Generation Y’s great filmmakers have not yet arrived. And don’t expect too many of them.

William Strauss and Neil Howe argue in their fourth book of generational theory, Millennials Rising, that the babies born from 1982 through 2003 are part of a “Civic” generation. This is the same as the GI Generation (the accurately named “Greatest Generation”) born from 1901-1924 who went through World War II as young adults.

The Greatest provided us with many cinematic giants but none made a deeper footprint on the 20^th century than Walt Disney. The Disney Effect came not just in the artistry of his films but his technological innovations and capitalist ventures. He constructed a billion-dollar corporation which has changed our lives. That’s what leaders of Civic generations do: build transformative institutions.

The Millennial Generation has already seen our Walt Disney emerge and release his equivalent of “Steamboat Willie.” It’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook is only the primitive beginning of what he’ll build in the coming decades. Today because of our saturation in cartoons we fail to appreciate how groundbreaking “Steamboat Willie” and “Snow White” were to a world that had never seen such creatures. And so it shall go with Facebook in a few decades’ time.

Narrative films and television programs were America’s unifying, transformative cultural experience of the 20^th century. Computers, the internet, and technology are their equivalent for the 21^st.

If there was one key disagreement that I had with my friend Ben Shapiro over Primetime Propaganda it was how little he considered the implications of exponential technological growth in the political war with the Hollywood Left. Shapiro acknowledges in the book that a merging of television with the internet will happen someday but still argues that the primary goal of Hollywood conservatives should be to develop careers within the existing entertainment infrastructure.

It’s a worthwhile thought in spirit but such advice fails to consider the success of the blogosphere and Andrew Breitbart’s victories. It’s akin to urging conservative journalists in 2011 to try and get jobs at newspapers and magazines instead of just starting their own online publications.

Hollywood conservatives should be more concerned with developing their own technological, media, and entertainment properties in the world of the internet. They should be thinking not about the technological world as it is now, but rather as it will be 5, 10, 15, and 20 years down the road. (This is where the Silent Generation Doubt comes in – we must doubt that the cultural institutions we have had our whole lives will never become obsolete.)

Consider Transcendent Man, the recent documentary about inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. The film is based on his 2005 book The Singularity is Near and builds on his past 20 years of accurate predictions of technological growth. This is the reality we forget: technology is constantly getting twice as powerful, half as expensive, and much smaller. And the speed of this doubling is accelerating. (Kurzweil has pretty startling predictions about how powerful computers will be by 2020, 2029 and 2050.) By anticipating the future technology we can position ourselves to dominate its use once it’s widely adopted.

Through Kurzweil we can see that the merging of TV with the internet is likely to happen much sooner (certainly within the decade) than most realize.

Movies and television are not always going to have the place in our lives that they did during the last 60 years. Not only will it continue to become cheaper and easier for the whole population to produce their own TV shows and movies, but the mediums themselves will become passé, like theatre and painting today. Roger Simon acknowledges as much in one of the sadder passages of Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine:

The dramatic film is, more than we admit, a superficial form and, in an odd way, dependent on its superficiality for its success. It is at its essence a quick emotional hit, a feeling that we are all engulfed with as we identify with the life on the screen, throwing ourselves into it. At its best (Casablanca, The Seven Samurai, Nights of Cabiria) this can be an inspiring experience with overtones of Aristotle’s catharsis, but it is not necessarily deep or complex. Nor is it engaging to the audience, except in a passive way. The interactive computer arts of the future may reach the mind and the emotions on far more significant levels.

This means that the Hollywood Left as we understand it is losing its powerbase. Just as the Left’s comfy home in the mainstream media is crumbling, so too with entertainment.

This was the great failure of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School (see chapter 6 in Righteous Indignation.) They thought that by persuading leftists to invest decades of time in seizing the “means of cultural production” – the media, arts, and universities – that Marxism could actually destroy the country. But they failed to understand how cultural institutions are just reactions to the technology of the period.

As technology transforms the way we live our lives the old institutions crumble. This is the opportunity facing Hollywood conservatives today. The three components of the previous generations – Silent Doubt, Boomer Aggression, and Gen-X Independence – require one final ingredient to unify them together: Gen-Y Optimism.

That was the key for Civic Generation President Ronald Reagan, and here’s what it looks like on film for those so beaten down in the age of Barack Obama that they have forgotten:

Last year Miramax released “Doubt,” a high-profile piece of Oscar-bait starring Academy Award winners’ Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Streep plays a puritanical nun on a moral crusade to expose a Priest (Hoffman) who she believes is sexually abusing a 12 year-old boy. Both characters are portrayed as unsympathetic (especially Streep’s) but in just a couple scenes the boy’s working-class mother (Mrs. Miller, played by Viola Davis) is established as the moral center of the film – the only one truly interested in the welfare of her child. When Mrs. Miller’s informed that her son’s being molested, the Moral Center Of The Film responds that her 12 year-old boy is gay, a social outcast, and beaten regularly by his homophobic father … so maybe the best option for him is a sexual relationship with a forty-something child predator.

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, and written and directed by Oscar-winner Alan Ball, last year’s “Towelhead” is a film Roman Polanski might have seen many, many times while wearing a rain coat. The protagonist is 13 year-old Jasira (played by the then barely eighteen Summer Bishil) and the story surrounds her sexual abuse at the hands of a number of men, including Eckhart’s Gulf War Vet. Rather than the repeated abuse damaging the young girl, the filmmaker portrays the rapes and molestations as a healthy and sexually liberating experience. More than once the audience is “treated” to lingering shots of Jasira’s bare legs as she discovers the joys of the orgasm while masturbating to photographs of naked women.

Kate Winslet won last year’s Best Actress Oscar for her role in “The Reader,” in which she plays a “sympathetic” Nazi guilty of mass murder who seduces and then engages in a steamy sexual affair with a 15 year-old boy. The sex scenes between this mature woman and a child lean heavily on the erotic, as opposed to the creepy. (The “sympathetic Nazi” issue we’ll save for another post.)

Yes, in just one year, Hollywood released three films that in one way or another portrayed sex with children as potentially healthy or their molester as sympathetic. And these aren’t fringe, indie films either. All three involve name stars and Oscar winners.

Unfortunately, this is not a conspiracy. Hollywood deviants never gathered together to plan for a slate of films aimed at a drip-drip campaign designed to dull our moral outrage towards the most heinous crime imaginable. It’s worse than that. We’re up against a culture; the same culture that can’t quite grasp why a child rapist should have to serve prison time for a crime he’s confessed to.

