During a 2.18 conversation with Oscar telecast co-producer Adam Shankman, Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross was informed that the original request for a host was Sasha Baron-Cohen, but this was shot down by the Academy elders. “Too much of a wild card,” Shankman explained.

Let me explain what the Hurt Locker-related, Nicolas Chartier wildcat e-mail non-story is all about…okay? A certain party saw a chance to somehow hurt The Hurt Locker‘s chances of taking the Best Picture Oscar, and thought that creating a little hoo-hah out of a relatively minor e-mail blunder might help in that regard.

In short it’s a typical “do whatever you can to take down or damage the front-runner” maneuver — no more than that. Except it’s a non-starter.

On 2.19 (i.e., last Friday), one solitary guy with politically clueless instincts sent out an e-mail to friends and colleagues in the Academy urging them to give their Best Picture vote to The Hurt Locker. His appeal basically invoked the old David-vs.-Goliath scenario — i.e,., The Hurt Locker is a little movie going up against the big swaggering Avatar, etc.

According to Pete Hammond‘s 2.23 column, Chartier wrote that “we need independent movies to win like the movies you and I do, so if you believe The Hurt Locker is the best movie of 2010, help us!

“I’m sure you know plenty of people you’ve worked with who are academy members whethere a publicist, a writer, a sound engineer, please take 5 minutes and contact them. Please call one or two persons, everything will help! — best regards, Nicolas Chartier, Voltage Pictures.”

“Whethere”? Sloppy run-on sentences? A comma instead of a period after “engineer”? Followed by a sentence beginning with the word “please” that requires “please” to be capitalized?

Chartier is a French-born foreign sales guy with, I’m told, one of those colorful personalities that foreign-sales guys are sometimes known to have. He didn’t know the rules of the Academy game when he sent the e-mail, and no doubt presumed he was doing a good thing for the Hurt Locker team when he sent the e-mail. And Clarence Thomas thought he was being seductive when he mentioned the sight of pubic hair on a Coca-Cola can.

To my knowledge the Academy hasn’t made it specifically clear to all the nominees that they have to observe certain rules and decorum, nor have they told Oscar-campaign publicists to point out these rules to their clients. Shouldn’t they have?

Last night The Wrap‘s Steve Pond reported that the Academy has “confirmed that the e-mail violated an AMPAS campaign guideline stating that ‘ads, mailings, websites or other forms of content’ that ‘cast…negative or disparaging light on a competing achievement are not permitted.'”

The thinking is that Chartier disparaged Avatar by referring to it as a very expensive Goliath-like movie. Which of course it isn’t. Where did Chartier dream that one up?

The bottom line is that Chartier committed a faux pas in terms of Oscar-campaigning do’s and don’ts. People are fallible and sometimes they screw up. But this wasn’t some sleazy whispering campaign against another contender. It wasn’t some poorly calculated trade-ad campaign that cost tens of thousands. Bags of money filled with unmarked bills weren’t left on people’s back doorsteps. The carte-blanche services of Nevada prostitutes weren’t offered, and no remnants of cocaine lines were found on anyone’s desk.

The guy sent out a dumb e-mail….BIG DEAL. Read the e-mail, shake your head in amazement, hit delete…END OF STORY.

Chartier has issued an apology, and the Academy has reportedly called a meeting about this, and will probably issue some kind of statement that says this sort of thing isn’t done, etc. Can we all go back into nodding-out mode now?

I have to leave to do a Girl With The Dragon Tattoo interview and then a screening of Kevin Smith’s Cop Out. Apologies for the black-blanket effect that the Crazy Heart skin ad has been having on some browsers. It’s fine on Firefox and Safari but apparently Internet Explorer users have had difficulty. Is this pretty much the case?

Who cares if Nell Minnow — a.k.a., “Movie Mom” at belief.net — has a problem with the red-band Kickass trailer that features costar Chloe Moretz and other under-age actors going all potty-mouth? Where is the intrigue or value in lamenting the effect of redband trailers upon American youths? Most younger teenagers would laugh in derision if they read this article…hello?

N.Y. Times reporter Brooks Barnes posted an article about this on 2.23. (It’s in today’s edition.) It’s extremely curious to see a piece in a world-class newspaper giving voice to concerns of people who don’t count and don’t matter.

“A trailer for the forthcoming film Kick-Ass that depicts the girl wielding a gun and using highly, highly profane language is igniting debate about how Hollywood advertises its R-rated films on the Web,” Barnes writes.

