In Matt Reeves‘ Let Me In, 13 year-old Chloe Moretz gives a deeply affecting award-calibre performance as an emotionally conflicted 300 year-old vampire named Abby, and she does it almost entirely with her eyes. She’s Jodie Foster in 1975 only more so, and has really earned consideration as a Best Actress nominee. Catching this emotional puppy-love vampire pic for the second time convinced me. As did Moretz’s appearance this evening at the School of Visual Arts Theatre — she’s got poise, smarts, the whole package.

Let Me In costars Elias Koteas, Chloe Moretz, director/cowriter Matt Reeves following School of Visual Arts theatre screening — Thursday, 9.30, 9:45 pm.

Let Me In star Chloe Moretz following post-screening q & a — Thursday, 9.30, 9:55 pm.

“If the over-60 Academy members fail to note that The Social Network is a brilliant, whippersnapper Citizen Kane-level movie about the Realm of the Now (and the Very Recent) that addresses CLASSIC THEMES, what am I supposed to do about it? Send them a complimentary month’s supply of Depends?

“I’ll tell you what SHOULD be done about it. All past-it, over-the-hill geezers should be COMPASSIONATELY EXPELLED FROM THE ACADEMY. This is not a put-down or a putsch or a purge. It’s just that when a genuinely good movie comes along and people are too thick to at least show respect and acknowledge that it’s doing several things right, then there’s only one thing to do and that’s to cut them off. Because all they’re doing is STANDING IN THE WAY.

“What did George S. Patton (George C. Scott) do when he found a mule obstructing his troops in Italy? He shot the mule and had him thrown over the side of a bridge.” — my response to a question from Gold Derby/Envelope guy Tom O’Neil about how Academy members may react to The Social Network‘s first big membership screening on Saturday, 10.2.

Other know-it-alls — Sasha Stone, Anthony Breznican, Stecve Pond, Dave Karger, Eric Davis — are also heard from in O’Neil’s piece.

Having seen Secretariat, I really don’t get where the alleged faith-based Christian marketing angle fits in. The film is aimed at family audiences– it has a square and conservative vibe — and director Randall Wallace is something of a rightie, I’m told, but there’s nothing in the story/screenplay that proclaims Christian or conservative values per se. I saw that vein in The Blind Side but it’s simply not in Secretariat.

Thematically it’s a quasi-feminist thing, being about Diane Lane‘s Penny Chenery defying her husband (who wants her to stay at home and raise the kids and cook) and brother (who wants her to sell the horse farm) in order to nurture and bring along her horse, Secretariat, to a Triple Crown victory. The tone is little like The Adventures of Spin and Marty — nice and tidy and middle-class, but in no way a religious-type deal except for the strange playing of the spiritual tune “O Happy Day” twice on the soundtrack.

Two seconds after glancing at this ad for The Freebie (Phase 4, 9.17) my eyes went right for those red sores or chicken-pox spots on Dax Shepard‘s upper right arm, right above the tattoo. “What’re those…self-applied needle marks?” I asked myself. “Or pimples? Who has pimples on their upper arm? The movie’s about a couple who decide to give each other permission to play around for a single night, so why introduce an element of bacteriological infection on the husband’s arm? How could this possibly boost the want-to-see?”

In Contention‘s Kristopher Tapley has seen Tony Goldwyn‘s Conviction (Fox Seatchlight, 10.15), and said yesterday that he “liked it.” Okay. I saw it myself the night before last, but I have to say it didn’t exactly wind me up. It’s one of those films that you just want to pat on the head and smile at and offer best wishes to and leave well enough alone.

Conviction is a stacked deck of uplift cards that’s based on a true-lfe story and made in the vein or spirit of Steven Soderbergh‘s Erin Brockovich, but it just isn’t that snappy or well-written or forcefully acted or all that well constructed. It’s okay as far as it goes but Goldwyn is no Soderbergh — sorry.

I don’t want to put Conviction down or make an issue out the fact that it’s primarily a humdrum thing. Conviction has enough problems on its own. I’m actually hoping that others will echo Tapley’s view that they “liked” it so Fox Searchlight will feel placated enough to run ads on the Oscar sites. How’s that for naked honesty?

Heres another honest comment. The audience I saw it with on Tuesday night broke out in applause when efforts by Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) to free her wrongfully imprisoned brother Kenneth Waters (Sam Rockwell) began to finally pay off.