And this is how cinematic propaganda works. Whether the filmmaker’s motivations are good or evil, the idea is to get decent and thoughtful people to start second guessing themselves as they’re enveloped in the dark and held captive by the powerful sound and fury of the moving picture. First we’re led to identify and sympathize with a particular character, then that character does something designed to challenge our belief structure. This can range from, “If John Wayne opposes racism, maybe I should,” to, “Well, if a loving mother is okay with it, maybe I need to get a little more nuanced and tolerant about this whole child-rape thing.”

On its face, that may sound laughable, and maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean our eyes are lying to us. Last year merely topped off a campaign targeted at our children that began some time ago.

In 2006’s “Notes on a Scandal,” Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett plays a school teacher engaged in a steamy sexual affair with one of her students. Like “The Reader,” the sex scenes between a mature woman and her student strive for the erotic and never once does the story stop to examine how such a destructive affair might psychologically affect a teen-aged boy. That same year, in “Little Children,” Jackie Earle Haley was Oscar-nominated for his support work as a molester just released from prison who’s the victim of that favorite Hollywood whipping boy, suburban hypocrisy. Just two years earlier, Kevin Bacon’s heroic molester in “The Woodsman” not only saves the day and wins the pretty girl, but in his valiant struggle to “reform” he’s presented as a kind of “civil rights” metaphor as policemen and “intolerant” co-workers torment him.

The award for Most Unsettling, however, must go to 2004’s “Birth,” where Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman stars as a widow convinced her dead husband has returned in the form of a 10 year-old boy. If watching a near-forty year-old woman exchange longing looks with a little kid isn’t creepy enough, wait till they end up naked in a bathtub together.

Whether it’s true or not that seventy-five years ago Clark Gable nearly bankrupted the t-shirt industry by not wearing one in “It Happened One Night,” what is true is that billions of dollars are spent annually by advertisers convinced sound and images can alter behavior. You’d have to be a fool to make an argument against the persuasive powers of moving images, but those fools do exist. Most of them are liars.

The Hollywood Left is many things but they’re not fools and they fully understand the power of the medium under their control. Certainly, damning everyone who works in the entertainment world would be unfair, but this is also a culture where only a handful of “names” were willing to speak out against the pro-Polanski movement – including many Leftists who have never been shy about speaking out in the past.

The film industry has a history to be proud of when it comes to opposing racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, the most vocal from this current crop seem all too ready to tarnish that legacy as they target our children for profit and worse.

Is it too much to ask of the Hollywood Left that they show as much intolerance towards the sexualization of young children as they do towards conservatives and Christians?

That question has already been answered.

The first thing that grabbed me was the character work. The hero, Julia Powell (her real life blog is here) is a foodie blogger played by Amy Adams. I’m used to watching Amy Adams over my kid’s shoulder in “Enchanted,” which plays in our house on continual loop. I didn’t know Amy knew how to turn down the volume and play a “plain-Jane, yet interesting”… but she’s awesome. This isn’t her usual glowing, perky role where she turns it on like a fire-hose. And she doesn’t turn invisible like when she played a piece of cardboard in “Doubt.”

Back to the characters because “J and J” is a feast of interesting, appealing people I haven’t seen chew up the screen like this in a long time. The real Julia Child is already a great character, but Streep not only personifies this larger than life personality, she pulls off hilarious physical acting. She’s a comedic presence that had our audience laughing with every scene. And she looks huge, just like the real Julia Child. As a 6′8″ fellow, I appreciated the height jokes like when Streep reclines in a bed only to have her feet extend well beyond the mattress.

But Streep shows us sides of Child we probably hadn’t seen before: her sexuality, her competitive spirit, and the mourning for children. How painfully ironic that her name was Child.

I don’t know how Streep does it, but she makes her jowls look bigger. Her hands look big and mannish. Her shoulders rounded so that she looks like she’s playing a man in drag, which is kind of how Child came off to me. A refrigerator in a dress.

Stanley Tucci was in another favorite food movie of mine, “Big Night.” My friends told me to see Big Night then go out for Italian food. My Beloved and I saw “J and J” on date night then went out for dinner. It was one of our better date nights… much better than the time I made her see “Mimic.” But guys, don’t be fooled into thinking this is a chick flick. It’s a people flick. I’d take anybody to see this and if they didn’t like it, they’d need therapy. Yeah, this is the first sure fire Oscar contender I saw this year. At least this is the one I’ll be rooting for when they award it to some movie about a transvestite who marries a 12-year-old boy then murders him because Republican Christians fired him from his job.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Stanley Tucci. He plays the nicest guy in the world. He’s a great, understated character to provide contrast to Streep’s living cartoon. Hats off to Chris Messina as Julie Powell’s long-suffering husband and Jane Lynch who plays Julia Child’s sister.

This is for Nora Ephron: stop wasting your time at Huffington Post and make more movies. As a married man, you’re one of the few who seem to get marriage… even men in marriage. You seem to like men, which is rare among women writers. As someone who writes graphic novels, you’re one of the few who gets what it’s like to long for a significant project to find its way to publisher. You get the narcissism of working on one’s craft while someone else is in the house being neglected for some great piece of art. As someone who knows his way around the kitchen, you get the love of cooking, experimenting with recipes, even shopping for ingredients. Finally, you get Julia Child… including details like her love of sending post cards.

My wife went through a phase when she became an airplane pilot in the ’90s where she studied great women of the last century. She stumbled on the biography of Child Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch. So inspired was my Beloved that she mailed Julia a birthday greeting for her 88th birthday. A few weeks later, she received a hand written post card from Julia herself! We were both so excited and my Beloved went into a cooking phase where I was the benefactor.

Man, this makes me wanna cook something. Maybe I’ll try making beef bourguignon.

Slumdog Millionaire is about to win the Hollywood's Grand Prize

The “Battle Royale” of the night is Mickey Rouke from The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) vs. Sean Penn in Milk (Focus) in the Best Actor category. There have been two ties in major categories in Academy Award history. The first was in 1932 when Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde shared Best Actor with Wallace Beery for The Champ. (March had one more vote, but in that era, any finish within 3 votes was rules a tie.) Then in 1968, Katherine Hepburn for The Lion In Winter and Barbara Streisand for Funny Girl tied for Best Actress. If there was any justice, Rourke and Penn would share the award. In any other year, either of them would be a lock. Forced to make a pick, I’m going with Rourke.

Does Streep's upset of Winslet at the SAG Awards set the stage for Meryl's third Oscar win?

Kate Winslet is on the cover of Time Magazine, and she has picked up a wheelbarrow full of hardware during this awards cycle, but a fair number of voters got their fill of Kate when she pulled off the double-win at the Golden Globes. My upset special is Meryl Streep for Doubt (Miramax). This is her 15th career nomination, and she has not won an Academy Award in 25 years (Sophie’s Choice in 1982). That is too long for the most-revered actress in history to go without getting one of those golden guys. Streep won the SAG Award for Lead Actress, and I think she has a real shot here. (It would be a huge upset.)

