kind of shook me in a way that no movie has in recent memory," he begins. "For the most part, there seems to be a debate over various scenes in the film and why they're there, blah blah, but my thumbnail view is that this is a movie about principles and morals.

"Anton Chigurh...Read More

"I can't tell you much about last night's [Manhattan] screening of Walk Hard-- there's a review embargo for a few more weeks-- but I will tell you this: I haven't heard an audience laughing so hard since Superbad," writes Screener's Katey Rich. "Coming after a long fall of grim (but often great) movies, Walk Hard is the perfect holiday season antidote for grownups, riotously silly but well-made, a thumb to the nose at the pretension and preening that often takes the screen this time of year."

At last night's Gotham Awards, Entertainment Weekly's Dave Karger confessed to The Envelope's Tom O'Neil that Michael Clayton is his favorite pet pony in the Best Picture race. And that strategy-wise, he sees Atonement and No Country for Old Men as the likeliest contenders.

A statement of general policy, effective now and locked for the indefinite future: I hereby refuse to see any movie starring Queen Latifah, and I'm going to really and truly think twice about any film in which she plays a supporting role. As far as I'm concerned every film she's in carries the Mummy's curse, and that includes the mostly insipid Hairspray.

Q.L.'s track record is worse than Cuba Gooding's even, and that's saying something. The Perfect Holiday, Life Support, Stranger Than Fiction, Last Holiday, Beauty Shop, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Chicago...Read More

A Wired/Underwired blogger named John Scott Lewinski said today that two sources (a working movie producer, the other a show-runner on an upcoming sci-fi pilot) have told him that the WGA strike is set for a 12.8 settlement, which is pretty close to what I heard last weekend about the strike settlement to be announced sometime close to Pearl Harbor day (i.e., Thursday, 12.7).

The bad news, he admits, is that he might be passing along "a rapidly spreading rumor...Read More

Right off the top and without thinking too much, here are some gut-response standouts among the 2008 Sundance Film Festival selections. The dramatic competition, world cinema, world cinema docs and domestic docs were posted at 1 pm today by Variety's Todd McCarthy. Premiere selections will be released tomorrow.

Rawson Marshall Thurber, Sienna Miller on the set of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

As usual, one looks for catchy or provocative subject matter, a proven director, veteran actors...anything that pops through among the Sundance grim-itude. You certainly need to be on the lookout for any film that appears to use ...Read More

An excellent new trailer for There Will Be Blood -- the best pocked-sized conveyance of what this film is -- performances, plot points and all -- is viewable from the Paramount Vantage website. But the embedded code is insane -- it relaunches every time you refresh HE -- and you're forced to watch trailers for Into The Wild and other PV films over and over. It was torturous so I dumped it and replaced it with this YouTube trailer, which is almost as good.

I sense limited interest in the 25th anniversary screening of E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial at the Academy theatre on Thursday night. Just as Steven Spielberg's esteem has begun to diminish, so has the legend of this 1982 film. And I'm saying this as someone who truly worshipped E.T. when it first came out, and who interviewed Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore for an Us magazine cover story.

It's certainly one of Spielberg's finest, but the saturation has been so commercially relentless -- the Universal theme-park ride, that awful Neil Diamond...Read More

In a capsule review, Time critic Richard Corliss -- usually a fairly adventurous sort and certainly no rigid conservative -- has slammed Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage, 12.26), using terms like "daft" and "deranged zone." No worries -- it's a solvable issue. Corliss has to see it a second time, is all.

After my first Blood...Read More

Rudolph Giuliani has a brief but significant mention in Charlie Wilson's War (Universal, 12.25) . It's just a quick line in a consultation scene between Rep. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) and his secretaries over his being investigated for snorting cocaine at a hot-tub party in Las Vegas in '86. The debauch is depicted at the very beginning of the Mike Nichols film.

(l.) the real Rep. Charlie Wilson; (r.) Rudolph Giuliani

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By taking the best feature of the year trophy at tonight's 17th annual Gotham Awards ceremonies at Brooklyn's Steiner Studios, Sean Penn's Into The Wild became the first 2007 movie to win anything significant in the year-end awards cycle.

