American Splendor
Dir: Shri Sprinter Berman & Robert Pulcini
USA, 2003 : 100 minutes
Wed. 6/04 @ 7:00 pm Egyptian Theatre & Mon 6/9 @9:30 Pacific Place Cinemas
RATING: 9/10

Paul Giamatti’s spectacular portrayal of comic book author Harvey Pekar amazes. When Giamatti’s Pekar leaves the green room for Letterman’s stage the mid-80’s, the filmmakers pan to a monitor showing the real Pekar’s actual appearance. It’s hard to recognize that we’re looking at two different men. Giamatti, who is also seen onscreen with the real Pekar circa 2002, manages to inhabit both the Pekar we first saw on Late Night and the expressively drawn versions seen in Pekar’s comics, drawn by different artists.

He slouches, he slumps, his eyes bulge. He is really Harvey. Except he’s not. The thoughtful, funny script has a ball playing with this, just as Pekar does in his books. I can’t do the film justice here. Go see it. Giamatti’s performance is only one of many things about the film that made it a wonderful moviegoing experience.

(Another reviewer on the Tablet blog was not as enthused about the film, put off by Pekar’s incessant, whining self-pity. A possible difference is that I’m a comic-book geek who’s long loved Pekar’s work. If anything, the film lightens Pekar’s comic-book portrayal by several shades of depressive, misanthropic black.)

Originally written for and posted to the Tablet SIFF Reviews board.
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Additionally, I’ve been looking forward to the film since I had heard about it last year, and was very encouraged when it won some awards at Sundance earlier this year. I confess to having eagerly enjoyed the non-sequitir appearances by Harvey on the Letterman show in the 1980’s, and have vivid recollections of his final appearance.

An interesting aspect of seeing it now, in the blog era, is that to one extent or another, Pekar’s been blogging his own life for damn near twenty-five years now. And making damn fine literature out of it, too. A particular difference of his execution versus mine, in blogland, is that there’s serious structural work, conscious literary creation of a character named Harvey Pekar, in his comics.

Whereas here, I’m speaking in a very unselfconscious first person voice, actively seeking to present the words here in my own, actual personal manner, only occasionally seeking careful literary control. I suppose this may be a part of what Anne and others chew on in the great “is blogging journalism” debate, from another angle.

Here’s a corollary question: is American Splendor, the comic book, journalism? What about the movie?

(I looked and looked for a website for the film – but couldn’t come up with one!)

[‘hem]

one-two, one-two

Off to Hokum Hall for some silent movie bliss this afternoon.

This list has been extracted from a database I’m using to manage the SIFF workload I’ll be taking a crack at; the title of each film should link to a search-results page hosted at SIFF’s website, rather than directly to the SIFF information page for the film itself. I gotta say, over 200 films is a huge amount of film info to try to winnow through. This list is made up of 45 films, and doesn’t include the shorts and compilation presentations such as animation or what not. I’m unsure if I managed to find all of the local-interest and loaclly-produced films.

I’ve quoted when I have used copy directly from the Seattle Times
-produced SIFF guide. On the whole, my notes on each film are intended to convey my attitude to the film and my reasons for being interested in it.

This is a work in progress – I’m really just trying to share a tool was making for my own use with others that might find it helpful.

(For a short while I helped to typeset the weekly film guides for a publication in my hometown, and I would play a game. I would try to see if each film in the list would be described as a “touching coming of age story.” Try it here and see what happens!)

I went to the press launch for the Seattle International Fim Festival (SIFF) on May 7, and it was interesting. The festival will be larger than ever, and I believe I heard it described as the largest international film festival in North America this year. There will be 220 features and 75 shorts. Of these, 55 will be U.S. or North American premieres. No special announcement was made regarding world premieres, and I didn’t think to ask.

Of special note are a couple of areas the festival is highlighting: documentaries, and what they are calling “Heroic Grace“, Hong Kong action movies. There will be 46 documentaries screened during the festival, and while the SIFF Guide only mentions nine films under the “Heroic Grace” heading, I suspect there are more films than that in the festival that have Hong Kong connections.

Some of the other areas of special interest that the Festival will be highlighting are “Cloud Kingdom“, recent films from South Korea; “Women in Cinema“, highlighted by the promising Maori film Whale Rider, and “Spawned in Seattle“, a two-day series of events focusing on the work of people from the region.

