How come the only time the internet seems to confuse the studios is when it’s time to pay the writers for it? A short video brief starring Bob Iger, Sumner Redstone, Ben Silverman, Rupert Murdoch and Les Moonves. (Originally posted 11.12.07.)

(In honor of the the limited opening of Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There, a repeat run of my 9.11 Toronto Film Festival review): Anyone who says this isn’t an essential film to see — not just for the portions that “deliver” but the ones that are radiantly, eye-poppingly alive — is operating without the DNA of a true movie lover…it’s that simple. This is a great poetry-weave film, a reanimation of ’60s spiritual-cultural energy like no feature I can recall, and a magnificent head-tease that is always arresting, even during the fumble portions.

It’s not all-the-way fantastic (20% or 30% drags and meanders and sometimes confounds), but I’m saying for sure that you can’t not see it. You can blow it off when it opens theatrically and wait for the DVD, sure, but this will probably incur the suspicion of trusted friends and colleagues. Honestly, do you want that?

I knew Haynes had taken a huge bite going in with this ultra-ambitious patchwork exploration of Bob Dylan‘s life and legend (spanning from the late ’50s to late ’60s), in which he uses six different actors (Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw) along with numerous styles and palettes to convey various aspects.

What I didn’t anticipate was his impressive use of montage that ties together the various strands and makes a kind of harmony out of what could have been serious chaos. Nor did I expect the magnificent detail in each frame, the always-brisk pacing and the sheer “fun” aspect.

An example of the latter is a Dylan-frolics-with-the-Beatles-in-”64 moment that’s absolutely hilarious in a kind of of Jacques Tati-meets-Charlie Chaplin-meets A Hard Day’s Night sense.

Did I mention this is Haynes’ absolute best film? That he’s pulled off one of the most exciting growth-surge displays of any directorial career, ever?

I’d heard from a friend at Telluride that I’m Not There is “an inside joke for Dylanologists” and okay, yeah, it is that…but for anyone open to full-crank cinematic stimulation it’s one of the most inventive and dazzling head-trip films I’ve ever seen. I went into it this afternoon with some trepidation, and then realized within minutes it would be much, much better than anticipated. It doesn’t really have much of a “thread” (by the classic definition of that term) and it loses tension from time to time, but when it’s “on” and rolling full steam it’s a wild-ass thing to behold.

On top of which it has to be seen for Blanchett’s knockout performance (captured entirely in black and white) as the Highway 61 Revisited/Blonde on Blonde Dylan. Forget Cate’s game performance in the catastrophic Elizabeth: The Golden Age and absolutely count on the fact that she’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Haynes pic. Dylan fans are going to be blown away, but I can see others digging it as one of the best woman-playing-a man tour de forces ever put to film.

On one level her inhabiting of the ’65-to-’66 Dylan doesn’t feel entirely sincere — it’s a piece of performance art that feels a wee bit put-onny — but another level it’s psychologically “real” and shattering. For me Blanchett delivers as much of a knockout punch as Marion Cotillard‘s Edith Piaf does in La Vie en Rose or Jamie Foxx did in Ray, and perhaps even more so.

I’m speaking about much more than a physical capturing — the frizzy big hair, black shades, tight pants, Beatle boots and whatnot — or Blanchett’s spot-on imitation of his mumbly voice and guarded manner. I’m talking mainly about a convincing communion with that Dylan-esque otherness…that sense of odd, connected whimsy and all-knowing, tapped-in power that indicated all kinds of fascinating currents in the real guy.

Yes, the Gere-in-the-country portion (a chapter evoking the reclusive John Wesley Harding/New Morning era) slows things down a bit, but even this section has its odd carnival-like charms. I’ll admit I was feeling a wee bit anxious and impatient, but Haynes saves it somewhat by cutting back to the Blanchett, Ledger, Bale and Whishaw portions now and then and thereby creating a welcome whatever-ness that at least staves off boredom.

Will those who’ve never listened to a Dylan album or seen Martin Scorsese‘s masterful No Direction Home be able to get into this film? Probably not, but the Dylan-deprived aren’t going to see it in the first place so the question is moot.

I felt alive and tingly as I walked down Bloor Street after seeing this film early this afternoon. I was saying to myself “this is what it feels like to feel charged up by a movie, by transcendent thought, by ravishing lyrics…by the whole magilla.”

Frank Darabont‘s The Mist is a moderately cool little film during the first act when none of the characters knows what’s happening, when all they know is that the heavy mist — call it thick fog — enveloping their small town is a bringer of something wicked. But once it moves out of Twilight Zone territory and becomes a slimey-ass monster film, forget it. That’s all you need to hear.

