The News: All-Positive Friday!

Psst! Buddy! Wanna buy an Oscar? (Photo: Associated Press)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

As per tradition, some of today's more upbeat movie news of note from around New York:

--Leave it to The Guardian's perpetually optimist Danny Leigh to make lemonade out of these lemons: As most outlets reported it, the big development from this week's Orson Welles memorabilia auction in New York was that his Oscar statuette -- earned in 1941 for co-writing Citizen Kane with Herman Mankiewicz -- didn't find a buyer. His shooting screenplay, however, sold for $97,000. Already chafing from awards season, Leigh puts it in perspective today: "In a week when the script for Citizen Kane sold at the first time of asking, but Orson Welles' Oscar failed to meet its reserve price, it felt like a balance had for once been restored to the rightful order of things."

--Speaking of awards, Long Island's own Nikki Blonsky is over the moon about her Golden Globe nomination for Hairspray: “I still haven’t believed that I really got the part of Tracy," she told The Times's Paula Schwartz. "That hasn’t even sunk in yet, so maybe when I’m like 40."

--Indeed, when Blonsky is a seasoned, jaded veteran she can get away with issuing baffling if brilliant Golden Globe statements like Jodie Foster's: "The nomination is so exciting and surprising at the same time. ... I am so proud of The Brave One, of where Neil Jordan took the character of Erica Bain. The experience of playing her has moved me deeper than anything I can remember. I can't wait to have some rubber chicken and listen to the unscripted banter with all of those fine actresses." Sure she can't.

--On the occasion of I Am Legend's release, Vulture lists the 10 best movie destructions of New York City. With video, generally unwatchable. But it's the thought that counts, if only for posterity's sake; I Am Legend really does put them all to shame.

--It's rare that I should include a pan in All-Positive Friday, and even rarer that pan should come from noted Reeler bête noire Kyle Smith. But his predictably facile Youth Without Youth review in today's Post is nevertheless pretty hilarious: "Francis Ford Coppola's first film in 10 years is just your ordinary philosophical / spiritual / academic / sci-fi / mystical / romantic / linguistic / Nazis are chasin' me / I'm aging in reverse and my girlfriend is 10,000 years old fable. I apologize for all the elements I'm leaving out, but my editor ordered me to keep this piece under 40 million words." Preach it, brother. Preach it.

Posted at December 14, 2007 9:23 AM