Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil and The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg do another Oscar chit-chat. The Best Picture contenders of the moment, they say, are still The Artist, The Descendants, Moneyball, The Help and Midnight in Paris…obviously not counting the big unseens. Noteworthy: Feinberg remembers and pronounces the name of Michel Hazanavicius, director of The Artist.

O’Neil: “The Artist is not going to win a single critics’ Best Picture award. It’s very lightweight. The story is a little bon-bon.”

Feinberg: “There’s a lot of affection for The Descendants, but I don’t see it as a Best Picture winner. I don’t see Clooney pulling it out again [for a Best Actor Oscar].” Also: “If you don’t like kids or horses, forget War Horse.”

Could Moneyball happen? Feinberg: “I think it could. I don;t see it as a baseball movie. Like the book, it’s less about baseball than about ideas and doing things in a smaller, smarter way. This is the way Hollywood has to operate too.” Less of an emphasis on big stars and big bucks, he means, and more of an emphasis on just “getting on base,” so to speak.

“And the fact that Brad Pitt is in it, doesn’t hurt.”

David Nicholson, a Scotland-based HE reader, reports that the site has been looking blurry on his iPhone since he installed the iOS5 upgrade. He deduces that it has something to do with (a) JavaScript and/or (b) “something in IOS5 [that is] automatically prioritizing an embedded video (the top one?) over the rest of the site content and treating it as if it should immediately preload in preparation for playback, and accordingly blurring the background to concentrate its efforts on this task.”

I noticed this problem myself last night, and am asking myself — anyone — what can be done to fix it? When you click through on a fill-story-plus-comments there’s no blur factor. But I did notice it last night when I was looking at the full page. And a friend from Connecticut reports having noticed the same thing on her iPhone after loading iOS5.

“I may have found the source of the problem,” Nicholson wrote the day before yesterday.

“When I disable JavaScript, the page no longer appears illegibly blurry upon zooming. Yet if I reenable JavaScript,it’s back to blurry. So it’s a Java issue.

“I then enabled the DeBug console under Safari settings and returned to HE. Sure enough, with JavaScript enabled, it reports 2 errors on the page: ‘There was an error at line one…’ When i disable JavaScript, these errors also disappear.

“I guess it’s worth pointing out that disabling Java prevents me from being able to view any of the embedded video clips I’ll be leaving it disabled for the meantime, as I want to be able to read the articles, but it’d be great if you could get someone at your web design/hosting company to investigate?”

Previous email: “I thought I should make you aware of a glitch that myself and a friend have been experiencing since the IOS5 upgrade. We have both been fans of your blog since the Moviepoopshoot & Reel.com days. In fact HE is the only website that we check daily without fail. And being the tech-savvy 21st century hipster sophisticates that we are*, we regularly use our iPhones to view the site. He has an iPhone 4; I have a 3GS.

“The issue is that when viewing your site on either phone using the zoom function, the whole site regularly — seemingly randomly — goes blurry and consequently becomes illegible. I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it is.

“Not being an expert in this kind of thing, I have nonetheless done a wee bit of testing and it seems to be related to the embedded videos on the site. On scrolling around, when everything else is blurry, there will be one video image that is crystal clear. If I tap on that video (whether on YouTube or most recently the Funny or Die clip) it will usually play okY. However all other video pics are also blurred out and tapping on them does nothing.

“I assume that something in IOS5 is automatically prioritizing an embedded video (the top one?) over the rest of the site content and treating it as if it should immediately preload in preparation for playback, and accordingly blurring the background to concentrate its efforts on this task. Or something..? Again, I’m no expert.

“All the best from the Northeast of Scotland.”

How to explain the $55 million earned this weekend by Paranormal Activity 3? Even with the Catfish guys (Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost) directing I felt no particular hunger to see thing. We all know the routine with these films so what was the big deal with this one?

The reviews were good for the most part but they werent ecstatic — it only managed a Rotten Tomatoes score of 72%, which means dissent in the ranks. And it only got a lousy C-plus CinemaScore, which, if you know anything about CinemaScore grades, is more or less a “fail.”

The late Muammar el-Qaddafi (also known as Muammar Gaddafi in London’s Daily Mail and Moammar Kadafi in the L.A. Times) died of a bullet to the head, according to a heavily illustrated 10.21 Daily Mail story by David Williams.

“Moments after the last grainy video was shot, it is believed Gaddafi was killed,” Williams writes. “Initial reports suggested he had been executed by revolutionary forces in front of a baying mob. But there have been claims by rebels who witnessed the killing that Gaddafi was actually shot by one of his own bodyguards to spare him further humiliation. It has also been suggested he was shot during a fight inside an ambulance conveying him to hospital, or that he was actually caught in crossfire.”