David Fincher‘s Zodiac “is another movie that isn’t gaining Oscar momentum,” writes Variety‘s Anne Thompson. One reason this hasn’t happened is that good journalists like Thompson have been dismissing its Oscar chances all along. She acknowledges it was “well-reviewed last summer” (despite having opened last March) and that “many critics may include it on their ten-bests,” but says “its time has come and gone.”

Thompson is probably right, but I take no satisfaction in admitting this. If this racket has taught us anything, it’s that conventional industry wisdom is truly the poison mist floating across the lake. Besides, Zodiac isn’t “done” the way Thompson says it is. It’s back on the stove and the water is heating up. The director’s cut DVD has been sent out, Fincher will be doing a q & a following an 11.29 Variety Arclight screening of this, and Paramount is paying for trade and online ads here and there. If enough people jump in, the ball could stay in the air.

Thompson and others have written it off because it “was an expensive big-budget studio failure,” it doesn’t unfold according to the rules of your father’s police procedural, and because hunt-for-a-serial-killer movies, even art-film variations like Zodiac, don’t seem deep or moving enough to qualify as Oscar bait.

None of these observations consider what some regard as a simple fact and others as a growing realization, which is that Zodiac is the Best Film of 2007. I for one have begun to believe it is that, and it only took me seven months to get there.

Thompson says Zodiac “is indulgently long,” which it emphatically is not. Given the hall-of-mirrrors, obsession-within-an-obsession scheme, it could actually stand to be a bit longer.

“Fincher’s insistence on verisimilitude meant not giving viewers a satisfying narrative arc,” Anne writes. Wrong again. Zodiac has an immensely satisfying arc according to its own termite-art rules. It operates on such a profoundly original high-altitude plane that even I didn’t really understand what it was finally up to until I’d seen it the second time. (Or was it the third?)

“The movie has its merits — hell, it will be on my ten best list — but an Oscar contender needs to have enthusiastic supporters, few detractors and a passionate push behind it,” Thompson concludes. “It needs confidence, and Zodiac has too many deficits.”

And by this logic, it is implied, astute industry watchers would do well to get off the Zodiac train and start facing the fact that truly valuable and timeless contenders like Juno are the ones with a real shot at making Oscar history. Good. Fucking. God.

Peter Yates‘ The Friends of Eddie Coyle (’73), still unavailable on DVD, is playing tonight and tomorrow at the Brattle theatre in Cambridge as part of a “Boston Filmed” series. I’ve heard about that bootleg version that’s been mastered from an old VHS tape, but who in their right mind would want to watch such a thing?

The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond is reporting that Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There didn’t play very well with a smallish Academy group. The Bob Dylan epic “lived up to its title and gathered a much smaller academy group that saw a few walkouts,” he writes, “according to two members who were both unimpressed — even by Cate Blanchett‘s bravura supporting turn as one of six Dylans.

“‘I think the only people who will like this thing are the ones who love this guy’s music,” one academy voter told Hammond. Once again, obiter dicta — “this guy’s music” — has revealed a bit more than intended.

Academy members are not obliged to worship, like or even admire I’m Not There, but Academy slugs like the person quoted above are an embarassment. More than that — they’re an obstruction. They cheapen and devalue movie culture by dismissing rich, valuable films, not out of conviction or distaste but impatient sloth. Like an ADD-afflicted child might toss aside a toy or video game, or the way my father — a shadow of the man he used to be — dismisses new writers and movies because he doesn’t care to get into anything new. The mind-blowing element is that Dylan is ancient history and the person quoted above still regards him askance.

What a revoltin’ development that all this Oscar season energy and passion and promotion being focused on trying to second-guess the opinions of people like this. The colors and currents of the world streaming into our souls through esprit du cinema, and yet many handicappers will only talk up the Oscar potential of films that have the approval of obviously stunted people — folks who’ve worked long and hard and distinguished themselves in this or that way over the course of their lives, but are alive and engaged right now only in the barest sense.

Just acknowledging what I’ve failed to point out (despite everyone else having done so), which is that Michael Clayton will probably break even — made for $20 million (George Clooney took nothing), now at $37,181,284, will hit $40 million — so that early rap of being a financial under-performer that was slung around its neck for a few weeks doesn’t apply. For a smart, mildly grim, somewhat challenging film about corporate lawyers pulling this and that string, that’s an accomplishment.

