How could the talented group at Focus Features combine so many attractive elements into such a dud picture? The antic period Brit comedy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day shows that all it takes is the wrong director, in this case TV thriller director Bharat Nalluri (Spooks), to coax bad performances out of Oscar-winner Frances McDormand, miscast as a Brit governess-turned-social secretary, and Amy Adams, ditzily channeling Marilyn Monroe. Only the wily Ciaran Hinds manages to escape unscathed. Todd McCarthy likes it better than I do.

The movie opens limited on March 7. Here's the trailer:

Brit critic Ben Child has figured out the secret of Judd Apatow's success. On that basis, he figures, Forgetting Sarah Marshall supporting player Russell Brand will be Apatow's next likely star. For the moment, Apatow is producing another couples comedy from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall team of director Nick Stoller and writer-actor Jason Segal.

Despite achieving a miserable 23 % rotten ranking on Rotten Tomatoes, the R-rated sports spoof Semi-Pro, starring Will Ferrell, is expected to dominate the weekend boxoffice by drawing young males. Boasting femme appeal is the other Boleyn girl, which grabbed a 53% rotten rating. Unlikely to score much action this weekend is Summit Entertainment's freshman release Penelope, starring recent BAFTA nominee James McAvoy and Christina Ricci as a girl with a pig nose, which earned 56% rotten reviews.

BTW, for the still-Oscar-obsessed, Rotten Tomatoes compares the scores of all the films that have won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Here's the weekend forecast based on Fandango's advance ticket sales:

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

Semi-Pro “Go” 21%

The Other Boleyn Girl “Go” 17%

Vantage Point “Go” 10%

The Spiderwick Chronicles “Go” 6%

U2 3D “Must Go” 5%

This week's Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 2/29/08 9:00 a.m. PT):

Will Ferrell's latest, Semi-Pro, opens this week. What's your favorite Ferrell comedy?

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy 24%

Old School 22%

Elf 21%

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby 17%

Blades of Glory 10%

Zoolander 6%

Word is, Steven Spielberg and his cast will unveil the new Indy installment at the Cannes Palais four days before it opens worldwide.

The Oscar-nominated Canadian short Madame Tutli-Putli and 42 other short films from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival are available for download on the iTunes Store, Netflix and Xbox 360. Check sundanceshorts for more info on how to see the shorts, which cost $1.99 on iTunes and Xbox and can be streamed for free on Netflix.

The Sundance Institute is trying to build audiences for shorts by partnering first with iTunes in 2007 and this year, Netflix and Xbox. Short films at Sundance have helped break out such directors as Jason Reitman, Todd Haynes, Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Trey Park and Matt Stone, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, Tamara Jenkins, Nicole Holofcener and Alexander Payne.

The trailer for the latest Will Ferrell/Andy McKay comedy starring Ferrell and John C. Reilly as grown new step-brothers who act like idiot ten-year-olds is hilarious. Producer Judd Apatow is involved, natch. It opens July 25.

Here's the LAT's marketing tie-in story on Semi-Pro, the other Ferrell pic coming out that does not look as funny.
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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly writer Ronald Harwood, who is an old hand at attending the Oscars, charmingly regales us with the details of his long Oscar night.

Well, we've been waiting for the details to emerge on New Line Cinema, and here they are: Warners is absorbing the studio, as a label, and company founder Bob Shaye, who can claim to be one of the longest surviving indie mavericks in Hollywood, and his co-chairman Michael Lynne, are gone. This was expected.

Here's Bewkes' memo to the Time Warner employees:

February 28, 2008
To: All Time Warner Employees
From: Jeff Bewkes
Subject: New Line to Become a Unit of Warner Bros.

This afternoon, we announced that New Line will be operated as a unit of Warner Bros. New Line will continue to retain its own brand identity and will maintain separate development, production, marketing, distribution, and business affairs operations, but it will now coordinate those functions with Warner Bros.

The combination should strengthen our company’s filmed entertainment business by combining New Line with Warner Bros.’ industry-leading position and global reach. New Line has a proud 40-year legacy of producing creative, cutting-edge entertainment. That will continue. But, given trends in the industry toward fewer movie releases, the importance of a coordinated strategy for the international and digital distribution of filmed entertainment, and the need to continue to make sure that we’re running our businesses as efficiently as possible, it made sense for us to combine our studios’ infrastructures.

Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, the Co-Chairs and Co-CEOs of New Line, have chosen to leave the company, but we’re in discussions about possible future business relationships. Bob and Michael have a unique partnership that is noteworthy not only for its longevity, but also for its record of innovation and success. They have guided New Line’s growth from a privately-held art film distributor to the world’s leading independent film studio – home to such popular films as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Mask, Austin Powers, Blade, Rush Hour, Elf, Wedding Crashers and Hairspray. I thank Bob and Michael for their enduring contributions to Time Warner and look forward to working with them in the future.

This consolidation will also result in changes, including the elimination of jobs at New Line. Warner Bros. is currently working through the details and will let people know how the changes affect them as soon as possible. Colleagues whose jobs are eliminated will be treated fairly and respectfully. These are very difficult decisions, but they’re important for the future success of our film studios and our company.

As always, thank you for your hard work and support as our company moves forward. I’ll continue to keep you updated on our progress.

It is confusing that Shaye and Lynne are supposedly staying on in some business relationship (it's probably a face-saving device); and that the company, which is being folded into Warners, will still do some distribution. (That likely means there are various output deals that can't be instantly severed.) Bewkes is saying that he wants to fold the New Line product into the global Warner distribution apparatus. This seems short-sighted to me--even Universal hangs on to Focus Features' flexibility to take its indie fare out territory-by-territory to just the right indie distribs.

