Yesterday James “Miracle-Gro” Whitmore left the earth. He was 87, one year older than my dad when he passed last June. And to a marginal extent an angry or at least a brutally candid type, which I relate to. An actor who never seemed to really “act”, which of course is the best way. My favorite Whitmore performances all happened in the early to mid ’50s: William Welman‘s Battleground (with the constant wad of chewing tobacco), Them, John Huston‘s The Asphalt Jungle.

The Oxford Film Festival cool kidz (Rocchi, Voynar, Yamato, etc.) are shunning me, or certainly not initiating contact. I guess yesterday’s cruddy wireless funk along with my subsequent disinterest in taking part in yesterday’s media panel was a factor. In any case this feels like high school all over again. The cool kidz didn’t hang with me back then either.

Guys, it’s okay with me. I have my own stuff to do. The cool kidz were going to pile into a van and visit Graceland Too, which I was never all that thrilled with frankly (although I may go there anyway on my own, depending). As a matter of courtesy and professionalism I’ll be covering tonight’s awards ceremony at Oxford’s Lyric Theatre. Photos, quotes, some kind of play.

Today’s plan included seeing Micki Dickoff‘s and Tony Pagano‘s Neshoba, a doc about the 1964 Missisippi civil rights worker murder case (i.e., the one fictionally depicted in Mississippi Burning) as well as the long-delayed prosecution of 80 year-old preacher Edgar Ray Killen, the alleged mastermind of the killings, in 2005. But I had to finish some business stuff and post stories and whatnot, so I missed it.

I’m leaving now for Tupelo and a visit to Elvis’s birthplace, and possibly the Boondocks Grill for some vittles. And then maybe a drive west to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, which is just a few miles from the Mississippi river, which I might stand on the banks of before dark.

To repeat from my 2.1 post (“Do The Right Thing“) about the mtvU.com Oscar competition, “Please help stamp out the Stepford virus and vote for David Distenfeld. You’ll be helping to shape the tone of future TV entertainment coverage if you do.” And then return on 2.9 to vote for the top 3 finalists.

The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil is reporting how Fox Searchlight has decided to deliberately under-support M.I.A.’s “O Saya,” one of the two Oscar-nominated songs from Slumdog Millionaire. Fox Searchlight’s overt support (by way of a CD mailing) has gone instead to “Jai Ho,” which, I’ll admit, is the more catchy of the two.

“Fox Searchlight is daring to choose between its Oscar children,” O’Neil writes. “The studio wants voters to focus their Slumdog Millionaire love on one song, fearing that the vote might split otherwise, causing both to lose. So this is good strategy, although poor politics. Inevitably, the studio is inviting a chorus of discontent from the folks behind the song not being hyped.”

Of course, neither song is as power-poppy or soul-stirring as “Chaiyya Chiayya,” the Indian-flavored Inside Man tune that I first heard in late ’06. The song was composed, ironically, by Oscar-nominated Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman (who also wrote “O Saya”). “Chaiyya Chaiyya” was used as the opening-credit song for Spike Lee ‘s film as well for — I think, not being 100% sure — Bombay Dreams.

Was Inside Man‘s “Chaiyya Chaiyya” nominated for a Best Song Oscar in early ’07? Of course not. Why? Because it wasn’t written for the film. But it wouldn’t have been nominated anyway because bank-job movies don’t get nominated for anything, in any category.

Jett’s journalism instructor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University is hammering home one of the basics. When writing criticism, never use the words “is” or “not.” HE commenters, take note.

Mark Lisanti (formerly of Defamer) has written a piece for vanityfair.com called “Five Oscar-Night Surprises We’d Like to See.”

HE reader LexG just said something that struck a truth chord for me, to wit: “Female directors by and large aren’t very visual.” I would put it this way instead: I don’t recall detecting (and I’ll fully admit that I haven’t been vigilant enough in watching the work of unsung women directors) a raging obsessive visionary gene in women directors and, now that you mention it, women dps.

There’s a certain tone of compassionate frankness — a kind of less-is-more, fair-minded, eye-level sanity or rational tidiness in the visual signatures of certain female-directed and female-shot films. One major exception: Kathryn Bigelow‘s direction of The Hurt Locker (boosted by Barry Ackroyd‘s cinematography).

I know I’m going to get screamed at for this, but I’m asking myself where are the super-cranked visual hardcase female directors and dps? Where is the female Gordon Willis, Vittorio Storaro, Emanuel Lubezski, Chris Doyle, Conrad Hall? Where is the female-directed film with, to name bu tone example, one of those audacious Scorsese shots, like that famous one in Goodfellas when Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco walk through the rear entrance of the Copa and through all the kitchens and utility rooms and back hallways?