Rockwell delivers his usual cut-up performance, playing the doofus-yokel brother who’s indifferent to authority or caution or…I don’t know what the character’s problem is, and I don’t care that much either. I do know that when you hire Sam Rockwell you’re going to get one of his head-scratchy soft-shoe-shuffle performances that are mainly about how hip-weird and hip-dorky he can be if the director doesn’t tell him to get down and focus his ass and stop hacking around.

The film “is based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother who, with the help of attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, exonerated her wrongfully convicted brother, Kenneth,” the Wiki page says. “In order to do this she earned her GED, then her bachelor’s, a master’s in education, and eventually a law degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She accomplished this while raising two boys alone and working as a waitress part-time. While in law school she began investigating her brother’s case.

“Kenneth Waters, her brother, was convicted of murdering Katharina Brow in Ayer, Massachusetts, in 1983 (the murder occurred in 1980). His sister Betty Anne located biological evidence and then worked with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization devoted to overturning wrongful convictions, to obtain DNA testing on the evidence — proving Waters’ innocence and leading to his exoneration on June 19, 2001.”

Here’s the weird part. Less than three months after being freed on 6.19.01, Kenneth Waters, 47, killed himself after falling off a 15-foot wall and fracturing his skull. He was on his way back from a dinner with his mother (presumably in the evening) and chose to scale the wall because it led to a shortcut back to his brother’s house. Now, c’mon, I ask you — who climbs over 15 foot-walls after having dinner? Who dies from falling a mere 15 feet? It seems a little funny. I don’t know if alcohol was involved or if it was just one of those stupid accidents that sometimes happen, but what does it sound like?

A 9.19.01 story reporting Waters’ death has Betty Anne Waters saying that Kenneth “was adjusting to life on the outside fairly well, noting that he particularly liked his new cell phone.” He “liked” his cell phone? What was he, a simpleton? Was he Lenny from Of Mice and Men?

“Kenny’s had a lot of tragedy in his life,” Ms. Waters said earlier this month. “He was very happy to be free.” So happy that he stupidly killed himself 120 days after getting sprung. Brilliant.

Okay, so Melville Shavelson was no Sam Fuller or Budd Boetticher or Nicholas Ray. But the sight of a spry and relatively trim James Cagney prancing and tapping around on a big banquet table, and with very few edits to interrupt the action, feels cool right now. (Even with the deeply irritating Pentagon clown Bob Hope huffing and puffing alongside.) Call it a Thursday afternoon mood-pocket thing.

Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, Get Low star Robert Duvall, Focus Features chief James Schamus and Conviction star Hilary Swank will be specially tributed at the Gotham Independent Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on 11.29. Which sorta kinda sounds like they’ve already decided to give Black Swan the top Gotham award for best feature…no? Maybe not. And maybe Duvall hasn’t been selected to win the best actor prize.

Limo guy Steve Coppick drove Tony Curtis around once, and says he “was one of the warmest and nicest celebs I’ve come across over the years. At first I didn’t think it was going to be, as that day the company I was with was stretched thin for sedans so they had decided to upgrade Curtis to a stretch. He walked out a little past the pick-up time, and I knew from the body language he wasn’t in a good mood. I had the back door open, but he just glanced inside.

“‘I ain’t gettin’ in there…I’m not dead yet!’ he said, very serious.

“I explained that he was being treated and why. Instantly he softened and asked, ‘Can I ride up front with you?’

“So after clearing out my bag and other things, off we went with Curtis playing with the radio until he found a hip-hop (!) station and then settled in for the ride to visit a private gallery up behind the Magic Castle to talk about his Marilyn paintings. Soon, when he discovered that I was a film fan, he began to tell me various little snippets of his own history. Which is why I know that the still-vacant lot on Franklin at Outpost was the very first place he lived after moving to L.A.. (The apartment building was still there when we passed by.)

“But you didn’t need to know his history to quickly realize this was a guy who had enjoyed his hedonistic life in an almost humble way. Unlike some successful people I’ve met over the years, Tony Curtis did not make it seem like his good fortune comes from sort sort of ‘I’m a winner, you’re a loser’ strand in his DNA. He might be unapologetic about his appetite for life, yet he always remembered he was the kid from Bronx who also gotten very, very lucky in life.

“It was shortly after this that he moved full time to Henderson, Nevada (next door to Las Vegas), but every time I was heading south on the 101 that mural of him on the overpass would bring back our encounter.”

