A just-released official Obama family photograph by Anne Leibovitz, snapped in the White House Green Room on 9.1.09.

A high-resoluton version delivers much better clarity and tonalities than my 460-pixel version.

Everyone had heard or suspected that Mira Nair‘s Amelia would be bad, but I was nonetheless stunned by the boredom and general flatness that leapt — seethed? — out of every scene and frame. Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan‘s script is amazingly drippy and mundane. The roteness of Nair’s direction is suffocating. This is probably the last American-funded directing gig she’ll have in a long time. Put her in movie jail and throw away the key.

Hilaryu Swank, Richard Gere in Mira Nair’s Amelia.

Call it a mildly agreeable time-waster if you want, but if you truly enjoy Amelia or even express a degree of genuine enthusiasm — “Not too bad! Nice aerial photography!” — there’s really something wrong with you. With your taste buds, I mean. Amelia is a film diseased and poisoned and deadened with schmaltz. It’s a major embarassment all around.

Hilary Swank‘s performance as the legendary aviator is mildly okay in itself (it’s mostly about her white teeth) but she’s trapped in a lethally dull film so she goes down with the ship regardless. Richard Gere‘s George Palmer Putnam — the suave money guy who married Earhart — is also mildly acceptable. Ewan McGregor‘s Gene Vidal, an aviation instructor and would-be infidel, reminds you McGregor has a nose for crap and opportunities for career deflation.

How did Fox Searchlight, an operation synonymous with smart classy films and clever, aggressive marketing campaigns, get saddled with this thing?

I heard mild moanings coming from a critic sitting behind me at last Monday’s screening on 55th Street, and I heard at least two throat-clearings from other critics sitting nearby.

The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond recently wrote that “in some ways Amelia is reminiscent of Out Of Africa, which has the same combination of sweep, adventure and romance this film incorporates.” Be careful, Pete! The ghost of Sydney Pollack has read that line and is now on the haunt, looking for you.

Hammond also claimed that “if this were 40, or even 20 years ago, Nair’s meticulously mounted effort would be deemed a front-runner for awards and a certain thing at the box office.” No, it wouldn’t. Dramatic mediocrity has been a recognizable thing for centuries, and no self-respecting Oscar handicapper in the late ’60s or late ’80s would have given Amelia a shot at anything, even out of politeness.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Ray Bennett, who damaged his cred when he raved last year about Mamma Mia, recently claimed that Amelia “ranks with recent real-life portrayals of Ray Charles by Jamie Foxx and Truman Capote by Philip Seymour Hoffman and could be similarly awards-bound.”

Bennett added that “the classically structured bio will appeal to grown-ups, history buffs and lovers of aeronautics, but in showing how the flier was one of the most lauded celebrities of her time, it also might appeal to youngsters.” The mind reels!

The once-legendary Soupy Sales, an immensely likable josher, has died at age 83. This video reminds that the best part of the New York-area Soupy Sales Show (also called Lunch with Soupy Sales) was the offscreen laughter from the crew. Sales’ career peak happened during a live engagement at the Paramount theatre during the 1965 Easter holiday. I’d love to find a YouTube of Frank Sinatra‘s visit to Sales’ show the same year.,

Here’s a tip-of-the-hat to whomever makes the in-flight video programming decisions for Continental Airlines. All airlines program contemporary crap (i.e., Land of the Lost, Transformers 2) but very few include classic films. I’m just saying it was enormously comforting to watch John Ford‘s The Grapes of Wrath and Howard Hawks‘ Bringing Up Baby during Wednesday’s JFK-to-LAX flight. It mitigated an otherwise close-to-hellish experience (i.e., stuck in a cramped seat on a seemingly interminable flight).

Dogwood Entertainment and Freestyle Releasing have pacted on a limited theatrical release of Scott Teems‘ That Evening Sun, which reputedly boasts an award-level performance by Hal Holbrook. Pic will open in New York on 11.6 and in LA on 11.20. Holbrook will reportedly make appear at each theater on the film’s opening nights in New York and Los Angeles.

