Yesterday afternoon Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and I recorded Oscar Poker #7 with guest Tom O’Neil, owner/editor of the recently relaunched GoldDerby.com, and Boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino. Here’s a straight link sans iTunes.

Our topics included a discussion of the likeliest Best Director nominees, the weekend’s box office (including the under-performing of For Colored Girls), the return of GoldDerby.com, and further discussions of Morning Glory and Rachel McAdams. There’s also an intriguing O’Neil riff on the growing importance of Hollywood bloggers.

Someone (Sasha or iTunes) has tagged the podcast as explicit because (a) I said the word “bumblefuck” and (b) Sasha said “give me a fucking break.” Is that fair?

I recorded my end from the Paramount/Morning Glory hospitality room on the 29th floor of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Thanks, Paramount publicists! But there was a lot of spirited chitter-chatter due to a farewell party for a Paramount staffer with champagne and the consumption of cupcakes and whatnot, so I created a kind of tent by putting my big gray overcoat over my head in order to muffle ambient sound. But again, the Paramount people were great.

The Keith Olbemann suspension episode has made, I feel, MSNBC president Phil Griffin seem slightly prickly and volatile-minded — a protocol-minded guy who doesn’t see the forest for the trees. But Griffin is also coasting on a faint counterbalance of faux-glamour and temporary Jeff Goldblum coolness right now due to his marginal involvement in Morning Glory (Paramount, 11.10), a comedy about a Manhattan-based morning news show.

(l.) MSNBC president Phil Griffin; (r.) MNBC anchor/commentator Keith Olbermann

Griffin announced yesterday that Olbermann had been unsuspended and would resume his nightly news and commentary show as of tomorrow (i.e., Tuesday) evening. Griffin suspended Olbermann without pay three days ago for making three political donations on 10.28 without first seeking MSNBC’s approval, per company policy. Several commentators derided that decision for being overly punitive and arbitrary and slapdash.

Politico‘s Mike Allen reported over the weekend that “the suspension came about not because Olbermann violated network policy, but because he wouldn’t apologize on-air.” Olbermann, wrote Allen, “told his bosses he didn’t know he was barred from making campaign contributions, although he [resisted] saying that publicly.”

Griffin’s Morning Glory connection comes from (a) his having helped prepare costar Goldblum for his role as a TV producer by showing him around MSNBC and answering questions, and (b) a second-act moment in Morning Glory in which Goldblum tells Griffin’s assistant that if his boss doesn’t respond to an offer of free tickets to some sports event (a football game or something), he’ll offer them to someone else.

Popeater.com’s Ron Shuter has reported that “in addition to an apology, Keith is demanding that the rules be changed…Keith thinks it’s unfair that Fox News anchors can make contributions and support candidates and he can’t. It’s his money that he has earned, [and] he should be allowed to do whatever he wants with it.

“What sort of country do we live in where an actor can trash a hotel room with an escort and drugs and Keith can’t donate money to people running for office he believes in? It makes no sense. If they think they can slap Keith’s wrist and have him to return a few days later like nothing happened, they are wrong. They picked the wrong guy.”

Because of her Morning Glory screenplay, which powers right along in a kind of His Girl Friday fashion and never feels treacly or phony or afflicted with the sound of dozens of other romantic comedies that didn’t quite work, Aline Brosh McKenna is cool again. She hasn’t been forgiven for 27 Dresses, but people, I sense, are willing to let that one go. She also has a cool middle name.

Morning Glory screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna following this afternoon’s press conference at the Waldorf Astoria — Sunday, 11.7, 2:05 pm.

Deadline‘s Mike Fleming has reported that Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, producers of the 2011 Oscar telecast, tried to hire Hugh Jackman as the host. That tells you how hip and adventurous Cohen and Mischer are — they wanted Jackman to do his song-and-dance routine again. Does anyone else have a really bad feeling about these guys?

