I scarfed up Peter Biskind's Vanity Fair cover story on Heath Ledger (which is finally online). It all makes (tragic) sense. Ledger was yet another gifted performer (from Judy Garland on) who was far happier in the zone in front of the camera than anywhere else. He pushed himself too hard. And he sought comfort (and sleep) from drugs.

The people who knew Ledger well loved him. And he had a special bond with director Terry Gilliam. Biskind's story makes me really regret that I missed The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which played late in the Cannes festival after I left. Gilliam sent me an invite to a screening---in London. The movie still doesn't have a domestic distributor. It sounds like the quintessential Gilliam movie. Gilliam was my first published Q & A in Film Comment in 1981, at the time of Time Bandits.

So I will have to settle for selected footage at Comic-Con next week, and maybe some Gilliam access. And hope that someone steps up to release the movie.

Who came out ahead and behind on their Cannes jaunt this year?

Disney

The studio won big by using Cannes as the European launch for Pixar’s Up. John Lasseter and Pete Docter had the time of their lives being treated seriously by the most prestigious festival in the world, which gave them some auteur cred they wouldn’t get any other way. At Disney’s after-party on the Carlton pier, Lasseter got misty-eyed. “It’s one of the greatest things to happen in our careers,” he said. The often stuffy festival stepped up to the times, passing out 3-D glasses to the opening night black-tie glitterati at the Palais.

Disney also took advantage of the global media to introduce the motion capture pic Christmas Carol, bringing director Bob Zemeckis and Jim Carrey to the Croisette for a snowy photo opportunity. (I remember meeting Carrey for the first time when he came to Cannes to promo The Mask.)

Miramax

On the other hand, it’s utterly depressing that Disney may be putting its specialty subsidiary Miramax on the block. Studio boss Robert Iger wants to stick to his family-movie brand/theme park mandate, and Miramax doesn’t fit with its other businesses. While the studio denies the unit is for sale, their asking price is said to be $1.2 billion; buyers are interested, especially in the Tiffany library built by the Weinsteins, but are waiting for the price to come down.

Miramax topper Daniel Battsek has done a solid if not spectacular job, including Oscar winners Tsotsi and No Country for Old Men. But many projects were too pricey to turn a profit in the tough specialty market. Battsek kept a low profile on the Croisette this year, with no buys announced. As Harvey and Bob Weinstein struggle in a sour economy to keep their company afloat, the irony is that if they had not only raised but made some money, they might have been able to afford to buy their company back.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein

15 years after Pulp Fiction, the brothers brought Quentin Tarantino to the Cannes main competition with the raucous World War II drama Inglourious Basterds. Loaded with expectations (always a dicey position) the movie played fine for the global press, especially with its top-notch European cast, but will face a tougher time at home in a challenging environment for specialty pictures. To Tarantino’s credit, he shot it in four languages, French, Italian, German and English. The movie breaks out French actors Denis Menochet (who stars in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood) and Melanie Laurent as well as German actors Daniel Bruhl, Diane Kruger and language whiz Christoph Waltz (who won best actor). Here's Hollywood Wiretap.

Less interesting in some ways are the titular Basterds, led by a one-note Brad Pitt as a Nazi hunter, supported by Eli Roth and Til Schweiger. It feels like this part of the movie was given short shrift. Tarantino, who was in a rush to Cannes, now has some time to fine-tune his film. Irish actor Michael Fassbender (who also scored in Fish Tank) may get a new scene when Tarantino returns to the editing room. At two hours and 27 minutes, Tarantino has final cut.

The Weinsteins also debuted for buyers and press a featurette made by Rob Marshall of his musical Nine, which was adapted by the late Anthony Minghella from the Broadway musical inspired by Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. In the role of the womanizing director having a midlife crisis (played on-stage by Raul Julia and Antonio Banderas) is Daniel Day Lewis, who looks handsome and charismatic in the movie. (Yes, he sports an Italian accent. And sings. And dances.) Much of the story, like Marshall’s Oscar-winning Chicago, unfolds in the director’s mind as he muses over the women in his life: his mother (Sophia Loren), the village prostitute (Fergie), lover (Nicole Kidman), wife (Marion Cotillard), mistress (Penelope Cruz), interviewer (Kate Hudson) and costume designer (Judi Dench). The movie looks sumptuous, elaborate, visually dazzling. It also looks expensive, and was shot in London and Cinecitta (estimates range from $80 to 90 million). The risk for the Weinsteins: is there a market big enough to pay back the cost of a studio-scale all-stops-out musical? The movie opens during awards season, November 25.