Indiewire's Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt have reported on all the managed generosity. Michael Moore's Sicko won the best documentary feature award, Juno's Ellen Page won the breakthrough actor award and Craig Zobel was named best breakthrough director for Great World of Sound. The casts of Talk To Me and ...

There aren't very many Republican actors in Hollywood, granted, but they're out there. And it seems reasonable to assume that at least some of them would be supporting Fred Thompson's bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. The guy has acted in "40 film and TV projects, after all, and appeared with thousands of other performers during his years in Hollywood going back to the mid-1980s until a recent turn as Ulysses S. Grant in HBO's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," as Politico's Jeffrey Ressner reports...Read More

Yesterday's announcement about Warner Bros. production president Jeff Robinov being handed the reins of the newly formed Warner Bros. Pictures Group as of January '07 means he'll be running all worldwide marketing and distribution while continuing to oversee production for all studio releases. WB president and COO Alan Horn will continue to have "final greenlight authority" but will have less overall power and no dominion over marketing, which leaves domestic marketing president Dawn Taubin, a longtime ally/protege of Horn's, in a vulnerable spot or at least a somewhat weakened position.

There are hints that the Broadway stagehands strike might not go on too much longer. A guy with some knowledge of the Broadway theatre world told me earlier today that a resolution doesn't seem too far off. And N.Y. Times reporter Campbell Robertson wrote today...Read More

Tariq Khan's 11.26 Envelope piece about the ten worst Oscar losers is based upon behavior actually witnessed by TV viewers, as opposed to what's been reported about this or that loser throwing a hissy fit. Sore-losing legend Eddie Murphy doesn't rate, therefore, because the cameras didn't see him leaving the Kodak theatre in a huff last year after losing to Alan Arkin in the Best Supporting Actor category.

This despite the L.A. Times' Joel Stein having run a 2.27.07 first-person observation piece...Read More

A day-late "welcome back!" to N.Y. Times Oscar columnist David Carr, a.k.a. "the Bagger."

Carr has run a "comment of the day" from Kate who complains that little if anything in the way of late fall prestige movies have hit her local plex so far. HE's reponse...Read More

While admitting yesterday that he "got played a little" and "was not as careful as I should have been" in posting the since-discredited story about a Weinstein plan to push I'm Not There's Cate Blanchett in the Best Actress instead of Best Supporting Actress category, David Poland was correct in saying that Blanchett's Dylan turn "is one of the five best performances on the year in all categories, male or female or dog or cat, if you were going to pick five...it is easily the current crowning achievement of her career."

The Film Independent, non-IFP Spirit Awards selection committee really likes Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, and not just because of the four just-announced nominations -- Best Feature, Best Director and acting noms for Cate Blanchett (a sure winner) and Marcus Carl Franklin. They've also selected the Weinstein Co. release to receive the org's Robert Altman Award, a pat-on-the-back group award for the director, casting director and ensemble cast.

Lisa Kudrow, Zac Braff following the reading of nominations -- Tuesday, 8:28 am, 2nd floor conference room, West Hollywood's Sofitel.

Jason Reitman's Juno, Julian Schnabel's Read More

Charlie Wilson's War (Universal, 12.25) is a very good-but-not-great political dramedy with a very solid and settled Tom Hanks, an agreeably arch and brittle Julia Roberts (in the finest sense of that term) and a brilliant Phillip Seymour Hoffman...give this man a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and no jacking around...thank you!

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When the WGA strike ends early next month a lot of creatives are going to look back on this brief turbulence as one of the warmest and happiest community periods of their lives. Because suddenly there won't be a picket line to go to or a march to attend, and it'll be back to struggle and loneliness before a flat screen for writers and budget meetings and power lunches and getting their car detailed by their favorite detail guy for producers.

