New York doc vet Jennifer Fox debuted her six-hour Danish-funded documentary Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman at Sundance in January. (Here's John Anderson's Variety review and NYT feature.) She's been taking the six one-hour segments to 15 cities around the country in advance of their showing on the Sundance Channel next spring. She just finished a swing through L.A., where the docu about women, sex, relationships and family showed at the American Cinematheque.

I watched the six episodes two at a time, three nights running. (I had admired Fox's 80s doc Beirut: The Last Home Movie.) I was fascinated. Fox took five years of her own life and turned it into the narrative through-line for a survey of women and their life choices in different cultures. As she pursues her career as a documentarian, flying around the globe, she interviews women about their lives, from South Africa and Cambodia to India and Pakistan. As she faces her mid-40s, she juggles two long-distance relationships and struggles with issues of fertility and monogamy. "I wasn't filming to film," she said. "I was filming to discover something. A lot of the reasons I went on the journey were answered. Then it was time to stop."

Fox takes the docu form to a new place as she carries a lightweight Sony PDX 10 DV cam around with her, passing it to other people in conversation and filming herself. The filmmaker got into the habit of shooting herself every day, and diarizing, even though she wound up using mostly the spaces between the words--the moments that silently captured emotion. She worked hard to strip herself down, lose self-consciousness, and tried to foster that naturalism in her interviewees, from her parents and lovers to her friends and complete strangers. "I had to be naive, to be in it without being too judgmental," she said. "I cultivated equanimity, a stance of acceptance. I was a character in crisis, and I didn't know what I was going to do. It was daunting being a one-person crew."

When she first pitched the idea of the doc, distribs were skeptical that the passing of the camera would work, so Fox sent them some footage. That was no longer an issue. Denmark wound up producing the film, partly because her work falls easily into their docu tradition. She set her own list of Dogme-like rules: shoot every day, no makeup, shoot as you enter scenes, no tripods, no radio mikes, the camera has to be passed. "The purpose was to watch the way women speak when there isn't a camera around," she said. "I found a way to use the camera that doesn't hurt conversation. The person brings presence to the conversation."

During the film, this vulnerable attractive western woman is gawked at by groups of men in cultures that find independent single women strange. Yet Fox found a wide range of articulate women of different classes and cultures, many of whom opened up about their hopes and limitations. Some of the women, while not ready to discuss such foreign issues as masturbation, are delaying arranged marriages and working outside the home. And it was clear that across cultures, women are dealing with the same issues. Even if western women are free of the strictures that oppress women in other societies, we know that many families are nonetheless dominated by men, and many women are abused.

Fox shot 1600 hours of footage, which was logged, digitized and edited by a Danish editor. After Fox showed the movie to her mother and father, they were upset and asked her to soften some things. Her mother said, "How could you be so stupid? All married women are going to hate you." But, said Fox, her mother "backed the film." In fact her parents insisted on going to Sundance, where they did a Q & A.

At the three Cinematheque Q & As I attended, Fox passed the camera, which has a lavalier mike lashed onto it with a hairband, through the audience, soliciting people to send their own material to her flyingconfessions.com website to participate in a possible 7th episode.

Critic John Anderson opens up the doors behind the jury selection process at the NYFF.

Stu Van Airsdale, AKA The Reeler, is a tirelessly energetic blogger who will go beyond the level of endurance for the sake of his blog. Here's his description of working the red carpet at the New York premiere of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. As someone who has been pummeled by too-aggressive paparazzi, I can relate. Which is one reason I rarely work a red carpet if I can help it.

Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which wasn't ready in time for submission to any of the major fall fests, debuted instead as a secret showing at Fantastic Fest 3 in Austin Thursday night. Here's an early review from The Circuit:

The secret closing-night film of Fantastic Fest 3 in Austin, Texas, on Thursday night turned out to be the first public screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood." Certain to be rewarded with year-end accolades, Anderson's film is a true American saga - one that rivals "Giant" and "Citizen Kane" in our popular lore as origin stories about how we came to be the people we are. In "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," it's not the gold that destroys men's souls but greed; in "There Will Be Blood," the commodity that drives the greed is oil.

UPDATE: Cinematical and John DeFore weigh in.

Cinematical's Kim Voynar assesses the documentary awards outlook for 2007.

I'd have to agree that by virtue of its sheer popularity, Michael Moore's Sicko leads the pack. Of the rest of the contenders, the politically-charged No End in Sight and Taxi to the Dark Side, as well as the excruciating China vs. Japan expose Nanking, and the Apollo doc In the Shadow of the Moon, have all been highly praised and deserve serious consideration.

Scott Feinberg reports that feuding doc-makers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris have agreed to appear onstage together at a Brandeis University event next month.

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner will screen at the New York Film Fest before playing in NYC. Here's an update on Blade Runner then and now. Here's Wired's uncut Ridley Scott interview.

