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Let’s help Envelope columnists Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond narrow down their possible Best Picture Oscar list, shall we? O’Neil has just posted a big long contender rundown but a lot of titles are instant scratch-outs, I feel, and a few are big maybes.

Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

My choices for the leading or most deserving Best Picture contenders right now, in order of likelihood: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (certainly not the front-runner, but the contender with the best script), Milk, Doubt, Gran Torino, Frost Nixon, W and The Visitor. I say this knowing that The Visitor has an uphill climb ahead of it. I’m hearing “yes” and “no” about Doubt. I know that W works on the page. If I was one to recommend that WALL*E be nominated for Best Picture instead of Best Animated Feature, it would definitely be on this list, but since I strongly believe in maintaining the Berlin Wall between reality and animation, it’s not listed.
In my eyes, Steven Soderbergh‘s Che (i.e., The Argentine and Guerilla) easily qualifies as a Best Picture contender — it’s a phenomenal history lesson, high art and a first-rate epic. Of course, there’s reason to wonder if it’ll even open this year, to hear it from the buyers. I know it damn well ought to open and at least try for some award-season propulsion, but guys like myself saying “it’s great” doesn’t cut much ice with the bottom-liners.
I’m sketchy on several titles right now, but I would think the following could be tossed without a second’s hesitation: Appaloosa (possibly worthy Ed Harris western but New Line leftover status dooms it); Burn After Reading (a dry Coen brothers goof, not an Oscar film); Body of Lies (I know nothing about this brilliant Middle Eastern spy thriller that would qualify it as Oscar bait); Changeling (Best Actress nom for Angelina Jolie but the film, while dramatically solid and well made, just isn’t stratospheric enough); The Dark Knight (are Tom and Pete having us off?), Defiance (an Ed Zwick World War II movie about Russian-Jewish resistance guerillas…hello?); Mamma Mia! (all right, that’s enough); Miracle at St. Anna (a Spike Lee movie in which a bank teller is shot by an old guy having a memory seizure?) and Vicki Cristina Barcelona (can’t and won’t happen).
I don’t know enough one way or the other about Australia (younger audiences groaning at the trailer?), Cheri, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Reader, Secret Life of Bees, Seven Pounds (Will Smith treacle factor?) and The Soloist.

Admittedly, Gillian Armstrong‘s Death Defying Acts (Weinstein Co., 7.11) fared poorly with the Rotten Tomatoes gang (50% positive with the homies, 20% positive with the elites). And yes, it’s my own fault for missing the one screening that was made available by Weinstein Co. publicity (i.e., last Thursday night at the Grove). Still….

It seems strange or head-scratchy or something that this not-inexpensive drama about magician Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) being conned by a fake medium (Catherine Zeta Jones) in a search for his dead mother has opened so quietly. It’s as if the film slipped into theatres through the back door. Part of the reason for the deafening silence is that the Weinstein Co. isn’t very flush these days, okay, but this was a really quiet opening. You could hear a pin drop.

A 7.9 report by Blogspout’s Karina Longworth about an apparent intention to show Steven Sodebergh‘s Che at the next New York Film Festival was noticed today by Lou Lumenick‘s N.Y. Post blog (along with a half-amusing headline — “Lincoln Center Braces for Che-Mania as Film Fest Books Commie Epic“).

Longworth found her information on the evening of 7.8 while perusing the online version of the July/August issue of Film Comment (like NYFF, a production of the Film Society of Lincoln Center) and on the issue’s index page, there was a preview of the magazine’s September/October issue [which apparently referred to a Che presence at the NYFF]. “For whatever reason,” says Longworth, “if you go to that page today the preview no longer exists, but since it’s still in the Google cache, I was able to screencap it.”
Longworth also links to an announcement from Mumbai’s UTV World Movies channel that Che will be shown on Indian television sometime later this year, apparently in concert with the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, or sometime in December.