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If you ask me, an action flick about Jesus Christ having an evil twin brother is the sort of thing that only Alejandro Jodorowsky could have done justice to, and only if he'd made such a film in his late '60s-early '70s heyday. The fact that Reuters reporter Tony Tharakan filed a story about director Robert Sigl and producer Mario Stefan announcing an interest in tyring to make such a film (it's to be called The 13th Disciple) is one thing, but why Reuters ran it is another.

Charlie Wilson's War will have its first elite media look-see screening tonight in Los Angeles. Universal reps are "pretty confident" about it so "nobody's expecting an embargo." I don't see what the big deal is about being the first to respond, although there's always one or two eager beavers who drive right home and put something up by 11 pm or 12 midnight.

And The Winner Is columnist Scott Feinberg (no relation to Harvey Fierstein) has posted a fairly strong shoot-down of David Poland's report that the Weinstein Co. will be promoting Cate Blanchett I'm Not There performance for Best Actress...not! "I can now confirm that Blanchett's performance will remain under awards consideration for Best Supporting Actress, not Best Actress," he reported at 6:46 pm east coast time.

"A senior official at The Weinstein Company has made this unmistakably clear," Feinberg writes. Blanchett "is still supporting as she always has been."

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Brian Stelter has profiled Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke in an 11.26 N.Y. Times piece because of the huge daily numbers she's been getting due to her bang-bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer Writers Strike coverage. Since the strike began Finke "has published 142 posts about it, [has] worked almost around the clock for three weeks, and fallen asleep at the computer four times. She estimated she had received 2,000 e-mail messages a day."

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New Line's "For Your Consideration" site is trumpeting three '07 releases -- The Golden Compass, Hairspray and The Last Mimzy. In a normal year the obvious third-ranked contender would be Gavin Hood's Rendition, which hasn't much of a shot at anything but has some decent performances to its credit. Peter Sarsgaard and Meryl Streep are stand-outs, and Esquire recently hailed Jake Gyllenhall's lead perf as a conflicted CIA guy. But it's all been tossed aside so that a vanity project can enjoy a nominal day in the sun.

Cate Blanchett's I'm Not There performance seems an extremely safe bet to win a Best Supporting Actress trophy or two from critics groups later this year (perhaps even a bagful), and is a near-certain lock to be Golden Globe- and Oscar-nominated in this category. And the category itself is correct because she's part of a six-actor Dylan ensemble. But now, according to David Poland, certain parties want to mess with this groove and reset the table.

Even the clueless Academy types who aren't fans of the film (exemplified by that woman who told Pete Hammond...Read More

I blame the "leave us aloners" for blowing off the Iraq-themed films willy-nilly, especially the really good ones like In The Valley of Elah. But I can't blame anyone for passing up Brian DePalma's Redacted, a very difficult sit that died a pauper's death this weekend.

Laura Linney's WGA "Speechless" short (#1) is certainly the best-acted and perhaps the best of the bunch -- earnest and solid, but at the same time dryly funny. "Hi, my name is Laura and I'm an actress without a script. I realize that my life has become unmanagable in this situation, so I've decided to take a step forward and ask my higher power for guidance and help." Creative team: George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez and Jill Kushner. Tech team: Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Anthony Marinelli and Clint Bennett.

Plus "Speechless" #7 with Andre Benjamin, Read More

An odd recollection can be found in David Carr's 11.25 N.Y. Times interview with No Country for Old Men costar Woody Harrelson. The feminist attacks upon The People vs. Larry Flynt...

Christian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is getting a one-week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles starting on 12.21. This will make it slightly easier for various critics groups to give it their Best Foreign Film prize, if they're so inclined. Before the December date was anounced, the plan was to open it through IFC First Take on 1.25.08.

HE reader Mary Chan wrote yesterday with observations about the shift, to wit:

"As you know, IFC had planned to release 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days through IFC First Take. But the ...Read More

A straight-reporting piece by Time's Rebecca Winters Keegan about the WGA's "Speechless" spots as well as other online diversions on You Tube, etc. Latest fave: www.lateshowwritersonstrike.com. A slogan from a Justin Stangel piece: "More money, Les Moonves."