Bewkes is still not addressing the fate of New Line/HBO's Picturehouse and the floundering Warner Independent. Warners' Jeff Bewkes knows HBO better than he does the film side. It may not be clear from looking at Picturehouse's recent boxoffice record--which involved trying to market HBO Films' output that was not geared toward competing in the Darwinish specialty marketplace--just how competent and respected inside the biz Picturehouse prexy Bob Berney is.

Fact is, Warners prexy Jeff Robinov let Mark Gill leave WIP, even after he was making a success of it, because he couldn't control Gill and was unwilling to give him the autonomy he needed. Gill wasn't playing corporate ball at the time. But Robinov replaced him with hotshot production exec Polly Cohen, who he trusted, but who has had to learn the indie biz at a time when it couldn't be more unforgiving. Robinov and Cohen see WIP as more of a production opportunity, to seek out exciting new filmmakers.

But running a specialty label is as much a marketing and distribution job as it is picking movies. And that's what Berney understands instinctively. This is the guy who discovered and took out Y Tu Mama Tambien, Whale Rider, Monster, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and handled the release for Mel Gibson of The Passion of the Christ. Most recently, Picturehouse just won two Oscars for one of the few foreign hits in recent memory, La Vie en Rose. So what if Picturehouse didn't market Rocket Science effectively? No one could.

[Here's the 40th anniversary New Line DVD.]

The full WB/New Line press release is on the jump:

Men's Vogue charts the impact international films and cinema icons, from Gene Kelly to Cary Grant, have had on men's fashion.

Veteran screenwriter and director Paul Schrader (Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Hardcore, Blue Collar, Light Sleeper, The Walker) has posted some of his critical writing online:

Dear friends, acquaintances and people I once met but now barely remember,

Years ago I wrote a number of articles and reviews for publications which were not archived by libraries. Not worthy of re-publication but not deserving of oblivion either. Someone suggested a website, so here it is:

paulschrader.org.

I've also included high res pix from the films for downloading.

Paul Schrader

This will cheer you up.

This Barack Obama is The Messiah video premieres tonight on Current at 11pm ET/PT and will also be available on current.com.

I'm so glad the Oscar season is over that the idea of professional Oscar watchers already predicting next year's awards makes me feel, well, tired. But this is their life, 24/7, while I move on to such mundane annual rituals as the ShoWest exhibitor convention in Las Vegas.

In Contention's Kris Tapley, whose Variety Oscar blog ends on Friday (applause on a job well done) has posted a list of probable 2008 Oscar contenders. And Awards Daily's Sasha Stone, who will keep on plugging, adds the year's first Oscar poll in response. My votes matched up pretty closely with the poll. Paramount Vantage will handle the honors on DreamWorks' adaptation of Richard Yates' portrait of a 50s marriage, Revolutionary Road, which reunites Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet under the direction of Sam Mendes. No Country for Old Men's Oscar-winner Scott Rudin produces. And Imagine's Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are looking to be back in the winner's circle with their screen version of The Queen writer Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon, starring Michael Sheen as TV host David Frost and Frank Langella as Richard M. Nixon.

Speaking of Morgan, I saw his adaptation of Philippa Gregory's bodice-ripper the other Boleyn girl last night. Here's Variety's review. Columbia and Focus Features would not be releasing it now if they thought the movie was an Oscar contender, and it's not. But it is great fun, as wily American actresses Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannson hold their own against an array of top-flight British thespians. It's an old-fashioned juicy period costume drama, if not as sexy as the lengthier Showtime version, The Tudors. I could see women flocking to this in droves.

UPDATE: Here's Rachel Abramowitz's feature on the pic in the LAT.

There's a bunch of post-Oscar stuff on the web today, including this classic shot of Diablo Cody on the morning after. (Other folks are dredging up dated old Cody photos she'd probably rather forget.) I too was moved by her honest emotion on Oscar night. There's also a video spoof of Cody which I decided not to post because I didn't think it was funny. UPDATE: The A.P. details the Cody backlash. I'm glad to hear she's lying low for the foreseeable future.

While the Oscar show played great to the folks in the Kodak Theatre and Hollywood insiders, it obviously didn't score across the board, as it reaped its lowest ratings ever. Here's one disgruntled review:

UPDATE: Patrick Goldstein wants the staid old Academy to hire a bunch of sports producers to overhaul the Oscars to appeal to younger viewers. As far as I'm concerned, there's the Oscars for grownups and the MTV and Nickelodeon Movie Awards for kids. I don't want the Oscars to be as big and loud and obnoxious as the Super Bowl. Do the Oscars have to win in that sense? I do like Goldstein's idea of opening up some of the action backstage and cutting out some of the awards. The Academy producers were so pleased with themselves that they came in at three hours, 20 minutes!

Here's Marc Malkin's coverage of the Madonna post-Oscar party.

[Photo courtesy Awards Daily and Fataculture.]

People's Oscar red carpet gallery.

At the Indie Spirits on Saturday, John Waters asked me if I knew who'd won the Razzies. I had to admit I didn't. Maholodot.com covered the Razzies so we wouldn't have to. (This video is hilarious.) The big winner was I Know Who Killed Me, starring Lindsay Lohan. I should have known.

In an LA Weekly cover story, Nancy Rommelmann gets close to Laura Albert, aka J.T. LeRoy. I never tire of this woman. She both fascinates and horrifies me.

Overture finally nabbed its second Sundance pic, Christine Jeff's Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, a good month after the fest's conclusion. (The new distrib acquired Henry Poole is Here during the fest.) The plan is to release the relationship dramedy at year's end.

Sunshine Cleaning entered the fest as one of several highly anticipated movies with stars attached that were expected to make a big sale. It didn't happen, though, partly because the filmmakers behind the film, Big Beach, which had financed Little Miss Sunshine, were hoping to make back their $7-million investment in a quick sale. Other distribs were worried that Sunshine Cleaning was too similar to that film. (Both star Alan Arkin in a cranky grandfather role.) But Overture, which is beefing up its 2008 and 2009 release slates, was keen on the relationship pic, which should appeal to women, and may change the title.

