“This botched remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still seriously dishonors the seriously fine 1951 sci-fi landmark on which it’s based,” says Variety ‘s Todd McCarthy in a review that was posted yesterday morning. “One of the new film’s many sins is its lack of any primal, defining imagery. The script by David Scarpa (The Last Castle) rotely retains key elements from the original without giving them any interesting twists. So many other, potentially more exciting roads could have been taken” — but alas, have not been.

The Day The Earth Stood Still, which opens wide tomorrow, is running at 81, 48 and 25 — decent to pretty good business. Big Hollywood’s Steve Mason foresees $36 million as of Sunday night, but says in the same breath that $100 million domestic is unlikely.

Delgo, which no one knows or cares about, is at 24, 22 and 0. And Nothing Like the Holidays is 52, 30 and 5…modest business.

On 12.19 we’ll see the opening of Gabriele Muccino and Will Smith ‘s Seven Pounds, which is now running at 71, 49 and 8 — kinda low for a Smith movie. Its strongest (and perhaps stronger) competitor is Jim Carrey‘s Yes Man , which is at 79,39 and 8 — except that a comedy is always an easier sell than a drama. Universal’s animated The Tale of Despereaux is running at 56, 29 and 2.

On 12.25 comes Bedtime Stories – 71, 38 and 5. Marley and Me is 76, 35 and 6. Spirit is 43, 34 and 3. Valkyrie is 65, 38 and 6.

The reason Valkyrie is coming out before 12.31, I’m told, is because MGM’s pay TV deal expires with Showtime expires at the end of this year, and they’ve got a less well-paying pay TV deal starting next year. They’re MGM and they don’t have any clout any more, nobody’s giving them any new money but they need to generate money now.

20th Century Fox, a friend tells me, is a pensive, unhappy place to be right now. “Agents all say they’re the studio of last resort, they don’t pay money, and Rupert Murdoch has said they’re all on a lifeboat and there are going to be radical changes there. He’s unhappy, and when he gets this way he fires people.” The friend points out that the contact of Fox president/COO Peter Chernin “has been up for weeks and he still hasn’t renewed it. I think he and [Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman] Tom Rothman might leave.”

“Someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit’s business model, ” N.Y. Times columnist Thomas L. Freidman wrote yesterday. “I don’t know if this alternative to gasoline-powered cars will work, but I do know that it can be done — and Detroit isn’t doing it. And therefore it will be done, and eventually, I bet, it will be done profitably.

“And when it is, our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the personal computer and the internet.”

This is the single best career decision Jennifer Aniston has made since (a) she signed to be on Friends or (b) she posed for that Rolling Stone nude-shot cover way back when. I still have fairly low expectations for her latest films, Marley and Me (20th Century Fox, 12.25) and He’s Just Not That Into You (New Line/Warner Bros. 2.6). Let’s be honest — I probably wouldn’t pay to see them if I wasn’t on the screening lists.

The fourth good thing Aniston done for her career is costar in The Breakup, which gets a little bit better every time I re-watch it. She’s very fine and precise in this; perhaps her best role ever.

“Nobody needs to put these crummy times into perspective by starring into the CGI-enhanced face of Brad Pitt [in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]. I’ve got six friends that have either been laid off or are fearing the year-end axe. They don’t need to cry — they do that on the commute home.

“Pitt has zero serious worries in [his] world. He’s earning $20 million a flick, he gets to bang Angelina whenever the nannies watch the kids, he doesn’t have to worry about making the rent on his French mansion, and he won’t have to break it to the twins that this is going to be a small Christmas.

“Nobody needs a good cry at this moment. We need to feel like we’re not doomed. That someday we won’t have to wonder if playing $10 for a movie ticket is a necessary expense.” — HR reader Joe Corey, posted today.

Stephen Daldry‘s The Reader, a well-made, high-toned Holocaust drama that many critics and smartypants-types have dismissed due to its cool tone and lack of an emotionally cathartic finale, has been included among the five nominees for Best Drama for the Golden Globe awards, which were announced early this morning. What’s this about? Is this a result of Harvey Weinstein having worked the room, leaned on Hollywood Foreign Press voters, etc.? What’s the back-story?

