Should have put this up earlier today. Speaks for itself. Newman the Great.

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“This looks to be the Citizen Kane of Gen-X marital strife porn.” — HE reader James O. Incandenza wildly speculating about Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road.

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Kim Voynar, late of Cinematical, has signed up with Movie City News as a writer-columnist-editor. Everything Voynar thinks, does, feels, believes in, dreams about, eats, breathes, longs for politically, wants to say and is looking to make happen is henceforth owned by MCN — lock, stock and barrel.

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“Loved you writing about Kristin Scott Thomas, I’ve Loved You So Long and her Best Actress shot,” writes HE reader and Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling. “[But] how come there’s no love for Elsa Zylberstein, a Best Supporting Actress nominee if I ever saw one? Zylberstein is quite a terrific foil to Thomas. It’s through her eyes that we embrace Thomas’ character and stick with her. If this soulful sibling is willing to shelter and care for her, so are we. All the doubts the audience has about Thomas, Elsa believably faces and deals with, and finally she takes us where we dare not go. I think credit is due.”

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I don’t know who wrote this originally, but the spirit and the attitude are quite likable. And it makes sense to impose such terms in any Wall Street bailout deal. Thanks to HE reader Brendan for passing this along:
“Dear Wall Street,
“I’m speaking on behalf of a group called The Taxpayers of the United States. Now that we’ve rejected the first bailout plan, I’m sure that in the spirit of tough, free market capitalism and spirited negotiations, you’ll consider our second offer. Here are some terms that we trust you’ll find reasonable:
“(1) We are willing to loan you money at a very low, introductory rate of 8.9%. If you are even one nanosecond late on your payment, your rate will go from 8.9% to 32.9% — instantly. You will have no right to appeal this. The interest rate increase will be retroactive. And none of this ‘but I mailed it out Friday’ stuff. We...

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“I’m hearing schmaltzy,” a guy told me this morning about Joe Wright‘s The Soloist. That’s all you can share? I wrote back. How schmaltzy? Does it manifest right away, or does it…you know, hold off until Act Two or Three or what? I’m sensing a certain actorishness from Jamie Foxxin the trailer — is that a problem? Don’t tell me Robert Downey, Jr. isn’t good in this because Downey is on a roll and can’t fail.

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Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married (Sony Classics, 10.3) “is endlessly sociable, with people crowding the camera as if in a documentary, yet sometimes you want that camera to draw back and watch them from a distance — to see how they mill around in the frame rather than shifting the frame itself.

“The wedding party is the ultimate guide to Demme’s benign vision: the groom is black, the bride is white, she and her bridesmaids are dressed in saris, nobody so much as mentions race, and the officiating priest is played by Demme’s cousin, Father Robert Castle, about whom he made a fine film, Cousin Bobby, in 1992. I
“I don’t know if there were any Republican voters involved in this movie, but, if so, it...

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The New Yorker‘s Ben Greenman has listed his five scariest movies of all time — Jonathan Demme‘s Silence of the Lambs, Charles Laughton‘s The Night of the Hunter, Wes Craven’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Robert Wise‘s The Body Snatcher and David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive.
These are all gripping portraits of inferno worlds, but big-time scary is always about triggering repressed fears with what you don’t show — with what you set loose in people’s souls by implying the presence of demons.
There was a time when I thought that Wise’s The Haunting (’63), which shows nothing, was perhaps the scariest of all time. I’m not sure now. When I was a kid I used to...

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According to polling data on Yahoo Dashboard, Utah voters prefer John McCain to Barack Obama by 62.7 to 23.3. Red staters believe what they believe and their boots are dug in, but what’s up with that lopsided margin? Utah’s McCain support is much stronger than it is in states known for their adamant shitkicker sensibilities (Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky). Oklahoma is another fierce red state — McCain over Obama, 61.3 to 29.3. What do these guys sprinkle on their eggs every morning?

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NBC’s Tom Brokaw is sounding more and more like a cautious milquetoast place-holder with an excessively deferential, go-along attitude. Good old avuncular, seen-it-all Tom, nostalgic sentimentalist and author of “The Greatest Generation.” But where is the honor in lobbying to put a lid on two respected MSNBC colleagues (Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews) who have a passion for cutting through the bull, and in accomodating the disreputable liars and smoke-blowers in the McCain campaign?
Two days ago Brokaw (a) reportedly cited false disparaging poll data about Barack Obama, (b) recently conducted some shuttle diplomacy between NBC and the McCain campaign, seeking to assure the candidate’s aides that...