A statement from Falco Ink’s Janice Roland and Shannon Treusch about the passing of their patron saint: “Tony Curtis was a true talent. We are sorry to hear of his passing. When we started Falco Ink 13 years ago we tipped our hat to Curtis’s role as press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success. When Curtis heard of this company through Jeffrey Wells, he contacted us and we began a friendship that continued through the years. We felt honored to know Tony, a true inspiration to us all.”

Rod Lurie‘s Straw Dogs — a movie that Screen Gems likes so much that it won’t release it until September 2011 — has gotten a boost from an Ain’t It Cool contributor called “Le Stephanois,” who caught Lurie’s melodrama at a recent Syracuse University screening. I’m impressed by this because (a) Mr. Rififi writes well and (b) claims to prefer Lurie’s remake to Sam Peckinpah‘s 1971 original.

Straw Dogs local bad guys (l. to r.) Billy Lush, Drew Powell, Rhys Coiro and Alexander Skarsgard

“It’s hard for me to recall a remake that has drawn as much ire as [Lurie’s] Straw Dogs, which seemingly everyone (at least everyone on the IMDb message boards) has lambasted and written off entirely,” he begins. “They refuse to believe that it could be good in its own right, that Lurie could have actually made a decent film. After seeing it, I can confidently say that anyone who might have harbored some prejudice towards the film should, quite simply, be ashamed.

“Neither I nor Rod Lurie need tell you that he is not trying to best Peckinpah, though it appears the naysayers demand some sort of explanation as to why it’s being remade.

That’s easy. Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs is arguably the best example of the late director’s misogynist ideology (this coming from a major fan of his work). Lurie, whose works are often defined by strong female protagonists, set out to reverse the original’s misogynist implications.

“David and Amy Sumner (James Marsden, Kate Bosworth) are certainly recognizable as reincarnations of Peckinpah’s David and Amy, though their ideals are altogether different. Lurie puts different human beings in situations close to what Peckinpah devised, and he does so brilliantly.

“The plot of Lurie’s Straw Dogs — David and Amy Sumner seek solace in Amy’s hometown so that David can write in peace, only to be brutally antagonized by the locals — hews close to the original, save for some slight alterations. David is a screenwriter and not a mathematician, and the setting is the fictional town of Blackwater, Mississippi, and not rural England. The townies’ new identities then correlate.

“One of the most admirable qualities of Lurie’s film is its slow-burning tension. This is not an obnoxiously chaotic exercise in extreme violence, but a classically photographed, deliberately paced and thought-provoking thriller — a rarity in today’s mainstream cinema.

“Just because it is not relentlessly violent does not mean it is in any way Straw Dogs Lite. Indeed, it is just as brutal and arguably as discomforting as the original, a major triumph considering Lurie’s ideological framework is nowhere near as controversial as Peckinpah’s misogynist mindset.

Straw Dogs costars Kate Bosworth, James Marsden.

“The siege at the end of the film is extraordinarily riveting, the ending itself a revelation of sorts. And none of it is cheap or self-indulgent; the violence is beautifully choreographed, achieving a rhythmic intensity that is well-nigh overwhelming. It is during the siege that Marsden makes a quantum leap as a performer, projecting an eerie confidence that lends an extra degree of weight to the film’s haunting conclusion.

“The utilization of the film’s setting is similarly outstanding, as the bloodthirsty nature of a familiar southern football town mirrors the air of violence that persists throughout the picture. The meaning of the title is clearer (it’s almost as if the title didn’t necessarily suit Peckinpah’s film, considering how well Lurie articulates its meaning), and the town’s having an identity imbues the film with a unique atmospheric tension.

“Lurie masterfully cultivates that tension so as to constantly remind the audience that they are in the presence of men who are predisposed to committing acts of violence with a primal mentality, having been conditioned to beat the hell out of anyone that crosses them, be it on the field or in a more domestic arena.

“The acting is uniformly terrific, and Alexander Skarsgard might just be the best thing about the movie. In a subtle tour de force, Skarsgard is utterly mesmeric; you cannot take your eyes off him for one moment, and you even root for him and relate to him in the oddest scenarios. As a former high school standout whose knee — and scholarship — lasted just three semesters at the University of Tennessee, Skarsgard is much more relatable and dynamic than the Charlie (Del Henney) in Peckinpah’s film.

“There is much to be said for Marsden and Bosworth too, both of whom give the finest performance of their careers thus far. Marsden tackles the Dustin Hoffman role with uncommon poise, unintimidated by the stature of the man whose part he inherited. Bosworth gives a mature, nuanced and at times disquieting turn, revealing a side of herself that should lead to plenty more roles in high-pedigree dramas and thrillers.

