Jamie Stuart‘s Isn’t She?… is being described as “an ode to John Hughes that follows a day in the life of Claire (Lauren Currie Lewis) as she tries to claim unemployment insurance.”

I’ve just returned from a 6:15 pm show of This Is It, and I need to split in 20 minutes for a Werner Herzog interview at the Soho Grand. But I can at least say how startled I was by how enjoyable the Jackson doc was. I just love listening to those familiar catchy tunes all amped up with great bass tones, and watching Jackson and the team perform some pretty sharp dance moves — it’s almost pure pleasure. Almost, I say.

Because if you do any thinking at all about the back-story — why the “This Is It” tour was launched, why Jackson didn’t tour for years, why he looks like Skeletor — it all starts to feel a little strained. A diversion. A piece of a story without the full story. A sell job that doesn’t fully work. But if you can turn your brain off, it really isn’t that bad. You could do a lot worse for your $12.50. (Yes, that’s what I paid at the Chelsea Clearview.) And I came away with renewed respect for Jackson’s perfectionism and obvious determination to deliver like never before. He looks like hell here and there, but then he looked awful for years. The last time he looked semi-human was in the early ’90s.

I love this paragraph from David Edelstein‘s New York review: “Perhaps if he had pulled this concert series off, he might have been able to leave that young Michael behind and move in a new direction…reinvent himself…maybe alongside John Lennon if Mark David Chapman had misfired…and Buddy Holly on back-up guitar if his plane hadn’t crashed, and…oh, what’s the use? He was a mess and destined to self-destruct.

“When he held forth onscreen in a prologue to that song about the danger to the Earth (‘I love the planet … I love trees … What have we done to the world?’), all I could think was, ‘What have you done to your own natural state?’ In the name of evolution, this beautiful African-American boy turned himself into a whey-faced ghoul with a nose whittled down to cartilage. Maybe in the end he displaced his horror at his own self-mutilation onto Mother Nature.”

L.A Times/Gold Derby guy Tom O’Neil asked Us Weekly‘s Thelma Adams, World Entertainment News‘ Kevin Lewin, Gawker‘s Richard Rushfield, USA Today‘s Suzie Woz and myself to suggest the ten most likely Best Picture candidates.

Everyone agreed on The Hurt Locker, Invictus, Precious and Up. I was the only one to stand up the Coen Bros.’ A Serious Man, and yet Lewin picked Star Trek….Jesus! I waffled my tenth-place choice, unable to decide if it’ll be Inglourious Basterds or District 9. This is strictly a pulse-taking prediction, of course. Only partially to do with my choices for the year’s best.

A longtime friend of Coming Attractions‘ Patrick Sauriol caught Doug Liman‘s Fair Game and is calling it “a really a tremendous, thought-provoking film. It’s based on the same titled memoir by former CIA Agent Valerie Plame, who of course worked for the agency as an undercover spy until her husband wrote an op-ed piece declaring that the Bush White House lied about Sadaam Hussein‘s efforts to buy yellow-cake uranium from Niger.

Naomi Watts, Sean Penn in Doug Liman’s Fair Game.

“Naomi Watts plays Plame (and as shown at the ending, really looks a lot like her), and plays her wonderfully. The story is set up through a sequence at the beginning showing her in action in the field, and in the CIA headquarters being completely dedicated to her job. She loves what she does for her country even at the price the travel and the secrecy puts on her family life.

“She’s married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson, played by Sean Penn in what very easily could (and should) be his next Oscar nomination. Wilson is a man in turmoil almost from his opening scene, dining with friends who think they know everything about the world. They don’t, Wilson doesn’t, but he certainly knows more about the Iraq situation than they do and is glad to tell anybody about it who will listen.

“His expertise gets him looked at (through no suggestion of his wife) and requested of by the CIA to take a trip to Niger to investigate reports that Hussein was looking to buy uranium from that country, which Wilson was a leading expert on. He agreed, made the trip, found that there was no possible way that a purchase of yellowcake was made, and reported that back to the government. The administration, as we now know, chose to ignore this report, and used the incorrect intelligence as a key basis in its case for war.

