Out here in the wilds of North Carolina, I haven’t yet had a chance to see ”The Iron Lady,” but as someone who generally finds Meryl Streep’s acting self-conscious, over-affected, and showy — in other words, not acting at all — I’m rooting for “The Help’s” Viola Davis to win.

THAT was a performance, as opposed to what we’ve seen from Streep for the last two decades.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to acting: If I notice the acting, if I see the strings — you’re doing it wrong. If you break the spell and take me out of the film with all your “technique” — you’re doing it wrong. If I notice your accent — you’re doing it wrong.  Patrick Swayze’s performance in “Road House” was ten-times better than almost anything Streep’s done since 1998. That’s not a joke, either. Swayze was more convincing, and that’s what true acting is really about. The rest is nothing more than bait for foo-foo critics and shallow Academy voters.

Anyway, here’s a wrinkle in Streep’s march to another trophy:

A Weinstein Company email that appears to skirt AMPAS campaign rules by using a third party to reach Oscar voters has stirred up anger among Academy members and rival campaigners.

But the email does not violate Academy regulations, AMPAS COO Ric Robertson told TheWrap on Tuesday. One of the organization’s campaign rules, he said, “allows for media entities to send such things to valid subscribers who’ve opted into being a subscriber.”

The email in question, which went out on Tuesday morning, is not part of Weinstein’s aggressive Best Picture campaign on behalf of “The Artist,” but instead promotes Meryl Streep’s Best Actress candidacy for “The Iron Lady.”

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Five Best Picture winners in one Blu-ray collection with no shortage of special features is a pretty good deal… if you like the movies. Because I’m a fan of four out five of the titles, this was a real find.

The English Patient (1996)

Director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping WWII romance ranked as #24 in my countdown of the greatest left-wing films of all time:

Filled with poetic dialogue, lush cinematography, some truly extraordinary scenes — such as the sandstorm sequence where Katharine and Laszlo fall in love — and  a charming subplot involving the short-lived but sincere romance between Binoche’s Canadian nurse and Kip (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews), a brave Indian who defuses bombs, you almost will yourself  not to notice the film’s depraved and shockingly selfish philosophy. The film is seductive, though, and you want to give into it, but in the end the only moral outcome would be to have the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” storm in and beat Laszlo to death with a baseball bat.

If you don’t mind being manipulated by an ingeniously crafted and immoral piece of propaganda (and I don’t), another bonus is the look of the film (the cinematography won an Oscar), which is a jaw-dropper on Blu-ray.

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Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Many will never forgive the fact that director John Madden’s fictionalized account of a passionate but ill-fated love affair between a young, struggling William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)  and the beautiful young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires some of his greatest work, beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for that year’s top Oscar prize.

This might be heresy, but I think the best film won.

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Both articles linked below make excellent points about how indifferent the public was to this year’s nine Best Picture picks. Other than “The Help,” which was a smash, none came close to reaching $100 million at the domestic box office. So unlike the last two years, where the nominations contained more than a single film people had actually seen, we have eight films practically no one did.

Yes, that’s a problem.

But here’s the bigger problem: 29 films topped the $100 million mark last year, but how many of those are worthy of an Oscar? “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and ”X-Men: First Class”  were certainly good movies, but they’re not Best Picture material.

The problem isn’t so much that the Academy is out of touch (which it is), it’s that the product the industry created was so lousy last year, there really are no crowd-pleasers good enough to add to the list of nominations. And as someone who has seen the middling “Midnight in Paris,” the pretentious and impossibly dull “Tree of Life,” and the just pretty good “War Horse” — none of which is better than “Rise of the Apes,” “X-Men,” or “Resident Evil 4,” for that matter – the Academy is still guilty of stacking the deck with brand-tarnishing mediocrities.

Box Office Mojo:

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Best Picture

“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“The Help”
“Moneyball”
“War Horse”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Actor

Demian Bichir, “A Better Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

Best Actress

Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Rooney Mara, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Jonah Hill, “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte, “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Max Von Sydow, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

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Meryl Streep doesn’t think President Barack Obama has a spine of steel like a certain British Prime Minister.

Then again, who could be a tough, decisive leader in these challenging times, Streep argues during a new interview with The Huffington Post.

