The latest forecasts of Harvard-based Oscar odds-calculator Ben Zauzmer, whose calculations I began paying attention to three years ago, appeared three days ago in the Boston Globe. Nothing startling — Birdman, Inarritu, Redmayne, Moore, Simmons, Arquette, Lubezski — but Zauzmer, who’s now a senior, has an above-average track record. Is it accurate to call him the Oscar race’s Nate Silver? I’m mulling that one over.

“I had dreams as a child of what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have to suffer the scrutiny that you did. What I did suffer when I was young was because I was sort of a hick coming into New York City. I was made fun of by a lot of the Factory people. Even Andy Warhol thought I was a hick. I met these people and I had to be strong. I had to either be crushed by these people or chop my hair up like Keith Richards and say ‘Fuck you.’ But that scrutiny is hurtful, and the rumor mill, the constant bullshit, speculations about your personal life must be very difficult. But in the end, all of that is peripheral. What will remain 20, 30 years from now…all those people and their snarky comments and their projections will be forgotten. But if your work continues to grow and you do great work, that’s what will be remembered. It’s all about work in the end.” — Patti Smith to Kristen Stewart in an undated but presumably recent Interview q & a.

“For a fair number of people who make their living by covering and/or predicting Oscars, this is one bunch of tired, shagged-out, bummed-out people, let me tell you,” writes RogerEbert.com‘s Glenn Kenny in a 2.20 post. “This is particularly true of the Oscar bloggers who are also Oscar partisans” — i.e., Sasha Stone, myself, et. al. One of the few not putting out “some form of distemper”, Kennedy concludes, is In Contention‘s Kris Tapley “who’s filing various guild award results with the machine-like efficiency of a minor character in The Front Page.” I’d probably feel morose if Kenny declared that I’m not quite on the level of Hildy Johnson, but maybe not. Maybe I’d shrug it off.

Francis Coppola‘s life reached a state of total fulfillment at the 47th Oscar Awards, held on 4.8.75 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, when The Godfather, Part II won the Best Picture Oscar. A year before (on 4.2.74) at the same venue, George Roy Hill‘s The Sting took the same honor. I became friendly with The Sting‘s co-producer Julia Phillips in the mid ’90s, and I can report she had a softer and gentler voice when she took the stage with co-producers Michael Phillips and Tony Bill. (I love how Phillips is staring intently at the floor as Elizabeth Taylor recites the names of the other contenders.) Producer Albert Ruddy accepted The Godfather‘s Best Picture Oscar on 3.27.73, also at the Chandler. “America needs the motion picture business,” he said, “and the motion picture business needs the United States.” Movies were certainly the national religion 42 years ago, but the embrace of that ’70s-style faith has, of course, been all but abandoned by today’s majors. The torch has passed to the indie community, and much of what’s happening today is actually pretty great. (Including, of course, the televized renaissance.). But we all miss the days when the big studios were a bit less corporate-minded, more respectful of the spiritual, culture-reflecting potential of the form. Guys like Charlie Bluhdorn were eccentric and grandiose but they cared. I shudder to think where theatrical would be without producers Megan Ellison, Scott Rudin and…who else? The list is not long.

I haven’t posted the wedding ceremony scene from Alan Arkin‘s Little Murders (’71) in a long time. There are probably more than a few who’ve never watched this clip or heard of Little Murders at all. Even though portions of this scene are politically incorrect by 2015 standards, it’s still funny. Wait…should I have said that? Does saying it’s funny indicate I might be a closet homophobe and am therefore deserving of condemnation by this site’s gay readers? It’s a timepiece thing, this scene. Even though Stonewall had happened about a year before it was filmed in mid ’70, screenwriter Jules Pfeiffer was obviously nurturing some old-fashioned attitudes. People forget that the great Gordon Willis shot this film. He went to work on Alan Pakula‘s Klute directly following (or so it seems to judge by release dates) and after that The Godfather.

Congrats to Kristen Stewart for becoming the first American actress to win a Cesar award. A couple of hours ago Stewart was handed a Best Supporting Actress Cesar for her deft and planted performance in Olivier Assayas‘ Cloud of Sils Maria, which costarred Juliet Binoche and Chloe Grace Moretz. Clouds had its big debut in Cannes last May. “With the exception of Kristen Stewart‘s alert, quietly arresting turn as a personal assistant to Binoche‘s middle-aged actress undergoing an emotional-psychological downshift, Clouds is a talky, rather flat experience,” I wrote on 5.23.14. “It isn’t Persona or Three Women or All About Eve, although it seems to be occasionally flirt with the material that these three films explored. It just didn’t light my torch, and would have been a more interesting film if Assayas has focused more on Stewart and Moretz than Binoche.”

“I naturally expected Alex Gibney’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (HBO, 3.29) to rip Scientology, founder L. Ron Hubbard, current Scientology honcho David Miscavige, John Travolta and particularly Tom Cruise big-time, but the hard, well-ordered substance of the film knocked me back regardless,” I wrote on 1.26. “The case against Scientology and Miscavige in particular has been on the table for years, but Going Clear still packs a mean punch.

