A Hollywood Reporter story by Stephen Galloway announced yesterday that Academy reps can’t find Jean Luc Godard in order to give him the good news that he’s been chosen to receive an honorary Oscar next February. And so Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale has created a Jean-Luc Godard “‘missing” poster. Hilarious. I’m guessing Godard is just ducking them — he doesn’t want the damn award and doesn’t want to get into a whole dialogue dispute and have to listen to endless cajolings.

On 8.24 Slate‘s Bill Engvell took another look at the 3D revenue situation. A somewhat harsher view, that is, than the one presented by TheWrap‘s Daniel Frankel on 7.20, which basically said that 3D revenues are going south. Actually, says Engvell, “It looks to me that the revival is even worse off than we thought. Not only has the profitability of 3-D fallen in the past few months; it’s in a slide that goes back years.”

The posting of this just-released Apocalypse Now Bluray trailer affords an opportunity to bitch about a clear lack of interest on the part of Francis Coppola‘s Zoetrope as well as Paramount Home Video (which sub-licensed the AN elements to Lionsgate for the Bluray) in presenting George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr‘s Hearts of Darkness, an award-winning 1991 documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, in a respectful fashion within the three-disc AN “Full Disclosure” package.

It’s great that HOD is being included, mind, but it’s not going to look all that terrific, apparently, because it appears — emphasis on that word — that Paramount Home Video provided the same one-inch tape master that was used for the 2007 DVD, which looked so-so at best but could have looked better if the HOD negative had been digitally scanned.

It’s allegedly stated on the Apocalypse Now Bluray website that “original elements” were used in creating an HD master of Hearts of Darkness. The wording of this term seems needlessly vague and is probably misleading. I haven’t been able to persuade anyone from Lionsgate, American Zoetrope or Paramount Home Video to be more specific.

It makes basic visual sense to use higher-grade elements for a Bluray rendering, but apparently nobody wanted to spend the $10 grand (more?) it would have cost to scan the HOD negative. This is understandable from a nickel-and-dime perspective, but disrespectful to perhaps the best making-of documentary ever made. It is certainly the most intimate look at the travails of an anguished big-budget filmmaker ever seen. What’s right is right. Hearts of Darkness isn’t an EPK reel — it’s a highly revered film with its own legend.

It’s already been discussed how Paramount and/or Lionsgate had no interest in including a commentary track from Hickenlooper/Bahr on the HOD Bluray. Hickenlooper told me this morning he’s planning to record a commentary but lacks the geek expertise to do it correctly himself. If anyone in Los Angeles can lend a hand (i.e., provide a recording opportunity, edit the commentary, upload the master), please get in touch.

Late last month I spent too many hours emailing and calling people at Zoetrope, Lionsgate and Paramount Home Video to ask about if better HOD materials had been used for the Bluray, or not. I got totally stonewalled and shilly-shallied by everyone I wrote and spoke to. To this day nobody has ever confirmed or denied that the one-inch tape used for the 2007 DVD was used or not. Despite repeated requests Zoetrope attorney George Hayum wouldn’t even tell me if access to the HOD negative had been requested by Paramount Home Video. It was ridiculous.

It seems to me that this lack of interest and respect originates with Coppola, who owns the Hearts of Darkness elements. Hickenlooper has long believed that Coppola is fundamentally uncomfortable with the doc. “I think it makes him feel as if somebody had rummaged through his underwear drawer,” Hickenlooper says.

Coppola was willing to permit the release of the 2007 HOD DVD, yes, but that, Hickenlooper believes, was primarily a ruse to get promotional materials sent out for his then-upcoming Youth Without Youth and a doc that Eleanor Coppola, his wife, made about the filming of YWY, called Coda.

If I was a name-brand filmmaker in the last act of my life, I would politely refuse the Academy’s offer of an Irving Thalberg or Governor’s Award. If your career hasn’t been going great guns, accepting these honors at the Oscar awards, I feel, is a kind of admission to the world that you’re over.

These awardings are always a warm and emotional tribute, yes, and a profound moment of glory. Who could fail to be moved by the Academy saying “we’ve loved your work all these decades, and we want to show our appreciation even though you’ve been winding down for a while…we love you”?

