Last night I shuffled over to the Grove to see how Black Mass would play a second time. The first reaction is always the truest, but sometimes a film will improve its game upon a second or third viewing. Spotlight, I can tell you, was a little bit grabbier the second time and that was after falling in love with it initially. Michael Clayton gained slightly the second time and even more so the third time. But Black Mass went down a bit. Because it’s basically just another violent, decently-shaped but unexceptional Boston crime saga (this happens, that happens, this happens, that happens) with an ice-cold, husky-eyed mofo at the center of it and a profoundly irritating second lead — Joel Edgerton‘s John Connolly, a cloying low-life with a Bahstun accent and a closet full of blue suits and a tendency to over-sell almost every line and scene. Edgerton drove me crazier and crazier. I finally had to get out of there. I bailed at the 85-minute mark.

Two days ago MCN’s David Poland suggested that Spotlight might be this year’s Argo, only better. What is an Argo/Spotlight flick? A team of earnest professionals — The Avengers in a real-life, human-scale mode — pool their resources to solve or significantly impact a real-life problem. But that’s where the similarity ends. Argo bent or fabricated facts and threw in a little Hollywood bullshit (emotional caressings, smart-assy dialogue, fake-suspense endings) to sweeten the package. Spotlight is a lean, strictly-business, bullshit-free dramatization of a landmark investigative report by the Boston Globe about widespread perversion and corruption in the Catholic church. It operates on a plane way, way above Argo.

Let’s clear the air.  Those who called Argo a Best Picture humdinger when it first screened during the 2012 fall festivals have since felt twinges of regret. It won the Best Picture Oscar only because there was nowhere else to go after the stinking Stalinist takedown of Zero Dark Thirty — easily the finest Best Picture nominee of 2012 — and because not enough voters were able to realize what an inspired, once-in-a-blue-moon, 21st Century anxiety romcom Silver Linings Playbook was (partly due to HE commentariat pissheads who wouldn’t stop slagging it).

Argo was the last Best Picture contender standing. It won by a default fallback situation. It won by way of a huge collective “why not?” — basically a shrugging of shoulders.

I always enjoyed and admired Argo as far as it went, but when the “oh, my God!” reactions started pouring in I stepped back and said, “Wait, wait, wait…hold on.” Just to refresh everyone’s memory, here’s what I wrote on 9.14.12, or only a few days after Argo‘s first Telluride screening:

Excerpt #1: “What’s this Argo obsession that Sasha Stone, Kris Tapley and Roger Ebert are putting out? Drop to their knees in worship? What film can steal its Best Picture thunder? Will you guys please take it easy? Argo is a very fine thing — a well-crafted, highly satisfying caper film with a certain patriotic resonance that basically says ‘job well done, guys…you should be proud.’ But the hosannahs are a bit much.

Hud: “How much you take the boys for tonight?” Alma: “Twenty dollars and some change.” Hud: “You’re a dangerous woman.” Alma: “I’m a good poker player.” Hud: “You’re a good housekeeper. You’re a good cook. You’re a good laundress. (beat) What else are you good at?” Alma: “At taking care of myself.” Hud: “You shouldn’t have to, a woman looks like you.” Alma: “That’s what my ex-husband used to tell me. Before he took my wallet, my gasoline credit card, and left me stranded in a motel in Alberquerque.” Hud:  “What did you do to make him take to the hills? Wear your curlers to bed or something? Alma: “Ed’s a gambler. He’s probably up at Vegas or Reno, dealing at night, losing it all back in the daytime.” Hud: “Man like that sounds no better than a heel.” Alma: “Only thing he was ever good for was scratching my back.” Hud: “Still got that itch?”

“If there is an Argo this season, it’s Spotlight…although I personally like this film better than Argo. It is solid, hard-not-to-like, classical movie-making. Spotlight is the movie that will be there, never wavering, throughout the entire season, waiting for voters to tire of the trendy movie of various moments. Not the likely Best Picture winner, but sure to be in the Top-Five conversation until the very end. And if it wins, I will not be shocked.” — from 9.18 David Poland piece about the Telluride and Toronto winners, losers and middle-rangers.