I quite liked this film, which nabbed mixed fest reviews. Jeffs is a fine director who managed to tease both comedy and tragedy out of this story.

Here's EW's Q & A with Blunt, who is terrific in the film as Adam's sister and business partner.

In the remote case that you missed this ubiquitous video:

As usual the Brits give us what we really really want.

Times Online.

I came in third (along with some other folks) in my office pool, so I can hold my head up. I am out $5. How did the prognosticators at Gurus o' Gold do? Here's the answer.

After filing my various stories, I repaired to the Governor's Ball, where Pink Martini brought a welcome zest to the black-tie affair. At the tables decorated with cut-glass lamps and red roses, the winners and losers were chowing down on Wolfgang Puck's lobster, macaroni and cheese, and baked potatoes and caviar.

Academy executive director Bruce Davis was elated that the show ran only three hours, 20 minutes. The swift pace enabled Gil Cates to bring Once songwriter Marketa Irglova back for her acceptance speech. "That's when you know the producer is cocky about our time, it's never happened in the history of the Oscars," Davis said.

"The Once songwriters provided the best moment of the evening and spontaneity," declared Fox's Tom Rothman. "It's what the Oscars are supposed to be about."

"Jon had less angst," said writer Bruce Vilanch of host Stewart's second outing as host. "He was more relaxed about it and knew what he wanted to do."

Sony's Howard Stringer admired the acceptance speeches, which were "devoid of cliches," he said, "full of entertaining energy."

SPC's Tom Bernard agreed: "The speeches were about the movies," he said, "not kissing the ass of studios and agents. The Academy is trying to focus more attention on the movies and not the people outside the movies."

Picturehouse prexy Bob Berney, celebrating two wins for "La Vie en Rose," credited Marion Cotillard for spending several months in L.A. improving her English as well as the efforts of her CAA agent, Hylda Queally. Cotillard returns to work on Michael Mann's John Dillinger movie "Public Enemies," opposite Johnny Depp, on Tuesday.

The Warners table--complete with heavyweight execs Jeff Bewkes, Barry Meyer and Alan Horn--boasted Michael Clayton winner Tilda Swinton, sitting with her three-year boyfriend Sandro Kopp and agent Brian Swardstrom, who she had thanked in her acceptance speech. "Tilda kept us from getting skunked," said George Clooney, heading out into the night with girlfriend Sarah Larson.

As Swinton left the Ball, some 30 people cheered her as she held up her Oscar. She turned to her boyfriend and cracked, "That's more people than I think have seen Michael Clayton!"

At the end of the night, the Disney/Miramax contingent and many others repaired to the Bar Marmont on Sunset for a loud, raucous party dominated by infectious 80s dance music. Ben Affleck was consoling his brother Casey. Javier Bardem and his pals took over one end of the bar. John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Kathy Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Scott Rudin, Julian Schnabel, Tamara Jenkins and Jim Taylor, Bart Walker, John Sloss, Daniel Battsek, Mark Urman and others had a fine time.

Frances McDormand and husband Joel Coen were hanging with their 13-year-old son, who was experiencing his first Oscars. "They didn't buy it," she said of the Coens' Oscar wins. "They work hard. And will keep working hard."

[Photo: Ratatouille director Brad Bird with his wife and his Oscar on the way out of the Governor's Ball and heading toward the Miramax post-Oscar party at Bar Marmont.]

Well, you win some, you lose some. I did pretty well on my various Oscar pools, but I missed a lot. I failed to change to the Marion Cotillard horse when it was seemingly catching up to Julie Christie. Tilda Swinton put it very well backstage when the news broke. "Why are you glad she won?" one reporter asked. Swinton replied, "She's great, she's new, she's new blood in the gene pool." Here are the winners. And Variety's story. And my Coens sidebar.

Supporting actress was a total mystery, but I should have gone with the Tilda Swinton Michael Clayton allocation theory. The voters wanted a popular movie to win something.

Many people told me that Elizabeth would win costume. I refused to listen because I didn't think the Academy would vote for such a bad movie. Of course the costumes were wonderful. Lesson learned.

Also, I thought that having voted for Blanchett twice for two nominations in one year, they'd give her the supporting win. In that case the fact that it was a film that nobody liked was the issue, as well as her prior win for The Aviator.

The biggest surprise of the night was the win for The Golden Compass for visual effects. My colleague David Cohen says that no one liked any of these films. Well, okay.

Dante Ferretti's win for Sweeney Todd was a surprise. I had thought the Sweeney Todd prize would go to costume designer Colleen Atwood. I had picked There Will Be Blood's Jack Fisk, who was nominated for the first time for There Will be Blood. I did pick TWBB's Robert Elswit for cinematography, and he thanked Fisk, and PTA.

I'm thrilled that Taxi to the Dark Side won the doc award. I thought the Academy would go with an insider who is respected in his profession who made a beautiful movie. All the films had strong POVs, but this one was cinematic. Michael Moore had won before, and No End in Sight's Charles Ferguson was a newcomer. In campaign parlance, Taxi had momentum.

Otherwise the wins went just the way I thought they would. No Country for Old Men won four Oscars, not eight. And producer Scott Rudin finally won his first Best Picture Oscar. He's wanted to win one for a long time. My Variety colleagues and I wondered if he will remain as friendly and accessible as he was this year on the Oscar campaign trail. He'll just have to keep producing Oscar movies--now that he's on the Oscar-friendly indie side, I would be surprised if he didn't keep doing it.

Imagine a room full of people not watching the Oscars. They're listening to them on headsets. They're laughing when Jon Stewart cracks wise. They're also watching and listening to the people coming through, depending on who it is. Some they ignore.

There are nine rows of tables here in the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, more rows of chairs at the front where Jeanne Wolf sits, with some 300 journalists filing different kinds of reports from the interview room. They hold up a card with a number and they get to ask a question. We aren't allowed to take pictures in here. (There's another photo room, and even a photo editing room, where people sit in front of computers full of little pictures, and a TV media room.)

