Vanity Fair‘s John Lopez has attempted to explain how the Academy preferential voting system is much more of a good thing than a bad thing. “The Academy grabbed our attention this year by expanding the best-picture nominees to an all-inclusive field of 10,” he begins. “But amid all the [talk] about whether or not this devalues Oscar, no one seemed to notice that the Academy also switched to a preferential voting system for the Best Picture category.

“That is, until Steven Zeitchik at the L.A. Times exposed the system, painting a nightmare scenario in which the most popular film doesn’t win; The New Yorker‘s Hendrik Hertzberg wondered if the new system might favor Hurt Locker; and Awards Daily mused that broad Academy love for Quentin Tarantino‘s self-proclaimed masterpiece Inglourious Basterds could let it pull an upset.

“Primed by our own love for Tarantino’s revisionist spaghetti-Holocaust drama (and inspired by Mark Lisanti‘s creative vision of how the new voting works), we at Little Gold Men figured that running a thought experiment — How could Basterds take the whole souffle? — might help us and you decipher the dark magic behind the Academy’s system. Our conclusion: the Academy might just have saved democracy.”

Referring to President Obama‘s shockwave of an interview with Bloomberg News, in which he once again caressed and winked at bankers by rhetorically kissing their asses, N.Y. Times coluimnist Paul Krugman has asked “how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?

“First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.

“And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state.

“There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

“But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.” We’re doomed.

I honestly found David Denby‘s review of the Red Riding Trilogy better written, easier to understand and more thematically satisfying than the trilogy itself. By all means see this British-made miniseries if you’re so inclined, but my advice is to read Denby’s review and save yourself the grief. If for no other reason than the fact that the north-country accents are all but indecipherable. The only way for Americans to watch this immersion in murk and depression is to wait for a subtitled DVD.

Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall in Red Riding: 1974.

I hated Andrew Garfield‘s character in Red Riding: 1974. You know a movie isn’t quite working when you start rooting for the hero to be killed.

HE’s Moises Chiullan vigorously riffs on how Surrogates, the Bruce Willis flick now available on DVD/Bluray, “directly confronts the addiction to little lit-up screens and avoiding real social contact in the world.”

Anyone can repeat a generic list of worthwhile train movies. The very best is John Frankenheimer‘s The Train — no arguments! — followed by The General, Runaway Train, The Lady Vanishes, The Darjeeling Limited, Narrow Margin, Silver Streak, etc. But one that’s been more or less forgotten (and which isn’t half bad) is Francis D. Lyon‘s The Great Locomotive Chase (’56), a Civil War actioner that costarred Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter.

It’ll never be anyone’s idea of a great film — it was a family-friendly Disney production — but it’s a completely decent one as far as it went. Tidy and focused, a story that moves right along, reasonably sturdy performances.

Best of all is a quietly touching finale in which Parker, a Yankee train-hijacker condemned to hang, shakes the hand of Hunter, his Confederate pursuer, with the idea that Union and Confederates will one day be friendly when the war is over “so I’d like if if we could shake now,” etc.

The Great Locomotive Chase was shot in an early permutation of CinemaScope (i.e., an extra-wide 2.55 to 1 aspect ratio).

Has anyone ever mentioned that Up co-director Pete Docter looks like a cartoon character? It’s mainly that exaggerated jaw. I’ve been trying to put my finger on it, but it hit me last night — he’s almost a dead ringer for a thinner version of “Mr. Incredible” in Brad Bird‘s The Incredibles.

Up director Pete Docter; Mr. Incredible.

It’s no good when characters afflicted with galloping lycanthropy turn into actual wolves. I like my werewolves to be hybrids — hairy creatures with human-type bodies who run around in a kind of half-crouch position, and who sometimes keep their shirts on when they transform. Benicio del Toro‘s Wolfman beast follows this mode. Ditto Jack Nicholson in Wolf, Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf, Lon Chaney in The Wolfman, etc. I hated John Landis‘s decision to turn his American Werewolf in London star David Naughton into a four-legged wolf with paws and claws.

“In one small experiment on sexual response to food scents, vaginal and penile blood flow was measured in 31 men and women who wore masks emitting various food aromas. This was the study that found men susceptible to the scent of doughnuts mingled with licorice. For women, first place for most arousing was a tie between baby powder and the combination of Good & Plenty candy with cucumber. Coming in second was a combination of Good & Plenty and banana nut bread.” — from a 2.9.10 N.Y. Times story by Sara Kershaw.

I’m not saying there hasn’t been another instance in movie history in which the star of a film has looked this similar to the director. I’m asking someone to prove otherwise. Last summer I noticed a striking similarity between Public Enemies director and cowriter Michael Mann and costar Jason Clarke, but that’s a different equation.

Inception director-writer Chris Nolan; star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Vulture editor Claude Brodesser-Akner shares some exclusive details on New Line’s Escape From New York remake, which apparently has no director and no star. Early rumors mentioned Brett Ratner or Jonathan Mostow to helm and Gerard Butler to star. Kurt Russell‘s Plissken was a hoot but the original John Carpenter feature (which I did a Manhattan set story on back in ’79) was, for me, no more than okay. All I could think of when I saw it was “boy, has Carpenter lost it or what?” (He peaked with the original Assault on Precinct 13.)