AND THE WINNER IS…

By now, you have probably heard about Juno (12/14, Fox Searchlight), the surprise hit of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is the product of the debut screenplay of a former stripper named Diablo Cody, the sophomore directorial effort of Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking), and an extraordinary performance by 20 year old Ellen Page (Hard Candy) as a high school student who confronts an unwanted pregnancy in an unusual way. I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the premiere of the film at the Ryerson Theater on Saturday 9/8, and what I saw was something completely unique and universally appealing that I have been unable to stop thinking or talking about since—in short, the best movie of the year, thus far.

As the credits began to roll and the audience rose to its feet, I looked around and saw people of all ages, genders, and races with tears in their eyes, deeply moved by what they had seen. Somewhere in the crowd that night was Roger Ebert, the god of film critics, who apparently came away with similar feelings—late the following evening, on Sunday 9/9, he posted the following on his blog: “I don’t know where I’ve heard a standing ovation so long, loud, and warm as the one after Jason Reitman’s Juno, which I predict will become quickly beloved when it opens at Christmas time, and win a best actress nomination for its 20 year old star, Ellen Page… and positions the 30 year old son of Ivan Reitman in the first rank of his generation.”

By Monday 9/10, the entire festival scene and the outside world connected to it by the press was buzzing about the film. That morning, I was lucky enough to secure the first major interview with Reitman and Cody about the film, and as I waited for their arrival in the Fox Searchlight suite at The Four Seasons, I had the opportunity to chat with some of the film’s publicists and with Page, who was killing time on one of the studio’s computers before a photoshoot. There was an unmistakable excitement in the air, because the studio came into the festival essentially believing they had one major awards contender, The Savages, and was now beginning to realize, quite happily, that their plate had just gotten a lot heavier.

Eventually, Reitman—who I first interviewed last year—strolled into the room with a big smile on his face. Before he could get out a word, Cody bounded in behind him for a bear hug, excitedly reciting portions of Ebert’s glowing review from memory. When we eventually move a few doors down for what will prove to be an insightful, touching, and often uproarious interview (beware of some spoilers), Reitman and Cody sit beside each other, and I cannot help but chuckle at the thought that these two people, who outwardly seem totally incompatible, have forged not only a magnificent film, but also a wonderful friendship. Reitman, the calm, quiet product of Hollywood royalty, and Cody, the hyperkinetic, sexy ex-stripper with brains—what an odd couple!

On this day, before I even ask my first question, Cody—who is sporting a tight Superman shirt, short skirt, kinky boots, and an assortment of cool tattoos—wants to show off something new she acquired while out partying at a bar the night before: a major bruise on her leg…

CODY: I saw, like, a long, slidey banister—and that used to be, like, my specialty when I was, like, eight years old—and I was like, “Check it out!” And, like, it looked cool, but I felt the banister just, like—
REITMAN: Tear up your leg.
CODY: Busting capillaries as I slid down. And then, now, I have, like, a total, like, jackass goose egg.

But you’re now a legend, right?
CODY: [laughs] Hopefully, yeah. Five drunk people saw me go down a banister. I’m a legend.
REITMAN: When I was a kid, my dad was making the movie Dave, and we were getting a tour of the White House, and I slid down the banister!

No way!
CODY: Honestly?
REITMAN: Yeah, and the tour guide was just like, [pauses a beat] “I didn’t see that.” We were in a line going down the stairs, and I just, like, held back, held back, held back, and they got all the way to the bottom of the stairs, and I tried to make it look like I was just checking something out, and all you could hear was, “Wee!” [laughs] Yeah, so, slid the banister of the White House!