But if you accept this honor, you’re basically saying, “Yeah, you’re right…I’ve had a great career but I’m now officially finished.” If people haven’t been returning some of your calls prior to accepting an honorary career Oscar, they won’t return any of them the morning after. No matter what your “friends” may tell you at parties, you’ll strictly be seen as a retirement village guy from then on. I would rather dream the foolish dream while writing my latest script or meeting with financiers or talking with directors about my next part, etc. Fuck the Gold Watch. Never say die.

This year’s honorees are directors Francis Ford Coppola (i.e., the Irving Thalberg recipient) and Jean-Luc Godard (Governor’s Award) and actor Eli Wallach. Okay, I’d accept it if I was Wallach because he’s…what, in his early 90s? He’s untouchable and un-diminishable. But if I were Godard and Coppola I’d respectfully tell the The Academy fathers “thanks but no thanks.”

I’ve been invited to attend and cover the Doha Tribeca Film Festival (10.26 to 10.30), which is way the hell over in Qatar, adjacent to Saudi Arabia. We’re talking south of Kuwait, across the Gulf of Oman from Iran. I’ve never been east of Croatia so why not, right? Thanks to the Doha Film Institute for the invitation. I’m presuming it’ll be pure Vegas for the most part, but I’m looking very much forward to the exotic aspects.

This frame capture is from a DVD Beaver review of a new French Bluray of Sidney Lumet‘s Serpico. I don’t know the yeller, but the guy taking the heat is Al Pacino. I’m trying to think of the last time I’ve been howled and pointed at like this, but it’s been a while. Possibly decades, I mean. It’s really hard to think when emotions are cranked up to this level.

Below is a N.Y. Times video essay about a visit with the real Frank Serpico, who wandered around Europe after his NYPD experience (’60 to ’71), returned to New York in 1980 and finally wound up in a small town in upstate New York. His Wiki bio says he “studies and lectures on occasion to students at universities and police academies and sharing experiences with police officers who are currently in similar situations.

Also from the Wiki bio: “When it was decided to make the movie about his life called Serpico, Al Pacino invited Serpico to stay with him at a house that Pacino had rented in Montauk, New York. When Pacino asked why he had stepped forward, Serpico replied: “Well, Al, I don’t know. I guess I would have to say it would be because…if I didn’t, who would I be when I listened to a piece of music?”

I’d love to know the real story why Devin Faraci is departing CHUD as of this Friday. The Scott Pilgrim-adoring columnist is a major geek brand, as far as it goes. It seems odd that he and owner Nick Nunziata would part ways. Faraci announced his departure this afternoon, adding that he’s part of “an exciting new venture that launches this fall, which will offer lots of interesting partnership possibilities, both online and in the real world. I’ll be able to share more details in a couple of weeks.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews did a pretty good job yesterday of slapping down Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who’s been trying to inflame the anti-muslim 9/11 mosque issue to get a bump in the polls.

My very first act of film criticism in a public arena was in late ’70, or seven or eight years before I started writing. I was sitting shotgun in a car that was cruising past Westport’s Fine Arts theatre, and in front of it and wrapping around the building and way down the alley was a line of people waiting to see Love Story. I rolled down the window and yelled, “You effing milquetoasts!”

Some people turned and looked stunned, or hurt even, and I felt a little badly about that. But then I told myself, “Well, somebody has to say it.” It was common knowledge, after all, or commonly believed, that anyone who fell for that movie or the pablum behind it was being a total sentimental sap.

“What can you say about 25 year-old girl who died?”

That’s the second most famous line from Erich Segal‘s Love Story, which actually began as a screenplay before being turned into a book as a promotional tie-in for the Arthur Hiller-directed film, which opened in December 1970.

The most famous, of course, is “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That line has probably made more people retch than any other in the history of motion pictures.

Thomas Vinciguerra‘s 8.20 N.Y. Times story about the annual Harvard rite of mocking Love Story is what brought it all back. I always though it a bit odd that the 25 year-old girl who died, a Radcliffe music student from Providence named Jenny Cavalleri, was played by Ali McGraw, who was pushing 32 when the film was made. McGraw is now 72 — amazing.

Angelina Jolie isn’t just the once-estranged daughter of Hollywood’s worst saliva-drooling Tea Party nutter, Jon Voight. She may also be a closet ally of Voight’s, at least in terms of despising Barack Obama. (Call this a flimsy maybe.) She also seems to be a supporter of America’s military adventures in Iraq and perhaps also Afghanistan and…well, basically anywhere that the poor are suffering due to the deprivations of war.

