N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick says that “an era has ended with the closing of Loews State, the last movie theater operating in Times Square, once the nation’s premier moviegoing district.” I’ve been in NYC dozens of times over the last 20 years (I lived there from ’78 to ’83) and I didn’t go to this low-rent basement-level theatre once…not once. Lumenick says that the State — a modest four-screen multiplex tucked into a sub-basement of the Virgin Megastore on Broadway at 45th Street — was the final holdout in an area that once housed more than a dozen movie palaces along Broadway and Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets.” First, there were precisely twelve Times Square theatres in the old days — the Paramount, Astor, Victoria, RKO Warner, the Rivoli, Leow’s Capitol, the Roxy, the DeMille, the Trans-Lux, RKO Palace, Leows State and the Criterion — and second, they went from 42nd to 51st Street. The National wasn’t a classic Times Square movie palace…got started in the mid ’70s, so it was too “new” and didn’t count. And I’ve never heard of the Strand.

Here’s an L.A. Times story by Mary McNamara about expected low ratings for the March 5th Oscar telecast because average movieogers (i.e., mostly youths) haven’t yet paid to see most of the Best Picture nominees in sufficiently large numbers: “There is no Titanic this year…there is no Lord of the Rings,” Oscar producer Gil Cates observes. “The creative community has chosen to honor films that are different from those the rest of the country is seeing.” By “the rest of the country” he means, for the most part, the marginally educated under-25 red-staters…giggly girls, teenaged guys travelling in packs, people of ethnic disparity with lowbrow tastes, etc. The fact is that four of the nominees — Brokeback Mountain ($51 million), Crash ($55.4 million), Munich ($40.6 million), and Good Night, and Good Luck ($25.1 million) — have earned fairly decent coin in urban blue-state areas. (Capote is the only lowballer so far with just $15 million in the till.) The problem is that the bubbas haven’t responded…but then smart and sensitive quality-level stuff has never been their cup of tea, so shut ’em out and be glad for it. The Oscars are for the staid and unadventurous blues, for the most part, and the People’s Choice Awards are for the loutish hormonally-driven reds. I say write ’em off…scale down the budget, tailor the Oscar show ad rates, fire Gil Cates…modify the whole thing and face the truth of it. We live in a era of Culture Wars, and today more than ever the marching slogan is straight out of the mouth of Blanche DeBois: “Don’t hang back with the brutes.”

Just a reminder for those who don’t scroll down that Oscar Balloon ’06 is up and running, and that any and all suggestons as far as additions, deletions and whatnot from all four corners of the globe are welcome. Our journey of a thousand miles and 365 days starts here…

The New Bond flick is looking like a wipeout before it gets rolling. Despite filming having begun on the Daniel Craig-starring, Paul Haggis-authored Casino Royale in Prague a few days ago, the producers still haven’t signed anyone to play the Icily Sophisticated, Cold-Hearted Villain in Perfect Physical Shape as well the Tough, Spirited, Independent-Minded, Fated-to-Sexually- Submit Bond Girl. “They’re talking to three to four [women] right now,” Haggis recently told a reporter. “Every week I read there’s a new Bond girl, and I call them and they say, no, you idiot.” Let’s just spit it out so we don’t have to step over the elephant: they can’t get a Bond girl because the agents for the hottest actresses are telling their clients not to do it because they don’t think Craig has the right kind of studly savoir faire and that the series may well be on its last legs, and also because no one wants to work with those Irving Thalberg-level Bond producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. Rachel McAdams would be great to cast, but the only reason she’d accept would be a need for a whopping down payment on an expensive new home. An insider has confided that “the casting of the villain is much further along than that of the female star.”

Sony Pictures Classics’ Capote is moving into 1,500 screens this Friday (2.3) to try and make a little moolah out of those five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Originally released on 9.30.05, the highest number of screens for the upscale biopic was 348 (as of 1.20), resulting in earnings of $15 million so far. “There was a difficulty in getting a people to know who Truman Capote was,” SPC co-honcho Tom Bernard recently told Variety reporter Gabriel Snyder, “but [the Oscar nominations have] put us in the mainstream of American attention.” Did everyone read that? There was a “difficulty” with Average Joe’s not knowing who the most famous literary figure of the ’60s and ’70s was…a guy who was constantly on talk shows and in magazine articles and gossip columns. Here’s to the English teachers in America’s high schools. In Cold what? Good work, guys.

Here‘s Chicago Tribune critic Mark Caro’s new blog, called Pop Machine.

Hold on a sec: I’ve just figured a way for the fourth Indiana Jones movie, which has been in and out of development since the early ’90s, to work despite the Harrison Ford aging problem. One glance at Ford in that Firewall one-sheet and your first thought is how old and grandfatherly he seems. How do you write a dashing, thrilling Indy 4 adventure flick when the star is going to be 64 in July and looks every day of it? Conventional solution: turn him into Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade…cast him as the dad/mentor figure opposite some young buck actor who’ll handle all the heavy-duty action moves. But I say “no” to that. You can cast a younger guy alongside Ford, fine…but the running joke is that old, bent-over Indy is stronger, tougher, braver and in better shape than the much-younger guy. In short, ignore the age issue. In fact, go in the other direction. Have Ford do all the grueling action sequences he did in Raiders of the Lost Ark and then some…fake it, CG it, push it, but don’t let him be Grandpappy Amos. That’s it…that’s the fix.

I watched Flight 93 Monday night on A&E, and so did N.Y. Times guy David Carr (a.k.a., “the Bagger“), and so did 5.9 million other good people, giving the A&E channel its largest audience ever since launching in 1984. Decently made but a bit too emotionally emphatic (i.e., too many weeping women), this made-for-cable version of Paul Greengrass’s upcoming feature of the same title (due in April from Universal) reached 2.9 million adults (aged 25 to 54….what happens when you turn 55?…do you roll over and die?), 2.7 million folks in the 18 to 49 age range, and 1 million in the 18 to 34 range…these ages overlap and, uhmm, I don’t get it.

The Santa Barbara Film Festival — orchestrated, massaged, grooved and fine-tuned by the tireless Roger Durling — kicks off tomorrow night (Thursday, 2.2) with a gala showing of Robert Towne’s Ask the Dust (Paramount Classics, 3.10), with Towne and star Salma Hayek attending. (Towne will do a “conversation with” forum at Victoria Hall on Friday, 2.3, at 5:30 pm.) The films are always well-chosen but for me the SBFF is mainly about faces, seminars & panels, parties, blondes and photo-ops. Other creatives visiting Santa Barbara over the next ten days include George Clooney (recipient of the Modern Master Award on Friday evening, 2.3, at the Arlington); Naomi Watts (receiving the fest’s Montecito Award on Saturday, 2.4); directors James Cameron (recipient of the Attenborough Award on Monday, 2.6) and Mike Binder (Centerpiece Gala focus on Tuesday, 2.7); Heath Ledger (Breakthrough Performance honoree on Wednesday, 2.8); Transamerica star Felicity Huffman and History of Violence costar Maria Bello (both participating in a “conversation with” forum) and Capote star Philip Seymour Hoffman receiving the fest’s Riviera Award. The closing night film is Jason Reitman‘s very popular Thank You for Smoking, with Aaron Eckhardt giving his best performance since In The Compnay of Men.