There’s good advance word on John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron, but it looks like a narrow niche up-market film. While the Weinsteins may get what they want: renewed cred from a series of well-reviewed movies that might make it into the Oscar race, these days, that can be as much a curse as a blessing, as Oscar campaigns can turn a profitable movie into a money loser.

Bob Berney, Bill Pohlad, Jane Campion

Ex-Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and his new partner Bill Pohlad made official their new distribution combine, which will enter the middle ground between art-house distributors Sony Pictures Classics, IFC and Magnolia and remaining studio subsidiaries Fox Searchlight, Miramax and Focus Features. Berney and Pohlad (who are waiting for their company name to clear) boldly acquired all U.S. rights to Jane Campion’s Bright Star sight unseen ahead of the fest (for about $2.5 million). They saw the film two weeks ahead of Cannes, where it played well, but won no prizes. While Berney plans to target young women (it will also score with Anglophiles, Jane Austen fans, and the Academy), the movie is an austere and tragic love story that lacks mainstream appeal. But the two stars, Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, are potential breakouts. After a six-year-gap, Campion reestablishes herself as a major director. But she has never been a particularly commercial one.

Sony Pictures Classics and Pedro Almodovar

Steady as they go, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard came out of Cannes having landed the top two prize winners, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet. They came into the fest with Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, starring Penelope Cruz, which is not the best of the Spanish auteur’s films, but is more fun to watch than most flicks. It was not a factor with the jury, either. But it wasn’t hurt by being in the festival, which sorely needed the combined star power of the director and Cruz.

While American art-house audiences don’t pay much attention to Cannes prizes, they do push the films' countries of origin to submit them for the foreign language Oscar. Thus SPC now has two more potential Oscar submissions for next year, from Germany and France. The Envelope looks at how Cannes impacts the Oscar race.

Word from the Cannes jury is that the votes were often split along director vs. actor lines. (UPDATE: Actress-director Asia Argento said it was more male vs.female; well, except for her, the directors were male.) This makes sense, as actors, writers and directors think very differently. As the reportedly fractious group, led by French actress Isabelle Huppert, talked over the selections (in English) three times during the fest--they saw 20 films-- they eliminated certain films that didn't raise enough votes, like Bright Star and Broken Embraces. Inglourious Basterds and Antichrist were more admired by the actors than the directors, while Fish Tank and Thirst were directors' pictures--and split the jury prize. The votes on the top two films, The White Ribbon and A Prophet were very close. But no award was unanimous. The most contentious debate was over best director Brilliante Mendoza, for Kinatay, which critics despised. The jurors weren't allowed to talk to anyone, and during deliberations, they even gave up their cell phones.

Focus Features and Ang Lee

The decision to bring a filmmaker to the fest is a calculation that, in the case of Focus and Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, backfired. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly and with some marketing fixes it could play well in the United States. It is an utterly American movie, culturally sophisticated, sweet and tender, mood-shifting, and fun. Screenwriter James Schamus (and Focus topper) and Lee nail the period. “It was a time when people had t-shirts that didn’t have logos on them,” Lee says.

Schamus and Lee explore the cultural moment that Woodstock crystallized—the ways that old and new were clashing and changing. This behind-the-scenes drama focuses on a family dynamic: two uptight Jewish parents (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) and their vibrant, closeted gay son (Demetri Martin) who, when shoved up against the counterculture, breaks out of their world. Comedy Central star Martin never dreamed of a movie career, but the real discovery is radiant theater actor Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang. Most of the time, Lee and Schamus found that lingo from the period didn’t play, and cut much of it out. But when Groff said words like “groovy” and “far out,” he did so with such conviction that they left them in.

