I bought a French Bluray of Brian De Palma‘s The Phantom of the Paradise at Kim’s a couple of weeks ago. It’s supposed to be an all-region disc, but it won’t play the feature — only Gerrit Graham‘s introduction. Thanks.

I for one have had it with Keith Olbermann’s temper tirades. He used up his cards on this score when he left MSNBC in a huff. He can’t do the same thing again with Current. Nobody likes a self-destructive prima donna. Suck it in and do the job.

By my sights the two biggest Bluray embarassments of 2011 were (a) the Great Ishtar Delay Saga (which I explained in detail on 4.26.11) and (b) the Great West Side Story “Fade to Black During the Overture” MGM Home Video Snafu (which I reported on 10.25.11).

For the first time in my professional life I’m thinking I could squeeze in (i.e., afford) the first four days of the Palm Springs Film Festival (1.5 through 1.16). I’ve submitted my press credential application and have found a motel that rents rooms for $65 per night. I’d like to attend from Thursday, 1.5 through Sunday, 1.8. Salmon Fishing in Yemen, Turn Me On Dammit, The Flowers of War, Cafe de Flore, The Island President, Elite Squad and a George Clooney chat.

An excerpt from a 12.30 article by Matt Brennan on Anne Thompson‘s Indiewire page: “More than The Artist, the Oscar frontrunner, Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants — the only other legitimate contender — presents emotion as complicated, world-worn, human.

“Don’t get me wrong; The Artist is a lovely little film. It’s a nostalgic blast from the past and impeccably made, the very kind of perfect that The Descendants is not. But whereas The Artist is a slip of a film, a shiny bauble without much weight, The Descendants takes on the heft of life’s messy actualities. Though my real favorite of the year, The Tree of Life, has no chance of winning (if it even snags a nomination), it’d behoove the Academy to stand behind a film so fierce, and funny, and wise as The Descendants.

“Compared to The Artist, it’s not the easy choice, but it’s the right one.”

In an intro to a video interview with The Artist costars Jean Dujardin and Bernice Bejo, Sasha Stone wrote the clip “gives you an idea of what it’s like to interview them, lovely people that they are.” Well…what else are they going to be? Are they going to be sullen or snippy or evasive? Are they going to channel Tommy Lee Jones (whom I love for not doing the usual gushy-smiley during junket interviews)?

Dujardin and Bejo may be the nicest people in the world when they’re not being interviewed by entertainment journalists. I’ve spoken to Dujardin and he’s a very likable fellow. But that’s what movie actors do. They perform and they charm. As we all (try to) do when we’re up to anything public. Nobody wants to deal with unpleasant types, but what’s the point of saying anyone on the interview circuit is “lovely” when they have no choice but to play that part? Whenever I’m at a party and somebody says about someone else “oh, he/she is so nice!,” I always want to say “well, that’s nice but what does that really mean?”

Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation, which opens today in NY and LA, still has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, and a 92% rating from Metacritic.

“When admirers asked Mack Sennett how he went about creating his classic silent comedies, he would describe the basic principle as ‘one thing leads to another.’ Far from being a comedy, A Separation is an enthralling drama — with some kinship to Kramer vs. Kramer — and the subtitled Persian dialogue is fluent and copious. All the same, one thing leads to another with such ease and inexorable logic that the script could have been created by the filmmaker taking dictation from the people on screen.

“And as long as I’ve invoked the name of Mack Sennett, I should also note that everyone having their reasons is a maxim most famously enunciated by Jean Renoir, who might have recognized his own spaciousness of spirit in the film’s generosity toward its conflicting and conflicted characters.” –from Joe Morgenstern‘s 12.30 Wall Street Journal review.

Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg posted a “contender castoffs” piece last night — a look at 13 of the films “that many thought, at one time or another, would factor into this year’s awards race but never did.” But there are only two…no, three…okay, four that have my interest.

Obviously a crap-quality pic that appears to show Garret Hedlund, Kristen Stewart in Walter Salles’ On The Road. It looks like them, they’re in the back seat of a period car and there are reportedly scenes of this nature in the film.

These are (1) Terrence Davies‘ The Deep Blue Sea (which I missed in Toronto); (2) Walter Salles‘ On The Road (it can’t be that bad if it’s from the Motorcycle Diaries maestro); (3) John Hillcoat‘s Wettest County; and (4) Lasse Hallstrom‘s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (another Toronto miss).

