Robert Welkos’ story about Broadcast Film Critics Association co-founder Joey Berlin being handsomely paid is a day old and I’m still not getting the hoo-hah. I run a small business that survives on advertising from distributors during Hollywood’s annual award season, and the income allows me to live a cautiously cool life with annual travel to Cannes and Berlin and Toronto and elsewhere…a pretty good gig. Berlin and his BFCA cronies run a much larger business (i.e., the annual Critics Choice Awards) that brings in a lot more dough than any columnist on my level. A lot more. Welkos reports that Berlin’s company, Berlin Entertainment, Inc., earned $859 grand in 2012 and a total of $1,851,347 between ’09 and ’12. Okay…what? The last time I looked everyone was trying to skin the award-season cat. Some with more honor than others. Sasha Stone and I do it one way (passionate advocacy), Berlin does it another, Kris Tapley has his own methodology, Scott Feinberg has a slightly different approach, Pete Hammond has his particular game and so on. David Poland didn’t really get into the Welkos story yesterday but he implied that the Berlin disclosures warrant further attention. I don’t see what the big deal is.

All I can say is that I went “oh, noooo!” pretty loudly when I clicked on this story, which broke earlier today. The less said the better but obviously Hugh Sloan has a big problem. Potential victims have to be protected. As reprehensible as the crime in question clearly is, it also seems rancid to post a recording of a private therapeutic discussion that involved an apparent confession.

This first aired on 9.26 when I was caught up in the New York Film Festival and watching no TV. Muslims come in all shapes and leanings and mindsets, but they clearly don’t respect minorities (particular gays) and their attitude toward women is ghastly. They make Mediterranean males, one of the worst sexist-dog cultures, seem enlightened by comparison. Over 133 million Muslim females in Africa and the Middle East have suffered genital mutilation. The Muslim faith is somewhat younger than Christianity, and I think there’s something to be said for the view that they’re currently in a phase that’s roughly analogous to the Middle Ages when Christian religious authority was far too powerful and dominating. There are “vast numbers of Muslims who believe — and they do — that humans deserve to die for merely holding different ideas or drawing a cartoon or writing a book or eloping with the wrong person…rule of law is better than a theocracy.” Sorry, Ben, but not this time.

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence speaking to Vanity Fair‘s Sam Kashner on the nude-photo hacking incident: “[What happened was] a sex crime…a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these websites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

Also: “I was just so afraid. I didn’t know how this would affect my career.” Trust me — nobody in online consumerland thought for a half second that Lawrence was in any way compromised or lessened because she took some nude shots of herself and sent them to her boyfriend. At all. Nobody gave a shit.

Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil and I talked for a full effing hour this morning and covered everything, everything…well, almost everything. The Boyhood strategy from the AMC zombie-vampire guys. The place-holder status of Unbroken. The Birdman schwing. The Julianne Moore situation and how the good-but-not-great Still Alice may not be the bouncy diving board that she needs to do a big swan dive into the Oscar pool, everyone still agrees that this is her moment. Approvals for The Theory of Everything along with the gay community’s problem with The Imitation Game. The almost oppressive approach of Interstellar. That highly intriguing American Sniper teaser. Rob Marshall‘s influence upon Into The Woods. Inherent Vice is a cult film. Big Eyes…who knows? Fury pong. For some reason we didn’t touch Mr. Turner. We barely glanced at Exodus: Gods and Kings. Again, the mp3.

Two days ago a Glenn Whipp L.A. Times piece drove a stake through Gone Girl‘s Best Picture chances. The article assessed reactions to last Saturday’s Academy screening of David Fincher‘s film, and the basic take-away was that the 50-plus crowd was mostly underwhelmed or “subdued.” Nobody Whipp spoke to seemed to understand that Gone Girl is a kind of Luis Bunuel film, and that Gillian Flynn‘s story is only the half of it, that the film is really about the social-cultural undercurrent…about all of us. One Academy guy told Whipp that “this is first-class filmmaking but, like a lot of [Fincher’s] other movies, you admire it more than you enjoy it.” Are you hearing this douchebag? First-class chops and socially pungent content aren’t enjoyable enough. He wants to laugh, to be charmed, hugged and caressed, to have his heart melted down. “What did I just see?” one Oscar-nominated producer said to Whipp as he walked along Wilshire Boulevard to his car. “That’s it? Really? I’ve seen better social commentary in a good episode of Bob’s Burgers.”

You can lead a 62 year-old Academy member to a screening, but you can’t make him “see” it. Yes, I wish that just one time Academy members could stand inside my shoes. They’d know what a drag it is to report about them.

The first spot, apparently Norweigan-made, is a classic…but what does Frokostklubben (some kind of coffeemaker?) have to do with scraping off a snow-buried car? If the guy had enjoyed a few sips of coffee first he would have been more clear-headed about where his car was parked…something like that? The second spot isn’t as sharp and it’s horribly scored, but there’s no mistaking what it’s about — human rights abuses in Burma as things stood a few years ago. (The sexy teacher asks about dictator Than Shwe, who left office in 2011.)