I had to have an Academy PR person stand next to me as I shot a photo of the room. I also took some shots from the red carpet bleachers, where I was lucky enough to have a front row slot. My guardian angel was London Daily Mail veteran Baz Bamigboye, who saved me a seat. One guy gave me water. Another guy gave me a phone cord when I found out they don't have wifi in the press room. Everyone shared info about designers and dresses as it came in on their cell phones. (My editors edited out all my designer references.) It was a cooperative group effort, as a guy from Dallas, a woman from Germany, a guy from London and a woman from a trade tried to do as well as possible.

Those folks who came over to the print press corps --we were at the end of the long gauntlet they had just run--would answer one or two questions. I need to learn how to prep questions in advance for the people I really want to talk to. Well, I wasn't planning to report the red carpet arrivals story. I was planning to take notes for the blog. But there I was, with the indefatigable Bill Higgins laid low by flu, asking questions and getting caught up in the "Amy!" "Cameron!" "John!" "Harrison!" "Javier!" "Cate!" of it all. (No, Amy Ryan, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Javier Bardem and Cate Blanchett did not come over--partly because they were rushing in to take their seats.)

Right this moment the gorgeous Marion Cotillard is answering questions as she clutches her Oscar. She says, "I am overwhelmed with joy and sparkles and fireworks and things that go with like 'bom bom bom!' I just ate all those things and it's happening right here, right now." Cotillard is singing for us! Big applause! "Padam Padam." Sitting next to me, Variety's Justin Chang just looked it up on the list of songs on the La Vie En Rose soundtrack.

Chang and David Cohen of Variety are asking questions and transcribing the answers from everyone who comes in, whether it's the glamorous Cotillard or various and sundry sound editors and mixers from the Bourne Ultimatum. (We also have photo galleries online.) Much of the Q &As tonight were in French, Spanish and Italian, as most of the winners were not American.

Across from me sit a mighty trio from the New York Times, fellow-blogger David Carr, David Halbfinger and Michael Cieply, who are filing and refiling the ever-changing updating Oscar story for the NYT through four editions of the paper. They pull a good quote from the show. They pull a good quote from backstage. They show each other things. It's called multi-tasking and the people in this room are very good at it.

[Photos: Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett and Ruby Dee pass by the print press in red carpet bleachers.]

[Posted by Peter Debruge]
2008 Oscar Animated Shorts
The trouble with watching the Academy's animated short nominees (which you can do in theaters or online now, thanks to the efforts of Magnolia Pictures, Shorts International and iTunes) is that it practically forces you to think about these five exquisite entries in competitive terms-- which is best? which will win? -- when in fact, this is the strongest and most diverse crop I've ever seen in the category. From stop motion to CG to paint on glass, the techniques reflect the full range of possibility open to animators today, and I strongly encourage anyone to seize the opportunity to see them not as Oscar-season rivals but as a diverse medium's collective best efforts.

I Met the Walrus
The wars change, but John Lennon's message remains the same: "Piss for peace, smile for peace --but whatever you do, do it for peace." It's been nearly four decades since 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and grilled the Beatles legend on topics ( as Juno puts it) way beyond his maturity level, but today, the pop prophet's words seem more relevant than ever.

Rather than make a traditional documentary about the event, Canadian helmer Josh Raskin edits the 40-minute interview down to a punchy, five-minute collection of soundbites, animating the session in what looks like a cross between Terry Gilliam's gonzo Monty Python style and Lennon's own doodles. Raskin's interpretation is amusing, maybe even ingenious in spots. The only problem: He seems to be doing it for laughs, not for peace, and the images frequently overwhelm the message.

Levitan, no doubt bewildered by the opportunity, is reduced to a slack-mouthed hand puppet, while Lennon's ideas explode like firecrackers around him. It's a technique better suited for parody than reverence (as evidenced by J.J. Sedelmeier's recurring "TV Funhouse" sketch on Saturday Night Live), but the essence of Lennon's message survives intact.

Madame Tutli-Putli
Of all the filmmaking arts, animation comes closest to dreaming -- a sensation I've seldom experienced with the head-over-heals delirium Madame Tutli-Putli accomplishes as it shadows a rather overburdened Virginia Woolf type on a supernaturally tinged night-train ride. That dreamlike quality comes down to creating not just hallucinatory images (in that department, Japan's anime titans reign supreme) but a certain porousness between the real and the impossible (such as the sight of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray playing chess on the luggage rack). And while the result is probably too dark for the Academy's taste, this was far and away my favorite of the entries.

The magic of Madame Tutli-Putli is in the eyes, a finishing touch Jason Walker added to Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's already impressive stop-motion work (the moving train effects are particularly astonishing). Using Adobe After Affects, Walker composited real eyes onto the mannequins' crude, hand-sculpted faces, bringing an uncanny level of performance to the title character and her fellow travelers. But Mme. Tutli-Putli's performance comes through every bit as strongly through her body language as it does in butterfly blinks and nervous glances. Not since Aardman's first Wallace and Gromit short has the medium impressed me so much.

Meme les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
Funniest of the entries is this droll French bit about a greedy priest who rescues his careless parishioners from death, then turns around and tries to sell them an elaborate contraption that will ensure the pour souls' passage to heaven. Interesting, too, that the year's only computer-animated entry was actually designed to look like stop-motion; in fact, it may even take your eyes a few seconds to realize that French animator Samuel Tourneux rendered everything virtually. But I suspect it was the story, not the technique, that attracted the Academy to this comic parable.

