Kim Voynar, who recently ankled her gig at Cinematical, is joining David Poland's staff at Movie City News. Officially, her title will be features editor, but she'll be staying home in Seattle and writing regularly on her blog (Film Essent) and covering fests as well as helping out editorially. Poland may not realize what a strong addition Voynar is to his operation. The site could use a design upgrade, for one thing (whose couldn't?) and Voynar really gets how the too-competitive and clogged movie Internet space works.

A.J. Schnack is pro; Jeff Wells is con. Poland's paying her more than Cinematical ever did. End of story.

The New Yorker is taking nominations for the scariest movie ever made.

Their quite reasonable list includes:

1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper (1974) (I'd say goriest, not scariest)

2. The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme (1991) (creepy, not terrifying)

3. The Body Snatcher, Robert Wise (1945) (I'd give the edge to Wise's The Haunting, below)

4. Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton (1955) (Excellent movie, but scariest? It's psychologically scary, in the sense that kids want to trust grown-ups, and in this case that's a very bad idea.)

5. Mulholland Drive, David Lynch (2001) (Hmmm. I'd say Blue Velvet was scarier.)

My adds to their list:

Japanese zombie flick Oni Baba (1964).

Robert Wise's The Haunting, the most terrifying haunted house movie ever.

John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween. The prototype for a lot of imitators to follow.

George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1978). "They're coming to get you, Barbara..."

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Just because it's predictable doesn't mean it doesn't deserve inclusion on this list. It still works. Here's the shower scene:

Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1964) puts a young and dewy Catherine Deneuve through the ringer.

If you're thirsting for more horror movie lists, Cinematical has seven horror remakes that don't suck.

Here's a Greencine podcast of an interview following the New York Film festival panel on film criticism. Greencine's David Hudson, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Film Comment editor Gavin Smith are provocative and cogent on the current and future state of film criticism in print and on the web, criticism vs. reviewing, categorizing different kinds of critics, issues of elitism, and making a living.

Not one to miss the opportunity to play with a cool new toy--especially if Chris Nolan did it on The Dark Knight--Michael Bay will wield jumbo IMAX cameras to film select scenes in his currently shooting The Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The giant robot sequel starring Shia LaBeouf will hit IMAX theatres at the same time as the movie’s wide June 26 release.

The IMAX version of the film will run digitally remastered 35 mm letterbox sequences alongside scenes shot with IMAX’s cameras, which will expand vertically to fill the entire IMAX screen. Count me out. I preferred seeing The Dark Knight in good old-fashioned 35 mm. The IMAX stuff, while gorgeous, overwhelmed me with pixels. And Transformers did the same when I saw it in 35. My brain can only absorb so much info.

Guess which Sarah Palin Facebook page is funnier?

The Real McCoy?

Or the fake?

So far, at this time of awards season, some folks have seen would-be Oscar contenders like The Wrestler and Slumdog Millionaire at film fests. And some long lead press have seen pics like Milk, Frost/Nixon and Doubt. And some late-breaking films aren't yet finished--The Reader, Gran Torino, Revolutionary Road, The Soloist.

Which brings up the issue of Robert Downey, Jr. vs. Jamie Foxx. Interestingly, Rogers and Cowan's Alan Nierob handles them both. And DreamWorks/Paramount is pushing Downey for best actor, which makes sense, as it's the true story of how LA Times journalist Steve Lopez meets homeless man Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard-trained violinist. Susannah Grant adapted and Atonement's Joe Wright directed. Word is the filmmakers are still tinkering and checking test screening results. Paramount insists the scores are going up. With a movie like this, you have to score a bullseye.

Even though the two stars share pretty much equal screen time, Downey, who won't get nominated for Iron Man (no more than another genre picture, Quantum of Solace, will ever get major nominations, either--Michael Cieply drank some Sony Koolaid) has a shot at an acting nod. Foxx, who won Best Actor for Ray, may have figured he was also a leading man in this movie, so I understand that accepting supporting actor status was tough for him. But he has a better shot in that category.

Best actor is crowded. Looking less likely in the face of such robust competitors as Downey, Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Sean Penn (Milk), Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), and Frank Langella and Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) is little-indie-that-could Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), whose distrib Overture won't make a competitive Oscar investment at this stage. But the DVD comes out October 11. And you never know who will be the last man standing.

[posted by Stuart Oldham]

Fincher fans rejoice.

Apple.com has the exclusive new trailer for Warner Bros' and director David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I don't know about you but this project feels more and more like Fincher's Forrest Gump, with Brad Pitt's hobbit-like beginnings growing into something magical. Possibly an Oscar nomination? Either way, Button's second trailer carries a lot more prowess (and footage) than the first.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opens Christmas Day.

Here's an exclusive preview of the full-length Revolutionary Road trailer, currently playing in theaters with The Duchess and Ghost Town. A two-minute version debuted Sunday night on Mad Men (a perfect hook-up of subject and period and potential audience).

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is a fan of the original Richard Yates novel about a couple trapped in 50s suburbia, which he credits as a guiding source for the show. The trailer gets four encore Mad Men airings throughout the week.

Revolutionary Road opens in NY and LA on December 26, with a national rollout in January.

“To think that after Hud and Cool Hand Luke and all the other pictures I’ve done and all the parts I’ve dug into, I come off as the guy women would most like to go to bed with—it’s frightening.”

Paul Newman said this to Playboy in the first of two major candid interviews he did for the magazine, in 1968 and 1983 respectively. Interestingly, a male friend told me that he was scared of Newman growing up, and considers him to be an actor as threatening and masculine as Marlon Brando. I always saw him as a more studio-friendly leading man star. With an edge, yes, and charisma, integrity, sexiness and range. But not scary.

With Iron Man a summer blockbuster ($574 million worldwide) and a sequel in the offing, Paramount saw the wisdom of improving its distribution terms with Marvel Studios. It's a win-win for both companies. Comics are hot and Paramount wants them.

