Yesterday Envelope /Gold Derby guy Tom O’Neil posted his choice for Best Actor front-runners at this stage of the game. I feel torn, as always, between pushing those performances in this category which I know are the “best” (i.e., the most striking, affecting, powerhouse-y, likely to be fondly remembered 20 years hence) and those that the Zelig crowd either thinks will win or needs to see win due to genetic tribal-current issues.

Right now HE’s most worthy contenders — comfort-seekers be damned — are, in this order, Colin Firth in A Single Man, Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker, Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man, Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant and a tie between Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart and Hal Holbrook in That Evening Sun (i.e., two gray-haired guys facing last-act issues). Every one of these performances is a major eye-opener and head-turner. On top of which Renner and Stuhlbarg are fashion models in the new Esquire (i.e., the one with the guaranteed-not-to-be-nominated-for-anything Robert Downey, Jr. on the cover).

But then basic human instinct (particularly the primal need to show obeisance before power) has to be factored in, which of course means stars (or bigger names) in this equation. I’m presuming that the Up In The Air current will carry George Clooney (who’s quite affecting as a sad flyaway guy) into contention, and that Morgan Freeman‘s Nelson Mandela in Invictus is almost certainly a nommie waiting to happen. Anyone who sees Nine will find themselves curiously drawn to Daniel Day Lewis‘s spell-like performance, so there’s a good to pretty good chance he’ll snag a nomination as well.

So blend these two together, think it all through and let the natural selection process manifest and you’re left with the following five contenders: Colin Firth in A Single Man, Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker, Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man, Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant and Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. Big names don’t get a pass ’round these parts just because they’re big names. When Invictus starts to be shown this week and the calls start coming in about Freeman, we’ll see. I’d like to figure some way to wedge Holbrook in but I can’t figure a way.

Matt Damon‘s The Informant! character finally feels like more a sociopathic riddle or curiosity than a guy I understood and felt in a deep-down way. I haven’t seen Everybody’s Fine but my sense is that as touching and soulful as Robert De Niro may be in it, the film itself may be too much of a problem. Like others I respected but was never truly knocked down by Viggo Mortensen‘s performance in The Road.

Now I have to see Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans again just to re-absorb this little snippet straight. It passed right over (or through) me during my first viewing in Toronto. I watched about 40 minutes of The Rock last night. It was vaguely startling to see Cage (a) looking so young and (b) playing a more or less normal person.

Cage was 32 at the time. The Rock was his first move — a cash-in — after the acclaim of that Mike Figgis‘ Leaving Las Vegas (’95). He mainly starred in a series of crazy-kat super-salaried extreme action thrillers for the next four or five years (Con Air, Face/Off, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Snake Eyes) with the curious or slight or “meh” punctuations of Bringing Out The Dead, 8MM, and City of Angels.

Then came the disappointing, doleful and disorienting Family Man, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Windtalkers, followed by two master-stroke performances in Spike Jonze‘s Adaptation and Ridley Scott‘s Matchstick Men — Cage’s last artistic glory period (’02 to ’03). Because two or three years after this began Cage’s full wackazoid streak (broken up only by the National Treasure movies) that continues to this day — The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, that Fu-Manchu Grindhouse walk-on, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing and Bad Lieutenant.

Okay, yes — it’s slightly more dismissive for Couples Retreat costars Faizon Love and Kali Hawk to be completely zotzed out of the British one-sheet as opposed to being reduced to the really small guys in the rear (i.e., whom no one outside of friends, family and management could possibly notice or care about) in the U.S. version. From an art direction standpoint, the British poster is obviously less crowded and more pleasing to the eye.

Couples Retreat poster (l.) vs.U.S. version (r.)

Universal has reportedly apologized to any and all offended parties and has pledged to not use the revised poster in other countries A Universal spokesman said the revised advert aimed ‘to simplify the poster to actors who are most recognizable in international markets.'”

Here’s a video clip of Gordon Willis accepting his Life Achievement Award at last night’s 2009 Governor’s Awards in Hollywood. And here’s a Scene Unseen podcast interview with Willis from June 2007. And here’s a chat I had with Willis about a year ago regarding Robert Harris‘s Godfather restoration.

Here also are Caleb Deschanel‘s remarks about Willis during the afore-mentioned ceremony. (I’m not likely to ever forget the term “dumptruck directors.”) The full Scene/Unseen interview is accessible here.