Though the concept supports some amusing character animation between the crafty priest and skeptical peasant, a last-second twist makes clear that Tourneux's entire scenario exists primarily to set up its final punchline. In that way, the short reminds me of last year's Maestro (in which a bird prepares backstage for a concert performance, only to be launched from a cuckoo clock at the last minute), although Pigeons is more consistently entertaining -- not to mention more impressively animated. Even Hollywood's top toon studios haven't mastered CG humans, yet character design comes naturally to Tourneux, who claims to have taped and studied real actors to get the performances right.

My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Oscar vet Alexander Petrov returns with another stunning literary adaptation rendered in his luminous paint-on-glass style (nominated three times before, Petrov won in 2000 for his take on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea). But gorgeous as My Love appears, Americans don't know Ivan Shmelyov's A Love Story and may even be taken aback by this vintage Russian tale of a 16-year-old boy, Tonichka, torn between the shy, lower-class maid who works for his family and the mysterious, more mature beauty who lives next door.

It's easy to identify with the premise, about a youth who overlooks the suitor right in front of him for some fanciful ideal of perfection, but the key moment when he realizes his error doesn't quite translate (as it turns out, the neighbor woman's alluring blue spectacles hide a freakish deformity, the discovery of which sends Tonichka into a near-fatal fever and triggers the story's final tragedy). And yet, Petrov's artistry is simply breathtaking, like witnessing an impressionist painting come to life-- the gestures so natural, the faces so tender, I could've sworn I was watching some trick done with live-action footage rather than the crowning achievement of a master animator.

Peter and the Wolf
If I had to predict a winner, this would be it. Over the years, many storytellers and animators have tried their hand at adapting Sergei Prokofiev's classic, and Suzie Templeton's rich, textured stop-motion take is the first I've seen to do away with the narration and let the image and music tell the story. Unlike the Disney version you undoubtedly remember well (in which Peter looks more than a little like Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits with his non-threatening popgun), Templeton's interpretation seems to favor the animals and even features a mushy new twist: after capturing the wolf, Peter lets the misunderstood beast go free, revealing the hunters as the true villains of the story.

Kids'll love it, and Templeton's animal-friendly instincts certainly make the central showdown engaging, as bird, duck, cat and wolf interact in perfect harmony with Prokofiev's score. She fleshes out the world with splendid detail, from her creatures' fur and feathers to the raw wood and rusty metal environments, and yet the human characters seem curiously inanimate (although big, bejeweled eyes that half-excuse the fact that their faces don't move). Still, it's a strange choice, considering what an important element body language is to stop-motion animators like Henry Selick and the Tutli-Putli crew.
Though not as consistently top-notch as their animated counterparts, Oscar's live-action short nominees still offer a more consistently entertaining experience than any feature release you're likely to find in theaters this season. The big surprise here is that none of the nominees are American, and four feature subtitles (keep that in mind when picking your seats, as big heads butted into our viewing experience), but the sheer variety is astounding. Though a better crop overall than previous years, this year's batch features no obvious frontrunner. The cynic in me can see the Academy going for At Night, although it would make my day to see France's The Mozart of the Pickpockets win.

More of Debruge's reviews of the live action shorts and documentary shorts are on the jump.

Basically everyone is running around partying this weekend. Of course I'm missing the non-press-invited ones, like Bryan Lourd's confab at his home, and an Endeavor party, and the Night Before the Night Before party, and the Night Before party itself, which was tonight. Very confusing.

Tonight I did go to a lovely Miramax fete at the unfinished penthouse at Sunset Boulevard's Luckman Plaza, a 60s classic designed by Charles Luckman which is undergoing a renovation. Miramax prexy Daniel Battsek is a founding member of Soho House, which has taken over the top floor with panoramic views of the city. The loft-like space was lit by light bulbs hanging down from unfinished exposed ceilings. Persian rugs covered concrete floors. Guests lounged living-room style in leather couches and arm chairs or sat along a long communal glass table as waiters served wine and giant white platters of yummy fish, chicken, veggies, pasta and pastries.

Disney honchos Robert Iger and Dick Cook attended, along with Joel and Ethan Coen, Ronald Harwood, Jon Kilik, Amy Ryan, Scott Rudin, Michael London, Elton John, and Frank Marshall. My favorite moment: Frances McDormand fussing over bear-chested indie-spirit winner Julian Schnabel's various strands of jewelry.

Tomorrow I'll be reporting on the tented red carpet at the Kodak (it's raining hard now), which is always a huge adrenaline rush. From there I will blog live from the press room, where the Oscar winners come through for questions. They pass through the TV room, the photo room and the print room. It's cavernous. Two other Variety writers (who are supposed to get reactions from all 24 winners) and I have assigned seats. If we want to ask a question we hold up a card with a number on it, like an auction. We can listen to the kudocast on special headsets. And I will attend the Governor's Ball, my favorite Oscar night ritual, as the ecstatic winners greet well-wishers with huge grins on their faces, clutching their (heavy) gold booty. UPDATE: As of 11:16 AM it is sunny. Rain is expected.

Here are my best guesses at what will happen tomorrow--though there's plenty of room for upsets:

The Indie Spirits started out sunny---as the gaggle of execs, filmmakers, agents, writers and actors happily networked outside the Santa Monica beach tent-- but the skies turned grey and threatening as the show commenced around 2 PM Saturday. The rain drummed on the tent roof but let up by the time the show was over and folks headed towards the IFC Shutters party. I did not catch up with Brad and Angelina, who gamely participated in the event, even though Jolie was heading toward losing best actress to Juno's Ellen Page.

"Greetings indie weirdos," said host Rainn Wilson at the start of the Spirits show, citing the inclusion of a nominee like Juno that grossed more than $150 million and a host of others "so obscure you never heard of, like every other film here." He unveiled the source of all the energy for the first-ever green Spirits from behind a curtain: Ed Begley Jr. on a bicycle. "Keep peddling," ordered Wilson, as the lights dimmed.