Monday, Paramount announced a new global distribution deal with Marvel--an extension of chairman Brad Grey's original 2005 agreement. The five-picture slate is likely to include Iron Man 2 (May 7, 2010), Thor (July 16, 2010), Captain America (May 6, 2011) and The Avengers (July 15, 2011), as well as sequel Iron Man 3. (Some release dates are tentative.)

The announcement does not cover the change in distribution terms (UPDATED), which is more competitive than the Lucasfilm Indiana Jones deal (12%), down from Marvel's original 10% deal, and equal to DreamWorks Animation's deal: 8 %. In exchange, Paramount was able to nail down the films that would be made (rather than having them go somewhere else) and got worldwide rights (Marvel had retained France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand). "it's a slightly smaller piece of a bigger pie," admitted one Paramount exec. "And significantly more movies."

The DVD for Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. and directed by Jon Favreau, will hit stores on September 30, 2008. UPDATE: And whatever anyone says officially, Favreau is beavering away on the script for Iron Man 2 and plans to direct.

Sony PIctures Classics is claiming first screener of the season this year. Academy voters should be getting today their copies of Frozen River, starring Best Actress candidate Melissa Leo (here on the cover of Filmmaker). Gold Derby weighs her Oscar chances.

Remember, when SPC started lobbying for Amy Adams for supporting actress in Junebug, nobody thought she had much of a shot. And Ryan Gosling was a long shot too, for Half Nelson. The actress race is weak this year, which helps Leo's cause.

But SPC is also pushing Anne Hathaway for Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, as well as Kristin Scott Thomas for I've Loved You So Long. That's three women chasing actress slots. Of the three I'd give Thomas the best shot. She's due. She's British. Wears no makeup. And acts in French.

As I previously reported, Ari Folman's animated doc Waltz with Bashir won't be tracking a documentary nod, SPC confirms, although it's eligible in the foreign film and animated categories. Documentarian/writer/ blogger A.J. Schnack has more.

In New York Magazine's 40th anniversary issue, editor and closet film buff Adam Moss steps out from behind his desk and talks to Woody Allen, the quintessential Manhattan director, about what he loves about the city and the coarsening of our culture, among other things.

Saturday Night Live continues to score ratings during election season. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler went after Katie Couric's notorious interview with Sarah Palin.

Well, all that arguing and posturing and phoning and sending of legal letters between Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein last week were all about one thing: convincing Weinstein to loosen up the reins on a punitive post-production schedule for Stephen Daldry's The Reader.

Yes, Harvey got what he wanted: The World War II era romance starring Kate Winslet will open December 12. But producer Scott Rudin fought hard to get his director what he needed to finish the movie properly. Harvey will have to spend more money to give him an extra month to work on the movie. And more support in the editing room. And they're moving the music production back to NYC.

I got a taste last week of what happens when Rudin fights for a director. And what happens when Weinstein fights for an Oscar campaign. He doesn't want to wait. This year is better for the movie, he says, although he is slated to release some seven other pics before the end of the year, movies he retrieved from MGM.

It's a win-win. Daldry gets support to finish the movie, and Weinstein gets a potential Oscar contender. He's fighting to make some dough this quarter, and needs all the winners in his corner that he can get. Who knows where he'll be a year from now? UPDATE: Meanwhile, while Weinstein Co. pocketed some $20 million when it sold rights to Project Runway to Lifetime, it may not have had the right to do so, explains Portfolio.

Two smart British gents make fun of Wall Street hedge funds selling dodgy debt packages, and bailouts that "reward the ingenuity of the market." Very amusing. And as it's several months old, on the money, as it were.

On a more serious note, on Charlie Rose, Democratic congressman Barney Frank shows why he's one person who has shown leadership in this financial crisis: he can explain it.

And in one of his trademark e-mails, Michael Moore thinks we're all getting rooked:

Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.

Mark Gill's June state of the indies speech inspired many responses within the Indie community. Here's the most recent, a keynote speech September 27 from vet producer Ted Hope (The Savages, American Splendor, 21 Grams, Lovely & Amazing, Happiness) at Film Independent's Filmmaker Forum. Hope makes a very important distinction: between the health of the indie film business and the quality of the films themselves.

A THOUSAND PHOENIX RISING
How The New Truly Free Filmmaking Community Will Rise From Indie's Ashes
I can't talk about the "crisis" of the indie film industry. There is no crisis. The country is in crisis. The economy is in crisis. We, the filmmakers, aren't in crisis. The business is changing, but for us -- us who are called Indie Filmmakers -- that's good that the business is changing. Filmmaking is an incredible priviledge and we need to accept it as such -- and accept the full responsibility that comes with that priviledge.
The proclamations of Indie Film's demise are grossly exaggerated. How can there be a "Death Of Indie" when Indie -- real Indie, True Indie -- has yet to even live?
Yes, there's a profound paradigm shift, and that shift is the coming of true independence. The hope of this new independence is being threatened even before it has arrived. Are we going to fight for our independence and can we even shoulder the responsibility that independence requires? That is: will we band together and work for our communal needs? Are we ready to leave dreams of stardom and wealth behind us?
When someone says "Indie is dead," they are talking about the state of the 'Indie Film Business,' as opposed to what are actually the films themselves. They can say "The sky is falling" because for the last fifteen years, the existing power base in the film industry has focused on films fit for the exisiting business model, as opposed to ever truly concentrating on creating a business model for the films that filmmakers want to make.
This is where we are right now: on the verge of a TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE, one that is driven by both the creators and the audiences, pulled down by the audience and not pushed onto them by those that control the apparatus and the supply. We now have the power and the tool for something different, but will we fight to preserve the Internet, the tool that offers us our new freedom? Can we banish the dream of golden distribution deals, and move away from asking others to distribute and market it for us? Can we accept that being a filmmaker means taking responsibility for your films, the primary responsibility, all the way through the process? That is independence and that is freedom.
Indie, True Indie, is in its infancy. The popular term "Indie" is a distortion, growing out of our communal laziness and complacency -- our willingness to be marketed blandly and not specifically. Our culture is vast and diverse, and we need to celebrate these differences, not diminish them. It's time to put that term "Indie" to rest.
Independence is within our reach, but we have to do what we have never done before: we have to choose.
It's a lot like the [U.S.] Presidential election. And it's also a lot like the way psychotherapy works: we have to ask ourselves if the pain we are experiencing presently is enough to motivate us to overcome the fear inherent in change itself.

