It’s safe to say that Variety‘s Derek Elley has problems with Woody Allen‘s way with earthy British dialogue — the Cockney accents and what Elley claims is a generally irritating-to-British-ears quality — in Cassandra’s Dream (Weinstein Co., 11.30), which has just played the Venice Film Festival.

But the most startling observation is that this supposedly super-dark drama — debt, murder, self-destruction and a femme fatale straight out of the Jane Greer handbook — is “actually a low-key, bumpy black comedy.” There’s no indication of this at all in the trailer, of course, but then trailers always lie.

The drama costars Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell,Tom Wilkinson, Hayley Atwell and Sally Hawkins

I’m just starting to come out of denial and face the distinct possibility that it’ll be the deeply divisive and (in some redneck quarters) deeply loathed Hilary Clinton vs. the eccentric Rudolph Giuliani (Vanity Fair‘s Michael Wolff says there’s reason to regard him as an out-and-out whackjob) in the ’08 Presidential race.

This, at least, is what’s indicated in a late August Gallup phone survey that was conducted, according to the N.Y. Times, from 8.23 to 8.26. Putting aside my Barack Obama loyalties, I’m more or less fine with Clinton on her own terms. But the lunchbucket rurals truly despise her, or so I’m given to believe. I read a piece yesterday (or the day before) that claimed some Democratic legislators up for reelection next year are terrified about how Clinton’s coattails may affect their chances.

How is it and why is it that Clinton is now (according to Gallup) beating Obama among Democratic voters by a nearly two-to-one margin — 48% to 25%? Because of that bullshit cheap shot she threw at Obama that implied he would talk to guys like Hugo Chavez without the usual advance diplomatic spade work? Because women are behind her because she’s a woman and it’s time to assert gender politics in a seismic way? Because Obama is African-American (which, of course, no one will ever cop to)?

Something’s strange here…off. Obama is the brilliant and charismatic “right now” guy — a man in his ’40s, almost a GenXer — who brings vision and practical-mind- edness to the table and who isn’t tied into decades-old battles and resentments and histories. And yet Hilary — a brittle, occasionally snippy, over-scripted boomer who brings along truckloads of poisonous baggage left over from the ’90s and Bill Clinton‘s Presidency — is way in front. Why isn’t the race closer?

In an ideal world it would be Obama or John Edwards vs. Fred Thompson. I don’t agree with Thompson’s right-wing beliefs and alliances plus he’s looking a bit old and crotchety these days, but he’s an urbane and witty guy who knows acting and the movie business, and he can feign a Bubba pickup-truck attitude at the drop of a hat.

The most crowd-pleasing film of the Telluride Film Festival so far, reports EW Popwatch blogger Chris Willman, is Jason Reitman‘s Juno (which will also plays Toronto). “Everyone’s always ready for a laugh at these things, so that’s not surprising,” Willman rationalizes. Wait…he’s saying it’s insubstantial?

Ellen Page, Michael Cera in Juno; director Jason Reitman

Deadline pressure kept Willman from mentioning Juno, however, in the body of his second Telluride report. He has, however, given a thumbs-up to Tamara Jenkins‘ The Savages (in my opinion a sharply written, very well acted family drama that may fizzle with audiences because of Phillip Bosco‘s bellowing, all-too-real performance of an old man suffering from dementia) and Sean Penn‘s longish, in-and-out Into The Wild (which is nonetheless Penn’s finest film ever). It’s a thumbs down, however, for Brian DePalma‘s Redacted.

“Everybody’s dying up in the Colorado mountains right now,” he begins. “Although mostly just on-screen. The altitude only makes Telluride Film Festival-goers feel like they’re about to expire as they huff and puff and sprint between four, five or six screenings a day. But the second and third days of this year’s Telluride Film Festival have found an even greater abundance of cinematic terminal cases than usual.

There’s a good chance you already know what kind of protracted and inglorious end meets the solitary mountain man of Into the Wild, Sean Penn‘s highly anticipated adaptation of Jon Krakauer‘s non-fiction bestseller. Julian Schnabel‘s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is based on a well-known memoir by a French magazine editor who became paralyzed and dictated the book by blinking his one good eye; the movie version has been expanded to include the real-life protagonist’s eventual death.

“On the fictional side, Rails and Ties, the directorial debut of Alison Eastwood (Clint’s daughter), has Kevin Bacon shutting down emotionally as he deals with the terminal cancer of his wife, played by Marcia Gay Harden. And in The Savages, Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman struggle with finding a nursery home for their dad (Bosco), who’s suffering from dementia and probably dying of Parkinson’s disease.

“But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the wonderful mountain scenery?”