The other four dramatic nominees are David Fincher‘s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ron Howard‘s Frost/Nixon, Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road (yaaay!…finally gets its due!) and Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire. The shafted, elbowed-aside would-be nominees are Milk, Doubt, The Visitor, Gran Torino, Che and Nothing But The Truth.

Happy-Go-Lucky was nonsensically nominated in the Best Comedy/Musical category and WALL*E was among the Best Animated Feature noiminees.

The candidacies of Golden Globe Best Dramatic Actress nominees Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long) and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road) have been literally saved by the HFPA. If they hadn’t been nominated this morning (on top of their being ignored by LAFCA, NYFCC and BFCA) their wattage would have been seriously diminished as far as the SAG Awards and Academy noms would have been concerned.

Rachel Getting Married‘s and Doubt‘s Meryl Streep were also nominated in the Best Dramatic Actress category. Wait a minute — the Globes have blown off Frozen River‘s Melissa Leo ?

Due respect, but Leo’s performance in that little snow-covered, illegal-alien-smuggling movie was a greater, fiercer and more artful emotional-volcano display than what Angelina Jolie delivered in The Changeling — and yet Jolie was Globe-nominated, at least in part because they want her to show up for the ceremony. Ratings be damned — this isn’t right. Jolie did a fine job but shame on the HFPA for dissing Leo. Pick up your torches, cans of lighter fluid and three-pronged pitchforks on the corner of Robertson and Santa Monica starting at 6 pm this evening. Look for a white flatbed truck.

The torches and pitchfork protest will also be about the omission of Revolutionary Road ‘s Michael Shannon from the Best Supporting Actor nominees, and about the mind-blowing, tongue-hanging-out, gah-gah inclusion of Ralph Fiennes ‘s performance in The Duchess — one of the biggest where-the-fuck-did-that-come-from? nominations in Golden Globe history.

I for one am delighted with Tom Cruise being nominated in this category for his maniacal movie-mogul performance in Tropic Thunder — he was extremely funny and deep into the sensibility of a typical killer CEO type — along wth Robert Downey, Jr.‘s turn as Kirk Lazarus, although Downey’s is surely the more widely admired and supported performance in this Ben Stiller film.

The Duchess Best Supporting Actor GG nominee Ralph Fiennes

The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger was also nominated, of course, as was Doubt’s Philllip Seymour Hoffman.

One surprise among the Best Dramatic Actor nominees is Brad Pitt‘s for his work in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He’s just not strong enough in this David Fincher film to warrant an acting nomination. The HFPA just wants him to show up at the ceremony for the sake of ratings. (It would have been fine, however, if they’d nominated Pitt for his Burn After Reading performance…in the Supporting category, of course.)

But the biggest Best Dramatic Actor surprise is the omission The Vistor‘s Richard Jenkins. Why was Jenkins tossed off the boat? Because his attendance at the GG ceremony won’t goose the ratings. And yet, as HE reader Scott Mendelson has put it, The Vistor “is basically a one-man show, for all intents and purposes. The only reason anyone ever talked about it was due to Jenkins’ breakthrough performance.”

Revolutionary Road’‘s Leonardo DiCaprio, dissed and ignored by the critics’ groups so far, finally got a deserved Best Actor nomination. Frost/Nixon ‘s Frank Langella, Milk‘s Sean Penn and The Wrestler s Mickey Rourke were also nominated — all totally expected. The likely winner at this point would seem to be Penn.

The Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical nominees are Burn After Reading (my personal favorite in this category), Happy-Go-Lucky (oppressive happy-Poppy vibes do not in any way make this film a comedy, and it has no music so this categorization is total bullshit), In Bruges (a few laughs, yes, but not that many — it’s hardly comedic), Mamma Mia! (a joke), and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (my second favorite nominee).

Best Actress in a Comedy./Musical Nominees are VCB‘s Rebecca Hall, Happy-Go-Lucky‘s Sally Hawkins, Burn After Reading‘s Frances McDormand, Mamma Mia‘s Meryl Streep and Last Chance Harvey‘s Emma Thompson.

Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical nominees are VCB‘s Javier Bardem , In Bruges‘ Colin Farrell, Pineapple Express ‘s James Franco (my personal choice), In Bruges‘ Brendan Gleeson and Last Chance Harvey‘s Dustin Hoffman.

