The Reeler‘s Stu Van Airsdale, on fire after his Chinese paparazzi run-in two or three weeks ago, bitch-slapped director Michael Haneke following a screening of his original 1997 version of Funny Games (which Maneke has remade in English for Warner Independent) at the kick-off of MoMA’s Modern Mondays program.

“Haneke loves to think of himself as a master manipulator,” Van Airsdale writes. “But adherence to convention is not the same thing as smugness, which is why Funny Games‘ climactic upshot — wife Anna (Susanne Lothar) steals a gun and blows one of her assailants away, only to have the survivor grab the VCR remote control, rewind the film, anticipate the coup and wrest the firearm away — is such a gross betrayal. Almost to the end of his grueling psychological horror film, Haneke introduces a time machine.

“In fairness, the MoMA audience clapped in support of her attack, and the filmmaker got the sense of deflation he wanted after its sudden reversal. But this isn’t exactly a spiritual precedent to the paralyzing movie-within-a-movie in [Haneke’s] Code Unknown, or the surveillance-cum-class war propelling Cache. Instead it’s the cheapest, most embarrassing technical stunt of Haneke’s career.”

In a Youth Without Youth-promoting interview with GQ magazine, director Francis Coppola has trashed (in a non-vicious, somewhat distant, we-used-to-be-friends sort of way) Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson for not being hungry enough.

How does an artist stay hungry and keep the creative fires burning? Two years ago Coppola told GQ’s Jeff Gordinier that “few filmmakers who become known for some great work do work later on in life that equals it. And why? Partly because everyone has a certain thing that they can do, and after they express it, unless they’re William Shakespeare or Akira Kurosawa, it’s not easy to reinvent yourself.”

Speaking of De Niro, Pacino and Nicholson in the current issue, Coppola says, “I don’t know what any of them want anymore. I don’t know that they want the same things. Pacino always wanted to do theater … (He) will say, ‘Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York, and I’m never going to go to L.A.,’ but they all live off the fat of the land.

“I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don’t think Jack would. Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he’s a little bit like (Marlon) Brando, except Brando went through some tough times. I guess they don’t want to do it anymore.

“You know, even in those days, after The Godfather, I didn’t feel that those actors were ready to say, ‘Let’s do something else really ambitious.’ A guy like (38-year-old No Country for Old Men star) Javier Bardem is excited to do something good: ‘Let me do this’ or ‘I’ll put stuff in my mouth, change my appearance.’ I don’t feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys, because if it was there, they would do it.”

Control‘s Sam Riley having won the Chicago Film Festival‘s Silver Hugo Best Actor award tells us three things. One, there are others besides myself who believe Riley’s performance as Ian Curtis is not just phenomenal but award- worthy. Two, Chicago Film Festival voters are clearly too eccentric to influence industry thinking about ’07’s Best Actor finalists. And three, this “Chicago flake” factor will allow the Gurus of Gold and Envelope prognosticators to continue saying, “It’s very nice that you admire Sam Riley’s acting, Jeff, but c’mon, get real…we’re talking likely winners here.”

Control director Anton Corbijn, star Sam Riley in Toronto last month.

If a performance like Riley’s is imbued with that special something (which it obviously is), nothing else should matter. Certainly not at this stage of the game. The only reason people are saying “Riley’s too new” or “he’s not a serious contender” is because the Weinstein Co. is seen as a precarious player these days and particularly because they’re not spending big money to support Control and its makers.

Being new to the business doesn’t matter if there’s money behind you. Did people say 45 years ago, “Forget Peter O’Toole as a Best Actor contender for his Lawrence of Arabia performance…he’s too young and too unknown”? No, and the reason they didn’t is because Columbia Pictures was behind the Oscar campaign big-time, and so the industry sat up and showed obeisance before power and nominated O’Toole. It was that simple, and it’s this simple here and now. Sam Riley is, in a manner of speaking, the wet-behind-the-ears Peter O’Toole of 2007. He just doesn’t have big-studio pockets backing him up. That’s the only real difference.

On top of which is my old saw about there being plenty of time to play the status-quo Oscar prediction game after Thanksgiving. Now is the time for prognosticators to stand up for people who deserve the awards-consideration attention. Right now, I say to hell with the Academy fuddy-duds. Wave away all those people who “don’t know who Joy Division was and who will never see this movie.”

If I were king with dictatorial powers I would have all the Academy know-nothings identified and marginalized, if not expelled. Every organization is only as brave and vibrant and visionary as the amount of deadweight in its midst. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Purge the slackers and deadheads and the fog will lift.

The Chicago Film Festival website says the fest ends tonight (10.17), but the festival awards were announced last Sunday (10.14) on Michael Phillips‘ Talking Pictures blog/column, which is found on the Chicago Tribune site, and yesterday on Adam Fendelman‘s HollywoodChicago site.

“In another sign that kudos campaigns are getting innovative in a jam-packed season, 6,000 Oscar voters will receive a screener of DreamWorks-Paramount’s Things We Lost in the Fire on Friday — the same day the film opens in theaters,” reports Variety‘s Pamela McLintock.