Enchanted was steady but flat yesterday. The new five-day projection tally has dropped to $49,086,000, just a nose hair below yesterday's figure of $49,198,000. Fantasy Moguls' Steve Mason, who sometimes tends toward generosity, is projecting a five-day tally of $53 million and change. It be It would be entirely natural for Disney distribution execs to claim $50 million-plus in today's trade box-office stories, and -- who knows? -- the real Monday figures may bear this out.

Phil Donahue has told Politico's Jeffrey Ressner that he's "feeling his way along the wall of a dark hallway" in terms of finding theatrical distribution for Body of War, the documentary about a wounded Iraq War veteran he co-directed with Ellen Spiro. The movie can't get arrested because the leave-us-aloners won't pay to see Iraq War dramas with movie stars in the cast, which makes distributor interest in a doc along these lines next to nil. It will obviously help if Body of War...

An 11.23 L.A. Times essay by critic Michael Sragow about the links between No Country for Old Men, Sam Peckinpah, Norman Mailer, Tommy Lee Jones and Roger Deakins.

Touched by his performance as a blind former college professor in Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes, I interviewed the 90 year-old Norman Lloyd at his Brentwood home a couple of years ago. The producer-actor is still going strong today (healthy, plays tennis, gets around town in a Jaguar) and currently the subject of career retrospective doc, Who Is Norman Lloyd?, which opened yesterday at Manhattan's Film Forum.

Norman Lloyd in his Brentwood home -- Tuesday, 9.27.05, 5:45 pm.

I haven't seen Matthew Sussman's doc...Read More

Enchanted's five-day projection keeps falling, falling...it's now dropped to under $50 million for five days. $49,198,000, to be precise, with $34,398,000 for the three-day weekend. This Christmas is looking at $27,296,000 for 5 days and $18,800,000 for the weekend. Beowulf will end up with a 5-day tally of $23,399,000. This will bring Robert Zemeckis' 3-D fantasy up to a $56,445,000 cume -- it'll be a push to hit $100 million. Hitman keeps on dropping..$20,800,000 for the weekend.

Other 5-day totals: Bee Movie -- $15,700,000. Fred Claus -- $14,600,000. August RushRead More

Three additional thoughts about Amy Adams' performance in Enchanted. You'll never read these on The Envelope because they're not cheer-leady enough, but they're true from a certain perspective.

One, the animated version of Giselle, her fantasy-land heroine, is right out of the Snow White mold, which is to say younger than springtime with a creamy peach-blossom complexion. But within seconds of her arrival in Times Square as a biological presence it's obvious that Giselle is no spring chicken...Read More

I've read David Halbfinger's 11.23 N.Y. Times piece about how the studios are enjoying a certain advantage in casting this and that actor twice now, and I still don't get the gist, and I don't k now that it's important that I do. It reviews the backstage shufflings in the wake of Brad Pitt's departure from State of Play and more particularly the effects of the WGA strike upon the schedules of Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp.

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Consider Eduardo Ciannelli's electrifying "kill, kill, kill!" speech from Gunga Din. The striking if antiquated element, of course, is how Alfred Newman's music emphasizes every other line -- it's almost a musical number of sorts. This sort of thing disappeared from soundtracks long ago -- it would be laughable if James Horner or Mark Isham were to try anything like it today -- and yet the effect works in this instance. And the visual element -- Ciannelli's eyes shining like beams against his dark facial makeup -- augments all the more.

A day late and a dollar short, but here are the fourth, fifth and sixth WGA "Speechless" video spots.

Rod Lurie's prison visitation short (#6) with Kate Beckinsale and David Schwimmer, shot on the set of Nothing But The Truth, is easily the best. Schwimmer perfectly conveys just the right amount of futility about being unable to speak to Beckinsale (and vice versa). Spot #4 stars Jeff Garlin (I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With). Spot #5 features the cast of Ugly Betty.

