I’ve lived in Los Angeles since the ’80s, and I’ve never seen a sight quite like this. A friend who lives in Mar Vista says the scent of burnt wood is everywhere. So strong it woke her up, she says.

“If Valkyrie succeeds, even moderately, MGM wins a modicum of credibility in image-is-everything Hollywood,” Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply have written in today’s (11.17) N.Y. Times. “A failure brings fresh sniping that the studio does not know what it is doing, making the job of attracting top-notch talent even harder.

“Financially speaking, the stakes are considerable. With a stated production budget of $75 million — competitors insist it is closer to $90 million — Valkyrie is the most expensive film made for distribution by MGM under Harry Sloan‘s watch. The studio will now spend about $60 million to market the movie — if nothing else, to make the point that it can play in the big leagues.

“(Quantum of Solace was much more costly, but it was co-financed and co-distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The movie sold $70.4 million worth of tickets in North America in its first three days of release, the biggest opening ever for a James Bond film.)

“Valkyrie will also test the mettle of [the film’s star), the 46-year-old Tom Cruise: If it fails, his status as a superstar, damaged by a rough parting with Paramount Pictures in 2006, slips another notch. And this time United Artists — clipped by a Cruise flop last year in Lions for Lambs — slips with it.”

Articles like this one are not going to stop, and the only way for MGM to spin things in a more favorable direction is to show it to select journalists and perhaps assemble a few positive reactions. In today’s environment, of course, it’s presumed by most marketers that once you screen a high-profile film the word will seep out no matter who promises what or how trustworthy they are.

But right now, and especially in the wake of Barnes and Cieply’s article, there’s probably more upside to showing Valkyrie and, let’s face it, a likely continuation of more downside whispering if they keep it hidden.

A week ago I was sent an e-mail detailing the Che release plan and passed it along. Most of the information was correct but the part about Guerilla (i.e., part 2) being released on 2.20.09 wasn’t. If IFC had simply launched a Che website all ambiguity would be removed. If such a site exists it’s a well-kept secret. In any event here’s the correct info:

The full-length roadshow version Che (composed of Che, Part 1:The Argentine and Che, Part 2: Guerilla) will be released as a special one-week event on 12.12.08 in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theater and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. (Had that right.) Che will re-open on January 9th in New York and Los Angeles as two separate admissions. A national rollout will follow to the top 25 markets on January 16th and 22nd with further expansions planned. The two parts will be released simultaneously in each market.

On January 21, IFC will also make the separate parts available on IFC In Theaters, its video-on-demand platform. The two parts will be available in 50 million homes nationwide on all major cable and satellite providers in both standard and high definition versions.

“There are times when the limitations of the printed word come into focus,” writes N.Y. Times columnist David Carr in today’s issue. “Like when there is a need to convey how it sounded when Robert Pattinson, who stars as the vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen in the forthcoming movie Twilight, stepped onto a riser at the King of Prussia Mall outside Philadelphia [last] Thursday evening in front of more than 1,000 mostly teenage girls.”

“In collective pitch, frequency and volume the sound would make a shuttle launching seem demure, a Jack White guitar solo retiring, a jackhammer somehow soothing. To reach into history, it may have approached Beatles-at-Shea-Stadium loud, replete with the weeping, swooning and self-hugging, and only the ambient flutter of cellphone cameras and furious texting by way of modern update. All of it was arrayed over a mostly unknown British actor who plays a character in a movie that will not be released until Friday.

“‘What’s with all the screaming?’ Mr. Pattinson asked when he came out. He absently ran his hand through his hair. Pandemonium ensued. He tugged at his white T-shirt in response, ever so nervously. Oh, boy. Then he laughed good-naturedly at the absurdity of it all. The smile was just a bit too much. A girl in a ‘Team Edward’ shirt fell into the arms of her friend. ‘I can’t stand it!’ she said.”

Indiewire‘s Eugene Hernandez wrote this morning that last weekend he “had a private talk with LA Film Fest director Rich Raddon, a Mormon member of the film community” (and, of course, director of the L.A. Film Festival) “who was drawn into the spotlight late last week after it was revealed that he donated $1500 to the campaign in support of California Prop 8” — the measure that banned gay marriage.

A rally for marriage equality in New York City two days ago. (Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE)

“Rich is a longtime friend within the film community and I agreed to speak with him off the record,” Hernandez writes, “so I can’t detail the substance of our conversation. However, I can relate that he is in the midst of a painful and emotional process as his personal and professional worlds collide rather publicly.” No shit?

“During our talk, I expressed my own disgust over the tactics of his church and reiterated how offensive the campaign against equality is to so many people, especially within the film community. Raddon is already hearing this first hand from many people around him, so I also listened carefully as he expressed his own hope that the goals of both sides can be achieved peacefully and harmoniously going forward.”

I agree with producer Christine Vacchon‘s statement to Hernandez that “it’s fucked up when the left starts acting like the right.” Hernandez also quotes Vacchon’s Facebook statement, which she posted last Friday night: “I wish Rich Raddon did not support prop 8 — but he is entitled to his opinion and he’s entitled to put his money where his mouth is.”

“‘Where do you draw the line?'” Vachon added, “decrying a ‘witch hunt’ and rhetorically wondering whether all employees would be vetted for their political beliefs.”

