Profile of an eternal lightweight…a guy with not even a trickle running through him, much less a river.

No question that the Criterion Collection’s high-def transfer of Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar 1966) is one of the most beautiful ever seen. But I don’t get the website claim that says the image is “presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1.” Looks more like 1.75 to 1 to me, and damn close to 1.85 to 1. Consider the shot below (top) of the opening image from Warner Home Video’s DVD of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, as it appears on my own TV. This, according to the info provided by WHV, is a 1.66 to 1 image, and my trained eyes have understood the same for years. The bottom shot is from Criterion’s Balthazar disc, and if you look back and forth between the two, you’ll notice the Lyndon is a little bit taller. How can these two differ if Criterion and Warner Home Video say they’re both 1.66 to 1?

Running Scared‘s Paul Walker, who acted in Clint Eastwood‘s Flags of Our Fathers last year, says, “I grew up on Eastwood [but] I was afraid that I was going to be completely let down. I’d heard nothing but good things about him, but I guess I’m a bit cynical. Like, who’s going to talk trash about Clint Eastwood? I mean, c’mon, the guy’s on top of his game right now, you have no choice but to say you like him. But you know, he is a good guy. He’s not real wordy. He’s not the kind of guy that likes to waste his breath. But when he opens his mouth, everyone’s hanging on his every word.” — from a profile by the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Stephen Rea.

I spoke to Lamont Johnson a few minutes ago, and he says the cut of The Last American Hero that Pauline Kael saw and reviewed back in early ’73 ran “10 or 12 minutes” longer than the 95-minute version of the current Fox Home Video DVD. He doesn’t know if the longer version exists anywhere, but his agent might.

Prosecutors are squeezing “Hollywood superlawyer” Bert Fields with “evidence” against Fields and/or his partners regarding arrangements Fields may have made with Anthony Pellicano that may have involved illegal wiretapping, according to a N.Y. Times story by David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner. They want him to spill, of course. The net is closing. Perspiration beads are forming.

Yesterday morning’s projection about Madea’s Family Reunion was accurate: Box Office Mojo is estimating that Tyler Perry‘s film will finish the weekend with $30.3 million. And that Frank Marshall‘s Eight Below, an inoffensively decent dog movie, will earn $15.7 million for a cume of $45.1 million, and that Shawn Levy‘s The Pink Panther…forget it.

Marc Weingarten‘s N.Y. Times article about Lamont Johnson‘s The Last American Hero being revived as a DVD release 33 years after being dumped, re-cut and then re-released by 20th Century Fox in 1973 is an okay recap, but it leaves out a significant detail. He reports that while Johnson was out of the country following the film’s initial release, “Fox made a number of edits [and] renamed the movie Hard Driver and released it in a few theaters in the South in spring 1973.” Then Pauline Kael wrote “a glowing review for The New Yorker,” saying that The Last American Hero “isn’t about stock-car racing, any more than The Hustler was only about shooting pool” and pleaded with “someone in the head office at Fox” to restore the cuts. Fox ignored her request and “viewers still won’t get to see Mr. Johnson’s cut” on the DVD, Weingarten reports. Fox Home Video spokesperson Steven Feldstein tells Weingarten, “We made an effort to stay true to the theatrical release.” Spoken like a typical corporate stooge. (When I called Feldstein out of the blue last summer and asked about the chances of Hero being released on DVD, he said, “This is ours? It’s a Fox movie?”) The question Weingarten doesn’t even ask, much less attempt to answer, is whether Johnson’s original cut still exists in some form. If a print of this version exists, wouldn’t it be worth the effort to try and restore it before it’s too late? As Johnson tells Weingarten, The Last American Hero experience “remains one of the best times I ever had making a film, and one of the worst experiences I had working with a studio.”

Don Knotts‘ N.Y. Times obit says he was one of the original cast members of “The Steve Allen Show,” the comedy-variety show from the mid to late ’50’s, and was one of a group of memorable comics backing Mr. Allen.” But it says nothing about Knotts’ “Mr. Morrison” character, and not getting into this a little is like writing a Lana Turner obit without mentioning William Wilkerson and Schwab’s drug store. On the Museum of TV Broadcasting site, it says that “Allen’s man-in-the-street interview segments launched the careers of comedians Bill Dana, Pat Harrington, Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Don Knotts. Probably the best remembered character was the nervous Mr. Morrison portrayed by Knotts. Often Morrison’s initials were related to his occupation. On one segment he was introduced as K.B. Morrison whose job in a munitions factory was to place the pins in hand grenades. When asked what the initials stood for, Knotts replied, ‘Ka-boom!’ Invariably Allen would ask Morrison if he was nervous and always got the hyper-fast ‘No!!’ reply.

“I would love to see Robert Altman take the stage at the Oscars next Sunday and give this speech: ‘I thank Hollywood and The Academy for absolutely nothing, and I dedicate this award to Ingmar Berman, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles and Frederico Fellini — all of whom, like myself, succeeded primarily outside the Hollywood circle, and have never been recognized by the Academy for any achievement whatsoever.’ Then he would leave the Oscar on the podium as he walks off the stage.” — a reader identified as “III Rathbun.” (In fact, Welles shared the Best Original Screenplay Oscar with Herman J. Mankiewicz for Citizen Kane, and Kubrick won a Best Visual Effects Oscar in ’69 for 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

I heard Darren McGavin died early today, but the big news sites weren’t on it. The IMDB still doesn’t have it as I write this at 8:45 pm on Saturday. It was only Ain’t It Cool News, and apologies to Harry but I didn’t quite feel safe. So I called McGavin’s son Beau and his daughter Graemme (whom I’ve known pretty well since ’82) and nothing. Then Beau just called back and confirmed. Very sorry. A memorial service is set for Sunday, March 5, at Hollywood Forever.

A smart and funny N.Y. Times piece by Allison Hope Weiner on the tribal customs of Oscar partying. I’ve been given a very hard time by dates in the past for not introducing them at parties when I’m speaking to some big-name actor or director or studio guy (they’re right — it’s a bit thoughtless), but Weiner’s first rule of Oscar party etiquette (“an oxymoron,” someone says) is “IF YOU’RE SOMEONE’S DATE, DON’T EXPECT TO BE INTRODUCED.” She says that “no one cares about spouses, relatives and arm-candy at Hollywood parties. You could be a Nobel laureate, but if you’re a plus-one during Oscar week, no one will want to meet you. And your significant other probably won’t introduce you. Don’t take it personally.”

Poor Daniel Craig, whom the old-line fans despise for having been cast as James Bond in the currently-shooting Casino Royale, is getting more support, this time from
Die Another Day villain Toby Stephens who calls hiring Craig to play 007 “inspired” and says he takes the character “back to its roots.” Craig is “a serious actor and doesn’t look like a traditional Bond,” said Stephens. “He’s a very dark actor and a very interesting one, and I think he will be brilliant. It will reinvigorate the whole thing. It is not going to be to everyone’s taste but that is the thing when you take over a role…you are not going to please everyone.” Pierce Brosnan is also calling Craig “a very fine actor,” adding that “these are rocky waters and [anti-Craig contingent is] going to get him one way or another, but I think he will have the last laugh at the end of it.”