by Sheigh Crabtree

Adding feature films to its video download offerings, Apple began
selling digitized Walt Disney Co. movies from its iTunes store Tuesday. Here’s the print version of our story.

OK, I admit that George Clooney having a good time in London at the parties surrounding the BAFTAs makes for oddly compelling reading. I also like The Bagger’s take on Clooney’s appeal to Oscar voters, since it happens to coincide with my own (the current issue of Premiere, actually printed on glossy paper, is for sale at newstands now). The Bagger also revealed a controversial Oscar theory: Oscar nominees who are tattooed carry a distinct advantage. Now that’s a new one.

My favorites are Terrence Howard and the eery cover shot of George Clooney as the Devil. I also loved that they photographed the two leads of Head On, an amazing movie which I just watched on DVD that could have made it onto my ten best list last year.

Always love watching the BAFTAs, and their so-witty host, Stephen Fry. Constant Gardener whiffed. Brokeback, Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Philip Seymour Hoffman won—all gave good speeches. (Gyllenhaal won because Clooney was nominated twice and split his own vote.)Silver-haired special award-winner David Puttnam was shameless, trying to get people to cry. But I liked the way he praised this year’s films for informing and entertaining at the same time, singling out Clooney for particular praise.

Got the new issue of Premiere with the Oscar predicts in it by me and Glenn Kenny. I am not in line with conventional thinking right now. I go out on a limb betting on Heath Ledger–I’m the only one predicting him at Gurus O Gold. Yes, Hoffman has won just about everything, including the BAFTAs. And deserves to. This is a gut feeling on my part that the Oscars could go another way. Maybe I’m crazy.

This is how it will go at the Oscars too, I think. And there are reasons why “Enron” has a good shot at taking the doc feature award from March of the Penguins. First, Penguins is French; WIP and National Geographic edited the original and added new music and English narration by Morgan Freeman to make it more commercial. To their credit. But Penguins is so successful it doesn’t need a doc win. Respected doc producer/writer/director Alex Gibney (The Fifties, The Blues) who won the WGA nod, has the advantage of working inside the American doc community. Plus, the Enron trial is playing out right now, which keeps the story in the news. Californians, especially, who see this movie will be fighting mad.

Newsweek banks that the DGA five will be the Oscar directors too.

Listen to this man—he’s right. Mathews paid his dues in L.A. (at the LAT) and knows his Oscar stuff, unlike most New Yorkers, who only think they know it. (I too was once a provincial movie know-it-all NYorker so I’m allowed to say this.)

Stayed home with a bad cold and watched the Globes on the sofa. Which in truth is really the way to go. On the red carpet, those Access Hollywood pros actually knew their stuff and managed not to ask too many stupid questions. Who came out ahead last night? George Clooney was smart to cut the political/serious vibe with some schtick. (And he knows what he’s doing when he goes to the wall to sign for his fans.) Clooney will get many Oscar nominations, but the award he’s likeliest to win is the same one he won last night: supporting actor for Syriana. While Gwenyth Paltrow was adorable in glowing maternity mode, and sincerely offered up her tribute to Anthony Hopkins, it’s unlikely that Proof has any traction with Oscar voters. Felicity Huffman will land her Best Actress slot. And Rachel Weisz looks good for the supporting actress category. Obviously, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck and Capote picked up the most momentum, as did Walk the Line, which should now nudge Munich and Constant Gardener out of the fifth Best Picture slot. Reese Witherspoon is the one to beat for the Best Actress Oscar. And while Joaquin Phoenix won last night (in the musical or comedy category, as he pointed out), he will be watching last night’s drama winner Philip Seymour Hoffman duke it out for Best Actor with Heath Ledger, who still has a shot. The 84-member Hollywood Foreign Press Association is influential in the sense that it helps to build momentum for winners in the last week of Oscar voting. But it isn’t a bellwether of how the 5700 Oscar voters are leaning. The craft guilds are more reflective—which means that Crash is still in the Oscar race, even if it didn’t get any play from the Globes.