I like the Peter Berg Saudi Arabia actioner The Kingdom and the Beatles musical Across the Universe. But that doesn't mean The Rock's Disney comedy The Game Plan won't do really well this weekend. Here's Variety's take.

Here's The Kingdom trailer.

Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 9/27/07 9:00 a.m. PT)

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

The Game Plan “Must Go” 15%

Resident Evil: Extinction “Go” 11%

Good Luck Chuck “Go” 8%

Across the Universe “Go” 6%

The Kingdom “Must Go” 6%

Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 9/27/07 9:00 a.m. PT)

The Heartbreak Kid starring Ben Stiller opens next week. Of the following, which is your favorite Ben Stiller movie?

Meet the Parents 27%

There's Something About Mary 21%

Zoolander 20%

Night at the Museum 13%

Dodgeball 12%

Starsky & Hutch 7%

As someone who is still recovering from a broken foot, I am in awe of Clooney pal Sarah Larson's plucky decision to attend the New York premiere of Michael Clayton on crutches and one very high heel. While she broke her foot in their motorcycle crash last Friday, Clooney's broken rib bandage is hidden under his suit.

[Photo by Jeff Spellman, WireImage]

It's an odd choice as a marketing ploy. But Universal has posted the opening sequence for The Kingdom, which is basically a quickie history lesson on the U.S. relationship to Saudi Arabia worthy of Syriana, on Yahoo. Newsweek's David Ansen didn't like the movie as much as I did. While he isn't yet in the class of his producer, Michael Mann, Peter Berg is shaping up to be a damned fine director.

It is almost risible how much studio marketing departments are trying to distance themselves from the Iraq movie label--because based on the poor showings of Home of the Brave, A Mighty Heart and In the Valley of Elah, the media has jumped all over the "Iraq War genre" as a failure. (I have been interviewed at least four times on this topic.)

Thus, The Kingdom is an actioner set in Saudi Arabia, Lions for Lambs is a thought-provoking examination of war, from Vietnam to Iraq, Grace is Gone, Stop Loss and In the Valley of Elah deal with the war's aftermath in the U.S., and The Kite Runner is firmly placed in Afghanistan. As for Redacted, Brian DePalma's politically-charged anti-Iraq diatribe, there's no way to distance that movie. It is what it is.

As an example of current trends, Columbia put Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies in turnaround, partly because of its Iraq war subject matter, even though it's an All the President's Men-style investigation of the inner workings of Washington--in fact producer John Calley is hoping to reunite with Robert Redford as director, and CAA is helping him to raise financing via Capitol Films.

My ex-Premiere colleague Fred Schruers, who always leaned on the side of length in his film writing, given that he is one of the masters of the celebrity profile, has taken over for Tim Swanson at Portfolio's Hollywood Deal blog. (Swanson is now the LAT's film editor.) I never pegged Schruers for a blogger. But he'll still keep his long-form hand in.

At age 75, Pat Kingsley is finally letting go of the chairman/CEO reins at PMK/HBH. Writes Variety's Michael Fleming:

Partners Cindi Berger and Simon Halls have been elevated to share the title of co-CEO, and Nate Schreiber will become president. He had been exec veep of Brands and Events.

The troika will steer the agency with a trio of managing partners: HBH co-founders Stephen Huvane and Robin Baum, and PMK vet Jennifer Allen.

Kingsley was tired of the paperwork, basically. She was ready to step down a year ago, says the veteran press agent, who co-founded Pickwick Public Relations with Lois Smith some forty years ago, then merged with Maslansky-Koenigsberg in 1980 to form PMK, and then merged with Huvane Baum Halls under the ownership of the InterPublic Group in 2001. For years, Kingsley's most famous client was Tom Cruise, until Scientology got in the way.

The continuing corporate aspects of her role--budgets and financial projections- grated on her, finally. "It's a tough job," she says. Now Kinglsey will do what she wants to do--handle movie campaigns and such clients as James L. Brooks and Jodie Foster--and "concentrate on the fun stuff," she says.

Here's an excerpt from my Risky Business column on Cruise and Kingsley:

Anyone who has ever dealt with Kingsley knows that going up against her takes guts and the full backing of your organization. Because she would use her entire arsenal to protect her most powerful client. She'd withdraw the cooperation of her agency's other stars if necessary. She'd refuse to cooperate on other stories, or ban a publication from ever getting another Cruise interview. (It took Premiere Magazine several years to work itself back into her good graces after one tough "Mission Impossible" story.) Kingsley controlled the select magazine covers Cruise would do for each picture, the friendly interviewers he was comfortable with, the photographers who shot him to look his best. She controlled his image, knew that he didn't have much to say, preserved his mystique as a movie star. Her PR philosophy has always been, less is more. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Keep the fans guessing. Hold the star in abeyance. Keep everyone lining up clamoring for more.