Jolie’s reasoning seems to be that because these conflicts are in some ways politically and governmentally linked with humanitarian support for the downtrodden, anyone who talks about withdrawing from these areas (like President Obama) is somehow anti-humanitarian. Or something like that. Because people whose lives have been torn to shreds by the horrors of war need to be sheltered and cared for, and who better to do this than a really rich hottie who wants to provide for as many of the bruised and battered as possible?

It’s well known that Jolie has a strong personal belief in humanitarian work — a general compassion for those whose lives have been ruined by war and famine, and the ceremonial UN Goodwill Ambassador thing, of course. So her plan to spend the fall directing a low-budget love story set against the Bosnian-Serbian war of the ’90s, a conflict which devastated the lives of tens of thousands, falls right into line.

Gregg Kilday‘s 8.22 Hollywood Reporter piece about the film said Jolie “was in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this past weekend, meeting with the country’s leaders to discuss the plight of the more than 113,000 displaced persons living in the country.

But Jolie’s official quote about the film, calling it “a love story [and] not a political statement” is, of course, horseshit. Anyone who has ever said these words (and they’re hardly original) has more or less lied. All movies about wars and revolutions are political statements, and…well, think about it for five or six seconds. How could Jolie make a film of this sort without her political sympathies becoming part of the mix?

I don’t know how Jolie plans to weave her allegedly conservative views into a war-torn love story (maybe weave in information about the liberal Clinton administration doing very little to help end the Serb-Bosnian slaughter?), but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this happens.

I only know what Jon Voight has said and stands for, and that I saw him standing near his daughter and Brad Pitt inside a roped-off area at the Salt premiere after-party. And the old cliche about the acorn not falling too far from the tree flew into my mind, especially considering her rep as a closet rightie (including her alleged support for McCain during the ’08 campaign) and that “stay the course in Iraq” Washington Post article she posted in ’08. And being…okay, maybe she’s more of an Ayn Rand libertarian, given her interest in making a film version of Atlas Shrugged.

It’s fair to say that if Rush Limbaugh is singing your praises, something stinks in the kingdom of Denmark.

The basic conservative impulse is to bow down and show total allegiance to authority. This obviously links up with the old cliche about right-wing women (like Rand) being especially passionate about worshipping strong males, which is incidentally why they’re said to be so great in bed. This could be one possible explanation for those reportedly overheard sounds that suggested “an animal being killed.”

I’m not one to take unsourced Us magazine quotes as anything to rely upon, but combine the Washington Post op-ed piece with this 11.09 non-attributable quote that Jolie considers Obama to be a “closet socialist,” and I’m at least thinking “hmmm.”

The term “closet socialist”….well, what’s so bad with that? FDR was one, and he had it right in my book. Anyone who uses such a term is clearly a closet rightie. I mean, that’s a symmetrical way of looking at it.

“‘She hates [Obama],” a source close to Jolie told an Us reporter, according to the article. “She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise.”

Two years ago I said Michael Cera would be “completely done within two or three years.” Was I right ? Maybe not. Cera could still be kicking around in 2012 and beyond. But an 8.23 box-office analysis article by TheWrap‘s Brent Lang, called “Five Reasons Scott Pilgrim Tanked,” suggests that swirling gray clouds are forming.

“Scott Pilgrim‘s fate may have been sealed the moment Michael Cera nabbed the lead role,” Lang says halfway through.

“Cera may have had a hit with Superbad and Juno, but the credit there may lie with Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, respectively.” (And Jonah Hill in the case of Superbad.) “Films with Cera’s name above the title since have all bombed,” Lang claims. “Year One earned $43.3 million, Youth in Revolt netted $15.3 million and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist grossed $31.5 million. Like Scott Pilgrim, all the these films featured Cera as a mumbling, geeky, and virginal protagonist.

“‘Aside from recasting, I don’t know what they could have done,’ an individual with knowledge of the marketing campaign told TheWrap. ‘I don’t know why or when this occurred, but somehow this industry became convinced without any evidence that Michael Cera is a star. Who wants to hang out with this guy? He’s the kid you shoved in a locker.'”