Gossip columnist banned from 'Valkyrie' screening

I've been hearing feedback on United Artists' "Valkyrie" from various reporters and writers in recent days, with the Tom Cruise-starring World War II thriller inspiring all sorts of buzz, from the good to the bad to the ugly. A lot of viewers have said it's a snooze. Others, like Variety's Anne Thompson, have been more kind, with Thompson calling it an "entertaining, well-made thriller." But Fox News gossip writer Roger Friedman can't say what he thinks, because as he put it in his blog today, he's been banned from seeing the movie. Undeterred, Friedman quotes from a pan by Emanuel Levy (whom he bills as "perhaps the only actual film critic on the Hollywood Foreign Press," which gives you a tiny taste of Friedman's tart tongue). Levy calls Cruise "stiff and unconvincing," calling the movie a comeback attempt for a star whose "career as a major player seems to be over." Ouch!

I'm a regular reader of Friedman's Fox News blog, which is a strange combination of juicy inside gossip and unfettered opinion, often bolstered by formidable reporting--Friedman has done a great job of eviscerating both the National Board of Review and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for insider cronyism. On the other hand, Friedman plays favorites, especially when it comes to Harvey Weinstein, whose films are given unfailingly favorable treatment--Friedman has recently been beating the drum for "The Reader," repeatedly touting it as an Oscar favorite, despite a string of lackluster reviews. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, has received unrelentingly negative coverage, with Friedman constantly referring to "Valkyrie" over the past year as "the Nazi movie," frequently disparaging its box-office hopes and critical reception.   

I called UA marketing chief Michael Vollman, wondering if it was really such a good idea to ban a writer from a screening. I mean, God forbid, what if Friedman saw the movie and actually liked it? Vollman defends the move, saying Friedman has such a closed mind on the subject that when one of the publicists working on the project spoke to Friedman the other day, he said "I'm going to hate the movie." Vollman sent along dozens of Friedman gossip items that ridiculed Cruise's role in the film. (Here's one that captures the flavor of Friedman's coverage.)

"Roger hasn't been banned--he just wasn't invited to the screening," Vollman explained to me. "Screenings are a privilege, not a right. If he'd indicated a desire to be open-minded and not telegraphed his intentions ahead of time, we would've acted differently. But when someone says 'I'm going to hate this movie,' you get the impression they have a closed mind." Friedman has been especially critical of Cruise's involvement with Scientology, but Vollman says that's not what at issue here. "This is absolutely not about Scientology. I work on behalf of 'Valkyrie' and I only took this action so the movie would have a fair assessment from a critic."

I don't like the idea of studios banning writers from screenings, since judging from the state of my frosty relations with a couple of studios right now, it's quite possible that, ahem, I could be next. I'm not sure that it's a great precedent to set, any more than when presidential campaigns sometimes ban reporters from their campaign planes because of supposedly negative political coverage. The upside is that you control your coverage; the downside is that you make the writer a martyr. Keeping Friedman away certainly didn't stop him from trashing the movie anyway. He's attacked "Valkyrie" so many times that I've certainly stopped paying attention--at least until his banning kicked the story into a higher gear.

Still, Vollman is sticking to his guns, saying there is a price to be paid for unrelentingly negative coverage. "Roger has shown through his actions that he has nothing but negative things to say and I don't see the need for us to facilitate it," he says. "I really wouldn't say we've banned him. It's not like we put guards at the door to turn him away. He's just not invited. Hey, lots of people still haven't seen the film. I don't think my parents have been invited yet either."

Photo of Tom Cruise in "Valkyrie" by Frank Connor / Studio Babelsberg / AFP / Getty Images

Chris Weitz on getting the 'Twilight' gig: The secret translation

As any PR pro will tell you, whether you're embarking on an invasion of Iraq or just hiring a new filmmaker for your popular movie series, what counts isn't the actual event so much as the media positioning and rollout for it. Whenever I get a press release these days, I find myself reading between the lines, trying to figure out, once you get past the puffy official prose, what the statement really means. This goes double for Summit Entertainment's announcement that it's hired Chris Weitz (best known for co-helming "American Pie," "About a Boy" and directing "The Golden Compass") to take over its fantastically successful "Twilight" franchise, barely a week after Summit and "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke had a messy falling out over various "creative differences," to use a popular press-release obfuscation phrase.