Forget the Best Animated Feature nominees — WALL*E is going to win it.

The Best Foreign Language Film nominees are The Baader Meinhof Complex, Everlasting Moments, Gomorrah, I’ve Loved You So Long and Waltz With Bashir.

Best Supporting Actress nominees are Doubt‘s Amy Adams, Vicky Cristina Barcelona‘s Penelope Cruz, Doubt‘s Viola Davis, The Wrestler‘s Marisa Tomei and The Reader’s Kate Winslet.

Best Director nominees are Slumdog Millionaire‘s Danny Boyle, The Reader‘s Stephen Daldry, Benjamin Button‘s David Fincher, Frost/Nixon’s Ron Howard, and Revolutionary Road‘s Sam Mendes.

The Best Screenplay nominees are Slumdog‘s Simon Beaufoy, The Reader‘s David Hare, Frost/Nixon‘s Peter Morgan, Benjamin Button’s Eric Roth, and Doubt‘s John Patrick Shanley.

This morning’s Golden Globe nominations need to address — symbolically correct or balance out — some of the omissions in the awards handed out by the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and in the nominations announced by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

I’ve Loved You So Long‘s Kristin Scott Thomas has to be nominated for Best Actress, or else. Kate Winslet has be nominated in that same category for her work in Revolutionary Road, or her candidacy is in very serious trouble. The great Michael Shannon, the live-wire prophet of Revolutionary Road, has to be nominated or Best Supporting Actor or a shouting, torch-carrying mob will congregate outside Hollywood Foreign Press headquarters this evening.

If Josh Brolin is honored by the Globers for his Milk supporting performance as the homicidal Dan White (for which he’s already won trophies from the NYFCC and LAFCA), he’s all but locked to be nominated by the Academy as well. Not just for Milk, I believe, but also for his brilliant and ultimately sympathetic turn as our current president in W.

What other omissions, shortcomings or political teeter-totterers need to be addressed?

I’ve always expressed measured admiration and whole-hog respect for Sally Hawkins ‘ spirited performance in Happy Go Lucky. I’m just asking (and I think it’s fair to at least ask this) — shouldn’t the fact that her Poppy character is infuriating to so many of us (i.e., people with my approximate attitudes and prejudices) be a factor in determining award-worthiness?

The HE mantra isn’t “stop Sally Hawkins” — it’s “love and admire Hawkins, loathe and despise Poppy” (except for the final goodbye scene with Eddie Marsan and the follow-up scene in the rowboat on the lake, which are quite astounding).

Werner Herzog‘s new film, called My Son, My Son, What Have You Done?, stars Michael Shannon, Udo Kier and Willem Dafoe. It begins shooting either later this month or in January for a period, then a hiatus and then a return to shooting in March. Johana Ray and Jenny Jue are casting. Eric Bassett is producing. There’s a 25 year-old supporting female role that they need name value for.

President-elect Barack Obama intends to take the oath of office as Barack Hussein Obama when he’s sworn in on 1.20.09. “I think the tradition is [to] use all three names,” he said in a 12.10 interview with the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune, “and I will follow the tradition, not trying to make a statement one way or the other. I’ll do what everybody else does.”

Of course, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan didn’t use their middle names, and Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald R. Ford used only their middle initials. I for one think that going with Hussein — say it loud, say it proud — is definitely the way to go.

My five favorite Black List titles/synopses, just by the sound and attitude of them: (a) The Beaver by Kyle Killen — “a depressed man finds hope in a beaver puppet that he wears on his hand” (b) The Oranges by Jay Reiss & Ian Helfer — “A man has a romantic relationship with the daughter of a family friend, which turns their lives upside down”; (c) Fuckbuddies by Liz Meriwether — “A guy and a girl struggle to have an exclusively sexual relationship as they both come to realize they want much more”; (d) Winter’s Discontent by Paul Fruchbom — “When Herb Winter’s wife of fifty years dies, the faithful but sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community to start living the swinging single life” and (e) Nowhere Boy by Matt Greenhalgh — “The story of John Lennon‘s rise from lonely, Liverpool teenager to iconic rock star.”

If anyone has any PDFs of these, please send along.