Streep, all but guaranteed to pick up another Oscar nomination for her turn as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” served up a lengthy excuse for Obama when asked what the president could learn from Thatcher’s political career:

It was a completely different world. The Huffington Post didn’t exist. [Today] you have to respond to the YouTube clip going over and over of the thing you said that morning … I think, in a way, that clarity was possible, that conviction politics were possible in a way that maybe they’re not. You’d hope to think they are.

I’ve heard people in government lament that cameras are everywhere because you can’t make those deals, you can’t as a conservative member of your district make a deal with somebody on the the liberal side because you’re dead. It’s photographed, it’s seen. We don’t get those Lyndon Johnson solutions anymore.

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There must have been some ferocious re-writing going on behind the scenes of “The Iron Lady.”

The upcoming biopic of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seemed like yet another liberal Hollywood hatchet job, according to an early script review done here earlier this year.

Now, the film is being shown to select film critics, and right-of-center scribe Kyle Smith is weighing in with a glowing assessment of the movie.

Meryl Streep is terrific and should win an Oscar for a deeply engaged, highly sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher as a strong-willed leader and an icon of womanhood who cracked the ultimate Old Boy Network, got the British economy booming again, made a series of tough decisions in the Falkland Islands war that resulted in total victory together with a restoration of British patriotic pride and enjoyed a long and loving marriage with Denis (an impish Jim Broadbent) that unfortunately ended with his death by cancer. There is not much politics in the film (and still less economics) and issues such as the miners’ strike and the IRA hunger strike are barely alluded to. But this is an admiring look at an indomitable figure and forceful politico (who is shown not only acting with great courage and decisiveness in the Falklands War but also personally hand-writing agonized letters to the families of fallen British troops).

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‘MODERN WARFARE 3′ MAKES $775 MILLION IN 5 DAYS, BLOWS AWAY ALL RECORDS

Is this why Hollywood makes movies that recreate the experience of what it’s like to watch someone else play a video game?

DEMI MOORE TURNS TO MADONNA FOR DIVORCE ADVICE

The photo will make you wince. This one’s worse. Someone needs to turn to Kentucky Fried Chicken first.

He’s not worth it, Demi. Damn.

And turning to Madonna for advice about divorce is like turning to Obama for advice about creating jobs.

NETFLIX SELLS $400 MILLION IN STOCK TO RAISE CASH

This is to acquire the rights to more streaming content. As a Streaming only customer, that sure sounds good to me.

How about some “Wild Wild West.”

Oh wait, I just bought the whole series at Amazon for $35. I win.

‘EW’ MORON ASKS IF GEORGE CLOONEY IS THE NEW PAUL NEWMAN

Wait,  I thought Clooney was The New Cary Grant.

The bubble too many of these people live in is oh-so very real. Paul Newman was ALL movie star. And to become a movie star THE PEOPLE have to love you, not just the bubble-boyed entertainment media. Since 2000, Clooney has not carried a single movie to $100M without the help of Brad Pitt and Julie Roberts.

And most of his films flop.

And they blow.

And now a little context…

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APPLE NEGOTIATING WITH STUDIOS IN PREP FOR ITS OWN MOVIE CLOUD SERVICE

The idea here is that you purchase a film through iTunes and then they store it for you and allow you to watch it from any device with access to the Web.  Currently Apple accounts for 2/3rds of online film rentals and purchases, so they are the 900 pound gorilla here. Moreover, unlike Ultraviolet, you don’t have to purchase a DVD to have access to this “cloud” feature, you simply make your purchase online.

Essentially, this is more of  move on UltraViolet than a way to boost DVD sales.

What I would like to see this “cloud” feature do is what iTunes did and that’s to create a service that allows consumers to store what they’ve already purchased online, namely their music collections. To me, the “cloud” feature’s main attraction is that I would have a back up copy of my DVD stored online in the event something happens to the physical DVD.

If Hollywood wants to wring a little more cash out of movies already sold, they should consider a few things:

• Charge us per terabyte to store our current DVD collections online.
• Charge us a minimal per-copy fee to upgrade our current DVDs to Blu-ray online (as titles become available).
• Allow us to access our “cloud” from our Blu-ray players.