Arizona Daily Star critic Phil Villarreal on the four career phases of Eddie Murphy — fast track (’80 to ’88), downturn (’89 to ’95), rebound (’96 to ’98) and Murphy’s Law (’98 to ’08).

One thing when spoken by an enigmatic British hero figure, and something else entirely when attributed to an intense, moustache-wearing, curiously- behaving soldier in the Nixon administration. That said, how many people in the history of prosecution of governmental malfeasance have stood up and refused to rat? Damn few.

Captions withheld on purpose

Here’s a nice FindLaw analysis piece by John Dean that explains the Obama/FISA issue pretty well. Dean puts things in a perspective we’re not hearing because of the “Obama is flip-flopping” drum currently beating in the blogosphere. Dean’s main points are (a) that the FISA amendments contain no criminal immunity and (b) that Obama has stated in so many words that he will direct his attorney general to explore how serious (i.e., clearly criminal) Bush administration malfeasance has been in terms of wiretaps and such.
“I have taken a closer look at the House-passed FISA bill and tracked its legislative history,” he begins. “It is clear not only from the language of the bill (which must be read in the context of other, related statutes to be clearly understood), but also from the legislative history, that there is absolutely no criminal immunity for anyone in these FISA amendments.
In addition, I spoke with the Washington office of the ACLU, [and] the ACLU agrees that there is no criminal immunity. With a little more digging, I found that the sponsors, as well as the Bush Administration, also understand that there is no immunity in the House-passed bill from criminal prosecutions for violations by anyone.
“Because this legislation addresses only civil liability, Senator Obama has a unique opportunity to show that his leadership as President would, in fact, bring a change to Washington. Indeed, he can both support the amendments now pending (for the reasons he stated), and make clear that as President he will request that his attorney general determine if criminal actions should be taken for the blatant violations of the criminal law. Actually, he has already said this, but in a larger context.
“Since Obama aas already declared that he will hold the Bush administration officials responsible for their crimes, he can now have it both ways: Support the FISA Amendments and Hold Miscreants Responsible
“During the primaries, Senator Obama stated that, as President, he would not give his predecessors a pass for their crimes, which has recently become the informal custom. Obama was asked about this matter by a seasoned political reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, Will Bunch.
“Bunch wanted to know from Obama whether his administration’s Justice Department “would aggressively go after and investigate whether crimes have been committed” by the Bush Administration. The discussion arose in the context of the uses of torture and other illegal means to fight terrorism, but Obama’s response was general and unequivocal. Bunch reported that Obama said:
“‘What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.
“‘So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment — I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General — having pursued, having looked at what’s out there right now — are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it’s important– one of the things we’ve got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity.
“‘You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I’ve said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge [aforethought], then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody is above the law — and I think that’s roughly how I would look at it.’
“If Obama is a man of his word,” Dean concludes, “he should place Bush officials and the telecommunications companies on notice of the action he will take as President.”

Here‘s a tape of Alfred Hitchcock speaking to Francois Truffaut in the mid ’60s for the book that eventually became “Hitchcock/Truffaut.” The subject, as Hitchcock described, was “a little matter of the physical aspect of the kissing scene in Notorious. The actors, of course, hated doing it. They felt dreadfully uncomfortable in the manner of how they had to cling to each other. And I said, I don’t care how you feel, I only know how it’s going to look like on the screen.

Alfred Hitchcock

“I conceived the scene in terms of a desire on the participants not to break the romantic mood. To normally break apart, it’s possible that the moment would be lost. But there were things to be done, movements to be made with the telephone and the door, where it was still essential for them not to break the embrace. And I felt that the camera, representing the public, should be permitted as a third part, to join in the embrace. I was giving the public the great privilege of embracing Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together. It was a kind of temporary menage a trois.

