The News: Aunt Cindy on the Oscar Beat

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--Institutionalized Reeler aunt Cindy Adams has been digging under the cushions of her rec room sofa again, phoning in this morning with all kinds of sweet Oscar dirt. First there's Focus Features president James Schamus, staying deludedly upbeat about Viggo Mortenson's chances for Best Actor ("Supposedly Daniel Day-Lewis is in the bag as Best Actor. In some cases we're the underdog. But look at the Super Bowl. Fourth quarter along comes Eli Manning.") and sharing his annual post-Oscar cooking plans for the whole Focus gang. Ratatouille writer-director Brad Bird, meanwhile, delivers an impressively stream-of-consciousness paean to... something, linking his adolescent filmmaking exercises to Snow White to Humphrey Bogart to forest fires. Do not let this man drive on Oscar night.

--A bit of reader mail prompted Glenn Kenny to break his New Year's resolution against taking down other critics. Shit, I'll write Kenny a letter every day if he promises to keep it up.

--Huge props to the Father of The Reeler, David Carr, who apparently won an honorary Oscar for best Oscar-related video blog. Or maybe he just cut in line at a recent exhibition long enough to make it look that way. Either way, eat your heart out, Tom O'Neil.

--For those of you wondering what happened to Looker proprietor (and dear Friend of the Reeler) Lawrence Levi, he's just gone into hibernation watching films noir and The Wire for the last two months. He knows you miss him, and like all of history's finest badasses, doesn't seem to care. At least Glenn Kenny won't be swinging at him again anytime soon.

--This is only tangentially related to New York cinema, but if you ever needed a reason to love the FCC beyond its crusty skin and briny temperament, try its revolutionary new take on physiology: "If the FCC were to accept ABC's argument that boobs and butts are not sexual organs, 'the airwaves could be filled with naked buttocks and breasts during the daytime and primetime hours because they would be outside the scope of indecency regulation,' the commission warned," according to Variety. Whew! Pay up, bitches! I feel so much safer.

Posted at February 21, 2008 9:20 AM