There are hundreds of titles I currently own that I would gladly pay a buck or two per-copy to upgrade to Blu-ray and store online. But there is no way in hell I’m purchasing them all over again at $10 to $15 a pop.

Do I think about this stuff too much? I’m worried that I might.

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In recent weeks, I have read a number of Big Hollywood articles concerning Hollywood’s and the media’s treatment of the September 11th attacks in the years since they occurred. In particular, there have been some interesting and provocative articles about the historical treatment of the attacks and the movies created so far. Prior to these articles, there was another questioning the quality of “conservative” films and why/if they should be supported by the conservative community, as though most artists on our side of the aisle shouldn’t be supported.

While I definitely respect all these points of view, I have to question why many of us are questioning Hollywood instead of questioning ourselves. And what we should be asking ourselves is why many of us complain so much about Hollywood’s output but at the same time fail to support the burgeoning artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers in our own community?

For full disclosure:  yes, I am a conservative, and yes, I am a filmmaker trying to get my art out to the greater world. For the life of me, I have never understood why we monetarily and spiritually support artists, studios and media companies while simultaneously berating them for what they offer us. If someone delivers crummy pizza that smells weird, tastes worse and gets me sick, would I still call the same pizza place every time? No. So, why do we do the same when making entertainment or artistic purchase choices? (more…)

“DARK SHADOWS” SET PHOTOS

We all spend a lot of time complaining about sequels and remakes and remakes of sequels posing as  prequel-reboots, but sometimes Hollywood jumping in the wayback machine is an inspired idea.

“Dark Shadows” is a gothic soap opera that aired when I was just a toddler. My parents tell me I was addicted to it, but I have no memory whatsoever of that. They also tell me I was an absolutely adorable toddler, which I don’t doubt in the least. Primetime television attempted to resurrect the series in 1991, but it only lasted a single season. And so this is perfect remake material, especially for a director like Tim Burton.

Furthermore, the casting is inspired: Johnny Depp, the criminally under-appreciated Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley, and the impossibly beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer.

It doesn’t hurt that this has the same vibe as both “Addams Family” movies — which remain (thanks in large part to Raul Julia) two of the best film adaptations of a television show ever.

ACADEMY WANTS OVERT POLITICKING TO GO AWAY

This is so dumb:

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“When morals decline, and good men do nothing, evil flourishes.”

The trailer and therefore the movie hits on all the high and low points of the long-serving F.B.I. Director’s life and it certainly looks great period-wise, but you have to wonder what the actual story is going to be about. Thematically it’s all there, however, and that’s important. The opening piece of narration (quoted above) gives you an idea of what will drive the character and the closing piece of narration – “even great men can be corrupted”  – is likely the theme Eastwood’s driving throughout.   

Hate to say it, but it’s still difficult to accept DiCaprio in these adult roles.

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Here’s a link to what we can assume Michael Moore’s referring to when he speaks of Glenn Beck fantasizing about killing him.

Ooh, menacing stuff.

Moore is unattractive enough without adding “playing the victim” to the pile.

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Fox News:

Cliff Robertson, the handsome movie actor who played John F. Kennedy in “PT-109,” won an Oscar for “Charly” and was famously victimized in a 1977 Hollywood forgery scandal, died Saturday. He was 88.

His secretary of 53 years, Evelyn Christel, said he died in Stony Brook of natural causes a day after his 88th birthday.

Robertson never elevated into the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the “Spider-Man” movies.

He also gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the world’s richest women.

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Well guys, I’m glad to be back from three weeks of traveling. First I was on vacation in Thailand. While there, I thought I was going to be able to write a lot except that for four of my eight days there, I was on Koh Ngai, a tropical island in the Andaman Sea. Unfortunately, Koh Ngai had no Internet. So, that plan disappeared. Then, I was in Toronto for five days and had no time to do anything except for the business this business trip was about.

Saturday I got home and caught up on my personal life. So, yesterday, I had some time to kill and thought I would see “The Help.” After all, it has been doing incredible business and being a producer, I figured I had better see it. I had no interest in the material and thought I was going to end up seeing a typical liberal-slant Hollywood film about the mistreatment of blacks in this country.

—–

Boy was I surprised when I left the theater. ”The Help,” at this point, is the Best Picture of the Year and should be nominated by the Academy and every other major organization. In fact, there is nothing even close to the quality of this film released thus far this year.