Taking Woodstock is not the sort of movie that goes over well at Cannes. It isn’t even what you’d call a critics’ picture. Lee must have wanted to come to the festival that had always treated him well. He probably wishes now that he hadn’t.

UPDATE: Focus came out ahead with its other Cannes entry, Park Chan-Wook's jury-prize-co-winner Thirst, which is already a hit in South Korea and will likely be a strong genre contender when Focus releases it stateside later this year. Focus Features International continues to be one of the strongest foreign sales companies, because it boasts the A-list projects (like Almodovar's Broken Embraces and the latest pics from Sam Mendes, Roberto Begnini, Zhang Yimou, Sofia Coppola and Noah Baumbach) everyone still wants to buy. "We're flying on all cylinders," says Schamus. "We've got our fingers in so many little pies all over the world."

Alejandro Amenabar's Agora

This Egyptian period drama cost $50 million Euros--and needed Cannes support. It didn't get it. The reviews were mixed, although Rachel Weisz managed to survive. The buyers waited on the sidelines for the price to decline. Clearly, even name stars and a big budget do not guarantee an American sale. Producers can't count on North American money any more. The Wrap looks at the Cannes economy.

IFC: Lars von Trier and Ken Loach

IFC came into the fest having bought the three-part Red Riding Trilogy, and then picked up Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, which built up a swell of want-to-see from Cannes controversy. IFC will show the movie uncut in a few U.S. cinemas and then trim it—working with the director—to show it on VOD. Honestly? It’s a movie-as-therapy that helped to pull Danish director von Trier out of a bout of depression that threatened to keep him from making movies. He indulged himself completely; the movie is a well-made, manipulative mess. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg give their all; she totally deserved the best actress prize. Any student of von Trier will want to see the movie. The distrib also picked up the feel-good movie of Cannes, Ken Loach's Waiting for Eric, starring soccer player Eric Cantona.

Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

The reviews were kind (here's Variety), suggesting that Gilliam returned to form with his latest film--despite losing Heath Ledger in mid-shoot, replaced by Johnn Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. American buyers, who saw the film in L.A. and NY before the festival, or attended an early screening in the market, were playing a waiting game. Nobody is taking risks any more.

Oscilloscope

Adam Yauch's neophyte distrib Oscilloscope Labs bought North American rights to a Cannes film in the official selection, a doc, natch, Michel Gondry’s look at his own family, The Thorn in the Heart.

Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro

Finally, Francis Ford Coppola is rebuilding his career and used a little Cannes pixie dust to help him do it. No, he didn't pull Tetro into the competition. But he opened the Director's Fortnight and was welcomed there. The movie, which he wrote himself with an autobiographical flair, was deemed an improvement over his last, Youth Without Youth, and more accessible and personal than anything he has done in some time. You can sense a filmmaker testing his chops, feeling his way. The next one could be even better. Hopefully he'll stay away from Vincent Gallo. He's toxic.

My Cannes Ten Best Films:

1. Up (check out Rotten Tomatoes reviews)

2. Mr. Hulot's Holiday

3. Fish Tank

4. Drag Me to Hell

5. Bright Star

6. The White Ribbon

7. Taking Woodstock

8. Humpday

9. Samson and Delilah

10. Inglourious Basterds

Disappointments:

11. Broken Embraces

12. Antichrist

13. Tetro

14. I Love You Philip Morris

UPDATE: Here are the results of IndieWire's poll of 16 English-language film writers. And IFC rounds up the Cannes wrap-ups.

Cannes has posted the screening schedule (it's on the jump). Unfortunately for Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus doesn't screen until Friday the 22nd. Most buyers will be burned out and gone by Thursday. Will the sellers arrange an early buyer's screening like the one last year for Synecdoche, New York? It's better to have the positive power of the press behind you with a risky challenge of a movie, methinks. Isn't that what festivals are for?

Cinetic Media's John Sloss has already showed the movie to buyers in L.A. in hopes of scoring an early sale. Because Parnassus boasts Heath Ledger's last performance, there will be offers to buy the film. The question is how much they'll be willing to pay. One studio specialty distrib not interested in acquiring Parnassus suggested that Sony Pictures Classics was the perfect buyer. UPDATE: Indeed, SPC will see the movie in NYC before Cannes.