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This high-def version of the new trailer for Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road (Paramount Vantage, 12.26) tells you pretty much what the film is without the particulars or the last two beats. Miserable, lost and sinking in surburbia. Richard Yates, John Cheever, John Updike, etc.

I understand the whole flight-to-the-suburbs mentality of the ’50s as well as the female nesting instinct, but why would Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Frank Wheeler, a guy who says he loves Paris because “the people are...

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“A filthy-rich fantasy for these cash-strapped times, Beverly Hills Chihuahua features the voices of Drew Barrymore and much of the industry’s top Latino talent in a live-action talking-dog lark that should please young pups. At the same time, it peddles tacky stereotypes in thick Hispanic accents, effectively ceding whatever dignity the breed regained since the ‘Yo quiero Taco Bell’ campaign went off the air. One thing’s for sure: The Mouse House will realize a fine balance of trade on this one.” — from Peter DeBruge‘s 9.29 Variety review.

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The map on the Yahoo Political Dashboard has the most accessible state-by-state poll numbers, and I’m pleased, naturally, with the electoral vote projections favoring Obama over McCain, 278 to 227. But I’ve come to expect greater comfort and assurance from the guys at fivethirtyeight.com. They have Ohio and Virginia as lean Obama states, and an electoral vote projection of 329 to 208. Why the discrepancy? Split the two and Obama is projected to win just over 300 to McCain’s 217.

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Another Jamie Stuart short about the New York Film Festival has been posted on the Filmmaker website. Per custom it hasn’t much to do with the Lincoln Center happenings. It’s another dry surreal thing. The term that comes to mind is “Bunuelian wackjob.” It contains a clip of Che director Steven Soderbergh defining what a political film is, but is mostly about strange noirish dreams in Stuart’s head. I watched it the first time with my amplified speaker system attached, and couldn’t hear most of the dialogue because of a bass guitar going “thwong, thwong, thwong, thwong.” And what does “this one’s for Matilda” mean?

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“After I spent 2 1/2 hours laying on a stretcher, not being able to breathe, I thought to myself — what a waste. I’ve got a ton of money in the bank, I’ve got this hotshot job at DreamWorks and it’s all meaningless. I’ve just been living through my ego. From that minute, I promised myself that if I managed to survive, I’d live the life I wanted to live, not the way I thought other people wanted me to live.
“And however well I end up doing as a writer, whether I just eke out a living or win a bunch of awards someday, I’ll be happy because, to use the sports analogy, I’d feel like I left it on the field.” — Eagle Eye screenwriter Dan McDermott relating thoughts after almost dying from heart failure (caused by nitrogen poisoning from a scuba diving excursion), posted four days ago in Patrick Goldstein‘s “The Big Picture” bloggy-blog.

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What can you say about a tough-minded, hard-nosed political drama that tells the truth, doesn’t mince words or pull punches, rekindles the viral excitement of a bygone era, offers several gripping performances and leaves you with a taste of ashes in your soul?

Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek

This is the reality of The Baader Meinhof Complex — Uli Edel‘s 149-minute drama about the famed German radical leftist group. I caught it last Friday night at the Aero along with L.A. Times guy Mark Olsen, The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond and two or three publicist pals who may be working on the film’s Academy campaign for Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar, as it was recently named as Germany’s official entry.
It’s a strong but...

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In the remarkable, deeply penetrating I’ve Loved You So Long (Sony Classics, 10.24) , Kristin Scott Thomas gives an immensely sad but highly sensitive and attuned performance that you just know, minutes into it, will be with you the rest of your life. She draws you in like some sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, but she never sells anything. Start to finish, she dwells in this fascinating zen-grief space that just “is.” She owns it…and from the moment the film begins, owns you.

Warning to first-time viewers:...