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Enchanted is a huge hit with the public (a five-day gross in the mid-$50 million range) and critics alike (a 93% positive Rotten Tomatoes score), and even hard-core sourpusses need to admit it has four or five scenes that succeed beautifully. But fans are turning a blind eye to an inescapable fact. The concept (four Snow White-ish cartoon characters catapulted into 2007 New York City) is great but Bill Kelly's script is flimsy and hackneyed. Because of this, a film that could have been marvelous barely makes it across the finish line.

And yet several things in Enchanted...Read More

The current consensus is that 2007 has come close to being another 1999 -- an exceptionally rich and bountiful year in terms of sheer quality. The likelihood, however, is that the Best Picture elimination process that prevailed eight years ago will happen again this year -- most of the truly great ones ignored, two or three good ones championed, and a couple of mediocrities working their way into the fold.

The best '99 films were ...Read More

An IMAX-produced featurette is up about the decision to shoot "certain sections" of Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight (Warner Bros., 7.18.08) in IMAX and the challenges that went with this.

Warner Bros. publicity has invited elite and geek press to a special screening of selected portions of the IMAX Knight footage at the Universal Citywalk IMAX theatre on or about 12.5. The three talking heads are director-writer Nolan, dp Wally Pfisterand steadicam operator Bob Gorelick.

Nolan...Read More

Yesterday's projected five-day figure for Enchanted was reported as $68 million instead of the correct $58 million. A mistake, plain and simple.

Yesterday's box-office projection reporting was ridiculous -- the rudimentary Wednesday figures led to overblown and misleading three- and five-day figures on the studio-calculator side, and I misheard (i.e., failed to double-check) two figures that compounded the confusion. Hurried, blurred, holiday fatigued...no excuse.

Enchanted then took in $6.8 million yesterday, down 16%, which has resulted in an adjusted five-day projection of $54 million and a three-day weekend figure of $39 million.

...Read More

Craig (a.k.as. "Goodvibe61") wrote this evening about No Country for Old Men, and said certain things about it in a cleaner and more eloquent way than I've managed so far.

"I really admire this film," he began. "It's a truly inspired work of art. What's really gotten to me are all the complaints on the web from movie fans who are either disappointed with the sudden ending of the narrative, or mad because they don't seem to understand what happened. I read all this stuff out there and I ask myself why audiences ask so little of themselves...Read More

I don't feel an obligation to state what I'm thankful for because the calendar says this is the day to put your feelings on the table. I feel thankful 24/7/365. I'm sorry that some people out there feel entitled to their good fortune, but you can't teach perspective and humility. And with those words...

The trailer for Martin McDonagh's darkly comedic In Bruges. The '08 Sundance opener stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleason and Ralph Fiennes. The trailer's from Alliance; Focus Features will open it on 2.8.08. It would be good to see this before leaving for Boston on 11.30. (I'll be staying there all through December). Only long-leaders are being waved into screenings as we speak.

"The madness...the music...the movie of the holiday season!" Homey, mom's-apple-pie narration for a G-rated, family-friendly TV promo for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. No missing Johnny Depp's straight razor in the final shot, but otherwise the truth-in-advertising factor is...well, par for the course.

Red Carpet District's...I mean, In Contention's Kris Tapley has dinged Rob Reiner's The Bucket List by calling it "a heavy layer of schmaltz that doesn't settle into anything that feels genuine or ultimately enjoyable, given the potential in front of the camera."

My God...Reiner dishing schmaltz? Doesn't calculate. I need to step outside and take a walk and kick this around.

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You won't find much debate about Roger Deakins being locked to win the Best Cinematography Oscar (for the combination of No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and In The Valley of Elah). It also seems as if Tony Gilroy is locked to win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Michael Clayton (i.e., as a consolation for not winning Best Picture or perhaps not even being nominated), and that Joel and Ethan Coen are locked to win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for capturing the pruned-down essence of Read More

Here are the first, second and third WGA "Speechless" video spots, conceived by George Hickenlooper and Alan Sereboff. WGAW chief Patrick Verrone has given Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke an exclusive internet window as a reward for her ceaseless pro-WGA strike coverage.