I'm not saying Weitz is a bad choice, even if I happen to be a bigger fan of his brother Paul Weitz's films, which seem more quirky and personal (Paul did "In Good Company" and "American Dreamz"). But Chris is a talented writer-director and, having shepherded "Golden Compass" to worldwide box-office success, clearly can handle the popularization of a franchise property. But what's fascinating, for the moment, is how Chris handled his first big assignment--reaching out and reassuring "Twilight" fans who were upset over Hardwicke's sudden departure, wanted a woman director to get the gig, or crave a absolutely faithful translation of the remaining books in the series, starting with "New Moon," which Summit hopes to have in theaters by the end of next year.

So here are a few excerpts from what Chris said in his letter to fans--and what it really means:

What he said: "In the past few days I have been involved in a whirlwind romance with Stephenie Meyer's  extraordinary books."

What it means: "It's amazing how fast Amazon can rush an overnight shipment of books to your house."

What he said: "I am very grateful to have received [Stephenie's] permission to protect 'New Moon' in its translation from the page to the screen."

What it means: "I passed the audition."

What he said: "For the last decade of my career as a director, I have chosen to make adaptations of complex and involved works of literature."

What it means: "I barely remember being that smart-aleck brat who did all the semen jokes and sexist gags in 'American Pie.' " 

What he said: "When I saw the film of 'Twilight' ... I was struck by the extraordinary passion for the characters, story and theme that was evident in the people sitting in the seats around me."

What it means: "I saw the film in a real movie theater, not in my agent's screening room."

What he said: "Like many of you, I am a fan of Catherine Hardwicke's work. I can't really say much about why she is not doing 'New Moon' because I wasn't involved in those decisions."

What it means: "Don't blame me for her getting the ax. It was those guys over there that fired her."

What he said: "To those of who doubt that as a male director I can capture Bella's experience, I can only say that emotion is universal...."

What it means: "It's not like they hired Michael Bay, OK?"

What he said: "... and my work has often involved working with some of the most talented actresses in the world."

What it means: "By saying 'some of' we're obviously not counting Tara Reid."

RELATED:

WHY 'TWILIGHT" DIRECTOR CATHERINE HARDWICKE GOT THE BOOT:

Photo of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in "Twilight" by Deana Newcomb / Summit Entertainment

20th Century Fox shocker: Another bad movie!

Regular readers of this blog may remember that we'd been keeping track, out of sheer horror and dismay, of all the bad movies being made by 20th Century Fox, which had a veritable streak of critical duds (scoring less than a mediocre 50 on Rotten Tomatoes) dating back to mid-summer 2007. The streak ended--barely--with the arrival last month of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia," which snuck the studio over the bar, registering a 53 at Rotten Tomatoes.

I'm not saying I'm going to start up the streak again, but Fox is back to its old tricks with today's release of a sodden remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," featuring the notable non-actor Keanu Reeves (as one critic put it, Keanu has two acting styles, shaven and unshaven). The movie not only scored a lowly 23 at Rotten Tomatoes, but it aroused the ire of critics everywhere, who've taken the film to task for a thousand different offenses, starting with its dreary, paint-by-the-numbers approach. Surprisingly, the most blistering pan came from Time's veteran scribe Richard Schickel, a normally genial, fair-minded appraiser of Hollywood fare who actually seemed, well, outraged by the film's haplessness. It's lucky no one put a blood-pressure gauge on Schickel's arm as he was pounding the computer keys or someone might have called the paramedics.

After noting that it's not an inherently bad idea to remake a sci-fi classic, Schickel let loose, calling director Scott Derrickson a "dope who has teamed with a morally deaf screenwriter named David Scarpa, and they have made what must be the worst major release in what may have been the most disastrous year in recent Hollywood history.... Suffice it to say that these morons have, quite simply, turned 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' on its head and what's falling out of its pockets in that upended state is a stream of junk."

