Chewing over the four categories and the competitors as they now stand — Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Listeners take note: our discussion lasts over an hour, and all to the good. Is it posted to iTunes yet? I don’t know.

Jeff and Michael Zimbalist‘s The Two Escobars, which I finally saw last Thursday at the Tribeca Cinemas, tells an incredibly sad and tragic story. But it’s mainly a phenomenal sports documentary because it’s so much more than just a doc about guys kicking a ball around a field.

Director Jason Reitman, a major supporter of the film who moderated the post-screening discussion, feels that The Two Escobars the equal of One Day in September and When We Were Kings, and while I’m no sports fanatic I can think of no reason to disagree. The above is a response by Michael to my question about how Columbia seemed plagued by a kind of poison during the big drug years.

The Two Escobars played on ESPN last summer, and will have a brief theatrical opening soon. I’m calling it essential viewing, and not just for soccer fans.

An 8.27.10 San Francisco Chronicle review of The Two Escobars called it a “shrewdly told portrayal of Colombia during the darkest days of narcotrafficking, detailing the last years of two famous Colombians named Escobar, who weren’t related by blood but by their connection to a sport. That sport was soccer, and the nation’s cocaine kings were as deeply involved in it as in every other facet of Colombian society.

“One of the Escobars is Pablo, the notorious head of the Medellin cartel, who seems to have been a genuine soccer fanatic, which led him to buy the national team that, through Pablo’s boundless resources, became the odds-on contender to win the World Cup in 1994. Of course, the team also provided a handy way to launder dope profits, and Pablo wasn’t the only Colombian drug king to buy into the sport.

“The other Escobar is Andres, captain of Pablo’s team, a straight arrow and an incredibly talented player motivated by love for soccer and genuine patriotism — he wanted to prove on a worldwide stage that the nation was more than just an inferno of drugs and violence.

“The Zimbalist brothers interweave the two stories using scenes selected from hundreds of hours of news and private footage they acquired. They add some compelling interviews, including revelations from ‘Popeye,’ one of Pablo’s enforcers who claims to have ‘killed or dismembered’ 250 people. He seems tickled to be a part of the movie.

“There is much discussion of Pablo’s astounding and corrupt lifestyle, which brings to mind Caligula, say, or Nero. Pablo’s was a bloody regime — for a time, Colombia had the highest murder rate in the world. Nevertheless, Pablo was able to make himself into a folk hero among the poor by funding housing, clinics and soccer fields. Perhaps the movie pushes this Robin Hood theme harder than the facts will bear.

“The filmmakers establish a relentless and mounting sense of dread as the situation in Colombia, and for the players, becomes intolerable. Pablo is eventually hunted down and killed by a vigilante coalition with ties to other drug dealers (and with U.S. involvement).

“Andres also meets a violent end, back in his beloved homeland 10 days after he accidentally kicked a goal into his own team’s net during the World Cup, eliminating his team. Andres’ death was a national tragedy, and possibly one element prompting the Colombian government to finally take a stand against the drug lords. By general consensus, the nation has made real progress in the continuing battle.”

The fourth Oscar Poker podcast, which Sasha Stone and I finished recording about two and a half hours ago, focused on the strongest acting nominees. It should be posted to iTunes sometime this evening.

The only thing we disagreed on was a bizarre idea initially floated (or so Sasha recalled) by Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson about Natalie Portman‘s brilliant Black Swan performance. Thompson has intimated that Portman’s performance might be a problem with some women because her ballet-dancer character doesn’t convey enough in the way strong or courageous positivism. By this standard a Best Actress nominee has less chance of winning if she portrays a character beset by any form of weakness or anxiety or rampant insecurity, as Portman’s character certainly is.

In other words, women in the film industry are so insecure that they have issues with any less than admirable female character because this would send out “the wrong message.”

What else did we say? There’s no disputing that Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) is the Best Actor front-runner with Jesse Eisenberg, James Franco, Robert Duvall, Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges and Ryan Gosling also in play. And that the smart play for Another Year‘s Lesley Manville is to go for Best Supporting Actress and not Best Actress, which is looking like a big duke-out between Portman, Annette Bening, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Kidman and possibly Naomi Watts. And that Rosamund Pike is a serious comer in the Best Supporting Actress competition a la Barney’s Version.