The latest attack of the Rick Astley meme has targeted The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam movie featuring Heath Ledger's last performance, set to unveil at Cannes:

So far there are over 15,000 clicks on this super-lame video and the comments are growing hostile. A Rickroll Database is devoted to combating the distraction meme. Or is it promoting it?

Here's the real Dr. Parnassus trailer and website:

Here's the latest internal Variety memo from Jon Weisman updating critics' group awards:

Surging: Heath Ledger and "Let the Right One In"

Honorors of the Day: Toronto Film Critics
Honorees of the Day: "Wendy (You had the dogfood money in your pocket!) and Lucy" and Jonathan (Twenty Minutes of Wedding Toasts) Demme

- Jon

PICTURE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
St. Louis Film Critics

“The Dark Knight”
Austin Film Critics

“Happy-Go-Lucky”
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

"Milk"
New York Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics

"Slumdog Millionaire"
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Boston Society of Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics Society
San Diego Critics SocietySatellite Awards (drama)
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

"Wall-E"
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Los Angeles Film Critics

“Wendy and Lucy”
Toronto Film Critics

ACTOR
Clint Eastwood
National Board of Review

Ricky Gervais
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Richard Jenkins
Satellite Awards (drama)

Sean Penn
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Austin Film Critics Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle (tie)
Southeastern Film Critics

Mickey Rourke
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
San Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle (tie)
Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway
Austin Film Critics Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
National Board of Review
Southeastern Film Critics

Sally Hawkins
Alliance of Women Film Journalists (tie)
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Angelina Jolie
Satellite Awards (drama)

Meryl Streep
Phoenix Film Critics SocietyWashington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Michelle Williams
Toronto Film Critics

Kate Winslet
Alliance of Women Film Journalists (tie)
St. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics Society

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin
New York Film Critics
National Board of Review

Heath Ledger
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Austin Film Critics Boston Society of Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Michael Shannon
Satellite Awards

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
National Board of Review
Southeastern Film Critics

Viola Davis
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
St. Louis Film Critics

Rosemarie DeWitt
Satellite Awards
Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Taraji P. Henson
Austin Film Critics

Marisa Tomei
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySan Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle

DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online (with Loveleen Tandan)
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics SocietySatellite Awards
Southeastern Film Critics Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Jonathan Demme
Toronto Film Critics

David Fincher
National Board of Review

Mike Leigh
New York Film Critics

Christopher Nolan
Austin Film Critics

Gus Van Sant
Boston Society of Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle

I'm not a big fan of live-blogging, but it does work occasionally, as NY Post critic-blogger Lou Lumenick demonstrates with his play-by-play reporting of the New York Film Critics's divisive voting this morning.

Thus, Rachel Getting Married led the first two ballots and Milk pulled ahead on the third, followed by Happy-Go-Lucky and Slumdog Millionaire; Milk star Sean Penn handily beat The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke; Milk's Josh Brolin beat out The Dark Knight's Heath Ledger; and documentary Oscar front-runner Man on Wire beat out Waltz with Bashir and Trouble the Water. Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Penelope Cruz easily defeated Viola Davis of Doubt; third place was a tie between Rachel Getting Married's Rosemary DeWitt and Debra Winger. Happy-Go-Lucky writer-director Mike Leigh narrowly edged out Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle. Wall-E took best animated feature over Waltz with Bashir.

Here's Lumenick on how the best actress vote went down, which helps explain the ballot process:

Sally Hawkins of "Happy-Go-Lucky'' won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress as voting got under way this morning at the Time-Life Building. Hawkins won on the second weighted ballot, receiving 39 points to 32 points for Melissa Leo of "Frozen River,'' with Kate Winslet ("Revolutionary Road'') and Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married'') with 22 apiece. In the NYFCC's convoluted voting system, the critics make one choice apiece n the first round. If nothing captures a majority, there follows one or more weighted ballots, each critic ranks choices with 3, 2, and 1 points; the winner also has to appear on the majority of ballots until the fouth ballot (if there is one) -- in Hawkins' case, 18 ballots.