I thought Schickel's acerbic tone might be out of character with the rest of the reviews, but alas, he was joined by a variety of other negative voices. In his review, the Houston Chronicle's Joe Leydon calls the movie "a stunningly misconstrued folly," adding that its "arguably the worst re-constitution of a '50s sci-fi classic since the ghastly 'Godzilla.' " The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Colin Covert says it isn't just a bad movie, but a new low in studio product placement. He calls the film "Armageddon brought to you courtesy of McDonald's and Honda. In one ludicrous shot, the corporate co-sponsors commingle their pitches, as the Golden Arches reflect gigantically against the Honda windshield." In the scene, when Reeves announces, "We're here," Jennifer Connolly makes sure the audience knows exactly where they are by helpfully delivering the money line: "McDonald's!"

As more than one critic has noted, Fox recently released a two-disc DVD of the original Robert Wise-directed classic. It may occasionally feel a bit slow by today's cut-to-the-chase standards, but it's worth seeing again. As Schickel puts it at the end of his review of the new film: "It cost less than two tickets to this travesty and I urge it upon you." Sounds like sound advice to me. 

RELATED:

The Fox bad movie streak is still alive

Hugh Jackman: Oscar's hosting gig gets a face-lift

I'm beginning to think that Larry Mark and Bill Condon, the producers of this year's Academy Awards telecast, actually have a few tricks up their sleeves. More important, I think they're determined to take the woebegone Oscar telecast in a fresh new direction. That's the clear message of today's selection of Hugh Jackman as the host of February's broadcast. By opting for Jackman, a classy movie and theater star instead of a big-mouth comic, Mark and Condon are signaling that they're trying to turn the Oscars into a party instead of the usual three-hour-plus cobwebby self-congratulatory snooze-athon.

The first thing Mark said when I got him on the phone this morning told me all I needed to hear. "In keeping with the thinking that the event needs to be more like a party," he said, "we're trying to make it very much like a party." Mark believes Jackman has the perfect party-host persona. "The Oscars are a celebration of movies, so who better to host than a movie star," Mark said. "Hugh can not only hold the screen, but he can hold the stage too, which is no small feat these days. He's done major theater work, from 'Oklahoma!' to 'Sunset Boulevard,' and he's not only hosted the Tony Awards, he actually won an Emmy for hosting them."

Mark laughed. "That's not to suggest that the Tonys were an audition, but in a way they were. The fact that he was brilliant doing the Tonys certainly spoke well for his abilities."

As it turns out, before Mark had seriously thought about casting a host, he saw Jackman perform at a benefit show for the Motion Picture and Television Fund (a show that Mark produced with "Milk" producer Dan Jinks). "Hugh was a hoot," he recalled. "He did a duet with Kristin Chenoweth on 'Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better,' completely off the cuff, with all sorts of improvised humor, and well, he was great. So when his name come up recently, we all thought, 'Wow, remember that night he did "Anything" and how he killed.' ''

Mark also became convinced that Jackman had a special star quality after Mark saw him in "Australia."  "Our whole idea for the show is that we want you to feel like you're not at a late-night TV show, but at a nightclub, where the host is saying, 'Welcome to the party--let's have a good time.' We're going for the contemporary feel that you'd have at the Cocoanut Grove or the Stork Club, where everyone is encouraged to have a good time. If this were the old days, we'd be asking Cary Grant or Clark Gable to be the host. I think Hugh has a lot of those same qualities. He's one of the few actors who has a real sense of occasion, who can say, 'Let's have a ball.' "

So he's looking for someone who looks good in a tux? "Exactly," said Mark. "Not just that Hugh would look good in a tux, but that he looks comfortable in a tux." Would Jackman be doing a musical number himself? Mark hedged: "Let's just say that with Hugh, there'd be a good reason to do it. It's certainly extremely appealing. He's definitely not going to be doing a 10-minute comedy monologue."