Best Picture chart on Gold Derby, updated on 9.18.

From Bill Maher’s 9.18 monologue (beginning at 1:15 mark): “There’s been a pet conspiracy theory among the tea-baggers for a long time, that Obama is setting up re-education camps. I’d like to say tonight I think he should. We need re-education camps.”

From 8.5.09 post titled “Argument Over Beers“:

“Because in an era that cries out for measures that address social inequities and benefit the greater good, for deeds and legislation that will address the financial plundering of the last 30 years and keep the buccaneers who’ve brought this country to the brink of financial Armageddon from ever again revelling in insanely lavish profiteering to the detriment of Average Joes, and which will institute policies that will stop or least slow the advance of global pollution and ruination, the righties are still in love with the idea of ‘get government off our backs so we can hold onto more and live lavishly and hold high the torch of Ronald Reagan and have sleazy affairs with assistants if we so choose.’

You know that the fate of a potential Best Picture contender is in doubt when you’re standing around at a noisy after-party for one of those films (I won’t say which one, or where or when this happened), and you spot a certain high-profile journalist/friendo arriving at the party. And you wave and call his name out and beckon — an obvious indication that you’d like to discuss the film with him. And journo/friendo immediately responds with one of those “oh, no…not now…too risky…we’re too close to the talent…now is not the time or place” gestures. So he doesn’t come over. That in itself, trust me, means Big Trouble for the film in question. I was chatting with another journalist when this happened over the last couple of weeks, and when journo/friendo did the sidestep journalist #2 said, “What was that about?” Me: “He doesn’t want to say anything with the talent standing nearby….playing it safe.” I figured it was so noisy that no one could overhear anything, but for some people you can’t be too careful.

If you don’t love listening to vocal-free backing tracks of legendary rock songs, you’re not a real rock ‘n’ roll fan. The singing delivers the soul and the emotion, but the bass, drums, organ, horns, rhythm and lead guitar elements are the brick and mortar. Especially when it comes to some of the more guitar-y Rolling Stones songs like “Star Star.” I would pay through the nose if the Stones would issue CD’s of nothing but instrumental tracks from their biggest hits. Somewhat in the same vein, I’m thinking, as the Beach Boys’ “Stack-O-Tracks” album, which has been around for ages.

A few days ago the Toronto Film Festival consensus on The Danish Girl emerged as follows: (a) Tom Hooper‘s film is a handsome period slog — appropriately delicate but a little on the tedious side, (b) Eddie Redmayne gives his open-hearted, ultra-sensitive all in playing Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, and (c) Alicia Vikander‘s performance as Gerda Wegener, Redmayne’s spouse and loyal supporter as he goes through his gender-transforming travails, is the most popular element.

Yesterday Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil posted reactions from several GD hotshots about (a) whether Vikander’s performance should be classified as lead or supporting in the eyes of the Movie Godz, and (b) is it smartest to campaign her in lead or supporting?

Alicia Viklander as Gerda Wegener in Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl.

Obvious answer #1: You can “sell” Vikander’s performance as a lead if you want to (in somewhat the same way that Felicity Jones‘ handlers flim-flammed everyone into thinking that her performance as Mrs. Stephen Hawking was a lead, not to mention Patricia Neal‘s undeniably supporting performance in Hud being successfully campaigned in the Best Actress category), but if you’re not playing the lead character and you are playing the wife/husband/partner of said lead then you’re giving a supporting performance — period, end of discussion.

Obvious answer #2: If a noteworthy performance has been given by a relatively young and newish face in industry terms, it’s always a smarter move to go for a supporting nomination. Always.

