I only got 63% of the Oscar winners right last Sunday. (In part because I was unable to absorb what I’d sensed about Meryl Streep winning Best Actress.) In any event I relate to others who are so swayed by their own determinations that their ability to gauge what the Academy is thinking is, shall we say, compromised. I feel kinship, in other words, with prognosticators like Anne Thompson, David Poland, Greg Ellwood, Mark Harris and Stu VanAirsdale, all of whom wound up with not-so-hot rankings among the Gurus of Gold Oscar-pickers.

Poland always refuses to post the final results of Gurus of Gold Oscar predictions, so once again here are the results with the number of correct calls (the total categories being 24) in parantheses:

1. Pete Hammond (19); 2. Kris Tapley (19); 3. Mark Olsen (18); 4. Sasha Stone (18); 5. Steve Pond (18); 6. Anthony Breznican (17); 7. Peter Howell (17); 8. Susan Wloszczyna (17); 9. “Safe Dave” Karger (17); 10. Anne Thompson (16); 11. David Poland (15); 12. Greg Ellwood (14); 13. Mark Harris (14); and 14. Stu VanAirsdale (14).

“A brutal, unapologetic comedy about the fantasy every high school kid carries around in his head about being popular and cool and beloved, Project X is an astounding, superlative movie about adolescence,” declares Miami Herald critic Rene Rodriguez.

“This is a cinematic mix tape of every conceivable teen-film staple — Rebel Without a Cause, Over the Edge, Porky’s, John Hughes‘ entire body of work — cranked up to deafening volume and given a modern spit-polish. There isn’t a single thing in Project X that isn’t derivative or borrowed. You’ve just never seen it done quite like this before.

“Every generation grows up smarter and more aware than the previous one, and many teens today have lost their innocence long before they’ve even hit puberty. Project X is a comedy about kids weaned on the Internet and video games and cable: They know too many things they probably shouldn’t know, but they can still tell right from wrong. The characters do bad, bad things, but they’re not rotten: They’re just driven by the impulsive nature and sense of indestructibility that belongs to the young, and the movie is a wish-fulfillment fantasy about adolescents giving in to every one of their impulses, consequences be damned.

“Producer Todd Phillips, who has pushed the envelope of taste and propriety throughout his career (he made Old School, The Hangover and the infamous documentary Frat House), also has a taste for the absurd, and he knows the value of a good visual gag.

“Project X has a running bit of business involving [a] Yorkshire Terrier, who suffers a series of indignities as the house party begins to spiral out of control (before the first keg has run dry, the animal has already been tied to balloons and sent floating into the air). But the movie, beneath its raunchy veneer, is so noble and good-hearted that even the dog gets laid before the night is out. Twice.”

This looks half-tolerable…maybe. But I’m still intimidated by the thought of watching anything with the handprint of the dreaded Joss Whedon. I also have a problem with any film in which Samuel L. Jackson uses the word “hopelessly.” I’m also concerned that the film has been converted from 2D to 3D.

The architecture of any proverbial city always suffers when a superhero dukes it ou with an adversary. The hands-down winner of the Urban Destruction prize so far is Michel Bay‘s Transformers 3. Let’s see where The Avengers takes us in this regard. Get that old 9/11 ash-and-ruin vibe going again.

The last time I gave a thought to former Monkee Davy Jones was a year or so ago in Manhattan. I was walking south on Eighth Avenue when I happened to notice he was doing a live show in a modest venue near the corner of 42nd Street. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, it’s a gig at least.” The show continued, according to this interview with timesquare.com’s Peggy Hogan, with an opening set for Saturday, 2.18.

It was reported about a half-hour ago that Jones, 66, has died of a heart attack in Florida. That’s a little young to be checking out, but we all have our timetables.

The Monkees were an embarassment even when they were hot, of course. Jones never stopped playing “cute” to the cameras…intolerable. But I’ve always had a soft spot for their cover of Neil Diamond‘s “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.”

The creators of this piece, the footage for which was captured during Rio’s 2011 Carnaval, are Jarbas Agnelli and Keith Loutif. The process is called “tilt/shift,” but it’s obviously a mixture of real footage and miniature-simulating stop-motion/CG/whatever. The fascinating thing is that you can’t always tell where the action leaves off and the tilt/shift tweaking begins. Take the real world and make it look fake — what a concept!

Last night a respected critic and film journalist emailed about yesterday’s article regarding Paramount’s curious decision not to press-screen Titanic 3D between now and 4.3. “I’ve seen Titanic 3D too,” he said, “and Ebert and Poland are wrong, and Lou Lumenick — for once — is right.

“Yes, the image is slightly darker through the glasses. I took them off several times during the movie to compare. I have no basis whatsoever for saying this, but I suspect Cameron may have brightened the image slightly for the 3D presentation in order to compensate. But it looks terrific — as good as any upconverted 3D presentation I’ve seen. Was it necessary? No. But it’s an excuse to get excited about seeing the movie on the big screen again, and the 3D doesn’t detract anything from the experience.

“There was never a moment in the movie when I thought ‘man, I wish this was in 2D!” Most of the 3D is used for spatial effects instead of ‘wow’ stuff. There were only a few shots, all of them post-iceberg, that felt designed to elicit shock and awe…and it works. Cameron knows exactly what he’s doing — he’s a fucking genius. I bow to the guy, even though I though Avatar was shit. The re-release is going to be a huge hit and make another $100 million.”