There are a lot of female “versions,” I believe, of ordered and painterly dps like James Wong Howe , Freddie Francis, John Alcott or Roger Deakins even, but it’s hard to think of women who’ve shown the kind of striking pizazz and/or stunning pictorial compositions that one associates with Gregg Toland, Michael Chapman or Nestor Almendros.

I know I’m being a bit simplistic and ignorant. I’m mainly asking for names that I and others need to hear about. There are obviously many, many excellent female directors and dps out there — don’t get me wrong. I just can’t remember any who’ve shown an “eye” or a shooting style that I would call fevered or amped-up and rule-breaking crazy.

I don’t know the roster of voice-over guys like I used to, but whoever is voicing this has that purring, steel-chipped Don LaFontaine thing going….”in a world.”

Two fascinating articles have emerged about how Stephen Daldry‘s The Reader might (i.e., seriously could) win the Best Picture Oscar with a faint corresponding idea that Slumdog Millionaire has peaked. I don’t believe it for a second.

The most affecting is a thoughtful, wonderfully written piece by Roger Ebert. It is so full of primal truth and righteous reflection, I feel, that reading is more stirring and intriguing than watching The Reader itself.

The other is a total stretcharoonie by Entertainment Weekly‘s Nicole Sperling and Christine Spines. It basically suggests/implies that (a) Harvey Weinstein is on a roll, (b) his luck is back, (c) voting for The Reader is a chance to offer a goodbye hug for the the late, much beloved Reader producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, and (d) the Academy’s old Jews are voting en masse for it.

“In truth, The Reader remains a long shot in the Best Picture race,” Sperling and Spiones admit, “but if there’s one thing Hollywood has learned over the past two decades, it’s never to underestimate Harvey Weinstein. Love him or hate him (or both), he made the Oscar races exciting. Now Weinstein has another chance to relive his glory days, to slap the backs, to point the fingers, to be the P.T. Barnum of the Academy circus one more time. ‘

”It’s the sportsman in me,’ he says. ‘I like the fight.’ We’ve noticed.”

N.Y. Times reporters Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply reported a few minutes ago that Universal Pictures “has issued a statement acknowledging that DreamWorks [is] shopping elsewhere” for a distribution deal. That means Disney. “Universal Pictures has ended discussions with DreamWorks for a distribution agreement,” it said. “It is clear that DreamWorks’ needs and Universal’s business interests are no longer in alignment. We wish them luck in their pursuit of funding and distribution of their future endeavors.”

Honest, really…who cares? What does it matter? How much better can DreamWorks partner Steven Spielberg, whom I sometimes think of as the bearded and beaming Noah Cross of modern Hollywood, live or eat or dress? What has this deal have to do with the price of rice and the basic nutrients that we all need from good movies on a regular basis? I’ll tell you what it has to do with them. Not much.

What effect will this have, if any, upon Spielberg’s finally stepping up and directing his Lincoln movie, if in fact he intends to direct it (which many people doubt). None, I’m guessing. Spielberg has blown the magic moment on the Lincoln project anyway. It should have been filmed last year and come out just after Barack Obama‘s election, or sometime in December and into January. The timing would have been perfect.

And yes, now that I’ve thought it over, Daniel Day Lewis should play Mr. Lincoln. It would break Liam Neeson‘s heart to lose the role, but when a friend suggested Lewis the other day, I knew it was the right call.

“Is It Time To Kill The Chick Flick?,” a 2.4 Times Online article by Kevin Maher, says several justified things about this inane genre, including a boilerplate statement that “the modern Hollywood women’s picture or so-called chick flick has become home to the worst kind of regressive, pre-feminist stereotype and misogynistic cliche.”

The quote that got me, however, is from marketing consultant and Women & Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein, to wit: “Fewer than 10 per cent of Hollywood films are written by women, and fewer than 6 per cent directed by women. So really what you are seeing is a white male version of women. And that is just unacceptable.”

The obvious question would be (and I haven’t done any research at all) “how many of the male screenwriters of chick flicks are straight?” And if, for the sake or hypothesis, a statistical majority of these screenwriters were shown to be gay, would that that really be an example of a bunch of boys-club screenwriters unfairly muscling female screenwriters out of a job? Put another way, if you were producing a chick flick, wouldn’t you want your pick of the best gay screenwriters around, at the very least for sass and seasoning?