Watch these silent acting-sample videos from the N.Y. Times Magazine site, and particularly Lesley Manville. The idea, apparently, is to simulate silent-film acting…but not entirely. They’re all pretty amazing.

Popeater‘s Gary Susman, following the lead of a 12.2 L.A. Times piece by Stephen Zeitchick (among others), is asking why an oral sex scene in Derek Cianfrance‘s Blue Valentine resulted in an NC-17 rating while a lesbian/bisexual oral sex scene in Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan resulted in only an R rating. I think we all know why.

Cianfrance’s film is essentially being punished for being more honest and realistic in its depictions of sexuality than Aronofsky’s. Black Swan‘s oral-sex scene has been primarily interpreted as a nice hot fantasy that straight males in particular can watch without discomfort whereas Valentine‘s, driven by the emotional dynamics of a failing marriage, is a bit more unsettling and/or uncomfrtable.

Regardless of the MPAA’s historical record, straight-laced American milquetoast types (such as those on the MPAA’s ratings board) have always felt far less threatened by hot girl-on-girl action than heterosexual couplings. As Susman writes, “The ratings board may have muddled standards regarding female sexual pleasure, profanity and violence, but at least it’s no longer quite so fearful of lesbianism. So long as the lesbians are played by household-name actresses in MPAA-member films, and they’re not totally naked, and they’re not necessarily enjoying themselves, and they might just be fantasizing, that is.”

Tough but necessary words yesterday about the plutocracy-favoring tax-cut deal from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. “It is not disloyalty to the Democratic party to tell a Democratic president he is goddamned wrong,” he notes, “[And] it is not disloyalty to remind the President that he was elected by people to whom he had given a clear outline of what he would do for them” and that me may “not only not be re-elected — he may not even be re-nominated.”

Obama, he said, “negotiates down from a position of strength better than any other politician in recent history.”

N.Y. Times columnist Frank Rich offered a similar opinion two days ago when he noted that “a weak Barack Obama has been spiritually kidnapped by Republicans and is now suffering from Stockholm Syndrome which allows him to sympathize with his captors.”

Appearing recently on MSNBC’s “Jansing & Company,” former CBS newsman Dan Rather called this “a political nightmare for Barack Obama as president…politically, within his own party, if this goes through, Barack Obama will be in a position to have his shirttail on fire, his back to the wall, and the bill collector at the door. Which is metaphorically a way of saying he’s almost guaranteed — if this goes through — to have a serious challenge in a Democratic primary for president in 2012.”

“Rather went on to add that ‘the perception of [Obama] is that he won’t fight for anything.” He also noted: ‘Many of the heavy contributors to the Democratic Party are beyond shock about this happening, and are saying to themselves, ‘This guy…has about four to six months to turn the perception of him and the party around or we’ve got to start thinking about somebody else in 2012.'”

A portion of Matt Bai‘s 12.8 Times story about a possible liberal challenge to Obama in the 2012 primaries notes that “three liberal writers made the case for taking on Mr. Obama in 2012. Michael Lerner, longtime editor of Tikkun magazine, argued in The Washington Post that a primary represented a ‘real way to save the Obama presidency’ by forcing Mr. Obama to move leftward. Robert Kuttner, co-founder of The American Prospect and one of the party’s most scathing populist voices, issued a similar call on The Huffington Post, suggesting Iowa as the ideal incubator.

“On the same site, Clarence B. Jones, a one-time confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., suggested that liberals should break with Mr. Obama now, just as Dr. King and others did with Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. ‘It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected president of the United States,’ Mr. Jones wrote. ‘But, regrettably, I believe the time has come to do this.'”

I see the names Hammond, Appelo & O’Neil and for some non-relative reason I think of Beck, Bogart & Appice — go figure. So I’m listening to these guys talk about the Best Actress race and asking myself, “Which one is Jeff Beck? Which one leads with his heart and soul and plays some of that crazy flash guitar?”

And I’d have to say it’s Gold Derby maestro Tom O’Neil in this instance because he’s the gabbiest and the jabbiest and the bluntest, and seems the most receptive to underground tremors while at the same time understanding the whole political equation. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tim Appelo is bassist Tim Bogert, I think, because he’s steady and solid and pays as much attention to politically feasible possibilities as the drummer, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, who’s mainly about long-view wisdom and community sensitivity and putting out that steady conciliatory political beat.

Natalie Portman, Annette Bening, Lesley Manville, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Williams, Tilda Swinton — which two won’t make the cut? My personal preferences at this stage are (in this order) Portman, Manville, Kidman, Williams and Lawrence.

Good as she is, I would honest put The Kids Are All Right‘s Bening in sixth place right now — no offense. I’m sorry but you have to choose and Bening, having gone with the advice of husband Warren Beatty, has been blowing off the press in favor of talking to the guilds. Will she get a Best Actress nomination from SAG and the Academy? Will she win with either voting body? If it happens, fine and good. I can only emphasize I’d much rather see Portman or Manville win. Portman gives by far the most committed and incendiary performance, and Manville the saddest and most touching.

