A little voice told me a few days ago that David Poland would do an au contraire on David Fincher‘s Zodiac. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. He didn’t get United 93 either, which also favors a particular atmospheric realism in place of conventional plotting and clear-cut thematic delivery with a red bow on it. The man who loved Quills, Finding Forrester, Munich and Dreamgirls tends to miss films that don’t fulfill certain dramatic or structural criteria that he carries around in his head (where’s the ending? too long! too Pakula!) and which have a way of seeping into your consciousness rather than putting on a suite and tie and knocking on the front door and saying, “Hi, I’m a really smart movie that’s saying something plain and true that you can’t miss…may I come in?”

There are several bootleg African Queen DVDs on Amazon, all of apparently inferior quality. (Or so I’ve read on message boards.) I don’t know who owns the right to this classic film in North America, and I don’t know if the owner has managed a restoration of any kind (which I’m told would be costly), but a first-rate, Criterion-level, beaucoup- bells-and-whistles two-disc set is obviously overdue. I’d plunk down $20 or $30 for a copy the first day. If I couldn’t wangle a freebie, I mean.

I wrote DVD Newsletter‘s Doug Pratt and here’s what he said: “I believe it is still a Fox title and I imagine restoring the source material to presentable condition is an expensive endeavor, though as a result it is one of the few remaining significant titles that is not yet available. Actually, it may not still be under Fox’s control, since it was originally one of those independent production/United Artists distribu- tion deals where the producers retained a lot of the rights. Someone holding out for the best deal, plus the daunting expense of the restoration, could also be a factor in the delay.”

What a trip it would be to see this 1951 Technicolor beauty in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Some of the location footage in The African Queen looks faded and grainy, like it was shot on a hand-cranked 16mm Bell and Howell, but the sound-stage stuff is almost psychedelic in its lusciousness. You could take a bath in it.

And please, when the DVD finally happens, no matting of the image. The film was shot in full-frame 1.33 to 1. It should ideally be presented in a windowbox aspect ratio (i.e., thin black bars on the sides to give the image the perfect boxy shape), which is the only true-blue way of showing pre-1952 Academy 1.33 to 1 films.

The Toronto Star‘s Pete Howell got out his Blackberry and wrote his Ghost Rider review straight from the theatre last night. “It’s a process I call BlackBerry Spanking, although this time I actually gave more than one star,” he writes. “Ghost Rider actually gets 2-1/2 stars on account being smart enough to know it’s stupid.

“As eternal damnation goes, it’s a toss-up for Nicolas Cage,” his review begins. “Would he rather face the razzing until Doomsday he’s going to endure for dressing up in a bear costume to play a psycho cop in last year’s The Wicker Man remake (get that Razzie Award ready!) or would he rather be Satan’s errand boy until hell freezes over?

“I’m guessing he chooses door No. 2, as seen in his new film Ghost Rider. It’s all comic book stuff. And besides, his career couldn’t possibly slide any deeper into the flames. Cage’s human character is weirder than his skeletal one. He chugs jelly beans out of a martini glass, talks to himself in the mirror and listens to The Carpenters on his home stereo

“But damned if this one shouldn’t make your so-bad-it’s-good list — especially when Wes Bentley shows up as a bad Elvis impersonator from Hell whom Ghost Rider has to send to Heartbreak Hotel. Cage has finally found a movie where it’s okay to chew the scenery — or even to set it on fire. A Ghost Rider franchise beckons. And with the lovely Eva Mendes by his side, a romantic spin-off: Beauty and the Briquette.”

“There are tons of people [who] hate me and hate my movies. But hey, my movies have made a lot of money, two-something billion dollars. That’s a lot of tickets. They said that I wrecked cinema. They said that I cut too fast and now you see it in movies everywhere. It’s easy to bash a movie but until they know hard it is to actually make one. Do I take pride in people knowing my style? I think it’s nice people know a director has a style. And you can reinvent yourself too.” — Michael Bay talking to MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz about Transformers.

I couldn’t find enough Academy people to talk about who’s going to win Best Picture, but…but nothing. Nobody knows anything and that includes me. If anyone’s predicting anything, they’re saying it’s Babel because (a) it has the highest number of prestige nominations (i.e., seven), (b) because the lack of both a directing and an editing nomination for Little Miss Sunshine suggests a Best Picture weakness, and (c) because the ceremonial Martin Scorsese Best Director bequeathing is considered sufficient for The Departed.

Variety critic Todd McCarthy has suggested that the key target audience for Zack Snyder‘s 300 (Warner Bros., 3.9) may be a bit broader than just your standard comic-book geek-fanboy action crowd. Warner Bros. would do well, he’s essentially saying, to launch a concurrent ad campaign with The Advocate and other gay-friendly publications.