Variety‘s Joe Leydon has called it “an exceptionally fine example of regional indie filmmaking [that] deserves savvy handling by a venturesome distrib to maximize its potential to attract auds and win prizes. Pic’s major selling point is Holbrook’s career-highlight star turn as an irascible octogenarian farmer who will not go gentle into that good night. But this deliberately paced, richly atmospheric drama also boasts first-rate work by a splendid supporting cast and impressive production values that would pass muster in a much pricier production.”

“As everyone knows before I started making movies I was working in a video store. I made my first movie is ’92…well, ’91. And somebody asked me the question, ‘In 1988, if someone had told you [that] you were going to be getting the Kirk Douglas Excellence in Filmmaking Award, given to you by Kirk Douglas… would you have believed it? And it actually stopped me completely in my tracks on the red carpet. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That would have been unfathomable.”

Diane Kruger, Kirk Douglas, Quentin Tarantino at last night’s Santa Barbara Film Festival presentation of the Kirk Douglas Excellence in Filmmaking Award ceremony.

This was Quentin Tarantino‘s opening remark last night on the occasion of his receiving the KDEIF award in Santa Barbara. He then told a good story about watching a fragment of The Vikings when he was six years old (i.e., the part when Tony Curtis kills Douglas with a broken sword) and then watching Spartacus a few months later and figuring it was the same film, etc. (Watch it on the YouTube clip below.)

Tarantino was gracious and amusing and very much the debonair gentleman. Douglas (who will be 93 in December) looked happy. Inglourious Basterds costar Diane Kruger was there. Producer Lawrence Bender was there. Dennis Miller, who charmed the world with his Sonia Sotomayor “La Cucharacha” joke on Bill O’Reilly‘s show a while back, was there.

Ditto Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling (wearing a Brad Pitt/Inglorious Basterds haircut), SBFF publicist Carol Marshall and numerous well-heeled ladies and gents representing the creme de la creme of Santa Barbara society.

It was a black-tie event, and I had flown to California under-prepared. I had my black pants, socks and shoes and a nice tuxedo shirt…but no black suit jacket. So I asked L.A. Times/Envelope columnist Pete Hammond, who was also planning to attend, if I could borrow a black evening jacket, and he obliged. Except Pete’s arms are shorter than mine and my white shirt cuffs were sticking out like crazy. It looked absurd. So I started telling people that short jacket sleeves was a new avant-garde fashion thing.

Another problem was that I was still on my New York clock, plus I made the mistake of accepting two Metropolitans early on. By the time the dinner had been served and eaten and the program began (a span of roughly two hours) I was feeling a little groggy. I had my pen and note pad at the ready but the energy wasn’t there. I felt it best to slip out before the end of the show.

My infinite wisdom led me to decide it would be best to not drive back to Los Angeles with vodka in my bloodstream. I stayed at a Motel 6 in Carpinteria, which has been spiffed up in recent years.

10.22.09, 6:10 pm.

10.22.09, 6:55 pm.

10.22.09, 10:35 pm.

An intriguing similarity between Amelia and Up In The Air has been remarked upon by Eric Kohn in Moving Pictures magazine.

I need to hump it up to Santa Barbara’s Biltmore Hotel tonight for a special fundraiser honoring Quentin Tarantino and Inglourious Basterds. “Why are you going if you’re not a huge fan of Basterds?,” a guy asked me earlier today. Well, I said, because I’ve long enjoyed, savored and respected the Tarantino brand — sometimes less so, sometimes more so, depending. And gatherings like this are as much about honoring the life work of the honoree as the latest film.

The Weinstein Co. obviously wants Basterds to be one of the ten Best Picture nominees and Quentin to land a Best Picture nomination, and tonight’s event is intended to put that notion across. Fine, whatever. They might get there. Being the event whore that I am, I just want to be there and take pictures and bask in the glare.