OSCAR ANALYSIS
Finally, the critics voting solidifies my thinking re: the Oscar race. The Golden Globes may add some fuel tomorrow, but for now I see Milk as the front-runner for best picture, followed by Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Doubt and Revolutionary Road fighting it out for last two slots. Penn may be the front-runner now, but the man he has to beat is Clint Eastwood, who gives a devastating performance in Gran Torino. The Academy will be moved to tears by him. Mickey Rourke looks solid for a nom. The Visitor's Richard Jenkins could have used more help here.

Thanks to critics, Sally Hawkins and Melissa Leo are moving into best actress contention, while I've Loved You So Long's Kristin Scott Thomas may not. Changeling's Angelina Jolie is fading fast. Milk's Josh Brolin and James Franco could both win supporting slots.

Revolutionary Road will be in the hunt for picture, director, adapted screenplay, actress, actor and supporting actor. But the grim, serious drama needs some love at this point, especially from critics. And may get it.

The Reader, which may have a shot for Kate Winslet in supporting and David Hare for adapted screenplay, has a long way to go. It got slammed by critics today, earning an initial 54 % on Metacritic. That is not good enough. It needs all the help it can get.

Doubt has the support of the dominant actors branch and likely the writers (if not directors); it will be vying for actress, supporting actress, supporting actor and adapted screenplay.

Much as I admire Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days, it strikes me as oddly perverse for the NYFCC to throw their foreign vote away on a movie that is only available on DVD at this point, rather than trying to boost the theatrical and Oscar fortunes of a new upcoming release. But it's a free country.

The full list of winners is on the jump:

As Chris Nolan worked the room at Warner Bros.' Oscar-season party at Il Cielo for The Dark Knight, he looked as relaxed as I've ever seen him. That's because for the first time in six years, he's not working on a movie. He's been going over old files, reading, rewriting a seven-year-old original script that he wrote at a time when he hadn't done a big-budget studio movie. Now he has, so he's scaling it back. And he's enjoying the luxury, he says, "of just noodling around."

The LAT's Rachel Abramowitz was at the same party, collecting string for this Heath Ledger piece.

[Joker Oscar courtesy InContention.com]

This Dark Knight Joker poster is brilliant. UPDATE: It's available on t-shirts. I just bought four for Christmas presents.

Another of my mash-up faves is on the jump:

[Posted by David S. Cohen]
Entertainment Weekly is making no secret of their unhappiness with corporate cousin Warner Bros. for letting them put Harry Potter on the Fall Preview cover and then moving the film to July '09.

"EW and Warner Bros. share a parent company, but they clearly do not share, you know, important friggin’ information," blogs Jeff Giles.

But that works both ways.

Earlier this summer, when I set out to write my preview article on The Dark Knight, Warner publicists put one condition on the interviews: No one would talk about the death of Heath Ledger. Since that angle didn't interest me, I readily agreed. There seemed to be jitters in Burbank that the story would seem ghoulish and scare people away.

Then the EW cover story on The Dark Knight came out all about, you guessed it, Heath Ledger's death. So I call the Warner publicists to complain that they were just trying to feed their corporate cousin an exclusive. But they were as unhappy about that cover story as EW is about Warner moving Harry Potter, and in fact said basically the same thing Giles said: Warner is Warner, EW is EW, EW does what it does like any other media outlet. They insisted that they hadn't signed off on or collaborated with EW on the Heath-Ledger-is-dead TDK cover story, and that EW had assembled the story from snippets of interviews conducted under other pretenses.

The bright side, I guess, is that this proves EW has some editorial independence.

It's a strange high-low time, as industry folks batten down the hatches in the face of tighter credit and an unresolved de facto SAG strike. There's unemployment, fewer movies being made, agency attrition, layoffs across many companies, and yet the summer b.o. is going strong, and breaking records.

