Day: January 18, 2006

It’s too late for me to double-check this, but In Contention‘s Kris Tapley is reporting that the Academy has suddenly and rather surprisingly waited until today — Wednesday, 1.18 — to announce a significant decision that was made about 20 days ago, which is that the screenplay for Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana has been classified by the Academy as an original screen- play, and NOT — as many have understood all along — an adapted screenplay based on Robert Baer’s “See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism.” The AMPAS decision, says Tapley, “was not revealed in any way [over] the last 30 days [and] Gaghan himself was not even made privy to the [new] classification until today.” (Variety‘s Timothy Gray reported the decision was made around 12.29.05) With the Academy voting deadline only two days off, the chances of Gaghan’s Syriana script being Oscar-nominated will be diminished if this news doesn’t reach enough of the the Academy voting body in time. As Tapley points out, “Any nomination the film receives in the adapted category from Academy members will not be considered,” even if every member of the 6,000- member organization supports it in this category — each vote will nonetheless be discounted. So tell your friends and neighbors.

It’s always a problem getting to Sundance events in the early morning, but IFC Films is having a breakfast and panel discussion at the Premiere & Film Music Lounge, 277 Main Street, on Monday, 1.23, from 9 to 11 ayem. The subject is “collapsing windows, vertical integration and the new day-and-date model”…gotta try.

Two days ago I copied and pasted every p.r. message about films, events, promotions and panel discussions at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and put it on a mini-hard drive and printed it out at Sir Speedy. It’s on thick paper but even with that it’s thicker and heavier than any script I have — it’s like a Russian novel. And 20 or 30 new Sundance e-mails have come in since. Every year I’ve written some kind of sum-up and I always miss out on this or that hot-button film…screw it. I’m just going to go to this film and that film and play it as it comes. I’ll have time to see maybe 25 films, if that…and I’m assuming I’ll miss out on something truly exceptional. But you can’t let it get you down.

This is about 10 days old but it only just appeared on my screen: a MacLeans piece by author George Jonas about (a) the writing of “Vengeance”, his 1984 book about Mossad’s revenge campaign upon the supporters and perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre, and (b) how, in his opinion, Steven Spielberg got it all wrong. The title is “The Spielberg Massacre: My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it.” The piece is well-written, seems grounded in reality…worth reading.

“Friend of the court” Jeff Dowd (a.k.a. “the Dude”) is imploring those visiting Park City, Utah, over the next eight to ten days to please pay proper attention and respect to Patricia Foulkrod’s The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, which is screening in the independent film doc competition section. It’s basically a piece about post-traumatic stress and emotional recovery problems that U.S. soldiers have been coping with after returning from the Iraq War. Kind of the same story as the one presented in The Best Years of Our Lives, only different…right?

3,148 features were considered for Sundance 2006, according to Kenneth Turan’s annual start-of-the-festival piece in the L.A. Times. up from last year’s 2,613, as well as more than 4,300 shorts. Plus the fact that “indie-style films such as Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck are dominating the awards season as never before,” he notes. “This roaring success, however, has also brought unwanted attention and aggressive commercialization to the independent world. Through no fault of its own, Sundance has become Mardi Gras North, a celebrity magnet and party destination for people with zero interest in watching films, independent or otherwise.”

“STUDIO EXECS PREFER ‘BROKEBACK’ OVER ‘MUNICH’ — SPIELBERG SAID DISPLEASED,” a Drudge Report headline said earlier today. I’m not saying this allegation is gospel but who at Universal wouldn’t be feeling more enthusiastic about Brokeback Mountain than Munich at this stage? An emotionally moving critical fave now sitting at the top of a Showbiz Data box-office chart vs. a politically despised, okay-but-no-cigar Spielberg movie that’s doing blah business and which nobody but nobody thinks has a chance of nabbing any Oscar nominations of note, much less the awards.