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I was just depositing some cash into a Washington Mutual account an hour ago, and the atmosphere was unmistakably edgy. A long line of people, anxious looks on some of the faces, a vaguely nervous undercurrent of one form or another. Washington Mutual went under a few days ago and was bought up by JP Morgan Chase on 9.26. There was a fat guy jabbering excitedly to a friend and making no attempt to hide his anger at bank employees behind the glass who were sitting at desks and not at teller windows. The vibe was on the sullen side. No jokes, no smiles, no chit-chat.

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The Envelope’s Buzzmeter software is currently being overhauled and redesigned, so in the meantime The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil has tallied some 2008 Oscar predictions. Nobody agrees on anything…too early for that. The contributors are O’Neil, Anthony Breznican (USA Today), Edward Douglas (Comingsoon.net), Scott Feinberg (AndTheWinnerIs, The Feinberg Files at The Envelope), Pete Hammond (The Envelope), Dave Karger (Entertainment Weekly) and myself.

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“The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this,” Michael Moore wrote today. “Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
“This so-called ‘collapse’ was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people’s home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans...

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“To a certain extent, I think John gets hurt by this,” said CNN contributor Ed Rollins about the failure of the bailout bill to pass the House earlier today. “He obviously, at the end of the day, said he was for it. But more important than that, he said he was the one who would bring them to the table and to a certain extent he will be viewed now as not being able to do that.
“McCain is our nominee and [congressional Republicans] will do everything they can to help him, but they are not going to go over the cliff for him. I think the reality is, he made a big show coming in and at the end of the day it really wasn’t realistic for him.”

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One frequent reason why high-quality films are chosen as Best Picture finalists is because of the resonance and universality of their themes. And the themes that always seem to register more than others are contained in personal journey movies about growth, redemption and transformation. They say something with a measure of eloquence that people recognize as fundamentally true based on their own life experience, and if they don’t jerk the audience around with too much shallow diversion or emotional manipulation, they tend to shine through — even if they end sadly or tragically.

You will see change/grow/transform themes lurking within most Best Picture winners or nominees going back to the ’50s, at least. Not with every last contender, of course, but they turn up a lot.
Based on this criteria, four of the 2008 Best...

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N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply has an Oscar season piece out this morning. It mainly focuses on Paramount’s intention to push The Curious Case of Benjamin Button big-time. The most interesting line comes from marketing chief Megan Colligan, who says the not quite finished slogan for the film is something along the lines of “you must live your life forward, but it can only be understood backward.”
A portion of the Cieply piece raised an eyebrow. “Some publicists who specialize in Oscar campaigns,” he wrote, “are privately predicting a year-end shootout between Button and Frost/Nixon, a planned December release from Universal Pictures, directed by Ron Howard and with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the title roles. The films have been seen by few, but the campaign machinery is already lining up behind...

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This David Byrne/”Once in a Lifetime”-themed trailer for Oliver Stone‘s W. is, make no mistake, brilliant — an award-level advertisement if I ever saw one. Is this a Tim Palin original or did an outside agency throw it together? TV junket press saw W. last weekend. Print/online showings will almost certainly be this week.

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Here’s last summer’s trailer for Baz Luhrman‘s Australia (20th Century Fox, 11.26), and a newer, just-released version.

Luhrman is a fever-pitch, headstrong, first-rate director — one of the dependable visionaries in this business. The finely crafted script tells a rousing, big-canvas, primary-colors story that’s set in the World War II era. And the movie is clearly looking to deliver an eye-filling, epic-sized experience with a mostly realistic (i.e.,...

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I hate it when trailers tell you everything about a movie except the final beat, so you’d think I’d be receptive to the plot vagueness in this recently posted trailer for Seven Pounds, the Will Smith movie coming out on 12.19. But it bothered me. “What’s going on here?” I was saying to myself. I got the part about Smith being shattered by something he did and wanting to help others in a kind of Pay It Forward vein, but what’s the shot?

You have to search around on the Seven Pounds IMDB page — among the reader comments, I mean — to...

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Production designer Ken Adam talking to the Telegraph‘s Horatia Harrod about the war room set he designed for Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove some 45 years ago.

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Edited by the 23/6 guys, and not a bad job of it.

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L.A. Times reporter Steven Braun reported yesterday that “soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska” — in 1997 — “she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago.”

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