[Photo: producers Ted Hope and Christine Vachon; transcript courtesy IndieWire]

I met Paul Newman once, At Cannes. He was there for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. He was my height, and looked straight at me with his brilliant blue eyes. They were piercing, intensely blue. Almost azure.

After a long battle with cancer, Newman died Friday, at his farm near Westport, Conn. Here's the A.P. obit. ABC News looks back at Newman. Here's a photo gallery. UPDATE: Peter Bart on Newman's bent for political causes.

Sure he was gorgeous. Always. But that was by no means the sum of his gifts. Newman was a tad insecure, people who worked with him have said. He wasn't one of those actors who took his gift for granted. He fussed and worried and needed his directors' reassurance and support. They were always rewarded.

Here's William Goldman from Adventures in the Screen Trade:

Paul Newman is the least starlike superstar I've ever worked with. He's an educated man and a trained actor and he never wants more close-ups. What he wants is the best possible script and character he can have. And he loves to be surrounded by the finest actors available, because he believes the better they are, the better the picture's apt to be, the better he'll come out. Many stars, maybe even most, don't want that competition.

They don't make them like Newman anymore.

Here's a clip from a Cannes press conference with Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward for The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and the trailer for Newman's last film, Sam Mendes' 2002 Road to Perdition (he later voiced a memorable role in John Lasseter's Cars):

Some folks have already checked out the pirated trailer for Revolutionary Road, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, which is currently cruising the web. But Paramount Vantage will debut a two-minute version of the trailer proper for the Sam Mendes movie with an original episode of Mad Men on AMC this Sunday, September 28, at 10 PM PST / EST and / 9 PM Central.

It seems that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is a fan of the original Richard Yates novel about a couple trapped in 50s suburbia, which he credits as a guiding source for the show. Following Sunday’s launch, the trailer will receive four encore Mad Men airings throughout the week.

On Monday we'll preview the full trailer, which is currently on-screen with The Duchess and Ghost Town.
Revolutionary Road opens in NY and LA on December 26, with a national rollout in January.

Inspired by the release of How to Lose Friends and Influence People, Time Out London collects a list of toughest journo assignments in movies. What about Zodiac? All the President's Men? Absence of Malice? Under Fire?

Meanwhile, Little Children writer Tom Perrotta goes after the accuracy of John Hughes' reporting on teens for Breakfast Club.

Here's Peter Bart's take on why and how DreamWorks and Paramount split up. And here's my report on where DreamWorks 2.0 is likely to be heading.

[posted by Stuart Oldham]

The assassination of Adolf Hitler isn't exactly a plot that rings "Happy Holidays." Still, Tom Cruise and MGM's World War II drama is determined to catch Oscar's eye, if not Santa's.

Valkyrie opens nationwide December 26th.

We all know that the Weinstein Co. could use a hit or two. This is not news.

And I know another thing. The day the Weinsteins made their distribution deal with MGM, they were selling their souls to the devil for a pay-TV deal.

Well, that era is over. Here's Variety.

Some say that the Weinsteins withdrew three months early from the three-year MGM deal on their own--knowing that Kevin Smith's best movie to date, the rom-com Zack and Miri Make a Porno, will be a big hit when it opens October 31. (Here's my Smith interview in Toronto.)

Others say the Weinsteins were pushed by MGM because there was concern over their P & A backing. Finally, I say they're better off in control of their own destiny.

But now that they have seven movies to release before the end of the year, are they really in the best position to release Stephen Daldry's The Reader? The director has begged Harvey to give him more time, and so far, Weinstein remains adamant that the filmmaker meet his agreed upon deadlines so he can open the movie this December for Oscar consideration.

Here's my Weekly story.

[Posted by Stuart Oldham]
Although it may carry the same undertones as "Click," Adam Sandler's latest family comedy has the almighty Disney backing its release (not to mention "Hairspray" director Adam Shankman). Check out the trailer below.

"Bedtime Stories" opens nationwide Christmas day.

With Oscar-show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon announced, we now move into the annual Oscar Show-guessing stage.

Who will host?
Effective perennials:
1. Steve Martin (makes it look easy, and always funny)
2. Billy Crystal (ditto)
3. Jon Stewart (works harder, but sharp as nails)
4. Ellen (yeoman work, but still reads TV)

New options?
1. Stephen Colbert (he could be fun)
2. Post-Emmy's, Ricky Gervais (have him on, but he won't save the ratings, he can't open a movie!)
3. Steve Carrell (not so sure he'd bring enough energy--he's good at reacting...)
4. Will Smith (The Envelope's Tom O'Neil is pushing this idea; Smith's a major star but not a ratings booster in this role, if that's the goal)

Awards Daily's Sasha Stone writes in an email: "No one cares about the Oscar host." She may be right.

And the always-asked question: "can the show be saved?".

This annoys me. Of course we all want the Oscar telecast to be better, smarter, shorter. But do we want to radically change it? Let the Oscars be what they are, and ratings be damned. Viewership will depend on the films nominated (ratings go up with Titanic and Lord of the Rings, and down with No Country for Old Men) --but Oscar voters should not pick The Dark Knight so that the show will be more successful. That defeats the entire enterprise.

If the Academy changes the show too much to reach younger viewers, the Oscar show heads down the inevitable road of greed and pandering to the lowest common denominator. (See Emmys.) The choice of producers Mark and Condon sends the message that the Academy under prexy Sid Ganis seeks a well-produced classy Hollywood insider show--with good musical numbers! (Am I the only one fantasizing about Hugh Jackman singing and dancing in a medley?) Here's Glenn Kenny's fantasy.

The Oscars still stand for something: rewarding quality filmmaking. Chasing the ratings is a fool's game.

