There’s an art to crossing streets in Hanoi. You can’t do it the New York way, darting quickly to avoid oncoming cabs or buses. You have to feel your way across, moving casually but ready to speed up or stop in the space of a heartbeat. Scooters and cabs swerve around you rather than you getting out of their way, like in New York. And you might run into a stray chicken or rooster at any moment. Just this afternoon I was standing on a corner and a red-necked rooster standing next to me took a leak.

I’m obviously in no position to talk as I won’t see Zero Dark Thirty until next Saturday, but the reason Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone has declared that Jessica Chastain “gives far and away the best performance of the year by any actress, at least here in the US” — i.e., above and beyond Silver Linings Playbook frontrunner Jennifer Lawrence — is because her Maya character satisfies the Stone ideal of female characters exuding tough, stand-alone strength.

Chastain rules, in other words, because director Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal “designed the whole movie around her character, not framing her behind, depending on, flirting with any man but instead, holding her own.”

Whereas Lawrence’s Tiffany doesn’t cut it by Stone’s requirements because, as I explained on 9.27, Stone feels she’s “basically a male fuck fantasy, and the story itself is too male-centric because Tiffany is basically used by director-writer David O. Russell to support and complete Bradley Cooper‘s Pat Solitano character by (a) shaking him out of his ‘I need to get back with my wife’ obsession and (b) falling in love with him and gradually inspiring reciprocity.

“In short, the Silver Linings milieu is too male, too blue-collar, too football-fanatic and not positive enough in terms of pushing strong, independent-minded, take-charge, stand-their-own-ground female characters. Tiffany, in short, is too emotionally vulnerable and not Katniss Everdeen enough.

“Lawrence knocks it out of the park in the Silver Linings Playbook, ” Stone wrote on 9.26, “but] if she weren’t such a rising star she would be in the supporting category for her work here, as her function in the film is mainly to support Bradley Cooper’s character arc.

“What makes this an award-worthy performance is that Lawrence elevates it beyond what’s written on the page. She makes it deeper, richer, more compelling than it otherwise would be — it’s a male fantasy — yet Lawrence finds the truth in who the character is and that makes the difference.”

Shorter Stone: “SLP director-writer David O. Russell is too much of a sexist alpha male to give us the kind of strong female character we all want to see and need more of, but Kathryn Bigelow gets it like only a woman could, and she brings it home.”

Zero Dark Thirty “is not another Argo,” says Gold Derby‘s Tom ONeil. “It doesn’t have that hysterical pacing of a thriller. It’s got more of an art-house aura. That means it will probably do well with critics, who can be its Oscars champion, just like they were for The Hurt Locker.

“[This] is just the kind of flick that could win New York Film Critics Circle,” he goes on, “but it will have a disadvantage at the Oscars. It’s not going to nail as many nominations as Les Miserables or Lincoln, and maybe fewer than Argo and Django Unchained, too.” Keep ignoring Silver Linings, Tom…keep it up!

And then O’Neil warns that the lack of across-the-board nominations could “hurt” ZDT “since the movie with the most nominations wins Best Picture about two-thirds of the time.” I solemnly hate that reductive Jimmy-the-Greek oddsmaking thinking that says more nominations equal high likelihood of a film winning Best Picture…I hate it!

And let me explain again for the 22nd time that Quentin Tarantino doesn’t make Best Picture nominees — he makes enjoyably clever wanks that operate entirely within the realm of his own intensely jaded, B-movie-relishing sensibility. They don’t reach out to viewers where they live — they invite viewers to step inside and take a ride on their machine but that’s as far as it goes. I’m a fan except when it came to Inglourious Basterds, which I almost hated because of that baseball-bat scene.

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, and it suddenly hit me today, sitting in a swanky Hanoi hotel, that I really miss Tail of the Pup. The iconic hot dog stand disappeared almost exactly seven years ago. I might gone there three or four times at most (due to the health factor) but I loved that that vaguely gross architecture and the fact that it was sitting on San Vicente near Beverly for so many years (after being moved from its original location on La Cienega and Beverly).

The kids and I laughingly agreed in the mid ’90s that Tail of the Pup’s representation of a mustard-lathered dog on a bun looked (I’m sorry) like a bowel movement in progress.

Sigourney Weaver at original Pup stand on La Cienega near Beverly.

No one seems to be stating plainly that Tom Hooper‘s Les Miserables is not a musical — it’s an opera. And yet Hooper is steering clear of the term — too high falutin’ sounding, I suppose — and instead calling it a “through-sung musical.”