“If you’ve done any reading about Scientology Gibney’s film is not exactly a torrent of fresh information, but for those who are relatively uninformed the doc is a seriously brutal indictment. It’s clear and tight and comprehensive as hell about Hubbard’s history, and is quite convincing with three ex-Scientology notables, including Marty Rathbun, formerly the church’s second-highest ranking official before leaving in 2004, spilling the beans big-time.

The 30th annual Spirit Awards airs tomorrow on the IFC channel at 2 pm Pacific, 5 pm Eastern. The coolest part is the pre-broadcast schmooze that happens mostly outside the big tent from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, give or take. It was great fun when I was drinking, getting half-bombed and flirting with women and giggling my ass off under the warm Santa Monica sun with the sea air and all. The two narratives are (a) have the Spirits more or less become the Oscars or vice versa with less-expensive, indie-level films more or less dominating the Oscar nominations?, and (b) are the Spirit Award winners selected as a kind of make-up or counter-balance to the expected Oscar winners? In other words, will Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood definitely take the Best Feature Spirit Award to make up for not winning the Best Picture Oscar on Sunday night? The vast majority of Gold Derby predictors believe that will happen for whatever reason. Will Michael Keaton win Best Male Lead Award as a make-up for his expected loss to Eddie Redmayne at the Dolby? The Derby-ites are going for that one also.

“Watching an estimable quintet of character actors do their thing is the chief pleasure of Cut Bank, a largely routine thriller dressed up as a quirky small-town morality play. The feature helming debut of Matt Shakman does well by all but the youngest members of its core cast — a creative stumble that unfortunately leaves a gaping hole where the film’s heart should be. Quality supporting performances, including another excellent turn from Bruce Dern, should help boost the pic’s profile wherever it lands.” — from Geoff Berkshire‘s 6.18.14 Variety review.

For the third time I’m re-compiling HE’s Best of 2015 rundown, most of which will be permanently posted in the Oscar Balloon box right after the Oscars conclude on Sunday night. By my calculations there are at least 20 films opening within the next 10 and 1/2 months that look highly nutritional and aspirational, and there are surely a few others I’m not seeing on the radar. Of the Hot 20, I’m guessing that the likeliest Best Picture contenders of 2015, if “serious” subjects and intentions are any kind of yardstick, will be the following ten:

Danny Boyle and Scott Rudin‘s Steve Jobs, Martin Scorsese‘s Silence (unless it opens in ’16), James Vanderbilt‘s Truth, Oliver Stone‘s Snowden, Steven Spielberg‘s St. James Place, Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s The Revenant, Jean Marc Vallee‘s Demolition, Jodie Foster‘s Money Monster, Warren Beatty‘s Hughes (unless Beatty decides to embrace Terrence Malick‘s approach to editing) and Robert Zemeckis‘ The Walk.

I’v also listed another 23 films that look half-formidable or semi-promising at the very least. 23 + 20 = a grand total of 43 interesting, real-deal, adult-angled films opening between now and 12.31.15. Even if 25% crap out we’ll still be left with around 30 high-grade entertainments. Even if 50% of them fall through the floor the must-see count will be around 20. Any way you slice it 2015 is looking way above average.

N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick is listening to vibrations from his insect antennae, and they’re telling him that a possible American Sniper Best Picture win is in the cards. The suspicion is that Birdman and Boyhood have failed to accumulate a decisive vote tally. The notion was initially hatched when Lumenick regarded the final Gold Derby vote and deduced that Birdman and Boyhood were evenly split. HE to Lumenick: The Gold Derby guys are obsessive but at the end of the day they aren’t privy to any special information or intuitions. On top of which you’re ignoring the “better to fall on the Boyhood sword than capitulate to Birdman” attitude, which is definitely out there. The notion also came from a recent observation shared by Grantland‘s Mark Harris that few of his Manhattan-residing Academy member pallies are giving Birdman their Best Picture vote….boiinngggg! But don’t get me wrong. If Sniper takes the big prize I’ll be as jolted and amused as anyone else and whoo-whooing from the sidelines. Whatever happens, happens. But it’s not in the cards. An awful lot of Hollywood lefties hate the idea of siding with hinterland types about the Iraq War effort by way of sharing/feeling a certain compassion for the troops, or more particularly for Chris Kyle, who was no sweetheart.

These shots of Birdman director Alejandro G. Inarritu and Foxcatcher helmer Bennett Miller were taken during last September’s Telluride Film Festival. It’s occurred to me that male-on-male physical affection doesn’t happen much in my realm. I used to hug my sons a lot, of course, and my male friends in my 20s when we all got drunk together. But these days I never do anything more than brief hug-pats. Forget any kind of sustained arm-over-the-shoulder thing. Inarritu was apparently the instigator here. I think Latin men are a little warmer and more open in this regard. Miller and I come from a similar-type gene pool — emotionally cautious WASPs, not that touchy-feely.