13 February 2001

BEST DIRECTOR – The most talked about thing here is the possible, and deserved, double nod to Steven Soderbergh. The thing everyone fails to point out is that almost every single year there is a Best Picture nominee whose director is not nominated – and therefore, a Best Director nod to a director whose film is not nominated. I guess you'll be able to make some Best Picture guesses from my choices here…

Phillip Kaufman – Quills
*Robert Zemeckis – Cast Away
*Ang Lee - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ridley Scott - Gladiator
*Steven Soderbergh – Traffic

The Others

Stephen Daldry – Billy Elliot
Curtis Hansen - Wonder Boys
Gus Van Sant - Finding Forrester
Julien Schnabel – Before Night Falls
Steven Soderbergh– Erin Brockovich

BEST PICTURE – There could be surprises. I don’t even think there are five front-runners… just four. And only three locks. So, this could be the great part of the morning.

*Cast Away
*Erin Brockovich
*Gladiator
Traffic

The Others –

Almost Famous
Before Night Falls
Billy Elliot
Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Finding Forrester
Quills
Wonder Boys

READER OF THE DAY: Not Chris Walken writes: "David, I see you're in a accommodating mood about De Laurentiis getting the Thalberg.... I think it might be a worthwhile thing if the Academy were to go beyond the mid-level tribute of handing Dino a Thalberg award, and just re-name the award altogether, henceforth calling it the Dino De Laurentiis Producing Award, or a "Dino."  That way various respected high-rollers and fortifiers of cinematic art like Elie Samha and Avi Lerner and (don't laugh) even Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus will someday qualify.  How far removed are these tasteless, opportunistic scumbuckets from the great Dino?  Answer:  they are direct descendants.  If you give Dino a Thalberg, you must also in all fairness consider these gentlemen as well some day.  Providing they survive, of course...time being the true measure of merit.  Those presumably perceptive people of quality and conscience who signed off on Dino getting the Thalberg have one and only one rationale they tell themselves while shaving in the morning and regarding their compromised kissers.  Dino is 80-something and deserves some kind of merit for lasting....he's still alive, and still demonstrating what a low-level cretin he is with his ridiculous remarks.  He therefore deserves a gold-watch award.  Even I can't deny the producer of Mandingo that distinction.

MY RESPONSE: "Dino is fun.  True, Corman deserves the honor more.  But you clearly missed my point. (On purpose?)  Dino is Hollywood.  Dino is a survivor.  And he has made some decent films.  And he has certainly, even amongst the crap, made a lot of films that we all still talk about all the time.  If Golan-Globus had gotten past 15 years to 50, maybe they would have qualified.  But they didn't.  Nor will Avi or Elie.  Nor have his upside descendants Peter Hoffman and Andy Vanja.

I'd love the Thalberg to go to Saul Zaentz every year, but it can't.  For years, they've had to dip into directors who produce (Beatty, Jewison, Eastwood, Lucas, Wilder) in order to even give the award out.  Guys like Spielberg are winning in their 40s because the list is so thin.  Who would you nominate out there?  Christine Vachon would be great.  Joel Silver?  Are you ready for the Thalberg to go to Scott Rudin or Jerry Bruckheimer?  Arnie Kopelson? 

Mike Medavoy.  That's about the only guy who I think deserves it and who isn't under 60 and who hasn't won.  I wouldn't mind Brian Grazer. He's had an honorable career of commerciality and some really good movies. However, by your standards, that would probably be a problem for you.

But you, you are a real snob.  If you were the "man of the people" you seem to think you are, you would relax and have some perspective on DeLaurentiis.  He produced his first movie at 23.  23!!!  He produced 28 movies before he produced La Strada.  (I know, Fellini is a hack!)  Before he produced Nights of Cabria, he did a King Vidor movie (old school), War and Peace with Hepburn and Fonda.  Meanwhile, he was making loads of Italian films with hacks like Di Sica and Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastrianni.  But those don't count for you... they aren't in English.  Oh, when that moron John Huston let De Laurentiis produce The Bible for him... crazy!  Dmytryk, Visconti, Pasolini.... all morons.

But that's the 70 films BEFORE Barbarella, Crazy Joe, The Valachi Papers and The Shootist.  It's certainly before Mandingo, Drum, King Kong, Hurricane and Flash Gordon.  But how do you feel about Ragtime?  How about Conan The Barbarian and its sequel?  How about Blue Velvet?  If you want to blame him for Firestarter, do you give him credit for The Dead Zone?   How about him taking a chance on Cimino when no one else would on Year of the Dragon and Desperate Hours?  You may have hated Body of Evidence, but who took a chance and won on Jon Mostow with Breakdown and then U-571?  What about Altman's Buffalo Bill or Lipstick?

Like I wrote, there are a lot of nasty things that can be said about Dino and his progeny.  But when YOU can make 119 films in your lifetime... when YOU can say you were a career builder for pretty much every Italian director who ever broke big in America with the notable exception of Leone... YOU can get a Thalberg.

I want to thank you.  I was almost as ignorant as you about this man before your thoughtless attack made me investigate a little more.  I was more right than I knew. 

E ME: The column is going to be updated after the nominations are announced. Last chance to tell me I'm wrong!!!!