Have looked with bemusement upon Steve Spielberg's several explorations of film turf other directors have trod, tho he's supposedly one heck of a nice guy, philanthropic, likes dogs, the whole good guy bit. BUT, we just saw War of the Worlds (did we really need a remake of this?) and it is bad. Don't get me wrong, love Tom Cruise and am still puzzled he didn't get an oscar for Jerry McGuire. But he's largely wasted here. The movie is about not much, the people in it aren't nice, it's got creepy aliens with no heart and scared Americans who are so panicked they have the same heart (none) as the aliens. We expect more of Spielberg. Color us Purple with frustration.

The Oscars this year: fascinating progression for indie film. (true i had to go research this because I doubt anyone on earth can recall the nominees from two years ago but) two years ago, the nominees (and *winner) were: Mystic River, Seabiscuit, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander and *Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Only one of these, Lost in Translation, was an indie film. Cut to last year, the nominees (and *winner) were: The Aviator, *Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, Sideways, and Ray. This time, there were 2 indie films in the mix: Finding Neverland and Sideways. This year, the scale tipped: three (arguably four) of the nominees (and the * winner) were indies: *Crash, Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Brokeback Mountain. Ignoring for the moment (actually how does one ignore a gorilla?) that the studios all have their "indie film divisions" where they make real (wink) non-studio indie films, the only real studio-type film in the mix was Munich, and that was a moody, atypical drama about vengeance by (surprise) S. Spielberg.

What does this say about our beloved film icons? At least a couple of things (and let's imagine for a second that "oscar" represents the thought process of the average american filmlover (ha!). One, the studios likely haven't gotten "it" in a while, and likely are getting "it" less and less. Will any studio films be nominated next year? Will the oscars merge with the indie film Spirit awards and how will they afford Jon Stewart's salary? And why did Crash beat out the massively fested, lavishly awarded and pre-annointed winner Brokeback Mtn? Someone said the other day that the oscar Academy dissed Brokeback because it didn't like anyone futzing with the iconic Western on which so much of H'wood history is based. Hmmm.