As I read through this month’s American Cinematographer, I couldn’t help but notice that awards season is upon us. OK, that’s actually a genteel understatement, because I was truly hit over the head with it: there were 20 “for your consideration” ads for the Oscar in cinematography. Seventeen of them were full-page, and 15 of those occurred in the first 32 pages. When every odd-numbered page at the front of the book is a full-page plea for votes, it’s difficult to miss.

This inspired an idea: why not make a weekly for Academy voters? I’m thinking of a Awards Season Weekly, published only from 1 Jan through to voting day, with each issue devoted to a major category (to allow everyone the chance to buy full-page ads.) Of course, to qualify for magazine postage it must contain a certain percentage of editorial. This could present a problem when you have no reporters and no insights. (Hmm, Fox News?) But no problem: there’s always polls! Yes, pretend it’s primary season and stuff each issue with the latest standings. Get some USC film students to write “analysis” (you so know they’d do it for free) but put the byline as “Staff” and you’ve got a paper.

I’ve always hated the mistaken identity conceit because I know the character will always get busted in the end. However, this film managed to mitigate that familiar queasy feeling by taking a light tone, starting from the wonderful ’60s title sequence.

Spielberg deserves kudos for achieving that playful vibe, but he sure could have leaned on the editor: at 140 minutes, Pech correctly pronounced that the film “drug” in parts. Lop 30 minutes off the end and you’d have something even more fun.

Two indepedent items mentioned in today’s StudioBrief that I found interesting simply by their juxtaposition. First, from the film news:

Finally, My Big Fat Greek Wedding showed it still could surprise after 37 weeks. The film earned $2.8 million on just 951 screens for an average of $2,903 per screen — 89 percent more than it earned a week earlier — to lift its domestic gross to $222,517,469.

And from television:

In the latest example of corporate synergy in the Viacom empire, the company’s CBS affiliate in Seattle will begin producing a nightly newscast for its UPN affiliate in the same city. The 10:00 p.m. newscast being produced for the Cox-owned UPN station, KSTW, will employ the same anchors and sets used at 11:00 for the newscast produced for Viacom-owned KIRO. … KSTW General Manager Gary Wordlaw commented, “We’re very pleased to be able to bring Seattle TV viewers a local news alternative at 10:00 p.m.”

On the one hand, we have a $5m film, developed outside the studio system and ranking as the #5 film of 2002 (and within $5m of the #4, Signs.) On the other, we have a corporation working to keep down costs by eliminating any discernible difference between news on two networks in one market.

Mr. Wordlaw and his masters are delusional if they truly think the same sets, with the same newscasters, from the same corporate owner, represents any real “alternative.” When will we see the indie nightly news?

Yesterday I noticed a few surprising titles in my cousin Josh‘s movie collection. When I asked, he explained for those titles a purchase was just a few dollars more, so why not just buy?

A good point, and one Lieberfarb would agree with. But Josh did have one beef with buying over renting: as a man who owns hundreds of CDs, he’s tired of all the silver discs he has to manage. Yet you only get the ability to control your viewing with ownership. (Does anyone believe video-on-demand, which otherwise sounds like the perfect solution to this problem, won’t eventually denigrate into pay to play — each time, every time?)

The solution seems to be a home entertainment server, tucked somewhere out of sight. Copy all your discs to this central machine, and then put them in storage. Pioneer seems to be working on this very product.

Of course, some hairy copyright issues are raised. But that’s for another post.

This month Warren Lieberfarb got an unwelcome Christmas present: a pink slip. The man from Warner who was central to the establishment of DVD and subsequently its chief cheerleader was let go due to what some accounts call a clash with the top.

The timing of the WB move is especially interesting given the recent success Lieberfarb enjoyed with his strongly anti-Blockbuster “price to own” strategy. Just over a week ago, Blockbuster’s stock plummeted as the company met with strong resistance in its efforts to increase retail sales at the store.

Small wonder. On a recent visit to my Blockbuster, newly reconfigured to feature a prominent red “to buy” section, the prices were anything but competitive. A copy of Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain was $12.99 used and $24.99 new — a stunningly poor value in contrast to the $14.44 Target price for the new disc.

