There are a couple of stories up this week detailing the correlation between box office and film awards success, starting here at home base with Pamela McClintock's Thursday piece.  The story is a pure numbers crunch, no quoted sources, but it gives the clear indication that, this year specially, the golden guys matter.

Here's how she kicks things off:

There's been an unusually strong awards box office bump this year, with the five best picture contenders combining to gross $97 million domestically since Academy Award nominations were announced Jan. 22.

That's more than double the $44 million pulled in by last year's class during the same frame.

No one expected the uptick to come in at record levels, considering the five noms are specialty films that, outside of Fox Searchlight's runaway hit "Juno," offer gloom-and-doom storylines. Also, two of the films -- Warner Bros.' "Michael Clayton" and Miramax's "No Country for Old Men" -- were well into their runs.

Heading into Oscar weekend, the total combined domestic cume for five best picture noms, which all began as limited releases, through Tuesday was $314.4 million, according to Rentrak. That compares to a combined cume of $287.8 million last year.

Last year, the best picture contenders grossed an average of $8.8 million between the time of the Oscar announcements and the week before the ceremony. In each of the two years prior to that, the top noms grossed an average of $13 million during the same time period.

This year, the average is $19.4 million.

Check out the rest.


Meanwhile, over at USA Today, I spoke with Anthony Breznican for a story concerning the Oscars as a cog in the marketing scheme rather than the victory lap they used to be.  Also quoted are Lionsgate prexy Tom Ortenberg, Awards Daily's Sasha Stone and Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray.

Here's a look:

Today, every major film studio has specialty departments designed to create offbeat, smart contenders for the awards. They typically are films with modest budgets (usually less than $50 million) and limited promotion — at least initially.

In essence, such films are orchestrated to start off as word-of-mouth favorites among devoted moviegoers. As a result, they can wind up as Academy Award nominees with relatively few people having seen them.

Three films that fit that model are among the five contenders for best picture at the Academy Awards, which air live on Sunday (ABC, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT). They involve a bloodthirsty pioneer oilman (There Will Be Blood), an air-gun-toting killer (No Country for Old Men) and a pregnant teenager (Juno).

The films — up against Michael Clayton and Atonement for best picture — have generated increasing buzz for months. But only Juno is a bona fide blockbuster so far, with a surprising $125.5 million in box-office receipts. The Oscar nominations are likely to spread the windfall.

The rest.

As I told Anthony when we spoke, I have never dug into these sorts of numbers to glean any real pattern or consistency.  It makes my brain hurt.  But it is, regardless, difficult to discredit the role award play in a film's profit.  However, I'm of the mind that Oscar success plays into the home market more fiercely than in the box office run.

A sticker that says "Academy Award Winner" is an enticing addition to a DVD case, and as I told Anthony, all one need do is take a look at, say, the netflix list of most rented movies in the weeks following the race to see films like "Mystic River" and "Crash" dominating the top 10 most rented titles.

In any case, it's a circular conversation and a part of the equation parties much better versed (and indeed, much more affected) will coninute to pick at until the end of days.

•  The local ABC affiliate sits down with Kevin O'Connell and Greg P. Russell to discuss the art of sound mixing and their history with Oscar. [ABC]

•  Steve Chagollan talks to this year's honorary Oscar recipient, art director Richard Boyle. [Variety]

•  Anne Thompson rounds up a few pundit predictions. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Sasha Stone, meanwhile, starts her big ole' compilation chart. [Awards Daily]

•  Jon Stewart speaks!  Bill Carter does the reporting at the Gray Lady. [New York Times]

•  Edward Havens handicaps the Oscar race. [Film Jerk]

•  Jeffrey Wells keeps this "Juno" thing going with one guy's assessment of some unquantifiable British sentiment. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Don't think about taking an embed, biatch!  The Oscars get tubed. [YouTube]

•  Michele Norris talks to the two poor souls from Price Waterhouse tasked with counting all 6,000 ballots. [NPR]

•  Pete Hammond hits the nail on the head: it's a year of upsets; why not Oscar, too? [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil tosses around the "actor rule" reagarding Best Picture winners. [Gold Derby]

•  The Gurus o' Gold do not expect "No Country for Old Men" to lose at all on Sunday. [Movie City News]

•  Gurus 2.0 offer up their final guesses as well. [Movie City News]

•  Nathaniel Rogers hearts the fact that love can survive in Hollywood, spotlighting the 34 year marriage of Sissy Spacek and "There Will be Blood" production designer Jack Fisk. [The Film Experience]

Two stories landed this week, from the AP and USA Today respectively, regarding Marfa, Texas, the westerly town that played host to the productions of "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" last year.

Here's a look at Scott Bowles' piece at USA Today:

Not that many Marfans have seen either film. The closest theater is in Alpine, 26 miles east. The tiny Rangra Theater, however, does have two screens. One is showing No Country, the other Blood. Neither sells out much.

"I thought they were OK," retired rancher Bill Owens, 61, says over an enormous dill pickle, a favorite theater concession. "I hope they win (Oscars) because it'll be good for Marfa. A little artsy-fartsy, though. They weren't no Giant, I'll tell you that."