Additionally, the Screenings for Students offers FREE TICKETS to selected screenings for students – run, don’t walk, to the SIFF Box Office in Pacific Place, mm’kay? It’s a floor or two down from the theaters. The box office also will host an exhibition of Polish cinema posters that runs for the duration of the Festival.

The complete listing of SIFF Events is quite extensive.

After the Festival people spoke we were shown a half-hour of trailers. As SIFF Director Darrel McDonald took care to note, most of the films that appear at SIFF are the works of independent filmmakers that lack the resources to produce trailers, let alone get them rated. Keeping that in mind, there were some appealing possibilities.

One of the two most conventionally appealing trailers was for the previously-mentioned Whale Rider, which appears to be the story of a Maori girl who struggles to take up her family’s traditional role in Maori culture as chieftains, crossing a gender boundary to do so. Whales! Cute little girls learning staff fighting! Cool Maori tattoos! The auditorium sighed with desire.

Director Niki Caro’s 2002 film won the 2002 Toronto Film Festival Best Film and the Sundance 2003 Audience Award, Best Film. It will only have two festival showings, but with awards like that it’s no surprise to hear that Whale Rider already has a distribution agreement with Newmarket Films.

The other trailer that garnered positive reaction for it’s fluid, flashy screen presence is the Hong Kong action flick So Close, which combined impossibly stylish, stylized action scenes of balletic grace and strikingly commercial high-fashion costume design with digital effects – something like The Matrix meets Crouching Tiger, but in present-day Asia (possibly Hong Kong). The (ahem) kicker? The film’s lead action heroines are two beauties, who act as assassins in “the high-stakes–world of corporate intrigue” (or something like that).

Frustratingly, the film does not appear in the festival guide.

Finally, the single most astonishing trailer is for a film whose name did not appear on screen in a script that I can read. The film’s trailer presented what appeared to be a buddy story about two young athletes, devoted to the challenging sport – of high-powered table tennis.

The American audience chuckled at the novelty of such a thing, and then the trailer began to present a rapid-fire avalanche of surreal images, the originality of the visuals heightened by the fact that we could only make four words in the entire trailer: “I can flyy,” echoing in heavily accented English as a young man leaps from an urban bridge toward the water below, his flight arrested by the camera as it orbits his frozen fall. A man, facing away, slouchingly hunched in a locker room, butterfly wings flexing from his back, suffused with light. Just after, less than a second of a person emerging from a vat of ping-pong balls. The juxtaposition of the butterfly wings and the egg-like ping-pong balls evoked birth and transformation.

All of this was intercut with frenetic table-tennis action. Taken together, it was by far the most powerful of the trailers. Certainly part of the power stemmed from the mystery of the experience, as the trailer was not subtitled in any way.

The film, it turns out, is called (duh) Ping Pong!

Also shown were trailers for the upcoming Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle, Owning Mahowny, in which a nebbish who works at a bank leads a double life as a high-rolling gambler; I Capture the Castle, a leading candidate for a date flick at SIFF for me personally, and Double Vision, which ambitiously seeks to combine the supernatural horror thriller with the detective film and sets it squarely in Hong Kong.

China loomed large in the trailer presence, with about half, it seemed to me, of the trailers flacking films that originated either in HK or the mainland itself.

Following the trailers, the Fesitval’s premiere film, Argentina’s Valentin was shown, which I regrettably had to miss (my dear wife was home sick in bed).

Films that were not discussed or previewed in which I have an interest include a screening of all nine Animatrix shorts (as I type this sentence, SIFF’s website has just gone down) – just one showing, though, kids! It’s on May 31 at the Egyptian.

Speaking of genre animation, The Tortoise and the Hare, a long unfinished but recently completed film from stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen will be shown along with the maestro’s Jason and the Argonauts. But wait! That’s not all!

Harryhausen himself will be present for the screening, and will talk about his career. Mmmm, inn-ter-view. Cross your fingers.

Jeff Goldblum is the other onsite high-profile guest – no word on an Apple Store walkthrough yet 😉 .

I have had an opportunity to flag the films I hope to see or catch press screenings of and will dash off that list as well… Hopefully I can link to the SIFF site, but the web gods are in charge of that now.

Generally speaking I will be focused on genre flicks and local work. I hope to be able to pick one or more of the local pieces to work up a feature for Tablet in addition to whatever Cinescape assignments I might put out.