Lonely Planet TV, in partnership with the National Outdoor Leadership School and Travelwork, is offering people a chance to win an unforgettable trip ---to promote Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, natch. The winners get to trek through the Wyoming wilderness, ski in Idaho, mountaineer through the North Cascades or sea kayak in Alaska.

Those interested in such a wilderness adventure should submit a 2-minute video "of a moment where you felt truly free or connected to nature."

Kristin Thompson has been tracking the ins and outs of Peter Jackson's lawsuit against New Line and the movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit at her blog, The Frodo Franchise. Here she gives context and analysis of the court ruling last week fining New Line $125,000 for failing to come up with relevant documents.

Well, the awards season has begun. Movie City News' David Poland has assembled a stellar group to weigh in on the Oscar race. Here are the first round of results, which reflect some educated guesswork, given that we haven't yet seen all the films, even the ones that have started screening.

I won't name a film, like Charlie Wilson's War, that I haven't seen a lick of footage from. At least with Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, or American Gangster, I've seen a trailer or some footage, or talked to more than a few people who have seen the film. (I'm seeing Gangster next week.) Until some of these movies get open, we won't know where they stand. Each distributor has to do everything right, make no mistakes, and hope for boxoffice success.

The other issue at this stage is that people don't know what category some of the actors belong in. I understand that Miramax is campaigning for Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones for supporting for No Country for Old Men, and Josh Brolin for lead. Jones will be lead for In the Valley of Elah, if the movie can hang in long enough. Cate Blanchett is lead for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, supporting for I'm Not There.

Mike Jones put up a provocative post on The Circuit about the Ann Arbor film fest's troubles with the state of Michigan over funding, which has grown into a substantial lawsuit with the ACLU. The culprit? A 2005 showing of Crispin Glover's "pornographic" What Is It?

James McAvoy will break out big time with Atonement. That's because this is his first role in the classic romantic tragic leading man mold. Think Warren Beatty in Reds, Omar Sharif in Dr. Zhivago, Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Female heartthrob, yes. But this hunky Scottish actor could go far---presumably farther than Ewan McGregor, another sexily talented Scot who goes full frontal more often than necessary (I'm not complaining) and even starred in the Star Wars trilogy. There's something slightly bland and flat about McGregor. He's a bit like Jeff Bridges: a great likeable actor with range, but not a huge draw as a marquee movie star.

At any rate, here's McAvoy's Esquire cover story. Expect a full media assault. And at the end of this year's award season, maybe an Oscar nom. But the Best Actor category could be crowded.

[Hat tip: Awards Daily]

This announcement grabbed my attention. Maybe it's because it's a movie musical with an interesting title, maybe because it's being directed by a horror film refugee and it's based on a musical play. (Sweeney Todd meets The Phantom of the Opera!) Lionsgate starts principal photography this week in Toronto on Repo! The Genetic Opera, starring an odd assortment of actor/singers: debuting musical theater star Sarah Brightman (Phantom of the Opera), Anthony Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Paris Hilton (oy), Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects), Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas), & Alexa Vega (Spy Kids).

The director is Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, III, and IV, due October 26) from a screenplay by Terrence Zdunich and Darren Smith, co-creators of the original stage production. Japanese musician, songwriter and composer Yoshiki is producing the film’s soundtrack.

Lionsgate is obviously backing their in-house director, Bousman, who is a passionate devotee of this genre-bending bizarre future fantasy world: he directed the first Los Angeles stage production in 2002 as well as a 2006 short film version. The plot is worthy of Richard Kelly's Southland Tales: after an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet, killing tens of millions, scientists make plans for a massive organ harvest program. Biotech conglom GeneCo offers payment plans to those lacking funds to purchase new body parts: but financed organs are subject to default and repossession at the hands of organ repo men.

This is one of those projects that could be fresh and fun or gross and godawful. I've never seen the Saw pictures, so I have no idea if this guy can direct or not.

Twisted Pictures, headed by Mark Burg and Oren Koules, also produced the Saw franchise and Catacombs, part of their nine-pic deal with Lionsgate.

The foreign Oscar submissions are rolling in: Sony Pictures Classics has Cannes' excellent holocaust movie Counterfeiters (Austria) and the heartwarming fest fave The Band's Visit (Israel), which swept the Israeli Film Academy’s Awards with seven prizes including Best Picture.

The shocker is that Picturehouse's sleeper hit La Vie En Rose was not put up by France. Instead, the French submitted a movie that will surely be in the animation race anyway, SPC's Persepolis. Why? Apparently the producers of La Vie en Rose are not in the good graces of the French. Plus ca change, plus c'est the meme chose. Picturehouse will still chase Marion Cotillard for Best Actress.

Picturehouse will also have The Orphanage, a surprise entry for Spain, because J.A. Bayona is a rookie directing a thriller. But The Orphanage was Spain's biggest breakout of the year, a Cannes entry produced by last year's Oscar contender, Guillermo del Toro. Besides, there's no Pedro Almodovar film to put up this year.