Laura Linney, Sean Penn, Harvey Keitel, Holly Hunter

Three new videos will show daily throughout Thanksgiving weekend -- morning, afternoon and evening. The ones up so far -- the first with Holly Hunter, the second with Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and third with Sean Penn -- are ...Read More

In Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters (Weinstein Co., 12.25), a primarily true period story (set in 1935) about student debaters from the African-American Wiley College in Texas having a climactic match with debaters from Harvard University, the 17 year-old Denzel Whitaker plays James Farmer, the renowned founder of CORE and civil-rights leader who was one of the Wiley debaters.

(l. to r.) Great Debaters costar Denzel Whitaker; James Farmer in the '40s; in the mid '60s

Listen to this recording of Farmer...Read More

Complaining once again about not being cast in JJ Abrams' Star Trek remake, William Shatner has said "how could you not put one of the founding figures into a movie that's being resurrected?"

Once again, the answer: In Rob Burnett's Free Enterprise ('98), Shatner traded in the legend of the stalwart Cpt. Kirk for the persona of an amusingly deranged septugenarian actor. That was nine years ago, and the wackjob routine -- a career rejuvenator -- has fed into Shatner's acting (it's obviously in his Boston Legal...Read More

Happy Thanksgiving wishes to N.Y. Post critic/bogger Lou Lumenick and his ninth annual Turkey Awards, despite the bizarre hostility shown to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Brad Pitt didn't "stink up empty theaters posing and mumbling his way through the title role" -- he gave something close to the finest performance of his career. And Andrew Dominik's film wasn't "longer than its title" -- it was a time-travel journey so immaculate I never once thought about my watch.

...Read More

Enchanted is #1 by far -- did about $8 million yesterday, projecting $41 million over 3 days and $58 million over the full 5-day holiday. This Christmas is #2 -- $4 million yesterday, $28 million for 3 days, $38 million for 5 days. Hitman is #3 with $21 million for 3 days, $31 million for 5 days. Beowulf...Read More

How come the only time the internet seems to confuse the studios is when it's time to pay the writers for it? A short video brief starring Bob Iger, Sumner Redstone, Ben Silverman, Rupert Murdoch and Les Moonves. (Originally posted 11.12.07.)

(In honor of the the limited opening of Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, a repeat run of my 9.11 Toronto Film Festival review): Anyone who says this isn't an essential film to see -- not just for the portions that "deliver" but the ones that are radiantly, eye-poppingly alive -- is operating without the DNA of a true movie lover...it's that simple. This is a great poetry-weave film, a reanimation of '60s spiritual-cultural energy like no feature I can recall, and a magnificent head-tease that is always arresting, even during the fumble portions.

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Frank Darabont's The Mist is a moderately cool little film during the first act when none of the characters knows what's happening, when all they know is that the heavy mist -- call it thick fog -- enveloping their small town is a bringer of something wicked. But once it moves out of Twilight Zone territory and becomes a slimey-ass monster film, forget it. That's all you need to hear.

David Fincher's Zodiac "is another movie that isn't gaining Oscar momentum," writes Variety's Anne Thompson. One reason this hasn't happened is that good journalists like Thompson have been dismissing its Oscar chances all along. She acknowledges it was "well-reviewed last summer" (despite having opened last March) and that "many critics may include it on their ten-bests," but says "its time has come and gone."

Thompson is probably right, but I take no satisfaction in admitting this. If this racket has taught us anything, it's that conventional industry wisdom is truly the poison mist floating across the lake. Besides, Read More

Peter Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73), still unavailable on DVD, is playing tonight and tomorrow at the Brattle theatre in Cambridge as part of a "Boston Filmed" series. I've heard about that bootleg version that's been mastered from an old VHS tape, but who in their right mind would want to watch such a thing?

