The film fest at SXSW runs from March 13 to 21; I'll be on the doc jury. And I'll be blogging. Here are the screenings and panels, which include the de rigueur topics these days: The State of Distribution and The Incredible Shrinking Critic.

Conversations at the fest include Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater and Todd Haynes; indie mogul Bob Berney; IMDb founder Col Needham; and Jan Harlan, Stanley Kubrick's producer and brother-in-law, will share things Kubrick.

Here are trailers for SXSW films Alexander the Last, which will be released via IFC On-Demand at the same time it debuts at the fest, and Troll 2: more are on view at the SXSW YouTube screening room.

The Coens don't believe that coal could possibly be clean:

Reaction is starting to come in on Watchmen, Zack Snyder's much-anticipated follow-up to the blockbuster 300, first from the London opening, which was mixed, and now Variety's review, which broke today.

I saw the movie Wednesday night. Clearly, I am not the target audience for Watchmen, which will play like gangbusters for fans of the legendary Alan Moore graphic novel, but will likely leave everyone else on the outside looking in. Warners and Legendary Pictures decided to drink the Kool-Aid on this one: after the global blockbuster 300 they banked on Snyder delivering an action tentpole that would perform worldwide.

Snyder got some leeway from the studio. Watchmen is a devoted take on a cult 80s comic. It's R-rated, sexy, mature, violent, long, expensive--from $120-$150 million plus worldwide marketing costs. The studio wrangled with the filmmaker to cut the movie down from three hours to 161 minutes, but for the most part he got his way.

Here's my Comic-Con Snyder interview and panel coverage. Check out Snyder's own website. And here are snippets of what Snyder told me back in July:

"If Dark Knight got two and a half hours, Watchmen should get fifteen minutes more,” he pleads. “I’m trying to be reasonable."

But the studio still thinks Watchmen is too “too long, too sexy, and too violent,” says Snyder. For him, “that’s a reason to go. That’s the why. If you take that out you take out the why.” Otherwise it’ll just be another “watered down version of Watchmen, and then you might as well make another superhero movie. There’s a million characters out there you could do instead.”

The gorgeous R-rated movie is ultra-violent. I can take neck-crunching body-bashing blood-spattering action, but this was even tough for me to sit through. For the most part, women will not go for Watchmen.

While the movie is set to open big on March 6--some folks are guessing as high as $70 million--I'll wager that the ultimate audience will be limited to male action fans only. As someone with only fleeting exposure to the graphic novel, I watched the movie with little engagement or understanding of what was going on. Back stories on too many characters often left me confused. Why did Rorschach wear the mask (it was so much better when we saw Jackie Earle Hayley's face)? What was the nature of the old relationship between Rorschach and Nite Owl (well-played by Patrick Wilson)? The love triangle with Nite Owl, Billy Crudup's impressive blue super-hero Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) worked best for me, although Manhattan's frequent frontal nudity and strange animated mouth may be off-putting to some. But what was the point, finally? The big mystery reveal, with shades of 9/11, was confounding to me.

In other words, while Warners may sell these eye-popping visuals and effects and characters--Snyder is a compelling filmmaker--Watchmen will not be an unabashed home run.

It's not new to post a gross-out red band trailer to sell a raunchy comedy. But still, this one for John Hamburg's I Love You, Man, starring Paul Rudd as a man who selects new pal Jason Segel as his best man, isn't exactly appealing. Is this any way to sell your movie? I Love You, Man opens March 20.

It's the end of an era: the energizer bunny of gossips, Liz Smith, has lost her berth at The New York Post. Lloyd Grove talks to the octogenarian daily columnist.

Smith's column still runs in many outlets: Daily Variety runs it on Tuesday and Thursday only in its L.A. edition. With the Post out of the picture in New York, Variety has now not decided whether or not to add Smith to the Gotham edition.

Truth is, Smith plays to the older crowd. The rest of us get our gossip online, from the likes of Marc Malkin, Perez Hilton, TMZ, Just Jared and Go Fug Yourself.

The New York Times, meanwhile, has cut the frequency of its fashion supplement T down from 15 to 12 editions a year.

UPDATE: The late departed Movieline Magazine (no longer owned by founder Anne Volokh) is joining the online movie gossip fray by hiring the trio of bloggers who just left Hollywood gossip site Defamer, led by Stu (The Reeler) VanAirsdale. After Mark Lisanti left Defamer, the trio came in and managed to push traffic up via multiple daily postings, but could only get so far. Gawker Media czar Nick Denton--who is a relentless traffic-builder--is merging Defamer into Gawker, which has a wider readership. I liked Defamer, but it was tough for the trio to get cooperation from the PR community. Post-Defamer they are sticking together and have agreed to help Movieline revive its brand online. (I was hoping VanAirsdale would revive The Reeler.) The release is on the jump:

The LAT is finally making the threatened changes in their entertainment coverage. The Calendar, online and business sections have always been balkanized states, so it will be fascinating to see how they merge together under the direction of new assistant managing editor/arts and entertainment Sallie Hofmeister, former business editor, and Arts and Entertainment editor Craig Turner, an LAT veteran. Here's the announcement story. Turner's intro letter follows:

Hello all, Sorry for the mass email, but wanted to let you all know that after more than seven years as weekend editor for The Times, I have a new assignment. Starting next week, I'll become Arts and Entertainment Editor, supervising all our entertainment and cultural coverage. We are combining the reporting staff of Calendar with the Business section reporters on entertainment to provide a broader, deeper news report. Because entertainment is the hometown industry, we need to be a clear number one in our coverage. I'll be working with Sallie Hofmeister, who is the newly-named Assistant Managing Editor for Arts and Entertainment. Sallie, who most recently has been our Business Editor, is a veteran entertainment reporter who is so well connected she can call Murdoch "Rupert" to his face. At a time when most newspapers, including this one, are cutting back, I'm especially glad and grateful to be taking on a new assignment that promises to be both fun and challenging. Wish me luck. Craig Craig Turner Weekend Editor Los Angeles Times

Kim Masters lays out what's at stake for Rupert Murdoch's empire, asking:

(Isn’t it odd that while Sumner Redstone can’t push his children out of his company fast enough, Murdoch seems to have trouble drawing his children in?)

I was amazed that Peter Chernin got a studio production deal with two put pictures a year. That's unheard of in Hollywood. (Masters reports the puts are not what they're cracked up to be.) There are precedents for studio heads landing rich production deals after they step down. But they usually don't get guarantees that at their own call, two studio slots a year will go to them:

Chernin will leave with a generous compensation package. His contract guarantees him a six-year motion picture and television production deal under which Fox is obligated to greenlight at least two movies a year, at his discretion. He plans to launch his production company later this year and to spearhead his nonprofit organization Malaria No More.