Here‘s the best part: “The aspect of not wanting to break the mood…the idea was given to me when I was in a train coming from Bologne to Paris and the train was going through a tup rather slowly,” Hitchcock says. “It was a Sunday afternoon and there was a big factory and there was a large red brick wall, and against the wall was standing a young man with his girl. The girl had her arm linked through his, but he was urinating against the wall. But she never let go of his arm. She was looking down at what he was doing, then she looked around the countryside and then back again, and I thought this was true love really functioning, and that was the actual inspiration for the scene in Notorious.”

Here’s a site with links to several tape portions of the Hitchcock/Truffaut sessons.

WALL*E is running 88, 45, 26 — extraordinary numbers for a family/kids movie because the kids aren’t polled. Figure $50 to $60 million. Wanted, also opening this weekend, has similar numbers — 86, 44, 26 — but without the kid factor and the ceiling on violence (plus the fact that the movie is brutish and rancid) it’ll do a fairly safe $30 million, maybe a bit more. Never has a worse movie
Will Smith‘s Hancock, opening on Tuesday, July 1st, is running at 91, 56 and 19 — obviously quite strong.
Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (Universal), opening on 7.11, is running at 74, 33 and 3. That’s a little weak, no? On one hand you could say people don’t seem to want to go there again. On the other hand this isn’t looking too bad since there’s a heavy first choice on Hancock and The Dark Knight. You could say that Hancock has to open and disappoint and get out of the way for Hellboy 2 to get rolling.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Warner/New Line, 7.11) is running 73, 23 and 1. Not good. Doing even worse is Eddie Murphy‘s Meet Dave (20th Century Fox) at 49, 17 and 0 — toilet time. it opens in two weeks and it’s dead. It’s obviously a referendum on Murphy’s fan base.
The Dark Knight (Warner Bros., 7.18) is looking huge — 76, 60 and 19, and it’s three weeks away. Mamma Mia (Universal), running against the bat, is 62, 23 and 5. Obviously an older female thing. “Definite interest’ running in the mid 30s. Tracking like Hairspray.

A just-out nationwide Newsweek poll of registered voters has Barack Obama leading John McCain by 15 points, 51 to 36.

“Every movie probably suffers from logic flaws,” notes Artful Writer Craig Maizin in a piece he posted on 6.8. “The goal, of course, is to avoid crossing the threshold of tolerance. There are some flaws in The Godfather, for instance. If Tessio can figure out where Michael is meeting The Turk and have enough time to plant a gun, why can’t he plant a few guys in the back kitchen? Or in a back alley? Have them do the murders, and not put Al Pacino‘s Michael on the hook?

“But the logic flaws in The Godfather simply don’t cross the threshold of tolerance. Because they don’t, no one really gives a damn. In fact, many people will instinctively argue that the logic flaws aren’t flaws at all. So we gloss by logic errors in films that don’t cross the threshold of tolerance, because they haven’t done enough damage to shake the illusion of intention.
“But you can only suffer so many shots below the waterline before the ship starts to sink. If the audience’s illusion of intention is repeatedly or grossly challenged by logic problems, they will revolt.
“Make up any rules you’d like for your fictional system, but adhere to them. For instance, in the latest Indiana Jones film, the crystal skull is presented as an object so magnetic, it can literally attract metal shavings out of the air from hundreds of feet away. But sometimes, it doesn’t seem to be magnetic at all. Like when it’s in a jeep. Or near guns. Or bullets.