Hahahaha!  I love it.  Next up, here's a peek at the un-by-lined AP story, via Yahoo! Movies:

When Hollywood needs Western desolation, it comes to Marfa.

More than 50 years ago, famed filmmaker George Stevens also settled on this area for his epic Texas oil tale "Giant," which starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. (Stevens won a best director Oscar for "Giant" in 1957, the only win of that film's 10 nominations).

The stark, gorgeous landscape outside the town shows up in all three films, and it isn't just the wide open desert horizon that directors take advantage of. They also employ the locals.

In the depot scene from "Blood," filmed at the 59,000-acre MacGuire Ranch, it was lifelong rancher David Williams who led the group off the train. Not that he was scene-stealing.

"I wasn't trying to get in the movie or be a movie star," said Williams, 38.

When Williams first escorted location scouts here four years ago, the only structers were the long, unused railroad tracks that lead to Mexico and an old water tank that supplied steam engines of a past era. Houses, a block-long town, an oil well site and a church atop a hill were built later to represent Bakersfield, Calif., in 1910.

The New York Times, mind you, was all over this story waaaaay back in August of 2006.  Here's a look at Whitney Joiner's piece:

Until six months ago W. E. Love, also known as Chip, had not particularly intended to carry on his family’s cinematic legacy. Then Joel and Ethan Coen came to town.

Like many people raised in this isolated West Texas town near the Mexican border, Mr. Love, 49, grew up with a small connection to Hollywood: his grandmother was an extra in the 1956 film “Giant.” That Texas epic, touted at the time as the most expensive movie ever made, irrevocably changed Marfa, a drought-plagued ranching town that had long seen better days. The film’s stars — Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean — drew crowds at the Hotel Paisano on Marfa’s main street, and the movie employed hundreds of locals as extras.

Operating on a somewhat less grand scale, the Coens — the writing and directing team behind “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” — visited Marfa last March, as they searched for ranch land on which to film their latest project, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel “No Country for Old Men.”

...The president of Marfa’s only bank, Mr. Love also owns a cattle ranch and gave the Coens a tour of his property when they scouted locations last spring. As the filmmakers and Mr. Love sat on his back porch talking, Joel Coen asked if Mr. Love would be interested in playing a small role in the movie.

“He said, ‘It’s pretty easy — it’ll just take a couple of days,’ ” Mr. Love recalled recently. “ ‘But there’s two bad things: You have to fall down, and you get killed.’ ” (The part Mr. Coen envisioned for Mr. Love was one of the hit man’s victims, who comes to a grotesquely bloody end.) Mr. Love warned the Coens that he wasn’t an actor: the only time he’d performed was in a high school production of “The Wizard of Oz.” “They said, ‘Perfect!’ ” he recalled. “I’m kind of bashful, but I thought it’d be a real goof.”

Check out the rest; it's a great read.

Another day another awards show.  I will be at the ACE Awards dinner this evening at the Beverly Hilton and will report back on the festivities later tonight.

The feature film nominees:

Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic):
"The Bourne Ultimatum," Christopher Rouse, A.C.E.
"Into the Wild," Jay Cassidy, A.C.E.
"Michael Clayton," John Gilroy, A.C.E.
"No Country for Old Men," Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood," Dylan Tichenor, A.C.E.

Best Edited Feature Film (Comedic):
"Hairspray," Michael Tronick, A.C.E.
"Juno," Dana E. Glauberman
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," Craig Wood & Steven E. Rivkin, A.C.E.
"Ratatouille," Darren Holmes, A.C.E.
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E.

Best Edited Documentary:
"Darfur Now," Edgar Burcksen, A.C.E. & Leonard Feinstein
"The Pixar Story," Leslie Iwerks & Stephen Myers, A.C.E.
"Sicko," Geoffrey Richman, Chris Seward & Dan Swietlik

Well, fresh off of winningat the Cinema Audio Society this evening, it seems "No Country for Old Men" also won in the contemporary category at the Art Directors Guild Awards.  The only guild award the film has conceded to another pic thus far is the ASC trophy, which went to Robert Elswit and "There Will Be Blood."

Speaking of "Blood," Jack Fisk and company won in the period category, perhaps on the way to doing the same at the Oscars, while "The Golden Compass" won in the fantasy category.

Variety reports.

I'll be attending tonight's Cinema Audio Society Awards at the Millennium Biltmore downtown and will try to post some commentary and pics from the event later this evening.

Greg P. Russell and Kevin O'Connell, of course, are trying not only for their first Oscar win this year, but for their first embrace from their peers in the society.  However, "No Country for Old Men" has become a popular choice in the guild circuit and, indeed, has been championed for its creative aural touches by the sound community as a whole.  So it'll be interesting to see how things play out.

Tomorrow the American Cinema Editors dish out their kudos.  From what I'm hearing, "The Bourne Ulatimatum" should reign triumphant there and not the Coens' Roderick Jaynes composite, believe it or not.  I think the Oscars might follow suit there.

And finally, the Art Directors Guild will hand out awards in three categories.  The period field will be the one to watch, where three Oscar nominees square off against one another: "Atonement," "Sweeney Todd" and "There Will Be Blood."