Taking a book about pre-civil rights south and converting it into a movie that would appeal to the masses is difficult at best. However, when you factor the chick flick factor into this one, it becomes almost impossible. Well, writer/director Tate Taylor has succeeded on a grand scale. He has taken a best-selling novel about southern mores during the early 1960s during the beginning of the civil rights movement and turned it into a four quadrant movie. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this film tops 200 million in domestic box office before its run is finished.

And, to make Taylor’s accomplishment even more unbelievable, Taylor is not known as a writer/director. In fact, this is his second feature; the first being a relatively unknown film. The remainder of his career to date has been as a bit-part actor. Let’s just say he will have no problem getting his next feature financed with an “A” list cast.

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Will Billy Crystal return as Oscar’s host? That’s the question today.

You know, it’s kind of amazing that as telecast ratings for the the Academy Awards sail over a cliff, the Academy appears to be in complete denial over what the real problem is. For starters, a large number of their recent hosts — Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart — are polarizing and divisive figures who turn off well over half the country. Those of us who don’t live on the coasts don’t like these people, and why should we? They continually insult us, who we are, and what we hold dear. No Bitter Clinger in their right mind wastes a Sunday night with their guts in a knot waiting for a Leftist sucker shot.

Oscar has the same problem with presenters and winners. Every time some mouthy jerk grabs a trophy we sit there on edge waiting, waiting, waiting for it.

If you believe in traditional marriage, love Jesus, adore America, hate terrorists and have finally figured out Obama’s a failed president — watching the Oscars sucks.

Billy Crystal does, however, transcend that problem. Not 100%, but he is a national figure who isn’t polarizing, puts on a great show, and in the talent and class department comes as close to a Bob Hope and Johnny Carson as anyone today. And sadly, he’s about it.

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FADE IN:

INT.   HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

“Hurt Locker” scribe MARK BOAL slams his mighty fist down hard on the conference room table, making the HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES surrounding him jump in their leather seats.

MARK BOAL

Now listen up.  I don’t care about your liberal preconceptions and your smug certainty that you’re somehow better than those men and women out there in Afghanistan and Iraq just because you work in the movie industry and they actually work!

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

But, but…

MARK BOAL (pointing an accusing finger)

Put a sock in it, meat puppet!  You want to use those American heroes as a backdrop for some politician’s reelection campaign?  Well, you can take my Oscar and stick it in your Fonda-hole!  I’m not having any part of it!

Ed. Note:  We now pause for a photo of sensitive, introspective hipster Boal:

Big Hollywood has been all over the story of screenwriter Mark Boal’s collaboration with the Obama campaign’s usurpation of the work of our SEALs and other covert warriors in hunting down Osama bin Laden.  It’s outrageous – you know you’ve crossed a line in the sand of decency when even Jurassic liberal-saur Maureen Dowd seems creeped out by your shameless SEALS-ploitation.

As Big Hollywood has pointed out before, Boal is Hollywood’s go-to guy for sending the leftist message du jour about our troops.  When President Bush was in office and the party line was that fighting terrorists was a bad thing, Boal was there with In the Valley of Elah (2007).  That one painted our soldiers as hideous psychopaths driven crazy by the war, so nuts and evil they murdered one of their own because of, well, Bush or something.

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So many deserving, yet-to-be acknowledged men and women who actually work in and contribute to the film business, and here goes the Academy making a choice that’s quite obviously geared toward television ratings as opposed to merit:

Hollywood Wiretap:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has selected actor James Earl Jones and makeup artist Dick Smith as recipients of this year’s Honorary Awards. And, in something of a head-scratcher, Oprah Winfrey will be honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

The Academy’s board of governors voted on the awards on Tuesday night. They will be conferred at the 3rd Annual Governors Awards on Nov. 12 at the Grand Ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

Winfrey, best known for her TV contributions, received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for her film debut in 1985’s “The Color Purple.” The Hersholt prize goes to someone “whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.”

Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Suffice it to say that of all the lousy decisions made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and its Board of Governors, choosing Oprah Winfrey to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award has to rank among the worst. This Oscar statuette is supposed to be given “to an individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry”. …

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[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

There are different ways to write and make movies. Very few are made from the heart; many more are formula based. There are movies inspired by dishwasher manuals and a great number derived from Marxist textbooks. And there is a special category of movies: those written and made by self-righteous hypocrites.