“Lurie’s film is not perfect, though it should obliterate the low expectations placed upon it by a small army of Peckinpah fans. They’re certainly entitled to their opinion, but they would be wise to reserve their judgment until the picture is released next year.”

In a recent HE piece called called “Little Doggies” I expressed frustration with Screen Gems’ decision to delay the release of Lurie’s film.

“The initial plan was to open it in spring 2011, but last March it was bumped to September 2011,” I wrote, “which seemed to me like a candy-ass move. Distributors always delay when they’re scared. They tend to put off releasing so-called intimidating films on their slate the same way financially-troubled folk will sometimes put off paying the mortgage.

“Straw Dogs is a smart but violent film with a rape scene, sure, but why bite into a sandwich if you don’t intend to chew and swallow?

“The general rule of thumb is that if your film isn’t released within a year or so after the end of principal photography, you’ve got some kind of worries going on. Inviting press down to the Straw Dogs shoot last fall and then announcing it won’t open until…oh, who knows but maybe Spring 2011 or September 2011 is like purchasing a Variety trade ad saying, ‘Okay, we’re a little scared — we admit it. We picked up the sandwich, we bit into it and…uhm, we’re not quite sure how to play it.’

I wrote that I’d been told “there’s nothing wrong with the film.” HitFix’s Drew McWeeny seized on this and asked if I’d written it because Lurie is a friend. “Because any other time people delay films, it’s the movie’s fault,” he said. “But in this case, you’re predisposed to believe the filmmaker, so in this case, it’s those gutless distributors.

“For what it’s worth, I have spoken to several people who have seen the film, and there wasn’t much good they had to say about it. They ranged from fans of the original to people who didn’t realize it was a remake, and not one of them seemed enthused or engaged by it. And, no, it wasn’t because they were ‘scared’ of it, either.”

I don’t know who Le Stephanois is, and I suppose I have to consider that he may be a Lurie ally of some kind, but if he’s not and just some guy who saw the film at Syracuse, then what McWeeny has been told about the film is at the very least questionable.

I was searching this morning for my March 2000 Tony Curtis interview, which was written during my Reel.com period (’99 to ’02). Not only has the Curtis piece disappeared, but the whole Reel.com archive (when the column was called Hollywood Confidential) has vanished along with it. A Site Called Fred had archived my 300-or-so columns, but now they’ve apparently dumped them. Three years of work down the toilet…great.

The legendary Tony Curtis — the nervy, blunt-spoken Bronx street guy who had a great movie-star run from 1952 to 1968 or thereabouts — died of a heart attack last night about 9:25 Pacific. He was 85, and had lived a hell of a life — about 16 years at the top, and then a long active sunset that lasted 42 years.

Curtis was a decent painter, a raconteur, a legendary hound in his day (“I fucked Yvonne DeCarlo!) and an excellent fellow to hang and shoot the shit with.

In early ’00 I was Curtis’s temporary journalist “pal”. I liked him personally, knew all his good films, could recite a few of his memorable lines over they ears. I think the feeling was mutual. I wrote a good Reel.com piece about him called “Cat in a Bag” in March 2000.

Around the same time I arranged a meeting between Curtis and the staff of Falco Ink, so named as a tribute to Sydney Falco, Curtis’s legendary Sweet Smell of Success character. I once introduced him to my father, who gave him a book about Samuel Johnson. I once brought my mother and sons to a screening of Some Like It Hot at the American Cinematheque, and during his remarks to the crowd Curtis spotted me in the crowd and said, “Hi, Jeffrey.”

I told him once about my then 11 year-old son Jett wanting to dye his hair blue, and Curtis said, “Let him wear his hair blue…he’s a kid, so what? He’ll wear it blue and then he’ll move on to something else.” My ex-wife Maggie, who was voicing stern disapproval Jett about the hi, “You tell Tony Curtis to mind his own business!”

Here‘s an HE piece called “Curtis Burns On.”

“Tony Curtis’ Hollywood heyday is long gone,” I once wrote in my Reel.com column, “but there’s no mistaking the fact he’s always embodied a certain pugnacious cool [that’s] as palpable today as it was when Curtis was starting to come into his own as a serious actor, in the late 1950s.

“Forget all the cruddy movies he’s made over the last 20 years. And forget his smooth-talking seducer-stud roles, which he began playing in the early ’60s in big-studio disposables like Sex and the Single Girl, Boeing Boeing, The Great Race, and Not with My Wife, You Don’t!