Meanwhile, I remain obsessed with the foreign Oscar submissions, and so is Film Experience, which maintains a handy country-by-counntry chart every year. (Latest news: Gomorra is the Italian entry--btw, Israel's Waltz with Bashir is official.) Check out their Google map.

[Posted by Ben Fritz]
With DreamWorks Studios bidding sayonara to Paramount, there's lots of buzz about how long the other Dreamworks -- Animation, that is -- will be sticking around. Its distribution deal with Paramount, as has been reported, ends in 2012. But what about this talk of an early exit option?

It exists, but it ain't easy. DreamWorks Animation's deal with Paramount signed in 2006 only gives it the option of existing as of Jan. 1, 2011, if at least 35% of the company's stock changes hands. Given that Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen combined own more than 70%, that would mean they'd actually have to start relinquishing their controlling stake.

Even if that happens, though, leaving doesn't come cheap. DreamWorks Animation would have to pay Paramount $150 million, pro-rated if it leaves at any point after 1/1/2011 and before 12/31/2012.

Given that Paramount has unarguably been doing a good job marketing and distributing DreamWorks Animation's movies, particularly overseas (just check "Kung Fu Panda's" grosses, for instance), it would be very hard for Jeffrey Katzeberg and his management team to argue to the shareholders that leaving two years early is worth that kind of money. Even if it is an awkward arrangement between the two DreamWorks's.

From Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep to Megan Fox in How to Lose Friends And Alienate People, a babe in a wet shirt is a tried-and-true way to promote a movie. Especially in the Internet Age.

Let's just say that Fox doesn't quite compete with the glorious Miss Bisset in her prime:

Film Panel Notetaker did what he always does at last week's IFP-produced Independent Film Week in New York. He took notes! Here are highlights of the panels (I did the Q & A with exiting Picturehouse chief Bob Berney, right, on the state of the indies):

Kevin Smith - Sept. 14.

Show & Sell: Positioning for Festivals - Sept. 14.

Medicine for Melancholy - Sept. 15.

State of Film Festivals, with Sundance's Geoff Gilmore - Sept. 15.

State of the Industry with Bob Berney - Sept. 16.

More panel links on the jump.

Dreamgirls' dream team, producer Laurence Mark and writer-director Bill Condon, will produce and executive produce this year's February 22 Oscarcast. respectively, reports Variety and the AP:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that producer Mark will produce the Feb. 22 show, while writer-director Condon will be executive producer. It will be the first time either has worked on the Oscars. Sid Ganis, the academy's president, said Mark and Condon are "fresh thinkers" who will bring a new perspective to the show.

The Academy seems to be continuing in the direction of smart, savvy insider Oscarcasts. This team makes me hope for a good show this year.

As the awards season gets under way, the Gurus 'o Gold have made their first stabs at weighing the upcoming Oscar race. It's early days yet. Many of these films have not been seen. For example, the gurus know more about Frost/Nixon, based on Peter Morgan's play, than anything else, which may account for its front-runner status--which is not necessarily a good place to be at this stage.

Frost/Nixon also features two head-to-head male leads who can't be relegated to supporting status: Frank Langella and Michael Sheen. That's also true of Jamie Foxx (who won Best Actor for Ray) vs. Robert Downey, Jr. in The Soloist. Actors will bend over backwards to give Downey something this year, even if it's a supporting nod for the comedy Tropic Thunder, because Iron Man is not an Academy movie (except perhaps for technical categories like FX).

It's back to the norm this year with the actors--the best actor field looks much stronger and more competitive than the best actress list.

Meanwhile fan site IGN has launched some counter-programming, their first annual IGN Summer Movie Awards, honoring the high-octane films that their readers care about most. Winners include Best Summer Movie: The Dark Knight, Best Director: Iron Man's Jon Favreau, Best Animated Movie: Wall-E, directed by Andrew Stanton, and less predictably, Babe of the Summer: Natalie Martinez, star of Death Race.

Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin have never been fond of one another. The two Alpha males have faced off many times before, and in the case of The Hours, it was also over a Stephen Daldry movie.

Now they're tussling again and it all comes down to one thing. Rudin and Daldry have a movie, The Reader, that Weinstein wants to release before the end of the year for Oscar consideration.

But it isn't finished. The movie came about after Rudin's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay fell apart at Paramount. After years of expressing interest in the Weinstein-owned project, Daldry again asked to direct The Reader, a World War II German romance based on Bernhard Schlink's novel, which was controlled by the late Mirage team of Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella (who was planning to direct), and persuaded them to let him take over the helm. They were happy to work with him.

The problem now is that Working Title had exclusive dibs on Daldry as soon as he finished The Reader; he went straight into preparations for directing the musical of his film Billy Elliot on Broadway, which opens November 13. He hasn't had time to finish cutting The Reader. When Daldry wanted extra days on the pic, Weinstein gave them to him with the proviso that he would test an early assembly, and if it tested over 70, he'd release the film this year. Daldry said he'd try. But he's in the middle of directing a $20 million musical. He hasn't scored or mixed the movie.

Weinstein did screen a rough edit of The Reader and it did test at 77 and now he wants to release it for Oscar consideration. And he has a contract to back him up. According to sources close to the movie, it's a terrific early cut that still needs refining. If worse comes to worse and Daldry continues to balk, he may have to enforce his DGA cutting rights, which give him until late January to deliver; he does have final cut. The Weinstein Co. is using a different calendar and argues that he should deliver the film in October.

This one will be interesting to watch. But it doesn't seem to be in Weinstein's interest to push Daldry into rushing here. Ordinarily, you want what's best for the movie. But Weinstein is hungry for an Oscar contender. And he sees Rudin with two possible Oscar contenders already--Doubt and Revolutionary Road, which stars Kate Winslet, who also stars in The Reader. Although when they started production, Winslet was happy to promote both films, it's in her interest to wait, as she could be competing with herself. So Rudin is in no hurry. Weinstein is: he doesn't want this movie competing with Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards and Nine next year.

Defamer handicaps the fight.