“This destroys Wilson, who starts to speak up in the press, and the leak of his wife’s identity was made. We’re led to believe that the order of the leak was made by Karl Rove to Scooter Libby (played by a hilariously serious David Andrews), and the rest is history. Plame’s career is destroyed, her marriage (and life) nearly go along with it, and a major investigation into corruption in the Bush White House is launched, ultimately leading to the fall of Libby.

“The film clocked in at roughly 1:50, and paced tremendously well. There was a side-plot they spent a bit too much time on involving an Iraqi family and Plame’s valiant efforts to save them from the invasion, but that was really the only [problem with] the film. Watts is excellent, at least as good as she was in Eastern Promises, and Penn is as good here as I’ve seen him.

“It’s directed by Doug Liman, who did an excellent job of it, and I believe he also served as DP, so kudos to him as I often forgot the camera was even rolling. Truly a wonderful human drama with political suspense that should interest anybody no matter how they vote. 9/10.”

A friend was watching Transformers 2 a while ago and spotted a pair of 4-frame blips of Barack Obama on TV monitors as the Decepticons are announcing their plans. So he is in the film after all. My friend thinks “it pretty much means that in its own subtle way the movie is anti-Obama propaganda. He’s mentioned by name as president, his administration is the bad guy trying to get rid of the Autobots to negotiate with the Decpticons, the military usurps his assistant, etc.”

When a respected veteran actress faces a talented newcomer in the Best Actress race, nine times out of ten the newcomer wins. So concluded And The Winner Is columnist Scott Feinberg in a piece that went up yesterday. This means that — historically and prematurely speaking, of course — An Education‘s Carey Mulligan is well positioned to snag more votes than Julie & Julia‘s Meryl Streep in this year’s Oscar race.

Scott asked a few columnists to chime in on the subject. Here’s what I sent him last night:

“Meryl Streep gives an expert performance as Julia Child in Julie & Julia. She always gives expert performances. She always gets everything right. But this time around she isn’t half as spirited or soulful as Carey Mulligan in An Education. Seriously, not by half. Streep is doing a bit. She’s the master of this kind of acting. But Mulligan is turning on the current, acting her butt off and pouring her heart out. She’s fresh and alive and expert as well. She’s got the moves and the chops.

“The industry worships Streep but I know more than a few people who are sorta kinda sick of her being so good all the time. Always the grand dame, always being nominated, etc. As she deserves to be — don’t get me wrong. But the bottom line reality is that her performance in Nora Ephron‘s decently made film is nowhere near as good as Mulligan’s in Lone Scherfig‘s superb one. That’s a fact.”

Although I’m opposed to anything that further inflates and mythologizes the legend of the crippled freak known as Michael Jackson, I have to admit that Andrew Barker‘s Variety review of This Is It — a full-out rave — has me going. I’m mildly annoyed about having to pay to see the damn thing, but that’s Sony showbiz in this instance.

I’m glad, however, that Barker included this paragraph: “Members of the band, crew and dance troupe appear on camera between songs to gush (often while tearing up) about the honor of appearing with Jackson. While it’s hard to doubt their sincerity, it all seems a bit creepy when one remembers that this footage was originally intended for Jackson’s personal use.”

The film “is assembled with great care that belies its impromptu nature, and editors Don Brochu, Brandon Key, Tim Patterson and Kevin Stitt have done excellent work to pull together a coherent film from endless footage — even at nearly two hours, the film still feels too short.”

Forbes.com’s Bill McCuddy says the following: “Michael Jackson can sing! Michael Jackson can dance! This Is It does what it sets out to do. It proves that Michael was fit enough to serve. Even If in some scenes he looks so thin Ann Coulter could take him in a bar fight.

“The media crowd I saw it with in New York, by ther way, jeered out loud at the SNL-worthy red carpet festivities projected live from LA prior to the screening.

