"This year, DiCaprio's toughest competition for a Best Actor Oscar may be himself — he'sprettysensationalasaRhodesianjewelsmugglerinEdwardZwick'sBloodDiamond, due out in December. He's gone from precocious child star (in What's Eating Gilbert Grape) to teen idol (in Titanic) to full-fledged Actor, brilliant at allowing the viewer to discover, as if in confidence, the emotions that roil his characters' souls. In his third shot with Scorsese, after Gangs of New York and The Aviator, DiCaprio has become the director's new DeNiro — implosive instead of explosive, but just as crucial to each other's success and identity. I hope they make more films together, with DiCaprio as the tortured good cop in Scorsese's cinematic inferno. "

There's just one problem: The studio's "Departed" has become such a hit with critics and audiences that the one movie Scorsese and DiCaprio had no intention of campaigning for has become a serious Oscar contender as well. This leaves the studio scrambling to take care of the needs of all its players.

The studio now will mount Oscar campaigns for both "Departed," which already is a commercial success and doesn't need an Oscar push to attract audiences, and "Diamond," which needs all the help it can get. DiCaprio is facing the happy dilemma of handling two possibly Oscar-worthy performances. Warners says it will campaign for DiCaprio in the best actor category for "Diamond," a movie whose political agenda he cares about deeply.

Ok, let's see if I understand the reasoning here.

You're saying that the almost 6000 academy members were hanging out online waiting for the numbers to come in, and as soon as they did, they started making phone calls.

academy member #1 "Hey, did you hear the word?"

academy member #2 "No, I just got back from fishing, what's up?"

academy member #1 "Flags of Our Fathers" dropped 45% on it's second weekend. We're not allowed to vote for it anymore."

academy member #2 "Says who?"

academy member #1 "Uh...well...I read it on a messageboard where everybody is obsessed with box office. "

academy member #2 "So let me see if I've got this straight. I'm not "allowed" to vote for Flags of Our Fathers, even though I really liked it, and even though Steven Spielberg is one of my friends and I'm dying to work with Clint, all because it didn't do great box office?"

academy member #1 "Yeah, well, it had a 90 million dollar budget, and we must punish it for not making it's money back with it's domestic box office returns. It's all about domestic box office returns!"

academy member #2 "So second weekend drops AND it's domestic gross in relation to it's budget, which nobody even knows due to the many MANY ways that costs are offset, are how we determine what we vote for? Not what we liked? Not who we are friends with? Not even DVD sales and rentals are allowed to be considered? We vote based on internet messageboards that put their focus on box office?"

academy member #1 "Well, when you say it like that, it does sound rather silly."

academy member #2 "Quite. Does this mean you'll be voting for Flags?"

academy member #1 "Yes, I will be. I should have my head examined for letting box office enthusiasts on the internet project their mindsets on me. I don't know what I was thinking."

academy member #2 "Glad to see you've got a better perspective. I'll see you at the SAG awards."

THE END

*takes a bow*

The moral of this little theatrical performance should be pretty clear. Just because WE are obsessed with box office to the point that we hang on every number and percentage and per screen average that comes done the line, doesn't mean that the academy members are even considering such nonsense. Do you REALLY believe they are taking budget/domestic gross ratios into consideration when filling out their ballots? Do you seriously believe that they were all sitting at home waiting for Friday's numbers, and the fate of Flags was hanging in the balance?

Guys and girls, please.

My Oscar preview article:

http://www.teenbachelorproductions.com/ ... tlook.html

New Line Cinema appears to have pulled back fairly radically on its Little Children bookings. The Oregonian's Shawn Levy is reporting that Todd Field's Cheever-esque drama is "getting a very scattershot release from its distributor and, frankly, may be in trouble. It was meant to open in Portland on 11.3, but that date has been pulled and no new date has yet been announced."

We all know Children hasn't done much business, or been given much of a chance to, I should say. Since opening on 10.6.06 it's only been booked into 32 theatres, and has taken in a total of $801,000, according to http://www.boxofficemojo.com. I understand that a film of this stripe might not play in the boonies, but it's been fairly well reviewed (it has an 88% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) and is widely respected, and you'd think, given this, New Line would at least give it a limited art-house opening for Chrissake in a major city like Portland, if for nothing else than to prime the market for the DVD release in early '07.

I called four New Line people in a position to know something and they were all in meetings.

New Line seems to be clueless when come to pushing art-house films for Oscar. Last year, A History of Violence and The New World managed 3 nominations total.

Having just seen The Departed, I just can't picture it as a BP winner...


don't get me wrong, the movie is extremely good (and Scorsese's best in a decade, at least) though not as perfect as the hype says it is, but I just don't see it... if we were in the 70's, maybe...