Please, God…don’t give the 2007 Best Picture Oscar to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Not because it doesn’t deserve the honor (I’ve seen nothing, know nothing) but because of that atrocious, calcified coffee-table book title. It sounds like a PBS documentary with a fund-drive during the intermission. Ask yourself, readership: if you were Shekhar Kapur and feeling wonderful about having directed a real, full-hearted “movie” that was also a stirring historical drama about Queen Elizabeth (who reigned from 1558 to 1603) with the great Cate Blanchett in the lead role, would you want it to be called “Name, Colon, Bland Allusion to Rich Cultural Era in 16th Century England“?

I somehow missed Ramin Setoodeh‘s 8.29 Newsweek story about the “awkward situation” faced by Fox Searchlight in the selling of The Darjeeling Limited (opening 9.29) in the wake of last weekend’s suicide attempt by costar Owen Wilson.

“If Wilson skips the normal pre-opening publicity duties, journalists will likely become obsessed with his condition — and virtually ignore the movie itself,” Setoodeh surmises. “If he does submit to interviews, journalists will likely become obsessed with his condition — and virtually ignore the movie itself.”

Correction: this syndrome — ignoring the film, feeding off a near-tragedy — will most likely only kick in among empty, parasitic, rancid-soul slimeball journalists who have possibly themselves flirted with suicide.

Movie Marketing Madness blogger Chris Thilk disagrees. “This is going to have a tremendous impact on the film’s marketing,” he telles Newsweek. “If you take Wilson out of the mix, it’s not just the loss of a leading man, it would severely impact the movie’s brand identity.”

“Those of us who weren’t crazy about Crash thought it reduced each of its dozens of characters to one small virtue and big flaw. In In The Valley of Elah, Haggis is more open to his characters’ drives and demons.

“The good guys, the ones so well played by Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon, have nuances worth noting; and even the ones capable of committing the most heinous crimes seem like decent people to whom some awful thing happened. (Special mention to Wes Chatham, who could be Matt Damon‘s younger, cuter brother, as a soldier testifying to Hank about the killing.)

“The combination of dedicated actors and a superior script helps make Elah a far more satisfying film than Crash.” — Time critic Richard Corliss in a 9.1.07 piece, “Iraq War Films Focus on Soldiers,” filed from the Venice Film Festival.

Thompson on Hollywood‘s Peter Debruge has linked to a post on a Paul Thomas Anderson fan site that was written by a projectionist who frequents a forum called film-tech.com, and from this has glommed the technical details from a print of There Will be Blood. The aspect ratio is 2.39:1 (the standard Scope aspect ratio isn’t 2.35 to 1?) and it’s 8 reels long, which indicates a running time in the vicinity of 160 minutes, give or take. The average 2 hour movie is about 6 reels, or 20 minutes a reel.

There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson prior to Friday night’s Telluride Film Festival showing of 20-minute reel from his forthcoming film. [Photo snagged from Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth.]

I’ve amended my Best Picture Oscar Balloon list down to eight — American Gangster (Universal Pictures); Atonement (Focus Features); Charlie Wilson’s War (Universal Pictures); Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Universal Pictures); No Country for Old Men (Miramax); Sweeney Todd (Dreamworks SKG) and There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage).

It’s no secret that violent movies about angry, vengeful men tend to be dismissed or undervalued by older, stodgier Academy members, so if this prejudice holds the odds (obviously a spitball calculation made from a long distance away) don’t seem to favor American Gangster (although a friend who’s seen it believes it has the makings and the moxie to go all the way), No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood. The music of Stephen Sondheim mitigates Sweeney Todd, I realize, but combine those throat sittings with the visual fetish tendencies of Tim Burton and you’re looking at possible recoils.

Barring a surprise electrical jolt from one of the unseen above or some out-of-the- blue Million Dollar Baby-type entry, that leaves three finalists — Atonement, Charlie Wilson’s War and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. A lavish British period romance with strong performances and great tracking shots, a feel-good ’80s political drama of redemption about a small group of wily Americans doing the right thing (also with strong performances), and a period costumer with presumably fine acting, high political intrigue and battle scenes.

I’ve been fighting a feeling about this situation for the last two or three days, which is that I’m not personally happy with it.

I’ve read Charlie Wilson’s War and have been told that its a strong and satisfying piece. We’ll know the truth about Atonement when it plays Toronto next week and some real Americans with no cousins in England have a look at it. And Elizabeth: The Golden Age has had Oscar written all over it for months. And yet once again the softest, safest and most upbeat-sounding contenders are deemed the favorites because the Academy likes soft (but not too soft), safe (as long as there’s a fair portion of smarts and edge) and upbeat (as long as it’s not too gooey or homilistic).

The other two contenders may be American Gangster and…I don’t want to say. If I could wave a magic wand and put No Country for Old Men in as contender #5, I would, but I fear too many people are going to take it as crime movie about a good old cowboy on the run with some ill-gotten drug money and a creep lugging around a device that shoot-slams metal pellets into people’s heads. Some might get what it’s really about — the simple basic decency of the past giving way to an oncoming indecent present — but not enough, I fear.