Here’s an account of Qadaffi’s nomadic existence following the fall of Tripoli and particularly his last few days by N.Y. Times reporter Kareem Fahim.

And oh, yeah…he was personally worth over $200 billion dollars, according to a story by the L.A. Times‘ Paul Richter. A Business Insider account by Gus Lubin says this figure made Qadaffi “by far the richest man in the world.”

“Moammar Kadafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, about $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, according to senior Libyan officials.

“The new estimates of the deposed dictator’s hidden cash, gold reserves and investments are ‘staggering,’ one person who has studied detailed records of the asset search said Friday. ‘No one truly appreciated the scope of it.’

“If the values prove accurate, Kadafi will go down in history as one of the most rapacious as well as one of the most bizarre world leaders, on a scale with the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire or the late Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.”

Rapacious — ra¬∑pa¬∑cious?[ruh-pey-shuhs] 1. Given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed. 2. Inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate: a rapacious disposition.

To paraphase Jack Nicholson‘s Charlie Partanna: “If Qadaffi was so fuckin’ rich how come he’s so fuckin’ dead?” Answer: Because he was arrogant, delusional and asinine. The man could have abandoned Libya many weeks ago and fled to some exotic haven and lived like a sultan and slept with virgins every night of the week and twice on Sundays. But no — he had to stay in Libya to the last and cause more death.

If only an intermediary could have arranged for a conversation between Qadaffi and Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil while the dictator was still alive! Tom is looking at a tall monthly nut as he launches his new, aggressively exacting awards-assessment site, and Qadaffi could have polished his rep (well, a little bit) by helping Tom out.

Perhaps the biggest Bluray blunder since last May’s Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio debacle has been discussed and lamented by members of Home Theatre Forum over the last couple of days. It concerns the just-released British Bluray of West Side Story (which is presumed to be a duplicate of the forthcoming domestic Fox Home Video version). The complaint is about a crazy and nonsensical fade-to-black that happens toward the end of the overture sequence.

Doofuses might argue that it’s a relatively minor boo-boo in the greater scheme, but it’s one hell of a mistake in the eyes of film buffs, the Movie Godz and anyone who cares about representing the intentions of the filmmakers. I ordered the British West Side Story Bluray immediately when I heard about this to see if it’s true. If it is, this snafu may be cause for a recall and re-mastering, at least as far as the domestic version is concerned.

To hear it from HTF member Adrian Turner, it sounds like a monkey was at the control board when the Bluray was scanned. Fox Home Video will release the West Side Story Bluray domestically on 11.15, but they allegedly had nothing to do with transferring the elements to Bluray, or so I’ve been told.

Turner wrote early this morning that he “was so worried about this tampering with the overture that when my copy arrived ten minutes ago I played the disc immediately, and I’m afraid it’s true. There is a complete fade-to-black [during the overture] just before the pull-out to reveal the main title.

“The overture plays from the start as it should do and the Bluray image is very sharp. At the climax of the overture, the moment when the music changes tempo and the color should switch to blue and the zoom-out, there is a quick fade to black and then we get the final section of the music and the blue image. This image is very fuzzy indeed and then it clears and becomes sharp with the zoom-out to reveal the title WEST SIDE STORY. The dissolve from the Saul Bass design to the live shot of New York is just as it should be.

“I don’t know why [the parties responsible] have chosen to alter the film and have ruined this most dramatic moment. It’s a total travesty and I don’t care what the rest of the Bluray looks and sounds like. I think we have a sort of Gladiator moment here. Fox need to withdraw this disc and re-do it.”

HTF member A. Hollis of New Orleans asks, “What is with all the tampering? The Bluray should be the mother of all answers. [The fault] has to lie with people in charge who knew nothing about what they were working on. Whoever transferred this must have thought it was a typical overture sequence that needed to fade to black before the film begins, but the entire segment needs to be seen unbroken for impact. Damn, they are just so uninformed!”

Question: A couple of days ago DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze posted a sneak preview of the British West Side Story Bluray. It wasn’t a “review” but you’d think he’d at least mention something as glaring as this…no? He didn’t.

Minneapolis Star Tribune contributor Claude Peck caught last Wednesday’s screening of Jason Reitman‘s Young Adult in Edina, Minnesota, and yesterday filed a two-paragraph mini-review (which I’ve re-formatted into four graphs).

Charlize Theron in Young Adult

“Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody‘s new collaboration shares some stylistic notes with Juno — a pop-saturated soundtrack, a woman-child stuck between adolescence and adulthood, a droll appreciation of daily life in suburbia.