I’m not saying I’m so enthralled by James Marsh‘s Oscar-winning Man on Wire that I’m unwilling to absorb another, just-as-mesmerizing impression of Philippe Petit‘s 1974 World Trade Center feat.  Robert Zemeckis‘s The Walk (TriStar, 9.30) might just do that.  I would love it if Zemeckis somehow re-charges the story; I just don’t see how it can turn out better than Marsh’s doc. (I’ve heard from a friend that it’s a little dicey in the first half, but the second half is pretty great.) The Walk will have its first big showing at the New York Film Festival eight days hence, or on 9.26. Select journos are naturally expecting some kind of simultaneous L.A. screening.

I’ve decided to be the official mediator between Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg regarding their dispute about James Vanderbilt‘s Truth (Sony Pictures Classics, 10.16), which ignited yesterday. What actually happened is that Feinberg, who saw Truth in Toronto, attacked the film — a curiously aggressive response four weeks before the opening, not to mention that Feinberg mostly focuses on analysis and trend-spotting. This prompted Stone, who saw and loved it in Los Angeles around the same time, to attack Feinberg. I tumbled for Truth in Toronto and am frankly more on Stone’s side of the fence in this matter, but I can be fair-minded when the occasion requires.

Here’s the initial Feinberg article, Stone’s pushback response and my ecstatic Toronto review.

The film is a dramatization of Mary Mapes’ 2005 memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.” It’s basically about how and why Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and legendary CBS anchor Dan Rather (Robert Redford) lost their jobs in the wake of a poorly sourced but nonetheless accurate 2004 60 Minutes report about a young George W. Bush having allegedly received preferential treatment in an attempt to duck military service in Vietnam.

The pro-Truth Stone believes that the film passes along a comprehensive and justifiably damning portrait of corporate cowardice on the part of CBS after the infamous 60 Minutes Killian documents story blew up in late ’04. She points out that if Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee had acted similarly — if he had thrown Woodward and Bernstein under the bus when their story about H.R. Haldeman being named in Grand Jury testimony as the fifth White House official to control the Nixon re-relection team’s slush fund was attacked for being false (even though Haldeman was the fifth official to control the fund) — the All The President’s Men saga would have been quite different.

The anti-Truth Feinberg believes that the film errs in trying to portray Mapes and Rather as flawed heroes, and that it’s too hard on CBS and not hard enough on Mapes, whom he believes didn’t do her job properly and deserved to be canned. He believes that “a narrative motion picture was probably the wrong format in which to re-litigate this saga…ironically, it feels more fitting for a segment on 60 Minutes…[it] just doesn’t quite ring true.”

Leonardo DiCaprio is on top because (a) he’s been humping it in features for 22 years (since This Boy’s Life) and is arguably more “due” than Julianne Moore was before she won last year, (b) because he should’ve won that bitch trophy for The Wolf of Wall Street, and (c) because it is believed in certain quarters that The Revenant is the best AAA art film he’s ever been part of. Johnny Depp is ranked second because of the wig and the husky eyes, but he probably won’t last because Scott Cooper‘s film, as good as it is, doesn’t really break fresh ground. Eddie Redmayne is next for giving 110% to a role that demanded nothing less, and yet his Danish Girl performance feels one-note. (Not Redmayne’s fault but the writing.) You know what else feels a little one-notey? Michael Fassbender‘s lead performance in Steve Jobs. But the relentlessness does leave a strong impression. I was telling myself that Michael Keaton or Mark Ruffalo should be nominated for Spotlight, but I don’t see how you can call either of their performances leads. I put in John Cusack for Love & Mercy because Paul Dano‘s performance will, I’ve been told, be campaigned as a supporting thing — smart move. Geza Rohrig‘s barely verbal performance in Son of Saul is the most harrowing I’ve seen this year from anyone. Michael Caine delivers the goods in Youth, but his best shot is to use the gold-watch, end-of-career tribute pitch. Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo…maybe. (Tip of the hat to HE’s Sean Jacobs for Photoshopping the chart.)