Alan Parker‘s Mississippi Burning gets an awful lot wrong about the way things really were in Mississippi in 1964. I’ve read, for example, that African Americans did a lot more than sing hymns and watch their churches burn. We all know that Parker and screenwriter Chris Gerolmo mangled the history of the FBI’s hunt for the killers of three Civil Rights workers (Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman). Their coup de grace was having the FBI agent heroes, played by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, turn into Dirty Harry-style vigilantes in Act Three, bringing the guilty yokels to justice by playing rough games and faking them out. Pauline Kael called it “a Charles Bronson movie.”

And I’ve never cared that much. Very few have, I suspect. I’ve always had a soft spot for Mississippi Burning for various reasons — the polish of it, Hackman’s performance (particularly his scenes with Frances McDormand), Peter Biziou‘s cinematography, Gerry Hambling‘s editing, the percussive rumble of Trevor Jones‘ music, da coolness. But especially Parker and Gerolmo’s bullshit plot. Because the lies they came up with are emotionally satisfying, and that’s always the bottom line.

It’s only speculation with no proof, but it’s an instant urban legend that has launched and will probably remain in the blogosphere until proved incorrect. I’m speaking of reports that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un (or some North Korean guys doing his bidding) may have arranged for Chinese hackers to hack into Sony Pictures Entertainment’s web network five days ago and gum things up beyond belief. Nobody knows anything but the possibility is being looked into. The theory is that North Korea may have trojan-ed Sony’s network as payback for The Interview (Columbia, 12.25), the upcoming Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy about a CIA plot to assassinate Kim Jong-Un. North Korean propaganda outlets have threatened “merciless retaliation” against the U.S. and other concerns if the film is released.

Cedric Jimenez‘s The Connection “is a Gallic take on the French Connection-related, Marseille-based heroin drug trade, [and yet it] doesn’t even start its narrative until years after William Friedkin‘s 1971 classic hit cinemas. Beginning in 1975, it pits Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche against each other as a real-life Marseille judge and an elusive kingpin, distilling actual events into a procedural epic whose complicated narrative is propelled by visceral action sequences and an unusually thrilling soundtrack. The big-budget film should be a hit in its native land (where it opens on 12.3), while considerable theatrical appeal in English-language territories is boosted by both its art house-approved cast and the thematic tie-in to Friedkin’s evergreen cop film.” — from John DeFore‘s Hollywood Reporter review, filed from the Toronto Film Festival on 9.10.14.

Two nights ago a week-long Nastassja Kinski film series began under the auspices of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Last night (11.28) they screened James Toback‘s Exposed (’83), in which Kinski costarred with Rudolf Nureyev and Harvey Keitel. (It also featured model Janice Dickinson, who recent came out as one of Bill Cosby‘s victims.) As a Paris-based terrorist named Rivas, Keitel delivers a memorable riff (in a scene with Kinski) about what he considers good-life essentials: “I’ll tell you what I want. Good food. Women. Good cigars. Good beds with fresh sheets Hot showers in Hilton hotels. New shoes. Poker. Blackjack. Dancing. Clint Eastwood westerns. And you. I knew from looking at your face.”

Rudolf Nureyev, Nastassja Kinski in James Toback’s Exposed.

Toback told me this morning that a major critic said at the time that “only Toback would have written dialogue as arcane as that for an international terrorist.” In fact the line was taken directly from an interview with the real Carlos, Toback said. Everything verbatim except Clint.

Most award-season handicappers believe there’s a relationship between presumed Best Picture favorites among Academy and guild members and the critical rankings provided by Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. You can debate the importance of the latter three sources, but if there’s any cause-and-effect things suddenly don’t look as good for The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, which of course are similar British-flavored dramas about troubled eccentric geniuses.

Award Daily‘s Sasha Stone has posted a ranking of the leading Best Picture contenders by Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and BFCA criteria, and the Bobbsey twins are ranked eighth and ninth. Eighth-ranked Theory has a 72% and 83% ratings on Metacriitc/RT, and ninth-place Game has been rated 71% and 85% on the two aggregate-tabluation sites. That means they might be nominated but probably can’t win. The top three likely winners by this system are (in this order) Boyhood, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Last Monday night I was all but roasted alive by a Twitter mob for tweeting that the Ferguson Grand Jury decision might, in a gradual, roundabout way, eventually feed into Academy support for Ava DuVernay‘s Selma. This might happen, I tried to suggest, as a ‘strike a match rather than curse the darkness’ response to an otherwise tragic event. And yet three days later DuVernay alluded to a similar symbiosis when she told Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn that the events in Ferguson and Selma 49 years ago were “the same story repeated…the same exact story.” And now New York Post critic Lou Lumenick has posted a piece that evaluates to what extent Ferguson events may help or hinder Selma‘s award-season prospects.

Variety‘s Timothy Gray has joined in also, although his piece asks if reactions to the Ferguson tragedy may also blend into discussions about another racially-focused award season hopeful — Mike Binder and Kevin Costner‘s Black or White.

A child-custody drama that asks whether a young African-American girl should be raised by her affluent, boozy white grandfather (Costner) or by other family members in South Central, Black or White “has an immediacy,” Gray says. “No matter who you think is right in Ferguson, Missouri, this past week’s events prove that race relations in this country are a mess. Hollywood movies have addressed bigotry for many decades and the message is inevitably ‘can’t we all just get along?’ At this point, it’s hard to add something new to the conversation, but writer-director Mike Binder raises points of view that are rarely depicted.

There are dozens of links to articles stating that real-life Imitation Game hero Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the just-opened film) had a fascination with Walt Disney‘s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and particularly the poisoned apple given to Snow White by the wicked witch. There are also plenty of links pointing to articles about Turing having apparently committed suicide on 6.7.54 by biting into an apple laced with cyanide.

(l.) Alan Turing in his teens or early 20s; (r.) Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing in The Imitation Game.

Talk about a ripe cinematic image proferred on a silver plate! And yet there’s no poison-apple suicide depicted in The Imitation Game. In his 12.1.14 review of Morten Tyldum‘s film, New Yorker critic Anthony Lane asks “how could a movie director, of all people, not make something of that? Tyldum builds up to it, with scenes of Turing messing about with cyanide and handing out apples at work, but the payoff is missing.”