A ways back I mentioned that on March 31, at the Paramount Theatre, the long-requested feature Wings would be screened, accompanied by organist Dennis James, for the outstanding bargain price of seventy-five cents.

We attended last night, and both the film and the experience are worth writing about. To cut to the chase, I characterized the film as “disappointing” in the earlier post – while I suspect this is true in the context of watching the film at home on the tube, I need to firmly correct that opinion insofar as the experience of seeing it on the big screen goes.

One of the challenges the film faces on the small screen are the aerial dogfight sequences frequently offer two planes in the frame at long distances from the camera – well over 600 feet, if my scale training in plane spotting from various games is at all accurate. This means that the planes themselves occupy much less than 1/32 – possibly less than 1/64 – of the total screen space. I’ll see if I can find a screen cap of a dogfight from the film (no luck). Therefore, the tension-filled heart of the movie is effectively partially obscured when viewed on a television.

That said, let me tell you about the filmgoing experience itself. Upon approaching the theater, it was clear that 75 cents is viewed by the movie going public as a more sensible price for a silent movie with live organ accompaniment than the usual 10 to 14 dollar pricing that the series sees in regular gigs. There was a huge crowd. We made our way to the front of the stage, after stocking up on the free goodies provided by Trader Joe’s (amusingly characterized as “It’s like Whole Foods, but you can afford it!”), who sponsored this showing as well as some showings last spring.

Once seated, Viv and I ate our sandwiches and caught up on each other’s day. An unfamiliar organist stepped out and played an overture, engendering confused muttering from the crowd.

Just then, an obviously drunk – as in street-alky reeking of formaldehyde – young man and an older man came in and, of course, sat next to Viv. He immediately started chattering like an excited kid about how thrilled he had been (while “stumbling by all drunk”) to learn that the show was 75 cents, and how the last time he’d been in the Paramount was in the seventies at an Alice Cooper show, and this, and that, and SHUT THE FSCK UP AND LEAVE MY WIFE ALONE I wanted to yell.

Turning, I noticed the obvious cuts and bruises of someone who regularly and recently has gotten into curb-stomping drunken brawls. Prominent among these was the choking-derived full-bloom capillary rupture of the blood vessels in his left eye, turning the white blood red. I re-evaluated my position, and concluded as irritating as he was, he seemed genuinely happy and excited to be at the show.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t SHUT UP, even after essentially everyone around him complained or shushed him.

About the time I decided that cowardice was the better part of valor, a representative of the Seattle Theater Group came out, thanked Trader Joe’s, and began to rhapsodize about the contributions to Seattle-area film culture Dennis James has been making over the past few years, concluding with the wildly-applauded announcement that Dennis is moving to Seattle!

Of course I put two and two together – that would be the announcement one would expect James himself to make in front of his new hometown crowd – and realized he wasn’t going to be able to play the show. It’s a pity, because the STG guy alluded to some extensive scholarly work James may have put into the score for the film – it’s entirely possible that James crafted a full-scale restoration of the score.

Nonetheless, the fact of James’ moving here bodes well for my silent movie enthusiasm. As does the turnout for Wings, for that matter.

Then Warren Etheredge, of Seattle website and (I think) cable access show (make that radio, apparently, but not on stations I listen to) The Warren Report stepped out in to the spotlight and gave a brief – and very amusing- backgrounder on the film. Irritatingly, the site’s archive of past events is wildly out of date, so I can’t link to his notes for the film.

In any event, DrunkMan chattered throughout the whole pre-film talk despite multiple shushings, and it was very distracting. I still managed to learn that the two male leads for the film – Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers and Richard Arlen – were both U. S. Army Air Corps (or is that “Service”) vets, something I did not know, and that the substitute organist, Teddy Mumble (sorry, man, I missed your last name) would be providing an improvised score on two hours notice.

My understanding is inaccurate, however, as this April ’99 obit for Buddy Rogers makes clear. He actually appears to have learned to fly for the film, and went on to be a flight instructor for the Navy during WW2. It should also be noted that in the film he looks just like Robert Downey, Jr.

Etheredge closed his remarks by noting (validly) the homoerotic subtext of the film, in which two young men grow close during wartime, only for one to meet a tragic end in the arms of another in what’s without question an affecting scene. Unfortunately, some of audience as well as the accompanist took this as a green light to appreciate the film in an ironic, mocking manner, laughing at unfamiliar tropes (“Haw haw! Look! They’re so old-fashioned! Thank GAWD we’re the enlightened products of a superior culture”) and so forth, definitely not the best way to look at silents in general.