So how much does the Oscar host really matter? Can Jackman actually reverse the show's steady ratings decline? "I think the host matters on that night," Mark said. "I don't believe, in general, that people tune in to see the host. They tune in to see the Oscars. If the host gets to excel, that's an extra. So really a big part of our assignment is to get people to watch the show itself. It's not all on the host's shoulders. He's really there to set the tone and make everyone feel comfortable."

Doesn't that mean that the burden to turn the show around is, well, on the producer's shoulders? Mark laughed again, this time more nervously. "I shudder to think, but I guess it is on us. But what really  makes me optimistic is that Hugh was absolutely enthusiastic about doing it. He wasn't one of these people who'd said, 'I'd never want to do the Oscars in a million years.' He was really excited about it. I think that's a good sign. If nothing else, we're going to try to have a good time and really make this an event."

My colleague Mary McNamara has her own view on this. Here's the link:

Hugh Jackman hosts the Oscars? Bring the smelling salts

Photo of Hugh Jackman by  Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

'Milk' star Sean Penn: Pal of anti-gay dictators?

I'm not surprised to discover that Sean Penn is under attack again for his outspoken admiration of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro. The real shocker is who's doing the attacking: The Advocate, America's leading gay publication. James Kirchick, an assistant editor at the New Republic, pretty much eviscerates Penn, who just wrote a cover story in the Nation singing the praises of both Latin American dictators. Up until now, in the wake of his bravura performance as gay activist Harvey Milk in "Milk," the mainstream entertainment press hasn't bothered to ask Penn any tough questions about his political views.

But the Advocate doesn't pull any punches. Saying Penn is likely to win all sorts of prizes from prominent gay organizations for his role, Kirchick writes that "Penn's political activism, irrespective of his views on gay rights, negates the values for which a movement based upon individual freedom must stand." Kirchick calls Penn's Nation story a "love letter" to the dictators, comparing it to the notorious dispatches starry-eyed liberals sent back home during the early years of the Soviet Union, describing it as a worker's paradise, "neglecting to mention anything about the gulag, the 'disappearance' of political dissidents or any other such inconvenient truths about Communism."

Penn, who received a Golden Globe nomination today for his performance in "Milk," seems to have forgotten that not long after Fidel Castro took power, the Cuban government ordered the internment of gay people in prison labor camps where, as Kirchick puts it, "they were murdered or worked to death for their 'counterrevolutionary tendencies.' " He adds that Penn's pal, Raul Castro, was notorious for executing political opponents, whose only crime was often their homosexuality. Though Cuba has since decriminalized homosexuality, the government still bans all gay organizations or any other group critical of the regime.

Thor Halvorssen, president of the respected Human Rights Foundation, also takes aim at the actor in the piece, calling the Castro brothers "thugs and murderers," saying "that Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator that put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling." I'm an old leftie myself. But having grown up in Miami, where I saw up close and personal the flood of people--straight and gay--fleeing persecution in Cuba, I no longer share Penn's naive admiration for totalitarian despots who pass themselves off as populist heroes.

In an era of softball showbiz journalism where newspapers and magazines--including my own paper--rarely ask actors or filmmakers any inconvenient questions about their political beliefs, I'm not holding my breath that anyone will be holding Penn's feet to the fire. Kudos to the Advocate for reminding us that it was Harvey Milk who said that gay rights are human rights and it is Penn "who discredits both when he rushes to the defense of thugs who posture as victims of the West."

It raises a fair question that I'd like to hear your opinions on: Should we only concern ourselves with Penn's wondrous work as an actor in "Milk," which coming in the wake of the controversy over Proposition 8 will surely remind people that the struggle for gay rights in America is far from over? Or does his offscreen embrace of gay-bashing dictators matter just as much as his onscreen artistry, especially when the views of his political heroes so completely conflict with the free-speech message of the man he celebrates in "Milk"?

