I missed this Bagger announcement last night: “Falling Slowly,” the Once song, is back in the running as a legitimate Best Song contender, having been pronounced eligible and put back on the ballot by the Academy’s music branch executive committee.

Terrific, guys…but why, given the well-known, not-hidden facts about Glenn Hansard having written the song for the film and he and Marketa Irglova recording it only subsequently on two other albums, was there a challenge in the first place?
The deal all along (or so I’ve understood) has been that since Once failed to gather the Best Picture talk it certainly deserved all along, the Best Song Oscar is being seen as not just a fitting tribute for the song (and Glenn-Mar’s touching performing of it), but as a repository of all feelings of respect and affection for the film itself.

Variety critic Robert Koehler and I were having a beer at Joe’s Cafe this evening when a Barcelona-based journalist friend and a significant other dropped by to say hello. I asked the guy if he knew what the Spanish- language title of Woody Allen‘s latest film is. (The English-language title is one of the all-time worst from a significant American filmmaker — Vicky Cristina Barcelona.) His girlfriend/wife said it was Somewhere in Barcelona, or, roughly translated, En algun lugar de Barcelona.

If you’re talking spiritual analogies, Barack Obama is a little more Bobby than Jack Kennedy. In 1968, Of course. And if you really run with that analogy, as a critic friend explained this afternoon, you have to accept that Hillary Clinton is Richard Nixon.

Producer Jonathan Dana‘s “dumb money” assessment of the three-tiered indie-glut scene, passed along to Variety‘s Anne Thompson, is worth a read-through.

In keeping with yesterday’s Ted and Caroline Kennedy endorsements, Barack Obama would do well in Thursday’s Los Angeles debate to deliver a Hillary rip that’s as good as this classic JFK slam against Richard Nixon — something blunt and funny that makes a real bulls-eye point.

A clue about why director Mark Romanek walked away from that $100 million Wolfman shoot, from a very reliable source: “Among other things, the Wolfman script wasn’t ready before the strike began.”

Earlier today N.Y. Times Oscar columnist David Carr (a.k.a., “the Bagger”) came up with a few fresh titles based on the No Country for Old Men acronym (NCFOM). My favorite is No Coin Flip Ordains Mercy. It took me four minutes to come up with my own: Nihilist Crazy Fulfills Oscar Majesty. Others?

“The Guild voters have not been their usual reliable selves in predicting Oscar trends this year, but the membership overlap with the academy is just too overwhelming to ignore the winds that seem to be blowing for the Coens.
“Referring to the critical landslide No Country for Old Men has received as well as the multiple critics awards for SAG’s best actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, and best actress, Julie Christie, one wag said, ‘The critics groups [seemed] to hijack the Oscars this year with their own picks.’ If this is the way the Oscars also are headed, it would be hard to argue the substantial influence critics are having on the race this season — more than ever.” — from Envelope columnist Pete Hammond‘s latest bang-out (dated 1.28).

The best explanation of last night’s alleged SOTU snub that I’ve read or heard so far, voiced by Barack Obama campaign chief David Axelrod

The less money you have to work with, the more visually creative you’re forced to be. (And vice versa.) And yet Mark Romanek (One-Hour Photo) recently walked off Universal’s The Wolfman (i.e., the Benicio del Toro vehicle) because, according to a Nikki Finke item, “He’s a purist, an artiste, an exquisite craftsman, but he just had a budget schedule” — a reported $100 million — “he couldn’t accomodate…he just blew the opportunity of a lifetime.” This doesn’t add up at all. Nobody’s consumed by that much hubris…are they?

Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir (whose last name I’ve never learned how to pronounce…do you say it like Chicago’s O’Hare airport?) has an indie-film column on Salon.com called “Beyond the Multiplex”, and today he has an interview with 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days director Cristian Mungiu, along with an mp3 interview that won’t load.

Why couldn’t I stop myself from chuckling while reading this 1.29 N.Y. Post story (by Jamie Schram and Dan Mangan) about some douchebag who scammed and hoodwinked several people (including Tom Cruise) by pretending to be Kim Ledger, the grief-struck father of Heath Ledger? Using the cloak of tragedy to exploit people’s emotions (and to attempt to scam free death-swag) is beyond foul, and yet a good con man will never let a thing like decency stand in the way. It’s so outrageous it’s almost a movie — The Wake Crasher.