•  Jeffrey Wells spotlights a hair-raising quote from "No End in Sight" helmer Charles Ferguson in that New York Times doc piece. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Richard Corliss digs into the Academy membership in a slightly different piece on the Oscars. [Time]

•  Sasha Stone previews all the guild commotion this weekend. [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil wonders whether Entertainment Weekly Oscar voter collective can be trusted. [Gold Derby]

•  David Carr reviews "There Will Be Blood," bubble-wrap style. [The Carpetbagger]

•  Stu VanAirsdale comments on Jane Fonda's C-bomb from last week, worships its usage in "Atonement." [Little Gold Men]

•  Anita Gates writes up Oscar's memories throughout the boob-tube years. [New York Times]

•  Randee Dawn, via slideshow, takes a look at the making of an Oscar -- no, an ACTUAL Oscar, at the R.S. Owens & Company plant in Chicago. [Gold Rush]

•  Todd Leopold asks whether anyone cares about the Oscars. [CNN]

•  In his first post in nearly a month, Ramin Setoodeh responds to the piece. [The Gold Digger]

•  The media, who wanted so desperately to have a story like Diablo Cody to cover, continue to tear the poor woman down because they're bored with their own Frakenstein. [Cinematical]

•  Donna Freydkin sits down with "La Vie en Rose" star Marion Cotillard. [USA Today]

•  According to the local paper, surfers love Best Animated Feature Film nominee "Surf's Up." [Los Angeles Times]

The Features department has started winding things down in the lead-up to the 80th annual Academy Awards with the Eye on the Oscars: Oscar Wrap special.

Justin Chang has the lede, a fresh take on the split between male- and female-focused films this year.

The "How We Got Here" series is good for one last excavation of the top eight categories, starting, naturally, with Best Picture.  There's also a nice feature caputirng key quotes from Variety's screening series this year.

David Cohen writes up Gordon E. Sawyer Award recipient David A. Grafton (he of lens design fame), while Caroline Ryder and Mia McNiece take a quick look at challengers to Giorgia Armani's stranglehold on Oscar fashion.

Finally, Cohen spotlights two of the year's unsung heroes: "There Will Be Blood" special effects (read: OIL) coordinator Steve Cremin and "Atonement" steady cam operator Peter Robertson.  (More on the latter in a moment.)

•  With the Indie Spirits fast approaching, Anne Thompson points us to an interview with "I'm Not There" casting director Laura Rosenthal. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Sasha Stone takes in the IMDb polls to get a leg up on predicting who's going to win what. [Awards Daily]

•  Oh, but wait -- she finds another poll with an even bigger pool of participants from AOL. [Awards Daily]

•  Jeffrey Wells also digs that eleventh hour "Jesse James" ad for Casey Affleck. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Dennis Lim writes up the largely fresh crop of helmers nominated for Best Director this year. [The Envelope]

•  Now that yesterday's big wave of confirmed Oscar presenters has been revealed, Tom O'Neil ponders who will present what. [Gold Derby]

•  In case you missed it, David Carr looks into the field of lead actor contenders and thinks against the grain of the Day-Lewis foregone conclusion. [The Carpetbagger]

•  John Horn spends some quality time with Best Adapted Screenplay nominee Sarah Polley. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Meanwhile, source authors for much of the year's contenders get noe respect, says Daniel Ulin. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Mat Fraser isn't too happy with BAFTA brass feeling "uncomfortable" with screening Richard Butchins' "The Last American Freak Show." [Guardian]

•  From the weekend, David Gritten wonders whether Daniel Day-Lewis is a considerable talent or merely a ham. [Daily Telegraph]

New York Magazine's Vulture blog points us to this intriguing Reuters story above Oscar obsessiveness gone too far.  No such thing, I know, but it seems the head chef of New York's Carlyle hotel has whipped up a five course meal representing each of the year's Best Picture nominees.

No, seriously.  Take a look:

The dinner will begin with roasted parsnip tart, fresh shaved black truffle and perigourdine sauce. It is a creation stemming from what Sakatos described as "Ellen Page's fun and somewhat tarty portrayal of Juno."

Black ink risotto, mushrooms, cuttlefish and blood orange foam make up the "There Will Be Blood" second course.

"The black ink brings to mind the film's oil gushers, with blood orange foam to remind diners of the struggle and, of course, the title," Sakatos explained.

He chose Dover sole for "Michael Clayton" after "George Clooney's morally conflicted lawyer found his 'sole' and ultimately did the right thing," while "No Country for Old Men" is "plenty of manly beef -- and true grits to boot."

A passion fruit creme brulee ends the meal, reflecting the great passions of "Atonement," from "the young lovers' embrace to the little girl's jealously that caused her false accusation and ultimately the final passionate moment of atonement."

Read the rest.

Actor in a Leading Role Daniel Day-Lewis
Art Direction Jack Fisk (Art Direction); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration)
Cinematography Robert Elswit
Directing Paul Thomas Anderson
Film Editing Dylan Tichenor
Best Picture JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers
Sound Editing Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Written by Paul Thomas Anderson

(This wraps up our nominees series.  Hopefully it brought back some good memories for viewers and voters alike.  Four more days until polls close!)

