Yes, Colossal is No. 1 on My Top 10 of 2017

To begin with my standard disclaimer: This may be my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2017 – but it’s not necessarily a rundown of the year’s 10 Best Movies. Because, quite frankly, I haven’t seen every single movie released anywhere in the US during the past 12 months. But this most certainly is a list of my favorite films to open in US theaters in 2017. These are, of course, purely arbitrary and totally subjective choices. And I’ll freely admit that, a decade or so hence, I might look back on the following lineup and want to make additions or deletions. (Maybe I’ll even get over my traditionalist hang-ups, and toss a Netflix-only title or two into the mix.) At this point in time, however, I can honestly state these are the 2017 releases that impressed me most. And best. So there. And before anyone asks about any films that are not on this list, let me offer this blanket response: Those films may indeed be noteworthy. But I liked these more.

Colossal. For me, writer-director Nacho Vigalondo’s audacious genre mashup was the perfect movie for 2017, a year bound to be forever remembered as the moment in time when the tide started to turn for women who have been intimidated, subjugated and otherwise humiliated (verbally or physically) for far too long. Better still, it’s a splendidly imaginative and exceptionally well-acted entertainment, with Anne Hathaway perfectly cast as a self-destructive and psychologically wounded writer who finally finds the strength to save herself — after fortuitously mind-melding with a humongous kaiju — and Jason Sudeikis boldly cast against type as a deceptively ingratiating under-achiever who’s unveiled as a control-freakish monster. As I said: The perfect movie for 2017, and maybe even better as the gateway to the year of Time’s Up.

Lucky. To repeat what I wrote in my Variety review after the 2017 SXSW premiere of John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut: “Everything Harry Dean Stanton has done in his career, and his life, has brought him to his moment of triumph in Lucky, an unassumingly wonderful little film about nothing in particular and everything that’s important.” Stanton gives the performance of a lifetime in this life-affirming dramedy about a proud eccentric facing death. (Ironically, the much admired character actor passed away, at age 91, just weeks before the movie’s theatrical release.) And he gets strong support from an ensemble supporting cast that includes David Lynch as the distraught owner of a runaway tortoise, James Darren as a putatively reformed ne’er-do-well, and Beth Grant as the gregarious but not infinitely patient owner of the title character’s favorite watering hole.

Wind River. Howard Hawks famously defined a good movie as one that has three good scenes and no bad ones. Taylor Sheridan’s furiously mournful yet ultimately hopeful drama about violent crime and cruel punishment in a wintery stretch of Wyoming is a great movie with at least three great scenes, two of them featuring extended conversations between Jeremy Renner as a soul-wounded animal tracker pressed into service as a manhunter, and Gil Birmingham as the grieving father of the young Native American woman whose murder has sparked the manhunt. The third scene? Take your pick: Either an edgy standoff between two heavily armed groups that builds slowly, mercilessly, to chaotic mayhem, or the brutally efficient forced-feeding of just desserts during the hugely satisfying climax.

Kedi. Yes, Ceyda Torun’s magically graceful and effortlessly engaging documentary about free-roaming felines in Istanbul is the greatest cat video ever made. You have a problem with that?

Truman. Cesc Gay’s richly amusing and deeply affecting film about two friends (Ricardo Darin of The Secret in the Eyes and Javier Camara of Narcos and The Young Pope) who enjoy a final reunion under the shadow of impending death made only a fleeting appearance in US theaters in 2017, nearly two years after I reviewed the Spanish-produced dramedy at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. On the other hand: For what it’s worth, it’s one of the very few 2017 release to score a 100 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So don’t just take my word for it: This is an unjustly overlooked gem that is more than worth the effort to seek it out.

I, Tonya. Equal parts inspired faux documentary and incisive character study, Craig Gillespie’s casually astonishing satirical drama is an altogether worthy showcase for Margot Robbie’s gold-medal-worthy performance of notorious ice skater Tonya Harding as a world-class athlete who was never allowed to completely transcend her white-trash roots. And speaking of golden prizes: Here’s hoping Allison Janney winds up in the winner’s circle on Oscar night for her fearless performance as Tonya’s spectacularly appalling mother.

The Big Sick. Arguably the most warm-hearted and explosively funny movie ever made about generation gaps, cultural clashes, and medically induced comas, director Michael Showalter’s Sundance Film Festival favorite is a marvelously messy love story crossed with an arrested-adolescent coming-of-age narrative, shrewdly and sensitively written by real-life marrieds Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, and skillfully performed  by Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan as lovers driven apart by his feckless indecision and reunited by her life-threatening illness. Extra added attractions: Scene-stealers Holly Hunter and Ray Romano as the ailing woman’s seemingly mismatched parents, and Zenobia Shroff and Anupam Kher as the immature fellow’s traditional Muslim immigrant mom and dad.