There's no question that the field of submissions for the foreign Oscar in 2008 is going to be very very competitive. (Here's Variety's most recent tally.) It's been a good year.

Sony Pictures Classics is delighted that Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir has been submitted by Israel; the animated doc is also a likely contender for best animated feature, and possibly, but not doc, as it didn't get a qualifying run before playing the New York Film Fest.

SPC was banking that many of its foreign acquisitions would wind up being submitted by their countries, and so they have: besides Bashir, SPC is also releasing Norway's pick, Bent Hamer's O'Horten, as well as Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner and NYFF fest opener The Class, which France selected over IFC's smart dysfunctional family drama A Christmas Tale, which played well at Cannes and Toronto.

SPC opted not to pick up Sweden's Everlasting Moments, knowing that they already had too many potential Oscar competitors to service this year. So IFC took on the Jan Troell career-capper, which should play well to Academy voters, who may remember 1973's foreign Oscar-winner The Emigrants.

Waltz with Bashir's Folman almost bit my head off at Telluride when I asked him if there was any rotoscoping involved. As a trained animator, he made sure I understood that this was no mickey mouse Richard Linklater situation: Bashir was hand-drawn from start to finish. Yes, it was videotaped and sound-recorded first, but hand-drawn by a team of animators nonetheless.

UPDATE: The combination of Folman's drive to reexamine his own past and tell this horrific story, combined with the artistry of the animation, is powerful indeed. Spoutblog spoke to Folman in Toronto.

Folman, who wrote for the Israeli TV series that formed the basis of In Treatment, is working on another project which is fun to think about: a to-be-retitled adaptation of Solaris author Stanislaw Lem's sci-fi tale Futurological Congress. It's about a gorgeous American actress on the cusp of losing her movie star luster who sells her likeness to Hollywood and can never work again. The movie will mix some live action with animation, and take the character forward 20 years. Who would be the perfect casting for this, someone who would be brave enough to play it? She'd have to be in her prime now. It could be Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Jason Leigh...the list isn't that long. Any ideas?

Here's the trailer:

New York Mag's cover story on the end of book publishing paints Amazon as the big bad wolf ready to blow all the publishing houses down.

I packed my Amazon review Kindle for my recent trip to cover the Toronto Film Fest, along with all my other gear: Flip camera, tape recorder, BlackBerry, Nikon Coolpix, iPod, MacBook. At the fest, I was a one-man band, showing up to cover Kevin Smith or Kathryn Bigelow or the Che press conference, shuffling my various media. I'd take a still photo for the blog, record the interview on the Flip (and sometimes the tape recorder), or take notes the old-fashioned way, in my reporter's notebook. For Che, I Flipped with my left hand and took notes with my right, as I would be handing the camera off to someone else to load onto the site. (I left the MacBook in the hotel with the wifi connection; while some people cart their portables with them, I once left my laptop under a cafe table in Cannes. The maitre d' held it for me.)

The Kindle works like a dream for downloading and reading books, whether at home or on the road. I had hoped it would be the perfect answer to my ongoing war against piles of unread mags and papers, but I found it strange to pay even tiny sums for clunky black-and-white Kindle versions of media, when you can move around more freely in a full-color online universe. Clearly, this is a situation where we should all wait for the new and improved Kindles --or Sony Readers, or Plastic Logic--coming down the pike. Some people swear by the eee PC, a simple small-scale portable computer.

Here's my Kindle column. Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch thinks Amazon should let the device go out into the world to proliferate and prosper as Amazon hangs on to all the book downloads.

Every fall the good old New York Film Fest, which opens September 26, gets the same scrutiny. It's like an annual ritual. Some journalist asks, is it still relevant? does it only appeal to old people? And someone else, in this case The Reeler, defends it as an institution for the ages.

This year, even if the pickings were slim among higher-profile American pictures, I particularly commend Telluride and New York (Toronto plays a different kind of game) for sticking to the best that world cinema had to offer. New York has always kept arcane art films at the core of its selection of some two dozen films, and often chooses controversial and unpopular pics, such as last year's Brian DePalma Iraq flick Redacted.

More than Cannes, which tends to stick to name auteurs and only rarely anoints new members to the club, the NYFF has always been brave about its choices. Even the erudite programmers at Telluride this year hadn't heard of some of NY's picks. These days festivals are supposed to challenge audiences. That's their job.

Scott Kirsner posits a new role for film fests in this Businessweek story on Innovation Lessons from Hollywood, complete with an 18 People Who Changed Hollywood slide show.

Filmmaker magazine posts Jamie Stuart's NYFF 46 teaser and Spoutblog's Karina Longworth adds analysis of his series of NYFF shorts over the years.

[Photos: NYFF's Wendy and Lucy and Hunger]

[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

JoBlo's Ten Spot pits Robert De Niro against, who else, Al Pacino! It comes down to a battle of the Corleones and you'll never guess who wins.

Roger Ebert sits down with "Lakeview Terrace" director Neil LaBute, whose DVD collection looks very impressive. Elsewhere, Ebert ponders the merits of star rating systems. My colleague Dave Lewis and I have argued extensively about 4-star systems vs. 5-star systems but Ebert believes the San Francisco Chronicle's Little Man system is a happy medium.

Glenn Kenny remembers David Foster Wallace over at the NY Observer, recalling a controversial Premiere piece about the Adult Video News Awards. Meanwhile, Spout's Karina Longworth looks into the proposed movie adaptation of Wallace's "Infinite Jest."

I'm not familiar with the band Minor Threat but this music video with Sir Ben Kingsley rocking the mic is simply awesome.

And finally, it doesn't get better than watching Bert and Ernie act out a scene from Scorsese's "Casino." Enjoy Emmy weekend and feel free to join me in rooting for Paul Feig, Robin Williams, Michael C. Hall, Kevin Dillon, Michael Emerson, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, David Simon and Ed Burns, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and perhaps most importantly, HBO's Flight of the Conchords.