Thankfully, Film Experience is keeping track of all these things. Check out this handy chart.

Here's the latest update from Variety on the foreign race.

While Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Express makes the fest rounds, from Venice to opening night in New York to London, he's also unspooling Part I, the prologue of the film, the 13-minute short Hotel Chevalier. Featuring Natalie Portman in her first nude scene, Anderson shot the short film with her and Jason Schwartzman back in 2005. Fox Searchlight will make Hotel Chevalier available in four Apple stores, ahead of the movie's October 5 release date, on Tuesday, September 25. Here's today's LAT story.

Anderson, Schwartzman and Portman will intro the film and answer questions at the Apple Store SoHo; co-writer Roman Coppola will intro the short at the Apple Store North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. After-hours events will also take place at the Apple Store Third Street Promenade (Santa Monica) and Apple Store San Francisco (Union Square). (Check here.) Beginning on September 26th, Hotel Chevalier will be available as a free download exclusively on iTunes.

The Darjeeling Limited tells the story of three American brothers who have not talked in a year and travel through India by train. Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody also star.

UPDATE: Here's coverage of the New York event.

Roger Ebert, sidelined without a voice for the past year as he battles cancer, nonetheless tops Forbes' list of top entertainment pundits. Clearly, being a well-known and trusted TV brand-name is the key here.

Three men stood in the back of the Directors Guild theater beaming proudly at actor-filmmaker Sean Penn: producer Art Linson, Paramount Vantage head John Lesher and River Road financeer Bill Pohlad. Without them, the movie might not have gotten made.

Penn persevered for some 12 years after the book by Jon Krakauer was first published. The parents of Chris McCandless weren't ready. So finally, Penn coaxed them into letting him make the movie. He was ready, and so were they. At the DGA premiere last week, the parents were seeing the film for the third time. It's tough to imagine how that must feel; Penn did not go easy on them.

The movie has a crazy power. It's not just about a college grad who has everything going for him, but chooses to opt out of society, gradually moving beyond the fringe of migrant worker and hippy camper to solo survival in Alaska. He tests his mettle and rides rapids and confronts a bear and shoots and carves up game. He lives entirely on his own--for a while. For more than two years, he does not call his family, who are mad with worry. Emile Hirsch carries the movie with strong support from Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, Hal Hobrook, narrator Jena Malone and songster Eddie Vedder, who supplied nine warm, original songs.

Penn worked hard on this carefully constructed movie. Some find it too long. Not me, I was carried along. The movie has resonance; it captures some human fantasy of escape into nature, away from the fetters of society. Some say that Penn romanticizes this character too much. McCandless could be certifiable, not right in his mind. Others find the movie just plain dull. Penn lets the audience come to its own conclusions. "His heart and soul was in it," says Linson. "He doesn't try to manipulate you into loving the kid."

Into the Wild did not play well for the Academy this weekend. Mild applause. It may not be their kind of movie. Well-written, photographed, acted, scored and edited, it may play too much like a documentary, which is a serious compliment. The actors, if not all the craft folk who have worked with him over the years, revere Penn. My prediction: there will be award season notice paid to Holbrook.

Here are reviews from the NYT's A.O. Scott and Variety. Here's Joe Donnelly's Penn cover story in LA Weekly. Metacritic gives Into the Wild a more-than-fine 76 average. Here's more on Penn and Hirsch.

Vantage could have opened it wider, judging from its huge per-screens this weekend. The movie build up huge buzz after Telluride and Toronto.

I admit I was killing two birds with one Stone: checking out the spanking new Gensler CAA building at 2000 Avenue of the Stars, and spending an evening hanging out with pals of Oliver Stone as we watched the latest expanded "final" hi-def cut of Alexander "Revisited" in the fancy CAA screening room.

The building is a glass stunner, with a lobby looking through to the hillside lawn on the other side. CAA is down the hall to the right, and once you get through those portals, no cameras are allowed. No shots of the rosy-hued reception area, the tall central atrium, the fabulous art. I meekly handed over my camera to security and went up to the buffet dinner, said hi to Don Murphy and Roger Avary, and ate souvlaki, hummus and grape leaves on my lap with Jessica Bendiger and pals on the balcony outside.

Inspired in part by seeing Paul Haggis's no-frills In the Valley of Elah, Stone is prepping to shoot Pinkville, starring Bruce Willis as Army general William R. Peers, who investigated the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai by U.S. army soldiers. United Artists' Paula Wagner, Stone's old agent, is putting up $40 million for Stone to shoot the pic in super-16. Willis was willing to cut his price to do this. Channing Tatum and Michael Pena also star. (Stone was unable to land his U-Turn star Sean Penn.) The movie starts shooting in Thailand in early November. Jon Kilik is producing.

Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut is not the version released on DVD not so long ago, but Stone's fourth pass in two and a half years at this epic biopic of the conquering Macedonian hero. Thanks to Warner Home Video, he got to tinker and fuss. I didn't see the intervening shorter "director's cut." I saw the first theatrical cut in 2004--the one that was rushed into release because neither Intermedia nor Warners was able to stop the global release date that was apparently written in stone. Whoops. I keep using that word.

So Stone made some mistakes first time out. The very Black Irish Colin Farrell was too blond. Nothing to be done about that. And there were some awkward bloopers, scenes that rang false, made you cringe. Not so now. This is a damned good movie, it runs much longer, with a great battle right at the top and an intermission dividing the two halves. Now, the male/male relationships make sense, as does Roxanne (a sexy Rosario Dawson) and the parental dysfunction with Dad (Val Kilmer) and Mom (Angelina Jolie). Most important, the reason why Alexander kept going, the urge to conquer, to keep conquering--that rings clear, too. In this case, more is more. It's a good movie.

Next up on the classical sword and sandals front: Leonardo DiCaprio may star in a big-screen adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius for producer Scott Rudin.

George Clooney was out on the highway in New Jersey on a motorcycle with pal Sarah Larson when he tried to pass a car on the right; the car chose that moment to make a turn. Clooney broke a rib and his girlfriend broke her foot in the collision. Ouch. Poor George! He was just getting over all those nasty back problems. He's been shooting the Coens' movie Burn After Reading, while the movie he directed, Leatherheads, is in post. And he's promoting Michael Clayton (which I liked a lot), which opens October 5.

Check out Lloyd Grove's lengthy Portfolio.com Q & A with the always candid-yet-uptight Barry Diller. I get a kick out of Diller; always have. He's smart. But he's not an easy interview and if you know Diller you can cringe on behalf of Grove as he bobs and swerves through the nasty thicket of asking Diller questions he's happy to answer, and those he does not like (his stint running Universal is not one of his favorite topics, for example):

L.G.: You have a famous management style.

B.D.: Yeah.

L.G.: I was just reading an article: the president of Expedia [Dara Khosrowshahi] talking about how it’s generally people sitting around a table shouting at the top of their lungs.

B.D.: Well, he exaggerates.

L.G.: I mean you’re reported to have once made [DreamWorks C.E.O.] Stacey Snider cry [when she was running Universal Studios and Diller was grilling her in a meeting].

B.D.: Oh please! Stacey Snider cries for effect in whatever room she might be in. I mean, I didn’t make Stacey Snider cry! Stacey Snider wanted to cry for her own demonstrative purposes. But, there’s no question that our process, my process, is one in which I believe that in order to get to the truth of something, you have to argue it passionately. It’s not a Socratic process by any stretch. But in any situation, you know if you have all the information, it’s easy to make a decision. But with almost every decision, particularly the ones that get tougher and tougher, you don’t have all the information; you’re never going to get all the information; it isn’t there to get. What you’ve got to try and do is listen for what truth you can hear out of the passions of people arguing what they believe in. Because it’s what they believe in when you don’t have the facts, where you can maybe find something that will give you a lead on what’s more interesting to do, what’s the right course to make a decision.

But it does get intense, and it does get into conflict—the conflict of ideas. And when people get exercised about that, there’s no device to get them to do it, but just the fact that that’s what you’re really mining for, that’s going to sometimes be noisy and sometimes confrontational. There are those that love that, and thank God there are enough people like that—those are the people I like to be around. I’m very uncomfortable when I’m in rooms with people, as they are uncomfortable with me, if they don’t like this process. And there are people who don’t like it, and that’s fine. I don’t think there’s a value judgment here, I just think it’s something that is either enjoyable and stimulating for people or they want to run out of the room. And people who want to run out of the room, should. I’m happy that there are enough to stay.

Variety's Peter Bart tackles those pesky bloggers yet again. Of course he has about ten of them writing blogs for Variety as we speak! of course, our blogs aren't like the ones he's talking about, unless you count those of us who obsess on our traffic. Who, me?

UPDATE: David Poland responds--typically, at some length--to Bart's column.

Speaking of blogs, a Christian one called Strange Culture is hosting it's first ever blog-a-thon November 7-9, 2007 on the topic of faith and film, if that's your interest. They're inviting weigh-ins, "whether your approach is personal, academic, comical, serious, or anything in between."

David Geffen spills on Viacom-Paramount-DreamWorks fracas to Merissa Marr of the WSJ:

In Hollywood, when filmmaker Steven Spielberg says jump, most people ask "How high?" Not Viacom Inc.

Less than two years after Viacom's Paramount Pictures announced with great fanfare a deal to buy DreamWorks SKG, a battle over its future has been slowly coming to a boil. Members of the DreamWorks team -- headed by Mr. Spielberg and co-founder David Geffen -- have been making noises that they may leave when their contracts allow it next year. Mr. Geffen made his first detailed public comments on the subject in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

"Whether we renew our contract is unclear," Mr. Geffen said, confirming that he has been speaking to other studios. "We'll continue to do what we've always done: make eight movies a year. But who we make them for is up for discussion."