Everyone remembers the concept of dog or cat heaven from childhood. Toddlers needed to be comforted about the death of Fido or Snickers, and from this the theological concept of separate heavens for each and every animal species was born and passed along by parents. It follows, of course, that if dogs have their own heavenly realm then there must also be an ant heaven and a mosquito heaven — a place in the clouds in which triillions upon trillions of ants and mosquitoes fly around with little insect angel wings.

Not to mention snake heaven, wildbeest heaven, bird heaven, giraffe heaven, grasshopper heaven, pelican heaven, trout heaven, worm heaven…the list is infinite.

Strict conservative constructionists will tell you that God doesn’t love lower animal species as much as he loves homo sapiens and therefore they don’t rate a heaven. When they’re dead, they’re dead as a blackened remnant of a leaf floating up and away from a bonfire. That’s arrogance, of course. The mind of God is so vast and dazzling and exquisitely perfect that if He/She even deigned to consider which life forms deserved to peacefully frolic in some spiritually serene after-life realm, He/She would surely regard all of creation as one unified and equal-opportunity symphony with one species singled out above all the others because of a semi-developed brainpan and the ability to speak and write and make movies like 2012, G.I. Joe and Transformers 2.

Either ants, dogs and giraffes go to heaven along with humans when they die, or we’re all equally mulch with no choir, no clouds, no Robin Williams walking around with his dog, no Joe Pendleton looking to play quarterback for a team that’s going to the Superbowl, and no Jack Dawson waiting at the top of the grand staircase of the Titanic.

If Warner Home Video’s new North by Northwest Bluray has a kick-around issue, it’s the somewhat darker tones. I chose these comparisons (lifted from DVD Beaver’s NXNW page) because the 2004 DVD seems to deliver a more naturally-lighted version of what an agricultural area in southern Illinois might look like. (Yes, I know — the crop-duster scene was actually shot somewhere around Bakersfield.)

Frame capture from Warner Home Video’s forthcoming North by Northwest Bluray.

From WHV’s 2004 DVD.

What does it say about the state of U.S. culture (or at least the Los Angeles version of it, which is generally thought to be more scattered fizz-pop ADD than in other regions of the country) that Ennio Moricone‘s “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” concert at the Hollywood Bowl, scheduled for Sunday, 8.25) has been cancelled. My assumption is that this happened due to lousy ticket sales. If so then woe unto thee, O Hollywood Babylon — you have sinned a great sin against the Movie Godz.

Ennio Morricone

Morricone, the winner of a 2007 honorary Oscar in 2007, would have conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Angeles Chorale playing excerpts from his four-decade career in the movie business. Has this ever happened to John Williams? I kinda doubt it. Or James Horner?

“I don’t know who the handlers are, ” Envelope contributor Pete Hammond says. “The event kind of came into town recently…not more than three weeks ago. This is kind of a drastic thing to do. I don’t know if this was due to disappointing ticket, but if it is this is really a pathetic statement about Los Angeles movie culture.”

Solution: Morricone’s handlers need to arrange for an alternative venue at Royce Hall or wherever, or even a free concert in a park somewhere. The hell with ticket sales. This is shameful. The man needs to play his stuff and the right people need to hear it, and Los Angeles needs to nurture its movie-loving soul. Who are we if someone like Morricone can’t find a decent-sized audience?

“If there’s a Precious backlash — ‘if,’ I say — it’s due to the oppressively ugly, emotionally sadistic vibe generated by Mo’Nique‘s ‘mom from hell’ character. It’s a movie about compassion and, at the end, a ray or two of light breaking through the clouds, but the cruelty we are obliged to endure (along with poor Gabby, of course) is quite awful. Mo’Nique sells malicious monsterhood like a champ. So if — IF — there’s a certain hesitancy or resistance to Precious, it’s that.”

This was my response when The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil e-mailed me yesterday about “the shocking omission of Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire from the list of Gotham Awards nominees,” and particularly about the

alleged Precious backlash that N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick wrote about on 10.20.

Here’s Lumenick’s followup piece.