Finally if my predix hold up, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) would win only 2 Oscars – Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup – despite 13 nominations. That would be the fewest wins for any movie with 13 or more nominations. In fact, 2 wins would be among the poorest showings ever for a movie with 11 nominations or more.

Tied for the biggest shutout in Oscar history; Benjamin Button could win for Makeup and Visual Effects

FEWEST OSCAR WINS FOR MOVIES WITH 11 NOMINATIONS OR MORE
1. The Color Purple – 0 wins (11 nominations)
2. The Turning Point – 0 wins (11 nominations)
3. Chinatown – 1 win (11 nominations)
4. Johnny Belinda – 1 win (12 nominations)
5. Becket – 1 win (12 nominations)
6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – 1 win (11 nominations)
7. Pride of the Yankees – 1 win (11 nominations)
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 2 wins (13 nominations) – predicted
9. Rebecca – 2 wins (11 nominations)
10. Sergeant York – 2 wins (11 nominations)
11. A Passage To India – 2 wins (11 nominations)
12. Judgement at Nuremberg – 2 wins (11 nominations)

After weeks of obsessive study, relentless debate and intense soul-searching, here are my final Oscar predictions for all 24 categories.

BEST PICTURE
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Milk

BEST ACTOR
My Pick – Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Consensus Pick – Sean Penn, Milk or Rourke
Dark Horse – None

BEST ACTRESS
My Pick – Meryl Streep, Doubt
Consensus Pick – Kate Winslet, The Reader
Dark Horse – Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
My Pick – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dark Horse – None

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
My Pick – Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Consensus Pick – Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Dark Horse – Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

BEST DIRECTOR
My Pick – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Milk screenwriter Justin Lance Black

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
My Pick – Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Consensus Pick – Andrew Stanton, WALL-E
Dark Horse – Martin McDonagh, In Bruges

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
My Pick – Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – David Hare, The Reader

BEST EDITING
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Frost/Nixon

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
My Pick – Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight

BEST ART DIRECTION
My Pick – The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Duchess

BEST SOUND MIXING
My Pick – The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – The Dark Knight
Dark Horse – Slumdog Millionaire

BEST SOUND EDITING
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
My Pick – The Duchess
Consensus Pick – The Duchess
Dark Horse – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
My Pick – A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – A. R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
My Pick – Waltz with Bashir
Consensus Pick – Waltz with Bashir
Dark Horse – The Class

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
My Pick – Man on Wire
Consensus Pick – Man On Wire
Dark Horse – Trouble the Water

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
My Pick – WALL-E
Consensus Pick – WALL-E
Dark Horse – Kung Fu Panda

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
My Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST MAKEUP
My Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
My Pick – Jaiho from Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Jaiho from Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Peter Gabriel, Down to Earth from WALL-E

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
My Pick – Toyland (Spielzeugland)
Consensus Pick – Auf der Strecke
Dark Horse – The Pig

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
My Pick – Presto
Consensus Pick – La Maison en Petits Cubes
Dark Horse – This Way Up

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
My Pick – The Conscience of Nhem En
Consensus Pick – The Witness
Dark Horse – The Final Inch

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

Question: Who will win Best Picture? Answer: Still, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

BEST PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire – 1/7
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 6/1
Milk – 20/1
Frost/Nixon – 30/1
The Reader – 50/1

VALUE: I believe that in order to win an Academy Award, passion is required. Slumdog Millionaire has a passionate zeal among its supporters that will make it virtually unbeatable. Although I have made The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the second choice here, I give it very little chance of winning. It has major studio backing (Paramount), and it is certainly well-respected, but it is more admired than loved. So, for me the betting value is in Milk. Aside from Slumdog, it is the movie with the largest bloc of zealous fans. Gay and gay-friendly Academy members love the movie, and in the shadow of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, Milk is worth a $2 bet at the window.

Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk is now a decided underdog to Mickey Rourke

BEST ACTOR
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler – 1/2
Sean Penn, Milk – 3/2
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon – 10/1
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 25/1
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor – 35/1

VALUE: After colorful, rambling, verging on obscene acceptance speeches at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards, Mickey Rourke is the true favorite for Best Actor. Rourke has also campaigned hard, paying the paying the price for that Golden Globe win by schmoozing each and every one of those 95 Hollywood Foreign Press members. Penn just doesn’t play that awards campaign game at all, but actors love him. The only real betting value here is Penn, who still has a chance of winning his second Oscar.

It has been 25 years since Mery Streep won an Oscar

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, The Reader – 1/2
Meryl Streep, Doubt – 5/2
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married – 4/1
Angelina Jolie, Changeling – 25/1
Melissa Leo, Frozen River – 35/1

VALUE: It is Kate Winslet’s year. Just ask anybody. She has two outstanding awards-caliber performances in The Reader and Revolutionary Road. If rules would have allowed, she might have been nominated twice in the Best Actress category. She’s 0-fer-5 lifetime at the Academy Awards and deserves to win, but she can be beaten. Jolie and Leo have no shot. Hathaway is the 3rd choice in the field, and a win is not inconceivable, but Streep is the value bet. The undisputed greatest living actress has not won an Oscar in 25 years, despite the fact that this is her eleventh nomination since winning for Sophie’s Choice in 1983.

Ledger is a lock

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heather Ledger, The Dark Knight – 1/100
Josh Brolin, Milk – 20/1
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder – 25/1
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt – 30/1
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road – 50/1

VALUE: None. There is no value in this category. Heath Ledger will win Best Supporting Actor posthumously. If you are unfamiliar with how odds work, 1/100 means that you would have to bet $100 to win just $1, and even then, it would be tough to get anybody to take your wager.

Marisa Tomei's "stripper with a heart of gold" in THE WRESTLER may earn her a second Oscar

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona – 1/2
Viola Davis, Doubt – 3/1
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler – 5/1
Amy Adams, Doubt – 12/1
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 15/1

VALUE: This is, by far, the most competitive of the major awards. The longest shot in the field, Taraji P. Henson from Ben Button, is only a 15-1 longshot. Woody Allen has a knack for helping actresses win in this category (ask Dianne Wiest , who scored for both Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway). That points to a win for Penelope Cruz, who was raw and sexy as Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Davis can certainly win for her fleeting-but-powerful turn in Doubt, but my value bet is Marisa Tomei. Her first win, for My Cousin Vinny, was viewed by many as a fluke. In fact, there is an urban legend that she really didn’t win. The story goes that Jack Palance, who presented that year, read the wrong name (the legend claims that Vanessa Redgrave was the actual winner for Howard’s End). In reality, there is no doubt that Tomei is an Oscar winning actress, who gives her career-best performance in The Wrestler.