But what exactly is Raddon envisioning when he says that “the goals of both sides can be achieved peacefully and harmoniously going forward”? To have supported Proposition 8 is to have supported bigotry — no ifs, ands or buts. Raddon is obviously entitled to stand by his convictions, and I suppose that letting this one pass and turning the other cheek is in keeping with the spirit of Barack Obama.

But would Vacchon be saying “too bad but comme ci comme ca” if Raddon had given $1500 to a more universally (i.e., more widely understood) heinous cause? Indeed — where do you draw the line?

Obama-Lincoln or Obama-FDR? I’m sensing that he’ll turn out to be some kind of hybrid of the two. Here’s hoping, at least. Most semi-educated people out there (who may or may not constitute more than 50% of the over-18s) as well as those who read weekly news magazines (which is what,10% or 15%…if that?) probably prefer the former. BHO’s giving the absolutely traitorous Joe Lieberman a pass is one indication of a Lincoln-esque temperament. Personally I’m more of a send- your-enemy-a-dead-fish-wrapped-in-a-newspaper kind of guy. I realize Obama’s way is probably wiser and more productive.

The current covers of Newsweek and Time.

“The theme of Obama’s Inauguration is taken from a line in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: ‘A New Birth of Freedom,'” the Newsweek story reads at one point. “Asked in January by CBS anchor Katie Couric which book, aside from the Bible, he would find essential in the Oval Office, Obama answered, “Team of Rivals.” Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s 2005 bestseller recounts how Lincoln surrounded himself with advisers who were better educated and more experienced and who made no secret of coveting Lincoln’s job.

“Goodwin, who has spoken with Obama about her book, thinks he has absorbed the deeper meaning of Lincoln’s leadership style. ‘I think he’s got a temperamental set of qualities that have some resemblance to Lincoln’s emotional intelligence,’ Goodwin tells Newsweek.”

This is an image from an invite to an 11.20 Los Angeles screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Nice symbolic touch with the reverse-image lettering, although I’m presuming that the schmoes will find it off-putting. Pitt looks like he’s got a 1955 flat-top haircut. I haven’t seen him with this look in any of the Button stills so far. Maybe it’s just a Photoshop issue…please! The combination of Blanchett’s nut-brown hair, crystal-blue eyes and smoothly rounded features is quite fetching.

Dan Mirvish has asked if I saw last Thursday’s N.Y.Times story about the Martin Eisenstadt hoax that he and Spirit Award nominee Eitan Gorlin (’02’s The Holy Land, which won Slamdance that year) perpetrated upon the mainstream media by persuading several news orgs that Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent. The answer is that I read the story as well as various reactions to same, but I didn’t get to it quickly enough so I moved on.

“It’s become something of a media firestorm in the last few days,” Dan writes. “It was also on CNN this morning, and I think it’ll be in the Variety weekly that comes out tomorrow. We’ve already gotten one book offer, and two agencies are meeting with us tomorrow. As you can see from the articles, we were using the media/political world to incubate our character Eisenstadt and develop a TV show around him — that, and just poke fun at the punditocracy. (Our faux BBC doc, The Last Republican is essentially a spec pilot).”

Dan suggests I might want to take a look at Eisenstadt’s response to the BBC doc or an episode of the doc where M.E. denies being a hoaxer.

The so-called “restored director’s cut” of Lawrence of Arabia that’s now up and viewable on Hulu doesn’t include Maurice Jarre‘s overture. Which means it’s not the “restored director’s cut.” This is a gross error on Hulu’s part. It makes them look like they don’t have a clue.

All I want for Christmas is the Blu-ray Lawrence, but the work is proceeding very carefully and slowly, I’m told, so we probably won’t see it until 2010. Unless Sony’s home video division decides to delay its release until 2012 so they can call it a “special 50th anniversary collector’s edition.”

HE reader Carl LaFong asks, “Did you see how Hulu breaks to an advertisement just as Lawrence blows out the candle with that landmark cut to the sunrise?” I never got that far into the film. Now I have to watch it again. Has anyone else noticed this and is this in fact the case? If so, it would appear that Hulu has a two-point strategy. One, they’re actively trying to denigrate the Lawrence experience. And two, they’re trying for some reason to convince viewers that they’re morons.

As LaFong writes, “Maybe when Hulu shows 2001: A Space Odyssey they can break to a commercial just as Moonwatcher’s bone falls and jump-cuts into a spacecraft!”

The final official running time for Baz Luhrman‘s Australia (11.26) is 165 minutes. Straight from the horse’s mouth (i.e., 20th Century Fox distribution).

Monday morning update: Two U.S. exhibition sources have told a colleague that Australia‘s running time is 155 minutes, and yet an Australian media source who saw it last night has written to say it’s “definitely” 165 minutes. The confusion will be cleared up soon, as Baz Luhrman‘s film is screening for NY press on Wednesday and Thursday.

Am I wrong in thinking that images of semi-dressed couples in something resembling a sexual embrace have disappeared from movie advertising? When’s the last time a movie poster showed a moderately hot couple lying horizontal and kissing each other with one of them bare-chested? It’s odd to think that 1962 movie posters allowed for juicier images that the ones we have today, but it may be true.