And here's the LAT's Claudia Eller's front page story today. UPDATE: Here's the NYT's Michael Cieply.

While I was an admirer of Jason Reitman's frosh effort Thank You for Smoking, which was a wickedly funny intellectually sharp and well-acted movie, Juno is another matter entirely. One, it is written by ex-midwestern stripper-turned-blogger/screenwriter Diablo Cody, who has an uncommon ear for smart witty edgily contemporary dialogue that while a tad exaggerated, rings true.

Two, managers Mason Novick and J.C. Spinks had the sense to scoop Cody up from blogdom and coax her to write. Her script, Juno, hit the town like wildfire two years ago.

She wrote a book Candy Girl, which inspired Letterman to put her on the show in 2006:

Mandate developed Juno and got it to Reitman, who had a first-look deal with Fox Searchlight and had the sense to recognize what he could do with this screenplay. In fact, he stopped writing his own script and signed on to direct this one instead. Mandate and Searchlight co-financed the film; Searchlight has domestic rights and Mandate has foreign.

Here's a a Spout podcast with Reitman and Cody from Telluride, where Juno debuted.

The movie is hitting a nerve and I can see why. It's fresh and cheeky and about something we haven't seen presented this way before: a bright and healthy teen (Ellen Page, whose career will soar after this; she could get nominated) from a decent family who gets pregnant with her new boyfriend (Cera) by mistake and decides to give the child up for adoption to a yuppy couple (well-played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman). The script is unpredictable and as directed by Reitman, walks the same line between comedy and heartfelt emotion that Little Miss Sunshine did. That's why people are comparing the two: Juno looks and plays like a comedy but packs an unexpected emotional whallop. The movie will be a hit. And with luck and proper handling, it could survive the crazy awards season and nab some prizes for Cody, Reitman and Page.

Check out Cody's blog and the hilarious two-year-old tale of her arrival in Hollywood:

The next morning, I drive to Nate 'n' Al's in Beverly Hills for breakfast. This deli is so old-school it makes Canter's look like Chi. Apparently, Larry King eats breakfast here every day, and sure enough, he's two booths away from me, noshing with his morning buddies. He looks fragile and adorable, like a Muppet likeness of himself. I'm here to meet with the head of my agency's literary department, an incredibly animated and hyperactive fellow. Like Larry King, he eats here every morning. He tells me an amazing story about saving a guy's life in the bathroom.

"I walked in and he was choking over the toilet," he says gesturing wildly. "Without thinking, I gave him the Heimlich. Out popped the cantaloupe, and there you go! So what do you want for breakfast? Do you like eggs? How about an omelet? Everything is delicious."

He pushes a new copy of Variety across the table at me. "By the way, I saw you in the trades. Congratulations."

I look down at Variety and see that there's an article headlined "Mandate Finds Its Juno." I had known there was a trade announcement about the movie planned, but I didn't know Manager had cleverly arranged for the article's run date to coincide with my trip to L.A. For the rest of the day, people I meet will say "Diablo Cody? I saw you in the trades today!" The trades are a mercurial bible, a daily devotional for everyone in the know.

And here's squeaky-clean Dave Karger's EW.com interview with Arrested Development stars Jason Bateman and Michael Cera:

I find it hard to believe that Roberts is old enough to get a Cinematheque award. (Let's just say she's a lot younger than me.) On the other hand, the big prizes shouldn't just go to the guys. Roberts has been Hollywood's top-ranked femme movie star for a long time. Denzel Washington, the man who wouldn't kiss Roberts in The Pelican Brief, will present the award to her at the annual benefit gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Friday, October 12. Other folks Roberts has worked with will participate in the evening, including Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson's War), Marcia Gay Harden (Mona Lisa Smile), Shirley MacLaine (Steel Magnolias), Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend's Wedding), Mike Nichols (Closer and Charlie Wilson's War), Blair Underwood (Full Frontal), Bruce Willis (Oceans Twelve, The Player) and Oprah Winfrey (Charlotte's Web). Count me in.

As expected, Warner Bros. is chasing down the DC Comics property Justice League as a pre-strike movie, even though it may not star Christian Bale or Brandon Routh. The studio likes the script and wants George Miller (Happy Feet) to direct.

A new talk radio show, Flickchicks, is hitting VoiceAmerica Women’s Channel. Two industry pros, journalist, producer and PR vet Roberta Burrows and interviewer, radio producer and critic Manuela Goren, will debate their film views, do interviews with talent and answer phone calls and emails in a one-hour "Siskel and Ebert" format. VoiceAmerica Women's Network will broadcast the show globally.

FlickChicks airs every Wednesday at 11 AM / Pacific, 2PM Eastern on VoiceAmerica's Women's channel; shows are also available in FlickChick’s Content Library on The VoiceAmericaTM Women’s Channel for on-demand and pod cast download.

