I’ve found (i.e., been sent) a quote from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo extra Donald Josephson in a recent article in Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter. Here’s a crude Google Translate version, and here’s the excerpt:

“The most fun was to keep up with Rooney Mara in the green room, where the actors wait between shots…and [to] hear her anxiety over whether she would be better than Naomi Rapace. She had lots of those ‘mirror mirror on the wall’ moments in there. Mara asked her assistant all the time, ‘Do we not do better when we did this scene? Do I not look better than her? Am I not better? Am I not young? Are not I cool?’ And the assistant just replied, ‘Yes, yes, yes! You’re the best, you’re the best!'”

Deadline‘s Pete Hammond doesn’t write articles that report about this or that film teetering or losing steam in the Oscar race. He writes articles that ask “is this or that film teetering or losing steam in the Oscar race?” But combine Hammond’s piece with a similar one from TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, and you have “a situation”, I’d say.

The bottom line is that however Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud & Extremely Close (Warner Bros., 12.25) fares in a commercial or award-winning realm, it began showing too late (and DVD screeners were sent out too late) to stir sufficient conversation as the Golden Globe and SAG nominations were being decided. It was blanked by both orgs. No critics group has so far awarded any aspect (including Max Von Sydow‘s supporting performance as an elderly mute, which attracted early buzz), although EL&IC has (or had) been nominated by the BFCA, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Houston Film Critics Society, the Phoenix Film Critics Society and the San Diego Film Critics Society in this and that category.

Daldry was quoted yesterday morning by N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” columnist Melena Ryzik about the delay: “I’m a fiddly director,” he said. “Any director would like to keep shooting. If it were up to me I’d keep shooting for another year. But we had to finish.”

So far Extremely Loud has a dismaying 50% Rotten Tomatoes rating. The balance could shift as more reviews arrive between now and opening day, but negative reactions from the Associated Press’s Dave Germain,Variety‘s Pete Debruge and Screen International‘s Brent Simon speak for themselves.

That said, the film got an intensely positive, highly emotional response from a mixture of press, guild members and Joe Schmoes when I saw it at the Los Angeles County Museum on 12.8. There was an older, overweight woman sitting behind me who moaned at times during the screening, and then she stood up and cheered when the film ended. I don’t relate to people like this, but Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close will almost certainly connect with paying audiences if this woman was at all representative.

I can’t imagine anyone in my circle having the slightest interest in sitting through Underworld: Awakening (Screen Gems, 1.20). Apart from the black-leather default geek-eroticism radiated by Kate Beckinsale-as-Selene, blah blah. I always think “hmm” when a film has been directed by two guys (in this case Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein). But the poster looked great as I waited for the R train last night at B’way and 49th.

My curiosity about Baz Luhrman‘s 3D version of The Great Gatsby hasn’t abated. I’ve suggested before that the coolest thing in the world would be for Luhrman to just shoot F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel plain and straight and not go all wackazoid like he did on Australia. Maybe if I read Luhrman and Craig Pearce‘s screenplay I could get a sense of what’s being prepared. A recent draft would be appreciated.

Philip Dorling and Ron Nyswaner‘s Predisposed has joined the Sundance 2012 premiere slate. Piano prodigy Eli Smith (Jesse Eisenberg) is coping with his troubled mom (Melissa Leo) and “enlisting help from a hapless drug dealer on the day he has an audition for a prestigious music program. Events spiral comically out of control, etc. Facing the mistakes of the past, the challenges of the future, and the possibilities of love.” This sounds so effing Sundance-y I can’t stand it. Costarring Tracy Morgan, Sarah Ramos, Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino and I kicked it around yesterday morning, focusing particuarly on The Artist and War Horse. I was in a cranky mood, kind of. Here’s a stand-alone mp3.

Wrath of the Titans (Warner Bros., 3.30) was directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles). Shot in 3D as opposed to 3D transferred. Sam Worthington‘s hair has grown out. Paychecks for Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, Danny Huston, Edgar Ramirez, Bill Nighy, Toby Kebbell and Rosamund Pike.

I don’t like trailers that begin with a kid singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Because any and all uses of that song in movies are always meant to deliver irony. The all-too-familiar kind. So right away there’s a deja vu vibe, and a general lack of distinction.

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I may not agree with all of the 2011 Chicago Film Critics awards, but I respect all but one. Which is more than I can say for the SAG nominations. Best Picture: The Tree of Life. Best Director: Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life). Best Actor: Michael Shannon (Take Shelter). Best Actress: Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn). Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks (Drive). Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life). Best Original Screenplay: The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius). Best Adapted Screenplay: Moneyball (Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin). Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezski (The Tree of Life).

We all want smart, quirky, neurotic Cage (Adaptation, Matchstick Men) or serious wackadoodle Cage (Vampire’s Kiss), but nobody wants mythical horseshit CG flaming-motorcycle Cage.

Variety‘s Steven Gaydos pointed out this morning that the recently published Film Comment best-of-the-year poll of 120 top critics has Hugo at #9, The Artist at #27 and Moneyball at #38.

My response: “Well and good, but much of that relentless Hugo love stems from an impassioned conviction-belief on the part of most big-city critics, and summarized as follows: “Marty is our guy, a Film Catholic Extraordinaire, and we’ll stand by him to the end, no matter what.” So whatever and however and even with a film as oppressive or agonizing as Kundun, Marty gets a pass — that’s simply how it is. Clint Eastwood enjoyed the fruits of this same arrangement of trust and faith for many, many years (until, that is, the double whammy of Invictus and Hereafter). So don’t give me with the high Hugo approval ratings. This is an elitist, intra-fraternal Tammany Hall dynamic.”

Is David Fincher‘s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo “entertaining and well-made?,” asks critic Marshall Fine. “Absolutely. For the audience that would never dream of seeing a foreign film, this movie will be the last word in Dragon Tattoo movie-making. And they’ll get a quality product.

“Aside from a few visual fillips, Fincher has not cracked Stieg Larsson‘s novel in a new way or plumbed it for previously undiscovered depths. His visual approach is different, but not so much that the material seems newly revealed.

“Is Fincher’s film better than Niels Arden Oplev‘s 2009 Swedish-language version? Not really. I’m not impugning Fincher’s intentions; I’m just saying that, as good as his film may be, it’s redundant and unnecessary. It’s a solid film – a well-made and highly suspenseful film. But I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last year. And it was just as good.”

Wells dispute: Fincher, agreed, is working well below his abilities with Dragon Tattoo, but the chops and the fumes are of a higher order than what Oplev presented in his 2009 version. Oplev’s Tattoo was, for me, a satisfying, well-assembled thriller, but somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8, execution-wise. Fincher’s version is at least an 8.5 if not a 9. I mean, the opening-credits sequence alone puts the Fincher above the Oplev.