Another words-in-passing quote, this one from Meet the Fockers costar Dustin Hoffman in the current issue of Time: “Meet the Parents was a really good comedy,” he begins. “It had layers, and it hit some interesting notes. But with this thing, I don’t ever recall being in a movie that seemed to get this kind of steam going before it opened. I mean, it’s just a nice movie. Why do people seem so interested?” Choke, cough, uhhh….excuse me, but did Hoffman just call Meet the Fockers a “thing”? Upon hearing this, Hoffman’s costar Robert de Niro gives off, according to Time, a “low primal grumble.” Then costar Ben Stiller says, “Well, Bob just gave his opinion. How would you write that out?” And then Hoffman goes, “What do you think, Bob? Arrwarrrgh!”

Who could have predicted that a respected consummate chronicler of the difficult lives of extremely bright, neurotic-eccentric but always charming and/or impassioned people of a sensitive liberal bent…who would have guessed that a director-writer known for his open-to-delicate-feelings, Blue State, westside-of-Los-Angeles attitudes in his films….who could have foreseen that this famously whiskered director would deliver a comedy-drama that quite clearly frowns upon and in fact, through the eyes of the film’s lead character, strongly condemns the probably-too-affluent, neurotically distracted personalities who comprise a westside family in present-day Los Angeles? For years to come Red-State politicans will point to this movie and say, “This is what’s wrong with citified Blue State values and liberal lifestyles.” And what late-30ish actress needs some serious career-repair work done in order to counteract the impression left by her performance as the most hopelessly diseased, way-too-pampered nightmare woman in the history of motion pictures?

So Jude Law is being sent back to the minors (and parts like that weirdo photographer assassin in Road to Perdition) because he was in six movies this year and none of them stuck to the wall, and his his biggest and broadest movie-star performance (in Alfie) wasn’t a hot-enough ticket? Okay, maybe Law should be a character actor, but no sooner do people find the spotlight, it seems, than the fast-action, short-attention-spanners give them the hook. It’s a cold and randomly cruel world out there. As Newsweek‘s Jeff Giles recently said, we have reached a critical stage in the Us Magazine poisoning of the culture, or words to that effect.

The Phantom of the Opera is bleeding, staggering, crashing into walls….day after day people tell me “no, forget it, not this one.” A death of a thousand cuts.

Here it is, and this is the truth: Sideways is still the best film of the year, but time and again in conversations I’m picking up respect (even grudging respect at times) for Alexander Payne’s masterful, emotionally rounded adult comedy-drama more than whole-hearted affection or awe. The winner in this regard is Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, which, as far as I can tell, is far and away the leading contender for the Best Picture Oscar. The third extreme likelihood, I keep hearing, is Taylor Hackford’s Ray — a decently-assembled biopic that no one dislikes (or is attacking). But Eastwood’s entry is unquestionably at the head of the pack right now because Baby is an austere and highly disciplined thing that delivers the strongest emotional kapow.

With the at-long-last screenings this week of James L. Brooks’ Spanglish, all the presumed Oscar-level stuff has now been seen and everyone is starting to shift into kick-back mode with the remaining December releases, two of which — Uni’s Meet the Fockers and Fox’s Flight of the Phoenix — don’t seem to be the sort of thing that will weigh heavily upon anyone’s soul. No offense to the intrepid Scott Rudin, but I’d prefer to overlook Par’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events for the time being. I have a certain aversion to Jim-Carrey-in-elaborate-makeup films. Actually, I have a slight aversion to Jim Carrey. Whoa…where did that come from?

How can one not be moved by the intimations of loyalty and compassion being shown on behalf of Martin Scorsese and his latest film, The Aviator, by admiring smart- guy critics like Emanuel Levy and Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, among others? But even in the expressions of respect and enthusiasm for a great director, limits should be observed. Levy cannot proclaim on the front page of Movie City News that this biopic about the young to middle-aged Howard Hughes is “extremely entertaining” and not expect others (me, for instance) to slap their heads in disbelief. Offer, if you must, the flimsy argument that The Aviator is some kind of Oscar-worthy Scorsese package (it isn’t, trust me, unless people get it in their heads to nominate it as an acknowledgement of Scorsese’s career, and the fact that the Academy has never given him the prize), but Levy declaring it’s a sure thing that Scorsese will be handed his fifth Best Director nomination for The Aviator seems delusional to me. Likewise, his asking “how high will The Aviator fly with the Academy voters” is nutso. Trust me — this very long-running film is, quite often, a form of psychological torture.