A day or two ago a New York media guy wrote to say he saw David O. Russell‘s American Hustle “yesterday” (two days ago, I’m presuming) and that “it’s DOR trying to be Scorsese.” (Not a novel observation.) The reason I’m posting this is the kicker: “Every critic I talk to says their favorite of the year is Spike Jonze‘s Her.” Is this an indication of where the N.Y. Film Critics might go? Variety‘s Tim Gray indicated a few weeks ago that Her will be seen as a challenge to the rank-and-file. (Don’t you just love it when it when complacent industry farts pooh-pooh films as good as this?) Here’s my 10.13.13 review.

I don’t know if extra-special, super-secret screenings of Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street will happen for the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review before they vote next week, but I do know that Broadcast Film Critics Association members (myself included) have been invited to a Wolf screening on Friday, 12.6, around midday. There’s a simultaneous New York City screening happening at the same time. I was sort of hoping for a screening earlier in the week. If I was running the NBR and NYFCC I would order a delay in the voting so Wolf could be included. Maybe this won’t be necessary, as noted, but who knows? Not me.

If The Social Network had been made three years later and released two weeks ago, it would be the hands-down favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar right now. It would be the quality alternative that the 12 Years A Slave crowd could transfer their allegiance to if they felt the tectonic plates shifting, and which the Gravity softies could respect and probably vote for at the end of the day. I watched this clip again because (a) I love it, (b) I wanted to re-assess Dakota Johnson in lieu of her forthcoming 50 Shades of Grey role, and (c) I was wondering if Justin Timberlake will ever seem quite so charismatic or play another scene as good. Luck might not be with him — you can never be sure. This might be his all-time Hollywood peak right here.

“I’m not saying this is a great performance, but I would say that it’s a complete performance. From beginning to end, I think the character is there.”

The quote is from Bruce Dern in an 11.27 interview with TheWrap‘s Steve Pond. Speaking, of course, about his inhabiting of the sullen, irascible, partly-out-to-lunch Woody in Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska. This is, no shit, one of the most eloquent and affecting things any actor has ever said about his or her performance. It’s such a good quote that it made me wonder if Dern had sat down and thought it through and refined it until the words were just right. Or is he just getting really good at campaigning? I honestly think this quote is as affecting as anything Dern delivers on-screen in Nebraska, and perhaps even more so.

And then it hit me. I was sitting in a cafe in Tijuana when it finally sank in. Of course!

Yesterday afternoon TheWrap‘s Steve Pond reported that Scarlett Johansson‘s impressive voice-only performance in Spike Jonze’s Her won’t be eligible for a Best Actress Golden Globe. I wrote in my 10.13 Her review that Johansson’s performance as a software program named “Samantha” “may be her most expressive ever.” But “the part has fallen victim to a Hollywood Foreign Press Association rule that says voice performances are not eligible for acting awards,” Pond reports.

And yet I can’t strongly disagree with a response by Wrap commenter “Joe S.” “Let’s face it, Scarlett is only being considered for acting awards because she’s a celebrity,” he writes. “It wasn’t long ago that ‘no name’ actors did the bulk of voice-over work and there was never even a thought of awards consideration. None. Zero. Nada. And if Scarlett looked like Julie Kavner or the late Marcia Wallace, there would be NO CHANCE IN HELL of [any awards attention]. Scarlett’s is akin to a phone-sex performance so [do] you think there would be a push if the voice performance was, say, from Linda Hunt or Gabourey Sidibe??”

I disagree that Johansson’s performance is “akin to phone-sex” — it goes much deeper than that. But I do wonder if she would be getting the same level of attention if she wasn’t, you know, hot and foxy.

I’m in Tijuana on a secret mission. I woke up at 4:30 am, left at 5:10 am, got here just before 8 am. Presumably (hopefully?) the secret mission will be fulfilled within a few hours, or at the very least by tomorrow morning. I haven’t been to Tijuana since the late ’90s. It used to be a bit skanky and squalid; now it feels almost as tidy and corporatized as any mid-sized American city. To some Mexico might seem a bit exotic in a vaguely odorous way, but if you’ve just come back from Vietnam it feels like home turf. I’m sitting in a nice upscale restaurant called Marenca (Jose Clemente Orozco 70, Centro, 22000 Tijuana), and they have good complimentary wifi.