Fox Searchlight had a great day, winning six awards: best picture, actress and best first screenplay for Juno, best screenplay and actor for The Savages and best foreign film for Once. Juno scripter Diablo Cody, resplendent in a low-cut red dress, thanked manager "Mason Novick who introduced me to Jason Reitman, who introduced me to Ellen Page, who introduced me to this mother-fucker," as she brandished her award. (At the IFC Shutters party later, Cody said that as soon as she got word that Galliano wanted to do her Oscar gown, she said "done!")

The Savages writer Tamara Jenkins thanked Searchlight for making her first and second films. "Hopefully they'll make my third if I ever write it," she said. Her husband, Sideways writer Jim Taylor, "has one of these at home. We can do bicep curls."

A radiantly pregnant Cate Blanchett won best supporting actress for Weinstein Co's I'm Not There, paying tribute to her co-star Heath Ledger. Director Todd Haynes, casting director Laura Rosenthal and the entire cast of I'm Not There won the first ever Robert Altman Award. Ledger, who had directed a number of music videos, was planning to direct his first film, Queen's Gambit, Haynes said. "I've no doubt he would have made an astounding director," he said. "I treasure the time we shared on this film."

Julian Schnabel was uncharacteristically gracious accepting the win for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and thanked his producer. "Without Jon Kilik, I don't want to make a movie," he said. Diving Bell cinematographer Janusz Kaminski won cinematography, and told the crowd he had refused to work for just $3,000 a week. Thank you, he said to producer Kathy Kennedy.

Several studio folks who don't usually venture into Spirit land showed up this year, including producers Walter Parkes and Laurence Mark, who won Best First Feature for screenwriter-turned-director Scott Frank's The Lookout. Frank developed the movie for 12 years at three studios and with as many directors, Frank said, until Spyglass stepped up to write the check for the movie, and Miramax agreed to distribute. Frank was happy he finally made the film with the actors he wanted and the ending he wanted, he said. At a studio that wouldn't have been possible, and the movie would have cost twice as much.

As usual the day before the Academy Awards there was much pre-Oscar talk, as many of us have doubts about some categories. David Ansen of Newsweek summed up the Marion Cotillard beating Julie Christie argument succinctly: "She's self-destructive, she sings and she's wearing makeup." We agreed that anyone who thinks they know who's going to win supporting actress is crazy. Ansen also believes that Tilda Swinton could win on the basis that Michael Clayton has to win something. It's a valid theory.

At the IFC party at Shutters, which was funneled downstairs in the noisy basement this year, John Waters was hanging with Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon in an outdoor smoking corner. "If you win at the Spirits you always lose at the Oscars," he reminded.

[Photos from top: Juno winners Ellen Page, Diablo Cody and producer Lianne Halfon; Juno director Jason Reitman and Fox Searchlight prexy Peter Rice; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly producer Jon Kilik and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski; The Lookout's Laurence Mark and Scott Frank; SKE's Bingham Ray and Newsweek's David Ansen; John Waters and David Alan Grier.]

The complete list of the winners and more photos are on the jump:

It started on Thursday night, with the first round of parties. Due to the driving rain, New York-based IHOP PR chief Jeff Hill hosted his annual indie-confab inside the Avalon Hotel bar, rather than poolside. Sony Pictures Classics co-prexies Tom Bernard and Michael Barker, SKE marketing guru Bingham Ray, MPRM's Mark Pogachefsky, Michael Clayton Oscar-campaigner Michele Robertson and a good crowd relaxed in advance of their Oscar weekend labors.

Oddly, Paramount Vantage and Fox Searchlight hosted pre-Oscar celebrations at the same weeks-old restaurant, STK on La Cienega. They couldn't have been more different. The Vantage party Thursday night was packed with 500-odd souls, chowing down on a buffet dinner and jostling to pay their respects to Paramount's John Lesher and Nick Meyer and There Will Be Blood Oscar nominees Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson. PTA seemed in good spirits and told me he's been getting through this pre-Oscar craziness by focusing on finishing the extras on the There Will Be Blood DVD. He wasn't so pleased when the NYT's David Carr, aka The Carpetbagger, admitted that TWBB wasn't his favorite Oscar movie:

Mr. Anderson laughed for a while. And then he laughed a bunch more.

“You know you don’t know a thing about movies,” he said.

By contrast, Friday night's TSC Fox Searchlight affair was an intimate sit-down dinner party. Jason Reitman introduced me to Juno's on-screen Dad, J.K. Simmons. Ellen Page really is a diminutive waif. Diablo Cody was wearing a faux leopard-skin coat. Searchlight prexy Peter Rice whooped it up with The Savages writer-director Tamara Jenkins and writer hubby Jim Taylor (Sideways).

WMA's Cassian Elwes didn't go to Ari Emanuel's party Thursday night; his wife went instead. Instead he had a blast at Salma Hayek and pal Penelope Cruz's black-tie Night of Elysium party for about 200 at the Beverly Hills Hotel on a 40s theme, complete with a domino contest. Charlize Theron won.

I must take off to the Spirits and beyond. Will report and blog when able.

Here's Ken Turan on the five Best Picture nominees and what they represent. Good piece. While Turan argues that Michael Clayton is the sole studio best-picture entry, it still got made as a $25-million indie within the system, with major star George Clooney not getting his price upfront and Boston financeer Steve Samuels behind it. I'm going to meet him today at the Indie Spirits.

Heath Ledger sat for a portrait a few weeks before his death. It was his idea to show the different voices in his head.

Wired.com has three movie stories up:

The Oscar-nominated Iraq films.

An interview with Phil Donahue on his doc Body of War.

And a piece on The Signal, a horror movie about the dangers of too much information.

Bob Evans is one of the Hollywood icons who still resonates in the culture, as The Hollywood Deal attests. Here's his Oliver Peoples short. Evans has a great voice.

James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver give an Avatar update.

Here are the final Oscar picks from the august selecters at the LAT Buzzmeter and MCN's Gurus o' Gold. I think the latter's more elite collective picks are closer to the mark than Buzzmeter's, for what it's worth.