A lot will depend, I think, on the Best Actress choices from The Los Angeles Film Critics Association this Sunday, and from the New York Film Critics Circle on the following day. Portman, Bening, Manville, Lawrence, Kidman, Williams, Swinton…which of these? I foresee Another Year‘s Lesley Manville winning with the NYFCC, and Black Swan‘s Natalie Portman perhaps being chosen by LAFCA…no?

Any way you slice it, it’ll be a shocker and a miracle if Bening wins with either group. Because I personally believe (as I’ve said before) that she’s somewhere fading and over. And if I’m proved wrong, okay. I’ll be on the floor but fine.

It’s the fair-minded Hammond, ironically, who passes along the most withering comment when he says that an industry person recently told him that Bening “peaked with The Grifters.” Whoa…not nice. And not true. She was close to perfect in Sam Mendes‘ American Beauty and searing and straight-on in Rodrigo Garcia‘s Mother and Child.

Currently on a slow A train out of Howard Beach, trying to get to a 6 pm Tron: Legacy screening at Lincoln Square.

In this, a sharply defined generation-gap year in the Best Picture race (The Social Network and Black Swan for the hipper under-45s, The King’s Speech for the elders), the MCN Gurus of Gold have again shown themselves to be mainly receptive to the old-fart view of things. Meaning, of course, that they’re sticking to predictions of The King’s Speech winning the Best Picture Oscar. These guys are as terrified of making a wrong call as Soviet apparatchiks of the 1930s were terrified of being allied with anti-Stalinist cabals, hence their totally conservative “don’t risk it!” default thinking.

But when The King’s Speech doesn’t win with the L.A. Film Critics (voting Sunday, 12.12) or the New York Film Critics Circle (voting Monday, 12.13), which is what I suspect will happen, will the Gurus finally rethink things? They ignored last week’s symbolism of the National Board of Review voting big-time for The Social Network, and since then the D.C.-area film critics have also toppled for David Fincher‘s film. The King’s Speech acolytes are Kris Tapley, David Poland, Dave Karger, Pete Hammond, Eugene Hernandez, Anne Thompson, Steve Pond, Susie Woz, Greg Ellwood and Peter Howell. You know what could happen? The Fighter could happen. It’s a compromise candidate admired by all ages, all demos, all persuasions.

For a while it looked as if a plane reservation I made on Sunday to evacuate the wifi dungeon of Marrakech on Tuesday morning and arrive at JFK around 3:45 pm that afternoon might be kaput. A Royal Maroq Air rep told me on Sunday that my reservation was totally safe and locked down, but I was told early this morning this might not be so. Nothing of a bureaucratic nature is dependable in this country. Dealing with the powers-that-be (security guards, wifi guys in swanky hotels, etc.) is often a game of pure whimsical mindfuck torture. For a while it seemed as if I was being held hostage here. You can only leave when we deem it convenient for us! But late this afternoon I was told I’m good to go tomorrow morning. Sigh…thank you!

If I never return to the Marrakech Film Festival it’ll be too soon, but not everything has been bad. Yes, the wifi problems have been unrelenting but everyone you run into is is polite and calm and gentle to a fault. There’s apparently no such thing as an impolite Marrakech resident. (Okay, I did run into a couple of ruffians on a bike on Saturday night who tried to assault me and steal my wallet — I later named them Dick and Perry — but I pushed one of them in the chest and told them both to fuck off and then ran in the opposite direction and they were good enough not to follow, so even the thieves and the roughnecks are polite.) And there’s no indoor smoking ban. And there are no helmet laws so you can scooter down the street with the wind blowing through your hair. And the food is wonderful. And the energy in the main old-town square is so exciting and heavenly. And there are horse carts all over the city, and sometimes as you’re driving down the street you can smell horseshit, and that is a very good thing. The older you get and the more plastic and corporate the world becomes, the better horseshit smells.”

I think I’ve earned a certain authority in detecting whether an Oscar-worthy actor or actress is playing the pain-in-the-ass Mo’Nique game, and I don’t think Christian Bale is doing that at all. He’s not saying “what kind of money can I make out of this?” He’s not saying “I ain’t doin’ this or that unless I see some cash on the table.” And he’s not walking down red carpets with yak hair on his exposed thighs.

N.Y. Times photo of Christian Bale by Kevin Scanlon.

Bale simply can’t stand probing questions about who or what he is. He’s basically saying he wants his privacy and his dignity, and all that makes him is George C. Scott with a little Greta Garbo thrown in. Which is totally cool in my book.

On top of which Bale has told N.Y. Times guy Dennis Lim that “I love it when people say you did good work…it makes me all happy and shiny…I’m human.” And then he adds, “I’ll campaign for the movie, but I won’t campaign for myself.” What’s wrong with that?