The uncompromising David Fincher

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire – 1/7
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 6/1
Gus Van Sant, Milk – 20/1
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon – 25/1
Stephen Daldry, The Reader – 35/1

VALUE: Nobody is going to beat Danny Boyle, but if I was looking for a strong value bet, I would wager on Fincher. He is a visionary with some amazing movies on his resume, including Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac. He has worked with countless actors and industry types, and his uncompromising nature makes him tough to like, but easy to respect. If there were an upset in this category, Fincher is the only guy who could pull it off.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

BAFTA Winner Mickey Rourke

The two major uncertainties entering Sunday’s ceremony were whether Kate Winslet, twice-nominated for Best Actress, would split her own vote and miss out on her second BAFTA Award and who would prevail in the Sean Penn-Mickey Rourke battle for Best Actor. Aside from that, it seemed like a Slumdog sweep, and that’s exactly how it played out.

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
Presented by Mick Jagger, so good in 1992’s Freejack, also starring Emilio Estevez, Renee Russo and Anthony Hopkins, the Rolling Stones front man was chosen to lead the coronation. (I’m being facetious. Freejack was awful. Jagger just seems like an odd choice.)

BAFTA Winner Danny Boyle flanked by Patrick Stewart (left) and Ian McKellan

BEST ACTOR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Chalk one up for Rourke. I think that the tide is turning in the Oscar race. Mickey dropped an F-bomb in his acceptance speech, and although censors will need every one of those 7 seconds of delay, I am now leaning to Rourke’s heroic turn as Randy “The Ram” Robinson to win Best Actor at February 22’s Academy Awards. A choice moment from Mickey’s speech, “Thanks to Marsei Tomei for constantly taking her clothes off on-screen…I enjoyed looking at her.” Here’s a link to Mickey’s acceptance speech with all the necessary bleeps.

Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet show off their hardware

BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, The Reader
She was nominated for both Revolutionary Road an The Reader, but just as Oscar voters did, the BAFTA Awards voters preferred the slow burning guilt and shame of her performance in The Reader over her showy Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style theatrics in Rev Road.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
The year’s most memorable performance, and since TDK was snubbed for Best Picture at both the BAFTA Awards and the upcoming Oscars, this is the best way to pay tribute to the all-time second-biggest grossing movie in US history.

Cruz didn't have to contend with Winslet, with both of her nominations in the Best Actress category or Viola Davis (Doubt), a strong contender at the Oscars

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Very well-deserved. She had a tremendous year with both the edgy, verge of crazy Maria Elena from Woody Allen’s comedy and a haunting performance in the very underrated Elegy. With Winslet out of the Supporting Actress race at both the BAFTA Awards and the Oscars, Cruz gets her shot. Keep in mind that Viola Davis, so good in Doubt was not nominated here, but is a live bet in two weeks at the Academy Awards.

BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
The obvious choice. Manchester-born. The career of a true auteur with brilliantly diverse films like Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, Millions and 28 Days Later on his resume.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
After writing The Fully Monty in 1998, this UK-born screenwriter seemingly disappeared until 2008 when he wrote both Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and Slumdog. No surprise at all that he wins here, and he seems like a lock on Oscar night with David Hare’s The Reader as a distant challenger.

Original Screenplay winner Martin McDonagh with his In Bruges star Colin Farrell

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Known for his plays The Pillowman and The Beauty Queen of Leenane, he actually won the Oscar for Best Short Live Action Film in 2006 with something called Six Shooter. London-born this is his first full-length feature film and he is both a BAFTA winner and an Academy Award nominee. McDonagh is unlikely to repeat on Oscar night with Dustin Lance Black, already the WGA winner, a strong favorite for Milk.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
A Boyle favorite who previously worked with him on 28 Days Later, Mantle was also DP on 2006’s fantastic The Last King of Scotland. He could be carried to an Oscar win riding the crest of a Slumdog tidal wave, or Wally Pfister could snag the award for his work on The Dark Knight (there could be a reverse backlash at the Academy Awards with voters rallying around TDK because of the Best Picture snub). The tag-team of two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges and eight-time nominee Roger Deakins are also a threat for their work on The Reader.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Probably the right choice here. It’s a 160-minute movie covering decades so getting the look right must have been a daunting task.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Again this is right on. In fact, you could argue that the whole movie is predicated on the visual effects. Seamlessly placing Brad Pitt’s face on another body without the strings showing? If the FX people don’t pull this off, Fincher has no movie.

BEST SOUND: Slumdog Millionaire
On Oscar night, this category will either belong to Slumdog in a sweep or The Dark Knight.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The obvious choice for the BAFTA Awards and the Oscars.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Michael O’Connor, The Duchess
Big gigantic dresses. That’s what I saw when I watched The Duchess. Generally speaking, that’s what wins in this category.

Composer A.R. Rahman wins the BAFTA and may become the first Indian to win an Academy Award

BEST MUSIC: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
In my mind, this is the right choice. There has never been a mainstream film score that sounds remotely like what Rahman produced for Slumdog. The score is integral to the feel of the movie. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that it would be the same movie with a conventional score. Rahman is only the third Indian ever nominated for an Oscar, and this soundtrack does represent a fascinating bridge between traditional and modern Indian music and the Western sound we all know.

BEST ANIMATED FILM: WALL-E
Yes, Waltz With Bashir is unique – an animated, foreign language documentary, but WALL-E is a special, special movie, and Andrew Stanton deserves every award that comes along. The Chaplinesque quality of the first act makes it, for my money, one of the best animated movies of the modern era.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: I’ve Loved You So Long
This was easily my favorite foreign language film of 2008. The arcane rules governing Best Foreign Language Film excluse this Phillipe Claudel drama from Oscar contention, but put this in your Netflix cue when it becomes available. Kristen Scott Thomas delivers a haunting portrait of a woman with a secret, and, as it unravels in the hands of her empathetic sister (played by the remarkable Elsa Zylberstein), her burden and suffering are heartbreaking.

BEST BRITISH FILM: Man on Wire
Slumdog was nominated here, but the BAFTA tradition is to recognize a smaller film, excluded from the Best Picture race. I am one of the few people that didn’t fall in love with this James Marsh doc about wire-walker Phillippe Petit. Since the Brits have no Best Documentary Feature category, this was their one chance to recognize Marsh. Man On Wire is the prohibitive Oscar favorite for Best Doc, and I may have to watch it again just to see if I missed something the first time around.

Noel Clarke, the surprise winner of the BAFTA Rising Star Award

ORANGE RISING STAR: Noel Clarke
This award is voted on by the British public, and Clarke is the star of the UK TV hit Doctor Who. Both Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad) and Rebecca Miller (Frost/Nixon, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) lost the fan vote but are likely to have longer and more notable careers than Clarke.

