December 10, 2003

Morning…

You can expect to see both Roger Friedman’s embargo-breaking comments on Cold Mountain today, as well as Jeffrey Wells’ agreed release of a review. My comments will have to wait for Friday, as I return to the film on Thursday. Better thorough than sorry.

The next phase of the MCN 100 was published last night and there wasn’t much of a change in the consensus. The Lord of the Rings started creeping up in various categories as people started seeing it in greater numbers, with Peter Jackson leaping into the 4-spot in Best Director. The battle on the top of a number of categories is between Lost in Translation and Mystic River. We’ll see whether awards groups remain as committed as this group. The widest margin at the top of a category is for Capturing the Friedmans, which has more than double the votes than its next closest competitor, The Fog Of War.

There will also be a new Oscar column up at MCN today, a day early.

I caught the first two hours of the new Battlestar Galactica… somehow I craved TV candy instead of the meat of Angels in America, which I also have Tivoed. Pretty damned good. There are a lot of young Canadian actors on the show, which was clearly shot north of the border. But one jumped out at me and I can’t completely explain why. A guy named Aaron Douglas, who seems to quite often play large men in Hollywood films that shoot up there, is playing a Chief Petty Officer. He somehow combines average looks, size and an underlying earnestness that I think is going to turn into a real career for this guy. Just one of those feelings.

The Los Angeles Film Critics decided, via e-mail, to revive their awards for this year. They will not vote this weekend when they meet, but they will decide when they will vote, where they will gather to celebrate and what kind of event they will have. If the group actually pushed their vote into the new year, the screener ban will have the coincidental benefit of putting one major group’s awards voting where it belongs… late enough to see all the movies. That is the point, isn’t it?

READER OF THE DAY: About albinos, WHIP IT GOOD writes: “OK, but what about the albino heroine of Girl With the Pearl Earring. It all balances out, you know.”

NOT DENIRO writes: “That'll just be a warmup for next year, when The DaVinci Code hits screens.

I thought we'd be hearing more about Monster than we are. You've tapped Charlize for the gold man in your column and a friend of mine who works for a studio with a pic in the Oscar horserace agrees that Theron's a lock, but I guess I thought I'd be hearing more about that at this stage of the game. Ebert gave the pic some national TV platform on Sunday, so perhaps word will begin to trickle out...assuming anyone can possibly hear it, given the Lord of the Rings and Cold Mountain onslaught to come.

Also, I thought Miramax would be doing more to position City of God for a run in some categories. Not sure if the screener imbroglio got in the way of their plans or if Weinstein's bluster at Cannes was just cover, but wasn't it understood that they held off on a home video release because they were going to mount a fourth-quarter theatrical re-release campaign? (And I don't count the Arclight-Music Hall 2-for-1 runs as a "re-release campaign.") Hell, they shoulda scheduled the home video release for November and used that home-video-as-Oscar campaign tactic you're so fond of exposing. :)

The seven best scripted movies of the year that I've seen, based on the art, are, in alpha order: American Splendor, City of God (not eligible for Best Picture), Dirty Pretty Things, In America, Lost in Translation, Mystic River, 21 Grams. Honorable mention to The Cooler, Shattered Glass, Finding Nemo and Swimming Pool. Much affection for Frances McDormand's performance in flawed Laurel Canyon and Sayles' flawed but still beautiful Casa de los Babys.

High hopes but dashed by so-so unspoolings: Big Fish, Intolerable Cruelty, The Last Samurai, The Mis-fire...er, The Missing

Painful disappointments: Kill Bill Volume 1, Matrix: Reloaded, Matrix: Revolutions

Haven't seen yet: Return of the King, House of Sand and Fog, Monster, Mona Lisa Smile, The Station Agent, Cold Mountain, Something's Gotta Give, Elephant”

And NOT THE JC writes: “I don't expect this film to get any legitimate Oscar consideration, but next to "Lost in Translation," "All the Real Girls" is the best directed film of the year. Young love is one of the hardest things to dramatize and no one, not even Cameron Crowe in "Say Anything," has made it feel more immediate than David Gordon Greene. His confidence and focus in this film is kind of mind-blowing.”

E ME: You know how.