Jon Burlingame always does great work sussing out this and that about the Academy's music branch, and he's written up a nice piece this week that dissects many of the issues that rubbed contenders and fans the wrong way this season.  Here's quick look:

Longtime participants in the Oscar game seem even more incensed than usual this year, not so much about the missing-in-action rock 'n' rollers as about the nomination process that eliminated them, especially the bakeoff system for choosing song nominees (now in its third year) that requires branch members to attend a marathon screening of all the entered songs.

An added factor this year -- which has irritated studio execs, marketers and award-season consultants -- is the ban on CD mailings to Acad members. Music-branch executive committee members say they will "revisit" this decision, which suggests it could be overturned.

However, I have to say, I slightly disagreed with Burlingame's assessment of the fate of Jonny Greenwood's "There Will Be Blood" score:

Wall Street Journal pop music critic Jim Fusilli doesn't take issue with Greenwood's disqualification, the result of a close check of the film's musical content, which revealed 35 minutes of new music versus 46 minutes of pre-existing music (by Brahms and Arvo Part, plus two earlier Greenwood compositions). That's a clear violation of Oscar eligibility rules (which ban "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music").

What bothers him is what appears to be an inconsistency of application of Acad rules, citing last year's Gustavo Santaolalla win for "Babel" despite the presence of considerable nonoriginal music. "You had all of these songs from other sources that appeared, and yet that didn't seem to prevent the Academy from looking at the score as a whole," he says.

Yes, most of that is true.  A major issue is indeed with the inconsistency of rulings, but the even deeper issue is the subjectivity of the rule that DQ'd Greenwood's work.  The Academy decided, quite subjectively, that the viewer comes away from "Blood" predominantly recalling the unoriginal works.  But who's to say what a viewer predominantly recalls?  It is a backwards system that needs updating and, frankly, should not depend on number of minute versus number of minutes.  A lot of those 46 minutes were songs and such in the public domain that are scattered throughout the pic.

Also, the even bigger issue was the Academy's decision to notify Greenwood and Paramount Vantage at the last...possible...minute, as we reported here last month.

But that's just me.  Take a look at the rest of Burlingame's piece.  It does a nice job of taking AMPAS to task on some rusty red tape.

We all knew who the WGA winners were going to be, given the slip up with announcing the nominees in order of vote tally.  But I decide to hit the beach for the early part of this weekend, and BAFTA goes and shoots its accidental load all over the net.

Tom O'Neil is pointing us to BAFTA's website announcing the winners in advance, and Sasha Stone is doing the same.  "Atonement," of course, will be taking Best Film, while Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") and Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") took top acting honors.  The Coen brothers willt ake Best Director.

"Will take."  I sound like I'm Nostradamus.  But hey, apparently, it's true!

•  The London Film Critics' Circle taps "No Country" year's best.  Will BAFTA follow? [Variety]

•  Jeffrey Wells takes a solid jab at Paramount Vantage regarding yesterday's milkshake promotion with a hilarious note from Toronto Star critic Peter Howell. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Ryan Adams points us to The New York Times Magazine and its 2008 "Oscar portfolio." [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil previews Sunday's BAFTA Awards. [Gold Derby]

•  Stu Van Airsdale gets some saucy comments from "Counterfeiters" director Stefan Ruzowitsky regarding the Oscar snub of "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days." [Little Gold Men]

•  Jeff Anderson, meanwhile, thinks "The Counterfeiters" has a play at worst film of 2008 so far. [Cinematical]

•  Anne Thompson reacts to the imminent "revamp" of the foreign language committee. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  The new Oscar set reminds Nathaniel Rogers of something interstellar. [The Film Experience]

•  New York Magazine forecasts "The Hottie and the Nottie" for 2009 Oscar glory. [Vulture]

•  David Carr retires to his oxygen chamber to review a silent "Juno." [The Carpetbagger]

•  "Ratatouille" dominates the Annie Awards. [Variety]

Never a dull moment:

And the cup should have been specially designed with a photo of Daniel Day Lewis sucking down a shake with a bent straw...vif-vif-vif-vif-vif! And the shakes should have been come from Haagen-Dazs or Ben and Jerry's or some chi-chi ice cream shop in Beverly Hills -- McDonalds is for peons! (Do you run a class shop or don't you?) And the delivery guy should have worn a Daniel Plainview costume -- wide-brimmed hat, brown lace-up boots, fake moustache, oil smears on his cheek and neck and shirt sleeves.

The rest.


Sasha Stone, meanwhile, has the right idea:

I was really hoping he would give me the milkshake and then take a long straw and reach over and drink mine up. Then bludgeon me over the head with a…well, you know.

Hahaha.

Yes, you read correctly.  Not 15 minutes ago my doorbell rings and I see a strapping young man standing there, unaffected by the world's woes holding a dixie cup and an envelope with the words "Kris Tapley" written on it.

"Kris?"

He asked it with a considerably thorough touch, as if this were no ordinary dixie cup and, in the wrong hands, could spell disaster.

"Yeah," I said, curious, but slowly putting 2 and 2 together.