Photo of Sean Penn in "Milk" by Phil Bray / Focus Features

Golden Globes: The ultimate Hollywood fantasy

It's safe to say that if today's Hollywood is a gigantic industrial celebrity media complex, then the complex's ground zero is the Golden Globes awards. Staged by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. (HFPA), a group of 85 or so obscure foreign journalists, the Globes have gone from a featherweight laughingstock--remember the halcyon days when producer Meshulam Riklis flew HFPA-types to Las Vegas right before they gave a "new female star of the year" award to his wife, Pia Zadora--to an industry heavyweight that garners front-page media coverage across the globe.

The latest Globes nominations, released this morning, are no exception. Everywhere you look, from our newspaper to the tiniest gossip website, everyone is poring over the nominations, assessing how they will impact the future of a host of movies, both in terms of award-season and box-office success. Give the HFPA credit--they have created an amazingly influential product, largely thanks to the ratings success of their Globes TV broadcast. Originally airing in the netherworld of cable TV, it moved to NBC in 1996, which is when the show took off, forcing the industry celebrity media complex to play along, with showbiz publicists and agents dragging their stars to the event, providing it with nearly all the glitz and glamour of the Oscars.

The dirty little secret inside the industry is that a night at the Globes is far more fun than the Oscars. It's a party, not a coronation, with drinks flowing and merrymaking encouraged. The other secret of the Globes broadcast's success is that it honors both TV and film performances, so you get twice the celebrity bang for your buck, essentially landing everyone from the Emmys and the Oscars all in one room. People in Hollywood tend to forget that for viewers at home, the mass appeal of the TV nominations dwarfs that of the tiny specialty-division movies that dominate the film side. The talent from "The Office" and "House" have far more name recognition and star power with Middle America than Sean Penn, Frank Langella or Kate Winslet.

The awards themselves are often preposterous, this year as much as ever. But now that the Globes is such a marketing bonanza for everybody, from the networks and studios to the showbiz press, everyone conveniently ignores the messy details and discrepancies. As veteran journalist Sharon Waxman, who has done the best work in exposing the often comical inner working of the HFPA, put it in an op-ed piece she did for our paper earlier this year: "There is every reason for the average viewer to presume the awards are important, prestigious and meaningful. But they're not. They're just a cash cow.... The fact is, the financial weight of the awards show creates intolerable pressure for HFPA members. There is constant worry that some misstep will put their prize in jeopardy--the money that pays for trips to film festivals for members, and the status that this year got them invited to drinks with George Clooney and tea with Keira Knightley."

The Oscar nominations are voted on by roughly 6,000 industry leaders, from below-the-line craft folk to stars to filmmakers. The Globes nominations are hatched by 85 foreign journalists, many of them little-known freelancers. I once asked a studio chief to name one member of the HFPA. "Come on," the executive said with a laugh. "That's like asking me to name a circuit judge in Alaska." But what the HFPA lacks in individual stature, it makes up for in group status. I was once on the set of a big Hollywood film that was noticeably behind schedule, but when a busload of HFPA members arrived for a visit with the stars of the movies, everything ground to a halt as the actors and filmmakers eagerly glad-handed with the people they knew held their Golden Globes fate in their hands.

I'm sure there are hundreds of stories being written about today's nominations, many of them focusing on the surprises and snubs--no best drama nomination for "Milk" or "Doubt" or "Gran Torino," no acting nomination for star favorites like Will Smith or Clint Eastwood, nothing at all for "Australia." But industry insiders say that if you want to really read between the lines in the voting, ask yourself--which movies that have been largely ignored by critics groups did especially well with those 85 Globes voters? The answer would be "The Reader," which landed a surprising four nominations, including the much-coveted best drama nomination, and "Vicki Cristina Barcelona," which scored an even more surprising four nominations, including one for best comedy.

What do those two films have in common? They are both released by the Weinstein Co., whose fearless leader, Harvey Weinstein, has assiduously courted HFPA voters for years, believing their nominations were a key to potential Oscar riches. Weinstein has such close relations with the HFPA members that when the Globes mysteriously expanded its best drama nominations from five to seven pictures last year--an arbitrary alteration you'd never see happen with the Oscars--most industry observers concluded that the sudden expansion of the category was designed to make room for "The Great Debaters," a Weinstein Co. release.