The exit deal comes on top of an already unusually rich paycheck. For the 2008 fiscal year, Chernin's total compensation was $28.8 million, which included his base salary of $8.1 million and incentives -- more than Murdoch's. Chernin has a pension and retirement plans worth $11 million and a deferred compensation account that had a balance of about $28 million as of June 30, according to regulatory filings.

But Chernin was second-in-command at a huge multi-media conglomerate. And he came from production. So back to production he goes, knowing that there's nowhere for News Corp to go in this economy--with Murdoch's many media properties--but down.

I have Twitter Fatigue. I like using Facebook and Twitter to get info out to people who have signed up to get it. But it can get damned distracting on the receiving end.

Twitter is a great tool for disseminating blog posts. And I love trawling through my Twitter feed--checking tweets from people I signed up to follow--but the twitters that come into my BlackBerry can be annoying. (I'm compelled to look.) What if I don't want to know what someone thinks of the Oscars as I'm intently watching them, forming my own opinion? Some friends send reactions to what they're experiencing during their day, things I do not have time to check out--which means they make no sense.

Here's a helpful link to journalists who twitter. Presumably they want more followers.

As I twittered the Indie Spirits--tapping out instant hits on the winners on my BlackBerry--I wondered why anyone would care. Presumably, they could watch the actual show on IFC. So my tweets informed someone who wasn't watching of the Indie Spirit winners, as it was happening. But the news itself isn't earth-shattering. What could be interesting is some twist or depth--which is tough with the haiku-shortness of Twitter (140 characters). My best Indie Spirit tweet:

Rourke cries for his dog Loki who died 6 days ago "this is for you baby".

Live-blogging the red carpet arrivals at the Oscars made more sense. There you could capture some flavor of an event that not everyone was allowed to see. Announcer Robert Osborne was interviewing the celebs as they ran the press gauntlet, and some of them came around to the press bleachers. I took pictures, and shot some Flipcam stuff that might be fun for someone to see.

But the current need for speed--the mantra of the moment to BREAK NEWS--is driven by the Internet. It's about traffic. But is traffic everything? What if some folks want to read context, analysis, real content that has been considered, or has a point-of-view? The current push is to throw everything out faster and faster without digesting it or making a few phone calls. It's alluring, for sure-- to the first go the online spoils--traffic. But it's not all there is.

UPDATE: The LAT exposed a Maya Angelou twitter feed as fraud.

The Oscars aren't truly over until you've scanned all the frocks and party coverage and caught the winners on Oprah and looked at who did best on the Oscar predicts (I got five wrong) and checked the wrap-ups and yes, early forecasts of what will be going for Oscar gold next year: here's Kris Tapley and Jeff Wells. From the footage I've seen, Peter Jackson's Lovely Bones will be a major contender.

Vanity Fair has the Bennett Miller short that was supposed to open the show. (The Oscar producers ran out of time. How humiliating for Miller, who followed the template of Errol Morris, but didn't quite deliver on that level.)

Here's the great Judd Apatow comedy short with James Franco and Seth Rogen:

Here's the Oscar site's Road to the Oscars:

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean has abandoned Microsoft Word for Google Documents. As a recent convert to Google, I am duly impressed by how much Gmail, Calendar, Reader, News Alerts, Sync and other applications can do. But abandon Word? Sacre bleu!

It was cool to see all the footage from new movies at the end of the Oscar show, including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. IGN has some cool new art, including an international poster.

I got a big kick out of Humpday at Sundance. Its director, Lynn Shelton, is someone we will be seeing a lot more of going forward. She's that good. And at Saturday's Indie Spirits, Shelton won the Someone to Watch Award (with a $25,000 grant from Acura) for her last film, My Effortless Brilliance. The prize goes to "a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate attention." I grabbed the Seattle-based Shelton at the IFC Shutters party with the Flipcam:

One of the most unlikely people walking the red carpet to the Oscar show Sunday was Kimberly Rivers Roberts, the 9th Ward New Orleans ex-drug dealing heroine of the Oscar-nominated doc Trouble the Water. There she was, resplendent in a silver gown, accompanied by her husband Scott Roberts and executive producer Danny Glover, who agreed to back Tia Lessen and Carl Deal's New Orleans doc featuring Roberts' homevideo footage of her struggle to help her neighbors survive Hurricane Katrina. The pic was a sleeper hit at Sundance 2008, where Roberts gave birth to her first child.

Since Hurricane Katrina, Roberts and her husband have turned their lives around; Kimberly's first hip-hop CD will come out in April at the same time the movie debuts on HBO. Before flying into L.A., she participated in the New Orleans Mardi Gras in the Muse Parade as the muse of tragedy, Melpomene. A celebratory week indeed.

Here's some red carpet Flipcam footage of Glover and Roberts (with some Dominic Cooper wedged in):
Find more videos like this on AnneCam

The best picture Oscar usually goes to a movie that nails the zeitgeist and hits Academy voters in just the right way. In this crazy upside-down year, when the entire world seems in free fall, that movie was Slumdog Millionaire. "We had passion and belief," said producer Christian Colson as he accepted the best picture trophy. "When you have these things anything is possible."

Picking up two Oscar wins for score and song, A.R. Rahman performed two songs as well. He cited "the power of hope in our lives," adding, "all my life I had a choice between hate and love and I chose love and I am here."

As the sprawling Slumdog Millionaire group of all ages, with their beaming, joyful director, Danny Boyle, made their way down the Academy Awards red carpet Sunday afternoon, the buzz surrounding the movie was infectious. Boyle thanked Fox Searchlight for going to such lengths to bring as many of the cast and crew to L.A. as possible. Mumbai enriched the Slumdog movie and changed the lives of the people who made it. Slumdog Millionaire is yet another example of an east-west hybrid film that expands cinematic boundaries. Beaufoy and Boyle embraced the music and melodrama of Bollywood, and translated some of the script into Hindi so that Boyle could use the untrained young actors he really wanted. Partly inspired by such movies as Black Friday, Boyle also used new light camera gyros to whiz through the Mumbai slums.

Several critics examine the Slumdog phenomenon: the Toronto Film Festival's Cameron Bailey, David Bordwell and David Chute.

Congrats to In Contention's Kris Tapley for correctly predicting Japan's Departures for best foreign film and another Japanese film, La Maison en Petits Cubes for animated short (I called that one too). Foreign nominees Waltz with Bashir and The Class were considered the front-runners. It helps to remember that the always hard-to-call foreign category is only voted on by the 500 or so members who see all five films.