Last Flag Flying. Richard Linklater’s “spiritual sequel” (or whatever) to 1973’s The Last Detail — which, like this film, was based on a novel by co-scriptwriter Darryl Ponicsan — works beautifully on its own terms as a profanely funny and affectingly melancholy dramedy about three Vietnam War vets (a dead-solid-perfect trio of Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne) who are reunited, whether they want to be or not, when one of them is informed that his son has been killed in the Iraq War. Better still, and more so than any other film I can think of since Alexander Payne’s  Nebraska (2013), it ends precisely when it should.

The Post. I remain convinced that Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012), a fleet and gripping drama about the backroom arm-twisting and deal-making that led to passage of the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution, actually was a metaphor for President Barack Obama’s campaign to win passage for the Affordable Care Act. (And not just because co-star Hal Holbrook looked so much like an aged Ted Kennedy, a strong supporter of the legislation.) Likewise, I am convinced that Spielberg’s The Post, a similarly swift-paced and engrossingly suspenseful film about the Washington Post’s 1971 decision to print The Pentagon Papers, actually is an inspiring exhortation for watchdog journalism in our Age of Trump. As critic David Thomson wrote in The New Republic about Spielberg’s earlier film: “It’s very good, but that’s not the point. It’s necessary.”

Lady Bird. The amazing Saoirse Ronan is by turns endearing and annoying and selfish and sympathetic and all kinds of other amazing things that she absolutely has to be as the self-named title character in writer-director Greta Gerwig’s free-form yet tightly disciplined coming-of-age comedy-drama. Set in Sacramento, California during her 2002-03 senior year at a Catholic high school, the film charts Lady Bird’s sometimes warm, sometimes rocky and sometimes surprising interactions with, among others, her passive-aggressive mom (Laurie Metcalf), her mild-mannered and newly unemployed father (Tracy Letts), the best friend she briefly betrays (Beanie Feldstein), the caddish boyfriend who’s altogether unworthy of claiming her virginity (Timothée Chalamet), and Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), the principal who knows Lady Bird almost as well as we come to know her by the end of Gerwig’s irresistibly embraceable movie.

Recalling a time when Martin Landau recalled his experiences with Steven Spielberg, Peter Falk, naughty fan mail and, of course, Space: 1999

I had the pleasure of chatting with the late, great Martin Landau on several occasions — including a 1996 TV junket for The Adventures of Pinocchio, a movie he made just two years after his Oscar-winning performance as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. (As I wrote in my Variety review: “Martin Landau plays Geppetto, the aging puppet-maker who becomes a father for the first time after his latest creation magically springs to life. It’s a role that could have been played with broad gestures, cheap sentiment and other easy acting tricks. It is much to Landau’s credit that he takes a more restrained approach, in a largely successful attempt to make the character seem more endearingly poignant than boisterously amusing.”) But when I heard of his passing Saturday at age 89, the encounter I remembered most vividly was a 1980 interview I did with him for The Dallas Morning News, where I was employed at the time, when he came to Big D to promote a movie called The Last Word.

Mind you, there was nothing very memorable about the movie itself. (Truth to tell, I had to double check my files a few minutes ago to ascertain that I had actually seen it.) But I do recall that Landau was engagingly gracious and entertainingly loquacious, and that our free-wheeling tête-à-tête took some interesting detours. Like, when he talked about what he described as several instances of “bad timing” in the years following his departure from the Mission: Impossible TV series.

To quote my Dallas Morning News article:

“‘I made a movie with Peter Falk and Jason Robards called Operation Snafu… I thought it was hilarious when I read [the script]. But it came out the same year as M*A*S*H and Kelly’s Heroes, two other war comedies. I thought we were going to be first, but we wound up third.’

“As a result, Landau noted, the comedy… received a pitifully limited release, and was quickly dropped into the television market.

“Two years later, Landau and [his then-wife Barbara Bain] teamed for Savage, a 90-minute pilot film for a projected series about an investigative reporter.

“’That was before Watergate, before 60 Minutes,’” he said. ‘Nobody wanted a series about an investigative reporter. They were afraid of the show’

Ironically, the failed pilot was an early effort of a director whose time had not yet come — Steven Spielberg.