“Movie marketers in recent years have increasingly relied on raunchy ads known as red-band” trailers to stir interest in their films. While most trailers are approved for broad audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America, the red-labeled variety usually include nudity, profanity and other material deemed inappropriate for children. Many theaters refuse to run these trailers, but they are widely distributed online — and that is at the root of the current dust-up.”

On top of which the Times own attitudes are so blue-nosed that they haven’t even posted a link to the trailer that Barnes has written about. Or at least not that I noticed.

Nikki Finke‘s story about Matt Damon being attached to a Robert F. Kennedy biopic (based on a 2002 Evan Thomas biography) is a bit of a “meh.” I’d expect Damon to match Steven Culp‘s performance in Roger Donaldson‘s Thirteen Days, at least. But I’m not sure what this would come to.

The Coen Bros. obviously wouldn’t have chosen Hailee Steinfeld to play Mattie Ross in their True Grit remake if they didn’t think she had the necessary spunk, piss and vinegar. Or if they weren’t convinced that she’ll make their beautiful Old West dialogue sing just right. But surely they understand, being wise fellows, that genetically she’s about as Zane Grey as an iPad.

(l.) Hailee Steinfeld; (r.) Ethan, Joel Coen.

Steinfeld is fetching, all right, but in a radiant and (to me) almost dazzling-JAP sort of way — she’d be right at home on the slopes at Aspen. Whereas old photographs of wimmin of the Old West show they mostly had a hard-scrubbed, Plane Jane, almost beaten-down look. Perhaps a bit more Kim Darbyish than Steinfeldy, I’m sayin’.

I can roll with Steinfeld — don’t get me wrong. It’s just going to take a bit more in the way of disbelief-suspension. (Interestingly, in their open casting call print-out for the part the Coens wrote “no makeup model types.”)

The Coens and Steinfeld and costars Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin will begin shooting True Grit in New Mexico next month. The Scott Rudin-produced Paramount film will open on 12.25.10.

By the silver standard of the 1969 Henry Hathaway True Grit (which I need to see again), Steinfeld is Darby, Bridges is John Wayne, Brolin is Robert Duvall and Damon is Glenn Campbell.

The usual Peggy Siegal-invited elites attended tonight’s Monkey Bar party to celebrate The Hurt Locker: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Press) — screenplay by Mark Boal, introduction by Kathryn Bigelow. The gathering was hosted by Bigelow and literary agent David Kuhn.

Hurt Locker screenwriter-producer Mark Boal — Tuesday, 2.23, 8:35 pm.

Intrepid N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” Melena Ryzik, Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow — Tuesday, 2.23, 8:45 pm.

On 12.1.09 Hollywood Reporter columnist Roger Friedman wrote about Howard Lutnick‘s money-betting box-office site known as The Cantor Exchange, or CX. When officially launched on or about 4.20.10, anyone (DZ included) will be able to wager real money and potentially make real money on Hollywood box-office predictions. The site says it expects to receive final regulatory approval less than two months from now. Why, then, am I feeling so indifferent about this? Because the Movie Godz don’t approve — that’s why. Ditto the ghosts of Manny Farber, Frank Nugent, Otis Ferguson, Pauline Kael, Dwight McDonald and Andre Bazin.

Vanity Fair‘s John Lopez has gotten hold of an early draft of James Cameron‘s Oscar acceptance speech, should fortune smile. Except it’s not funny. We all know the cocky “king of the world” Cameron but that was codefied 12 years ago. Which means the Lopez thing is similar to someone repeating the old Marlon Brando-as-Marc-Antony joke (“Friends, Romans, Countrymen — I got sumpin’ I wanna tell youse”) in 1965, or twelve years after Joseph L. Mankieweicz‘s Julius Ceasar.

I’m not trying to be dull or unresponsive, but there’s simply more to Cameron than this. People resent the scope of Avatar‘s success (the haters are out in force like they were in ’98 after Titanic‘s worldwide blitzkrieg), but he’s just not the asshat that some people used to claim he was. If he were Lopez’s riff might be half-funny. Cameron up-close is a little bit like Buckminster Fuller or Arthur C. Clarke. He’s also a metaphor for what it takes to produce something really grand and far-reaching that connects with people worldwide. You can’t smiley-face and soft-shoe-shuffle your way to where Avatar is today..

I know it kinda hurts to write something that feels funny (and which your office homies insist is funny) only to hear the opposite from someone like myself. I’m sorry. I mean none harm.