So is the Lieberfarb loss Blockbuster’s gain? Time (and the market) will tell.

Still to come: cousin Josh‘s thoughts on renting v. buying, and a bit on the “first sale” doctrine.

Like a foreign film without subtitles. Except those are interesting.

Haha, I’m so clever! OK. Sorry. Let’s also add these to our list:

• Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
• Jeepers Creepers 2
• Mission Impossible 3
• Rush Hour 3 and 4 (!!)
• Scary Movie 3: Episode I – Lord of the Brooms (director notwithstanding)
• The Whole Ten Yards
• Spider-Man 2

Let’s also hope that the long-rumored True Lies 2 and the newly rumored Meet the Fockers never make it off the mat.

Update [22:03]: Fletch Won? What the hell is Kevin Smith up to?

I humbly suggest that Hollywood should immediately cease production on the following upcoming sequels and destroy any evidence of their existence:

• Dumb & Dumberer
• Bad Boys 2
• Shrek 2
• Terminator 3
• X2
• Fast and the Furious 2
• Jungle Book 2
• Seriously Dude, Where’s My Car?
• Final Destination 2

Thanks Dustin and B-don for the last two. Both are very worthy of inclusion.

Several months ago, Blockbuster gave me a complimentary upgrade to their Blockbuster Rewards Gold program. The letter accompanying the new card told me I was one of their “most valuable customers.” (To be eligible, customers must pay for at least 100 rentals in a 12 month period.)

I haven’t rented anything since they sent it to me.

Not until last night, that is. Quality time with Brandon means movies, and so we rented 5 titles (2 of which were actually in English.) Matt rented the non-subtitled selections for us on Friday, confronting a monumental hassle in the process.

He had to fill out a new customer form, provide two telephone numbers (at 11p, they wanted to call his parents to verify it was a working number!) and jump through various hoops — even though he had an account in good standing at the store across town.

By contrast, when I went to Blockbuster, the rental process went off exactly as it does at my home store, some 180 miles away. (If anything, it was smoother. The employee seemed actually helpful.)

I found the contrast interesting, and told Brandon so. He thought differently: “I’m glad Hollywood doesn’t do it that way,” he said. “I’d never be able to rent anything.”

Hmmm. A national database means late fees that follow you wherever you go. The boy has a point…

Note: Nothing in the above should be construed to mean I don’t still view Blockbuster as the Antichrist. Despite a convenient rental procedure, their idea of varied selection continues to be 40 copies of One Night at McCool’s in both VHS and DVD. I eagerly await the day when I live near a Facets.

Copyright law gives authors the sole right to benefit from their creative works for a limited time. Most players agree this function is valuable. The sticky part is: how long is limited? That was the central question of the fascinating Eldred v. Ashcroft case before the Supreme Court.

Now comes an analysis that finds (using IMDb Pro) just 6.3% of the movies released between 1927-1946 are available for purchase today. (See the e-mail linked at the bottom of Lessig‘s entry for the figures.)

Even through the use of the most generous figures (which makes the entirely unlikely assumption that those films available on DVD don’t overlap with those titles on VHS), just 9.6% are on the market.

It’s tough to make the argument that an additional 20 years of protection (bringing works-for-hire copyright to 95 years) is a necessary trade-off to motivate studios to continue this sorry record. But of course the MPAA will try.

(Note the writer’s analysis omits data on licensing agreements, but that’s likely because there’s no comprehensive public site to cull that information from.)

Disney usually has a ball at Thanksgiving with animated features, but Treasure Planet was eclipsed. The cartoon took just $12m for the weekend and only $16.5m for the 5-day. That’s a #4 showing, right behind the other Disney offering, The Santa Clause 2, which was up 20% over last weekend.

The big winners were no surprise: James and Harry again duked it out for the number one spot. Bond took the 5-day with $46.3m (vs. HP: $45.8m), but Potter owned the weekend, with $32.2m, or just a million and change over Die Another Day.