An HE reader named “Webster” wrote the following this morning: “I saw James L. Brooks‘ How Do You Know at a screening in Orange County last week. (No end credits at the screening — still being massaged.) What I saw started a little slow, but really picks up steam midway through and ends strong. In a five-slot race I wouldn’t give it much chance at a Best Picture nomination, but with 10 slots…who knows?

“The guy who delivers the goods is Paul Rudd. This will raise his profile to the A-list. This is a guaranteed Best Supporting Actor nomination.” Really, Webster? Good for Rudd. I like hearing that.

“Reese Witherspoon is a little hard to warm to at first, but is fine; and Owen Wilson plays to his strengths, although I never really bought him as a $14 million-a-year pitcher — we never see him on the mound. And Jack Nicholson is Jack–with one huge laugh-out-loud Jack moment in the movie’s ‘money’ scene inside a hospital room.

“All in all, if I’m grading on a curve, I’d give it an A-minus. I liked it much more than As Good As It Gets, but not as much as Terms of Endearment or (my favorite Brooks film) Broadcast News.”

Jett didn’t want to know about watching a five hour and 30-minute film, but after being urged to see Carlos over and over (even Todd McCarthy told him to re-think his reluctance during a New York Film Festival party) I managed to drag him to the IFC Center last night for a 7 pm screening. Director Olivier Assayas spoke with us briefly in the lobby, and then delivered some opening remarks before the crowd.

Carlos director Olivier Assayas at Manhattan’s IFC Center prior to 7 pm show — Saturday, 10.16, 6:50 pm.

The truth? We caught three and three-quarter hours’ worth (i.e., Parts 1 and 2) but felt too whipped to make it through part 3. (We would have been there until 1 am, give or take, if we’d gone the distance.) I loved Carlos just as much as when I first saw it inside the Grand Palais in Cannes, but that was a midday screening with all kinds of juice and pizazz. The sound and projection levels at the IFC Center are totally fine but it’s just not the same, and I start to fade concentration-wise around 11 pm after being up and working hard since 7 am.

I took two videos of Assayas at the mike (clip #1 and video #2). The second one suffers from cruddy sound.

You know what would be adventurous and cool? For a major critics group or two (like the NYFCC, say) to give Carlos its Best Picture award.

Criterion’s recent confirmation that they’ll release a Bluray/DVD of James L. Brooks‘ Broadcast News in January 2011 suddenly reminded that I haven’t felt any How Do You Know intrigue in a while. I mean, the trailer is okay (although it does make the film seem a little thin and sitcommy) and it’s coming out on 12.17 but it’s just kinda lying there. I’m not hearing a drumbeat that says “hey, we’ve got something really awards-season special here.”

Will the Broadcast News Bluray, arriving with a motive right in the midst of Oscar balloting, remind people what a masterful director-writer and emotional button-pusher Brooks still is, or what he used to be in the ’80s and early ’90s before his game went soft? Will How Do You Know earn a place alongside Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment and As Good As It Gets, or will it be another Spanglish?

An HE reader named “Webster” wrote the following this morning: “I saw How Do You Know at a screening in Orange County last week. (No end credits at the screening — still being massaged.) What I saw started a little slow, but really picks up steam midway through and ends strong. In a five-slot race, I wouldn’t give it a chance for a Best Picture nomination, but with 10 slots…who knows?

“The guy who delivers the good is Paul Rudd. This will raise his profile to the A-list. This is a guaranteed Best Supporting Actor nomination.

“ Reese Witherspoon is a little hard to warm to at first, but is fine; and Owen Wilson plays to his strengths, although I never really bought him as a $14 million-a-year pitcher — we never see him on the mound. And Jack Nicholson is Jack — with one huge laugh-out-loud Jack moment in the movie’s ‘money’ scene inside a hospital room.”

Brooks never shows Wilson throwing a few from the mound? Why?

“All in all, if I’m grading on a curve, I’d give it an A-minus. I liked it much more than As Good As It Gets, but not as much as Terms of Endearment or (my favorite Brooks film) Broadcast News.”