Not too many people can say that…
REITMAN: No. [laughs]
CODY: That’s totally—like, that, right there, that could be, like, a heartwarming eighties White House comedy. Like, Kid in the White House!
REITMAN: [laughs, hums an imagined soundtrack]

You could have done that with Macaulay Culkin a few years ago. Not anymore, not anymore…
REITMAN: You know, it would be funny, though, to do a Macaulay Culkin movie now, like, where he’s still playing the young kid, only he’s older now, and it’s sad.
CODY: He could play a kid. Him in, like, giant footy pajamas!
REITMAN: [laughs]
CODY: That would be funny as hell! That would be, like, the best short ever.

It could revive his career…
REITMAN: And his childlike reactions to everything!
CODY: [recreates Culkin’s expression after using aftershave Home Alone]
REITMAN: “Whatever!” “Whatev, Mom, I’m not going there!”

Well, I want to ask you, first of all—forget the actual questions—what has it been like for you here these last twenty-four hours?
REITMAN: [sarcastically] Suuucks!
CODY: [sarcastically] Boriiing!
REITMAN: [laughs]
CODY: [laughs, then serious] It’s been really intense. It’s been amazing.

What have you seen, and heard, and done? I know you’re getting great feedback…
REITMAN: We both get stopped a lot. I mean, I think we both get stopped in The Four Seasons lobby, which is, as you know, the heart of the festival, the Grand Central Station of the Toronto Film Festival. And when your movie’s working like ours, you walk through, and people stop you, congratulate you, and it’s absolutely wonderful. You know, one handshake leads to another, and it’s a great feeling.
CODY: There’s, like, nothing better than that. I never thought I would be involved in any kind of, like, you know, feel-good business. It’s, like, a very addictive sensation to make people happy.
REITMAN: I told Diablo, I said, “When you go to a film festival and you have, like, two or three screenings, you have your first one, and if it really goes well, it’s like, smack—you need that next high.” We have a screening today at three, and I’ve been literally, like, itching for it, you know? Give us the next screening!

How did you two first meet?
CODY: He read my script.
REITMAN: I got a copy of Diablo’s script, and I just fell head-over-heels for it. And I remember when I first got the chance to meet Diablo, I was just terrified, because the script was so cool, and I thought, “Wow, this girl’s gonna be so hip, and I’m gonna be so lame, and she’s gonna be like, ‘You’re not directing my movie!’” And it worked out alright.
CODY: I was incredibly intimidated myself because my friends and I had just gotten together and screened Thank You for Smoking so I could see who was going to be directing the movie—‘cause I had actually never seen it, which I’m just completely ashamed of now.
REITMAN: Seriously?
CODY: Not my fault! My husband generally chooses the movies. I mean, he comes home with Maid in Manhattan—not really. But I hadn’t seen Thank You for Smoking, and not five minutes into the movie my friends were, like, on their feet, like, “Diablo, we hate you!” Like, “This guy’s directing your movie? This is gonna be good! You’re actually gonna have a good movie!” So the confidence was already there, and the excitement, and I was just like, “Oh, my God.” Like, I hadn’t realized, like, the magnitude of the decision until I saw that movie, and then I was, like, beyond psyched.

It seems to me that you guys are quite different—
REITMAN: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Well, that’s what I’m getting at. What am I missing, because you seemed so fond of each other at the premiere, and in everything that I’ve read…
CODY: I think that people who are different can get along, you know?
REITMAN: Yeah. Diablo is kind of, we’ve decided, like, the masculine in the relationship, and I’m the feminine.
CODY: [laughs] Yeah.

‘Diablo Cody’—that’s a pretty tough name. Is that a real name?
CODY: No, that’s not my real name. Honestly, like, I like to say that ‘Diablo Cody’ is a joke, but it’s really gone way too far. It was a pseudonym that I came up with when I was writing online just for fun. At the time, I wanted to protect my anonymity a little because of some of the things I was writing about. But then, you know, people started using it in articles when I started getting press; and then people, you know, started addressing me as such; and now it’s just followed me here, and I’m gonna be Diablo Cody.

