The Last Great Hope of the 2007 Oscar season is Denzel Washington‘s The Great Debaters, which isn’t saying much. “Hope” doesn’t mean zip in this context. No one has seen the Weinstein Co. release (the first screening happens on Tuesday, 11.20) and there are concerns that Debaters‘ inspirational story might be (a) a little too familiar and (b) take a little too long to unfold. But Washington’s a focused and confident director and I’ve been told the film works very nicely, so let’s see.

I’m saying this because the other presumed award-level contenders — Charlie Wilson’s War, Sweeney Todd and The Bucket List — are looking hazy as Best Picture contenders.

The word all along has been that Sweeney may be trippy or rousing or even euphoric on its own terms, but it’s too Burton-ish and purple-arterial for the Academy.

I’ve read the script of The Bucket List, and it suggests that Rob Reiner‘s film will be fine — it has an assured feeling for character comedy and offers a certain tidiness, wholesomeness and old-guy wisdom. (Of course, tidiness can be a hindrance in itself.) It’s no secret that director Reiner, nice guy and Hillary Clinton Democrat that he is, has been off his game since the mid ’90s, and I don’t see any great Bucket surge in the offing.

What happened to Charlie Wilson’s War, you ask? Nothing. It’ll begin screening later this month and then we’ll know what’s what. It’s just that (I can’t ignore this) a negative CWW comment popped up earlier this evening from a certain blogger who has since taken the comment down. How’s that for a solid piece of information?

I’m not simple-minded enough to presume that this opinion is necessarily related to Universal’s decision not to stage a traditional bells-and-whistles CWW junket, which is at least partly due to a reluctance (or an inability) on the part of director Mike Nichols and the cast to assemble in Los Angeles for more than one day (Friday, 11.30). They had to know that at least some eyebrows would be raised about this. And we all know how this plus the withdrawn negative item is going to spread over the next 48 to 72 hours.

All this crap tells us nothing concrete. Certainly nothing I’d care to put into words, but I am starting to suspect (in faint little hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck ways) that Charlie Wilson’s War, sharp and entertaining as it might be, isn’t this year’s Million Dollar Baby. The combination of these two items plus Julia Roberts‘ neo-Texas accent won’t support it.

It was announced an hour ago that WGA strikers will resume negotiations with studios and networks on Monday, 11.26 — 11 days from now. Nobody can meet next week because everyone on both sides will be totally consumed by extensive travel, shopping and food-preparation arrangements in order to share Thanksgiving dinner with numerous friends and loved ones for a 90-minute period on Thursday, 11.22.

Outed ex-CIA spy and Fair Game author Valerie Plame spoke earlier this week to Politico‘s Jeffrey Ressner about the movie version of her book, which will be produced by Jerry and Janet Zucker and Beautiful Mind screenwriter Akiva Goldsman for Warner Bros.

Plame told Ressner that (a) “the script follows the book fairly closely, but obviously the writers take [liberties]. It’s factual up to a point, and where there were areas I couldn’t speak to them about, they drew from their vivid imaginations“; (b) it’s “a story of political intrigue, an espionage story and a love story…about the loss of innocence, about speaking truth to power…and it has some black humor, too, where possible”; (c) she feels that George Clooney, “who’s shown a deft hand behind the camera as well as in front of it [with] Good Night and Good Luck,” would be a good director for the Fair Game film; and (d) the film will be “all-encompassing” in that Bush and Cheney “will make appearances, but there are creative decisions that haven’t been quite figured out yet…it’s a story about the decisions that were made to take our country to war in Iraq.”

Robert Stone‘s Oswald’s Ghost, a comprehensive re-review of the Kennedy assassination particulars and their cumulative effect upon the American psyche, will open in NYC opening on Friday, 11.30, and then in L.A. at Laemmle’s Grande on 12.7. It will then be aired on Monday, 1.14.08 on PBS’s “American Experience” series. I couldn’t fathom what new information or slant could possibly be brought to this topic, but I watched it anyway. I got one thing from it — Norman Mailer‘s theory about Lee Harvey Oswald‘s motivation in killing JFK. It’s fairly convincing, certainly worth listening to.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, the one foreign- language film of ’07 that could arguably be called a masterpiece, was seen by one of the four color-coded Oscar screening committees on 11.2, and the reaction, according to three people in the loop, was “definitely mixed,” as one journalist friend puts it.

The result of this reaction, the journo says, is that “it may not even make the short list.” He means the 12 or 15 foreign language films that will be re-screened and re-evaluated in early January ’08 with producer and senior committee guy Mark Johnson providing guidance and leadership as they decide on the final five nominees.

“Some felt it was a masterpiece and others didn’t,” according to a publicist. The journalist says he heard that some complained that Cristian Mungiu‘s film is “too slow” and that some “didn’t like the fetus on the floor shot.” The publicist says that “some complained about Oleg Mutu‘s static camera work” as well as “some of the hand-held tracking shots.”

Jesus wept! In the early ’60s the same kind of people were complaining about the “shaky” or “amateurish” photography in some of the French New Wave films. I remember an uncle complaining about A Hard Day’s Night when it first came out, saying it looked like “home movies.”

With all appropriate respect, the Academy’s foreign-language film committee needs to be gently reminded that the Movie Gods have their own laws, standards and decrees, and that Oscar committee members aren’t permitted to dismiss recognized masterpieces and Palme d’Or winners for reasons that are based on banal judgments stemming from limited vision or a lack of sophistication.