"From Paramount," the strapping young man offered, handing me the envelope and what turned out to be a cold, tasty milkshake ready for consumption on the first day of decent warm weather L.A. has seen in a while.  He offered the items to me almost like invitations no normal person would enjoy, as if I were anointed with a prestigious theistic offering.  A sly grin, knowledgable of all things imminent splashed across his face.

Then...he walked off into the daylight, out of my life forever and oblivious to the only word that could make its way to my lips: "Interesting."

So it goes that Paramount Vantage has embraced the biggest gift they could have hoped for this season, the milshake line from Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is indeed the new "Say hello to my little friend."  And they want you to remember it.  Live it.  Love it.  Savour it.

And so I am.  This is one God damned hell of a milkshake.

EDITED: A colleague who received a milkshake this afternoon as well said that her courier remarked "There is blood" upon arrival.  It's reached that level, folks.  Roll around in it.  Wallow in it.  Bathe in it.

This opening anecdote from Ethan Coen regarding the neck-and-neck shooting of "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" outside of Marfa, Texas just kills.  From Entertainment Weekly's latest issue:

"We ran into Paul [Thomas Anderson] once while we were shooting,'' says Ethan Coen. ''When we were shooting a scene with Josh Brolin tracking a blood trail, we had one very wide shot of Josh in the frame. He was just walking in this most remote place in the United States, and then behind Josh [arose] this big plume of black smoke over the ridge. We thought, Son of a bitch, the scene is ruined. We sent a grip over to see what was happening. It turned out it was Paul, testing an oil-well fire. We had to wait for the smoke to dissipate."

Read the whole story.

I love how devilish and downright evil Daniel Day-Lewis looks in this shot, which is currently being used for Oscar publicity here at Variety.  Look at that face:

A week or so after David Carr fought off awards season fatigue/boredom by messing around with the initial letters of "No Country for Old Men," Nathaniel Rogers chimes in with anagram fun with the title "Michael Clayton."

There's "All Icy Omen Chat," "Thy Local Cinema," "Mythic Ole Canal" and the title of this entry, "Conceal thy mail."  Boy, we've hit our wall, folks.  But it's fun stuff nonetheless.

What can be done with the remaining two Best Picture contenders at this point?  "No Country" has the NCFOM schtick, "There Will Be Blood" gets the milkshake phenomenon, and now this for "Clayton."  Somebody step up for "Atonement" and "Juno" already.

UPDATE:  Well, credit where credit is due.  It turns out the Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea revealed this bit about the origins of the milkshake speech back on Jan. 16.  How did I miss that?

EARLIER: Yes, yes -- "I drink your milkshake" has entered the fim lore lexicon as one of the all time badass phrases to be quoted from here until the ends of the earth.  IDrinkYourMilkshake.com has a loyal following and you can have you're own email address from the site (I have mine -- what about you???).  Meanwhile. there's an extremely popular YouTube mashup out there grabbing tons of page views.  But the phenomenon itself has spiraled out of control while no one has really dug into the matter.

Well, Scott Bowles of USA Today has done a nice job of tracking it down, including unearthing some interesting history behind the phrase.  Take a look:

New York magazine even offers a user's guide to the phrase. It suggests using it as sports metaphor ("The Celtics drank the Knicks' milkshake last night"), a sexual double entendre or a taunt, as in "You'd best back down before I drink your milkshake."

Anderson concedes that he's puzzled by the phenomenon — particularly because the lines came straight from a transcript he found of the 1924 congressional hearings over the Teapot Dome scandal, in which Sen. Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for oil-drilling rights to public lands in Wyoming and California.

In explaining oil drainage, Fall's "way of describing it was to say 'Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I'll end up drinking your milkshake,' " Anderson says. "I just took this insane concept and used it."

Read the rest!

Christy Lemire of the Associated Press wrote up a story last week about the combined "unpopular" nature of this year's Best Picture hopefuls, and I have to say, more than a few points rang a bit false to me.  I get frustrated when journalists attempt to consolidate what an Oscar season is into tiny, bite-size, consumable ideas.  I also become frustrated when such ideas are in fact apparent, but become a little skewed in the reporting.

Let me just indicate a few examples from the piece:

Oscar-nominated films are often small, dark and unintended for mass audiences; they're about art, after all, not commerce. But that's especially true of this year's crop, which has little mainstream buzz and among the lowest box-office totals in recent years.

Not exactly.  The Academy is quite famous for erring on the side of popularity, though the group has slowly shifted its perspective of "populaity" from mass appeal to critical approval, for whatever reason.  The same pressure to give the biggest grossing film of all time the Best Pic laurels over the critical consensus in 1997 has manifested itself in the Academy's apparently conscious decison to recognize films somewhat out of its typically safe wheelhouse due to critical insistence ("No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood").

But even still, the notion that "Oscar-nominated films are often small" and "dark" is a stretch to anyone who has paid attention long enough.  There is a reason films like "Atonement," "The Aviator," "Seabiscuit," etc. are consistently considered Oscar favorites from afar.  The Academy likes broad acceptability, and that doesn't necessarily indicate "small" and "dark" to me.  But, admittedly, things have been slowly changing for at least three or four years now.

Moving on...