CARL FOREMAN AWARD: Steve McQueen, The Hunger
Tells the story of the last six weeks in the life of hunger striker Bobby Sands. Michael Fassbender, who also lost out on the Orange Rising Star Award to Clarke, portrays Sands, and the movie played for just one week in the US (I’m assuming for Oscar qualification). Hopefully IFC will give this some arthouse runs this year.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

“Doubt” is a little too subtle, believe it or not. We don’t tend to think of movies as subtle–so many things blowing up, so many emotions played for the back of the house–but frequently, a significant fact is provided to the audience in only a line or two; in a two-hour movie, that is easy to miss. This happens in “Doubt,” toward the end. I think filmmakers fall into this trap because they grow so familiar with a project that they forget the story will be entirely new to the audience. But after watching dailies every day for months, then sitting in an edit bay for weeks and months more, they become familiar with every tic and nuance, and quite naturally lose their ability to consider how others will approach the picture–that is, without any foreknowledge, which, of course, is how audiences come to a picture.

“Doubt” turns on ambiguous interpretations of events and human reaction, but the judgment reached by the female lead in this picture is pretty clearly the one that about 99.9 percent of people would make, too. It’s almost impossible for a reasonable observer to make any other choice because any reasons for that other choice are so subtly presented that they are lost. In a great irony for this picture, too much subtlety creates too much certainty–we don’t really hear the other side of the case. Thus the “Doubt” of the title loses much of its impact: The lead character ends the picture with doubt about her faith, her God, and the wisdom of her actions–and so the audience may doubt, too–but nobody doubts the conclusion she draws. I think we were supposed to be able to do that.

Then again, maybe somebody else who saw it feels entirely differently about the subtlety and certainty in the picture. I hear that was the point.

SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average of $14,888. Pre-opening industry tracking pointed to a clear win for Bedtime Stories (Disney), but it was the lovable lab who finished on top.

As an aside, all of us who read John Grogan’s extraordinarily well-written novel should have seen this coming. The book is a joy, and anyone who has a dog, or has ever had a dog, could easily identify with the struggles and pleasures of having a 4-legged member of the family.

The success of Marley slightly mitigates a disastrous year for Fox. Its year started out well enough riding the huge success of 2007 release Alvin & the Chipmunks into January ($70M of Alvin’s gross landed in this calendar year). The January 18 release of chick-flick 27 Dresses scored for Katherine Heigl ($76.8M in the US), then Jumper was a good solid February hit, topping $80M, followed by the wildly successful Horton Hears a Who ($154.5M domestic). Little did Fox know that when the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas played solidly to the tune of $80.2M domestic starting in May, it would be its last legit hit until Christmas’ Marley & Me. This is a huge, redemptive win for Fox, and its sentimental tear-jerker of a dog movie could near $100M domestic by Sunday.

There were 11 consecutive under-performing titles during the Fox drought of 2008, including expensive failures like mega-bombs Meet Dave ($11.8M domestic) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe ($20.9M cume). There were also misses like The Rocker ($6.4M cume),  City of Ember ($7.8M cume) and recent disappointments like Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (about $45M in the bank as its run winds down) and the critically-reviled The Day the Earth Stood Still, which picked up another $10.29M during the Christmas-thru-Sunday frame for a domestic cume of only $63M.

Despite the success of Marley, Fox will be #6 among the so-called “Big 6” studios in market share for the year. The winning studio , Warner Bros, essentially locked up the crown in late summer as The Dark Knight piled up meteoric grosses. As I have written in the past, the WB gang seemed destined to break the all-time single year record for domestic ticket sales, and now I can report that they have officially surpassed Sony’s 2006 record of $1.71 billion.

With the respectable hold for Jim Carrey’s Yes Man ($22.38M over 4 days for a 10-day cume of $49.8M), the continued success of Four Christmases (adding $7.29M for a new cume of $111.67M) and the excellent expansion of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (with a $38K or so cume at 84 locations), I am projecting a total domestic box office take of $1.74 billion as of today.  That is a staggering number, and it wasn’t all due to the success of mega-hit The Dark Knight.

Warner Bros perfectly marketed and distributed Sex and the City after picking up the baton from New Line. They also maximized the gross for the previously 3D-geared Journey to the Center of the Earth, selling it as a solid traditional 2D experience and generating $100M. And, they turned a pedestrian holiday comedy, Four Christmases, into a $100M smash. Expect a jubilant press release from Warner Bros in the next few days.

There is great news for Paramount and David Fincher in this holiday season. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a big hit. Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, this spiritual tale starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett had only 2,988 playdates, but the screen count may be as high as 3,500 with Paramount securing multiple screens at many key locations for the 2 hour 48 minute epic. The film coaxed a magical $39.1M or so r the 4-day Christmas weekend.

Benjamin Button will do very steady business through awards season, and the spectacularly-reviewed film will likely have $70M-$80M in the bank by the end of next weekend.  It will continue to hold well through awards season with major nominations at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. I strongly believe that this movie is headed for something in the $170M domestic range and reaching $200M is not out of the question.

Only 2 of the last 11 Best Picture winners have failed to break through the $100M barrier, including last year’s Coen Brothers thriller No Country For Old Men.

BEST PICTURE WINNERS
2008 – No Country For Old Men – $74.2M
2007 – The Departed – $132.3M
2006 – Crash – $54.5M
2005 – Million Dollar Baby – $100.5M
2004 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $377M
2003 – Chicago – $170.6M
2002 – A Beautiful Mind – $170.7M
2001 – Gladiator – $187.7M
2000 – American Beauty – $130M
1999 – Shakespeare in Love – $100.3M
1998 – Titanic – $600.7M

Academy Awards voters, whether they admit it or not, love big blockbusters, and after last year’s terrible Oscar broadcast ratings, there will be a strong yet silent, push to recognize films that movie-goers all over the country have seen. Benjamin Button is now likely to fit the bill nicely. Wouldn’t an Oscar night showdown between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and mega-hit The Dark Knight make for a spectacular Academy Awards storyline (although, there’s always a chance that Danny Boyle’s gutty, little indie Slumdog Millionaire could steal the big prize from the big budget studio blockbusters).

#3 Bedtime Stories, also starring Keri Russell, Guy Pearce and the irrepressible Russell Brand from Saving Sarah Marshall, has managed $38.6M in just 4 days. It’s a fine showing, although most experts (including yours truly) thought it would be the weekend’s big winner.. The opening for Sandler is slightly under expectations and slightly below par with his recent hits, although it’s hard to compare a Christmas 4-day opening with a traditional 3-day weekend start.