DrunkMan waited until the lights had gone down to noisily open his bottle of Ripple. He consumed it in about fifteen minutes, and then – THANK GOD – he left. When the lights came up at intermission, the floor under his seat was a huge mess of discarded candy wrappers, dropped candy, and – of course – his empty bottle. He also left behind a nice hat.

Now that I’ve moved his distracting, stinky specter off stage I can write about the movie itself.

The film is relatively long – about two hours – and not the most original plot ever seen on the silver screen. Scene after scene is allowed to run on and on.

Despite this, the film was absolutely gripping. Two of the three most egregiously extended scenes – the second male lead’s lengthy, portentous farewell to his aged mother and wheelchair-bound father; his equally drawn out death sequence; but not a scene set in Paris on leave in which lead Buddy Rogers is very, very drunk – have shifted in meaning to a contemporary audience. The date on which the meanings changed? March 17, 2003.

Throughout the film, the wartime experience of watching a war movie shot and originally released during a time of high anti-war sentiment was disconcerting at least, and occasionally downright confusing, and throughout, it altered the experience of seeing the film.

It was utterly impossible to watch the thrilling aerial battles without thinking about Americans, British, Australians, and Iraqis that were fighting and dying in Iraq as we watched the flickering ghosts of other warriors before us.

Of note was the spontaneous applause that erupted at the sight of the French flag during a military honors ceremony in which our young heroes are awarded a Palme d’Or by a French air commander. I was disappointed to not be able to identify the other aviators – one French, one British – honored in the ceremony. The Frenchman stood with the aid of two canes, and I feel certain that if these individuals were not actual cameos by genuine prominent WWI aviators, they represented genuine, specific individuals. I seem to recall there was at least one French ace that continued to fly after a spinal injury paralyzed him from the waist down – perhaps I’m simply recalling the great French ace Charles Nungesser, who continued to fly while unable to walk due to various broken bones sustained in crashes. Interestingly, Nungesser came to the U. S. and worked as a stunt flyer before disappearing out of France on an attempted transatlantic flight in 1927.

More applause was heard at various points during the air battles and extended ground battle sequence – interestingly, the applause reflected the audience’s confused state as they watched the bombs drop and the planes fall burning from the sky onscreen.

One person would applaud only when American planes were hit. Loud, sustained applause rose and then suddenly cut off as what appeared to be genuine bomber-cam footage of actual bombing runs over a small French village was shown – one precision strike reducing the village church to rubble. Hooray for the heroic bombers – oh, wait, they’re the dastardly Jerries, I mean, down with the evildoers!

(I should clarify that the bombing that was shot appeared to have been staged for the movie with real explosives falling from a real airplane onto a real full-scale town set. This survey of the history of aviation cinematogaphy confirms the use of real bombs.)

Others applauded as German planes fell or infantrymen were crushed by tanks. Some hissed the applause. During intermission, one woman a few feet behind us complained bitterly that people were applauding at all, apparently upset that the applauders were not considering the possibility that persons in the audience could have lost friends or family either in Baghdad or elsewhere in the conflicts in the middle east. These interactions seemed to be prompted by the misguided notion that all silent movies are melodrama and call for audience catcalls at the appearance of the villain and cheering when Dudley Do-Right steps onscreen.

Moving from the external to the internal, the reason for the film’s leisurely pace at the moments of greatest sad emotion became clear. When the film was released in 1927, a large segment of the film’s viewing audience, both in the U. S. and in Europe, would be about as far from the loss of a family member or beloved friend as I am now from my sister’s death.

One purpose of tragedy is catharsis, and the film’s sentimental, genuinely affecting depiction of wartime losses would have provided its’ contemporary audience with many opportunities to do experience that.

A peculiar aspect of the film, for me, was the sense that my perception of acting styles and performances has shifted as a result of watching so many silents over the last couple of years – I have certainly seen more silents than contemporary films over that period of time. Whatever the reason, I was struck by the relative naturalism of the actor’s performances – and, honestly, in the death scene in particular, the actors’ performances were, to me, genuinely affecting. My appreciation of this was much marred by the sniggering that filled the auditorium thanks to Mr. Etheredge’s unfortunate remarks at the beginning of the event.