I want to direct this next question to you [Diablo]. Can you talk a little about your childhood—where you grew up, what your interests were, what your relationship with your parents was like—because obviously you’ve written about an adolescent in Juno, and I wonder if there are any similarities between your own experience and Juno’s…
CODY: Definitely. You know, I grew up in the Midwest, which you know. My parents are, sort of, traditional, middle-class. And it’s unusual that I’m a screenwriter—which is, sort of, like, the ultimate, sort of, fun, frivolous, dream-profession for writers—because I was always encouraged to choose a stable profession and have something to fall back on. Like, my Dad’s primary concern with every decision I made was, like, “Will you have health insurance?” You know? And that’s understandable, because that’s where they were coming from. You know, stability was always the most important thing in our family. And that’s why it’s funny to me—because I was never incredibly ambitious about doing this for a living, and I was lucky enough to kind of fall into it, believe it or not—because I just never really thought it seemed like a practical career choice. As a teenager, I was actually kind of a really shy, like, bookish kid—all I did was really read and write—I’d say a ‘grapho-maniac’ since I was little kid. I write constantly. I have just reams and reams of notebooks; I haven’t even been able to move all my notebooks out of my mom’s house because there are too many. But, when I was a teenager, that was when I kind of came out of my shell as a person. And I had a lot of male friends who were just Paulie Bleeker types, these really sweet, sensitive guys who were intimidated by me—like, I was the one grabbing their asses at 7 Eleven!—and it was such a fun way to grow up. And my best female friend was just a troublemaker, but in a fun way, not in a, you know, parents posting bail kind of way. It was great, just sort of running wild in the Chicago suburbs, and I just kind of wanted to recreate that feeling a little, with the teenage relationships.

Just so that people understand the interesting background that you [Diablo] have—and I know a lot of it is addressed in your book, Candy Girl—here’s what I have: very sweet, sheltered, Catholic, suburban, college graduate. How did you end up stripping?
REITMAN: Oh, I thought he was gonna bring up your murder rap!
CODY: [laughs] That would be less surprising, I think. I think people expect the sheltered Catholics to murder.
REITMAN: [laughs]
CODY: I still don’t really understand what happened, and I’m still constantly piecing it together. It’s something I think about every day. I think I just had the mid-twenties-crisis to end all mid-twenties-crises, and I just kinda flipped out one day and did the least expected thing that I could do. And it felt really good, to be honest.

That anticipates another of my questions, actually—what do you think the appeal of it was? Was it just to be rebellious?
CODY: It just—yeah, I guess ‘rebellious’ is the kind of word that people usually say with a curl of the lip, because it sounds so immature, but it probably was rebellion, but not against specific people, and it wasn’t like, “Fuck you, Dad!” Like, some people strip to get back at people in their family. It wasn’t anything like that. It was more like I felt like I had grown up in, like, a specific class, in a specific culture, and I just wanted to say, like, you know, “My experience is limited,” and even though some people wouldn’t see it as positive, maybe I want to do something negative for a while. It created a weird energy in my life. I’m glad that I did it.

One more for you [Diablo] before I move to Jason. How do you then come from stripping to writing? And not just writing, because a lot of people write, but you’re doing great stuff…
CODY: It’s an accident. It was an accident. And at the same time, it was interesting, because when I was a stripper, that was the first time ever that I had days to myself. You know, I would go and work at night. And as a writer, it was sort of amazing, because I would wake up energized, get to write all day, and then I would go and work. And, for some reason, that, sort of, reversal of scheduling sort of triggered me to become more enthusiastic about writing, and a more prolific, diligent writer. And I was cranking out a lot of material. And I started to realize that this is all I ever want to do—I don’t even care if I have to do something sordid or filthy to keep doing this. Like, I need to be a writer. I need to wake up in the morning and write. And then I got ‘discovered.’ You know, I was blogging, and I was discovered by a man who is my manager and also a producer on Juno. His name is Mason Novick, and he emailed me and said, like, “I think you’re really funny, and I think you should try writing a screenplay.” It was a totally out-there idea, but I gave it a try, and that was Juno.