This gentle reminder doesn’t apply to all members of the Academy’s foreign film committee — just the lazy, not very hip ones. As one handicapper comments, “There are two branches within this group — the ones who see a foreign film and go ‘Aaahhh, I didn’t like that’ and ‘that part bothered me’ and so on, and the other ones who know a good or great film when they see it.”

Slowly easing into a holiday mood, I happened upon this early ’80s SCTV John Candy bit, apparently based on a tape of the actual Orson Welles recording a British frozen-peas audio advertisement.

We all knew Leonardo DiCaprio‘s The 11th Hour wouldn’t make the short list of Best Documentary Feature contenders (which have previously numbered 15), but the Academy committee has also given the boot to Seth Gordon‘s The King of Kong. Donkey Kong guy…out! People loved your film, we didn’t relate, life is hard, tough darts.

Charles Ferguson‘s No End in Sight. Michael Moore‘s Sicko and Tony Kaye‘s Lake of Fire made it though — good calls. Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro‘s Body of War, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman‘s Nanking, Alex Gibney‘s Taxi to the Dark Side, Richard Robbins‘ Operation Homecoming and Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine‘s War/Dance.

That’s nine, leaving room for six more. Crazy Love should be on the list along with The Devil Came on Horseback, In The Shadow Of The Moon, Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains, My Kid Could Paint That, The Price of Sugar and Barbet Schroeder‘s Terror’s Advocate.

Brian DePalma‘s Redacted pretends to be a video verite account of some horrid homicidal behavior on the part of some U.S. troops (based on an actual incident) with a third-act stab at depicting the moral penalty for such deeds. I saw it as a sloppy film about a group of badly directed actors playing soldiers, and the rank agony of being surrounded by pretension gone wrong. I’ve never seen a worst-acted film by a major-league director in my life. DePalma has no ear — no ear whatsoever — and those who see Redacted will suffer because of this.

It’s basically about a grunt who sees himself as a future director (Izzy Diaz) incessantly taping his deeply irritating buddies talking about their pathetic lives and viewpoints, and basically watching these guys (a couple of whom are disgustingly overweight) be gross, common and deeply uninteresting. On top of DePalma making us listen to loop after loop after loop of George Friderich Handel‘s Sarabande (this music is owned by Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon — what was DePalma thinking?).

And then the rape-murder atrocity happens, and then one of the grunts (Rob Devaney) goes through a post-traumatic meltdown when he’s asked about his Iraq War heroism by some friends back in the states.

I’m in full agreement with David Denby‘s comment, which is that Redacted is “hell to sit through.” It’s the atrocious acting (accidental or deliberate) that gives it this quality. It made me do the usual thing I do when I’m trying to get through a rough sit — leaning forward, tapping left foot, hands over face, quiet groans, singing favorite songs to myself, etc.

A friend has passed along some Beowulf attendance numbers from back east (“not stupendous but fairly strong”), and it looks like the Robert Zemeckis/Paramount fantasy will come in with a very respectable weekend figure in the mid 20s, and possibly nudging towards $26 to $27 million.

In the ’68 election many Democrats were reluctant to support Hubert Humphrey because he was seen as a machine candidate who was Lyndon Johnson‘s lapdog. His supporters argued okay, we hear you, but at least he’s better than Richard Nixon. Out of this came the slogan “hold your nose and vote for Humphrey.” If bumper-sticker makers are smart, they’ll start cranking out stickers for lefties like myself — “Hold Your Nose and Vote for Hillary.”

In fact, if anyone wants to take this slogan and Photoshop a good-looking bumper sticker (you know…as if serious ad-design people had created it with clean, stylish graphics and a navy-blue backdrop), I’ll advertise it for free and we can split the proceeds, 75% for you and 25% for HE. It will probably sell. Tens of thousands of liberals feel the way I do about Hillary. They don’t like her at all, but the Republican alternative is worse so they have to grim up and do the unpleasant thing.

What were those two pep-rally booing incidents about during last night’s debate? Barack Obama got booed when he got into a tussle with Hillary Clinton about social security taxes and said “this is the kind of thing that I would expect from Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani where we start playing with numbers in order to try to make a point.” John Edwards also got hissed when he got in a shot at Clinton for her staff having recently planted questions.

Hillary’s supporters were obviously organized and out in force, but booing is a goon-squad tactic To me last night’s boos seemed to be saying, “Hey, don’t pick on her! Be a gentleman and show some class!” Can anyone imagine Obama’s or Edwards’ supporters booing Hillary if she were to score a point against them? Wouldn’t happen. Now I have another reason why I don’t like her.

I so dislike Clinton, in fact, that even though I agree with her and know she’s a tough operator and would do a pretty good job despite her political parsings, her brittleness and her divisive personality, I would actually be tempted to vote for Fred Thompson if he becomes the Republican nominee. Tempted, I say. Not because I agree with his conservative Republican views and the kneejerk xenophobia that sometimes goes with that, but because at the end of the day he seems like a reasonable human being with a kindly, down-home, pickup-truck attitude about things.

My God…that was the single lamest thing I’ve ever written in my life about political candidates. All my life I’ve been knocking people who vote for candidate X o rY because they have the most appealing Dating Game personality, and here I am admitting that it’s conceivable (thought not likely) that I might actually vote for a Republican Presidental contender for this reason. Foolish and ill-considered, yes, but my dislike of Hillary is, I’m sorry to say, quite intense.

I heard yesterday about John Edwards‘ plan to join the WGA picketers in front of NBC on Alameda today, but I didn’t know about the hour — 2 pm — until I read it in Nikki Finke‘s column.