“’I had to fight to get Spielberg,’ Landau said. ‘At the time, he hadn’t done a whole lot. He was 23 at the time. It was right after he did Duel, but he had a reputation of going over budget.

“‘He did go over budget [on Savage]. But he’s always been talented. 1941 was one of his few less-than-successful ventures.’ Landau smiled wanly and added, ‘Savage was the other.’”

“In 1975, Landau and his wife teamed again for a slightly more successful television venture. Space: 1999, a production of Britain’s flamboyant Sir Lew Grade, featured Landau as the commander of a moon base where nuclear wastes were stored. When the waste material exploded, the moon — and some 300 people stationed on the base — went spinning off into outer space.

“The show, which depicted the misadventures of the people on the prowling planet, attracted a sizable audience in the United States, and an even greater following in Europe. After two years, however, the producer opted to pull the plug on the program when its ratings dipped slightly.

“‘Lew Grade got into motion pictures,’ Landau said. “The $7 million it would have taken to continue our show was what he needed for the advertising budget for Voyage of the Damned, The Eagle Has Landed and The Cassandra Crossing.’

“So Grade decided to end production on Space: 1999 — just a matter of months before Star Wars hit the world’s movie screens and kicked off a brand new science-fiction craze. Had Space: 1999 been able to hold out for a bit longer, it conceivably could have capitalized on the Star Wars mania and vastly improved its ratings.

“Even so, the series has been thriving in reruns. ‘There’s a whole cult around it,’ Landau said. ‘Not as big as the Star Trek cult, but still a cult… I get all kinds of things in the mail. Fan mail. Marriage letters. Divorce letters — things that read, “Divorce that broad and marry me.” Sometimes you even get pictures that are a little indecent — but that’s very rare.’

“‘At science fiction conventions, outtakes from the show, single frames of film, go for $10. I went to a convention in Columbus, Ohio — and 10,000 people showed up. A uniform I wore went there for something like $400. I thought, “My God. I wish I had kept my suits.” But it was too late.’”

Undeterred, Martin Landau pressed on, racking up an astonishing number of TV credits over the next three decades. He earned Academy Award nominations for his pitch-perfect performances in Francis Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) — and finally took home the Best Supporting Actor prize for Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994). 

Obviously, there are other credits on his resume that bespoke of a working actor’s incessant need to pay his rent and maintain his visibility. But consider this: Landau’s resume ran the gamut from Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest to Entourage (both the HBO series and the movie spin-off). He appeared as a regular or guest star on many TV series, and even managed to make a strong impression in something as otherwise unremarkable as The Evidence, a short-lived 2006 police procedural that, I confess, I continued to watch (just to watch Landau) even after ABC consigned it to ignominious burn-off on Saturday nights.

In short, he had a hell of a run, because he was a hell of an actor. And while I can’t claim we were close friends, I strongly suspect, based on my experiences on those occasions when our paths crossed, that he was a hell of a nice guy. Even when his timing may have been off.

Obama vs. E.T.?

I've always suspected that Steven Spielberg cast Francois Truffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a scientist who could communicate with extraterrestrials because... well, because of course Truffaut could have communicated with extraterrestrials, if he'd ever had to, because that's the kind of amazingly astute and sensitive fellow he was. In much the same vein, I'm not at all surprised to hear that most people believe Barack Obama would be better qualified than Mitt Romney to handle an invasion by unfriendly extraterrestrials. After all: The dude took care of Osama Bin Laden, right? 

On the other hand, I'm not sure even President Obama could do a better job of leading the human counteroffensive than... President Bill Pullman.

R.I.P: Gene Barry (1919-2009)

How cool was Gene Barry? So cool that, when I was a mere broth of a lad growing up in New Orleans, I faithfully watched every episode of Bat Masterson -- and scraped enough money together to purchase by mail from the TV show's sponsor, Sealtest Milk, my very own Bat Masterson cane. (Which, alas, I broke within days after its arrival.) As I grew older, I watched Barry in Burke's Law with the same fidelity, and marveled at the unabashed lust he inspired in my usually prim and proper Aunt Madge, who -- always a tad too fond of Tom Moore bourbon -- once blurted out after a few stiff belts: "He could kick his shoes under my bed anytime!")

Barry was an affable and ingratiating journeyman actor who brought an air of authoritative integrity to his recurring role as a magazine editor in the way-cool late '60s/early '70s TV series The Name of the Game -- in one especially memorable episode, a sci-fi fantasy, he was directed by a young Steven Spielberg -- and, as Washington Post blogger Adam Bernstein reminds us, he was not afraid to ruffle the feathers of his more conservative fans when took one of the lead roles in the original 1980s Broadway production of the musical La Cage aux Folles.