Still, why argue with success? Despite all their oddities, the Globes are more influential than ever. Axed by the writers strike last year, their show was sorely missed, since it usually provides far more fizz and fun than the stodgy Oscars. In fact, if I were Larry Mark and Bill Condon, this year's Oscar producers, I'd tear up the Kodak Theatre and turn it into the kind of ballroom set that has served the Globes so well, with an open bar to keep the celebrities in good cheer. In Hollywood, the oldest maxim is: The show must go on. There is no better example than the Globes, which are all show and precious little substance, a formula that keeps the wheels of the industry celebrity media complex turning so smoothly you'd almost think they were moving all by themselves. 

Photo of the Golden Globe statuette from the HFPA

Back from the dead, Hollywood style

If you want to win a bet in a bar full of industry insiders, you can stump 'em with this question: Who's the hottest studio in town? The answer speaks volumes about the strange ways of Hollywood. It's New Line Cinema, the studio Time Warner essentially put out of business earlier this year, firing hundreds of employees along with studio founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne. A small shell of the original New Line, headed by Toby Emmerich, has been absorbed into the Warners firmament, where it continues to make genre-oriented films that will be marketed and distributed by Warners.

However, as soon as New Line was shuttered, the studio has rattled off a string of hits, all greenlighted by the Shaye-Emmerich-led administration that couldn't buy a hit in the past couple of years. The No. 1 movie at the box office for the past two weeks is "Four Christmases," which has made $72 million and will end up as the studio's third $100-million U.S. box-office movie of the year. "Sex and the City: The Movie," which came out this summer, has grossed more than $400 million worldwide, making it one of New Line's biggest hits since "Lord of the Rings." It was followed in July by "Journey to the Center of the Earth," a co-production with Walden that's made more than $200 million worldwide.   

New Line has also had two more modest hits. "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" is a $14-million comedy that made nearly $40 million in the U.S. and has been a big winner in home video, so big that the studio is already putting together another sequel in the series. "Appaloosa," a low-budget Ed Harris film that the studio co-financed with Groundswell, earned a surprising $20 million, which already puts New Line in the black, since it sold the movie overseas for $18 million. The studio's sole money loser is "Pride and Glory," which opened in late October to minimal business.

So how did New Line manage to make such a comeback? I called Emmerich, but he's not talking, either because he's the most modest executive in Hollywood or because he's eager to be viewed by his new Warners bosses as a loyal team player, not a credit grabber. But other old New Line hands say it's the result of New Line doing what it does best -- taking relatively low-budget risks and marrying the right talent to the right material. After all, "Four Christmases" costars Vince Vaughn, who became a major comedy star in New Line's own "Wedding Crashers," which also took advantage of his broad comic talents.

The back story of "Four Christmases" shows the value of risk taking. The project was developed by Spyglass, who originally set it up at Sony. When Sony put the script in turnaround, New Line jumped in, attaching Vaughn and co-star Reese Witherspoon. But instead of hiring one of the many lackluster comedy directors who make their living churning out Adam Sandler vehicles, New Line took a chance on a newcomer, Seth Gordon, who'd never even directed a feature film before, having been an editor, cinematographer and documentary filmmaker. (He did "The King of Kong," a clever documentary that New Line had bought at Sundance.) Having hired unknowns to do big comedies in the past -- no one had heard of Jay Roach when he got the gig making the first "Austin Powers" film -- New Line knew that Gordon's experience as an editor was particularly valuable, since many modern-day comedies find their pacing and rhythm in the editing room.

It's only fair to give Warners' marketing staff some credit here too, since they are at their best when someone delivers them good high-concept material, be it a holiday comedy like "Four Christmases," a pre-sold concept like "Sex and the City" or a solid summer programmer like "Journey to the Center of the Earth." But as so many studios -- MGM , Universal, 20th Century Fox -- have struggled in the past six months to find consistent success, it seems ironic that New Line, the studio that saw hundreds of staffers tossed out of their jobs last spring, turns out to be the studio with the hottest hand of all.   