Naturally, nothing from me on this film should neglect a look at the airplanes themselves.

The film depicts the last period of the war, in very general terms, and as such, our heroes are implied to be among the first batch of American pilots who arrived in France under American military authority. These pilots largely began the war with French-made Spad XIIIs, up against the newer, faster, and tougher Fokker D.VII.

(Later pilots would use newer planes, such as the speedy Nieuport 28).

Both planes appear in the film, but the bulk of the flying is done in redressed planes that belonged to the U.S. Army Air Corps at the time, the film being made with the entire cooperation of the Army.

Boeing MB-3A aircraft were used used as fill-in planes in Wings. At least one Spad (labeled as a Spad XIII) and one genuine Fokker D.VII were employed in the film, but the Boeing planes – identifiable by their odd nose cowling and tapered wing shape – are used as the primary aircraft throughout the film.

Also employed were three very large dual-engined craft depict German Gotha bombers – I have not been able to track down whether these aircraft were redressed models from a different manufacturer or the originals. I think it’s likely that these actually were Sikorsky S-29s (albeit modded to offer an open cabin).

One challenge to internet research on the film is the generic title of the movie. Literally every aviation-history document available on the internet uses the word “wings” somewhere, and thus the aspirant Googler (c)-R-TM will have great difficulty locating documents such as this one that discuss the film and provide pointers to source material. One hopes, as has been the case with my Shenadoah documents, the comments will help the page’s Google (c)-R-TM juice.

A key scene of “balloon busting”, wherein the U. S. pilot downs two hydrogen filled German tethered blimps is depicted in realistic detail including what I believe to be actual in-plane footage of such a balloon being shot down. The camera is shooting from behind the pilot and clearly captures the tracers igniting the balloon. It’s a remarkable sequence that may have been more entertaining to me as a WW1 aviation enthusiast than to others in the audience.

This site has a rundown of the aircraft used in the film, which I reproduce here:

Wings, 1927
WWI- Richard Arlen (ex RFC, future USAAF); American WWI buddies go to France. One of the greatest aviation epics.

Used over 300 pilots, mostly US Army. Many (220+) USAAC planes, with at least one of their pilots being killed. Shot at Kelly and Brooks Fields, and Camp Stanley, Texas in 1926.

Types used include Spad VII (2 w/o in staged crashes), Fokker D.VII (2 w/o in staged crashes) 2 MB-3’s were also deliberately crashed.

Units included the DH.4’s of 90 BS. SE.5’s, Thomas Morse MB.3 Scouts of 43 PS, DH.4 and MB.2’s of 11 BS, Curtiss P-1 Hawk of 17 PS, 27 PS, 94 PS, 95 PS, of the 1 PG, and Vought VE-7’s from Langley.

Thomas-Morse MB.3 and DH.4 camera planes from Crissy Field, Curtiss NBS-1 camera plane. USAAC balloons.

Written by F.J Saunders (ex-WWI pilot), directed by William Wellman (ex SPAD pilot) Actor Buddy Rogers became a USN test pilot in WWII.

In summation, Wings is better on a large screen than I had expected. It’s hard to find certain kinds of trivia information about the film. Seeing a movie about war in wartime is a very weird experience. Especially if it’s in Seattle. That’s where Dennis James will now be based, which is good news for me!

I’d urge you to avail yourselves of the opportunity to see the film in a theater if it comes up. It’s really a different film than on the tube.

Let’s open the envelope, shall we?

So, to summarize: I got two out of seven. Almodovar and Polanski blindsided me. Anne Zender, however, knew the rule to apply when considering Nicole Kidman’s performance: “Putty nose wins,” she said.

While Paul Frankenstein blogged the ceremony live, Ken sat it out this year, unlike last (start here, read upwards). We were on the road back from Oregon and didn’t see any of the show (not that I would have been watching anyway).

Conclusion: next time I pick Oscar winners, simply pick whatever the opposite of my choices are, and you should be in good shape.

Here is my prediction for 2003, in the 2004 ceremony:

Peter Jackson’s The Return of the King wins in all major categories, allowing the competing Matrix productions only minor wins in categories that prior LOTR films have won in, such as Sound.

Viv and I went to see the new Willard, as one might expect from my chortling appressssiashion of the video the other day. Alas, ALAS, the film does not adopt the oddball, Lynchian Weimar cabaret setting of the video – dang it, that’s STILL a film I’d love to see.