And the blog—remind me—I know it’s a funny name…
CODY: It’s still there! It’s “The Pussy Ranch.”

The hits must be going crazy on that…
CODY: I do pretty well. You know, the funny thing is I don’t write about stripping anymore. People find this less interesting. [laughs] I got way more hits then than I do now.

What drew you [Jason] most to her [Diablo’s] work? What appealed to you about it?
REITMAN: It was the fact that Diablo took on an interesting subject matter like teenage pregnancy—I really like tricky subject matter—but took it on with the most unusual, open-minded dialog. It was so sharp, and so funny, and just had a perspective that no one else could write. And it reminded me of how Christopher Buckley took on cigarettes.

It’s a very different kind of story from Thank You for Smoking. You mentioned at the first screening here that you wanted to show that you—
REITMAN: That I had a heart.

Was that a factor in choosing this story?
REITMAN: Not really. I mean, I was actually in the middle of writing my next screenplay, which was much closer to Thank You for Smoking, when I just read this screenplay and fell in love with it. I can’t explain it. I just thought the dialog was so original. And I thought, you know, you read so many screenplays where all the decisions are expected, and the characters do just very ordinary, boring things that would come up in every screenplay that you read. And here was a screenplay where there was not one false-note, there was not a beat that I had seen before, every character was original, every character had an amazing moment. You know, often you have two or three great characters, and then there’s just periphery ones that are just kind of painting the wall in the background. And here, any time you thought a character was just filler, they would have some sort of scene, some sort of great moment that made you think, “Oh, no, they’re the best character in this movie!” “Oh, no, they’re the best character!” And I couldn’t help it. I mean, you know, my test for myself is I have to feel as though, “If I couldn’t get the opportunity to direct this movie, I wouldn’t want to go on living.” And there’s obviously very few things that you feel that way. And this was immediate.

The movie is also obviously very much about women and their experiences…
REITMAN: [sarcastically] I know a lot about women!

I’m just thinking about the variety, though—you’ve got Jennifer Garner’s character, who yearns for something she can’t have; Ellen Page, who has something she doesn’t necessarily want; Allison Janney, who is in the middle of this; and a number of others. At the screening, Jason discussed the influence that certain women have had on his life. Who were some of the more influential women in your lives?
REITMAN: [sarcastically] Virginia Woolf.
CODY: [sarcastically] You know Sable from WWF?
REITMAN: [laughs] I mean, I mentioned this at the screening but, you know, obviously my mother, my wife, and my daughter. Look, I had a baby right before we started shooting this movie, and nothing was a bigger influence than that. Nothing was a bigger influence than me going through what all the characters are feeling—going through what Mark feels about the fear of becoming a father, and your life changing, and kind of saying goodbye to your adolescence; and then Jennifer Garner’s fear, what Vanessa’s going through, which is, you know, that feeling that you’re never complete until you have a baby; and even Juno’s feeling, you know, kind of looking forward to your life changing. Really, my wife and my daughter had the biggest effect on that.
CODY: Ellen Page is actually a major inspiration to me now. But when I was writing? My mom is really Vanessa-like, in that she’s extremely domestic, and being a mother is absolutely the most important thing to her in the world, and always has been. And she and I are very different, but I have so much respect for just how affectionate and selfless she is. She’s, like, the perfect mom in so many ways. And so absolutely her. And then also the female friends that I’ve had in my life that have been, sort of, unafraid to be a freak. I admire that. I think it’s harder to be a freak as a woman.

In another interview I saw of you [Diablo] to prepare for this—maybe it was you on Letterman—
CODY: [laughs] Uh-oh.

You said that the first time your mother was aware of some of the things you had been doing was when your book came out, right?
CODY: Yeah.

How has your relationship evolved since then?
CODY: It’s fine, but it’s hard for me to say how it would have gone if I had just called her one day and said, “I have a confession to make: I’ve been a stripper for the last year.” Instead, I got to call her and say, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you know, the book deal that I’ve wanted my entire life has happened.” And then it was, “Ah! Oh my God! How?” And then I had to say, “Because I was a stripper and I wrote about it.” And there was just, you know, crickets. But she’s incredibly proud of me, and we have a great relationship. And, actually, I think she knows me better than she ever would have otherwise because she’s read the book. She says she read it three times, and she said the first two times she was just in total shock, and the third time, she said, she read a line and laughed, and, you know, the sound just startled her, and she couldn’t believe that she had actually started to think of it as funny, because before it had just been horrifying. But now she thinks I’m very entertaining.
REITMAN: [laughs] That’s great. For her, it’s a Stephen King book! Everything is just, like, titillating and humorous, and for her it’s the scariest book ever!
CODY: Yeah. She cried. But now she thinks it’s funny. It just took her some time to get used to the idea. And my dad is unflappable, you know? My dad is really cool. And he’s sort of a feminist, in a weird way, because he was never the kind of dad who was like, “I’m gonna protect my little girl!” and “I’m gonna break that guy’s teeth if he comes near you!” You know? He was always just kind of like, “Well, you know, make sure your health insurance doesn’t lapse.”

Some people have observed that there may be some similarities, as far as the quirkiness, between this movie and Napoleon Dynamite. Do you see any parallels between the films?
REITMAN: I’ve got to be honest, I don’t. I’ve always thought of them as very different. And I guess the reason why—and I’m a huge fan of Napoleon Dynamite—is that Napoleon Dynamite takes place in an alternate universe. You know, it takes place in a universe where you have these very strange characters which are animated, and lovely, and funny, and wonderful, but they’re not real human beings. And what I loved about Diablo’s screenplay is that while particularly a lot of the young characters have an unusual way of talking, they’re real. They’re very human. These are people I know. I also have a Vanessa as a mother. And I know many Marks—I know thirty-year-old guys who won’t grow up. I know sixteen-year-old girls who are growing up too fast. I think this movie is, kind of, infinitesimally relatable, and what makes it so good is that it is honest and real.

Is there a single character in the film that you can especially relate to?
REITMAN: All of them. I mean, honestly, I’ve gone through the feeling—in the nine months of being pregnant and in the ten months of having a child—I’ve gone through the feelings of all four characters, all four of the key characters. There is fear, and there’s wonderment, and there’s excitement, and there’s agony. All of it happens because it’s so life changing. And it allowed me to relate and direct each one of the actors. And we’re lucky that Jason [Bateman] had just had a daughter, Jennifer had just had a daughter, and Ellen has basically just been born. They all had a very good way into the material, and we had very honest conversations on set about what these characters were feeling. It was never about, “How do we make this funny?” It was never about, “How do we make this quirky and unusual?” It was, “How do we make this as real and honest as possible?” And the humor and emotion will find its way.

You’re [Jason] coming off a huge success. Were there any issues in getting this movie funded and made? Did you have to fight much?
REITMAN: Diablo’s script got bought almost instantaneously. And when I came on board, I said, “I think we should do this at Fox Searchlight.” Fox Searchlight jumped on board. We were very excited about it.

And as far as casting, which worked out perfectly, was Ellen Page immediately someone that came to mind?
REITMAN: Yeah. We were both fans of hers. We wanted her.

And the rest of the cast? I guess Michael Cera had not yet done Superbad…
REITMAN: No, but we were both huge Arrested Development fans, so it was—
CODY: Yeah. And the minute I heard Michael Cera as a suggestion, it was like, “Call him now! That’s it!”
REITMAN: Yeah. In fact, Michael Cera was originally gonna play ‘Cancer Boy’ in Thank You for Smoking, but we couldn’t get his visa together.
CODY: I never knew that!
REITMAN: I was a huge fan of his, and I asked him, I said, “Would you come play ‘Cancer Boy’?” And he’s like, “Yeah, that’d be great!” And he came down to set, and we, like, talked about it, and he was, like, all excited, and I was gonna add some lines for ‘Cancer Boy’ so he could talk, and we were gonna give him, like, a bald cap. And he’s Canadian, and we couldn’t get his damn visa together, because it was during, like, the hiatus of Arrested Development.
CODY: Oh, that would have been so cool.
REITMAN: I know! And we never got it worked out.
CODY: Fair enough.

Jason, you’re very savvy—I know from keeping in touch since Thank You for Smoking—about the Oscar process. You now have a release date on December 14th. I don’t believe it was always going to be in December…
REITMAN: No. It was originally going to be a spring movie, and Searchlight saw the movie, got excited about, we started to screen it, it tested very well. I think the big surprise to them was—we tested for teenagers, and they reacted, and I think we expected them to react; and then we tested it for a whole audience in Pasadena over thirty-five years old, and we got the exact same score. And then we showed it to Toronto. They asked for the film, they really liked it. And, I think, all of a sudden, it was like, “Wow. We’ve got something special here.” And they moved it up to December 14th, which you, of all people, know is an impressive date.

Does that put any pressure on you guys? Do you feel now that you have to live up to certain things?
REITMAN: You know what? I think after our screening the other night, everything else is gravy. You know? It was such a warm reception here. The people who see it love it. Obviously, I think, both of us want as many people as possible to see this film. But I think the word-of-mouth is gonna be good, and we’d be honored for anything that we get on this film. But it’s been one of those where it was a pleasure making, it is a joy to watch people watch this film and react to this film, and the only sad part about December 14th? It’s so soon. It’s like, there’s only so many screenings we get to go and watch audiences react to.
CODY: That was the thing that also makes me sad.
REITMAN: [jokes] Push it to summer!

Well, the city is—this morning, especially, and yesterday, as well—obviously with you. This is the top story, this is the big news. You’ve got Ebert on your side now, you’ve got—
REITMAN: I always say it’s like running for office—you know, “Ebert just came out on our side!”
CODY: I know!
REITMAN: [laughs] “He’s endorsed the movie!”

Well that was not only an endorsement. That was, like, he loves you guys. I don’t remember reading him gush about a movie like that in—I don’t know how long. Is that a confidence booster?
REITMAN: Are you kidding me? It means the world. No one grows up in this country without knowing who Roger Ebert is, and no one who ever wants to be a filmmaker grows up in this country not wanting his thumb at some point in their life.
CODY: [gives him a look]
REITMAN: [laughs] What? Did that not sound okay? You’re bad! Sorry, let me rephrase. There’s no filmmaker who doesn’t grow up in this country—
CODY: [laughs] Not dreaming of his thumb?!
REITMAN: Wanting his thumbs up! And the idea that you can wake up one morning, and turn on his blog, and he’s sitting there talking about your film in the warmest way—you know, that is an honor into itself, and no matter how well the screening could have gone the other day, you can’t help but—
CODY: That was so cool.

What do you like most about the film now that you’ve had a little bit of time since you finished it and can see the response?
CODY: Visually, I just think it’s so beautiful. Like, the shots are so interesting, it’s so well directed, the performances are great—I mean, it’s so hard for me to choose one thing. I have to say, having never seen something that I wrote brought to life in this way before, I’m always surprised by, like, the little touches that the actors bring to the lines and just completely reanimate them—it’s so much better than I even expected. Really cool. I know, as a writer, you get, kind of, crushes, and you think, like, “Well, this is the way I hear it, and so if it’s not that way it’s going to be wrong!” But it’s not like that at all. In this situation, it wasn’t like that at all. It was, “Oh, my God! This is better.”
REITMAN: I love the rhythms of the movie. I love how it builds. I mean, when I watch it with an audience, and I see the audience fall in love with each character, one at a time—fall in love with the dad; fall in with Bren, the stepmom; and then, you know, watch them cross paths on Mark and Vanessa, and see how they fall out of love with Mark and they come to love Vanessa—watching people develop real relationships with these characters is very exciting to me. On Thank You for Smoking, I made people laugh. I’ve always felt like I’m a guy who knows how to make people laugh. But the fact that people feel things on this movie, the fact that I talk to them after and I can tell there’s a difference in the way that they speak to me—it’s not just, “Oh, you made me laugh! That was great.” People seem genuinely moved. And, you know, that’s the thing that you hope to do in your lifetime, not, kind of, this early.