The Envelope's Pete Hammond is reporting that Todd Haynes' I'm Not There didn't play very well with a smallish Academy group. The Bob Dylan epic "lived up to its title and gathered a much smaller academy group that saw a few walkouts," he writes, "according to two members who were both unimpressed -- even by Cate Blanchett's bravura supporting turn as one of six Dylans.

"'I think the only people who will like this thing are the ones who love this guy's music," one academy voter told Hammond. Once again, obiter dicta...Read More

Just acknowledging what I've failed to point out (despite everyone else having done so), which is that Michael Clayton will probably break even -- made for $20 million (George Clooney took nothing), now at $37,181,284, will hit $40 million -- so that early rap of being a financial under-performer that was slung around its neck for a few weeks doesn't apply. For a smart, mildly grim, somewhat challenging film about corporate lawyers pulling this and that string, that's an accomplishment.

Pete Hammond has written about having done a recent post-screening q & a with Clooney...Read More

Choosing big-category favorites each week for the weekly Envelope Oscar prognosticator chart is not something I look forward to. I sit there and I choose, but it's like throwing darts. It feels vaguely irritating because I can't quite give myself over to saying this film or that performance is "better." Something's not kicking in. All I'm certain of is that I don't like the idea of choosing a comfort-blanket movie for Best Picture simply because it's soothes, caresses and reassures.

The aroma, the prevailing winds and the dandelion pollen hall have all but convinced me that Charlie Wilson's War and ...Read More

A relaxed, amusing and wide-open Charlie Rose sit-down with Joel and Ethan Coen, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin.

I was talking with Bardem, Miramax chief Daniel Battsek and some others associated with the film at the No Country party during the Toronto Film Festival, and Bardem said at one point, "We are all very lucky...Read More

We all know how how some tunes seep in at odd moments -- most often in the car -- and sometimes hang around longer than you might expect. Some never leave. It's strange how this one has sunk in since first hearing it a year or two ago. It has something to do with the no-discernible-lyrics aspect (due to that ancient backwards-tape trick of 35 or 40 years ago) and the way it all comes together at the very end (which, in this case, is the very beginning). On top of which susceptibility...Read More

90% agreement on this Oscar-race thought from Jamie Stuart: "I'm just thinking about the ubiquitous Oscar blogging, and various ideas of what is and isn't an Oscar film. There are four movies this year that will one day be recognized as classics that will not win Best Picture: No Country for Old Men, I'm Not There, Zodiac and There Will Be Blood.

"Only one of thse may be nominated, at best. Something to think about. 35 years ago they'd all have been nominated." Exception: I'm not sure that There Will Be Blood...Read More

I'd love to get into Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters, which I saw this evening, but it's early yet. Discussions and terms await. But it's essential to mention Nate Parker, who plays one of three African-American debaters (the other two played by Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker) from Wiley College in 1935 who wound up debating the Harvard University team, under the guidance of Washington's Melvin B. Tolson.

Nate Parker

I've never seen Parker before, but he's got it. He's charismatic, good-looking...a "tan" Paul Newman (as Newman was in The Young Philadelphians...Read More

It's a relatively rare thing for a famous actress to take a role in a film that she knows without question is going to be absolutely despised by anyone with a smidgen of taste or refinement. Such is the case with Sienna Miller, holding her nose for a total paycheck job, agreeing to star in Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe. Like the immensely successful Transformers, G.I. Joe will be a live-action film based on a toy line. There is synchronicity also in Sommers being regarded, like Transformers helmer Michael Bay...Read More

Pre-Thanksgiving tracking suggests a newbie race between Enchanted (78, 36 and 13) and Hitman (60, 35 and 13) -- the latter has young males and something of an edge. August Rush will bring up the rear with 53, 34 and 9. Stephen King's The Mist is just behind at 63, 31 and 8, and No Country for Old Men...Read More

Today's big Writers Guild march down Hollywood Blvd. was well-attended and appropriately raucous. Sandra Oh, Akiva Goldsman, Frances Fischer, Jeanne Tripplehorn and others helped carry the lead banner with WGAW president Patrick Verrone in the point position. Alicia Keys sang two songs from a sound truck before it all began. The march was supposed to start around 1 pm, but didn't begin, movement-wise, around 1:40 or so.