The Wall Street Journal, as usual, got the early call on the culmination, finally, of the long-in-the-works DreamWorks/Reliance deal:

The principals of DreamWorks SKG have completed a long-anticipated deal with one of India's largest entertainment conglomerates to set up a new $1.2 billion film company, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal gives DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Chief Executive Stacey Snider the financial support they need to leave Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and start their new venture. Under the signed agreement, Mumbai-based Reliance ADA Group will invest $500 million equity and provide another $700 million in debt through J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. toward the new venture, which will produce a slate of about six films a year.

Variety reveals that DreamWorks will be able to take its staff with them. This could help the studio unload some of the DreamWorks overhead of some $50 million a year:

Though the deal has been anticipated for some time, what had been unclear was the fate of DreamWorks' executives, who would have been contractually obligated to remain employed by Paramount. In a surprise move, Paramount waived its right to keep DreamWorks' execs in its fold.

"To facilitate a timely and smooth transition, Paramount has waived certain provisions from the original deal to clear the way for the DreamWorks principals and their employees to join their new company without delay," Paramount said in a statement.

It's not unusual for a deal this complex to take so long.

It is unusual that having not clinched a deal with Universal, and moving to Viacom/Paramount, which acquired DreamWorks for $1.6 biillion 2 1/2 years ago, Spielberg/Geffen and co. should be so hellbent on getting out of there.

It became clear that Spielberg, Geffen and Stacey Snider thought they were a satellite company working alongside Paramount--even serviced by the studio, on some level. But Paramount chairman Brad Grey considered DreamWorks to be not a sibling company but one of several labels answering to him, like MTV or Paramount Vantage.

Add the ornery and volatile Sumner Redstone to the mix, and you had a recipe for disaster.

Even if Spielberg and company had to go offshore, to India, they were going to raise the necessary funding to make another go at a standalone company answering to no one. Now Spielberg and Snider (as Geffen departs the team) will go their merry way--presumably to a Universal distribution deal, although the studio balked at putting up $130 million for the 3-D animated Spielberg/Peter Jackson adaptation of the comic-strip classic Tintin.

As Claudia Eller points out in the LAT, this is a sign of the times, as studios resist the lure of getting into bed with even filmmakers of the stature of Spielberg and Jackson if the numbers don't add up. The two filmmakers (who could grab as much as 30% of the gross on their pics) were switching off producing and directing duties on the first two installments of a planned trilogy filmed back-to-back. Production was scheduled to begin next month, as Paramount was hoping to find a partner to shoulder the cost. Negotiating this deal with Paramount comes at the very moment that Spielberg is extricating himself from the studio and hopes to walk away with as much as he can get.

Universal will likely wind up as DreamWorks' distributor. But the Tintin situation highlights the fact that even as a standalone, DreamWorks will need willing financial partners if it wants to mount big-budget behemoths. The other question is how willing Spielberg and Snider will be to pare back their size, scope and staff to remain lean and mean. They risk following the path taken by would-be indies like Joe Roth's Revolution and The Weinsteins, two companies who raised substantial funding but followed a free-spending, old-fashioned studio-scale paradigm.

Photojournalist Ken Kobre and online journalist Jerry Lazar are launching KobreGuide.com, which showcases their picks of the Web's best multimedia and video journalism. They're calling it "the thinking person's YouTube."

KobreGuide is focusing on produced stories, not one-on-one interviews. According to Lazar, there are already plenty of outlets for celeb interviews, nor are they posting speeches or "how to" video, which are not in keeping with their mission, which is to promote nonfiction documentary-style storytelling.

They're still adding new material, and seeking feedback before the site goes public October 1:

When you find stories on KobreGuide that strike a chord, go ahead and comment on them... And then click that "Share This" button at the top of the Web page, which makes it ultra-easy for you to spread the word, via email or social-networking sites such as Facebook...

Vanity Fair has a preview of Oliver Stone's W, complete with a photo of George W. Bush's cabinet. As a fan of both JFK annd Nixon, I can't wait to see this thing, which will come in right under the wire before the November election--Lionsgate insists the movie will open October 17. Whoa.

Here's the W feature in EW's fall preview (always a must-read for well-reported info on all the fall pics).

Here's the old trailer (below) and UPDATE the new one.

[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

Moviehole reports that Anna Faris will not be playing Linda Lovelace in an upcoming biopic of the "Deep Throat" star, much to the displeasure of horny fanboys everywhere. On the bright side, Megan Fox has a movie called "Whore" coming out. Sounds like a, um, great career move.

In Contention's Kris Tapley takes a look at the Top 10 Performances You're Underestimating For Oscar and while I certainly haven't seen "Revolutionary Road" yet, I can't argue with his #1 pick Michael Shannon, who was so good last year in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" that I'd let him call me Chico anytime.

Lots going on at AICN this week. Moriarty takes a look at Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman's script for "Kick-Ass," adapted from Mark Millar's popular comic. And speaking of beloved comic properties, Moriarty thinks the Coen Brothers should direct the next Superman movie. Elsewhere, Massawyrm calls "Let the Right One In" the single best vampire film since "Near Dark," while Mr. Beaks interviews "Fright Night" director Tom Holland, who briefly discusses a possible remake of "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," which, quite frankly, would be the coolest idea in the history of cool ideas. If only Vincent Price were around to pass the torch...

According to Dread Central, Brett Ratner may direct "Conan" for Nu Image. I'm actually a Ratner fan, but it's the property that doesn't excite me. Unless they cast Mickey Rourke. Then I'd definitely be interested.

In other news I don't care about, Alicia Keys and Jack White's theme for "Quantum of Solace" is online. Why do people get so worked up over this stuff? I'm waiting to hear it for the first time during the actual movie... which looks pretty amazing.

And finally, ESPN's Sam Alipour reports that LeBron James' Spring Hill Productions has teamed with Mayhem Films' Gordon Gray and Mark Ciardi ("The Rookie," "Miracle," "Invincible") and scribe Robert Eisele ("The Great Debaters") to bring the story of 59-year-old Sul Ross State football player Mike Flynt to the bigscreen. Apparently, Tommy Lee Jones and Bruce Willis are circling the $30 million drama. FYI, Alipour's Media Blitz column is a must-read on ESPN's Page 2.