"I'm not playing a homosexual," Mr. Barry told the New York Times. "I'm playing a person who cares deeply about another person. The role is loving another person onstage. It doesn't matter whether it's a man, a woman or a giraffe. It has nothing to do with sexuality, as far as I'm concerned. I play the dignity of the man, his concern for his lover and his concern and love for his son."

Chief among Barry's movie credits: Two films by cult-fave auteur Samuel Fuller (Forty Guns, China Gate), The Houston Story (directed by -- no kidding! -- William Castle), Thunder Road and -- of course -- the original 1953 version of The War of the Worlds. Barry was so closely associated with the latter that Steven Spielberg -- years after their first collaboration on Name of the Game -- respectfully hired him for a cameo part in Spielberg's own 2005 version of the H.G. Wells novel. It was, quite simply, a classy tribute to a classy actor.

Matt Helm: Back again for the first time

There was a time in my life when I pounced upon and devoured each new hardboiled novel by Donald Hamilton about licensed-to-kill secret agent Matt Helm like a hungry lion upon an unwary antelope. The '60s spy-spoofy extravaganzas starring Dean Martin as Helm were greatly disappointing -- if not downright enraging -- as wrong-headed adaptations of Hamilton's ultra-gritty paperbacks. And I can barely remember anything about the short-lived '70s TV series that reconstituted Helm as a private eye played by Tony Franciosa. So I'm very glad to hear from my Variety colleague Michael Fleming that one of the heaviest of Hollywood's heavy hitters may finally bring Matt Helm to the screen with all the straight-shooting seriousness that the character deserves.

Steven Soderbergh chats about Che

It's always a pleasure to talk with Steven Soderbergh, so I was grateful for the opportunity to chat with him about Che a few days ago for a Houston Chronicle Q&A. But wait, there's more: Here are a few outtakes:

Q: When Richard Fleischer made his Che! -- a very, very bad movie -- back in 1969, he had the backing of a major studio behind him. But despite your strong track record, and your Oscar for directing Traffic, you had to seek out independent financing and distribution. How come?

A: Well, I think the biggest reason, for anybody on the American side with money, was the Spanish-language dialogue. Even though over the past couple of years we’ve seen movies that were not in English do wonderfully well here, a lot of the distributors in the U.S. have specific exclusions in their pay-TV deals for foreign-language films. Meaning they can’t cover any part of their cost by putting it on HBO or Showtime or anything like that. So that was a problem for them.

Q: And it didn’t help that you wanted to make a Spanish-language film about a Marxist revolutionary.

A: The political stuff, I think, really wasn’t as much of a problem. But you have to remember: At the point when we first went around trying to get money in the U.S., we’d already decided that it would be two films. And everybody had questions about that. Everybody wondered: Why isn’t it just one three-hour movie?

Q: Che Guevara certainly was very media-savvy. There’s a great scene in your film during Che’s 1964 visit to New York, when he addressed the United Nations. He’s getting ready to do a TV interview, and a production assistant says something like, “Would the commander like some make-up?” And Che brushes her off. But when he sees another talk-show guest getting made up, he says: “Well, maybe a little powder?”

A: And that’s a true story. We interviewed the interpreter who was with him in New York, and he told us that story. And I thought it was hilarious. And it’s that kind of stuff that I was trying to find. That kind of detail for me was much more important than any grandstanding, speechifying, emotional close-up. It just made him more human.

Q: Not to put you on the spot, but are you a little surprised that you and Benicio Del Toro don’t seem to be generating any sort of Oscar buzz for Che?

A: No, because we have no money. We haven’t taken out a single trade paper ad for the film. And when you don’t do that, you don’t get mentioned in any stories at the end of the year in any of the trade publications. That’s the way that system works. And we knew that. But we knew we had to spend all of our money on newspaper ads to get people to go see the film. That’s why, when we made the deal with IFC, we told them that you can send out DVD screeners [to critics and Motion Picture Academy members], but we’re not doing any “For Your Consideration” ads. We can’t afford that. We have to concentrate on getting people into theaters. And so far, it looks like that’s working.

Steven Spielberg and friends rock the vote

As Borat would say: Nice.

Spike smacks Jesse

Spike Lee heard about Jesse Jackson's dis of Barack Obama. He wasn't amused.