“It’s also a step in a new direction, both for the creative team and for movies, a mature and humane comedy centered on a misanthropic female antihero.

“Think of it as Juno‘s wicked stepsister.

“Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a divorced writer (or, as she prefers it, ‘author’) of ‘Sweet Valley High’-style teen novels. Though she’s in her 30s, she’s still obsessed with her former high school sweetheart, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), who is married and is a new dad. Mavis returns to her hometown to reclaim her man, oblivious to the fact that he is happy with his life. A comedy of real awkwardness ensues.”

Is ESPN/Grantland‘s Bill Simmons ever going to review this thing? Did he ever say anything at all about Moneyball? I thought he was going to weigh in on movies from time to time and expand his range beyond sports. He’s starting to disappoint me.

Now that some HE regulars have seen Sean Durkin‘s Martha Marcy May Marlene, I’d like to know what the shakeout is. No more bearded-hipster film festival cruise-throughs — the time for facing Joe Popcorn is nigh.

Three days ago I projected that “the word-of-mouth will be very positive, I expect, and it’ll be necessary for everyone to carefully inspect Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of the Loathsome Twins.

“But an unsettled feeling is also going to kick in when Joe and Jane Popcorn sit down with this film. The smooth asphalt road of the last nine and a half months is going to become a little muddy and bumpy once they watch that ending.

“All the things that are eerily good about Martha Marcy May Marlene are still going to be there in front of paying audiences. Joe and Jane Schmoe are going to feel chilled and entranced by the last few minutes, but — this is an important ‘but’ — they’ll also be having a problem with it, or so I suspect.

“And they may, like me, feel a little frustrated with Olsen’s Martha character, specifically her inability to do or say anything that might somehow alter or transform her situation.”

For years Tyler Perry has done a fairly good job of proving his mediocrity as a director and playwright. Lionsgate managed to sell the notion that he might be upping his game with For Colored Girls, but the proof was in the pudding. Now he’s managed to lower his rep further by casting the loathsome Kim Kardashian in a supporting role in The Marriage Counselor, his latest feature. Simply for the value of her worthless celebrity allure among vapid under-25 females (sex tape, already-over marriage to seven-foot-tall Lurch, product-endorsement deals, etc.).

Last night I finally sat down with Jennifer Seibel Newsom‘s Miss Representation, a 90-minute doc about the the cultural suppression of women of all ages by way of sexual pigeonholing, leering and lip-smacking. It’s an old feminist lament, but it does seem that the media has been eyeballing women in a somewhat more intensive sexual manner over the last 10 or 15 years than before. And that this “conditioning” has created an unhealthy psychology among millions of younger women, persuaded as they’ve been to shape their images, goals and personalities to suit this Maxim-ized ideal.

I’ll admit that I watched because Inside Job co-dp Svetlana Cvetko , a friend, was the doc’s principal dp. But it’s a handsome, well-edited, highly intelligent presentation all the same. And there’s no disputing most of the observations, views and personal stories it contains. It’s a fundamentally fair and honest look at an unfortunate situation.

I have three quibbles.

One, early on Newsom (wife of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom) mentions that she’s felt somewhat guilty since childhood over the death of her older sister, but she provides no particulars. Go full disclosure if you’re going to bring something like this up, or don’t bring it up at all.

Two, a casual observer might get the idea that Miss Representation is pushing a view that trying to appear attractive to the opposite sex is somehow diminishing or self-destructive. It’s actually saying that this process has become excessive and neurotic in recent years, and that many younger women are the worse for it. It could do with a bit more exactitude.

And three, it was a huge mistake for Newsom to focus on Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in this context. The doc implies that some media commentators labelled Hillary as a bitch and an emotional panderer out of pure sexist prejudice when (a) she certainly surged in the 2008 New Hampshire primary due to her crying moment in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and (b) she and her team were extremely ruthless and even contemptible in their use of veiled racial implication to appeal to lunch-bucket blue-collar sentiments in their attempts to defeat Sen. Barack Obama. And Palin, whom I regard as one of the most detestable life forms in the spotlight today, has certainly benefitted all her life from exploiting or at least using her looks at every turn. She’s no victim by my yardstick, and if she is, too effing bad.

Miss Representation had its premiere last night on OWN.

While passing along news that United Talent Agency has dropped Boardwalk Empire star Michael Pitt as a client, Deadine‘s Nikki Finke mentioned that she’d “never heard” of Pitt when this development crossed her radar screen. Where was she from ’02 to ’05? Pitt was unmissable and almost blazing when he starred in Barbet Schroeder‘s Murder By Numbers, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers and Gus Van Sant‘s Last Days.