So it’s settled, then, that Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Patton Oswalt (Young Adult) are out of the Best Supporting Actor race? That doesn’t seem right. Christopher Plummer, Albert Brooks and Jonah Hill deserve their slots. But Kenneth Branagh‘s Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn was just sufficiently good, and Nick Nolte‘s ex-rummy dad in Warrior played the same note over and over.

Shamelessly stolen from Movieline‘s latest Oscar Index.

L.A. Times staffer Amy Kaufman has reported on the gradual mongrelization of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese plex by its sleazebag owners, Donald Kushner and Elie Samaha. They’re not high priests of cinema, these guys, so they’re after the dough, of course. And that means lowering the value of the place by inviting various downmarket types to leave their handprints and footprints.

(l.) Elie Samaha, (r.) Donald Kushner.

Okay, not all the changes are for the worse. Kaufman writes that “plans are in the works to relight the forecourt and restore old theater signs to resemble their 1930s appearance.” But the aura is otherwise being downgraded on a step-by-step basis, it seems, with the cement handprints and footprints of Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Mickey Rourke and Kobe Bryant having been added, and with the deteriorating handprints of Groucho Marx being given the heave-ho.

“It has nothing to do with who is an authentic, for-the-ages star,” film critic and documentarian Richard Schickel tells Kaufman. “That has deteriorated. It’s obviously driven entirely by what is hot at this moment, publicity and money. I guess it’s kinda nice, but it’s not the ultimate accolade for a movie actor.”

I ran a piece about the apparent intentions of Kaufman-Samaha on 4.29.11. The sporadic or special-event conversion of the main Chinese theatre into a Studio 54-like space with removable seats hasn’t happened yet, but tomorrow is another day.

A 12.28 article by Robert Reich offers an interesting prediction: “Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President. So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.

“Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

“The deal would also make Clinton the obvious Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 — offering the Democrats a shot at twelve (or more) years in the White House, something the Republicans had with Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush but which the Democrats haven’t had since FDR. Twelve years gives the party in power a chance to reshape the Supreme Court as well as put an indelible stamp on America.

“According to the latest Gallup poll, Obama and Clinton are this year’s most admired man and woman. This marks the fourth consecutive win for Obama, while Clinton has been the most admired woman in each of the last 10 years. She’s topped the list 16 times since 1993, exceeding the record held by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who topped the list 13 times.

“Obama-Clinton in 2012. It’s a natural.”

I posted this because it’s a good idea all around. It makes fundamental sense. It would make the Obama ticket seem like a greater sum of its parts than if Biden ran again as vp. Obama needs to upspin things in his favor as much as possible if he’s going to squeak through to victory.

“Driving Miss Daisy was The Help of 1989.” — thanks to HE commenter “Alexander” for spitting this out at 11:03 this morning. I’m sure someone else has said this somewhere, but it had to be posted.

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson posted earlier today about the return of New Yorker Films with the forthcoming release of Jannicke Systad Jacobsen‘s Turn Me On, Dammit!, a Norwegian teenage sex comedy which won the Best Screenplay Award when it played at last spring’s Tribeca Film Festival. But there’s a holiday hitch, I soon found out.

Seconds after reading Thompson’s piece I wrote marketing exec Reid Rosefelt, who’d urged her to write about Jacobsen’s film. “When can I see it in Los Angeles?,” I asked. “And where’s that Saul Bass-styled release poster that Anne mentioned?”

An L.A.-based publicist will be screening it, he said, but not for a while. He said he’d get back to me about sending a screener. “Everybody’s off work but me,” Rosefelt explained.

“And the Saul Bass-inspired poster isn’t finished yet,” he added. “But it should be soon and I’ll get it to you as soon as it is. I’ve been through many drafts with the illustrator I chose. I started out in the business as a graphic designer, and it is fun to be back to that.”

“Sounds good and looking forward,” I replied, “but if there are no LA screenings or screeners for now and not even poster art to post on the web, why did Thompson even write about it? It would help to be able to see this during the holidays, when I’m always going out of my mind with nothing to do.”

Rosefelt explained that he’d pitched a story on the return of New Yorker Films, and Thompson, being a good egg and an old friend, was willing to help at an early and busy time.

“‘Looking forward’…exactly,” he wrote. “It’s always a rough road for movies like this and I am looking to plant seeds. Maybe somebody will watch the clip, like it and then respond favorably when a screening invite comes later on. Happy New Year.”

Three passages from Jamie Stuart‘s 12.28 Indiewire piece about “Why 2011 Marked a Shift In the History of Cinematography“:

(a) “2011 was the year in which the Arri Alexa, the first significant digital camera released by leading equipment developer Arri, was put to wide use. Three wildly different examples of the new camera can found in Drive, Hugo and Melancholia.

(b) “Somebody needs to slap Steven Spielberg in the face and tell him to wake up, because he cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past (he even wishes he could return to cutting on a Moviola). The roots of filmmaking are its language, not the technical medium. I love Spielberg, but his stubbornness is depressing me. He should be leading the way. Spielberg cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past.”

(c) “The first major digitally shot and projected feature I saw was David Fincher‘s Zodiac at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater in 2007. Shot by Harris Savides, Zodiac was actually designed for a film print release with digital as a minor component. The digital image was so clean and sharp, so alien, that it was almost a distraction.”

(d) “Now, digital is the new normal. This needs to be accepted. Movies will go on. The past will inspire the future. But the future will also need to stand on its own feet.”

Talent reps have to come down to earth and adjust their thinking. The best solution, passed along years ago by longtime Republican Robert Evans, is for talent to take modest upfront fees and share in the risk. If the movie hits big, the partners will be rolling in dough. If it doesn’t, everyone shakes it off and moves on. That’s the American way.

According to Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet, the five likeliest nominees for Best Director are The Artist‘s Michel Hazanavicius (but of course! obvious front-runner!), Hugo‘s Martin Scorsese (a pass to Brother Marty for indulging himself to the tune of 127 minutes and $175 million), War Horse‘s Steven Spielberg, The Descendants‘ Alexander Payne (deserved) and Midnight in Paris‘s Woody Allen.

I not only disagree — I strenuously object. But what’s the point of repeating myself? The top three slots belong to Moneyball‘s Bennett Miller, Payne and (I don’t care about any eligibility roadblocks) A Separation‘s Asghar Farhadi.

Six days ago Bad Robot released Action Movie FX, an app that allows the user to insert nutter action effects inside videos shot with their iPhone. Two free effects — Missile Attack! and Car Smash — are in the free version. Four more effects — Chopper Down, Tornado, Air Strike and Firefight — are purchasable.

One of the best musically-driven openings of a dramatic film ever. Far richer in spirit and wit, and so much more enjoyable than any sequence or scene in Hugo. Side benefit: Scorsese’s use of “All The Way to Memphis” made me realize that Mott the Hoople wasn’t as irksome as I’d thought. Agreed — “All The Young Dudes” has aged well.

Notice that three of the memory-bubble films in the just-released Oscar poster are (a) the reprehensible Forrest Gump, (b) the 1989 Best Picture-winning embarassment that is Driving Miss Daisy, and (c) The Sound of Music, which needs no adjective.