“Mr. Bale’s views on artistic privacy are related to his faith, perhaps a naive one, that an anonymous actor is a more credible shape shifter,” Lim writes, “‘I like the idea of movies having a magic element,’ he said. ‘How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

“To the extent that Mr. Bale can approximate a blank slate in his films, he said, it is because he is an actor, not a movie star. He guards his personal life — he and his wife of 10 years, Sibi Blazic, have a 5-year-old daughter — and save for the Terminator blow-up and allegations of verbal assault on his mother and sister in 2008 (the charges were dropped), he has not gotten much tabloid attention.

“A movie star is someone people look at and go, ‘I want to be like that person,’ ” Bale tells Lim. “There’s the responsibility of desire. It’s not something I’m interested in trying. I would fail miserably at it, so why even bother?”

Richard J. Lewis‘s Barney’s Version, which is based on a 1997 autobiographical novel by Mordechai Richler, is so steeped in the lives and culture of Montreal Jewry that I was having trouble breathing. I wanted to be let out in the world beyond, one that wasn’t so oppressively one-note, but the film steadfastly refused. “No,” it said. “You’re stuck with the Canadian Jews and especially Paul Giamatti‘s relentlessly vulgar, cigar-smoking, acutely dislikable Barney…deal with it.”

Barney’s Version isn’t just about boomer-aged Canadian Jews who grew up and lived in Montreal, but it will probably only play with boomer-aged Canadian Jews who grew up and lived in Montreal.

All I could think of were thoughts of escaping back to the U.S., if necessary by subterfuge in the back of a truck. Let me out of this fucking world, I don’t want to know this slovenly turd, etc. Stop with the lighting of cigars, the cigars, the Monte Cristo cigars…stop it! The movie is a feast of primitive appetites and lying and animal cunning and endless gloom and depression…yeesh!

My son Jett, 22, walked out less than an hour in.

I loved Giamatti the actor for many years, and I’ll give him props for creating a sly, brilliant and spirited Barney, but he’s also created a repulsive Uriah Heep, and is saddled with some not-terribly-clever Richler dialogue to boot. The affection and identification I felt for Giamatti’s Miles in Sideways has been totally reversed by this film. I now have a negative association with the man.

Yes, Barney’s love for Rosamund Pike‘s character is pure and unfettered, and he loves his children, especially his daughter. But that’s not enough to exonerate him in my eyes. I wanted only to not have to deal with this asshole. But deal I did. I stayed with Barney’s Version right to the end.

Barney’s Version won’t stop hitting you over the head with Richler’s cynical, openly vulgar, world-weary “this is who and what I am and pardon me while I light another expensive cigar” schtick over and over again. Welcome to the Canadian Club for Older Gray-Haired Guys with Pot Bellies, it says over and over and over. Every Canadian director of note plays a part (Denys Arcand as a waiter, etc.), and we’re also stuck with Leonard Cohen tunes. This movie is relentlessly Canadian, Canadian, Canadian and fucking Canadian from start to finish.

I think I dropped out of the film when whatsername in Rome said Barney wasn’t much of a lover because he orgasmed in less than 30 seconds and had a three-inch member. All I could think was, “I’m stuck with a guy who has a three-inch dick for the next 110 minutes?”

Oh, no — here comes Dustin Hoffman, who’s looking like he’s 85 or 86 years old. (Was he wearing age makeup? I just spoke with him in LA a couple of years ago and he looked significantly younger.) Please don’t let Hoffman grin and say “Mazel Tov!” at the wedding scene. Please, please don’t let him say it, no, no, I’m begging you….aaah! He said it!

Pike is quite good with the focus and the class, but the movie isn’t good enough (and is in fact way too repulsive on too many levels) to propel her into awards consideration. On top of which her love for Barney is Richler’s wet fantasy dream There’s no way in the universe a woman as classy as Pike would marry a low sloppy beast like Barney. She could’ve done much, much better, and certainly knew that going in (as do we) so it makes no sense at all. A wise, ethical, beautiful and super-classy woman like Pike’s character is going to be receptive to sex and marriage with a bearded, balding, smelly, small-minded, bulging-eyed gnome who drinks like a fish and cheats on his wife on their wedding night?

Listen to these three guys — Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, Hollywood Reporter‘s Tim Appelo — debate the relative Best Picture strengths of The Social Network vs. The King’s Speech vs. whatever. How much of this is animated debate and how much is about what’s really happening out there?

Hammond makes the point that the National Board of Review voting was influenced by a newly inducted group of younger voters, who naturally went with The Social Network because it’s youth-friendly. Okay, but how does Hammond explain The Social Network winning a major-category trifecta (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay) with the Washington, D.C.-area film critics? Did that org changes the rules to allow their kids to vote?

Sidenote to O’Neil: Please up the sound levels — I had to listen with earphones to hear clearly.