Technically, the 3-day weekend opening (Friday-thru-Sunday) for Bedtime Stories was $27.6M or so. Accepting that Christmas Day took a great deal of “steam” out of the picture, that number compares favorably to July’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan ($38.53M opening – $100M cume) and 2007’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry ($34.23M opening – $120M cume). Given that Bedtime Stories skews much younger and has family appeal, it should demonstrate great “playability” could very well have $80M in the bank by the end of New Year’s weekend.

A strong 3-day weekend came on the heels of a monstrous Christmas Day as Marley & Me, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Bedtime Stories all out-grossed the previous Christmas Day opening champion Ali ($10.2M). In terms of all-time best performance on Christmas Day, opening or otherwise, the three 2008 holiday box office juggernauts finished as the #2, #6 and #10 of all time.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 CHRISTMAS DAY PERFORMANCES
1. Meet the Fockers – $19.5M
2. Marley & Me – $14.67M (estimate)
3. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $13.9M
4. National Treasure: Book of Secrets – $13.6M
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – $12.3M
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – $12M (estimate)
7. Night at the Museum – $11.7M
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – $11.5M
9. Cast Away – $10.9M
10. Bedtime Stories - $10.52M (estimate)

Tom Cruise’s Valkerie (MGM/UA) has out-performed industry expectations finishing 4th for both Christmas Day and the long weekend. The eye patch wearing Cruise seemed headed for another disaster with his Nazi epic, but it has finished the 4-day with just over $30M. You could have won some bar bets with studio execs if back in November you had wagered that this won would even crack $25M over the Christmas holiday. Holdover Yes Man (Warner Bros) rounds out the top 5 for the long holiday weekend.

The only other new wide opening is Frank Miller’s The Spirit (Lionsgate). No Sin City magic here as the movie has stumbled out of the gates with about $10.35M, and it is fading very quickly based on downright awful word-of-mouth.

Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) is officially a PTA monster. Opening on just 3 screens Friday, the Sam Mendes-directed drama grabbed over $22K per location on opening day, and it will finish the weekend with about a $64,133 PTA. Not only is that the best PTA of 2008 (topping Frost/Nixon’s number for December 5-7), it is the 29th-best 3-day PTA of all time.

It is very hard to say what the commercial prospects for this picture may be. It is brilliantly acted with perfectly modulated performances by Leo and Kate, a truly unique turn by New York stage actor Michael Shannon and certain-to-be-under-appreciated work from Oscar winner Kathy Bates. I would also like to single out Kathryn Hahn, who was brilliant in Broadway’s Tony-winning Boeing, Boeing. Something about neighbor Milly Campbell’s desperate “golly gee-ness” captures the era to perfection.

Bringing Richard Yates novel to the big screen was no small feat, and screenwriter Justin Haythe has winnowed the somewhat sprawling novel down to its most cinematic pieces. Haythe is a lock for a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the Oscars, and I would make Winslet the betting favorite for Best Actress for her work in Rev Road, but can the film break through in other categories?

DiCaprio has a strong shot at a Best Actor nod, battling with Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood for the final 2 spots (after Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke). It’s uphill for Shannon in the Best Supporting Actor category with Heath Ledger, Robert Downey Jr. and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as locks. Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel has picked up a great deal of momentum since his SAG Award nomination, he seems to have sewn up the 4th spot. That leaves one spot open for Josh Brolin from Milk, Ralph Fiennes for The Duchess, Eddie Marsan for Happy-Go-Lucky or, an extreme longshot, Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder. At the moment, I am leaning toward Brolin who will also get credit for his work in W..

Gran Torino has expanded very well to 84 locations and quite a few multiple screen situations for a PTA of just over $38K. There is clearly some commercial viability here as this love it or hate it movie goes wider in January.The big question remains. Will Oscar voters nominate Eastwood for Best Actor for his snarling, racist Walt Kowalski performance? In my estimation, his performance is the weakest of the contenders, but viewed in the context of his career, it feels like a nice culmination of his acting work.

It is surprising how softly Frost/Nixon (Universal) is playing at 205 locations. It generated a $9,473 PTA, which is disappointing. This is a great film with a tour de force performance by Frank Langella as President Richard M. Nixon. It may be that the movie-going public isn’t interested in reliving the Watergate nightmare, especially when everyone has a general mistrust of government after the Bush years. Movies can be an escape from a tough economy, government corruption and political scandal. Thus, films like Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button and Marley & Me are more attractive film destinations.

A lack of commercial success will not keep Langella out of the Best Actor category, but Ron Howard’s movie could be potentially handicapped in the Best Picture race if it doesn’t begin selling tickets at a better clip. Ben Button, Slumdog and The Dark Knight are all legitimate hits, appropriate to their scale. I am penciling in Milk (Focus) as a likely Best Picture nominee leaving one slot set aside for Frost/Nixon. Mega-hit Wall-E (Disney) could sneak in instead. Or, if The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) expands better than Howard’s political biopic – Mickey Rourke’s comeback delivered almost $28K per location over the Christmas 4-day – maybe Darren Aronofsky will find his movie among the big 5. The same goes for the aforementioned Revolutionary Road. A Best Picture nod would be a game-changer for Dreamworks/Paramount, and the slow start for Frost/Nixon may have left the door open.

FINAL 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – $51.67M, $14,849 PTA, $51.67M cume
2. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – $39.1M, $13,086 PTA, $39.1M cume
3. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – $38.6M, $10,486PTA, $38.6M cume
4. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – $30.4M, $11,214 PTA, $30.4M cume
5. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $22.38M, $6,517 PTA, $49.8M cume
6. Seven Pounds (Sony) – $18.2M, $6,599 PTA, $38.86M cume
7. Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $11.37M, $3,659 PTA, $28.07M cume
8. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.59M, $4,409 PTA, $63.4M cume
9. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – $10.35M, $4,126 PTA, $10.35M cume
10. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.29M, $2,904 PTA, $111.67M cume
11. Doubt (Miramax) – $7.1M, $5,604 PTA, $8.78M cume
12. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $5.81M, $9,417 PTA, $19.41M cume
13. Twilight (Summit) – $5.5M, $2,975 PTA, $167.06M
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $3.2M, $38,155 PTA, $4.28M cume
*Milk (Focus) – $2.32M, $7,481 PTA, $13.52M cume
*Frost/Nixon (Universal) – $1.94M, $9,473 PTA, $3.58M cume
*The Reader (Weinstein) – $847,000, $7,302 PTA, $1.23M cume
*The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $515,000, $28,611 PTA, $893,000 cume
*NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $192,400, $64,133 PTA, $192.400 cume
*NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – $132,000, $22,000 PTA, $132,000 cume
*NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – $55,144, $11,029 PTA, $55,144 cume