What ever happened to Karen Allen?

The lovely co-star of the original Raiders of the Lost Ark was kinda-sorta retired from show business when Steven Spielberg called to chat about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But that doesn't mean she wasn't keeping busy with other pursuits.

Under the influence

Woody Allen insists his work has not influenced other filmmakers. No, really. At the Venice Film Festival, he told reporters: "I don't mean that to sound like false modesty, but I could always feel the influence of my contemporaries — Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg — but I have never seen my influence on anyone."

Two questions immediately come to mind. First: Which Woody Allen most obviously reflects a Spielbergian influence? Second: Has Woody Allen ever seen... well, gee, I almost don't know where to begin. David Frankel's Miami Rhapsody? Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris? Anand Tucker's (and Steve Martin's) Shopgirl? Noah Baumbach's Mr. Jealousy? Ed Burns' Sidewalks of New York? Any freakin' movie ever made by Whit Stillman?

A modest proposal

While meditating this morning on the deaths of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, I found myself remembering something Billy Crystal, of all people, said to me during a 1992 interview. We were talking about show business – appropriately enough, since he was promoting Mr. Saturday Night at the time – when Crystal, sounding more amazed than egocentric, remarked: ''When The Tonight Show ended, when Johnny Carson's reign ended, show business as I knew it stopped, and a new show business began. And my group of contemporaries -- Robin (Williams) and Jay (Leno) and (David) Letterman – we are now show business. Like it or not, it's us, until our faces start to fall. You know what I'm saying? We're show business now.”

True enough. And when Jay Leno steps down as Tonight Show host two years from now, I assume there will be yet another changing of the guard, or passing of the baton. But let’s focus on right now: Who are the heirs to those esteemed filmmakers – some living (such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer), most dead (Bergman, Antonioni, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, many others) – who came to prominence during the post-WWII era, who I would label The Art House Elders? And looking ahead: Who’s next? Who will be the Conan O’Briens to those Jay Lenos?

In my view, the natural heirs to the Art House Elders are those filmmakers I would collectively define as members of The Renaissance – as in “Hollywood Renaissance.” That is, filmmakers who came to prominence during the period roughly defined by Peter Biskind in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls as the 13-year stretch between Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Heaven’s Gate (1980). Mind you, that definition should, I feel, be sufficiently elastic to include auteurs who, strictly speaking, started making movies prior to ’67 – think Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola and John Cassavetes – but completed many (if not most) of their best and most enduring works during the 1967-80 period. Among the other MVPs, living or dead, in this division: Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Sam Peckinpah, Bob Fosse, Hal Ashby, William Friedkin, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood and, near the unofficial cut-off point, Ridley Scott (whose Alien was released in 1979) and Oliver Stone (who made his directorial debut with 1974’s Seizure, but remained best known as a scriptwriter until 1981’s The Hand).

Yeah, I know: That list – a tentative one, by the way; please feel free to add other names – doesn’t include many international directors. That’s why I also propose a separate but equal grouping – The Cannes Club – for other influential filmmakers of the same period. Such as? Milos Forman, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog… and, of course, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. But if you want to lump both groups together under Renaissance (or some other label), fine by me. Either way – these are, I repeat, the natural heirs to the Art House Elders, because theirs are the movies that, collectively or separately, have equal (if not greater) impact and influence on audiences and other filmmakers today. They are the Jay Lenos of the movie world. (Well, OK, those of them who are still alive.) Indeed, you could argue they've claimed that position for a decade or two -- only now, it's more or less official.

And after them? Well, excuse me while I suggest another label: The Sundance Generation. (A disclaimer: I’m talking more about a state of mind, or a filmmaking philosophy, than a literal Sundance Festival connection.) In this category, I would include Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater, Hal Hartley and, arguably, John Sayles (whose 1980 Return of the Secaucus 7 can be viewed as a seminal influence for the entire group). Once again, I’d also propose a separate but equal category – The Toronto Generation – for equally prominent international filmmakers (many of whom work, periodically or frequently, in the U.S.) who have been either launched or elevated at the You-Know-Where Festival: Ang Lee, John Woo, Abbas Kiarostami, Wong Kar-wai, Patrice Leconte, Tom Tykwer and others. (Cannes would like to claim them, too, but never mind: That festival already has its own category.) These are filmmakers who, while continuing to produce outstanding and (here’s the key word again) influential work, are ensuring that they, too, will have their day as grey eminences. Or Conan O’Briens.