No End in Sight filmmaker Charles Ferguson posted his scathing rebuttal to former Iraq functionary Paul Bremer Op-Ed column at the NYT via video.

At a recent dinner I got into a John Ford vs. Akira Kurosawa argument. It was about who was the best director of all time. It's damned close. Look at this fabulous list, organized by one of my favorite cinephile bloggers, Edward Copeland, of the top 100 foreign films of all time. I too voted for Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game as number one, and Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai as number two. (My list is on the jump.) But I only allowed myself one movie per director on my list of 25. More Kurosawa films were nominated than any other director; the final top twenty boasts four of his films, and three by Ingmar Bergman. (When I made my final cut, I erred on the side of older films because I knew that more recent films from the likes of Werner Herzog and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu had an edge. I wasn't worried about them. I was right.)

Covering Southland Tales at Cannes last year, I was struck by the number of financeers, neophyte producers and actors who were willing to go along for the ride with writer-director Richard Kelly, who was riding high off Donnie Darko. It was a classic case of the emperor's new clothes. Even the festival itself bought into the notion that this wildly ambitious visually rich incomprehensible mess of a futuristic fantasy was worth showing at the fest. The clearly unfinished film, clocking some two hours 40 minutes, was rushed into the fest, and turned out to be a disaster. At press conferences, actors like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would admit that they didn't understand the script, but wanted to follow Kelly's vision. That's the thing. Directors often have an idea of what they're doing, but don't realize that it's not getting through to anyone else.

The movie was acquired by Sony, which saw some DVD promise in it. (Goldwyn will release theatrically.)Kelly worked on the flick some more, cut 20 minutes, rerecorded Justin Timberlake's narration, and added visual effects. The new improved model will open November 9. Here's Kelly's candid interview with the LAT's Mark Olsen:

"Even with all that happened, I don't regret it," Kelly said recently of the experience. "Now that all the dust has settled, the movie is actually better off because of it. Honestly, it is. The hope is we can still somehow recover and the movie can find an audience."

UPDATE: here's the trailer.

Well, it looks like things aren't working out for the recent Paramount/DreamWorks marriage!

Variety has more. Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone doesn't suck up to anyone. And he hasn't treated David Geffen and Steven Spielberg the way they want to be treated. Redstone's number two, Philippe Dauman, made it clear to Wall Street yesterday that Viacom is prepared to let DreamWorks go. And suggested that it would be tough for them to raise the billions they would need to go it alone. Bets are on Universal or Warners as the likely next safe harbor for DreamWorks.

While it's easy to point out how terrible the results would be if Paramount did not have DreamWorks' product over the past year, the truth is, even when DreamWorks leaves, Paramount gets to keep much of their upcoming slate and sequel rights to Transformers, etc. DreamWorks still shores up their ongoing performance. For its part, DreamWorks would lose some momentum going forward. Much of DreamWorks' recent success came from a mature slate of pictures that were ready to roll, well-supervised and brought to fruition by Stacey Snider.

Here's Michael Haneke's 1997 version, starring The Lives of Other's Ulrich Muhe.

And here's the 2007 version, ten years later, starring Tim Roth, Naomi Watts and Michael Pitt:

Tartan Warner Independent plans to release Funny Games in February 2008.

This was the beginning of a great idea, and it could have been really fun. Some of the items work better than others. I love the way cat lovers rise up to defend their cats. Brad Pitt and Keira Knightley get whacked here.

[Photo courtesy WireImage]

Here's the Juno trailer: I'm finally seeing the pic Wednesday morning.

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has posted various reactions to Jodie Foster's The Brave One.

Richard Corliss takes on Julie Taymor's Beatles musical Across the Universe and Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan homage I'm Not There.

Eastern Promises was one of the best received movies in Toronto, both by critics and by audiences, who raved over their favorite son, director David Cronenberg. Much as I admire the film--especially Viggo Mortensen's subtle and muscular performance-- I still wonder how the movie will fare in wide release. It's a total smart-house play, much like A History of Violence, which topped out domestically at $31 million, but it's just as violent and not nearly as accessible.

Here's Desson Thomson's interview with David Cronenberg.

[Photo by Jeff Vespa, WireImage]

Time Warner prexy and COO Jeffrey Bewkes is on the way to taking over the corporation's top post from current CEO Richard Parsons, according to the WSJ:

Time Warner is expected to confirm Mr. Bewkes as the next CEO before the end of the year, people familiar with the matter say. He is expected to take the reins as early as Jan. 1, five months before Mr. Parsons's contract expires. Mr. Parsons is expected to retain the chairman's title. Time Warner's board has yet to vote on Mr. Bewkes's appointment, but that could happen in the coming weeks, these people say.

I'm delighted that the Academy is bringing back Jon Stewart as Oscar host. He did a fine job last time and will only get better with practice, I suspect. So what if he's going to display lefty politics on the show? He's a member of the the same club as most of the Academy anyway.