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“The Whistleblower” is a drama based on the experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac (played by Rachel Weisz), a Nebraska cop who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and exposed the U.N. for covering up a sex scandal involving peacekeepers and an international ring of sex traffickers. The cast also includes Monica Belluci, Vanessa ‘best friend of Israel after Obama’ Redgrave and David Strathairn among others.

As Kathryn investigates the exploitation of young and underage girls, she discovers that “sex lords” are bribing the UN officials to run the illegal prostitution clubs that spring up like mushrooms across the war-ridden and apocalyptic Balkan terrain. Moreover, not only are the UN officials are being bribed to close their eyes on sex slavery but, in fact, the clubs are really operating to serve the UN peacekeeping force. The story also flashes back to how an underage Ukrainian girl is tricked into sex slavery by her own relatives.

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Last night I watched ‘Gasland’ for the first time. ‘Gasland’ was nominated this year for an Oscar along with 5 other documentaries (‘Waiting for Superman’ did not make the cut – apparently criticizing teachers rules you out of consideration.

Gasland is very pretty, the shots are artistic and the editing is slick and attractive. Josh Fox, the film’s director and narrator, has a soft laid back tone that is alluring and soothing. He can play the banjo and he does. He presents himself as a regular guy from Pennsylvania who was offered $100,000 to allow an energy company extract natural gas from his land. He turned them down. Fox says he loves his home and has been hearing bad things about how the gas is extracted.

—–

Fox sets out to expose the “scandal” of fracking – a process to extract natural gas from shale by using a cocktail of chemicals and a lot of water. By using this method America will get about 100 years worth of energy.

The bad news, according to ‘Gasland,’ is that fracking is killing countless unsuspecting poor people all over the US. Pancreatic cancer, dizziness, loss of sense of taste and smell, ringing in ears, disorientation, coughing, asthma, swelling, tumors and death are all caused by fracking according to the film. This is powerful stuff, compelling. On one side there are the greedy energy companies and on the other poor rural families being poisoned to death.

Incredible that this would happen here in the US. I waited for the killer interview with medical experts in toxicology or pathology and for even one of the of the many cases of illness and death to be closely examined and the evidence of a connection laid bare for all to see. It didn’t come. Why would Josh Fox not investigate the story further? Why would he not interview the kind of experts who would confirm the cause of the illnesses and deaths?

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A second viewing of “Toy Story 3″ is just as wondrous and entertaining as the first. In my initial review, I declared the Pixar sequel a masterpiece and another look only reinforced that. Pixar might be the brightest the star in the darkening universe of Filmdom today, but what a star. And this is coming from someone who was cold towards animation until “Monsters, Inc.” made me completely forget it was a cartoon and “Ratatouille” blew my mind. Pixar brings joy into my life. Pure, unadulterated joy.

“Toy Story 3″ wasn’t just the best picture of the year, it was the best picture of the year by a long shot. To drop it in the ghetto of Best Animated Feature is not only a disservice to the film itself, but a disservice to Hollywood’s own history — a history it writes itself every year with every Best Picture winner. 

Earlier in the countdown I mentioned that in my opinion only my first choice in this countdown ranked as a picture truly worthy of all that the title Best Picture of the Year should mean, and I meant that. I’m certainly fond of “Winter’s Bone,” “Inception,” “The King’s Speech,” and “The Social Network, but Best Picture worthy? No. To me, a Best Picture winner must tower over more than just a single year’s worth of entries, it must qualify as something as timeless as a Beethoven symphony.

Think about it: Every year literally hundreds of motion pictures are produced by thousands of talented artists putting  everything they have into the greatest art form ever devised. In some cases those individuals pour years of their lives and tens of millions of dollars into a project that will all come down to a single moment of judgment – that first screening when it’s determined whether or not every drop of sweat and blood was all worthwhile.  But above the money and sweat equity, there are hopes and dreams and aspirations poured into every frame and every edit. And out of this incredible symphony of activity and passion, one film will emerge above all the others and that film must be worthy — and not just in comparison to the others.

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