“Par will also send screeners of the director’s cut of Zodiac, helmed by David Fincher, to the Producers Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, instead of the official release version. Move reps the first time Par has sent out a director’s cut.

“The day-and-date mailing of Fire is unprecedented at this time of year. Traditionally, studios like to wait a month or two after films’ autumn bows to issue screeners.”

This November cover of Radar doesn’t strike me as all that outrageous. The suggested comfort or at least familiarity between Hillary and Rudy says something (I think) about under-the-skin allegiances, “all politics is local” or something along those lines. If Hilary looked this fetching in reality, the election picture (along with the easily manipulated allegiances of fellows like myself) would be, I suspect, reconfigured to some degree. “Who would Jesus vote for?” the small headline reads. I’ll tell you who Jesus would vote for. Jesus would vote for Dennis Kucinich.

“Furthering the influence of the internet on filmmaking in the 21st century, Juno has hyper-thought cleverness and the distinct personality of voice that comes from the personal blogging set. It’s the first LiveJournal or Blogger film.

“Under the razor-thin direction of Jason Reitman, Juno — unlike Hot Rod or Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters — is a pure movie. It dispenses any obtuseness and has the instincts of an audience-pleaser.

“Where an average movie about pregnancy turns its water-breaking scene into a dramatic, third-act starter (which even Knocked Up did), this film’s screenplay (scribed by hilarious blogger and memoirist Diablo Cody) has its eponymous character signal everyone in the house with a pop-culture reference: ‘Thunderbirds are go!'” — from a review by HollywoodChicago‘s Austin-based Shane Hazen.

Hollywood producers this morning withdrew their inflammatory proposal to eliminate residuals, which was the biggest sticking point in the three-month-old, going-nowhere negotiations between the cruel, selfish suits and the riff-raffy Writers Guild. Now there’s a decent chance of reaching some kind of accord before November 1st. AMPTP honcho J. Nicholas Counter III told the N.Y. Times‘ Michael Cieiply that “we now expect the W.G.A. leadership to get down to the business at hand and do what it takes to reach a new labor agreement.” So Terry George…thoughts?

Dylan Baker, 48, is one of our very best character actors. He’s performed in 79 features, TV movies and series episodes over the last 20 years. I’ve greatly enjoyed his performances in The Road to Perdition, Thirteen Days and Happiness, but the best thing he’s ever given the world has been “Owen,” the tobacco-spittin’ hayseed in Planes Trains and Automobiles, which was only his second acting job.

Can someone explain why the new double-disc DVD of Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining, which comes out on 10.23, runs 119 minutes while the old 2001 single- disc DVD runs 143 minutes? The film’s IMDB page says the running time is 119 minutes” but also that the “normal USA version” runs 143 minutes. I’m confused. What’s going on?

On top of which the 2001 DVD was presented in 1.33 to 1 (in line with Kubrick’s vision, I love all that extra head space) and the new double-disc version is matted at 1.78 to 1.

The film’s IMDB page also notes that the “original” version — the one with the final scene in the hospital between Shelly Duvall and Barry Nelson — ran 146 minutes. I saw this version at a plush Warner Bros. screening room in Manhattan a few weeks before it opened. Kubrick cut it out after some complaints came in.

This, according to a Mammoth Advertising announcement, is the official one-sheet for Julian Schnabel‘s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Miramax, 11.30). You’ll have to search long and hard to find a poster that misrepresents the content of a film more flagrantly. That said, I would probably try something like this if I were in charge of Miramax ads. They can’t sell what the film actually is. Like Diving Bell‘s main character, they have no choice but to dream and fantasize.

Despite Schnabel’s rich imagination and a masterful technique, despite Diving Bell‘s longings, passions and immaculate compositions, this is a landmark bummer film — a movie about being paralyzed for life and having nowhere to go or nothing to do except blink your left eyelid.

Give me a loaded .45, please. Take it off safety, place it under my chin and pull the trigger. Sorry for the mess but thank you. Now I can be with the angels.

Schnabel’s sad, bittersweet drama deserves respect. Those who have praised it are not wrong, although I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone could recommend it to a friend without saying, “It’s really great — you get to experience what it’s like to be totally paralyzed for two hours. Naturally, this leads into all sorts of observations about the things that make life joyful, delightful, eternal…worth cherishing. You do have to sit in that French guy’s body for two hours, though. You need to understand that. Clearly.”

It is the lamentable but necessary task of Miramax marketers to obscure this aspect of the film. I don’t blame them for trying. And I hope that people who, unlike myself, have the spiritual constitution to watch Schnabel’s film and truly enjoy it without suffering from a claustrophobic panic attack will check it out. I’m in the minority here, after all. 76% of the Rotten Tomatoes gang has gone for it hook, line and sinker.

This First Assembly of God sign was created by yours truly with an engine provided by Church Sign Generator. The problem is that the template photos aren’t large or dense enough. Either the guys who threw this site together aren’t hip enough to realize this defect, or they’re cheapskates.

I have to see a film at 12 noon…back in the trough by 3 pm or so.