“The headline is that the world missed one of the greatest concerts that might have ever been.”

I’m glad that Nelson Mandela believed he was the master of his fate. He needed to, and I suppose he finally was, I believe this also, sort of. I am the master, yes, but fate and flaw and circumstance are always stepping into the ring with their persistent checks and balances. I am the captain of my soul, though — I do believe that. Whatever that means.

Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling announced earlier today that A Single Man star Colin Firth will receive the festival’s Outstanding Performance of the Year award on Saturday, 2.13. Durling’s Oscar-season instincts are the main reason why the SBFF is seen as a shrewd bellwether and massager of industry sentiment. His decision to honor Firth in this way is therefore a kind of wager that Firth will wind up as a Best Actor nominee.

(l.) A Single Man star Colin Firth; (r.) Santa Barbara Film Festival chief Roger Durling.

This obviously doesn’t mean the Firth nomination will happen. Durling’s hunches haven’t been 100% accurate in the past. (Kristin Scott Thomas, for one, was similarly honored by the festival last year without landing a nomination.) But I respect his courage in placing a strong bet this early in the game.

With NBC’s Mark Murray reporting a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing support for a government-run public-option insurance plan to be at its highest ever, it was heartening to learn today that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the McCain-supporting Democrat from Connecticut, has pledged to join a Republican filibuster to prevent a final yea-nay vote. This takes me back to Andy Samberg‘s legendary Rahm Emanuel riff on SNL in which he pledged to “strip Lieberman naked and make him walk his McCain-loving-ass back to Connecticut…you fucking turncoat!”

Leiberman won’t oppose efforts to get a health-care bill sent to the floor, but public option backers will of course need 60 votes to stop the filibuster, etc.

There’s a paywalled profile of Fantastic Mr. Fox director-cowriter Wes Anderson by Richard Brody in this week’s New Yorker, but I’d rather read it in print than online. Brody has also posted a free video on the site, however, that summarizes his feelings about Anderson and his work. Worth a looksee.

“I loved The Darjeeling Limited from the very beginning — whether you trace that beginning to the short film Hotel Chevalier, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman, which preceded the film at its New York Film Festival screenings, or to the scene that culminates in Bill Murray running for a train and being overtaken by a younger man, which began the film at its commercial release — and I was dismayed by the mitigated critical response it received.

“In my profile of its director, Wes Anderson, in the magazine this week, I look at the remarkable way the movie was made and at some of the reasons for the critical misunderstanding. In this clip from the movie, I discuss a few of the movie’s many virtues.

“I’ve seen it many, many times since that press screening two years ago. It has not only held up but gotten richer; each viewing yields fresh wonders. Anderson’s work resonates with the tension between artifice and nature; in The Darjeeling Limited, which was shot on location in India, often in places that defied directorial control, that tension is particularly fruitful. With this film, Anderson returned to the freewheeling energy of Bottle Rocket, a road movie about a trio, and to the family dynamics of The Royal Tenenbaums, about a trio of siblings. The fraternal and parental relations he depicts here are powerful, deep, and strange, and he induces them with touches that are as witty and subtle as they are moving.”

I may as well paste a piece I wrote nearly 26 months ago about Anderson and longtime friend/collaborator Owen Wilson. I think it’s pretty good contemplation of Anderson’s issues. It’s called “Darjeeling Lessons”:

“The process that refines raw life into art is often necessarily harsh, I began. “And one thing that seems to work against good art or well-crafted entertainment is when the artist-filmmaker has chosen to absorb life from within the comfort of a protected membrane and is thereby absorbing less of the stuff that tends to inform and clarify and lead to some droppings of insight or excitement por what-have-you.

“It follows, therefore, that an artist who’s been through an especially rough and traumatic patch is on some level better positioned to create something richer and fuller than one who’s been gliding along on his own fumes.