BUT I really enjoyed it. Reviewrs to date have been offput by the lack of sympathy that Glover’s peformance provides – he’s not a real human, the characters in the film in general are caricatures, the film has no emotional center, and so on.

Does this sound familiar? It’s the grounds whereby most of Joel and Ethan Coen’s work is generally dismissed, the basis of the dismissive critique of Dan Clowes’ early work, and the single least-praised element in Chris Ware’s work.

Translation: I LOVED THIS FILM! I laughed and laughed until my sides hurt. Misanthropy does not do justice to the underlying value system, or lack thereof, in the film. Viv was occasionally embarrassed at my raucous laughter.

Here’s a sample: Willard buys some rat-and-pest control stuff at the beginning of the film, including some items branded “Tora Bora.” At the end of the film, these items are lit, like dynamite, and tossed into the basement full of rats, whose corpses are later burned.

As I recall it, I was the only one that got the joke, and I howled.

Let me assure you, it’s far from grisly, with only the smallest amount of onscreen gore.

A note should you attend: about half of the audience that attended the screening we were at were African-American, and took great pleasure at vocally interacting with the film. It’s harmless, but a surprise when you don’t generally attend what I hear they call “urban audience” oriented films.

I actually do hope more 70’s horror flicks like the original Willard get remade, number one on my list being my favorite vampire movie of all time, George Romero’s Martin. Remakes are currently underway or completed for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (emphatically NOT what I’m interested in) and (what the HELL are they thinking) Romero’s masterpiece, Dawn of the Living Dead (you know, the shopping mall one), unfortunately without Romero’s involvement.

Martin, unlike Dawn, is not completely successful, largely because Romero was attempting to combine a radical reimagining of the vampire legend with 1970’s available-light filmic sensibilities. It’s aesthetically appropriate, but not nearly as entertaining as it could be. Where Dawn‘s satiric content is what makes it a complete success, Martin‘s extremely serious tone weighs the film down, even as the central idea – the character Martin’s adolescent sexuality expresses itself in vampirism – is not only strong but so obvious that it’s surprising how little it’s been used.

Oscar Pool 2003: A Pith Production proffers the possibility that you might pick the Oscars!

As I have a longish Oscars piece all ready to go, let’s GET READY TO RUMBLE!

We saw Chicago on Saturday, too. I lack the musical theater gene, so I felt that it was… OK.

I sure don’t think it’s 13 Oscar nominations worth of film. On the other hand, I didn’t see anything wrong with it – the cinematography was excellent, the actors did actually emote through the songs (John C. Reilly’s “Mr. Cellophane” being my personal favorite), and, well, I can’t argue with a couple hours of dancin’ ladies in their skivvies. Especially when it pleases the wife.

That said, the Academy is voted by theatrical professionals, and the story at Chicago‘s heart appeals very deeply to that audience.

So:

Chicago is up against The Hours, The Two Towers, Gangs of New York, and The Pianist in both Best Picture and Best Director. Pedro Almodovar is up for Director for Talk to Her as well.

The musical also received Best Actress (Zellweger) and Supporting Actress/Actor nominations (both Queen Latifah and Zeta-Jones; and Reilly, respectively).

Although Reilly’s nomination may be deserved, he’s given more compelling performances in the past. The sad-sack cop in Magnolia comes to mind, if I recall correctly.

Of the other nominees for best actress, I’ve only seen Meryl Streep in Adaptation, and although I adored the film, I must admit to some puzzlement over her nomination for the performance (as is the case for Chris Cooper’s nomination in the same vehicle). So from what I’ve seen, Zeta-Jones might have a shot, but I can’t really say.

So looking now at Zellweger, um, it was quite a show. And since the whole movie is basically a long exercise in how her character re-imagines her fate as a Broadway musical with her as the star, it’s hard not to imagine that somehow, Renée Zellweger holding the damn trophy is the last scene in the movie, one that was somehow cut.

So I predict she’s gonna win it.

Now, I’ve not seen The Hours, and I have no doubt that Kidman’s performance is something remarkable. But Hollywood ain’t gonna slap someone on the back for making a movie about suicidal depression, any more than they will Peter Jackson for this year’s installment of The Lord of the Rings.