Swearing that he has never lost an Oscar pool, George Clooney makes his predictions in Time. He's astute, but I don't think supporting actress is Amy Ryan--it's either Tilda Swinton or Cate Blanchett-- and I sticking to may have to drop my cockamamie Ronald Harwood theory in adapted screenplay.

After a disastrous year for indies and docs at the boxoffice, at an IDA pre-Oscar gathering Michael Moore calls for change.

[Photo courtesy indieWIRE]

Here are cinematography enthusiast Kris Tapley's rave pics for the ten best shots in movies last year.

Beyond the Multiplex reviews the Oscar animated shorts.

Jim Jarmusch has added ten international actors to the cast of his tentatively titled The Limits of Control, which has already begun filming in Madrid, Spain for Focus Features.

Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries), Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton (Jarmusch's Broken Flowers) join the film's lead, Isaach De Bankolé (Miami Vice), who stars in his fourth collaboration with Jarmusch. De Bankole plays a mysterious loner who operates outside the law.

The movie's global cast also includes Hiam Abbass (Munich and Paradise Now), Paz De La Huerta (The Guitar, which also stars De Bankolé), Alex Descas (who starred opposite De Bankolé in the No Problem segment of Mr. Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes); John Hurt; Youki Kudoh (Jarmusch’s Mystery Train), Jean-François Stévenin (Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Man on the Train); and Luis Tosar (Miami Vice). Focus is co-financing the film with Entertainment Farm. Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love) is the film’s director of photography; Eugenio Caballero, who won the Oscar last year for his art direction of Pan’s Labryinth, is the film’s production designer. Longtime Jarmusch collaborators Jay Rabinowitz will edit the feature and Jon Kilik (Babel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) will executive-produce.

Trying to find an ad model that makes sense, Google is starting up AdSense for Video. It could transform media on the Internet.

Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow director Roland Emmerich takes his FX magic to 10,000 B.C. This trailer is viscerally exciting. It looks like Mel Gibson's Apocalypto meets Jean-Jacques Annaud's 19881 classic, The Bear Quest for Fire. It opens March 7.

Next, Emmerich goes back to the apocalyptic future with 2012 which Sony grabbed in a bidding war.

This is an older 10,000 B.C. trailer:

As I predicted, the Lindsay Lohan nude Marilyn Monroe layout brought New York Magazine's website huge traffic: 20 million page views, reports Portfolio.

Portfolio.com has several Hollywood stories up: here's Overture.

And their selection of top Hollywood execs.

MTVNews.com movie editor Josh Horowitz confesses to Kurt Loder that he's always wanted to be the guy in the Oscar opening montage. Careful what you wish for, Loder warns him. Suddenly Horowitz finds himself inserted into a bunch of Oscar-nominated movies. Thankfully, he does not sing or dance. While he's no Billy Crystal, it's pretty funny.

Tempting as it may be to turn the familiar board game Monopoly into a studio franchise, some properties translate into movie form better than others. Let me conjure up one such example: Clue. Here's Variety's story about Universal's Hasbro deal.

This is the week when every self-respecting film critic understands that Oscars are what readers are interested in--it's Hollywood's big night at the movies. So naturally lots of other folks want to capitalize on media interest in the Oscars too. Thus, people-search engine Spock.com asked the question of how public opinion matches up with the film critics.

None of these stats mean a damn thing. Neither movie fans nor critics are accurate forecasters of who will win the Oscar race. The winners on February 24 are determined by a specific group--5829 Academy voters--who may be influenced a tad by boxoffice success or by critics' prizes, but actually vote their own taste, which is neither monolithic nor entirely predictable. Those of us who read the tea leaves carefully, year after year, can come close, but there are always surprises.

Spock.com compiled a list of nominees gauged by their online searchs. Out of the nominated actors for best actress, Ellen Page generated more Internet searches than Cate Blanchett (nearly 87% vs. 3%). Here are some Spock comparisons of most popular people searches vs. critics' picks:

PEOPLE’S CHOICE

Best Actor: Johnny Depp

Best Supporting Actor: Tom Wilkinson

Best Actress: Ellen Page

Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

ROGER EBERT’S CHOICE

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem

Best Actress: Ellen Page

Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

PETER TRAVERS’ CHOICE

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem

Best Actress: Julie Christie

Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee

KENT JONES’ CHOICE

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Supporting Actor: Hal Holbrook

Best Actress: Julie Christie

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

The 23rd annual Independent Spirit Awards are coming up this Saturday--my fave event of the year. It all takes place inside a billowing white tent on the usually sunny Santa Monica Beach. It's a more relaxed and fun celebration of all things indie--the real action takes place outside the tent near the honeywagons, as folks grab a cig when the proceedings get dull.

Juno is expected to lead the wins, natch, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and I'm Not There could grab some prizes too. Rainn Wilson does the hosting honors for the first time. (Last year it was a profane Sarah Silverman; my fave is always frequent MC John Waters.) Dawn Hudson, exec director of Film Independent, has named Javier Bardem the Spirit's honorary chair this year (No Country for Old Men was too expensive to be eligible).