Am I the only one surprised by how well Burn After Reading is doing at the boxoffice? Remember, before No Country for Old Men, the Coens were hit or miss at the boxoffice, mostly miss. They were lucky if their pics got to $25 million! So why is this nihilistic nasty little movie doing so well? Even those who figured the CIA comedy would open on star power and marketing prowess didn't think it would actually play with audiences. But clearly, it is--prognosticators expect the movie to score this weekend, again!

Several theories explain this unexpected b.o. phenomenon:

1. It's the stars, stupid.
Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt. He's hilarious in the trailers and TV spots. And he and George Clooney--as a womanizer, just the way women want him--are playing bumbling fools, just like the rest of us. The range of hideous hairdos may have been another factor. Tilda Swinton joked at the Burn After Reading press conference in Toronto that she was chasing the Javier Bardem bad haircut prize--but that Pitt had won it. Face it, the Coens grabbed a money cast.

2. If you make them laugh, they will come.
Again, the movie is funny, which was clear in all the marketing materials. And as Colin Firth confessed to Peter Bart re: Mamma Mia, all the stars in this movie seem to be having a grand old time. No one has had more fun spewing f-words than John Malkovich.

3. The Fran McDormand factor.
Audiences love her, as demonstrated by another surprise hit, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. She warms up the place. She gives the freezing cold Coens some heart, a little light in the darkness--even if she does set the whole crazy plot in motion because she wants plastic surgery.

4. Audiences like filmmakers to break the rules.
This movie violates more conventional Hollywood rules and regs than I can tell you--mainly, it keeps killing off people you've come to like. And nobody seems to mind. Hollywood studios, take note.

5. No Country for Old Men widened the Coen's fanbase.
Clearly, adapting Cormac McCarthy's genre-friendly modern western and going all the way to the Oscars to the tune of $74 million made the Coens more of a household word. The movie hit the zeitgeist just right with Javier Bardem's implacable force-of-darkness villain. And somehow Burn After Reading is hitting it too. As institutions crumble all around us and few authority figures seem to have any reasonable solutions, the movie's message that nobody knows anything--nor cares--is right on target.

6. It's the best movie out there.
Burn After Reading opened against a particularly weak field of competitors, from the remake of The Women (which only made Focus Features target the femme audience more fiercely) to the DeNiro/Al Pacino pairing, Righteous Kill. BTW, Focus spent a small fortune marketing this baby.

All of which helps to explain why Burn After reading still looks strong heading into the weekend. Lakeview Terrace is a movie I have no desire to see (it just seems too unpleasant, and scored a 29% Rotten Tomatoes rating) and Dane Cook and Kate Hudson in the R-rated and not-screened My Best Friend's Girl is another must-to-avoid. I hear good things about Ghost Town (tracking 80% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), especially Ricky Gervais, but it's not expected to open strongly. Nor is Ed Harris's Appaloosa (64 % on Rotten Tomatoes), which I missed in Toronto and can't wait to see (Viggo Mortensen is in it). There aren't too many of us western fans left, and we must support the cause.

Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 9/19/08 11:00 a.m. PT)

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

Igor “Go” 15%

Burn After Reading “Go” 13%

Fireproof “Go” 11%

Lakeview Terrace “Go” 11%

My Best Friends’ Girl “So-So”

And the Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 9/18/08 9:00 a.m. PT):

Samuel L. Jackson stars this week in Lakeview Terrace. Of the Jackson's movies below, which is your favorite?

Pulp Fiction 41%

A Time to Kill 16%

The Long Kiss Good Night 14%

Star Wars: Episode III 13%

Jurassic Park 9%

The Incredibles 7%

Here's the new trailer for screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directing debut Synecdoche, New York, which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton Emily Watson. The movie has to be seen to be believed; this trailer is honest about the pic's concerns. It doesn't gussy up the material to make it more accessible. As you can see, the movie is simultaneously hilarious and grim.

Indie vet Peter Broderick read Mark Gill's zeitgeist-shifting sky-is-falling speech on the state of the independents and thoughtfully worked out a response of his own, A Guide to the New World of Distribution, designed to be a helpful primer for indie filmmakers trying to navigate in today's treacherous marketplace.

Brett Ratner is talking to everybody these days. He speculates about what his and J.J. Abrams Superman would have been. And he's working on the Eddie Murphy Beverly Hills Cop sequel.

Meanwhile, fans of Bryan Singer's Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh (wait until they see Zack and Miri Make a Porno) are up in arms over Warners' plans to take a different direction with the franchise. "Clark Kent" sent this memo to the media and Warners execs:

This letter is being sent on behalf of the group of Superman fans who were appalled by the article on the Wall Street Journal (Aug.22,08) reporting that Warner Bros. was planning a new Superman film to 'reintroduce' the movie franchise, thus implying that there will not be a sequel to our beloved "Superman Returns", and possibly, the casting of another actor to replace Brandon Routh, who was widely approved and applauded by many fans and film critics across the world, regardless of their view on the film itself.

This news has caused a great many heated discussion among Superman fans all over the world, most typically on fan site forums and messageboards of various film-related media on the internet.

On August 26th of this year, a small group of Superman/Brandon Routh fans at Brandon Routh.com and BlueTights Network, one of the most renowned Superman sites in the world, started the campaign to express our dissatisfaction of WB's alleged 'new strategy' and to demand them to recast Brandon Routh as Superman in the future film again. Clairecheaux, one of the most respected members of the forum, has named this as the: "BRB! - Bring Routh Back!" campaign.

Fox Walden's marketing department was impressed by the numbers racked up by high-pitched YouTube phenomenon Fred (created by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank), whose 18 webisodes have received more than 50 million hits --more than Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers, according to CNN. "Fred's current season has over 1.8 million views already and has been the #1 and #2 Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite videos on YouTube last week," gushed a Fox Walden publicist.