Four of the movies nominated last week for best picture — "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" — got the so-called "Oscar bump" that comes from audiences checking them out the following weekend. (The sweeping romance "Atonement" dropped slightly.)

Still, they've only combined to make about $246.3 million domestically. In contrast, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" already had grossed about $364 million all by itself by the time it won best picture in 2004.

This isn't the best of points because "The Return of the King" was a phenomenon, and the end result of a three-part series destined for Oscar glory in its denouement.  It is just also one example from 3 years ago.  The box office scenario has slowly been fleeing from the vogue scene where Oscar is concerned, witness by last year's relatively modest monetary crop and especially 2005's, which has been considered one of the most unpopular line-ups ever (and, indeed, saw the Oscar telecast's lowest viewership of all time).

I think the better point for a piece like this to make is the steady march to where we are now, rather than trying to posit the class of 2007 as any sort of major bellwether.  But I don't want to go through Lemire's piece with a comb or anything.  It is valuable to note how incredibly low-key the year's contenders are, and even how relatively dark and "70s" the consensus possibility is ("Michael Clayton").

Also, the only demographically "classic" Best Picture nominees from the past few years have been "The Aviator," "Ray" and "Atonement."  Two of them came in 2004 and I don't think one could make similar arguments for the likes of "Crash" or "Munich" or "Babel."  The idea of what an "oscar movie" is seems to be changing at the same time, which is interesting.  In five or six years, a new "sort" will be consistently considered a contender from afar (how about that alliteration?).  And then, the cycle will likely start all over again.

Interesting, no?  Check out Lemire's AP story.

I had not seen this video of Daniel Day-Lewis expressing his regret over the loss of Heath Ledger until jus now, and it's an incredibly touching, heartfelt moment.  Really -- it brought me close to the edge, this one did.

It happened, of course, during an interview on "Oprah" earlier in the week.  Day-Lewis was there, via satellite, to promote his Oscar nominated work in "There Will be Blood," and he had just received the news of Ledge's death.  He had to take a moment and talk about his thoughts because they were aplenty, and to him, it seemed unsettling to talk about anything else at the time.

The shock waves on this thing are so rippling rather than devastating that I truly think it is one of the most caught-off-guard moments in Hollywood history.  Ledger's passing, that is.  Journalists are failing to get comments from the industry, high profile actors are bringing to the stage talk of the dangers of prescription sleep medication, and now, one of the gentlest actors you'll ever meet refuses to speak on his own work without broaching the topic.

Very chilling days.  Very odd days for the industry altogether, I would say.  I think this Oscar season, with its strike implications, its reflection of a year's worth of heavy, weighty subject matter and the passing of a young and promising actor will take a considerable toll.  We'll see.

•  The final guild out of the gate, the Motion Picture Sound Editors, annouce nominees for the Golden Reel Awards. [Variety]

•  Sasha Stone cooks up one of her infmaous Oscar comparison charts.  This time: SAG vs. Oscar. [Awards Daily]

•  Jeff Anderson finds plenty of room to complain about this or that, re: the nominations.  He also reveals a profound ignorance for certain crafts categories. [Cinematical]

•  Tom O'Neil has a new theory in the books.  Somethign about multile nominated contenders yielding one win, I think.  I got lost in the data.  You give it a shot. [Gold Derby]

•  Daniel Day-Lewis hits the daily talk show circuit with the owner of the world. [Oprah.com]

•  Gerard Kennedy begins reacting to Oscar's tech nominations, some surprising, most expected. [In Contention]

•  The Gurus o' Gold chime in post-noms.  "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" take the #1 and #2 spots.  Scott Rudin does back-flips. [Movie City News]

•  Mike Russell sits down with "Persepolis" creator Marjane Satrapi in 2-D black and white. [Culture Pulp]

•  T.L. Stanley thinks there is no backlash in the cards for the most backlash-prone of the Best Picture contenders. [Gold Rush]

•  In a long interview never lacking the color of its subject, Mick Brown sits down with the Oscar-nominated Julian Schnabel to talk art, Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and Schnabel.  Good times. [The Daily Telegraph]

•  After years of disavowing Oscar bloggers, Stu VanAirdale finds his new role as...Oscar blogger. [Little Gold Men]

•  He also agonizes over the glut of Oscar prognosticators.  I'm sure he still cashes the checks, though. [Little Gold Men]

(This interview was set to go up yesterday afternoon; then the news of Heath Ledger's untimely death hit and it just didn't seem like the time.  I'm running it now in its entirety, and in the hopes that we can all move back into the normal activities of this blog.  It is, of course, with a heavy heart that we do so.)

With all the Oscar reactions being bandied about today, it seems you can go to any of a dozen sites and see similar comments coming from Amy Ryan, Marion Cotillard, Saoirse Ronan, etc.  Poor folks, I’m sure they’re getting tired of rattling off the same responses over and over.  Then again, they’re Oscar nominees now.  It would probably take a lot to push them off of cloud nine at this point.

My instinct this morning, however, wasn’t to catch up with the 20 individuals cited in the acting categories, but instead, to call up Greg P. Russell, who received his 12th – yes, 12th – Oscar nomination this year in the Best Sound Mixing category for “Transformers.”