FINALY 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND PTA ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – 3 locations, $64,133 PTA
2. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – 84 locations, $38,155 PTA
3. The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – 18 locations, $28,611 PTA
4. NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – 6 location, $22,000 PTA
5. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – 3,480 locations, $14,849 PTA
6. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – 2,988 locations, $13,086 PTA
7. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – 2,711 locations, 11,075 PTA
8. NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – 6 locations, $11,029 PTA
9. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – 3,681 locations, $10,486 PTA
10. Frost/Nixon (Universal) – 205 locations, $9,473 PTA
11. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – 614 locations, $9,471 PTA
12. Milk (Focus) – 311 locations, $7,481 PTA
13. The Reader (Weinstein) – 116 locations, $7,302 PTA
14. Seven Pounds (Sony) – 2,758 locations – $6,599 PTA
15. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – 3,434 locations, $6,517 PTA
16. Doubt (Miramax) – 1,267 locations, $5,450 PTA
17. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – 2,402 locations – $4,409 PTA
18. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – 2,509 locations – $4,126 PTA

Bad weather with several major storms, including one in the Northeast, are making this a challenging weekend to project. I have revised my the 3-day estimates I released last night to allow for films to enjoy slightly stronger Saturdays, but the general story is the same. Jim Carrey and Yes Man (Warner Bros) at #1, Will Smith and Seven Pounds (Sony) at #2 and Tale of Despereaux (Universal) at #3.

My major analysis piece I published Friday night still stands with the headlines being that Warner Bros now seems destined to cinch the all-time best one year domestic sales figure in studio history and Will Smith’s streak of consecutive $100M grossing movies will almost certainly end at 8 with his Gabriele Muccino-directed drama.

One major change is that Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) hasn’t expanded nearly as well as I originally projected. The almost certain Best Picture nominee increased to 589 locations this weekend and the result will be a likely 8th-place finish with about $2.94M and a PTA of $4,999 or so.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON REVISED EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $19.5M, $5,684 PTA, $19.5M cume
2. NEW – Seven Pounds (Sony) – $16M, $5,806 PTA, $16M cume
3. NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $14.09M, $4,540 PTA, $14.09M cume
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $8.97M, $2,522 PTA, $47.54M cume
5. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.3M, $2,080 PTA, $99.72M cume
6. Twilight (Summit) – $5.1M, $1,706 PTA, $158.3M cume
7. Bolt (Disney) -$4.45M, $1,501 PTA, $95.2M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $2.94M, $4,999 PTA, $11.92M cume
9. Australia (Fox) – $2.15M, $975 PTA, $41.77M cume
10. Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $1.6M, $798 PTA, $172.4M cume
11. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.6M, $798 PTA, $172.42M cume
12. Milk (Focus) – $1.57M, $4,417 PTA, $10.25M cume
13. Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) – $1.15M, $689 PTA, $5.77M cume

On the specialty front, Mickey Rourke is a box office attraction again. The one-time movie star was at his peak in the 1980’s with movie like Diner ($14M cume), The Pope of Greenwich Village ($6.8M cume), 9 1/2 Weeks ($6.7M cume) and Angel Heart ($17.1M cume) is riding the crest of an enormous comeback wave. His role in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) has already earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Drama and Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead and a SAG Award nomination for Best Male Actor, and now the film has scored a huge opening weekend Per Theatre Average.

The Wrestler opened on Wednesday at 4 locations managing an outstanding $11,732 PTA. The extraordinarily well-reviewed movie is headed for a 3-day of $210,900, which will translate to an estimated $53,438 per location. That marks the second-best PTA of the year, trailing only the $60,236 debut of Frost/Nixon (Universal) two weeks ago.

At #2 on the weekend PTA scoreboard is Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros), which is a bit of a disappointment registering an average of approximately $23,400 at each of its 19 playdates. As Eastwood has admitted, this may be his final on-screen performance, but when the Hollywood Foreign Press ignored him in its annual Golden Globe nominations and then the SAG Awards bypassed the screen legend as well in the Best Male Actor category, it likely damaged the movie’s ability to compete on a limited basis with other pictures with stronger awards resumes.

In my Friday Night Estimates story, I wrote that Gran Torino may be able to bank $5.4M by the end of the year. Even with an expansion to 70 locations on Christmas Day, the softer-than-expected Friday probably means that Clint’s “swan song” is more likely to be at $3.1M or so at the end of business of December 31. Regardless, I am still projecting that Warner Bros will likely break the all-time one-year record for domestic sales for a studio.

John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a film adaptation of his Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, will bank about $703,000 or so this weekend at 39 locations for a PTA of just over $18,000. That compares favorably to recent movies like Rachel Getting Married (Sony Classics), which managed $16,500 per screen in its first expansion (27 playdates) and Frost/Nixon, which generated just over $16,000 per screen in week #2 (39 playdates). With Golden Globe and SAG Awards nominations for Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, Doubt should continue to play well through the awards season.

Weinstein has elected to hold expansion for The Reader until Christmas Day, so the picture remains on 4 screens and appears headed for about $114,000 by Monday, down about 35% from its opening weekend at the same locations. That would give Stephen Daldry’s Oscar contender the fourth-best weekend PTA at a possible $14,240.

Ron Howard’s amazing Frost/Nixon picked up just 2 new locations this weekend as Universal prepares for a major Christmas Day expansion. Powered by SAG Awards nominations this week for Best Ensemble and Best Male Actor: Frank Langella, the film will add about $361,000 this weekend, down about 42%. That equates to an $8,805 PTA, #5 for the frame.

STEVE MASON’S EXCLUSIVE EARLY 3-DAY PTA ESTIMATES
1. NEW – The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – 4 locations – $53,438 PTA
2. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – 19 locations – $23,400 PTA
3. Doubt (Miramax) – 39 locations – $18,026 PTA
4. The Reader (Weinstein) – 8 locations – $14,240 PTA
5. Frost/Nixon (Universal) – 41 locations – $8,805 PTA
6. NEW – Seven Pounds – 2,785 locations – $5,806 PTA
7. NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – 3,434 locations – $5,498 PTA
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – 589 locations – $4,999 PTA
9. NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – 3,104 locations – $4,540 PTA
10. Milk (Focus) – 356 locations – $4,417 PTA

The weekend box office battle boils down to Jim Carrey vs. Will Smith. This is a match-up between the former “World’s Biggest Box Office Star” and the reigning champ, and I am giving a slight advantage to the challenger. Either Yes Man (Warner Bros) or Seven Pounds (Sony) could score the weekend-before-Christmas win, but I am predicting a victory for Carrey.

These are two of the most successful movie stars in history. Only Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy have more $100M hits on their resume than Will Smith with 12, and Carrey is only one behind at 11 blockbusters to clear the magical threshold.