While there’s always been a bit of the New England school marm in me, I’m not sure how I feel about being compared to Shirley MacLaine. At this stage I’m a tad tired of the Oscar race. After the Globes Monday night, I’ll move into Sundance mode until I get back to cover the Oscar nominations. At today’s BAFTA Tea Party, where you can always count on seeing the high cheek-boned Michael York and Jacqueline Bissett, I learned that Capote’s Bennett Miller is being wooed by everyone and still hasn’t found something to direct while he’s working on one longer-term project. David Cronenberg has three movies to raise indie funding for. Tiny Ziyi Zhang had a devil of time shooting Memoirs of a Geisha in English and doesn’t look forward to doing an English language project again. Her agent, the equally diminutive Nicole David, reminded that of course Zhang would be open to it. “If you find me a good script,” Zhang responded sweetly. The New World’s Q’orianka Kilcher came over to greet Zhang.

Harvey Weinstein cut his usual swath through the room—hung with Maria Bello, and USA Today critic Claudia Puig—must have been there 30 minutes, max. He’ll be in and out of Park City, too, he says, for one day on behalf of Lucky Number Slevin. “I’ll let you younger people do Sundance.” (Fine, but Harvey can’t help but get in the thick of whatever bidding war goes on.)

Crash’s Matt Dillon is working with Patty Jenkins (Monster) on a script that he wants to direct, about a real life mafia tough guy. (I still haven’t seen Factotum, which played well at Cannes.) I met him on the set of Kevin Spacey’s directorial debut, Albino Alligator; Dillon later directed City of Ghosts, which not many people saw; he’s still willing to give up some acting time to direct a project he cares about. Good for him.

Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” got a reprieve from the DGA, which also rewarded other Serious Dramas Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night, and Good Luck and Crash. Sound familiar? It’s all falling into place. More on this subject in Friday’s Risky Business column.

The SAG nominations continue the positive surge for Brokeback Mountain, Good Night, and Good Luck, Capote, Cinderella Man and Crash. Hustle & Flow’s Terrence Howard is alive and kicking, too. And Ziyi Zhang’s nomination for Memoirs of a Geisha is a surprise.

By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Brokeback Mountain,” a tale of cowboys in a forbidden romance, led contenders Thursday for the Screen Actors Guild Awards with four nominations, including honors for lead actor Heath Ledger.
The film biography “Capote” and the ensemble drama “Crash” were next with three nominations each, among them honors for their entire casts and for lead actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Capote”) and supporting actors Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon (“Crash”).
Ledger earned a best-actor nomination for his role as a family man concealing a homosexual affair with an old sheepherding buddy, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who received a supporting-actor nomination. Michelle Williams, who plays Ledger’s wife, was among supporting-actress nominees.
“Brokeback Mountain” also was nominated for best performance by its entire cast, along with “Capote,” “Crash,” the Edward R. Murrow tale “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “Hustle & Flow,” the story of a pimp and drug dealer forging a career as a rap singer.
Joining Ledger in the lead-actor category were Hoffman as author Truman Capote in “Capote”; Russell Crowe as Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock in “Cinderella Man”; Joaquin Phoenix as singer Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line”; and David Strathairn as newsman Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
Lead-actress nominees were Judi Dench as a society dame who starts a nude stage revue in 1930s London in “Mrs. Henderson Presents”; Felicity Huffman in a gender-bending role as a man preparing for sex-change surgery in “Transamerica”; Charlize Theron as a woman leading a sexual-harassment lawsuit at a mining company in “North Country”; Reese Witherspoon as Cash’s soul mate and eventual wife, June Carter, in “Walk the Line”; and Ziyi Zhang as a poor girl who becomes a belle of Japan in “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
Awards will be presented Jan. 29 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS. SAG nominations are chosen by 4,200 randomly chosen members of the union. The guild’s full membership of 98,000 is eligible to vote for winners.

38 years after Johnny Cash’s career-capping concert at Folsom State Prison, Twentieth Century Fox will screen “Walk the Line” there for the California penitentiary’s inmates. The movie will screen January 3, 2006. Despite resistence from his record label, Cash performed at Folsom on January 13, 1968. Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the singer in “Walk the Line,” will present the film. “We invited Twentieth Century Fox to screen ‘Walk the Line’ at Folsom because the lesson of Johnny Cash is that it’s never too late for a man to turn his life around, and that’s a story these men need to hear,” said Joe Avila, California Executive Director, Prison Fellowship.

Over at Movie City News, the Gurus O Gold have selected five top Best Picture contenders: Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line, Good Night, and Good Luck, Munich and History of Violence. And MCN also rounds up the top critics groups.