Russell ended an 12-year partnership with fellow mixer Kevin O’Connell in 2007.  “Transformers” stands as the duo’s final collaboration.  But Oscar gold, as you have no doubt heard by now, has remained elusive for these two respected vets.  O’Connell’s 20th nomination today stands as the most nods without a win, while Russell’s 12th bid isn’t too far behind.

Calling from Sony Studios in Culver City, where he has been working on the mix for Paul Weiland’s upcoming “Made of Honor,” Russell told me that he was greeted with a massive bouquet of balloons from his wife and daughter.  Such an elaborate arrangement has become something of a tradition, given that this year’s announcement was certainly not the mixer’s first bar-be-cue.  But this time, there was something slightly different about the bouquet.

“It's a huge arrangement,” Russell said, “upwards of 15 feet tall.  And this year, it's all gold.  I just called them and said ‘I hope that translates!’”

The prospect of finally bringing home that first win is extra special to Russell this time around because of the fitting denouement it would be to his collaboration with O’Connell.  In fact, it was his co-nominee who called Russell this morning with the news of their nomination after Russell ran into troubles logging on to the internet to see for himself.

“Being a sound guy, I don’t think there’s any better sound than the phone ringing on a morning like this,” Russell said.  “Kevin and I have had such an extraordinary run.  It would be a poignant way to finish out our tenure together.”

I took a moment to get Russell’s thoughts on his fellow nominated mixers, and right off the top, he said that the field of contenders is a very satisfactory one full of talented and deserving individuals.  The only drag, he said, was that he hasn’t been able to see one of the nominees: “The Bourne Ultimatum.”

“You know, I saw the first two, but my wife never saw ‘The Bourne Supremacy,’” he said.  “Every time we’d pull out screeners, she would say ‘wait, I haven’t seen the second one!’  All I can tell you is I know Scott Milan and I love his work.  His signature is one of distinction and attention to detail.  Both of the other films in the trilogy sounded fantastic and were worthy of the possibility of a nomination, and clearly this one was, too.”

On “3:10 to Yuma,” mixed by a crew headed up by five-time nominee Paul Massey:

“I liked that movie a lot.  I felt like the sound was truly a character within the film.  It was a very clean-sounding, articulate sound job, well-crafted and well-mixed.”

On finding himself in the company of 12-time nominee Randy Thom, who racked up nominations 13 and 14 for Brad Bird’s “Ratatouille” this morning:

“I love what Randy does with these Pixar films,” he said.  “They’re just so unique and clever.  It’s a well-deserved representation of sound editing and sound mixing.  And Michael Semanick was on board with that.  He just blows me away.  The quality of his films and his versatility, this year on ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘There Will be Blood,’ it just always impresses me.”

And finally, on what has been considered one of the most creatively mixed films of the year – “No Country for Old Men”:

“I thought it was very interesting and that things weren’t competing; you could really feel the sense of isolation with the lack of music driving through the scenes.  People were talking about this sound job early on and there was a buzz about it in the sound community based on the bold choices being made.”

Russell’s biggest sigh of relief, he joked, was that there wasn’t a musical in the mix (so to speak) this year.  He and O’Connell have certainly had their battles with musicals, having lost in the past to “Chicago,” “Ray” and, just last year, “Dreamgirls.”  Nonetheless, the exclusion of “Hairspray” and “Sweeney Todd” from this year’s list certainly caught Russell off guard.

“I have to say, there were surprises,” he said.  “But I really like the playing field.  They’re first-rate sound jobs across the board.”

The only specter lingering over Russell’s hopeful date with Oscar destiny is the prospect of a win without a telecast.  The writers’ guild strike has left plans for this year’s ceremony up in the air without any real indication of what to expect.  Producer Gil Cates continues to assure the media and fans that a show of some sort will happen, but real answers have been few and far between.  Win, lose or draw, however, Russell would rather see the winners of this year’s Academy Awards given their day in the sun than watch the event wither into film awards obscurity like this year's Golden Globes announcement.

“I’m really hoping they work out whatever deal they need to present a show,” Russell said.  “This is the pinnacle in entertainment.  After the fiasco of the Golden Globes, I think people are really looking forward to the satisfaction.  And, I mean, come on – it’s the 80th Oscars.  The 80th Oscars.  There has to be a show.”

Jonny Greenwood's original score for "There Will Be Blood" has been ruled ineligible by the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The news comes on the heels of last week's Best Foreign Language Film controversy, which left the two most critically acclaimed efforts of the year in that category out of contention (Romania's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and France's "Persepolis").

(Pete Hammond is also reporting on this over at The Envelope, but there is much more to the story, which has been fluttering in the wind throughout the weekend.)

The disqualification has been attributed to a designation within Rule 16 of the Academy's Special Rules for Music Awards (5d under "Eligibility"), which excludes "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music."

Greenwood's score contains roughly 35 minutes of original recordings and roughly 46 minutes of pre-existing work (including selections from the works of Arvo Pärt, as well as pieces in the public domain, such as Johannes Brahms' "Concerto in D Major").  Peripheral augmentation to the score included sporadic but minimal useage (15 minutes) of the artist's 2006 composition "Popcorn Superhet Receiver."