Pete Hammond has written about having done a recent post-screening q & a with Clooney, and quotes him as saying he “made slightly more [for Clayton] than I did on Return of the Killer Tomatoes, but not much.”

I’ve never felt that Clayton is Best Picture material. It’s a very smart, complex adult drama. It played for me a little better the second time than the first, and it’s been building ever since. I wouldn’t argue against Tony Gilroy‘s film if someone were to say to me, “No, it’s sublime! It’s one of the top five!” I would just say “yeah, I love it too, but do you honestly feel it’s on the same level as Zodiac or There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men or I’m Not There?” But I wouldn’t argue against it.

Choosing big-category favorites each week for the weekly Envelope Oscar prognosticator chart is not something I look forward to. I sit there and I choose, but it’s like throwing darts. It feels vaguely irritating because I can’t quite give myself over to saying this film or that performance is “better.” Something’s not kicking in. All I’m certain of is that I don’t like the idea of choosing a comfort-blanket movie for Best Picture simply because it’s soothes, caresses and reassures.

The aroma, the prevailing winds and the dandelion pollen hall have all but convinced me that Charlie Wilson’s War and Sweeney Todd are out of the Best Picture race. I know without question that the top seven “best of the best” are American Gangster, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country for Old Men, Once, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Things We Lost in the Fire and Zodiac.

And right behind these are I’m Not There, Atonement , The Bourne Ultimatum, Control, In The Valley of Elah (the rough-cut version minus the Annie Lennox song) and Ratatouile.

A relaxed, amusing and wide-open Charlie Rose sit-down with Joel and Ethan Coen, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin.

I was talking with Bardem, Miramax chief Daniel Battsek and some others associated with the film at the No Country party during the Toronto Film Festival, and Bardem said at one point, “We are all very lucky.” And I was immediately struck by his perfect delivery of this line. Not in a champagne-toasting, smiling, cheers-around-the-room sort of way, but with an air of relaxation and matter-of-fact acknowledgement. He wasn’t saying that good fortune was rote — he was smiling and he meant it — but he wasn’t making a huge deal out of it either.

Make a really good film that everyone loves and, of course, you’re very lucky, but we’re all luckier than we care to acknowledge. Right?

We all know how how some tunes seep in at odd moments — most often in the car — and sometimes hang around longer than you might expect. Some never leave. It’s strange how this one has sunk in since first hearing it a year or two ago. It has something to do with the no-discernible-lyrics aspect (due to that ancient backwards-tape trick of 35 or 40 years ago) and the way it all comes together at the very end (which, in this case, is the very beginning). On top of which susceptibility increases around the holidays. We all listen to music a bit more when things slow down. Happy Turkey McNuggets.

90% agreement on this Oscar-race thought from Jamie Stuart: “I’m just thinking about the ubiquitous Oscar blogging, and various ideas of what is and isn’t an Oscar film. There are four movies this year that will one day be recognized as classics that will not win Best Picture: No Country for Old Men, I’m Not There, Zodiac and There Will Be Blood.

“Only one of thse may be nominated, at best. Something to think about. 35 years ago they’d all have been nominated.” Exception: I’m not sure that There Will Be Blood would have ever been nominated, even in the early ’70s, and I’m not sure about I’m Not There either.

I’d love to get into Denzel Washington‘s The Great Debaters, which I saw this evening, but it’s early yet. Discussions and terms await. But it’s essential to mention Nate Parker, who plays one of three African-American debaters (the other two played by Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker) from Wiley College in 1935 who wound up debating the Harvard University team, under the guidance of Washington’s Melvin B. Tolson.

Nate Parker

I’ve never seen Parker before, but he’s got it. He’s charismatic, good-looking…a “tan” Paul Newman (as Newman was in The Young Philadelphians) who looks people in the eye cool and steady, and perhaps has a slight weakness for women.

Parker has only been in the game since ’04. He’s acted only on TV and in crappy movies so far. (I missed his supporting performance in Pride, the swim-team sports movie with Terrence Howard and Bernie Mac that opened last March.) Worse, his next two are low-rent exploitation films — Tunnel Rats (directed by — yipes! — Uwe Boll) and Felon. The Great Debaters is Parker’s first and only A-level effort. He needs to build on it and move in another direction, or in five years he’ll be Dorian Harewood. It’s his call.

All I know is, Parker has a quality, a presence, a vibe. He could be another Denzel. A small group I spoke with after tonight’s screening agreed on this point, or at least that he’s Newman-esque. It’ll be intriguing to see what happens.