Speaking of films that won’t win, I’m thinking movies about the plight of Jewish artists during the Holocaust might not be the right kind of big-ticket ring-a-ding-daddy picture that moves the herd to vote either. At least this year. And if the film’s directed by the world’s most famous pederast, in the year that Pee Wee Herman is fighting child porn charges, well . . . Let’s just say that Hollywood has a shameful history of acting in response to guilt-by-association pressure. So scratch The Pianist, unless Polanski makes some kind of public appearance linking his film to resistance against the war in Iraq and makes it stick. Which won’t happen.

And sorry, Pedro, you’re really not in the running here, as far as I can tell. Of course, I speak from ignorance here, and really mean see your film one of these days. Just like many, many of the voters for the award.

So who’s left?

Ah, Martin Scorsese and Gangs of New York.

(crap, I wrote a whole essay about Scorsese’s film that I DID – NOT – SAVE. Time to write it again.)

If you read any reviews of Scorsese’s film, I’m not going to add anything to the discussion, honest. Allow me to summarize: the film is sprawlingly huge, immensely ambitious, and almost at every level, a failure. The failure comes as a result of Scorsese’s overreaching.

In the whole film, there was only one time that I felt a specific poor filmmaking choice was made – in a gang battle seen near the opening of the film, the soundtrack suddenly introduces a thumping techno beat, which immediately vanishes. For the duration of the film, the musical soundtrack is composed entirely of music one might have heard in the streets of mid-19th century New York, much of it drawn directly from the American Memory archive I mentioned here recently.

The film’s center is Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance. However, it feels as though this is some sort of error, as the plot of the film presents Leonardo DiCaprio’s character as the protagonist, with whom Scorsese wishes us to empathize and identify. Unaccountably, this emotional connection never materializes.

To cut to the chase, this film is far from the best work that Scorsese’s ever done. Of course, famously, that’s likely to remain Raging Bull. So what’s Marty doing on the list this year?

In essence, the nomination comes in recognition of the scope of Scorsese’s ambition in the film, and as an amelioration of the obvious injustice of Scorsese’s never-won-an-Oscar status. That’s right. This director has never won an Oscar for Best Picture or for Best Director. This alone should be evidence of the political, rather than artistic, nature of the Oscars.

So, can Gangs of New York win in a horse race with Chicago? I think it’s possible. But the award would go to Scorsese not for the film itself, for the specific artistic and technical accomplishments of the film. In the end, Chicago is a better film, one with no depth, but perfectly executed. As far as I can see, it is nearly ambitionless, grounded in nostalgia and an effort to right another wrong, Bob Fosse’s inability to bring the piece to the screen himself.

But, combined with the appeal of the worldview it espouses to the voting membership, it will be the big winner. Before the jury votes to acquit his client, Richard Gere’s Billy Flynn sings, “How can they see with sequins in their eyes?”

So, here are my picks, then:

• Best Picture: Chicago
• Best director: Rob Marshall or Martin Scorsese
• Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
• Best Actress: Reneé Zellweger
• Best Supporting Actor: no pick – I haven’t got enough of a sense of the contenders
• Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Best original screenplay: Gangs of New York
• Best adapted screenplay: Chicago (or Far From Heaven, or My Big Fat Greek Wedding – but I doubt it.)

Mind you, I’d rather see Adaptation win for best adapted screenplay, but there’s no way in hell producers are going to vote for a picture about how a screenwriter out-clevered ’em. I do feel constrained to note that the screenplay for About a Boy was really just remarkable – in another year, it might well have won.

It should also be noted that The Two Towers was up only for a handful of awards this year, and among the major categories only in best picture. This is largely because the Academy ruled it ineligible in several of the categories (so that under ‘makeup’ this year, you’ll find only Frida and The Time Machine – The Time Machine! – nominated).

Anyway. Here’s a link to the nominations list hosted by the Academy.

I interviewed Doug Naylor, co-creator and head honcho of Red Dwarf this morning.

The website has quite a stack of interviews conducted by Mr. Flibble. By quite a stack, I mean, um, over fifty? I didn’t count, but the damn bird gets around.

I finally made it out to see Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, and my experience was on par with the opening reviews – flawed being the key word used at the time.

I think I’d add “overworked” to that evaluation, but not in any jarring manner. i found it interesting, and again echoing the earlier reviews, emotionally flat. I must note I have no idea how I would have changed things to increase my emotional resonance with the characters, but I do think that Scorsese was hoping to create just such a resonance.

Despite that it was fascinating. Scorsese’s Apocalypse Now? mmmm, no.