What exactly was wrong with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin ‘s hosting last time? They were amusing, zippy, debonair. New York/Vulture observed that they “did what they do every time they separately host Saturday Night Live: Through sheer force of wit and timing, they elevated jokes that would flatline in ordinary hands. Trading gags like a latter-day Rowan and Martin, they even made unforgivably tired punchlines forgivable.”

I know a beautiful Christian lady who believes that having a relationship with the one true God (i.e., the Christian one written about the in the King James version of the Bible) and with his only begotten son Jesus is the only way to go. You’re just not part of God’s chosen flock, she feels, if you’re not on this train. “I have a problem with that,” I said. “That’s okay,” she replied. She needs to talk, I think, with the guy who put up this sign.

Roger Michell‘s Morning Glory (Paramount, 11.10) more than held up during my second viewing last night. Here’s my initial reaction and a riff I did on Rachel McAdams a few days ao. The Variety and Hollywood Reporter reviews I’ve read so far are just “what?”. It’s a weird feeling to know that a film works, and then to read a couple of reviews that just veer off the road and crash through a stone wall. What were the authors thinking? Drinking?

Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford in Morning Glory

A few wrong turns and a few wrong moves (i.e., broader, more slapstick, more dumbed down) and a different kind of lead actress with different instincts, and Morning Glory could have been a Kate Hudson movie. It could have been painful, predictable, and right-down-the-middle cliched (as the one-sheet and trailer seem to indicate). The difference is in Aline Brosh McKenna‘s script and Roger Michell‘s direction and the quality of the actors and the acting and a certain high-throttle, tightly-wound quality mixed with a generally realistic atmosphere.

Morning Glory is a comedic survival story by way of Rachel McAdams‘ Becky Fuller, a morning-show producer. But it also deals with the lowering or cheapening of TV journalism standards — the pandering to TV audiences interested only in goofiness and personality and glamour. It portrays Harrison Ford‘s Mike Pomeroy, an older distinguished newsman, being sidelined and marginalized and asked to indulge in fluffy banter.

In Broadcast News (which is re-opening, in a sense, on Criterion Bluray in January), an ethical battle is waged serious news vs. fluff, infotainment and ratings. 23 years ago fluff and infotainment (i.e., William Hurt‘s Tom Grunick character) was winning but news (Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks) was still hanging in there. But now, it seems, that ethical battle is over and done with in Morning Glory. And no one is fretting about it. As Fuller says to Pomeroy, “Your side lost.”

Broadcast News was about a hard-news network broadcast show and Morning Glory is about a third- or fourth-rate morning show in the vein of Today — different animals. But the news ethics vs. entertainment debate is very front and center in Brooks film, and in Morning Glory there’s prolonged grumbling from Harrison’s guy about what he’s being asked (i.e, forced) to do. Otherwise there’s no debate or anguish at all about infotainment anchors going shallow or going for the emotion. The broadcast world is what it is, and the game, as always, is about survival and ratings.

In Broadcast News, Hurt’s Grunick character is portrayed/characterized as “the Devil” — the good-looking smoothie who’s good as selling news and taking down our standards, bit by little bit. He also rationalizes his actions by saying that the news business keeps moving the marker for what is ethical and unethical, and so on.

But — let’s face it — if Tom Grunick and McAdams’ Becky character were to work together, they’d probably get along. She’d enjoy his attitude and personality and find him a nice and amiable professional. She obviously has a problem with Ford’s grumpy Mike Pomeroy (attitude and personality clash), but she and Grunick, I think, would understand each other completely. This is a woman, remember, who’s half into the idea of doing a segment on Pomeroy getting a prostate examination.