Maybe it’s me or maybe I’m a little fucked up or something (as Joe Pesci‘s Tommy said during that famous Bamboo Lounge scene in Goodfellas), but a musical narrative piece that is entirely sung without any dialogue to speak of is an opera, right? It doesn’t have to be La Boheme or Aida — you just have to sing it all the way through. Like Alan Parker‘s Evita. Yes, Parker’s film had five or six lines so that technically made it an operetta. But Hooper is saying Les Miz is “all song.”

Hooper explained his view in arecent chat with TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, to wit:

“Hugh Jackman said the other day that he thinks the movie musical is the Mount Everest of filmmaking,” Hooper said, “and I became intrigued about whether that combination of singing and music and storytelling could create an alternate reality in which emotion could be even more heightened.”

“While many of the most successful movie musicals of last 20 years have used various stratagems to deal with the musical problem — How do you get a modern audience to buy into people suddenly breaking into song? — Hooper went with a little-used solution: He created a “through-sung” musical in which the entire film is sung. There aren’t any jarring moments in which characters shift from dialogue to song because it’s all song.”

In other words, as Pesci would say, it’s a fucking opera.

“I really went back to school and studied all the great musicals,” Hooper said. “And I was struck by the difficulty of the gear change. I remember in ‘The Sound of Music,’ there’s a 28-minute stretch without a song, and then there’s a romantic song.

“And you kind of go, ‘Oh, we’re back in a song,’

“The original draft of the screenplay was 50 percent dialogue and 50 percent music, and I worried that there wasn’t a clear rationale about why you were singing at one point and speaking at another. And the more I looked over it, the more I thought, there’s not an obvious justification to be in one mode or the other mode. And then I thought, maybe the way to avoid those difficult gear changes is just to commit to singing.”

“The result, he said, is the creation of an alternative world. ‘We’re just saying, ‘This is a world like ours, but just as we generate grammatical and sentence construction, these people generate melody and rhyme construction. Other than that, it’s exactly the same.'”

I have to say that I love what Hooper said during a post-screening q & a about the benefit of having won a Best Picture Oscar: “I had a feeling after The King’s Speech that when the industry gives you that kind of acknowledgement, you should use it to take a risk or to stretch yourself. I didn’t want to be conservative and do another film like that.”

Speaking as a reasonable man, I am now entertaining a working theory. Depending on how I respond next weekend to Zero Dark Thirty (although I have a pretty good hunch as we speak), I might be willing to ease up on my Silver Linings Playbook fervor and let a little ZDT light into the room if — I emphasize the word “if” — Sasha Stone will agree to back off a bit on her relentless Lincoln campaigning.

This is all theoretical, of course, and to a certain extent metaphorical. I’m just saying this might be a way out of the swamp, although I’ll never change my mind about SLP — it’s the best and most satisfying film of the year so far, and the best of its type in years.

It would be understood, of course, that both parties (HE and Awards Daily) would adopt a come-what-may, comme ci comme ca, “the public likes what it likes” attitude about Les Miserables. The general current I’m getting is that you kinda have to be a Les Miserables theatre queen to really get off on the film version. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

The Zero Dark Thirty tweets as of 8:20 am Hanoi time are a high because they’re all declaring that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s 157-minute effort is a hardcore get-down thing with a strong, pared-to-the-bone female lead (Jessica Chastain‘s Maya) and a tough-as-nails approach that eschews the usual, expected patriotic rah-rah stuff that a less austere and sophisticated approach might have delivered.

Jessica Chastain in Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s Zero Dark Thirty.

I won’t be seeing ZDT until next Saturday afternoon, but it appears as if this story of how Osama bin Laden finally got his is for people who seriously loved the dry, down-to-it focus of United 93 (i.e., myself) and/or were too hip and demanding to fall for films like Act of Valor. This is where I live, what I like, what I respect. Eff that rah-rah noise.

Portions of Todd McCarthy‘s Hollywood Reporter enthusiastic review read as follows: “Whether you call it well informed speculative history, docu-drama recreation or very stripped down suspense filmmaking, Zero Dark Thirty matches form and content to pretty terrific ends. And yet [pic] will be tough for some viewers to take, not only for its early scenes of torture, including water boarding but due to its denial of conventional emotionalism and non-gung ho approach to cathartic revenge-taking.

McCarthy’s suspicion is that ZDT‘s “rigorous, unsparing approach will inspire genuine enthusiasm among the serious, hardcore film crowd more than with the wider public.”

“Even though it runs more than two-and-a-half hours, Zero Dark Thirty is so pared to essentials that even politics are eliminated,” McCarthy goes on. “There’s essentially no Bush or Cheney, no Iraq War, no Obama announcing the success of the May 2, 2011 raid on Bin Laden’s in-plain-sight Pakistani compound. [And yet] the film’s power steadily and relentlessly builds over its long course, to a point that is terrifically imposing and unshakable.”

McCarthy’s most eloquent phrasings address the way Maya is presented, the quality of Chastain’s performance and how ZDT “could well be the most impressive film Bigelow has made, as well as possibly her most personal, as one keenly feels the drive of the filmmaker channeled through the intensity of Maya’s character

“Chastain carries the film in a way she’s never been asked to do before,” he writes. “Denied the opportunity to provide psychological and emotional details for Maya, she nonetheless creates a character that proves indelible and deeply felt. The entire cast works in a realistic vein to fine effect.

“Similarly absent is any personal life for the single-minded heroine; when it’s suggested at one point that she might want to have a fling, she colorfully replies that she’s not a girl who does that sort of thing. The film does question whether she gives up some of her humanity to so selflessly dedicate herself to this sole professional aim, but seems to answer that, for some, this is what represents the essence of life; everything else is preparation and waiting.

“Given no backstory, links to the world outside the CIA or any interest in smalltalk or other subjects, Maya occasionally has a drink to unwind but otherwise seems entirely incapable of shutting down her laser-like focus of her obsession. She becomes tolerably friendly with a gregarious, chatty female colleague (the ever-wonderful Jennifer Ehle) but most of the time is the only female in the room; she knows when to hold her tongue and her frustrations are legion, but she also finds her moments to assert herself and speak out to superiors when she suspects her contributions are being ignored, due either to her rank or because she’s a woman.

“Much as she did with the equally tightly wound protagonist of The Hurt Locker, Bigelow sends Maya through a mine field, this time consisting of bureaucratic trip-wires as well as potentially fatal traps. The director also successfully creates a double-clad environment that is both eerie and threatening, that of the supposedly safe and protected enclaves of the CIA that exist within the larger context of the Muslim world. From very early on, Maya seizes on the idea that the way to eventually track down Bin Laden is to identify and follow his couriers, as they will inevitably one day reveal where the Al-Qaeda leader is hiding.

“As we know, she’s right, but it takes years for the tactic to pay off. Even once she and her cohorts track down the long-elusive Abu Ahmad, following his vehicle through the chaotic streets of Rawalpindi is a nightmare. But after a succession of road blocks, setbacks and dead ends, Maya finally convinces herself that Bin Laden is holed up in the house in Abbottabad, whereupon her convictions ascend to ladder of command to the point where the CIA director (James Gandolfini) braces himself to enter the Oval Office and recommend a stealth raid to the president.

“Bigelow and Boal play a long game, moving from the brutal opening through impressively detailed but not always compelling vignettes of the CIA at work to interludes in which Maya’s ferocious dedication begins to possibly play dividends and finally to the climactic forty minutes, which lay out with extraordinary detail and precision the almost improbably successful operation that begins at Area 51 in Nevada, where we first see the amazing stealth helicopters ideally designed for such a mission, and ends with Maya identifying the body that’s brought back.”

“In between is an exceptionally riveting sequence done with no sense of rah-rah patriotic fervor but, rather, tremendous appreciation for the nervy way top professionals carry off a very risky job of work; Howard Hawks would have been impressed. Slipping low through mountain passes in darkness from Afghanistan to Pakistan with rotor noise muffled by special equipment, the two choppers drop off their Navy SEALs, one then crashes in the yard but, remarkably, the noise seems not to arouse any locals just yet.

“Because of the black-and-green, video-like quality of the night vision imagery, these momentous events possess the pictorial quality of low-budget Blair Witch/Paranormal Activity thrillers, which merely contributes further to their weirdness. And because of the deliberate pace at which the men make their way through the house, an unsettling airlessness sets in, a feeling of being suspended in time that’s unlike any equivalent climactic action sequence that comes to mind.

“But quite apart from its historical significance, at least the scene is here to provide a welcome catharsis, as at one time would not have been the case. The filmmakers initially embarked on this project before the Bin Laden raid took place, which would obviously have resulted in an entirely different sort of film, dramatically and philosophically; without a resolution, it could hardly have helped from being an existential tale of quite substantial dimensions.”

Here is Richard Corliss‘s thumbs-up Time review, and a respectful but somewhat less enthused response from Variety‘s Peter Debruge.

The Hanoi Film Festival began last night at a large government building two or three blocks from the Movenpick. I was happy to attend in my natty suit-and-tie and be part of the throng. The opening-night event was professionally handled and designed, and it was entirely pleasant to hang with Hanoi’s elite and learn a little about this and that. People clapped as I walked up the red carpet for no reason other than it was the polite or spirited thing to do. I smiled and felt mildly embarassed.

Opening-night festivities of film festivals are exactly the same the world over, and if I was running a film festival I would deliver the exact same routine. And opening-night attendees are the same; ditto the pre-screening schmooze hour and the post-screening after-party. With a few minor cosmetic chances I could have been at any film festival anywhere. Everybody wants to be famous and well-dressed and respected and desired.

Anyway, I was standing in the upstairs hall and listening to Hoang Tuan Anht, Vietnam’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, give a speech about the aspirations of the festival and of Vietnam in general, and a thought occured. I looked around at the middle-aged men in tuxedos and women in beautiful ball gowns and various expats and guests amiably chatting and the waiters and busboys running around, and I thought to myself, “The United States fought a war and lost the lives of 58,000 men to stop this?”

The people running this event are technically Communists and that was once a fearsome term to some, but who cares now? There was once reason to be concerned about the bureaucratic rigidity and corruption of a system dedicated to fighting capitalism but look at this country now, just trying to survive and prosper and get along. People are the same the world over. People change, societies adapt, money ebbs and flows, prejudice fades.

The U.S. fought a ruinous and tragic war so that the fathers of the people currently running things in Vietnam could be prevented from unifying the country and, in the minds of the U.S. hawks and conservatives, from helping to perpetuate worldwide Communist domination, which of course went out the window in 1989 and ’90. The left saw through the crap in the ’60s and early ’70s but now even the dimmest people in the world realize that the Vietnam War was an appalling and sickening tragedy caused by blindness and obstinacy and willful ignorance.

I wish I could say that the opening-night film, a fanciful thing called Hot Sand about a magical mermaid, was good or even half-decent. I’d hoped it might aspire to the level of Neil Jordan‘s Ondine (’09) or Ron Howard‘s Splash (’84)…nope.

Sonja Heinen of the World Cinema Fudn and Berlinale co-production market

My Vietnam atmosphere pics are mounting up, I realize, and perhaps are starting to seem a little monotonous to some, but this is what’s happening on my end and I’ll be seeing it through. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and every day (sorry for the cliche) is a feast for the senses and not incidentally the soul, and it’s Sunday anyway so where’s the harm?

My flight from Hue landed at 9:30 am, and I was back at the Hanoi Movenpick by 10:15 or so. At 12:30 pm I went to a lunch at Ly Club with Hanoi Film Festival sponsor and Vidotour president and CEO Nguyen Mai, Vietnamese actor Chi Bao, finance director But Dinh Anh and actor-model Nhan Phuc Vinh. Then I walked back to the Movenpick with good-natured Vidotour employee Nguyen Son.

With the ecstatic gushing for Les Miserables following Friday’s Avery Fisher Hall screening, it’s a given that the backlash will kick in…when? After the first round of LA screenings this weekend? Or a bit later? I knew a backlash was in the cards when Lyn Stairmaster wrote at the end of his rave, “Questions, bitches?” That meant “put up your dukes….the fans of this film will face you on the barricades.” But if Les Miz is as good as some insist, the counter-backlash will kick in sometime in mid-December and it’ll be clear sailing.

If Gabe the Playlist is reading this, I’d appreciate a thought or two.

The five-day Hanoi Film Festival begins today…well, tonight for me. My Hue-to-Hanoi flight leaves this morning around 8:30 am, but I’ll need to settle down and check in and file a bit before opening-night festivities. I’ll be working it for four days straight and then leaving Hanoi for Tokyo around midnight on Wednesday, 11.28. And I definitely intend to rent a scooter and buzz around while wearing a surgical mask. And I’m looking forward to whatever occurs and hoping to see something striking or even startling.

Here are the 14 films in competition. Two of the non-regional films — A Separation and We Need To Talk About Kevin — are last year’s news, but it should be interesting to gauge reactions to Michael Haneke‘s Amour, which I’ve now seen three times. The festival is handing out cash prizes to regional filmmakers. There’s a trip to Ha Long Bay planned for Tuesday.

Sonja Heinen, Berlinale co-production market and a project manager of the World Cinema Fund, is running or officiating over the Hanoi film campus, which is some kind of advisory-instructional program. I don’t know her but she’s German and my maternal grandfather was of German ancestry and here we are in Hanoi with bombs bursting and bullets whizzing past our heads.

Baby, it’s dark outside at 5:20 am. Actually it’s now 5:40 am. Time flies when you’re filing.