WGA marchers at Hollywood Blvd. just west of Ivar -- Tuesday, 11.29.07, 1:43 pm

Button -- Tuesday, 11.29.07, 1:30 pm

WGAW throng listening to Alicia Keys -- 1:22 pm

EW columnist Mark Harris recently ran a list of things to remember in calibrating the Oscar race, including four that apply to online columnists:

1. "Don't trust any handicapper who's beating a drum too loudly," Harris warns. "In the last few years, bloggers have blurred the line between Oscar prediction and advocacy -- something that has had no discernible effect on the nominations, but has lowered their batting average. Nine out of 10 bad calls are made because you love or hate a movie so intensely you're blind to reason...Read More

Zodiac isn't "just about a serial killer -- it feels like it was made by one as well...for my money one of the finest films of the decade...host Kent Jones wasn't the only one confessing to having seen the movie five times or more...one man prefaced his question with such ecstatic praise that [director] David Fincher interrupted him before he could even get to the question: 'Thank God for you, sir." -- from Vadim Rizov's Reeler coverage of Monday night's screening of the slightly longer Zodiac director's cut at NYC's Walter Reade theatre.

Question...Read More

"The term 'entertainment journalism' has practically become an oxymoron, often uttered derisively," writes The Reeler's Lewis Beale in an 11.20 posting. "It has become more and more difficult to pitch stories with any kind of depth. Except for a handful of publications -- the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post and occasionally Entertainment Weekly -- almost no one is covering the film industry as an industry anymore, and even fewer are dealing with it as a cultural force whose images influence billions of people around the globe."

...Read More

With two lines and one fell swoop, Time's Richard Corliss has simultaneously given Charlie Wilson's War a nice pat on the back and damned its Oscar chances with faint praise. Death quote #1: "It could be the one war film people will enjoy seeing." Death quote #2: "Audiences should have a great time watching it."

...Read More

Barack Obama is finally whipping Hillary Clinton's ass in Iowa. A just-out ABC News/Washington Post poll is reporting that the Illinois senator has the allegiance of 30% of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared with 26% for Clinton, 22% for former senator John Edwards and 11% for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. "Significant signs of progress for Obama and harbingers of concern for Clinton," a Post story declares.

Alison Hope Weiner's N.Y. Times profile of producer Brian Grazer covers the bases (smart guy, dreams up ideas for films, people don't know him as well as they do Jerry Bruckheimer). But nothing says it like Monica Almeida's photo of Grazer in his Malibu office. I'm not saying it shows a "producer's heart of darkness" or anything along those cliched lines, but there's an amazing amount of current in that expression and especially in those eyes.

Those hooray-for-the-WGA spots that I described yesterday -- directed by many (Paul Haggis, Rod Lurie and George Hickenlooper are three I know about), numbering 50 and with the participation of William H. Macy, Sean Penn, Ed Asner and Woody Allen -- will debut on Thursday, 11.22 (Thanksgiving Day) on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily. Finke has excellent ties with the WGA (her strike coverage has been unmatched), and so attention and respect has been paid to that fact.

A quick little chime in from HE reader James Kent on No Country For Old Men and the whole funny ending thing: "I saw it this past weekend and it's a great film. And you are spot on -- it is one of those movies you can't emerge from and talk about right away. You need a couple of hours to digest the thing. Did I love the ending? No. But does that diminish the love I have for the film? Absolutely not.

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A 30th anniversary, 3-disc, triple-dip Close Encounters of the Third Kind DVD came out on 11.13. It's a Blade Runner package in that it has the original '77 version, that awful extra-footage, inside-the-mother-ship version that came out in '80, and the director's cut that came out in '98 or thereabouts. Reading about it reminded me to never, ever see this film again.

Tomorrow's "Labor Solidarity with Writers" march down Hollywood Boulevard is a must-attend. Good photos and sound ops. The westward march will start at 1 pm fr