Another thing that Broadcast News had was a semblance of a romantic triangle. Holly Hunter wanted to sleep with Hurt, and liked/loved Albert Brooks as a friend. But there’s also a curious romantic triangle in Morning Glory. McAdams/Fuller has sex and evening dinners with Patrick Wilson, but the genuinely driving and “meaningful” relationship she has is with Ford/Pomeroy. Sex with Wilson is strictly a sideline thing, and yet Wilson (unlike Adrien Grenier‘s character in The Devil Wears Prada) never complains about this. He even suggests at the finale that she accept Ford’s offer of an invitation (“He won’t ask twice”).

Love and Other Drugs, I regret to say, didn’t play quite as well the second time. I’m still a genuine, whole-hearted fan of Anne Hathaway ‘s performance, but my difficulties with Josh Gad got worse and worse as I began to grumble and moan and shift in my seat when he appeared. My first thought was that it wouldn’t have been a problem if Gad has been picked off with a high-powered rifle. But other scenarios began to take shape in my mind. Gad being hit by a speeding bus, poisoned, garroted by a waiter, stabbed in the shower. No, not the shower.

Last Wednesday Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino predicted that Tyler Perry‘s For Colored Girls “should manage $27 million from 2,127 locations.” That didn’t happen. The current Colored Girls projection is for $20.1 million, which is the lowest opening weekend for Perry since The Family That Prays, an ’08 release which took in $17.4 million.

For comparison’s sake, Perry’s Why Did I Get Married 2? took in $29.3 million when it opened earlier this year, I Can Do Bad‘s opening weekend earned about $24 million in 2009, and Medea Goes to Jail did $41 million during its first three days.

If I had the dough and the freedom to really swagger around, I’d probably be attending a Biutiful below-the-line discussion group, which, as we speak, starts about two hours hence (or 5 pm) at the Linwood Dunn on Vine Street. (Wait…5 pm? That’s for short naps, making a salad, taking showers, walking your dog.) Moderator Guillermo del Toro, director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, composer Gustavo Santaolalla, dp Rodrigo Prieto and editor Stephen Mirrione. Alas, I’m sitting on the fake-marble floor of a 42nd Street plex and being told by the manager that I can’t plug into the wall outlet.

“Keith Olbermann is right when he says he’s not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts, the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance’s sake. That the Left is just as violent and cruel as the Right…there’s a difference between a mad man and a madman.”

In a comment thread for yesterday’s “Strange Pundits” story, HE reader PastePotPete wrote that he’d recently seen Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan (Fox Searchlight, 12.3) and that people generally seemed to find it “astonishing.” And yet despite that reaction “there were a lot of women [in the audience] who seemed to despise the movie. And I didn’t talk to or overhear a single male audience member disparaging it.

Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.

“I think this disparity, which I believe Sasha Stone has brought up on the Oscar Poker podcast, will prevent it from garnering the awards it deserves, aside from Portman’s in-the-bag Best Actress award.”

So I wrote him write back and asked, “Did any of these women explain their feelings?

“My impression since the Venice Film Festival is that some women don’t like Black Swan (and this seems like a very weird reason to slam a film) because Portman’s character is too weak and distraught. Because she’s besieged by feelings of insecurity, anxiety and panic. And because some women resent the fact that she’s allowed herself to become torn and frayed, and is finally undone by her demons.

“Are we to presume that women viewers consider the character of Portman’s performance dishonestly conjured because…what, there are no such women in the performing world? Female artists who are worried about whether they’re good enough or not, about whether they might be replaced, or whether they’ve got enough talent or ambition to really make it? I don’t want to go out on a limb, but I believe there are many male artists out there with the same hang-ups and concerns.

“The implication is that some women don’t like this film because Portman’s self-destructive character isn’t positive enough — that she’s not an upstanding role model and that it’s not good for female characters of this type (or performances about same) to be admired too much or put on a pedestal. Is it me, or is that the single lamest rationale for disliking a film ever put forward in Hollywood history, or at least since the days of Stalinist Russia?

“By the same token did women of 1965 declare that Catherine Deneueve‘s character in Repulsion was also a negative role model, and therefore shouldn’t be admired too highly?”