MOST $100M+ HITS IN A CAREER
-including animated films & excluding cameos -
1. Tom Hanks – 15
2. Tom Cruise – 14
3. Eddie Murphy – 13
4. Will Smith – 12
4. Harrison Ford – 12
6. Jim Carrey – 11
6. Robin Williams – 11
8. Mel Gibson – 10
9. Matt Damon – 9
10. Bruce Willis – 8
10. Jack Nicholson – 8

Will Smith, however, has done something unprecedented – a feat never done by the Toms – Hanks and Cruise. Hancock was his 8th consecutive $100M+ grossing blockbuster. Hanks and Cruise both had career-best streaks of 7 films topping $100M.

2002 – Men in Black II – $52.1M opening – $190.4M cume
2003 – Bad Boys II – $46.5M opening – $138.6M cume
2004 – I, Robot – $52.1M opening – $144.8M cume
2004 – Shark Tale – $47.6M opening – $160.8M cume
2005 – Hitch – $43.1M opening – $179.4M cume
2006 – The Pursuit of Happyness – $26.5M opening – $163.5M cume
2007 – I Am Legend – $77.2M opening – $256.4M cume
2008 – Hancock – $62.6M opening – $227.9M cume

For comparison, 5 of Carrey’s past 8 films have scored at least $100M domestic, including this year’s animated Dr. Suess’ Horton Hears a Who! ($154.5M cume), but he has veered away from the purely commercial with 2001’s poorly-reviewed drama The Majestic ($27.8M cume), the Academy Award winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ($24.4M cume) in 2004 and 2007’s misguided horror release The Number 23 ($35.1M cume).

Neither picture is getting help from critics with Yes Man at 35% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and Seven Pounds registering a meager 30% Fresh as of Thursday night. Given the generally poor notices, I say Yes Man wins for 3 reasons:

1. More playdates 3,434 to 2,758
2. Tone – People are more interested in a couple of laughs than they are in a “heavy” spiritual message, even if it is generally optimistic
3. Warner Bros can do no wrong in 2008
4. Will Smith backlash

Lou Lumenick from the New York Post points out on his blog that on November 4, Will was informed by his 16-year old son that the Presidential race was over. The first-ever election of an African American to be the Leader of the Free World hadn’t reached the rarified air of the World’s Biggest Movie Star. Lumenick says he can’t imagine Paul Newman, a great movie star and philanthropist, ever being that out-of-touch with what’s important in the life of everyday people.

And there’s the brutally scathing Todd McCarthy review in Variety who rips Seven Pounds for its pretentiousness and self-importance. He reports that Smith doesn’t shy away from, “the saintlike status conferred upon his character. Indeed, he embraces it in a way so convincing that it proves disturbing as an indication of how highly this or any momentarily anointed superstar may regard himself.”

Just because media types think Will is a little “full of himself,” does not mean that the rank-and-file moviegoer will agree. In Australia, there is something called “Tall Poppy Syndrome.” As my always-credible friends at Wikipedia say, “Someone is said to be a target of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ when his or her assumption of a higher economic, social or political position is criticized as being presumptuous, attention seeking, or without merit.”

Then again, it may all be a case of sour grapes. When a star of Smith’s caliber takes a risk – and make no mistake, this is a risky, challenging film – he should be accorded some respect for his effort. Let’s face it. If Will Smith wanted to crank out generic action movies for the rest of his life, Hollywood would give him big bags of money.

I believe that, even though Seven Pounds may not win its opening weekend, its heart wrenching-yet-hopeful story will connect with enough moviegoers to make it Will’s 9th consecutive $100M-grossing movie, which would be the 13th of his career. My final prediction is for a $24.78M opening. Meanwhile, the cheerful, if-not-hilarious high-concept comedy of Yes Man could win the weekend with a possible $26.35M.

Meanwhile, the other new wide release is Universal’s animated Tale of Despereaux, receiving fair-to-middling reviews as of Thursday night (43% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). With Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa nearing the end of its run and Bolt tailing off, industry tracking points to an opening in the mid-teens for Despereaux. My final call is for about $15.19M, which could set it up for a decent little Christmas week run.

Fox’s holdover The Day the Earth Stood Still will crash-and-burn this weekend, possibly dropping by as much as 67% for a disastrous $10.11M and a 10-day cume of only $48.6M. Close-behind at #5 will be Four Christmases (Warner Bros), which may drop as little as 25% to a possible $9.75M. By Monday morning, the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon holiday comedy will pass the $100M mark.

Among the specialty releases, Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) adds 420 locations and may deliver as much as $4.64M. Danny Boyle’s modern masterpiece is riding a huge wave of acclaim including Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture – Drama and Best Director and SAG Awards nominations for Best Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor: Dev Patel. No company is better at the “science” of a platform release than Searchlight, and I am forecasting a PTA of $7,891 for this gutty little Best Picture contender.

Other award favorites expand to varying degrees. Milk (Focus) adds 28 locations and could reach $2.8M for a $7,876 PTA. Miramax’s excellent Doubt, with Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, expands to 39 playdates, and I am anticipating just over $1M for a Per Theatre Average of $27,341. Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros), which won him the National Board of Review’s Best Actor notice, but has been completely shut out of major categories at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards, adds 13 carefully chosen screens. I am calling for about $687,000 by Monday with a PTA of just over $36,000.

Oscar contenders Frost/Nixon (Universal) and The Reader (Weinstein) are holding off on expansion until Christmas Day. Powered by Frank Langella’s remarkable performance, Frost/Nixon seems headed for a $14,600 or so weekend PTA while Stephen Daldry’s meditation on Germany’s sense of guilt over the Holocaust should deliver just over $16,000 per location.

The new limited release this week is the critically-hailed Darren Aronofsky-directed Mickey Rourke vehicle The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight). The movie opened on 4 screens Wednesday churning up an $11,732 PTA on opening day alone. There is clearly more-than-a-little anticipation for this unexpected awards contender, and it may achieve just over $310,000 in just 5 days. That would mean a 3-day Per Theatre Average of almost $58,000, just shy of the year’s best weekend PTA mark set by Frost/Nixon 2 weeks ago.

FINAL WEEKEND PREDICTIONS FOR THE WEEKEND OF 12/19
1. NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $26.35M
2. NEW – Seven Pounds (Sony) – $24.78M
3. NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $15.19M
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.11M
5. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $9.75M
6. Bolt (Disney) – $5.49M
7. Twilight (Summit) – $4.78M
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $4.64M
9. Milk (Focus) – $2.8M
10. Australia (Fox) – $2.57M
11. Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $2.24M
12. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.84M
13. Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) – $1.69M
*Doubt (Miramax) – $1.06M
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $687,000
*Frost/Nixon (Universal) – $602,000
*NEW – The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $232,000
*The Reader (Weinstein) – $131,000