Earlier this afternoon I had about 15 minutes with Biutiful director-cowriter-producer Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu in the elegant, softly lighted lounge of Soho’s Mercer Hotel. I feel so conversant with Biutiful and so relaxed with Inarritu, having known him for eight or nine years, that I didn’t prepare questions. And so I naturally hemmed and hawed at first — brilliant. But we found a groove after a couple of minutes. What are the odds that Biutiful might capture the Best Foreign Language Oscar? You tell me.

These little videos are sloppy, slapdash — a far cry from the satisfying, comfortably slick values found on Movie City News. No editing, no trimming, no nothing — I just shoot and convert and put ’em up. But they’re honest.

“On top of the 16 minutes of new footage (or 7 minutes if you’ve already seen the Avatar special edition) which includes a brand new 5-minute opening on a Blade Runner-ish earth, there will be 47 minutes worth of unfinished / low resolution deleted scenes.” — from an 11.8 High-Def Digest story by Michael S. Palmer.

I spoke last night with King’s Speech star Colin Firth at the post-premiere party at the Royalton hotel. Since he was chatting with director Tom Hooper, who’d recently made it clear that he’s not happy with the Weinstein Co.’s recently-unveiled King’s Speech one-sheet, I asked Firth if he more or less shares Hooper’s view. His answer was basically “I think…well, yeah.” He also enthused that there’s light up ahead and that change may be afoot.

King’s Speech star Colin Firth outside Royalton Hotel, site of the post-premiere after-party.

Firth’s understandable intent was to tread lightly and not bring any further grief into the lives of Weinstein Co. marketers.

The problem with the poster is that it looks poorly Photo-shopped and AFM-ish. As I put it on 11.3, “Is it that hard to create a movie poster that makes it seen as if the lead actors actually posed together in the same realm?”

I mentioned to Firth that I thought it was fairly common for senior cast members to pose together during filming for ad/pub materials. “It is and we did,” Firth replied. He and Rush and Helena Bonham-Carter together, in makeup and in costume with Firth in some sort of British Naval uniform. So a lack of group photos wasn’t an issue.

Incidentally: Watching The King’s Speech at the Zeigfeld kicked things up, by the way. It plays just as enjoyably as it did during my first viewing (which was just prior to the Toronto Film Festival), but the sound at the Zeigfeld made it seem that much better. The bassy tones and sharp highs are heavenly in that theatre. Geoffrey Rush‘s voice — sharp and precise with cave-like bottoms — felt like a symphony in and of itself. First-rate sound is half the ballgame when presenting and enjoying a film, and yet it’s rare, far too rare, for a film to sound as good as The King’s Speech did last night on West 54th Street.

Also incidentally: All hail Deleon Tequila, the generous sponsor of last night’s party.

Wells to Analog Kid and others who complained about what they felt was an overly-explicit review of Unstoppable: “All of the HE brainiacs who may be expecting a bad-ass Tony Scott thriller about a runaway train to end tragically with all kinds of death and dishonor and toxic poisoning are hereby notified that information to the contrary is contained in this review.”

David O. Russell’s The Fighter, which will have its first Manhattan press screening on Thursday, will screen for free tonight at L.A.’s AFI Fest 2010 at Grauman’s Chinese. The true-life based boxing drama costarring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo will show at 9:30 p.m, which means that reviews from enterprising bloggers can be expected by midnight or 1 am Pacific.

“Admission to the screening will be available to AFI FEST 2010 passholders and the

general public through online ticket reservations at AFI.com/AFIFEST,” says an official announcement. Admission will also be available “via the rush line, which will begin forming one hour before the scheduled screening start time. All attendees are invited to walk the red carpet for the screening.”

Time and again I’ve posted a famous quote from the legendary Michael O’Donoghue: “Simply making people laugh is the lowest form of humor.” Here’s another thought in this vein: “Calling a smart, highly spirited, deftly-constructed comedy ‘not funny enough’ is like meeting a bright and soulful and beautiful woman and saying her tits aren’t big enough and that her ass needs to be rounder.”

Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford in Morning Glory

I’m sorry to use a crude analogy in an argument with the esteemed Marshall Fine, but his negative review of Roger Michell and Aline Brosh McKenna‘s Morning Glory isn’t that much different from a construction worker loudly commenting on the physical assets of a woman walking by a work site on 52nd street. He’s basically saying McKenna’s punch lines aren’t zippy or spritzy enough and that the laughs aren’t loud or frequent or horsey enough.

Well, let me tell you something: there is mirth and merriment and occasional howlers all through Morning Glory. It’s a film with chuckles, chortles, screamers, amusing banter, straight-ahead laughs, titters, rapier wit and plain likability. Not to mention story tension and believability and high-strung spirit and a touch of pathos and a considerable rooting factor in the case of Rachel McAdams‘ “Becky,” a morning-show producer.

There are other ways to skin a comedic cat than to try to maul an audience with laughter. Like fine fertilizer or seasoners or home-made salad dressing, Morning Glory‘s humor romances and enhances the whole. It fits in and fortifies. It is what it is according to its own plan, and is unmistakably present and pulsing from start to finish.

Breasts and buttocks of whatever size and shape can be very proportionately pleasing if not highly stimulating when evaluated within the particular scheme of a woman’s size and height and weight. And while their presence can and must be very important to men, their aesthetic importance tends to lessen and settle into reality the more you get to know the woman — i.e., who and what she is in terms of personality, character, loyalty and whatnot.

I’ll tell you what else is wrong with Fine’s “it’s not funny enough” complaint. If loud laughter from a given audience is your criteria, Adam Sandler‘s Just Go With It might, depending on the Jersey Shore Eloi factor in the seats, prove to be a “funnier” comedy than Morning Glory. In my book anyone who would then say “hey, go see the new Adam Sandler comedy because it’ll make you laugh more than Morning Glory“…well, that person would be the devil, plain and simple. Because a value judgment of this kind would have to be regarded as a small nail in the coffin of civilization as we once knew it.

Created by Conan O’Brien and his writers. Performed by O’Brien, Jon Hamm, Larry King and others from central casting. Aired last night by TBS. And also posted last night (at 7:12 pm Pacific…hours before air time!) by Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva.