Ten Manipulations: Aligning the Planets

Astrology has fallen out of favor. But we shouldn't cast it all away. There's something to aligning planets and stars that applies to making a feature film -- and that's aligning everyone's schedules. It makes solar eclipses look downright frequent.

We wanted to have the regular Thursday meeting tomorrow. It promised to be productive: at my apartment where we won't be distracted by everyone we know (like at Tisch) and strictly business...

But then Brandon remembered he had rehearsal until 10pm Thursday night. He suggested Wednesday (today) or Friday. I couldn't do Friday; Ernest couldn't do Wednesday.

And this is just three people. Imagine trying to schedule this beast of a feature when it involves a hundred plus people!

Our rock/hardplace solution: Ernest and I still meet, we fill Brandon in on Sunday.

More...In other news, I've had a review of A Very Long Engagement ready for some time now as the Oscar Preview, part 3. I've just been waiting to upload a picture of an ad for it in Variety. Oh, where does the time go? Last night it went into a film noir double bill at the Film Forum, that much I know.

Events may soon over take Tatou and Jeunet. Variety dropped a bomb on Monday with a glowing review of The Aviator. I hope Scorsese has been as successful as this review suggests at over-coming what I like to call the DiCaprio deficit. He's great as a young dreamer in Catch Me If You Can or Titanic but horribly miscast in Gangs of New York. The photos of him with a moustache in Aviator still look to me like they put a fake moustache on a 14-year-old, even if DiCaprio himself is now pushing thirty. I'm wondering when the financial backers Scorsese has been using will realize that Titanic was an anomaly and that DiCaprio can't really open a movie to the extent to justify the budgets of Gangs or Aviator. Meanwhile, I think Scorsese is stuck using him until a more versatile A-lister comes along -- so long as Marty continues to want to make historical epics.

But Variety says it's good. So maybe for Mr. Scorsese the planets have finally aligned to spell out OSCAR.