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)

This is a great time for local fans of Italian neo-realism with the ongoing Film Society of Lincoln Center program (now through 11.25) at the Walter Reade, where one of the upcoming films is Vittorio DeSica‘s The Bicycle Thieves. As well as the recent (still current?) booking of DeSica’s The Bicycle Thief at the Lincoln Plaza.

I realize that Gina Lollobrigida first caught on in the early ’50s with two films (also included in the LCFS series) — Attention! Bandits! (’51) and Bread, Love and Dreams (’53). And I enjoyed her in Beat The Devil. But her legend has always rested upon that pagan-cheesecake dance sequence in King Vidor‘s Solomon and Sheba (1959), which is still fairly smoking even by today’s standards. It just hit me that this sequence could be read as a kind of summation of the erotic and atmospheric aspects of the Woodstock Film Festival, complete with thunder and rainshowers.

“I saw Precious last night,” a regionally-based critic friend wrote this morning, “and Mo’Nique is a surefire Oscar nominee.” Probably, I said, but the fact that Mo’Nique plays the devil in that film gives me pause. She’s playing a monster like the Wolfman or Gorgo or Hannibal Lecter, only without Lecter’s charm. Great demonic figure, embrace the great lady, shower her with awards, pop the champagne…yaaay! No offense but I’ll have mineral water.

Steve Mason is reporting that Roland Emmerich‘s 2012 made $25 million yesterday and is looking at a $60 million weekend total. Variety said it might go well over $40 million, and I predicted the high 40s and maybe a nudge over $50 million — and we were both too cautious. Everyone was.

Robert Zemeckis and Jim Carrey‘s A Christmas Carol took in $5.5 million yesterday — a “decent” hold — with an expected $20.4 million weekend tally and a 10-day cume of just under $50 million. The big indie story is Lee Daniels‘ Precious (Lionsgate) taking in $1.75 million yesterday from just 174 screens and a likely $5.3 million by Sunday night, for roughly a $30,000 per screen average.

“I went to sleep dreaming life was beauty — I woke up knowing life was duty.” — written by David Mamet for a 1987 Hill Street Blues episode called “Wasted Weekend.”

I heard the line once during the original broadcast. I watched it from a cool little pre-war studio I was renting at the time, located on High Tower Drive in the old-time Hollywood hills, close to the Hollywood Bowl and just down the street from Elliott Gould‘s deco-moderne Long Goodbye apartment. Reanimator‘s Jeffrey Coombs lived in the same complex.

Late this morning I saw Scott Cooper‘s Crazy Heart (Fox Searchlight, early December) and yeah, Kris Tapley was right — Jeff Bridges is definitely in the Best Actor derby for his performance as a grizzled, pot-bellied, booze-swilling, cigarette-sucking ex-country music legend on the downswirl who just manages to save himself from self-destruction. It’s an honestly scuzzy performance — Bridges’ best since The Big Lebowski but tonally opposite and much harder hitting, of course.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall

It’s the same kind of “look how gross and dessicated I can be” performance that Orson Welles gave in Touch of Evil — and I say that with genuine respect. Bridges really swan-dives into the toilet, you bet. No sweeteners, no movie-star charm moments, no winking…except when he’s on-stage. The fact that he doesn’t seem to be “acting” in the slightest is what makes it great acting. I believed everything he said and did and went through, especially during the wake-up section (i.e., the final 25 or 30 minutes).

Costar Maggie Gyllenhaal could also nudge her way into the Best Actress contenders club, but then she’s always sharp and on-key and totally “there.”

As noted, the only time Bridges’ Bad Blake is “spirited” is when he’s singin’ and playin’. Otherwise he’s a bulky Uriah Heep during a good 75% or 80% of the film. The title of Bruce Beresford‘s Tender Mercies aptly described the story and the tone of that tough little 1983 film, which is similar in many ways to Crazy Heart (boozy broken-down country singer comes back to life through a love affair with a single mom and her son). I don’t know what Crazy Heart is supposed to refer to but it’s not Bridges’ character, I can tell you that. If they wanted to be descriptive they should have called it Boozy Gut, Smokey Lungs, Old Man Beard-o, Dead Man Sweating and Going Down or…whatever, Mr. Emphysema.

Crazy Heart isn’t a country-and-western version of The Wrestler (Hollywood Reporter columnist Stephen Zeitchik is actually the guy who said this) because it doesn’t end on a note of blunt, fuck-all nihilism. It ends with a settled-down, all’s-well epilogue. Which frankly feels tacked on. This isn’t exactly damaging — it’s fairly harmless — but it doesn’t feel like an organic outgrowth of what came before either.

I had a problem with Gyllenhaal’s Jean Craddock, a single mom in her mid 30s, hooking up in a steady way with Bridges’ Blake. Alcoholics can never be trusted to act like adults — they’re basically children — and there’s no reason for a sober, sensible-minded mother with a four-year-old getting serious with a jowly, grungy, cancer-stick addict who’s at least 25 years older than she and basically a disaster-waiting-to-happen. Sooner or later a guy with booze issues (as well a guy in denial about a son that he abandoned in his youth) will endanger her child, and if she doesn’t realize this she doesn’t have my allegiance. It’s just common sense. The only way I would buy her being with Bridges long-term would be if they were both alcoholics. But she’s not so I don’t. Either way Bridges has bigger tits.

I guess I’m saying that as good as Gyllenhaal always is, I wish her character had been a boozer also, as well as a bit fleshier and older herself. Physically she and Bridges just don’t seem like a match. That’s not her fault or his, of course — that’s just me. Me and Cooper, I mean.

Oh, and Duvall! Duvall is solid oak and genuine as hell as a saloon owner and old-time friend of Blake’s. I was soon wishing he had a larger part and more screen time. There’s never been a false moment from this guy. Never has been, never will be.

That scene Duvall had with Steve McQueen in Bullitt 42 years ago was a omen of things to come. Duvall was a San Francisco cab driver, McQueen was in the back, and the cab was idling on California Street. Duvall: “Two.” McQueen: “Two what?” Duvall: “He made two calls. The second one was long distance.” McQueen: “Howdja know it was long distance?” Duvall (irked): “He put a lot of change in!”