In an interview with Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, The Wrap‘s Steve Pond mentions the charge that her film doesn’t take a political point of view,” but then adds that “it seems clear to me that you have a pretty strong point of view…as you say, it’s a hellish situation and we have no business sending our men into it.”

To which Bigelow replies, “Well, that’s certainly my feeling. I’m a child of the ’60s, and I see war as hell and a real tragedy and completely dehumanizing. You know, those are some of the great themes of our time, and we made a real effort to portray the brutality and the futility of this conflict. I guess my feeling is that graphic portrayals of innocent children killed by bombs and soldiers incapable of surviving catastrophic explosions…I think that’s pretty clear. And then also, to add to that, the movie opens with a quote, ‘The rush to battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.’ So it’s definitely taking a very specific position.”

I’ve always thought that the adrenaline-rush aspect of The Hurt Locker — pretty much the central theme or through-line — is the same kind of charge that cops or mountain climbers or war photographers or journalists who cover wars from the front or firemen seem to thrive on. You can step back a few paces from The Hurt Locker and say “yep, that sure is a deplorable situation” that Sgt. James and the boys are in,” and you could call Bigelow’s depiction of their day-to-day situation “political,” but the strength of the film is that it’s so far inside the excitement in James’ head that thinking about the political aspect almost seems like a homework assignment. When I think of The Hurt Locker I think of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

I’ve read an October 2009 draft of Allan Loeb‘s Untitled Cheating Project (a.k.a., Your Cheating Heart), which will costar Vince Vaughn and Kevin James under director Ron Howard. The Universal-funded Imagine project, reportedly based on an idea by producer Brian Grazer, will shoot in Chicago later this year or next. I’m mentioning this because I didn’t much care for Loeb’s script — in fact I almost hated it — and I’m figuring if I say something now it might influence the development. Or not. I don’t care either way.

I’m not going to give the story away — just the basic set-up. Vaughn and James will play Chicago-based engine designers Ronnie Valentine and Isaac Backman, respectively, whose significant others are Beth (Ronnie’s live-in girlfriend) and Geneva (Isaac’s wife). The central tension is about Ronnie accidentally discovering that Geneva is playing around on Isaac, and the anxieties and trepidations that stem from his not knowing what to do. Should he just blurt out the bad news to Isaac, his business partner and longtime best friend? And if he does, will Isaac somehow blame him for Geneva’s betrayal? (Guilt by association.) Should he mind his own business and stay out of the lives of others?

I was immediately repelled by Ronnie’s response because — hello? — there’s only one thing to do. In such a situation his loyalty would be to his longtime friend, not the wife, and so one way or the other he’d have to share what he suspects. No guy would have to think about this. He’d start out by stressing to his pal that he doesn’t really “know” anything but that he’s seen something disturbing and that maybe something’s up, etc. And then he’d suggest that the friend might want to hire a shamus to learn the facts or whatever. But come what may you must share what you’ve seen and/or suspect.

The fact that jabbering Ronnie — a guy who’s in denial about almost everything, and who fibs all the time like Alibi Ike and has trust issues with everyone — hems and haws throughout the story is infuriating. By my sights the guy has no convictions or cojones, and who wants to spend 110 minutes with a 13 year-old who mostly goes “homina-homina-homina” when faced with a serious issue?

When I heard about this film I thought — hoped — that it might be a darkly comedic riff on Harold Pinter‘s Betrayal — i.e., about a guy having a longterm secret love affair with his best friend’s (or closet business associate’s) wife or live-in girlfriend. Maybe a little Betrayal stew with some Damage seasoning, minus the father-son dynamic. A story about how a heavy attraction for the wrong woman can sometimes get into your blood like a virus, and how sometimes there’s no shaking it off. But not a tragedy — a telling of this odd tale in a jazzy-clumsy comedic way.

For me, a story about a serious emotional deception that goes on for several weeks or months or whatever would be fascinating. A comedy about how betrayal can happen between people who’ve grown up together and genuinely care for each other but at the same time are starting to faintly dislike each other, and how friends and lovers who are growing apart often seem to cut their ties in a passive aggressive way (i.e., by indirectly persuading the other person to reject them).

All to say that that Loeb’s October 2009 draft is a real drag because it’s about a guy-guy (i.e, similar to the characters Vaughn played in The Breakup and The Wedding Crashers) who doesn’t know the first thing about being a solid, stand-up friend when the situation demands this. I was thinking as I read it that I don’t know anyone like this (i.e., an antsy little child), but maybe beer-head and onion-ring guys who watch the Super Bowl are like this when they find out that their best friend’s wife is doing the out-of-bounds nasty.