“Possibly nowhere outside of gay porn have so many broad shoulders, bulging biceps and ripped torsos been seen onscreen as in 300,” McCarthy writes, adding that this “will generate a certain bonus audience of its own. It’s not even certain Steve Reeves, the original Hercules, would have made the grade here. But then, this is Sparta, the Greek city-state where boys were separated from their families at age 7 to undergo years of training to forge a population of soldiers unmatched in strength, bravery and bloodlust.”

Right after the words “at age 7” I was expecting to read “and soon after had to be separated from older males with a crowbar” but nope.

The question, of course, is who’s the main closet case among the 300 auteurs? Snyder is the easiest guy to point to, but what about Frank Miller? What other films have been marketed as action-genre films aimed at straight males but in fact had a simultaneous homoerotic appeal to gays? Spartacus was the first sword- and-sandal pic to tap into this (47 years ago!) with the “snails and oysters” scene between Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis.

N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick has just posted a link to the first Ghost Rider review, run by the Providence Journal. It’s a somewhat negative take from L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss, although he commends Nic Cage for giving “a full-blown oddball performance…more Vampire’s Kiss than National Treasure..a witty/nutso acting experiment from beginning to end.” Strauss’s review apparently wasn’t supposed to surface until 1 a.m, or eight and a half hours from now. Big deal. As if reviews matter.

I could get back into running dialogue quizzes with sound files. I quit doing it before because I couldn’t hack transcribing the dialogue and then having to format it. Here’s the first one — I’ve made it deliberately easy. It won’t stay this way.

Chris Cooper‘s diseased military dad in American Beauty was acid-intense, his Oscar-winning role in Adaptation was puckish and surly in all kinds of infectious ways, and his Alvin Dewey portrayal in Capote felt completely authentic. But his Breach performance as real-life FBI agent Robert Hanssen, a traitor who sold secrets to the Soviets for more than a dozen years, may be the most fascinating thing he’s ever done.

It sure felt that way to me during Tuesday night’s screening at Mann’s Chinese. Cooper takes a twisted uptight wackjob and turns him into a total “ride.” I was utterly riveted by his rigid, glaring eyes and the way his FBI-man air of impenetrability occasionally dissolves into faint twitchiness.

Cooper “carries himself with a rod-stiff posture and beetlelike precision, his face wrinkled into a permanent scowl and his voice lowered into a disagreeable bark,” writes L.A. Weekly critic Scott Foundas. “A dyed-in-the-wool agency man and devout Opus Dei Catholic, Hanssen devotes himself to work, family and God with the same ascetic rigor, sinning by night and begging forgiveness by day.

“And Cooper is the kind of actor who gets so deeply under the skin of a character that you stop thinking about a performer in a role and instead see only Hanssen and the high drama he was playing out for the better part of his career. Here is one of the best American actors in one of his best parts.”

The news about Aaron Eckhart playing Harvey Dent/Two Face in Chris Nolan‘s The Dark Knight has me hyperventilating. Tommy Lee Jones played the character in the reviled Batman Forever. Pic will see the return of Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman. And of course, Heath Ledger will play the Joker.

The Harvey Dent casting was probably sealed when Eckhardt (r.) posed with Gina Gershon and director-writer Neil Labute at the relatively recent Three Amigos party.

Amazing — Sony Pictures is actually doing something to help get the word out on Mike Binder‘s Reign Over Me (Columbia, 3.23.07).

“Maybe next year only 75% of the contending films will hire the Dart Group, suddenly aware that only Cynthia Swartz‘s favorite (Crash, The Queen) will actually get a Best Picture nod out of the hire. Maybe Tony Angellotti will get a reputation for good-mouthing movies. Perhaps Michele Robertson will have a karma reversal, though I don’t know why she would. Maybe Terry Press will be the hot new consultant in town, a Jet to the Dartees’ Sharks. Could Lisa Taback push Harvey or Sony back into the Oscar winner’s circle? Perhaps Karen Fried will see what it’s like when Focus actually has a movie that could work. Could Murray Weissman, Ronni Chasen and Nadia Bronson do anything but keep delivering for their myriad clients? Will Block-Korenbrot and MPRM and BWR merge to make MMBBRKWRR?” — from David Poland‘s latest Oscar assessment column/chart, Poland’s reiterating his animus toward Tony Angelotti, whom I regard as one of the most reasonable and fair-minded Oscar strategists around (i.e., given what the game is and the way you need to play it), is strange.