“I’m talking Sidney Falco cool. A pensive, anxious, urban quality. You can see shades of it in Curtis’ saxophone-playing Joe in Some Like It Hot. In his performances in Lepke, The Outsider, The Defiant Ones, The Great Impostor. But especially noticeable in the erstwhile Mr. Falco — a profoundly scummy New York press agent he played in the blistering 1957 drama Sweet Smell of Success.

“Bluntness, ambition, class resentment, latent anger — these are fires that have always burned within Curtis, the man.

“I had coffee with the 74-year-old actor in March 2000, and it seemed to me they were still there. Their manifestation in Sidney Falco, when these stored-in-the-gut feelings were riper and more intense, made for a perfect match — the sort of synchronicity that happens once in a blue Hollywood moon.”

The only negative feeling I have about Curtis is that quote he gave to Fox News guy Bill McCuddy in early ’06 dissing Brokeback Mountain. He said “he hadn’t yet seen Brokeback Mountain and had no intention of doing so,” and claimed that other Academy members in his peer group felt the same.

“‘This picture is not as important as we make it,” Curtis said. “It’s nothing unique. The only thing unique about it is they put it on the screen. And they make ’em [gay] cowboys.’ Howard Hughes and John Wayne wouldn’t like it.’

With that quote, Curtis became (in my head, at least) the figurehead spokesperson for the Academy’s homophobic geezer faction, whose votes against Brokeback led to Crash winning the Best Picture Oscar.

“Here’s the final stretch from my March 2000 Reel.com interview piece:

“Today, there’s a wariness in Curtis. Something itchy, cautious, pent-up. I’ve noticed this in actors before. It means there’s all kinds of energy (rude, vulnerable, or otherwise) looking to get out, but they need the unreality of playing someone else to find the right pitch for it.

“I wouldn’t call Curtis pretentious or posturing. He’s likable, affable. He’s still looking to be flattered (as all actors are), but he doesn’t hesitate to make fun of himself, or admit to past failings or weaknesses.

“We met last Sunday at the Beverly Glen shopping center, just south of Mulholland Drive. I waved to him above the heads of several customers sitting outside a popular, packed delicatessen. Curtis waved me over and led me to the inside of a less-crowded Starbucks — fewer people, fewer stares.

“When he ordered coffee for both of us, the woman at the counter insisted on charging nothing. A small tribute to the legend. ‘Really?’ he said to her. ‘Well, thank you so much!’

“We talked about everything — politics, drug-dependency (Curtis had difficulties in this area during the ’80s), Burt Lancaster, old Hollywood, his website (tonycurtis.com, a venue for selling his paintings), women, new technologies, etc.

“He says there’s a large billboard of his youthful image near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and the 101 Freeway — painted by a local artist, he says. A nice little ego boost…or maybe a hint that things are coming around and old man Curtis might be in play again.

“At one point, I handed Curtis a list of his 120 films and asked him to check those he’s genuinely proud of. He checked a total of 18. He didn’t check The Vikings. He didn’t check The Outsider. He checked Houdini. Every film he made after Spartacus in 1960 up until 1968’s The Boston Strangler, he didn’t check. He checked his role as a pair of mafiosos — Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter in 1975’s Lepke and Sam Giancana in the 1986 TV movie Mafia Princess.

“Among his ‘notable TV guest appearances,’ Curtis checked only one — the voice role of ‘Stony Curtis’ in a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.

“Curtis looks good for his age. He’s had the usual touch-ups. His teeth are perfectly white. His features are naturally weathered, but more like a man 15 to 20 years younger. His eyes have a bright, inquisitive gleam. (I’ve seen a lot less of this quality in people 30 and 40 years younger.) He has a slight pot belly. His legs are well-toned. He has a cheerful smile. ‘Thank God at my age, I’m not sick,’ he says.

“But all the applications and polishings and youthful attitudes in the world can’t make time run more slowly.

“‘Can I tell you a story, Jeffrey?’ he said, about halfway through our talk. ‘In 1948, when I was 23 or 24, when I first came out here I lived in a house on Fountain Avenue. I rented a room there. And they had a swimming pool. I had an appointment and I got on a trolley car…they were running right down the middle of the freeway back then.

“‘Then I got back, I jumped into the pool, I took a shower, got dressed and got into the car, and drove up here to meet you. That’s how quick these 50-fucking-two years have gone…quick as that.'”