I’d been told that Gus Van Sant, Matt Damon and John Krasinki‘s Promised Land (Focus Features, 12.28) was Capra-esque, which means upbeat in a sort of sappy, dipshitty sort of way + emotionally on the nose. I was also told it has a little Local Hero in its bloodstream. Well, it’s not channeling Frank Capra or Bill Forsyth. It plays its own tune, and is, I feel, an entirely decent “message” film (i.e., fracking sucks) that feels nicely balanced and shaded and well acted. It flows along.

Only one thing feels miscalculated. I’m speaking of a third-act surprise that kinda knocks everything off-balance because it feels perversely thrown in because some producer said “you know what? this movie needs a third-act jolt.” But I wouldn’t call it fatal. It’s just one of those “did they really need to do that?” moves.

Promised Land is a liberal-humanist social drama that follows a predictable path. You can tell that from the synopsis and the trailer and the poster. But the writing and the unforced acting styles put me at ease early on and I just went with it. It’s a kind-hearted, well-acted, reasonably intellligent thing — naturally, agreeably paced. In fact, I watched it twice. Okay, not intentionally. If you don’t take the screener out the feature automatically plays again so I just sat there and submitted.

At the outset Damon is a nice guy with an Iowa farm background who’s all suited up and smiley and working for an evil natural gas company called Global Crosspower Solutions. He arrives in a small Pennsylvania town to sell a drilling project to the locals and pass a lot of money around. And the usual questions about the chemicals used in fracking (i.e., high pressure drilling for gas) and the water table being poisoned and cows dying and all that. But enough of the locals want those fat Global checks.

And then an environmentalist (Krasinki) comes along and starts letting people know the facts. And Damon starts getting pissy and resentful (he hasn’t been trained by Global about how to deal with green types?) and feeling a little bit guilty besides, and then a lot guiltier. And you know where it’s all heading.

Damon and Krasinki handle their lead roles nicely. Also believable and planted are Hal Holbrook‘s jowly, fair-minded guy and an anti-fracking advocate, Rosemarie DeWitt‘s local teacher with eyes for Damon, and the always impressive Scoot McNairy as a resentful farmer. It’s too bad that Frances McDormand‘s natural gas rep (an ally of Damon’s Steve Butler) isn’t developed sufficiently and winds up seeming arid and floundering at the end, but I shrugged this off.

One of my favorite bits is when Krasinki delivers a Sesame Street-level demonstration of what fracking is to a classroom filled with 10 year-olds. It’s highly amusing because the idea is to reach the (probably) uniformed audience — we’re the ten-year-olds! Hah!

Promised Land probably isn’t going to be nominated for anything, but there’s no shame in just being a decent, good enough small-town drama. I didn’t feel burned or fucked with. It’s a smart, pleasant sit.

I don’t know when I last listened to this Moody Blues track, but it was probably the Pleistocene era. Simple, concise, unpretentious. It’s off The Magnificent Moodies (released in July ’65), and recorded before Denny Laine and Clint Warwick left the band and especially before Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas got into acid and Edwardian lace shirts and big choruses and psychedelic dreamscapes.

The gist of this 12.5 Pete Hammond Deadline piece (“Zero Dark Thirty Gives Sony Early Awards Heat But Will It Last?”) is that a lot of people don’t know what to stand by Best Picture-wise, but they don’t like the idea of giving the Oscar to another Middle-Eastern conflict film made by the great Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal.

I’m presuming that older Academy milquetotast types are telling Hammond “Bigelow again?” and “more Middle East terror tension?” and “why can’t we find a nice consensus movie that fits the warmly emotional paradigm that we all want to give the Best Picture Oscar to, and…you know, without anyone getting blown up or double-tapped…something that explains who we are and what we really want and need?”

Some would like to give it to Lincoln or Les Miz but they’re not feeing the current in the rapids and they can feel the ardor cooling down (certainly with Lincoln). They’ve found a film that “fits that warmly emotional paradigm” in Silver Linings Playbook, of course, but that’s not knocking everyone down either. Cattle are happiest when they’re being led along. And if they’re not being led along they wander around in search of water and grass. What Hammond is telling us is that Academy members don’t know which way to turn.

They have two choices. They can go with the unassailable Zero Dark Thirty — the flinty, pruned-down CIA docudrama with Jessica Chastain‘s super-tough heroine, or with the jazzy, spazzy, warmly emotional and hyper-intelligent Silver Linings Playbook, the movie that restored respect to the seriously tarnished romantic comedy genre and confirmed that director-writer David O. Russell is at the top of his game these days, and that Bradley Cooper (NBR’s Best Actor winner as of today) and Jennifer Lawrence are forces of nature and growth-spurters extraordinaire.

The National Board of Review is a mostly discredited organization that carries no real weight or sway, but the fact that they’ve given their Best Picture award to Zero Dark Thirty feels like a whoo-hoo nonetheless. They’ve also given their Best Director award to ZDT‘s Kathryn Bigelow and Best Actress trophy to Jessica Chastain…three fresh biggies for ZDT!

Memo to Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: Daniel Day Lewis has always been a top Best Actor contender, but Lincoln itself has either run out of gas or never had it to begin with. Certainly not the high-octane brand. Yes, it’s Steven Spielberg‘s best since Saving Private Ryan, but events aren’t falling into place. It’s over or close to it.

There’s also a little Silver Linings momentum kicking in with Bradley Cooper snagging the NBR’s Best Actor trophy. Cooper, it seems, has acquired solid-gold cred today as a Best Actor contender. No pushing him off to the sidelines or going “yeah, maybe” anymore. David O. Russell also won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for Silver Linings Playbook. SLP haters need to bow and back off and scatter for the time being.

I’ve seen Django Unchained, and if you ask me the NBR giving their Best Supporting Actor award to Leonardo DiCaprio is bullshit. They’re kowtowing to a big movie star. DiCaprio’s venal plantation-owner character has no arc, no depth…it’s just showboating. SLP‘s Robert De Niro is a far more deserving recipient. Ditto Lincoln‘s Tommy Lee Jones, The Master‘s Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Arbitrage‘s Nate Parker, or Magic Mike‘s Matthew McConaughey.

Ann Dowd winning Best Supporting Actress for Compliance is a nice thing and well deserved — good for her.

Congrats to HE’s very own Rian Johnson for winning the NBR’s Best Original Screenplay for Looper.

Wreck-It Ralph won for Best Animated Feature. The Oscar in this category will go for this or Tim Burton‘s Frankenweenie…right? The Best Directorial Debut award has gone to Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild…great.

Michael Haneke‘s Amour has won the Best Foreign Language Film award. And Searching for Sugar Man has won the Best Documentary award.

Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.

An iMac I bought in early ’09 has been showing signs of age over the last year or so. Today it fell out of the wheelchair and started gasping and talking gibberish. I knew it would die sooner or later, but I’ve been hoping it might last a little bit longer. Every string runs out sooner or later. I’m taking it down to a Mac specialist over lunch in hopes of at least saving data. I have two Macbook Pro 13-inchers in fine shape, but I’ve never synched the iPhone with them. Learning curve.