I was in a mood for Italian cinema after last night’s showing of Rob Marshall‘s Nine (which of course is primarily based on Federico Fellini‘s 8 1/2) so I went up to the Lincoln Plaza cinemas to catch Vittorio DeSica‘s The Bicycle Thief (1948). I assumed I’d be seeing it in pristine form, based on a claim by the distributor, Corinth Films, that a new print was being shown. I should have also figured on the projection and sound standards at the theatre, of course.

The fact is that the Lincoln Plaza’s presentation of this beautiful film is a rip — an insult to anyone who understands that old classics don’t have to look in any way compromised or underwhelming any more. Or sound murky. DVD and Blu-ray technology has totally transformed our common old-movie viewing standards. Last night’s Bicycle Thief experience was like watching a movie at the rundown Bleecker Street Cinema again — pallid-looking print (no scratches but grayish murky tones, no decent blacks), moderately squawky sound, and a way-too-small screen.

My first thought when I walked into the LP’s tunnel-like shoebox theatre and saw this economy-sized image playing on the far wall was “Oh, no!” The screen was bigger than any plasma or LCD I’ve seen in a Best Buy, but nowhere near large enough for a proper theatre-viewing experience with 30 or 35 people watching. Movie screens have to be a certain height and width in proportion to the seating area or you feel ripped off. On top of which the image has to be projected at SMPTE-recommended foot-lambert levels and the sound has to be strong, sharp, bassy and clear. None of these conditions were part of my Bicycle Thief experience last night, and all I can say is “never again.”

I should have gone down to Kim’s Video and bought the Criterion Collection DVD version and watched it on my 42-inch plasma instead.

I stuck my head into another LP shoebox playing An Education and thought, “Oh, my God!” Another bedsheet-sized screen, soft-focus image, sound that was far too muffled, etc. If I had seen Lone Scherfig‘s film under these conditions for the first and only time it would have been quite possible to be under-impressed.

Before last night I had only seen The Bicycle Thief once. I can’t remember if it was at the Bleecker in the late ’70s or on VHS during the mid ’80s, but I know it wasn’t great looking. So I still haven’t seen it in any kind of decent form.

Sidenote: DeSica’s 1948 classic should always, always be called The Bicycle Thief and not The Bicycle Thieves. I don’t care if DeSica favored the plural. The point is that the singular title is either (a) ambiguous or (b) presses the viewer to decide which character — Lamberto Maggiorani‘s desperate-for-work father or the guy who’s stolen his bicycle — is the one referred to by the title. (I’ve always thought the singular reference to Thief referred to Magiorrani, although it would be perfectly fine for someone to presume it refers to the the other guy.) One could just as easily shift between the two and never finally decide. The term “thieves’ is, for me, way too literal-minded.

All kidding aside, the slogan — “the harder the life, the sweeter the song” — isn’t half bad. There’s a vein of truth in that. Unless, of course, your definition of a hard life is one poisoned by constant slurps of bourbon and 40 to 50 cigarettes daily, which isn’t so much a “hard” life as much as a slow, drawn-out attempt to extinguish life altogether while making difficult if not miserable the lives of family and friends.

As the son of an emotionally curt, often grumpy alcoholic for my first 28 or 29 years of life, I have a certain understanding.

Legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis (a.k.a., “the Prince of Darkness”) is being handed a Lifetime Achievement Award sometime this evening by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — after decades of not honoring the guy. As Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale wrote yesterday, “Very few would argue against Willis being the best American cinematographer to never win an Oscar.” Stu’s piece includes six famous Willis clips, including my favorite — the killing of Fanucci in The Godfather, Part II.

Collapse star/doomsayer Michael C. Ruppert discussed Chris Smith’s film last night (Friday, 11.13) at the Laemmle Sunset 5. He should continue to speak out and play in the band — it’s called multi-tasking.

In his 11.12 “Notes on a Season” column, Pete Hammond reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is premiering a digital restoration of From Here to Eternity (1953) on 11.18 at 7:30 pm in the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre. Which means not just a new DVD but a Bluray will be issued before long. I’m profoundly and eternally queer for any and all Blurays of monochrome classics. (Unless it’s Criterion’s The Third Man, a grainstorm horror.)

Taken in May 2001 at Halona Cove/Blowhole beach on the southeast coast of Oahu, where Eternity director Fred Zinneman shot Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, etc.

The big Nine buzz starts this weekend with the junket screenings, MCN’s David Poland wrote yesterday. (There are two this evening in midtown Manhattan.) He presumably means private buzz. Journos are being asked to pledge (or sign statements) that they won’t write about it until the embargo-release date in early December. Fair enough.

Nine costar Kate Hudson (seated), star Daniel Day Lewis (lighting up)