The News: Vicky Woody Weinstein

By S.T. VanAirsdale

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

--The Weinstein Company sent word Wednesday that it has acquired North American distribution rights to Woody Allen's latest (and possibly last) European adventure, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The film features Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall as a pair of Americans abroad who get entangled in romantic hijinks with a "flamboyant artist" (Javier Bardem) and his "beautiful but insane ex-wife" (Penelope Cruz). I think it's only fair to reserve judgment (unless you work for the New York Post), but that said, I wonder if it was the "dump" or the "run" phase of TWC's strategy for Cassandra's Dream that so compelled Woody to re-up. A 2008 release date is planned. Ahem.

--Fox Searchlight has settled on Aug. 1 as the release date for its own recently acquired Sundance selection Choke. To wet your whistle in the interim, check out Noralil Ryan Fores' Park City dispatch at ShortEnd: "Certain films are just bad. Clark Gregg's Choke, adapted from Chuck Palahniuk's novel, is one of them." Oscar '09, here we come!

--More from Sundance: Thelma Adams wants to know where the women were on a critics panel featuring Scott Foundas, Owen Gleiberman, Eugene Hernandez and others.

--Now handicapping this year's Oscar race at the Observer: Andrew Sarris, with more inaccuracies and convolutions per column inch than ever before. "The ringer in the best director category is Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the odds-on favorite to win in the foreign-language category [sic]," he writes. "Nonetheless, I will go out on a limb and choose Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, as a way of compensating for the fact that they have never won an Oscar [sic]." I see. Oh, and for Best Picture, Sarris favors the grim Romanian abortion drama Juno.

Posted at January 31, 2008 7:28 AM