Manohla Dargis: The critic as movie killer

Before Manohla Dargis joined the New York Times, she was, along with Kenny Turan, our top critic at the Los Angeles Times. Particularly during awards season, I'd often get calls from the marketing chief at a specialty division who was releasing a movie with high Oscar hopes. The question was always the same: Who's reviewing the movie? Of course, that was code for: Please, God, tell us it's not Manohla.

It's an open secret in indie Hollywood that no one wants Manohla Dargis to review their movie, fearing that the outspoken critic will tear their film limb from limb. It's the ultimate backhanded compliment, since what they really fear is Manohla's persuasiveness -- that she'll write a review whose combination of vitriolic snarkiness and intellectual heft will actually persuade high-brow moviegoers to drop the film from their must-see list. (To be fair, she can be equally passionate about films she loves; for example, "Synecdoche, New York," or anything by David Lynch.) The production chief of one indie studio once was so infuriated by a string of negative Dargis reviews that he vowed to keep Manohla away from all of his future screenings, even if that meant stopping all our critics from seeing his movies. I told him it was a bad idea, since it would simply make Manohla a hero to critics everywhere, further increasing her clout. When he was still running Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, stung by Manohla's lash on any number of reviews, begged me to persuade her to have lunch with him; Harvey no doubt thought he could influence her with his considerable charm. She politely refused.

I was reminded of all this reading Manohla's review today of "The Reader," the Stephen Daldry film that stars Kate Winslet as a former concentration camp guard who has an affair with a teen boy in 1950s Germany. The movie was the Weinstein Co.'s one true hope to contend in the Oscar race, a hope that seems dashed by the early reviews, which run the gamut from faint praise (Variety's Todd McCarthy and Newsweek's David Ansen) to mild disapproval (the New Yorker's Anthony Lane) to total damnation, as in Manohla's review, which manages to trash the film's source material, Bernhard Schlink's much-praised novel ("Mr. Schlink's unpersuasive bid at generational soul-seeking") as well as the film itself, which she says "monumentalizes every trembling lip and fluttering eyelash, turning human gestures into Kodak moments."

I'm not saying Manohla is wrong or unfair: "The Reader" is clearly flawed in many ways, and Manohla is, as always, expert in picking the scabs from the film's weak spots. (It opens in L.A. this month.) But some critics clean the knife before they stick it in, as with Lane, who eases the pain of his pans with sly humor, dismissing "The Reader" as a "woefully polite, not to say British, take on a foreign horror." Manohla is straight, no chaser: "You have to wonder who, exactly, wants or perhaps needs to see another movie about the Holocaust that embalms its horrors with artfully spilled tears and asks us to pity a death-camp guard."

What causes so much fear and loathing in the filmmaking community about Manohla's work as a critic isn't her blunt appraisals but her seeming lack of empathy for the challenge of tackling difficult material. No one blinks an eye when a critic eviscerates a dumb summer comedy -- that's a fair target. It's the filmmakers who've aimed high and been brought to their knees by a Dargis pan who feel as if they've been gored for sport. You might say Manohla occupies a unique perch: She's the critic you love to read, just as long as you're not reading about your movie.

Photo: Kate Winslet and David Kross in "The Reader." Credit: The Weinstein Co.

Inside the L.A. film critics' awards

The big surprise of the L.A. Film Critics Assn. awards, which were announced today, was that the critics group gave its best picture award, along with the best picture runner-up, to two of the biggest-grossing movies of the year, "Wall-E" and "The Dark Knight." The move should drive the clown-suit clad Oscar pundits crazy, since "Wall-E," despite being a huge critical favorite, has no chance at an Oscar best picture nomination. (No animated film has ever won that Oscar.) Passions run high at any critics gathering, the LAFCA being no exception. This year's meeting was held at LAFCA President Lael Loewenstein's house, with 39 critics on hand to vote (along with four critics voting by proxy).

With Sean Penn winning best actor, Sally Hawkins winning best actress and Danny Boyle winning best director--Variety has the entire list here--the awards raised some hopes and dashed some others. There was good news for "The Dark Knight" (with Heath Ledger winning best supporting actor and Chris Nolan winning runner-up for best director), "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire," which my spies say came in a close third in the best picture race, but bad news for a host of films looking for a critic award boost, notably "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Revolutionary Road, "Doubt," "The Reader" and "Che."