My favorite part of the show is always New York lyricist Jack Lechner's spoof lyrics of the main nominees, performed by various stars--Rosario Dawson was memorable last year. Saturday, David Alan Grier will sing Lechner's only song this year, a spoof of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

This year's scheduled presenters are:

Alan Arkin, Jason Bateman, Kate Beckinsale, Maria Bello, Cate Blanchett, Zach Braff, Maggie Cheung, Patricia Clarkson, Bryan Cranston, Shareeka Epps, Jon Hamm, Josh Hartnett, Felicity Huffman, Allison Janney, Lisa Kudrow, Eva Mendes, Ellen Page, Dennis Quaid, Ryan Reynolds, Keri Russell, Meg Ryan, Julian Schnabel, Kerry Washington, John Waters, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson, Steve Zahn and more to be announced…

And the nominees and special award recipients expected to attend include:

Christian Bale, Jeffrey Blitz, John Carney, Zoe Cassavetes, Don Cheadle, Diablo Cody, David Cress, Julie Delpy, Andrew Eaton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Pascale Ferran, Scott Frank, Marcus Carl Franklin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dede Gardner, Richard Gere, John Goldwyn, Mark Gordon, David Gordon Green, Bruce Greenwood, Lianne Halfon, Ronald Harwood, Todd Haynes, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tamara Jenkins, Angelina Jolie, Irfan Kahn, Janusz Kaminski, Tony Kaye, Kathleen Kennedy, Jon Kilik, Sidney Kimmel, Dan Klores, Frank Langella, Ang Lee, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kasi Lemmons, Tony Leung, John Malkovich, Laurence Mark, Kelly Masterson, Sienna Miller, Mason Novick, Cristian Mungiu, John Orloff, Ellen Page, Vincent Paronnaud, Walter Parkes, Parker Posey, Rodrigo Prieto, Jason Reitman, Marjane Satrapi, James Schamus, Julian Schnabel, Chris Smith, Russell Smith, James D. Stern, Marisa Tomei, Christine Vachon, Gus Van Sant, Jason Wehling, Tang Wei, Mike White, Ben Whishaw, Richard Wright, Steve Zahn, and Craig Zobel.

The show airs live beginning at 2:00 pm PST on IFC (Independent Film Channel). Live, exclusive red carpet footage will precede the show streaming live on IFC.com beginning at 11:30am PT, with an edited re-broadcast later that evening on AMC at 10pm EST/PST.

If you should decide to --heaven forfend--skip Sunday night's Oscar telecast, NBC Mobile's Entertainment Buzz host Seth Goldman will supply breaking Oscar news to your mobile. Two years ago, Goldman was the first reporter to cover the Oscars specifically for cell phones; this weekend he'll to do it again.

His mobile programming includes two pre-show clips: predictions of who should--and will--win in all the major categories, plus details on final preparations for the Oscar show. An additional two-clip package on the morning after the show will analyze the winners and Red Carpet fashion.

Buzz NBC Mobile to keep posted with text messages on the winners during the Oscar show by texting BUZZ to 46833.

At long last, the Oscar ballots are in and it is the week before the Oscar kudocast! It's time to make your fearless forecasts and plunk your money down in your office pool. (I can tell you one thing--it's not easy to come out on top here at Variety, where everyone is an Oscar expert.)

I'll be filing my final Oscar predicts today at the LA Times Buzzmeter and MCN Gurus O' Gold polls. Oscar expert Pete Hammond lays out what's at stake for the Coen brothers: they could make Oscar history and equal Walt Disney's 1953 win in four categories. I don't think they will, though...Oscar voters are likely to parcel out some wins for other movies too. I'm betting the Coens win picture and director and not adapted screenplay (Ronald Harwood could steal it for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and editing (as Roderick Jaynes). The movie could also pick up Javier Bardem and a sound award or two. I also don't buy into the thesis that No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood will cancel each other out. I suspect No Country will beat There Will be Blood in some categories like picture and director, and TWBB will win some others, like cinematography (because Roger Deakins is competing with himself and Janusz Kaminski will also pull some votes) and art direction.

As always, our own Oscar blogger Kris Tapley links to everything you'd ever want to know about the Oscar race, from Shootout's interviews with the likes of George Clooney to Nathaniel Rogers' latest Oscar symposium.

Here's Salon on the Oscar race, the LAT's Patrick Goldstein on No Country for Old men producer Scott Rudin, Film School Rejects, and Oscar forecasts from Stephen Schaefer and Scott Feinberg. (Send me more, by all means.)

Glenn Kenny is doing the same he said/she said Oscar ritual--albeit in blog form--that I used to love doing at Premiere. (I couldn't do it this year.)

Over at his Vanity Fair Oscar blog, The Reeler has come up with a novel (and morbid) way to liven up your Oscar pool.

Here's one clip from the Shootout Clooney interview:

And an ode to the Oscar nominees (hat tip Awards Daily):

There's no way the clip that has been going around the internet purporting to be from Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers' Where the Wild Things Are is from the actual movie. It's too rough. That's why WB pulled it. Just look at it! It appears to be a screen-test. Hmmm. Interesting that Jonze is going the animatronic puppet route. UPDATE: Jonze clarifies for Harry Knowles:

“that was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn’t look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later...“

Check out these SXSW trailers.

You know something's wrong in Hollywood when movies with stars can't get a theater opening. Edward Burns took his latest relationship pic Purple Violets exclusively to iTunes, and Madonna is threatening to do something similar with her badly reviewed Berlin flick Filth & Wisdom. That would be an interesting test of the power of the Internet, if Madonna used her marketing machine to sell her film online.

This weekend, Ebert & Roeper critics Tony Scott and Richard Roeper did a segment about movies with marquee names that have gone direct to DVD. Scott recommended the Michele Pfeiffer/Paul Rudd romance I Could Never Be Your Woman, while Roeper thought Jennifer Lopez was strong in Gregory Nava's The Border. And here's a review of a 2001 unreleased Alan Rudolph movie finally hitting video stores.

Nowadays a minimal theatrical release is just a short-cut to the video store. With the current indie-finance glut, there are more movies seeking alternative distribution than ever, judging by how few got picked up at Sundance. Here's my column on alternative distribution on the Internet.

Many small-scale success stories are out there, as filmmakers and online distributors such as B-Side, IFC, Withoutabox, Cinequest, iTunes, Amazon and Netflix experiment with economic models. It's only a matter of time before we have more breakouts to show the way. Check out the online break-through flicks Head Trauma, Blood Car and Four Eyed Monsters (pictured) as well as the hockey doc In the Crease.