"Popcorn" is a 20-minute work commissioned by the BBC in 2005.  The piece premiered at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in November of 2006.

All musical inclusions were indicated on the score's cue sheet, of which the Academy has been in possession since early December.  The organization had over a month to run over rules and eligibility, sending out reminder sheets to Academy voters that included Greenwood's score for consideration along the way.

Other scores that were deemed ineligible include "Enchanted" and "Into the Wild," from Alan Menken and Michael Brook respectively.  Both were disqualified due to the "predominant use of songs."  But sources say Paramount Vantage was alerted to the ineligibility of "Into the Wild" far in advance.  The situation with "Blood," however, has come at the last minute, catching the studio entirely off guard.

Vantage was made aware of the Academy's "Blood" decision on January 19, seven days after balloting closed.  Greenwood himself first received word via postal mail from the Academy at his home in London on January 17.  Price Waterhouse has been instructed to discount all votes for Greenwood on Academy ballots.

According to the studio, the Academy's decision has also come, in part, due to a situation which arose with Nino Rota's score for "The Godfather" in 1972, which was pulled from the list of nominees after it was discovered that the film's love theme was used in another film, 1958's "Fortunella."  The Academy would like to right a wrong now rather than withdraw a nomination further down the road.  "The Godfather Part II" won the original score Oscar and featured the same love theme which rendered Rota's initial score ineligible.

Sources at the studio say that, though they are baffled by the surprising turn of events, they respect the Academy's decision.  They only wish they had been advised of the situation in enough time to properly appeal it.

Hit me up: kristapley@idrinkyourmilkshake.com

•  An attempt at making sense of it all, post-guilds and with a week to go. [In Contention]

•  Is "I drink your milshake" an anachronism in "There Will Be Blood?"  Apparently not. Thanks haeavens we have Jeffrey Wells on the case of stuff like this.  What would we do otherwise? [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Texas State University gets in ona ll that Cormac McCarthy love. [Assciated Press via Hollywood Reporter]

•  Pete Hammond reports that an unusual amount of Academy members waited until the last minute to submit ballots this year...and that Joe Wright gets naked when he wins an award. [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil gets into the campaign shift for "Juno" star Ellen Page, away from the cheeky and toward the serious. [Gold Derby]

•  Nathaniel Rogers responds to yesterday's PGA announcement. [The Film Experience]

•  T.L. Stanley does the same. [Gold Rush]

•  David Carr writes up a requiem for the Golden Globes ceremony at the Gray Lady. [New York Times]

•  Earlier, he partners up with Michael Cieply for a full rundown of the tragedy. [New York Times]

•  You can find the Oscar season anywhere, folks.  Anywhere.  Well, if you're obssessed and/or look hard enough. [Vulture]

•  There's hope for relapsing fashionistas yet! [USA Today]

This is a guild that nominates 15 films in three categories, so it's a little difficult to judge how they may or may not translate in the actual Art Directio category (beyond knowing that contemporary films are almost always left out of the mix).  But it is certainly beneficial to see which films have clear insustry support.

The usual suspects are here: "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."  No "Juno" or "Into the Wild," but neither film showcases this craft.  However, with that in mind, "The Bourne Ultimatum" continues a stealthy trek through the guild precursor circuit by showing up in the contemporary category today.

"Atonement" gets its first guild mentions since the ASC mention at the beginning of the week (and what a long week it must have seemed to the Focus camp in that regard).  "American Gangster" also found its first industry love since two SAG nominations last month.

Finally, it has to be encouraging for Miramax to have "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" surprisingly pop up in the contemporary field.  As it continues to make a case for a Best Picture nomination, these guild citations only fuel the cause.

Here are the nominees:

PERIOD FILM:

"American Gangster" (Arthur Max)
"Atonement" (Sarah Greenwood)
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Guy Hendrix Dyas)
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (Dante Ferretti)
"There Will Be Blood" (Jack Fisk)

FANTASY FILM:

"The Golden Compass" (Dennis Gassner)
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (Stuart Craig)
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Rick Heinrichs)
"Ratatouille" (Harley Jessup)
"300" (James Bissell)

CONTEMPORARY FILM:

"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Peter Wenham)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Michel Eric and Laurent Ott)
"The Kite Runner" (Carlos Conti)
"Michael Clayton" (Kevin Thompson)
"No Country for Old Men" (Jess Gonchor)

"Into the Wild," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" were among the nominees of today's American Cinema Editor awards, likely solidifying the final line-up for Best Picture.  Hopefuls like "Atonement" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" were ignored by the guild, the former having gone 1/5 with the industry's guild announcements over the last few weeks.

Here are the ACE's nominees:


BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC):

"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Christopher Rouse)
"Into the Wild" (Jay Cassidy)
"Michael Clayton" (John Gilroy)
"No Country for Old Men" (Roderick Jaynes)
"There Will Be Blood" (Dylan Tichenor)


BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (COMEDY OR MUSICAL):

"Hairspray" (Michael Tronick)
"Juno" (Dana E. Glauberman)
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End" (Craig Wood & Stephen E. Rivkin)
"Ratatouille" (Darren Holmes)
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (Chris Lebenzon)