Are these categories arbitrary? Absolutely. Could some names be shifted from one category to another? Well, if you can make a strong case for it, sure. (It's like, some folks want to group Jean-Pierre Melville with the French New Wave; most don’t.) And should other names be added? Almost certainly. (Where do we put undeniably influential directors such as John Hughes? Or James Cameron?) All I have tried to set out here is a modest proposal for a new way of looking at generational shifts and lines of succession in regard to classic and contemporary cinema. Your suggestions and (constructive) criticisms are most welcome.

And, of course, if anybody would like to toss an advance my way to develop all this into a book, what the hell, I'm willing to take a meeting.

R.I.P.: Tom Snyder (1936-2007)

To honor the idiosyncratic talk-show host, here's a montage tribute that includes, among other wonders, a glimpse at a ridiculously young Steven Spielberg, and an unsettling exposure to pure evil.

Cash for candidates

George Clooney has backed Barack Obama. Oliver Stone is putting his money behind Obama and John Edwards. Steven Spielberg has contributed to Edwards, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson. But Jerry Bruckheimer thinks John McCain is the man. Those are just some of the revelations offered by a Wilshire & Washington report on campaign contributions by Hollywood notables.

'Indiana Jones' redux

From Lucasfilm Ltd.: "For the first time since 1989, Harrison Ford dons the familiar costume on Thursday, June 21, 2007, as the upcoming Indiana Jones adventure begins production under the direction of Steven Spielberg. The new Indiana Jones movie is set in the 1950s and stars Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Ray Winstone and Jim Broadbent. The Lucasfilm Ltd. production will be released by Paramount Pictures worldwide on May 22, 2008. Photo by Steven Spielberg."

So goes Spielberg, so goes Hollywood (and the rest of the country)?

Steven Spielberg is backing Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Which, according to the Los Angeles Times, is the equivalent of an anointment: "The Academy Award winner's support is considered the industry's Holy Grail; not only does Spielberg's name resonate in Hollywood's plushest power suites where his movie grosses are admired, but also in middle America, where he is seen as one of the most esteemed directors." Gosh, Spielberg is a political kingmaker. Who knew?

Weekend b.o. report: Oh, Shia!

Nikki Finke: "It's official: Shia LaBeouf, the 20-year-old handpicked by Steven Spielberg to co-star in Indiana Jones 4 can open a movie. He helped DreamWorks/Paramount's teen thriller Disturbia open No. 1 this weekend with $23 million on 2,925 screens."

Blogging Oscar, 11:16 pm

A satisfying rush to conclusion. Forest Whitaker obviously heeded all the snippy critics who complained about his rambling remarks at other awards events, and brought along a very moving scripted acceptance speech to deliver when he was named Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland. (It was a bit sad, however, to note Peter O'Toole's expression -- as though the poor guy thought, "Oh, bloody Christ! Not again!" -- when he realized he was an eight-time loser.) Funny bandying among Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as they prepared to give Martin Scorsese his long-overdue Oscar for Best Director. And just a few minutes later, it was hard not to laugh at Scorsese's unabashedly incredulous expression -- Spielberg looked like he had to snap him out of a shocked daze -- when The Departed was announced as Best Picture.

I can't really complain about any of the Academy's choices. But damn! Why did it take such a long time to dole out the gold?

I suspect some cynics will dis Ellen DeGeneres' turn as Oscarcast host. But, truth to tell, I thought she was swell. And one more An Inconvenient Truth comment: Is this the first time the Best Documentary also copped the prize for Best Song?

Blogging Oscar, 9:15 pm

Random thought: Could Pan's Labyrinth wind up winning more Oscars than any other movie tonight? Inspired lunacy: Ellen DeGeneres asking Steven Spielberg to snap a picture of her and Clint Eastwood for her MyPage.

The state of cinema

David Denby writes in The New Yorker: "In the past, commercially successful artists like Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, George Cukor, John Ford, and Billy Wilder would have been astonished if anyone had told them that they could succeed with only slivers of the audience. They thought they were working for everybody, and often they were. Today, with a few exceptions like Ang Lee, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Eastwood (and not necessarily with all their movies), the artistically ambitious director who is considered to have universal or even widespread appeal is an endangered species. Part of the reason, perhaps, is that directors are working for an audience more diverse than the audience of fifty or sixty years ago. The most important reason, however, is that, by splitting the audience into a spectacle-and-comedy, opening-weekend crowd and a specialty-division urban élite, the studios have given up the old dream of movies as an art form for everyone."

And mind you, according to Denby, that isn't the worst of it