Despite its grim take on the world and two and a half hour running time, The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's follow-up to Batman Begins, broke b.o. records: its estimated $155 million gross was the best three-day opening ever, beating Spider-Man 3's $151 million in 2007. (It scored 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, narrowly beating Iron Man's 93%.) Another funny thing happened at the summer boxoffice: movies that nabbed good reviews lasted longer in theaters than the ones that got creamed. There is hope for us yet.

The Top Ten boxoffice cumes to date this summer, with Rotten Tomatoes scores, are:

1. Iron Man $314.4M 93%

2 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $312.5M 76%

3. Kung Fu Panda $206.5M 88%

4. Hancock $191.5M 38%

5. Wall-E $182.5M 96%

6. Dark Knight $155.3M 94%

7. Sex and the City: The Movie $149.8M 51%

8. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian $139.3M 66%

9. Incredible Hulk $131.7M 67%

10. Wanted $123.3M 73%

Clearly, Hancock, starring fluke zone star Will Smith, is the 2008 exception that proves the rule.

Meanwhile women and Abba fans gave the musical Mamma Mia! a respectable $27.6 million opening estimate. Thanks to strong holdover business from Journey to the Center of the Earth, Wall-E and others, the weekend broke the record for a non-holiday gross with a total $250 million. Hellboy took a hit from direct fanboy competitor Dark Knight, declining 71%.

Here are weekend b.o. reports from Variety and Fantasy Moguls, which argues the case for a best picture Oscar for The Dark Knight:

Everyone seems to lament the ever-eroding ratings for Hollywood's biggest night. They blame the host and the length of acceptance speeches, but the real reason, in my opinion, is the obscurity of some of the selections. One role of the Oscars is certainly to champion smaller films, but the awards should also recognize the year's best popular entertainment. The Dark Knight and Wall-E are both Oscar caliber movies in my mind. Last year, there should have been a Best Picture slot for The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal). If the industry wants a return to its rating glory, voters should not narrow their list of nominees exclusively to small, well-reviewed art films.

I suspect The Dark Knight will wind up with many Oscar nominations, mainly in the technical categories, as well as Heath Ledger's supporting actor slot. Best picture? I don't know about that. As for Pixar's lauded Wall-E, here's why the animated film will find tough sledding en route to a best picture Oscar.

Finally, I would have preferred to see The Dark Knight in 35 mm, not IMAX. (I will go see it again when it opens July 18.) While the sequences that were shot with giant cameras were stunning at the IMAX venue--especially the deep detailed helicopter shots over Gotham and the amazing car/truck chase filmed in Chicago's freeway tunnels--I found the movie overwhelming. My brain starts to shut down when it gets over-pixillated, and this film goes on for two and a half hours. (Here's Justin Chang's review.)

My instincts told me when I first saw The Dark Knight trailer: Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins follow-up would fall into the trap of the summer tentpole sequel. It's not entirely his fault. The studio gives him his marching orders: top the last one. Make it bigger, better, bolder, more FX, more action, more scale and scope and characters (read toys). What else should a poor boy to do with $180 million?

Nolan delivered on the first Batman reboot and he does it again here. The Dark Knight will work at the boxoffice and keep the franchise alive.

In many ways, this movie functions as a western, with an honorable sheriff (Gary Oldman's lovable police detective Gordon), a nasty outlaw (Heath Ledger's extraordinary, anarchistic Joker), a lone gunman hero operating outside the law (Christian Bale's Batman) with loyal veteran sidekick (Michael Caine as Alfred), and the lovely lass that the outsider cannot have (Rachel Dawes, the delightful and wily Maggie Gyllenhaal).

And then--here's where the movie starts to go off the tracks--we have Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, the too-virtuous-to-be-true D.A. who is in love with Gyllenhaal, thus forming a love triangle, as well as another Batman accomplice, inventor Lucius Fox (read James Bond's Q), played by the over-exposed Morgan Freeman. Then add a bunch of mafia guys led by deliciously wicked Eric Roberts.