Can anyone explain why Ed Helms starts driving his Porsche like a crazy man in this scene from Jeff, Who Lives At Home (Paramount Vantage, 3.16)? There’s one funny line — “Porches are for normal people, you’re a Sasquatch” — and then Helms says “check this out” and it’s off to Whacko City with the car slamming into a tree. Nonsensical isn’t funny. Funny is when an apparently rational person tries to make something turn out right but events overwhelm him/her.

Directed and written by Jay and Mark Duplass, Jeff, Who Lives at Home is about a 30 year-old still living in his parents’ basement (Jason Segel), and his older prick brother (Helms) whose marriage is winding down. Susan Sarandon plays the mom, and Judy Greer plays Helms’ wife.

I can’t see not buying the British Bluray of Bernardo Bertolucci‘s The Conformist (’70). The gauzy, dreamy lighting that makes Vittorio Storaro‘s lensing of this ballroom scene so special is evident even in this YouTube clip. Imagine it looking “brighter, thicker, richer and [with] more grain,” as DVD Beaver’s Gary Tooze has written.

Armando Iannucci‘s Veep (HBO, sometime in April) stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a somewhat self-absorbed, slow-on-the-pickup U.S. Senator who becomes Vice-President…and is then literally a heartbeat away from assuming the Presidency when the Oval Office occupant complains of chest pains. The tone, manner and rhythm of Iannucci’s In The Loop are all flooding back into my memory.

Whitney Houston‘s sudden death on Feb. 11th “is expected to be officially ruled an accident, a source with knowledge of the ongoing investigation” has told E! News’ Ken Baker and Natalie Finn. In other words, the cause of Houston’s death wasn’t much different than her slipping on a banana peel and hitting her head. Everything was hunky-dory lifestyle and health-wise, but all of a sudden an “accident” happened and she was gone…phffft.

Paramount obviously doesn’t need to expend much energy to raise awareness about the forthcoming Titanic 3D (4.4). Diehards who saw and worshipped James Cameron‘s 1997 blockbuster 15 years ago will cough up for a somewhat darker stereoscopic version no matter what. There is, however, a second target audience — i.e., the wait-and-see crowd who aren’t sure how good the 3D conversion will be, and are waiting for buzz.

Well, guess what? They aren’t going to hear any buzz until the night before Titanic 3D opens (i.e., Tuesday, April 3rd) because Paramount apparently won’t be screening it anywhere for anyone — not for press, not for fans — for the next 33 or 34 days.

Or so it appears. Maybe they’re planing some private industry screenings I haven’t heard about. I’ve written Paramount to make sure that the 4.3 preview really will be the only peek-out between now and then, and to convey my surprise that they would go dark for this long a period.

A neutral observer would say that Paramount miscalculated by inviting Roger Ebert and David Poland to special Valentine’s Day screenings of Titanic 3D on Tuesday, 2.14, because Ebert and Poland both panned the 3D presentation, more or less. It appears that Paramount doesn’t want to attract any more “too dark and filtered” responses so they’ve parked the car and turned off the engine.

The Ebert-Poland reactions haven’t stopped writers like Cinema Blend‘s Kelly West from expressing optimism (“I’m hoping that the film will prove to be a fine example of how a movie can benefit from a 3D make-over,” she wrote earlier today), but Paramount has apparently decided they can only devalue the brand by sneaking Titanic 3D any further so that’s all she wrote for the month of March.

I’ve always liked Titanic, and I definitely love the last 25 to 30 minutes. I’ve said that for years. So it’s been my interest all along to savor Titanic 3D under the finest theatrical projection standards possible. The piece I posted yesterday suggested that a darker filtered image with a foot lambert range of roughly 4 or less is what the general public is going to see. I’d love to see something brighter and more satisfying than what Ebert and Poland said they saw, and maybe that’ll be the case when I see it on 4.3. Here’s hoping.

I spoke earlier today to Boston Light and Sound’s Chapin Cutler, who said he had no knowledge or insights about Titanic 3D‘s presentation. He did, however, repeat the basics: “3D in general is dark. The common specs are real dark and it is not uncommon for 3D to be run at 3 to 4 foot lamberts. Although there are [ways] to raise the illumination levels in cinemas, that is really hard on big screens given the 10 to 15% efficiency of 3D systems.”

Either way I would love to be able to see Titanic 3D under optimum conditions. Meaning that I’d love to be able to see it under better conditions than the general public will be paying to see. Is there going to be a screening at some high-end post-production facility between now and the 4.4. opening? A screening room that offers optimum conditions, I mean? Has any thought been given to the Panavision 3D option, an integrated image-enhancement system that works with all maor 3D projectors except Sony’s?

Yesterday’s article passed along a testimonial from respected projection consultant James Bond that Panavision 3D would enhance the presentation of Titanic 3D. (I don’t personally know that it would enhance the film’s appearance — I’ve just been told that.) Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be attending a demonstration of Panavision 3D at Panavision’s Woodland Hills headquarters.

Update: N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick also saw Titanic 3D on 2.14, and posted a rave. He also tweeted the following in response to this piece: (a) “I saw Titanic 3-D on 2/14 at the AMC Loews 34th St. and it looks great, works wonderfully”; (b) “It wasn’t at all like Transformers 3, [in which] some of the daytime scenes looked like they were filmed at night”; (c) “I’ve been enormously critical of 3D, especially lousy post-conversions. But based on this, I’d like to see a 3D Wizard of Oz“; (d) “Based on the wild anticipation at the 2.14 screening, I’m not sure Paramount really needs to screen this for critics at all.”

All of this sounds great, but what, one wonders, were Roger Ebert and David Poland on about when they complained? Were they both unlucky in that the 3D projection they saw in Chicago and Burbank, respectively, wasn’t as good as what Lumenick saw in NYC? Weird.