Again, 8 mile showed it won’t go the distance, dropping another 30% this weekend. And though I was almost sure this would be the weekend I would write “The Wedding has finally let out,” that movie posted a 12% gain to collect $4.1m, despite the fact that 328 fewer theaters were showing it this weekend. It now stands at $210.7m, a sensational take that puts it well within striking range of Goldmember, the #4 picture of the year ($213.1m.) I can’t think of a more fitting “film” to be knocked down by an indie…

As everyone expected, MGM‘s latest Bond film stands at the top of the heap this weekend, with many noting it’s the largest opening for a Bond film ever. The 20th movie in the blockbuster franchise grossed an estimated $47m from around 3,300 theaters.

Few point out that while The World is Not Enough made the most money in absolute terms (Die Another Day surpassed its opening), the real Bond sensation was Thunderball, the 1965 release that scored over $425m in current dollars. (That’s for 75 million admissions, another figure Bond 19 and 20 won’t top.)

Back in the present, more competition: there’s still a chance Mr. Potter will pull out the weekend when the actuals are released on Monday. (Bond was actually the #2 film for Saturday.)

And in other news, Eminem took another tumble in his third week, down nearly 55% with $8 million.

Someone said this film would have been better titled Buy Another Day. I don’t know if the joke works, but the sentiment sure does. From when I purchased my ticket (and received a 40 in. x 6 in. Omega watch brochure, with special edition James Bond/Barbie Giftset $5 off coupon) to the moment I left (and was handed a sample stick of new longer-lasting Juicy Fruit gum), it was an orgy of product placement.

I counted 9 brands being hawked. Sony gets tops marks for variety (a surveillance camera, flat-panel PCs, and VAIOs all around) but the real winner would have to the Ford Premier Auto Group. James drives an Aston Martin again (Q is even considerate enough to name the make and model) and the baddie drives a tricked-out XKE. (BMW is moving on to be the star of its own movies.)

But what of the film? Well from the start, the sense was a little different. When The World is Not Enough was shooting, there was controversy over whether Bond should ski or snowboard during some scenes. One faction wanted to play to the youth market, the other the martini crowd. Bond skiied, but post-XXX, it seems the debate is settled: here he is first seen surreiptiously surfing in to a rendezvous, and a bit later we find him doing something else even more ludicrous. So, the kids won. With a vengeance.

Also: The title sequence is I believe the first ever to actually have plot action take place during the credits. There’s a fair amount of camera moves a la Danel Mindel. And the plot? Hmmm. That I can’t remember.

The projections* are in and Harry Potter is once again cleaning up at the box office, this time to the tune of about $90 million. The big take is to no-one’s surprise.

I mentioned last weeked that it would be interesting to see how Eminem fared in his second frame, and the results are now in: a drop of 58%. That’s steep, considering HP2 likely has very little overlap with the Slim Shady audience. On the other hand, it’s still good enough for #2, and as all the analysts love to point out, “more people had already seen the picture [in its opening weekend] than purchased his latest album.” That may be true, but it smells like a bullshit statistic. It doesn’t allow for the number of people who follow him on radio or MTV (and I hear there’s ways to get albums without buying them these days.)

* Note about that link: at least when it first showed up, Y! was using the wrong template for the movie story. Instead of entertainment, the money made by Mr. Potter & Co. was filed under “world politics.” (See screenshot.) I know HP is a worldwide phenomenon, but…

Some interesting developments on the film distribution front came to my attention today. First, there’s the “soft launch” of Movielink, a site brought to us by some of the big studios. Broadband and either Real or Windows Media players are required. I’m not sure that waiting (around 40 minutes) to download movies for which I have a more limited playback window (any 24 hour period within 30 days) is worth paying $3.99. That said, I should probably give it a try.

Of course, Movielink (with its pretty and Miramax-invoking logo) is only showing material from its studio partners. Enter Kevin Spacey, of all people, who coincidentally is lauching TriggerStreet, a site designed to bring an audience to films and screenplays created by people who don’t have Hollywood connections. It’s been tried before, and Spacey has no plans to produce the “winners,” though that worked to great effect on Project Greenlight. (I saw PGL on DVD, and I really liked watching a ton of episodes in one sitting. But I liked the show so much I’d think about getting HBO a la carte this season.)