One of Feinberg’s hold-backers is Bruce Beresford‘s Peace, Love and Misunderstanding — here’s my Toronto review.

I also saw Sarah Polley‘s vaguely unsatisfying but decently composed and well acted Take This Waltz in Toronto; ditto Francis Coppola‘s Twixt, which had some nice spooky atmosphere but is mostly disposable. I also saw Barrymore in Toronto and loved Christopher Plummer‘s virtuoso performance. I missed Toronto screenings of Eye of the Storm and Friends With Kids.

Feinberg summarizes the Butter situation in his piece; I saw it in Telluride and basically panned it.

Tonight I caught a two-hour performance by Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band at UCLA’s Royce Hall. I’m so used to hearing this kind of music behind the closing credits of Allen’s films that I didn’t know what to do with it live on-stage. It’s loose and joyous and at the same time too sedate and regulated. But it was fun overall. Thanks to 42West, but no thanks to the Royce Hall usher who stopped my video recording in the middle of a song.

John Williams‘ score for War Horse is relentless. It doesn’t just tell you what to feel at every turn — it browbeats you into each new emotional moment like a schoolyard bully. “Feel this…and now that…feel it!” And yet Dimitri Tiomkin‘s High Noon score does exactly the same thing, and I have no problem with that. It’s one of my all-time fave scores, and Williams’ War Horse score is one of my all-time peeves.

Tiomkin’s score is so consistent with that melody (“Do Not Forsake Me,” etc.) and persistent and all over you that it almost turns High Noon into a kind of musical. Emphatic out-front movie scores are so great when they work, and so awful when they don’t. Two samples: High Noon #1, High Noon #2.

For those who read too quickly: I didn’t write this to slam War Horse for the 319th time. I was pointing out an irony. I don’t like Williams’ score for mauling viewers and telling them what to feel every step of the way, but I love Tiomkin’s score for doing the exact same thing.

Criterion’s Bluray of Luis Bunuel‘s Belle du Jour streets on January 17th. Could this be remade today by an American director? Would there be an audience for it, or have the seeds of intrigue and/or receptivity for this sort of thing passed? I don’t want to hear about this photo being NSFW — don’t even go there.

Imagine that award-season bigmouths like myself received report cards for their efforts to gather or diminish support for this or that contender during Phase One. Here’s how mine would read right now:

Effort to push Moneyball for Best Picture: C-minus. A BP nomination looks good but a win is out of the question — let’s face it. The best that Bennett Miller‘s masterwork can hope for is to place among the Best Picture nominees. The more I’ve pushed Moneyball the more people talk about the unstoppable strength of The Artist and War Horse. There are only so many times you can register disgust and spit on the sidewalk.

Effort to Promote The Descendants for Best Picture: A, but Alexander Payne‘s film has pretty much sold itself.

Effort to Diminish The Standing of The Artist: F.

Effort to Diminish The Standing of The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius: F.

Effort to Diminish The Standing of War Horse: C-minus.

Effort to Diminish The Standing of War Horse director Steven Spielberg: C-minus.

Effort to Diminish The Standing of Hugo: B-minus. But this hasn’t been an abiding passion. I don’t hate this film. I just don’t think it really takes off until the last 25 minutes.

Effort to Promote Moneyball and Tree of Life‘s Brad Pitt as Best Actor finalist: B. Variety‘s Jeff Sneider has claimed on Twitter that Pitt will be nominated but won’t win. We’ll see about that.

Effort to Promote A Better Life‘s Damian Bichir as worthy Best Actor contender: A-minus, judging by Bicihir’s SAG nomination.

Effort to Promote Drive‘s Albert Brooks as leading Best Supporting Actor contender: B, but then everybody is on the train.

Effort to Promote Young Adult‘s Patton Oswalt as leading Best Supporting Actor contender: F.

Effort to Promote Tyrannosaur‘s Olivia Colman as a worthy Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress contender: F, but I managed through that screening-room fundraising drive to at least throw her name into the hopper and goad other Oscar prognosticators to kick it around.

Effort to Respectfully Point Out That The Help‘s Viola Davis, good as she is, is not really a Best Actress contender given the clearly supporting nature of her role: D-minus. No one seems to give a shit about this opinion.

Effort to Promote The Descendants‘ Judy Greer as worthy Best Supporting Actress contender: F.

Effort to Promote Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation as the leading Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar contender: A, but then everybody is on the train.

Effort to Promote Gerardo Naranjo‘s Miss Bala as a worthy Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar contender: Incomplete.