Otherwise there were no surprises. The awards took the expected route, from Slumdog's eight wins to Curious Case of Benjamin Button's three technical prizes (makeup, art direction and visual effects). Milk took home awards for Sean Penn and writer Dustin Lance Black; both, in the evening's most political moments, pleaded for equal rights for all Americans. Best supporting actress winner Penelope Cruz, who made some of her remarks in Spanish, was another reminder of the global nature of the Oscars. "Art is our universal language," she said. "We should do anything we can to protect it." Brit Kate Winslet hugged all the actresses on stage as she accepted her Oscar for The Reader, and asked her father to whistle so she could see him in the house. The mood in the Kodak turned somber when Heath Ledger won for The Dark Knight: his father, mother and sister accepted in the name of his young daughter. Six actors have been nominated for an Oscar after they died. Peter Finch is the other one to win a posthumous Academy Award, for Network.

Finally, Hugh Jackman made an engaging and gifted host; I enjoyed his musical numbers, although the epic musical medley with Beyonce, multiple lines of dancers and two other couples was too complex to quite translate on the home screen. (It was choreographed by Baz Luhrmann, who was typically over-the-top.) The most monumental change on this year's show--a keeper--was the brilliant idea of having past winners, five in each acting category, personally address the nominees in a very intimate way. It was moving and wonderful to see the nominees talked to directly by people they clearly admired. And you could see the impact of these icons--from Sophia Loren to Robert DeNiro-- on the folks in the house. They ate it up. "Even if you didn't win, you had a great star telling you what was great about your performance," observed red carpet announcer Robert Osborne after the show.

It made sense to organize the Kudocast around the different stages of film production, saving time on presenters walking on and off. And the round-up of the year's clips, many of them non-nominated movies, worked well. The section on romance featured not only hetero love but Milk's gay lovers Penn and Franco kissing. Albert Maysle's straight-on interviews with doc filmmakers was disarmingly effective. Doc winner James Marsh smartly brought Man on Wire star Philippe Petit up to balance an Oscar on his chin. I laughed at the Judd Apatow comedy short with James Franco, Janusz Kaminski, and Seth Rogen. Queen Latifah singing "I'll Be Seeing You" during the In Memoriam section also played well. And I liked seeing the trailers for upcoming movies over the credits.

At the Governor's Ball, Oscar-winner Sean Penn told ABC local news, "I was very surprised, because there was across the board such a strong category." He thought Mickey Rourke would win, basically.

With the big show over, the movie industry headed into a night of partying, from the Governors Ball to The Vanity Fair party at Sunset Tower, the Elton John party, and Searchlight's Slumdog Millionaire celebration. That's where I'm heading.

Here's Boyle on the red carpet:

Meryl Streep stops and signs autographs for some of the Slumdog Millionaire kids. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt don't stop with Osborne. The show is about to start! Sophia Loren, Marisa Tomei, Penelope Cruz, Harvey Weinstein and Kate Winslet are late arrivals. Time to leave.

The London Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye interviews Dev Patel:

Judd Apatow made a comedy short that will appear in the middle of the show, he tells Osborne.

Robert Downey, Jr. admitted to being non-plussed by the proceedings. "I just know that she's wearing red and I'm wearing black and she's real cute," he tells Osborne, who tells him to prepare for an Oscar win in his future. "It seems like there's 16 years between nominations," Downey adds.

Mickey Rourke is here. "It's really cool I've never been to one of these before. This is real rock 'n roll. It's nice to be invited to the show," he says.

Queen Latifah says, "Hey people!" She was nominated for Chicago. "It's a lot of fun. I'm going to sing a special song to all those we lost last year, 'I'll Be Seeing You.'"

Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) helped Hugh Jackman out on one number. "The whole show is unlike any Oscar you've ever seen. You don't know what's going to happen." He's opening Australia in Japan next. Jackman "brings his warmth and humanity to the show. He can sing, he can dance, he's a warm affable human being."

Meryl Streep has been nominated 15 times. "I hope they don't retire me, I like it too much," she says. "It's so overwhelming, there are so many awards leading up to the Oscars, you'd think it would be diminished but it doesn't. This is the Super Bowl."

Milk consultant Cleve Jones, who was played by Emile Hirsch in the movie, says the actor "did a wonderful job. I knew the people Sean Penn and the other portrayed and it's amazing to see it up on screen." Gus Van Sant says, "I've never seen this before." He came before in 1998 with Good Will Hunting.

Dominic Cooper agrees that playing in The History Boys on stage triggered the career that made Mamma Mia! possible. (He's also very good in the Sundance hit An Education.)

The Slumdog Millionaire gang collects to do an on-camera interview. They do a rousing cheer. "Thank you!" cries one of the little kids to the crowd. Viola Davis and Melissa Leo also submit to interviews right below us.

"I remember when this street was nothing but sand," said Mickey Rooney. "Tom Mix and Charlie Chaplin ate at Sardi's right up the street." The Oscars "are part of our family. We have to so something for the motion picture home out in the valley that's having a hard time."

Viola Davis says "I wanted you to know her and feel for her," about her two scenes in Doubt.

Reuters entertainment editor Bob Tourtellotte is covering his 10th Oscar show. He's talking to his office on the phone, filing things on his laptop, and taking notes in his notepad. He'll write up the main bar backstage. Another writer will collect quotes from the winners interviewed backstage for a sidebar. Tourtelotte will listen to the show on his headphones and stick winners' quotes into the story he has already written. He'll file four updates, one at the start, two in the middle, two at the end on a real time deadline. All told, 40 people cover this event for Reuters, the global news and information wire service. Ten people are working back at the L.A. office, and eight photographers are covering the event. At least ten stories are prepped and ready to be posted depending on how events shake out, covering each of the possible main winners.

Virginia Madsen tells Osborne that nothing will ever equal her first Oscar show, when she was nominated for supporting actress for 2005's Sideways. Milk star Emile Hirsch is marveling at all the little gold statues everywhere. "I can't believe this is Hollywood Boulevard. The security is insane," he says.

Miley Cyrus presented last year, she tells Osborne. "And now Bolt is nominated and hopefully we'll take home an Oscar for Bolt." Last year's 3-D movie was a concert film; this one's a feature, Hannah Montana: The movie, which comes out April 10. "Let's hope we're here next year picking up something for that," she adds, optimistically.

Osborne says that the Soweto Gospel Choir will perform with Peter Gabriel--correction--they'll perform the Wall-E song by Gabriel, who refused to sing the song in short medley form. (He knows how to get attention for NOT doing something.) They sing their way down the red carpet.

"We need movies more than ever; entertainment gets people out of the plight they feel," says MPAA tub-thumper Dan Glickman.