“Nothing too earthshaking in this, but it does, I believe, cast light upon the situation of Owen Wilson and his longtime collaborator Wes Anderson, as well as, according to Venice Film Festival reviewers, the “smug”, “airless”, “chilly,” “under glass” and “self-satisfied” element that colors The Darjeeling Limited (Fox Searchlight, 9.29), which Anderson directed and co-wrote and Wilson costars in.

“Put bluntly and at the risk of sounding insensitive, Wilson’s recent attempted-suicide trauma may very well — in the long run, at least — make him a better artist, a better actor and a much funnier man. (Anderson’s comment during a Venice Film Festival press conference that the recovering Wilson has ‘been making us laugh’ indicates an admirable rock-out attitude.) Lying crumpled at the bottom of a dark pit does wonders for your game if you can climb out of it. Ask any artist who’s been there.

“Perhaps Wilson’s near-tragedy will rub off on his good pal Anderson (how could it not?) but what this obviously gifted director-writer with the carefully-tailored suits seems to desperately need — and his critics have been saying this for years, beginning with the faint disappointments of The Royal Tennenbaums — is to somehow climb out of his fastidiously maintained Wes-zone (i.e., ‘Andersonville’) and open himself up for more of the rough and tumble.

“I’m not saying Anderson is necessarily leading a bloodless life (he’s very tough and exacting, and can get pretty damn angry when rubbed the wrong way). And I’m not suggesting that he try to become someone else. Wes has obviously found a highly developed style and a sensibility of his own, and it would be folly to veer away from this in any drastic way. (Jacques Tati was Jacques Tati, Luis Bunuel was Luis Bunuel, etc.) At the same time Anderson needs to…I don’t know, do something.

“Maybe there’s no remedy. Maybe we’re all just stuck in our grooves and that’s that. What’s that Jean Anouilh line from Becket? ‘I’m afraid we can only do, absurdly, what it has been given to us to do. Right to the end.’

“What do I know about all this? Not that much. But I know — remember — Wes a little bit, and I know people who know him.

“Working with Wilson again on screenplays might help. (Although I’ve been told that Wilson’s writing-discipline issues may have gotten in the way of this in the past.) The general consensus seems to be that the somewhat stilted, self-enclosed qualities have seemed more pronounced in The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, which Wilson didn’t co-write. Another thing to consider might be to focus more on two- or three-character stories (a la Rushmore) rather than ensembles.

“Paul Schrader told me in an early ’80s interview that the two things that tend to kick your art up to the next level are (a) a jarring episode that turns your head around and reorders your thinking and (b) a mentoring by or a collaboration with someone you trust sufficiently to allow for experimentation and growth. Anderson has now had a taste of the former, and there’s nothing stopping him from at least attempting the latter.”

“Muhammad and Larry,” directed by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan, will premiere this evening on ESPN’s “30 for 30” at 8 pm eastern. The ESPN copy follows the video:

“In October of 1980 Muhammad Ali was preparing to fight for an unprecedented fourth heavyweight title against his friend and former sparring partner Larry Holmes. To say that the great Ali was in the twilight of his career would be generous; most of his admiring fans, friends and fight scribes considered his bravado delusional. What was left for him to prove?

“In the weeks of training before the fight, documentarians Albert and David Maysles took an intimate look at Ali trying to convince the world and perhaps himself, that he was still ‘The Greatest.’ At the same time, they documented the mild-mannered and undervalued champion Holmes as he confidently prepared to put an end to the career of a man for whom he had an abiding and deep affection.

“In the raw moments after Ali’s humbling in this one-sided fight, it was not fully comprehended what the Maysles brothers had actually captured on film and, due to unexpected circumstances, the Maysles footage never received a public screening or airing. However, in the intervening years, the magnitude of this footage is now clear. An era ended when the braggadocio and confidence were stripped away in the ring, and the world’s greatest hero was revealed to be a man.

“Here for the first time is the unseen filmed build up to that fight, accompanied by freshly shot interviews by Albert Maysles with members from both the Ali and Holmes camps, as well as others who were prime witnesses to this poignant foolhardy attempt at courage.”