Somehow, David S. Goyer (who wrote the story), and screenwriter Nolan brothers Chris and Jonathan manage to play out all these plot strands. But they wind up with a half-hour finale on top of the two hour main movie, which is really about Batman vs. Joker, who wind up in an iconic face-off on a main street in Gotham. (Ledger dominates Dark Knight news coverage, natch. The LAT addresses the movie from that angle, while EW goes way overboard. Clearly, Warners is making an Oscar push for the film. Ledger's acting nomination is inevitable; while James Dean and others have been nominated after their deaths, only Network's Peter Finch has won a posthumous Oscar.)

Oddly, because The Dark Knight is busy servicing all these other characters, the movie doesn't spend enough time with its leading man, Bruce Wayne/Batman (BTW, Batman's basso-growly voice is silly).

After twists and turns aplenty, some more satisfying than others, the movie comes to a gratifying conclusion (setting up the next sequel). But while Eckhart is winning as Dent, his character detour as Two-Face does not pay off.

I suspect that the filmmakers should have figured out the shorter version of this movie before they shot it, not after, because by then they couldn't cut it, according to Nolan (the full Q & A from one of my Guild spies is on the jump). Nolan shot The Prestige before he came back to work on the final drafts of the script. And by then he was locked into studio-mandated start and delivery and release dates.

My fantasy of the ideal version of this movie doesn't matter a whit, because it will play. The complexities of the plot are more fun to talk about than anything since Wall-E or Iron Man, and that makes Dark Knight one of the best movies of the summer. Maybe some dark over-nourishment is better than a simpler, structurally perfect masterpiece, after all.

The folks at Wired have posted a nice juicy Dark Knight production story/Chris Nolan interview. I'm working on seeing the movie--there's an L.A. junket this weekend--where they will be screening the pic in IMAX for folks who are doing interviews at the junket. I tend to stay away from junkets, roundtables etc. But I want in!

UPDATE: They're overbooked for the screening, actually turning people who thought they were coming away. The IMAX rooms are smaller than usual, it seems. :-(

They'll let us into their trade screening next week, they say. And meanwhile Rolling Stone has what Richard Roeper would call an "early review." It's a rave.

Here's the new HD The Dark Knight trailer. Michael Caine seems to be getting most of the jokes. These quotes popped out:

"It's simple: kill the Batman." -- Heath Ledger as The Joker

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." --Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent

Here's a new photo from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due in theaters November 21.

Here's more on the final two Harry Potter movie installments and Hollywood's love affair with the sequel from CBS News:

John Hurt gives some scoop on Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

At ShoWest, Christian Bale talks about The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger:

And the NYP looks into George Lucas's move into TV with Star Wars and Clone Wars, which is also going to be an animated movie.

Every year ShoWest screens an honor reel of movies that grossed over $100-million the year before. Which of the 2008 ShoWest promo pics will be on next year's reel?

Based on what I saw and reactions gleaned, here's my best guess:

Movie that could pass $300 million: the sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which will likely improve on its predecessor with more action and more mature protagonists.

Movies that could go well past $200 million: sequels The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, starring Harrison Ford and Shia LeBeouf, Rob Cohen's China-shot Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, and Guillermo del Toro's epic-scale actioner Hellboy II: The Golden Army; plus non-sequels Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman as assassins training rookie James McAvoy, the invulnerable Will Smith as a homeless hero in Hancock, Judd Apatow's dumb male comedy Step Brothers, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, Marvel's Iron Man, which boasts femme appeal via Robert Downey Jr. and co-star Gwenyth Paltrow, and animated family originals Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks Animation) and Wall-E (Disney/Pixar).

Movies that could break $100 million: a remake of Marvel's The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton as a thinking man's Bruce Banner; for the femme audience, a remake of the HBO classic Sex and the City, a remake of the boomer TV show Get Smart, starring Steve Carell and Ann Hathaway, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's surrogate nightmare comedy Baby Mama, and a movie version of the Broadway musical Mamma Mia (also for musical fans); Judd Apatow factory comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express; Ben Stiller's starry R-rated action comedy Tropic Thunder, starring Stiller, Downey, Jack Black and Steve Coogan; the frere Wachowski's adaptation of the anime classic Speed Racer, starring Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci; and George Lucas's animated sequel Star Wars: The Clone Wars. (Am I the only one who feels a shock that the film is going out through Warners? Even though Lucasfilm controls and markets the movies and collects the lions' share of the take, I feel like all Star Wars movies are supposed to have the Fox fanfare in front of them.)