The Broadcast News Bluray will feature (a) a restored high-definition digital transfer, (b) audio commentary rom Brooks and editor Richard Marks, (c) deleted scenes and an alternate ending, (d) a “new documentary” on Brooks’s career, (e) a “new video interview with veteran CBS news producer Susan Zirinsky, one of the models for actress Holly Hunter’s character and an associate producer on the film, and (f) a booklet featuring an essay by Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey.

I’ve always wanted to send a camera into space. I actually tried something like this with an 8mm movie camera and a bunch of helium balloons tied together when I was eleven or twelve. (The experiment failed.) Brooklyn’s Luke Geissbuhler and his son Max recently sent a styrofoam-encased iPhone 4.0 about 19 miles into space with a weather balloon. He just turned on the video camera and let it fly.

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

The balloon eventually burst and the iPhone, which fell at speeds over 100 miles an hour, parachute-landed 10 or 12 miles from the launch site in Newburgh, N.Y. (The landing spot was in Rifton, a little north of New Paltz.) The footage runs about six minutes. The iPhone battery died just before landing so the video abruptly stops about 1000 feet up. Geissbuhler located the iPhone through GPS tracking. It landed in a tree.

I spoke to Geissbuhler this morning via text. He has a website called Brooklyn Space Program. He’s seeking donations for the next flight.

Gus Van Sant‘s Restless is apparently about “a terminally ill teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska) who falls for a boy (Henry Hopper) who likes to attend funerals and their encounters with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot (Chin Han) from WWII.” Some IMDB guy wrote last April that it’s “absolutely phenomenal…without a doubt it’s Van Sant’s best since Elephant.”

So what about AMPAS concerns that the Oscar Awards have been usurped and/or happen too late in the game, and everyone’s complaint that all the year’s best films are always back-loaded into the last three or four months of the year. I just thought of an idea that could not only solve this situation but turn the whole situation into a win-win.

Have two Oscar awards shows every year — a Phase One Oscar telecast in early to mid October, say, that would honor films released from January 1st through August 31st (that’s right — an eight-month period), and a Phase Two Oscar telecast in late February covering the 9.1 to 12.31 period.

Sounds too expensive and laborious, right? As Robert De Niro‘s Jake LaMotta would say, “That’s in your mind.” Because at least this idea would spur distributors to release better films during the first eight months, and once the public got used to the idea of the Oscars being a twice-yearly thing, the Oscar brand would be supremely recognized as the definitive awards show above all the others. The Oscars would no longer be the last guys to dress up and hand out awards — they would be the first and the last.

Okay, don’t spend quite as much money on the Phase One Oscars. Stage them at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium or someplace that’s almost as cool as the Kodak theatre but not quite. And then just for extra hoopla emphasis, sometime during the Phase Two Oscar telecast bring out all the winners of the Phase One Oscars and have them take a bow.

NYC entertainment journalist driving down to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, 10.30, for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert‘s “send all Tea Party righties to green re-education camps” rally. I wouldn’t mind sharing car rental costs. Plus I’m thinking about crashing somewhere in D.C. for the night. I don’t want to drive all the way back the same day, and I don’t need/want a slick hotel. I’m just looking for a bed and good wifi and a shower — that’s it. But the room has to be located somewhere cool. Georgetown would be nice, but what do I know?

Hey, is there any kind of press credentialing going on for this thing? So I can get a place closer to the stage and maybe take some good stills and decent video, etc.?

You will bow to Paramount’s Jackass 3D — i.e., the $21.8 million it earned yesterday and the $53 million it’ll probably take in by Sunday night. And you will suffer along with Summit’s second-place Red, which took in an estimated $7.3 million Friday and is looking at $20 million by tomorrow night. And some of you will pay to see the third-place The Social Network, which dropped only 32% yesterday. And others will flock to Disney’s Secretariat, which dropped only 29 % for a fourth-place finish.

This video of Transformers 3 star Shia LaBeouf splashing hot coffee on a corpulent paparazzo was on all the sites until yesterday afternoon, when it was taken down. But now, for the time being, it’s viewable again. Paraparazzi are scum. This is the coolest thing LaBoeuf has ever done, onscreen or off. Yes, it would have been a tiny bit cooler if he hadn’t run after dousing the guy.