I hope I’m wrong. Please God…step in and do the right thing. And please don’t give the ’07 Best Picture Oscar to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Not because it doesn’t deserve the honor (I’ve seen nothing, know nothing) but because of that atrocious coffee-table title. It sounds like a PBS documentary. Ask yourself, readership: if you were directing and feeling wonderful about making a real, full-hearted “movie” that was also a stirring historical drama about Queen Elizabeth (whose reign lasted from 1558 to 1603) with the great Cate Blanchett, would you want it to be called “Name, Colon, Bland Allusion to Rich Cultural Era in 16th Century England”?

Peter Howell‘s annual Toronto Film Festival buzz piece went up yesterday, proving once again that handicappers are always fallible and are sometimes ill-informed.

Example #1: The highest vote-getter — Ang Lee‘s Lust, Caution — has been losing steam since Variety‘s Derek Elley gave it a stiff whack across the chops (“too much caution and too little lust”) at the Venice Film Festival last Thursday. Example #2: Anne Brodie, daily film columnist for MSN/Sympatico, describes The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford as “testosterone-heavy.” It’s mainly about guys and definitely has a supply of the stuff, but if there was ever a western that isn’t “heavy” with testosterone, it’s this one.

I make at least one embarassing prediction each every year, and it’s starting to sound like this year’s HE wrongo, to judge by reactions from a friend at Telluride as well as MCN’s David Poland), was picking Noah Baumbach‘s Margot at the Wedding.

Former HE columnist Pablo Villaca, the Brazil-based editor of Cinema em Cena, told me with a couple of days ago that he “almost died in August” but is now back from the abyss and euphoric for that simple fact.

“After spending almost the whole month in the hospital and going through two major abdominal surgeries, I’m finally home and recuperating. I lost more than one meter of my colon and another 10 centimeters of my intestine, but I’m alive. They suspected I had cancer, but the biopsy showed that was not the case. I had complications from the first surgery and had to go through another one and it was a close call. But thanks to God, the modern medicine and the competence of my doctors, I’m still here.

“And it’s a great feeling. Value your health, my friend. Most of the time, we only remember how important it is when it’s gone.” Cheers to Pablo and the benefits of modern medicine…onward!

I need to put this the right way, which is to say not too definitively or emphatically. But over the last two days I’ve heard from two second-hand sources (one of them having direct access to someone close to the action) that there’s concern — a moderate term that doesn’t mean panic or alarm — about the emerging shape of Robert Redford‘s Lions for Lambs (MGM/United Artists, 11.9).

It’s not so much advance-word terms like “dull” and “pedantic” — there are always people with agendas who will tell you this or that film isn’t working, particularly around this time of year — as much as a report that “an editing team has been brought in to fix it.” One of the editors is long-time veteran Paul Hirsch (Ray, Mission: Impossible, The Empire Strikes Back).

Redford is known to be exacting and methodical (polite terms for “slow”) in the cutting room, and he’s been working with highly respected editor Joe Hutshing (who won Best Editing Oscars for Born on the Fourth of July and JFK) so there’s no reason to think anything might be amiss in the skill and vision departments.

If the “fix-it” editing team info is true (I trust the source), the most likely scenario is that Cruise-Wagner and Redford are at odds over certain aspects of the film and that the UA chiefs have pulled rank. Redford is a tough hombre and doesn’t back off (a key ingredient with any strong director), but Lions for Lambs is the first picture out of the gate from United Artists and there’s a lot riding on it, especially with the heat on Cruise (who plays a right-wing Senator in Lambs) having dimin- ished over the last couple of years.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that things won’t pan out in the end. Disagreements about final refinements to a film are part of the natural creative fiction, and there’s no question that Cruise, Wagner and Redford are smart, shrewd players who know from quality.

I’ve never read Matthew Michael Carnahan‘s script — an apparently Babel-like piece about a California professor (Redford) and his influence over two students (Derek Luke, Michael Pena) and how their fates (as well as a third Redford student, played by Andrew Garfield) are affected in some way by a “bombshell story” given by a high-powered Senator (Cruise) to a seasoned Washington, D.C., journalist (Meryl Streep) — but it’s hard to imagine it not being an above-average work, given the pedigree of the players.

Lions for Lambs is going to play the AFI Film Festival on 11.1.

N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply on studio chiefs like Paramount’s Brad Grey hanging onto their jobs because their bosses have come to value “stability over brilliance” because “the film business [has come to be] less about scoring the odd hit than keeping the pipeline full of something other than losers.” Isn’t that always the way? The dutiful stable dolt always seems to last longer in a given job than the brilliant erratic eccentric, especially in a doltish business environment.