As reported, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell are playing different aspects of Heath Ledger's character in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which has resumed filming in Vancouver. Here's the website.

Summer 2008 is jam-packed with movies vying for screens every weekend from the start of May through Labor Day. Pamela McClintock lays out the stakes.

One summer tentpole has some issues to get past, due to the untimely death of its Joker, Heath Ledger. Batman Begins director Chris Nolan talks about The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's The Joker to the NYT, which has the French trailer for Le Chevalier Noir on its site. The movie opens July 18. UPDATE: As Nolan will be accepting the director of the year prize from exhibitors at the ShoWest convention on Thursday, Variety's Anthony Kaufman examines his indie sensibility. And The Envelope raises the possibility of a posthumous Oscar nom for Ledger.

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

AICN confirms that Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell will be stepping in to do homages to Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

Heath Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose, says the medical examiner. As if we didn't know already, abusing--and mixing--drugs is not good.

Why whitewash what happened here? I agree with Michael Musto, who writes, "the truth can only heal." Ledger, probably depressed, exhausted and ill, mixed himself a potent cocktail--which, added to whatever was already in his system, killed him. The hazards of drug abuse are best publicized, not hidden.

Here's what he was taking, from the A.P.:

The cause of death was "acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.

The medical examiner's office only provided generic names, so it is unknown whether he took generic or brand-name drugs. Police had said they found six types of prescription drugs, including sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication, in Ledger's apartment.

Oxycodone is a painkiller marketed as OxyContin and used in other painkillers such as Percodan and Percocet; hydrocodone is used in a number of painkillers, including Vicodin.

Diazepam and alprazolam are the generic names for the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, and the other two drugs are sleep aids commonly sold under the brands Restoril and Unisom.

It's a sad, sad loss.

Michelle Williams, breaking her silence on the death of Heath Ledger, says that he will live on inside their two-year-old daughter.

What will Warners do to market Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight in the wake of Heath Ledger's death? After all, the studio was already rolling out the first phase of the campaign, focused on Ledger's The Joker. The studio will now have to shift focus to phase two: Aaron Eckhart as district attorney Harvey Dent/Two Face.

This tricky wicket would be daunting for any studio to confront, but it will prove especially challenging for the new WB marketing team under Jeffrey Robinov's leadership. Yes, moviegoers will want to check out Ledger's performance. But Warners has to tread very carefully in how they sell, promote and try not to exploit Ledger's role. Any misstep over the line could be very harmful. Here's Kim Master's story in Slate on this issue.

Director Terry Gilliam was close to Heath Ledger, who starred in his Brothers Grimm. But now he has to figure out how to finish The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus without Ledger. Has anyone been more plagued by bad-luck movie gods than Gilliam? There was the Don Quixote movie that never got made; the ill-fated Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Brothers Grimm; and Brazil (which inspired an entire book, The Battle of Brazil).

According to People, Gilliam is trying to figure out a way to keep Dr. Parnassus going, but reports of Johnny Depp (who starred in Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) stepping in appear to be premature, as he is committed to filming a Michael Mann movie, Public Enemies.

Chris Nolan tributes his Dark Knight star Heath Ledger in Newsweek.

One night, as I'm standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for "The Dark Knight," a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I'd fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you'd asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn't know. That's real charisma—as invisible and natural as gravity. That's what Heath had.

Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.

The LAT's Reed Johnson did a nice job on Ledger as well, placing him in the context of vulnerable male actors. He's right: Ledger will inevitably be compared to James Dean. UPDATE: Here's a photo gallery in VF.

And here's Daniel Day Lewis from the SAG Awards, which made me cry:

Here's an update on the Heath Ledger autopsy report. Warner Bros. is still trying to come to grips not only with his death, but how to proceed on finishing and marketing The Dark Knight (below). He was in the midst of filming Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (right). Ledger had starred in Gilliam's Brothers Grimm. UPDATE: Glenn Kenny's eulogy.