David Bordwell checks out the average age of movie directors when they shoot their first picture. Zack Snyder (who started Dawn of the Dead at age 37) and Ben Affleck (who made Gone Baby Gone at age 34), both got started on the late side: best to debut well before age 35, Bordwell says.

Miramax Films is taking a two-pronged approach to its marketing of Joel and Ethan Coen's lauded Cannes and Toronto hit No Country for Old Men, which opens in November. It's on the long hard Oscar track; so far so good.

Because the pic, which stars action stalwart Tommy Lee Jones, breakout Josh Brolin and ultra-bad-ass Javier Bardem, boasts "genre" action elements, the company is selling the pic to the action crowd as well as the Coens' usual "smart-house" core. Check out these online "banners" for the film, which are set to hit the Internet soon.

UPDATE: I came across this very similar poster for 3:10 to Yuma:

Ex-HBO chief Chris Albrecht, who was first raked over the coals and then ardently wooed, is respected as a creative entrepreneur. He's returning to his roots as an agent, reports the NYT, and joining agency IMG in a deal brokered by Endeavor's Ari Emanuel, who inspired Emmy-winning Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold on Entourage.

Jonathan Demme got amazing access as he followed former president Jimmy Carter on his recent promo tour for his book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid." And yet throughout the film, Carter remains admirably in control. While he's sharp and smart and chatty, he never really lets down his guard. He knows how to play his persona, which he does almost all the time.

Demme catches little cracks in Carter's genial exterior, hints of annoyance at some of the tough adversarial interviews on this grueling national book tour. But Carter maintains a steely tenacity. While many people are brought around to his strong point on view on Palestine, his insistence on using the word "apartheid" in the title of the book--to spark controversy and debate, he says--may have hurt more than it helped. Too many people were turned off by that. It's fascinating during Demme's doc to see the implacable faces that question Carter, with respect, but with the determination to prove him wrong. Here's Ted Johnson's review. And an interview with Newsday.

Here's one last whack at my short week in Toronto (having missed Juno and Into the Wild, both of which I'll see this week):

Ten Twelve best films at TIFF (alphabetical):
Across the Universe (Julie Taymor, USA)
Atonement (Joe Wright, UK)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney Lumet, USA)
Boy A (John Crowley, UK)
The Brave One (Neil Jordan, USA)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, USA)
I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, USA)
In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, USA)
Into the Wild (Sean Penn, USA)
Juno (Jason Reitman, USA)
Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach, USA)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, USA)

Great Cannes Holdovers:
The Counterfeiters (Stefan Ruzowitsky, Austria/Germany)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, USA/France)
No Country for Old Men (the Coen brothers, USA)
Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, USA)
Terror's Advocate (Barbet Schroeder, France)

Great Sundance Holdovers:
King of California (Mike Cahill, USA)
The Savages (Tamara Jenkins, USA)

Also good but not great:
The Jane Austen Book Club (Robin Swicord, USA)
Cassandra's Dream (Woody Allen, USA)
Death Defying Acts (Gillian Armstrong, UK/Australia)
Fugitive Pieces (Jeremy Podeswa, Canada)
Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains (Jonathan Demme, USA)
Married Life (Ira Sachs, USA)
Redacted (Brian De Palma, USA)
Reservation Road (Terry George, USA)

Disappointments:
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, UK)
Run, Fat Boy, Run (David Schwimmer, UK)

Here are my picks for Toronto's:
Best director: Joe Wright (Atonement)
Best actress: Jodie Foster (The Brave One)
Best actor: Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)
Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Best supporting actress: Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
Best screenplay: Noah Baumbach (Margot at the Wedding)
Best movie moment: In I'm Not There, Bob Dylan romping Richard Lester-style with the four Mop Tops
Best soundtrack: Across the Universe
Two most uncannily similar movies: Cassandra's Dream and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Todd McCarthy sampled a few too many anti-Iraq movies in Toronto.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike: Here's David Carr in the NYT. And the WSJ . And Ted Johnson points out that In the Valley of Elah's weak opening does not bode well for the coming onslaught. This is a movie that did not build a critical consensus going in, which it desperately needed. (On the other hand, Oscar-winner "Crash" was not a critics' picture.) I found the film powerfully moving, as did Richard Roeper, but he was unable to mount much of a defense when the emboldened Robert Wilonsky challenged him on the film. (Now the mutual admirers are going after each other.) There's a dark, sad change in Jones' ex-soldier father when he realizes what the war has done to his son. It's not the usual damage that any war inflicts; it's the disillusionment and corruption brought by this particular war.

I do think the Saudi Arabia film The Kingdom will do better, at a somewhat further remove. It's more commercial. (Here's John Anderson's Variety review.) And I suspect the Afghanistan-set The Kite Runner, which is a close adaptation of the bestselling book, has a good shot too.

[Photo: Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah]