“Driving Miss Daisy was The Help of 1989.” — thanks to HE commenter “Alexander” for spitting this out at 11:03 this morning. I’m sure someone else has said this somewhere, but it had to be posted.

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson posted earlier today about the return of New Yorker Films with the forthcoming release of Jannicke Systad Jacobsen‘s Turn Me On, Dammit!, a Norwegian teenage sex comedy which won the Best Screenplay Award when it played at last spring’s Tribeca Film Festival. But there’s a holiday hitch, I soon found out.

Seconds after reading Thompson’s piece I wrote marketing exec Reid Rosefelt, who’d urged her to write about Jacobsen’s film. “When can I see it in Los Angeles?,” I asked. “And where’s that Saul Bass-styled release poster that Anne mentioned?”

An L.A.-based publicist will be screening it, he said, but not for a while. He said he’d get back to me about sending a screener. “Everybody’s off work but me,” Rosefelt explained.

“And the Saul Bass-inspired poster isn’t finished yet,” he added. “But it should be soon and I’ll get it to you as soon as it is. I’ve been through many drafts with the illustrator I chose. I started out in the business as a graphic designer, and it is fun to be back to that.”

“Sounds good and looking forward,” I replied, “but if there are no LA screenings or screeners for now and not even poster art to post on the web, why did Thompson even write about it? It would help to be able to see this during the holidays, when I’m always going out of my mind with nothing to do.”

Rosefelt explained that he’d pitched a story on the return of New Yorker Films, and Thompson, being a good egg and an old friend, was willing to help at an early and busy time.

“‘Looking forward’…exactly,” he wrote. “It’s always a rough road for movies like this and I am looking to plant seeds. Maybe somebody will watch the clip, like it and then respond favorably when a screening invite comes later on. Happy New Year.”

Three passages from Jamie Stuart‘s 12.28 Indiewire piece about “Why 2011 Marked a Shift In the History of Cinematography“:

(a) “2011 was the year in which the Arri Alexa, the first significant digital camera released by leading equipment developer Arri, was put to wide use. Three wildly different examples of the new camera can found in Drive, Hugo and Melancholia.

(b) “Somebody needs to slap Steven Spielberg in the face and tell him to wake up, because he cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past (he even wishes he could return to cutting on a Moviola). The roots of filmmaking are its language, not the technical medium. I love Spielberg, but his stubbornness is depressing me. He should be leading the way. Spielberg cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past.”

(c) “The first major digitally shot and projected feature I saw was David Fincher‘s Zodiac at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater in 2007. Shot by Harris Savides, Zodiac was actually designed for a film print release with digital as a minor component. The digital image was so clean and sharp, so alien, that it was almost a distraction.”

(d) “Now, digital is the new normal. This needs to be accepted. Movies will go on. The past will inspire the future. But the future will also need to stand on its own feet.”

Talent reps have to come down to earth and adjust their thinking. The best solution, passed along years ago by longtime Republican Robert Evans, is for talent to take modest upfront fees and share in the risk. If the movie hits big, the partners will be rolling in dough. If it doesn’t, everyone shakes it off and moves on. That’s the American way.

According to Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet, the five likeliest nominees for Best Director are The Artist‘s Michel Hazanavicius (but of course! obvious front-runner!), Hugo‘s Martin Scorsese (a pass to Brother Marty for indulging himself to the tune of 127 minutes and $175 million), War Horse‘s Steven Spielberg, The Descendants‘ Alexander Payne (deserved) and Midnight in Paris‘s Woody Allen.

I not only disagree — I strenuously object. But what’s the point of repeating myself? The top three slots belong to Moneyball‘s Bennett Miller, Payne and (I don’t care about any eligibility roadblocks) A Separation‘s Asghar Farhadi.

Six days ago Bad Robot released Action Movie FX, an app that allows the user to insert nutter action effects inside videos shot with their iPhone. Two free effects — Missile Attack! and Car Smash — are in the free version. Four more effects — Chopper Down, Tornado, Air Strike and Firefight — are purchasable.

One of the best musically-driven openings of a dramatic film ever. Far richer in spirit and wit, and so much more enjoyable than any sequence or scene in Hugo. Side benefit: Scorsese’s use of “All The Way to Memphis” made me realize that Mott the Hoople wasn’t as irksome as I’d thought. Agreed — “All The Young Dudes” has aged well.

Notice that three of the memory-bubble films in the just-released Oscar poster are (a) the reprehensible Forrest Gump, (b) the 1989 Best Picture-winning embarassment that is Driving Miss Daisy, and (c) The Sound of Music, which needs no adjective.

I don’t agree with many of the Austin Film Critics Association’s year-end choices, but I respect them. Best Film: Hugo; Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive; Best Actor: Michael Shannon , Take Shelter; Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin; Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, Drive; Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter, etc.

Countless War Horse reviews have described the drenched-in-orange sunset finale (i.e., when Joey returns to the Dorset farm) as a near-copy of the famous red-sunset scene in Gone With The Wind when Rhett tells Scarlett he’s leaving to join the Confederate army. But the more likely inspiration comes from a romantic scene in Stanley Kubrick‘s (and dp Russell Metty‘s) Spartacus.

In response to today’s news that Robert Zemeckis‘s Forrest Gump has been added to the National Film Registry, here’s a reposting of a piece I wrote in October 2008:

“I have a still-lingering resentment of that film, which I and many others disliked from the get-go for the way it kept saying ‘keep your head down’, for its celebration of clueless serendipity and simpleton-ism, and particularly for the propagandistic way it portrayed ’60s-era counter-culture types and in fact that whole convulsive period.

“Every secondary hippie or protestor character in that film was a selfish loutish asshole, and every man and woman in the military was modest, decent and considerate. These and other aspects convinced me that the film was basically reactionary Republican horseshit, and led me to write an L.A. Times Syndicate piece called ‘Gump vs. Grumps,’ about the Forrest Gump backlash.

“No offense to screenwriter Eric Roth, who’s a good fellow and a brilliant writer.

In response to which an HE reader named “hcat” said the following: “I have the same problem with Gump. While it flows well and is quite funny throughout, I hate the way it continually rewards Forrest for his stupidity and punishes Jenny for her exploration.

“What especially irks me is the fact that it criticizes the counter-culture and the hippies, but cues up their music every time they need a quick nostalgia hit. Gump is a country boy and the soundtrack should have been wall to wall Oak Ridge Boys. But that way I can’t imagine it being anywhere near the hit it was.”

You know what 2011’s award season lacks? A film that ends with a big, blustery rant with the lead protagonist explaining exactly what’s wrong and right with the world. A strong sermon, in short. The only 2011 film I can think of that has a “this is who I am and what I believe” scene is Crazy Stupid Love (i.e., the school graduation confessional), and that was awful. Have screenwriters decided that sermon scenes are too on the nose and need to be retired? I’m asking.