Here's a few highlights from my spies in the room: They say that "Slumdog" sparked the most divisions of any film. Its partisans praised its filmmaking energy and social consciousness. But its scrum of detractors said they wouldn't vote for it under any circumstances, with some critics claiming it was too derivative, coming off like an amped-up Satyajit Ray film. The only slam dunks in the voting were Penelope Cruz, who won best supporting actress for "Vicki Cristina Barcelona" and Ledger for "The Dark Knight." The voting for best picture was extremely close, with the joke being that whether the vote went for "Wall-E" or "The Dark Knight," that it was still a thumbs-up for an animated film, since "Dark Knight" is loaded with computer animation effects.

The biggest loser was probably Kate Winslet, who is considered a big academy favorite for her roles in "Revolutionary Road" and "The Reader" but got no love at all from the critics. The best actress runner-up was Melissa Leo ("Frozen River"), with the remainder of the voting going to Kristin Scott Thomas ("I Loved You So Long"), Meryl Streep ("Doubt") and Angelina Jolie ("Changeling"). Penn and Mickey Rourke dominated the best actor voting, with some critics expressing surprise that Frank Langella didn't poll higher. Left out in the cold were "Revolutionary Road," "Doubt" and "The Reader," which all need strong critical support to find an audience, along with "Benjamin Button," which too many critics said left them cold. "Milk" and "The Wrestler" earned raves for their acting performances, but were not viewed as best picture material.

It's not the end of the world for any movie, since critics awards are not an especially great predictor of Oscar riches, but I found it surprising to see the LAFCA so eager to embrace the commercial mainstream. Maybe it's a fluke, but maybe it's a sign that critics aren't as out of step with audiences as they've been in years past.   

"Wall-E" photo from Disney / Pixar

Hans Zimmer to academy: I'm no liar!

As we reported first yesterday, the motion picture academy has come to its senses, reversing its misguided decision to disqualify Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for "The Dark Knight." The academy had initially disqualified the score, saying there were too many composers listed on the music cue sheet. (The composers had listed a music editor, a sound designer and an arranger as a way of rewarding the people who worked with them on the massive project.) But now Zimmer and Howard can compete for honors in the best original score category. So, what happened? What made the academy, not an institution especially willing to admit its mistakes, willing to change its mind?

I got Zimmer on the phone last night. He said that he and Howard first sent a pointed letter to academy exec director Bruce Davis, complaining about the unfairness of the decision. Zimmer then showed up at last Friday night's music branch executive committee meeting to make his case in person. It surely must have helped that Zimmer is one of the town's top composers, having worked on a slew of A-list films, winning an Oscar for "The Lion King." "My basic argument was--composers are honest human beings," he told me. "If we're telling you that we, and we alone, wrote the score, why don't you believe us? We were very candid. We said, 'Why would we lie? And if you don't believe us, go ask Chris Nolan, the film's director. He saw who did the work.' "

According to Zimmer, the "Dark Knight" score was the product of a singular vision. "It's very stylistically cohesive--it wasn't done by committee. James and I divided everything up. I thought the Joker character should have have a singular voice, so I [did the score] for him and James basically became the Harvey Dent character and did his score."

Zimmer says the academy is hobbled by far too many arcane rules and regulations. "Look, I've won an Oscar and it meant something, because it wasn't just from my peers, but from people I really look up to," he says. "But I think the value of the Oscars is being erased by the narrowness and nitpicking of all the academy rules and regulations. The executive committee shouldn't be excluding people's work because of technicalities. Especially today, with all the new work methods and new technology, the academy needs to change--they have to keep pace if they want to stay relevant."

Zimmer says he's happy the ordeal is over and eager for people to have a chance to hear the score he and Howard put together. He sighed. "I guess it sometimes takes a little time to turn a huge boat around, but I'm glad we did it."

Photo of Hans Zimmer by Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times