Osborne makes another gaffe: he thinks Kevin Kline is with Salma Hayek--it's his wife, Phoebe Cates.

Lo and behold I have wireless access here from the press bleachers overlooking the Red Carpet. I ran into E.T.'s Mary Hart as I walked into the red carpet.

Last year I worked the front row with The London Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye. This year we have assigned seats, which means reporters scramble down to the front when there's someone they want to grab. Chef Wolfgang Puck is always the first to walk the press gauntlet. It's his 15th time, he tells announcer Robert Osborne. He's cooking for 1600 guests at the Governor's Ball, an Asian-inspired menu of lobster salad, cocoanut soup with Thai basil, vegetable risotto and a 3-tiered white chocolate dessert with passion fruit cake, several flavors of sorbet, and chocolate truffles. Puck decided what to cook one month ago, cooked and finished everything today, just like a restaurant, with 250 chefs in kitchen and 600 waiters in the dining room.

Osborne interviews the Price Waterhouse guys--another ritual. If someone announces the wrong name, "We would correct it onstage and correct on the spot," they say. One stands stage right, one stage left.

On a bright Saturday afternoon at the Santa Monica Beach, I mingled with the presenters, nominees, media and guests at the Independent Spirit Awards. On the way in, I photographed waiters with free booze and Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, which won best actress (Frozen River's Melissa Leo), best foreign film (The Class) and best first feature and ensemble cast (Synecdoche, New York). On the blue carpet, I grabbed a shot of Mad Men star Jon Hamm; Dana Delany; At the Movies co-host Ben Mankiewicz; Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi; Film Independent's Dawn Hudson; and IFC's Matt Singer; and then spent a good hour hobnobbing outdoors, the highlight of the event.

UPDATE: Here's Mickey Rourke's acceptance speech:

Photo gallery on the jump:

At the Women in Film party at Peter Guber's Bel Air manse Friday night, I grabbed this Flipcam interview with Viola Davis, nominated for supporting actress for Doubt, who is a longshot to beat Penelope Cruz. She confessed her pre-Oscar jitters:

The Indie Spirits award show on the Santa Monica beach, the day before the Big Show, is my favorite awards event. It's relaxed, convivial. Everyone hangs out outside for an hour or so before the lunchtime ceremony gets under way.

Slumdog Millionaire wasn't up for any awards (eligible for foreign, it wasn't nominated), so it was possible for The Wrestler to walk away with top honors for best film, best cinematography (Maryse Albert) and best male lead Mickey Rourke. Darren Aronofsky thanked his actors, including Rourke, who when accepting his prize took the opportunity to exhort the audience to give Eric Roberts, "The best actor I ever worked with," a second chance. Roberts looked stunned in the crowd. Rourke cried over his dog Loki who died six days ago, saying, "This is for you baby." The crowd under the white tent gave Rourke a rousing standing ovation.

As expected, Milk star James Franco won best supporting male, while Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black won best first screenplay. Charlie Kaufman had to suffer various presenters, from Aaron Eckhart to Cameron Diaz, mauling the pronunciation of Synecdoche, New York. "I guess it really is a bad title," he quipped as he accepted the first of two awards for the night, for best first feature and the Robert Altman award for best ensemble acting. Accepting the supporting actress award, Oscar nominee Penelope Cruz said, "Woody Allen is the symbol of independence in our industry. He does whatever he wants." Allen won best screenplay for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but did not attend the event.

Sony Pictures Classics enjoyed wins for best actress, foreign film and two for Kaufman. Accepting his award for best foreign film The Class, Laurent Cantet thanked his producers for giving him "the freedom to make films the way I want to make them."

My favorite Indie Spirits host will forever be John Waters, who presented the best director award Saturday afternoon with Zooey Deschanel to The Visitor's Tom McCarthy. Host Steve Coogan did OK--introduced at the show's start via clip by Tropic Thunder co-star Ben Stiller. Indie films are "all about shared experience," Coogan said. "We have all shared the experience of not having seen most of the films." He told Man on Wire star Philippe Petit that "it would have made the film a little better for me if you'd fallen." Man on Wire eventually picked up the win for best documentary.

Coogan's best schtick was showing up onstage as Christian Bale as a foul-mouthed Batman berating an actor dressed up as Joaquin Phoenix in fake wig, beard and shades who whined, "I'm giving up acting." "You've given up shaving," Batman replied, "There's a difference." Last year's host, Rainn Wilson, impersonated Mickey Rourke as The Wrestler, which prompted Rourke as he accepted his award say: "That little blonde dude that did that thing, I'm going to beat your ass."

Of the song homages, Teri Hatcher's renditon of "Bitch is Gone" clearly did not go over with the folks at the Wendy and Lucy table, including a perplexed Michelle Williams.

Best female lead Melissa Leo thanked a theater in Albany, New York for holding Frozen River for "eight fucking weeks." Alec Baldwin, presenting best feature, said, "I want to get back into the movie business so bad. I got to get a dog, get in shape and drop F- bombs on live TV."

After the ceremony, the Indie Spirits gang repaired to Shutters down the beach for a very loud party hosted by IFC, which aired the awards show.

As the Academy tries to beef up a show that is light on popular movies or drama, they continue to leak names of people who might draw younger audiences. Jennifer Aniston will present at the Oscars, announces Marc Malkin. Patrick Goldstein talks to Oscar producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, who clearly intended the Hugh Jackman rehearsal clip to be leaked to the Internet.

Writer/producer Judd Apatow (who salutes comedy on the Oscars Sunday) returns to the director's chair with Funny People, starring Adam Sandler as a stand-up comedian battling death, Seth Rogen as his weepy joke writer, and Leslie Mann as the woman Sandler loves. Trouble is, she's married to Eric Bana. Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman (who is writing the music) also star. It's due July 31.

Kim Masters, recently separated from NPR and freelancing for Slate, The Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal, has landed a juicy gig at The Business, KCRW's weekly entertainment industry show. Long-time host Claude Brodesser-Akner, who works full time at Ad Age, is letting go of the reins. It's a perfect match. She's got the town wired and understands radio. She may not have as light a touch as Brodesser-Akner, but she's a lively radio presence. And she'll do more breaking news and in-depth investigative reporting. She starts March 9.

The release is on the jump.

Not one to miss a multiple click opportunity, Arianna Huffington hands out political Oscars.

While Kris Tapley sees a foreign film upset, I'm positive Waltz with Bashir will win--it's politically correct, Israeli, gorgeously animated, well-lauded, anti-war...Besides, it has a graphic novel to go with it.

And here's a clip of Hugh Jackman practicing, practicing for the big show. Did I not say he would do musical numbers? We know he can sing and dance. But I've seen this guy, who loves theater, work a room. He'll win 'em over on Oscar night.

Chicago critics Michael Phillips and Sergio Mims talk Oscar on local Chicago TV: Why couldn't Disney/ABC have picked these guys for At the Movies?

UPDATE: The filmmakers behind The Reader mount a defense against criticism of the film. On the jump.

Vanity Fair digs into the making of The Godfather. Again. The Aero Theatre in Santa Monica will run the restored Godfather Trilogy--new 35 mm prints--one film per night from February 27 through March 1, 2009 at 7:30 PM.

New York interviews the ubiquitous Clive Owen, star of Tom Tykwer's current release The International and Tony Gilroy's upcoming Duplicity, in which Owen rejoins his Closer co-star Julia Roberts.

The New Yorker has launched a new movie blog, The Front Row (just what we need!). Richard Brody's brainy cinephilia will likely appeal to folks who read Dave Kehr, GreenCine, IFC, Spoutblog and Some Came Running. How much more can we all absorb, anyway?

Friday I will pick up my credentials at the Hollywood and Highland Academy Awards complex. Wednesday night, I walked on the plastic-covered red carpet on my way to Gold Derby blogger Tom O'Neil's annual Oscar party at the Max Factor Hollywood museum. When you see the red carpet/bleachers construction with no people around, you realize how long the L-shaped thing really is. I'll be posted somewhere near the Red Carpet on Sunday afternoon in my black Oscar suit, prepared to report back to you as soon as I get in front of a computer. (There's no wifi and I'm resisting tweeting.) I'm not going backstage this year.

Then I'll go home and catch the start of the show on TiVo, write up the Red Carpet (I'm tempted to Flipcam but it actually requires uploading etc; better it should be live streaming like the Nokia Qik phone) and then when I'm done posting, go to the Fox Searchlight after party.

Friday night there's a pre-Oscar Women in Film party hosted by Peter Guber; Saturday I always enjoy the Indie Spirits on the beach in Santa Monica, followed by IFC's jammed party at Shutters and a Miramax party as well. I will report in full on all my gleanings.

Kim Masters wraps up the Oscars. UPDATE: So does Time's Richard Corliss, although I still prefer the option of reading a real article, rather than having to click through all these page views online. In the magazine, they photograph Corliss's annotated Oscar ballot. V. cool. Marc Graser reports on new gizmos zooming in on Red Carpet activity.

EW loves lists like this one, the top 25 active directors, designed to inspire healthy debate. Did they get it right? And what do they mean by active, exactly? "Most talented, in-demand directors behind the camera today?" They're trying to have it both ways--it's a power list measuring fame, heat, influence and at the same time, a qualitative measure of talent.

Sorry, while I get why these guys are listed, their order does not compute. Where's Oliver Stone? David Cronenberg? Oscar-nominated Gus Van Sant isn't even in the also-ran Top 50 list, where filmmakers who are female (Mira Nair and Mary Harron but no Jane Campion), past their prime (Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet), documentarians (Michael Moore) black (Spike Lee), or directors of animation (Miyazaki, Stanton, Bird) are relegated. Also not included are Werner Herzog, Paul Verhoeven, Peter Weir or Terrence Malick. Oy. For those who would ask for a woman to be on the Top 25 list, there simply aren't any in this league. I'd like to see Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) get there some day.

Here's the EW List with annotations from me:

1. Steven Spielberg

The greatest. Of course.

2. Peter Jackson

Nipping at Spielberg's heels. For the moment, they're collaborating, on TinTin. I've seen some footage of The Lovely Bones, due next fall, and it looks impressive indeed. DreamWorks produced.

3. Martin Scorsese

Absolutely.

4. Christopher Nolan

He's a bit high in this context--ahead of Clint Eastwood, who is way too far down.

5. Steven Soderbergh

Also too high. Much as I admire much of Soderbergh's output, he rushes through too many movies in too little time, and could shape many of them better before he shoots. Che was a potentially great movie buried inside a sprawling, shapeless mess. The Good German was entirely misconceived.

6. Ridley Scott

Solid studio craftsman with a wide skill set--VFX, action, comedy, drama--who could be even greater if he compromised less. Yet I respect his ability to churn out strong movies with cranky movie stars within the system--despite the occasional misstep like A Good Year.

7. Quentin Tarantino

Of course.

8. Michael Mann

He's still managing to make his own brilliant, crazy movies with studio millions, whether they're commercial or not. Usually not. (Which is fine, as long as he can get away with it.)

9. James Cameron

As good as it gets, even if he hasn't made a studio feature since Titanic. Avatar awaits.

10. Joel and Ethan Coen

Nonpareils.

11. Guillermo del Toro

Ditto.

12. David Fincher

Another director stuck inside a studio matrix, dependent on big budgets. Love to see him break free somehow.

13. Tim Burton

Amazing what he does, even within the studio system.

14. Judd Apatow

Effective, hugely influential, successful and prolific, but he's still listed too high.

15. Sam Raimi

This list is very EW, geared at younger males. Raimi is a great director and deserves all credit for his movies including the Spiderman films. But again, he's ahead of some great Hollywood filmmakers here.

16. Zack Snyder

300 was great and I can't wait to see Watchmen. Again, ahead of Boyle, Eastwood, Alomodovar and Howard? Please.

17. Darren Aronofsky

18. Danny Boyle

He's super gifted, but Slumdog is this year's news. He's ahead of many great directors with longer resumes and less heat.

19. Clint Eastwood

Why so shockingly low? He's the model for how to be a director, for chrissakes. Is he, maybe, too old for these juvenile-oriented EW fanboys?

20. Ron Howard

I like some of his least successful movies best. Like The Missing.

21. Ang Lee

An astonishingly versatile, sensitive filmmaker who can handle an American western, a British Jane Austen movie, or Asian epics. He can do anything.

22. Paul Thomas Anderson

Much as I laud his ambition, I feel that he hasn't made his best film yet. He's trying to navigate the studio/budget/indie waters. He's not a commercial director, so it's tough.

23. Paul Greengrass

He can make art and commerce at the same time, drives his studio crazy, but delivers.

24. Pedro Almodovar

Easily one of the greatest directors in the world.

25. Jon Favreau

One of the most promising helmers on the rise today. He can handle FX, comedy, actors, the whole ball of wax.

Oscar fetes are downsizing this year, from Vanity Fair at the Sunset Tower to likely big Oscar-night winner Fox Searchlight at One Sunset. Paramount and Warner Bros. aren't having any parties at all. Bill Higgins lays out the Oscar weekend options.

The Oscar ballots are in. One producer pal of mine forgot to send his in yesterday. What a waste! But he told me his votes over the phone, and judging from his picks and my gleaning of the Oscar tea leaves, I'll be fairly close this year. I still feel good about Viola Davis. But I'm starting to feel Mickey Rourke creeping up on Sean Penn.

You can test your Oscar mettle against professional oddsmaker Nate Silver, but the Oscars are too idiosyncratic to be statistically predicted in this way. I would ignore him and go with the Gurus 'O Gold or Gold Derby's Tom O'Neill, who are much closer to the mark than the LAT's Buzzmeter.

Or, if you dare: enter Defamer's In Memoriam Oscar pool. And if you're feeling really creative, write Waltz with Bashir director Ari Folman's acceptance speech, with help from Atom.com's acceptance speech generator.

Let's play a game of true or false.

Summit says NO, Madonna will not appear in Twilight sequel New Moon, despite what you may read.

Director Marc Forster has worked with screenwriter David Benioff, twice, on Stay and Kite Runner, but until the Quantum of Solace director sees a finished screenplay, he's just interested in Benioff's Kurt Cobain biopic.

In a sign that studios are in no mood to take any chances these days, Ridley Scott's Nottingham will now be called Robin Hood. Don't mess with a brand name. And Russell Crowe will not only be trim and fit, he will play just the one role, not two, Scott tells MTV News. Production starts in two months.

TRUE, DreamWorks' money woes have jeopardized Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which was to be his next picture after the currently filming TinTin, reports Kim Masters on Slate. EW has more.

TRUE, Zac Efron and Rob Pattinson will present on the Oscar show, but not together. The show will stress young Oscar attendees on the Red Carpet, hiding many others for a big reveal on the show itself. (TRUE, the Academy is trying to pull younger viewers.) TRUE, Dreamgirl Beyonce will sing, but new mother MIA will NOT sing on the Oscars. UPDATE: She might attend, though.

TRUE, Watchmen screens for junket press Tuesday night in L.A. Unfortunately, I have to do something else. Here's an early Time "non-review" and the latest clip:

Truth is, Geoff Gilmore has been looking to move on from running the Sundance Film Festival for some time. He has been toiling for 19 years in a powerful, influential job--in a non-profit sector. He was at one time attracted to the Warner Independent Pictures gig that went to Mark Gill. The good news with Gilmore's defection March 1 from director of the Sundance Fest to Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, which mounts the Tribeca Film Festival: he's still inside his wheelhouse. He isn't going to pretend to know how to produce or finance movies. But he is excited to be expanding into a bigger arena: New York City. "I've done it for 19 years," says Gilmore on the phone from Dublin. "I'm not sure how much more I could have accomplished. With the problems the film industry faces and what's going on in the independent world, it's the end of a 30-year cycle of growth. There's a distribution bottleneck. It's exciting to me to figure ways to address all that."

Gilmore is trading one movie star boss, Robert Redford, for another, Robert DeNiro. And as Sundance has expanded--and may have peaked--Gilmore now takes on a film fest that has room to mature and grow, having never really found its identity. Could Tribeca give the granddaddy New York Film Fest a run for its money? Peter Scarlet will continue running the 12-day fest, which gets under way April 22. "I think this is a great move for Geoff," said Fox Searchlight's Tony Safford, who preceded Gilmore as Sundance Fest director. "It's a big stage in a big city."

Film Independent's Dawn Hudson agrees that Gilmore can now "play on a very big canvas at Tribeca," she says. "He's such a big thinker and cinephile. He fits into Tribeca's ethos." As for Sundance, the fest has a deep bench, she says. "Over Geoff's time there, he built an institutionalized stable, an ongoing enterprise. There's a deep bench of talent. Sundance is always moving forward. It's good for everybody." Gilmore's long-time lieutenant John Cooper is widely expected to take the Sundance Fest reins.

Also, Gilmore is not just supervising the film fest. He's taking on a larger creative role, building the Tribeca brand. Gilmore has long been excited about the potential for finding a new digital distribution paradigm for indie filmmakers. He likes the idea of getting entrepreneurial, he says, of "seeing how the festival can be transformed into another platform. The independent arena is transforming itself. It's a global enterprise. The innovation comes out of technology that works globally."

How refreshing that escapist moviegoers are showing up in droves to see not-so-great movies in movie theaters. But while it's nice to think that the movie business is recession-proof, boffo ticket sales are not enough to keep the studios in clover. Just because the president's weekend boxoffice set new records doesn't mean that the overall Hollywood economy is strong. That's because theatrical b.o., once the lion's share of the studios' worldwide revenues--55% in 1980-- now accounts for about 20% of the domestic revenue pie, and some 45% of the worldwide total. Burgeoning DVD sales expanded the revenues the studios were pulling in, allowing budgets and star salaries to skyrocket. Well, those salad days are over.

So not only are the studios' parent companies hurting from the economy, but DVD sales are in decline--and not just because of the recession.

Coraline producer Bill Mechanic, ex-chairman of Twentieth Century Fox and ex-Disney homevideo czar, explains here.

Without those extra DVD dollars coming in, production and P & A budgets go down. The studios are trimming their sails.

Obviously, enough Academy members liked The Reader, David Hare and Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 international bestseller about post-World War II German "truth and reconciliation," to nominate it for five Oscars, including Best Picture.

But articulate naysayers, such as writer-director Rod Lurie, have serious issues with the movie's sympathetic portrayal of former Nazi guard Hanna Schmitz, played by Kate Winslet. Lurie even suggests that the movie aids Holocaust deniers.

Slate's Ron Rosenbaum begs Academy voters not to award The Reader an Oscar. And back in circulation is Cynthia Ozick's 1999 Commentary essay on Schlink, who targeted The Reader, which Schlink wrote for the German "Second Generation" trying to come to terms with how their elders behaved during World War II.

"It's not a Holocaust movie," insisted screenwriter David Hare during an industry Q and A session. "It's about how do people live in the shadow of the great crime?" Hare defended Lena Olin's portrayal of a concentration camp survivor as a sleekly successful woman: "I wanted for once on film to show someone who has come through strong, and made a completely different life."

Academy voters tend to favor Holocaust movies, from Life is Beautiful to Schindler's List. But these highly-charged arguments could sway them to change their minds on The Reader---assuming they read them before they voted (ballots are due February 17). And could these aspersions on the film cause Academy voters to rethink voting for Winslet, the film's most likely Oscar winner? Her acting ability is not in doubt. Nor does the movie redeem her character. I suspect that her Oscar votes are as much for a career that includes six Oscar noms and no wins as this role--not to mention Revolutionary Road.

There isn't much suspense building for this year's Oscar show on February 22--final ballots are due Tuesday, February 17--as the various guilds dole out their prizes. Anthony Dod Mantel nabbed the Society of Cinematographers prize for Slumdog Millionaire, while animated feature Wall-E, live-action feature Slumdog Millionaire and documentary Man on Wire won editing awards at the ACE Eddies. Slumdog is favored to win the cinematography and editing Oscars, and Man on Wire should score for best doc.

I always enjoy the Art Directors Guild awards, a black-tie affair at the Beverly Hilton, partly because I get a kick out of the anachronistic Johnny Crawford orchestra; the bandleader sings and swings just like Fred Astaire, top hat and all. He even had to play off the stage loquacious life achievement award winner Paul Sylbert (Heaven Can Wait), who looked like he could have talked all night.

Mainly I enjoy the clip reels from the past, such as this year's The Magnificent 100, a short celebrating 100 Years of production design from 1898 to 2000, highlighting films from Man in the Moon, Intolerance and Metropolis to The Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The ADG will release the 9-minute short in theaters.

Ron Howard paid tribute to Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award-winner George Lucas, whose Star Wars inspired the evening's glowing light saber decor--which was recycled for the later Eddies show. "Don't take the centerpieces," pleaded host Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad). Here are the ADG winners, led by contemporary winner Slumdog Millionaire, fantasy The Dark Knight and period The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Anyone wanting to learn more about the creation of this year's Oscar-nominated films should check out a cool panel on Saturday February 21 at 2:30 pm at Hollywood Boulevard's Egyptian Theatre, with production designers and set decorators from Changeling, Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Duchess, and Revolutionary Road.

Long ago and far away, I worked at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, brought in by Film Comment editor Richard Corliss to replace Brooks Riley as Associate Editor. This was during the last days of Richard Roud's rein at the New York Film Festival. After I fell in love with frequent FC contributor David Chute, who had taken a new job as second-string film critic to Peter Rainer at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, I joined my future husband in L.A.--and continued on as Film Comment's west coast editor (while doing various other things) until I joined EW in 1993.

The film society was the classic dysfunctional family. Decisions were made on the basis of Father Roud and Mother Joanne Koch's loyalties and needs, and on how things had always been done. That culture has endured through the years, under Koch and her successors, Film Fest director Richard Pena, and subsequent magazine editors Harlan Jacobson, Richard Jameson and Gavin Smith. Now ex-Hollywood studio exec Mara Manus, who by all accounts ran a tight ship at The Public Theatre, is cleaning house at the Film Society, reports Indiewire, with a recession at her back:

But those familiar with Mara Manus’s six-year tenure at the Public Theater suggest some of the staffing changes may be as much about asserting control as cost cutting.

While her economic track record at the Public has been heralded, nearly doubling the downtown theater institution’s budget and increasing individual support by 270% and subscriber revenue by 134%, Manus reportedly clashed with artistic director Oskar Eustis and was disliked by some staffers for her aloof corporate style, hierarchical approach, and hiring those who shared her views and firing or alienating those that didn’t.

Public Relations director Jeanne Berney moved on soon after the fall NYFF was over. And now people who worked there for decades are being axed, such as arts programmer Joanna Ney and administrator Sayre Maxfield. Out with the old. We'll see about the new.

Diablo Cody is not only the mother of Juno and the many faces of Tara but she has also spawned Jennifer's Body, starring hottie Megan Fox as a possessed mean-girl cheerleader gone very wrong. Think Carrie meets the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Karyn Kusama directs, Jason Reitman produces. (EW has a preview in their current issue which I can't find online.) It's due in the fall. UPDATE: And Cody is producing a script with Mason Novick called Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, written by ex-reader Geoff LaTulippe.

Never to waste a moment licking his Oscar wounds, Clint Eastwood talks to The Guardian about Gran Torino and his upcoming Mandela, based on the book by John Carlin. Morgan Freeman will star in the title role.

Trekmovie.com tours the new USS Enterprise. I know the J.J. Abrams movie looks commercial. It may charge up another next generation of fans. But this ship doesn't ring "Trek" to me. Isn't that important here?

An Education's Carey Mulligan is the toast not only of Sundance, but Berlin.

Variety owner Reed Elsevier negotiates to extend its loans.

I've already sent out a couple of valentines from Fox's Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs site promoting the latest CG comedy from Chris Wedge's Blue Sky. This one is not only 3-D, but Scrat falls in love.

Here's the official trailer: the movie is due July 4.

UPDATE: Carrie Rickey recommends her fave Valentine's Day DVDs.

When I first heard of Twitter, I had the same response as NYT tech writer David Pogue: Do I really need another distraction? But I use it. I don't exploit it as much as I could (I should tweet more often), but I skim through my twitterfeed and grab the occasional quick hit for the blog--yesterday I got Crispin Glover's Letterman appearance from Jason Calacanis. When I have something newsy that I want everyone to see instantly: that's when I Twitter.

The Oscar producers are starting to leak things--on purpose, natch--to whet our appetites for Oscar night. It's called marketing. Between Academy president Sid Ganis and producer Laurence Mark, these guys know what they're doing. So what better way to draw some fans to the kudocast than to invite some Twilight stars to participate? And even if Peter Gabriel is out, the very pregnant MIA may be in. UPDATE: MIA gave birth to a healthy baby boy Wednesday. Which gives her time to get ready for the Oscars...

EW Oscar-watcher Dave Karger doesn't go out on a limb with his Oscar predictions. This is the safe line, all the way; he's going with the obvious front-runners. But brave forecasters with a shot at winning their office Oscar pools will make a few deviations from the norm. There's always a surprise or two.

Here's Karger's list, with notes in caps from me:

Here's another Letterman classic: Crispin Glover.

And Farrah Fawcett:

Compare to the current example, Joaquin Phooenix. UPDATE: Chris Willman examines the real vs. faux possibility that it's all fodder for Casey Affleck's mockumentary.

[Hat Tip: Jason Calacanis]

Next up: On March 21, the Twilight DVD hits stores, and on March 27, Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart's new movies open: he plays Salvador Dalí in the arty biopic Little Ashes, while she goes for laughs in Sundance entry Adventureland.

When I run into my fellow journos on the town, they look at me with palpable anxiety. I'm a reminder of their worst fear: losing their staff jobs. (The ranks of media freelancers are expanding rapidly.) And many of the people I'm talking about are stars, writers who by any measure are hard-working and successful. Some are veterans who expected to finish out their careers at their paper, others are young rising careerists. All are scared.

At Entertainment Weekly's party at the Sunset Tower (where Vanity Fair is throwing its Oscar party this year) to celebrate Jess Cagle's new gig as editor, the conversation surrounding attendees Jeffrey Katzenberg, Oscar producer Laurence Mark, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, producer Scott Stuber and his former partner, MGM's Mary Parent, PR folks and staffers from EW, was about how the economy was going to effect them. In a declining ad market, EW isn't immune to more layoffs either.

What is the future for magazines, when even film students at USC don't read EW? The magazine has always relentlessly chased young readers; I'd like to see it embrace a more sophisticated approach to its aging culture-vulture demo, at least in print. Cagle, who worked at EW when I was there in the 90s, spent years at People, one of the few mags with a rising circulation, so he knows a thing or two about pulling in readers.

Newsweek is giving up on trying to chase news in a print weekly. The paper is lowering its circulation base and going after charging more for its core aging readership:

Thirteen months ago, Newsweek lowered its rate base, the circulation promised to advertisers, to 2.6 million from 3.1 million, and Mr. Ascheim said that would drop to 1.9 million in July, and to 1.5 million next January.
He says the magazine has a core of 1.2 million subscribers who are its best-educated, most avid consumers of news, and who have higher incomes than the average reader.
“We would like to build our business around these people and grow that group slightly,” he said. “These are our best customers. They are our best renewers, and they pay the most.”
In the first half of 2008, the average Newsweek subscriber paid less than $25 a year, or 47 cents for each copy — less than one-tenth the $4.95 newsstand price. Newsweek wants to raise that average to $50 a year, Mr. Ascheim said, adding, “If you can’t get people to pay for what they love, we’re all out of business.”

Meanwhile, more layoffs are hitting the Chicago Tribune. Over the past year, reports Ad Age, the advertising and media industry represents a hefty percentage of all layoffs nationwide. The industry cut staff by 3.9%, or 65,100 jobs, since the recession began in December 2007. The areas that have expanded: marketing consultants, PR firms, online search, cable TV and internet media.

This year's global collection of Oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts is impressive indeed. Shorts International started releasing them (on two separate 92-minute programs) in theatres in L.A. on February 6 and will continue to roll out other cities. They're well worth seeing.

Here are reviews from the NYT's A.O. Scott, Kris Tapley, and cinemascopian, which posts five of the six animated shorts on one handy page.

Of the animated shorts, I adored the breathlessly comedic octopus chase Oktapodi, which was made by UCLA student Emud Mokhberi on a low budget with a team of French co-directors. It goes up against the costlier Presto, a delightful rascally rabbit vs. uppity magician comedy crammed with Pixar magic, which is pretty hard to top. But the one that grabbed my emotions was the Japanese La Maison en Petits Cubes, which will move the older members of the Academy with its brilliant concept: an old man keeps adding more bricks to his house, trying to keep his living space above the rising water. When he dives down through the floors of the tower he has constructed over decades, each flooded space calls up memories of his lost wife and family. Sob.

All of the live-action shorts made me cry. (I'm easy.) Each one tugs at the heart strings. On the Line is about a lunky German security guard in love with a co-worker; he likes spying on her from the safety of his security cameras. He is more comfortable watching other people than engaging with anyone--with tragic results. I was also taken by the moodily French Manon of the Asphalt, about a young woman who watches over her friends' reactions to her bicycle accident.

My favorite of the lot, The New Boy, was adapted by writer-director Steph Green from a story by Roddy Doyle about a nine-year-old emigre from Africa who endures a rite-of-passage at his new Brit school. It's sharp, succinct, funny, gorgeous.

My pick to win, though, is the World War II period drama, Spielzeugland (Toyland). Why? It'll hit the Academy Holocaust sweet spot.

The most remarkable thing about the top-ranked players in the Forbes Star Currency list (which measures power, money and fame) is that Angelina Jolie competes head-on with Johnny Depp, her partner Brad Pitt, and Will Smith. It helps that she nabbed an Oscar nom for Changeling. But she's ranked so high because of Wanted. She nabbed $15 million to anchor that movie, because she's an action star, the first ever to compete on a level playing field with her male peers. The studios will even give Jolie a role written for a man: she replaced Tom Cruise in Phil Noyce's upcoming studio thriller Edwin A. Salt.

There was a time when movie audiences would not accept a woman with a gun. James Cameron's kick-ass heroines Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton were understood to be fighting to save the world--and protect children. Somehow, from Tomb Raider to going mano a mano with Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie has been able to push the limits for women in action.

There is a downside to Jolie's action stardom, though, just as there is with Cruise. She's bigger than life. She's a huge celebrity. She's distracting.

Cruise and Jolie can be formidable in big movie star vehicles. Jolie was the only actor in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow who could comfortably inhabit that stylized fake universe. But what happens when she plays a real character in A Mighty Heart, Changeling or The Good Shepherd? No matter how skillfully she performs, she's still Angelina Jolie.

Big movie stars are a distraction, especially when they are asked to be authentic real people, based on true stories, in naturalistic dramas. Cruise never quite disappeared into his role as heroic Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie. In theory the movie could have been made with a less well-known actor (who could have done the German accent), for less money and potentially more profit. (But Cruise was able to get it made.)

Meanwhile, Cruise is trying to claw his way back into commercial contention with The Tourist, Bharat Nalluri's remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, co-starring Charlize Theron, for Spyglass, and he's also in talks to star opposite Denzel Washington in David Cronenberg's film adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel The Matarese Circle, for MGM (not UA). This should be well-tailored to the Cruise persona.

There's little question that audiences want to see stars like Jolie and Cruise in movie star mode. And for the moment, both seem inclined to give them what they want.

I take no pleasure in watching this train wreck of a performance on David Letterman. I love Joaquin Phoenix's work in Two Lovers--but the folks marketing the movie should ever have put a guy in the shape that Phoenix is in on national television. He could barely talk. I hope he gets his act together. Soon. "I'll come to your house and chew gum," said a pissed off Letterman. "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight. We owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett."

UPDATE: Two Lovers director James Gray writes his farewell to Phoenix as actor.

The Academy is using some old marketing tricks to lure viewers to the Oscarcast on February 22: mystery guests who aren't announced in advance and don't walk the red carpet; a possible in memoriam song by Queen Latifah. And host Hugh Jackman, interviewed by ontheredcarpet.com, promises a "twist." I'm there (literally on the red carpet Oscar night). But will these gambits work, as many of the films in contention flounder at the boxoffice--in desperate need of Oscar gold? Many Oscar-watchers think Slumdog Millionaire can't be stopped as it threatens to sweep. At least Mickey vs. Sean and Penelope vs. Viola are building some suspense--which is in short supply indeed.

In Contention rounds up the latest Oscar scuttlebutt.