“That was a glaring logic flaw that pulled a lot of people out of the moment, including myself. On the other hand, the filmmakers were smart to include a fast shot of the words ‘lead-lined’ on the refrigerator that Indy climbs into just before the nuclear blast goes off. That’s enough to satisfy the Logic Nazi.”
But not me. Indy locking himself inside that lead-lined refrigerator was my first big logical break with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The reason — very simple — is a universally recognized law that says anyone who crawls into a refrigerator and closes the door shut is locking him or herself into a tomb and will soon suffocate to death. I’ve been taught that since I was five friggin’ years old. I don’t care if the refrigerator is blown a mile or so into the desert by an exploding atom bomb, banging and rolling around like a ball bearing. The door will never open unless you pull the latch handle. Once you’re inside, you can’t get out.
A big logic problem for some in M. Night Shyamnalan‘s The Happening is that everyone responds to the plant toxin effect, which has destroyed the natural human instinct to self-preserve, by deliberately killing themselves in all sorts of different ways. It’s been argued that a loss of the self-preservation instinct would more likely result in people offing themselves in much more casual (i.e., not immediately homicidal) ways — absurd binge-drinking, family arguments escalating in to homicides at the drop of a hat, Mad Max-style speeding on the freeway resulting in all kinds of fatal pile-ups, a resurgence of unprotected ’70s and early ’80s-style gay bathhouse sex, people binging on Ben and Jerry’s, etc.

This didn’t bother me as much as it did others because I (like Shyamalan himself) was so taken with all those chilling images of bodies falling from buildings and hanging from trees.
I’ve always said that James Cameron‘s T2: Judgment Day should have ended with a completely illogical occurence that nonetheless would’ve worked emotionally. As Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg is saying goodbye to Eddie Furlong as he deliberately lowers himself into that steel-mill inferno, a single tear should have leaked out from the corner of one of his lifeless eyes.
The movie clearly has established in an earlier scene that Arnie’s cyborg can’t cry and in fact has no idea what crying is. (Schwarzenegger asks Furlong at one point to explain it.) But Schwarzenegger has also been learning certain phrases and social habits from Furlong (hand slaps, “eat me,” “hasta la vista, baby”) so it’s conceivable that a resourceful super-robot might have somehow generated the ability to weep by the end of the film. Illogical, yes, but it would have worked.

A friend saw Andrew Stanton‘s WALL*E (Disney, 6.27) and says it’s (a) sort of an animated Jacques Tati film in the vein of Mon Oncle, in part because there’s almost no dialogue for the first 45 minutes or so, (b) it’s a kind of companion piece to An Inconvenient Truth in that it’s a strong message movie, set in a ruined post-apocalyptic world, about how we’re killing our world with poisons.

You might think from the trailers that it’s basically a robot love story, but that ain’t the half of it. It’s “not your typical wheee, happy, up-up-up animated family entertainment,” the friend says. “Once again, Pixar is pushing the buttons. It has a lot more on its mind.”
WALL*E is this little robot going around in this huge junkyard that used to be the earth, now inhabitable due to some toxic poisoning, saving remnants of what life once was. He’s obsessed with Barbra Streisand‘s Hello Dolly and plays these clips over and over,” he says. “The story later shifts its base to this massive shopping-mall space station, a floating planet of some sort with all these overweight fat people who can’t walk on their own, moving through a giant mall…an exaggeration of our culture today.”

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I’ve come up with a new reason to leave movies before they’ve ended. Over the last two days I’ve left two as they got into their third acts because — I’m being serious — I liked them so much I didn’t want their endings to spoil them.
I did this with a showing of Clint Eastwood‘s Breezy at the Aero on Sunday night. This wasn’t the main reason I bailed last night on the last 15 minutes of You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, but it was an underlying one.
You’re liking the film, it’s going well, everything’s working…so why mess with the possibility of the ending screwing everything up? Leave 15 minutes before it ends, ask your friends what happens, and then catch the whole thing on DVD three or four months hence. Especially if the film in question is a drama that’s subtly telegraphing that some kind of heavy or unpleasant turnaround is just around the corner. Or if some guy is sitting next to you and ruining everything by saying “wow!” when hot girls in hot underwear make a brief appearance. Get out while the going is good.
Obviously this is an incredibly lowbrow attitude for someone such as myself. I’m not confessing to it with any pride or suggesting in any way that I’m going to watch films with this attitude henceforth. I’m just saying that over the last 48 hours I’ve left two films that I liked, and that my reason or doing so made sense to me, and that it left me in peace.