Here's the CNN Fred story:

So Fox Walden's marketers, seeking to hijack Fred's audience of kids under 18, contacted Cruikshank about doing some promotion for Gil Kenan's upcoming family film City of Ember. (Nickelodeon also hired the teen, for a text messaging commercial.) They flew Cruikshank out to LA from his Nebraska hometown--his first flight to the coast, to act in a dream sequence in which he becomes the star of The City of Ember. He shot the episode with Ember's Saoirse Ronan. The promo posted on YouTube September 18:

I can't imagine that this irritating YouTube will help sell the movie, if that was the intention.

Related Fred links on the jump:

After Telluride, Toronto and a taste of NYFF press screenings here in New York, as this cartoon suggests, I'm ready to go home.

The packed Walter Reade press screening of NYFF opener Laurent Cantet's The Class, which won the Palme d'Or, played a little flatter than I expected. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing. (How many times is Patrick Goldstein going to write about Michael Barker and Tom Bernard out of Toronto? I don't disagree with his take on them; it's just that he's written the same story before.)

The Class is terrific three-camera cinema verite that combines some of Mike Leigh's advance improv prep methods with throwing a real teacher (Francois Begaudeau, author of the book Entre les Murs) into a situation with real kids and seeing what high energy results. Cantet directed the action and asked for certain beats and content. He wanted an energetic first take, and then worked on the scene going forward, but he says much of the subsequent "acting" was as good as the first take.

The ping-pong ball interaction between the teacher and the kids is infuriating and exhilarating. Cantet has points he wants to make--so the film is a tad didactic. But the movie leaves wriggle room in terms of what's at stake and who's right or wrong. It rings true. All too true.

I saw Gary Giddins, David Edelstein, Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell, David D'Arcy, Bill Wolf, Kathleen Carroll, Jamie Stuart, and sat next to a young guy who runs a site called nycmovieguru who ranks films on the Wizard of Oz scale: heart, brains and courage. On that basis The Class gets a 7, 9 and 9 out of ten from me. Pas mal.

The European Film Academy is giving an honorary European achievement in world cinema award to Dogma Movement founders Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, Lars von Trier, and Thomas Vinterberg. I would love to show up for this event in Copenhagen on December 6, because this group is bound to say something outrageous when they accept their award, especially Peck's Bad Boy Von Trier.

Projections 15 (Faber & Faber) described the Dogma movement this way:

"In 1995, a group of Danish filmmakers rocked the film world, establishing a revolutionary set of rules for filmmaking, and invading film festivals and cinema screens with a distinctive, rough and not always comfortable look. Thus Dogma was born... without doubt it has exerted a strong influence on filmmaking and has set an astonishing example for filmmakers all over the world, demonstrating that it is possible to make successful films on a low budget, in a small film nation, and without a tripod."

Here are the goals and rules of the Dogme collective from Wikipedia:

The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, postproduction modifications and other gimmicks. The emphasis on purity forces the filmmakers to focus on the actual story and on the actors' performances. The audience may also be more engaged as they do not have overproduction to alienate them from the narrative, themes, and mood. To this end, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg produced ten rules to which any Dogme film must conform. These rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity," are as follows:
Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).
The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)
The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
Optical work and filters are forbidden.
The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
Genre movies are not acceptable.
The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)
The director must not be credited.

Here's a list of Dogme movies. And GreenCine blogger David Hudson's Dogme primer. These films had a huge impact on subsequent movies, and on the general trend toward authenticity even in such studio films as Paul Greengrass's Bourne movies.

Anticipating the coming financial apocalypse, Spoutblog turns to dystopian cinema for guidance.

GreenCine's Dave Hudson reports on current difficulties faced by the venerable Cahiers du Cinema, which needs a bailout. I made it into the Cahiers pages once with a Film Comment piece I co-wrote with Mitch Tuchman on George Lucas. What a trip.

It was all-too predictable. Take a venerable show like Ebert & Roeper At the Movies, remove the critics who had built up some sort of following over the years, and replace them with a new format, younger critics and a critics' panel. (Obviously, star Roger Ebert losing his voice was not something anyone could fix.)

While older Ben Mankiewicz (of the fabled Hollywood Mankiewicz family) fits into the format and will presumably settle in and lose his awkwardness, younger Ben Lyons (son of critic Jeffrey) seems too wet-behind-the-ears and perky to lend credence as a serious film critic. And Disney-ABC should lose the "critics round-up," which smacks of insecurity. Either we trust these two "authorities" or we don't. The Two Bens will have to earn it, and that's it.

The "critics" panel is even less trustworthy than our two new critics, except for IFC's Matt Singer, who could easily take over a spot on the show, as far as I'm concerned. He has natural authority and charm and knows a lot about movies.

Here's the tell-tale video, in case you've missed the new show.

And here's Lyons, blogging from the Toronto Fest, where he hobnobs with celebs and poses for photos with the likes of Keira Knightley.

Judging from the comments here and a plethora of emails I've received---along with hopeful predictions that Disney-ABC will throw out the show forthwith--the new show is alienating stalwart watchers. Presumably the plan was to build a younger, bigger fanbase.

Here's a typical email:

"Mankiewicz acquits himself reasonably well, but the bulk of it's a train wreck. I guess if they were able to build an entirely new audience, it would be a decent reboot. But I doubt that will happen. And in doing so they'll have lost almost the entire audience who watched and appreciated the show for what it was. I don't see fans of Siskel & Ebert (or even Ebert & Roeper) coming along for the ride."

Disney-ABC, having made their disastrous move, may try to see if these two guys stick. Word from inside the show: The station managers are in revolt, and the station head at ABC Chicago stormed into the studio in the 9th hour of taping and reportedly said, "I've done telethons that took less time."

BTW: At the NYFF I ran into the NY Post's Lou Lumenick and asked him why he never got back to me on thwacking Ebert at the Toronto Fest. He looked uncomfortable and still had no comment. He's just waiting for it to go away.

Kim Voynar, one of Cinematical's top critics, has returned to her old Seattle haunts and has finally ankled her post as managing editor and film festivals editor for Cinematical (which exploits its contributors with microscopic pay). She will continue to feed her own Film Essent blog.