What do you want people to come away from this movie thinking? What is the message?
REITMAN: [jokes] Don’t do drugs.
CODY: I think it’s a message about individuality because, in the end, Vanessa gets what she wanted, but not in the way that she thought she would, and yet it’s still a really beautiful moment. I think people get caught up in the packaging of situations.
REITMAN: Yeah. Life is complicated.
CODY: Yeah. Life is complicated.
REITMAN: And you have to be open-minded. And—this is something that Diablo and I have talked about a lot—you know, here’s a movie about a sixteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant. And when you’re sixteen years old, all you want to do, obviously, is grow up, and experience life, and become an adult. And what happens in becoming an adult is you realize life is much more complicated than you ever thought. It’s a bell that cannot be un-rung. You can’t return to that place when life seemed, you know, perfect. And this is a movie about—(a) you realize that life is more complicated than you thought, but (b) being open enough to, kind of, accept it for what it is. And, you know, you have all these characters who are complicated human beings, and who are being thrust into a tricky situation which is not the advertised version of a family. And you learn to accept all of them. Even Mark you learn to accept, knowing that this is a guy who should not actually be in this marriage, and he should be out in his loft figuring himself out. And, you know, one would hope that with this movie, or any movie like it, you can walk out and hopefully have kind of a fresh point-of-view on that stuff.

And the final question—what, in your minds, becomes of these characters? We come to like each of them a lot in their own way—
REITMAN: [sarcastically] They die in a freak accident. It’s actually really bad. They—
CODY: [sarcastically] Have you seen The Sweet Hereafter?
REITMAN: [laughs]

Alice Kelikian, an Associate Professor of History and the Chair of the Film Studies Program at Brandeis University, has convinced two of the greatest living filmmakers, the long-feuding Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, to publicly reunite for the first time in nearly thirty years. They will appear together on October 22 at the Edie and Lew Wasserman Cinematheque on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where I’m told a capacity-crowd of 230 will be in attendance.

The precise schedule of events for the evening has not yet been set, but that it is possible the main event will be preceded by a screening of Herzog’s latest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, which continues his man-against-nature theme in Antarctica, and which was recently shown at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals. (Morris screened segments of his upcoming Abu Ghraib documentary S.O.P.: Standard Operating Proedure at Brandeis earlier this year.)

Just got back from a special press screening in Boston: Jerry Seinfeld, accompanied by directors Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith, flew into town from Toronto and helped introduce clips (totalling about 40 minutes) from their upcoming animated comedy Bee Movie (11/2, DreamWorks Animation). He was introduced by Doc Rivers, the legendary head coach of the Boston Celtics, and then came out and did some of his trademark opening shtick–you know, “What’s the point of watching the weather? Someone came up to me on the street the other day and asked, ‘Do you think it’s gonna get cooler?’ I said, ‘Yeah. And then it’s gonna get hotter. And then it’s gonna be sunny, and rainy, and windy, and snowy. I think that’s a pretty safe bet.’”

Seinfeld then introduced two upcoming television promos for the film that will run on NBC “for free,” he boasted. “How do I get NBC to run advertisements to promote my movie for free, you ask? Well, a few years back, I had a little show on their network.” The much funnier of the two features a conference with Seinfeld and a team of writers working on the Bee Movie script who are interrupted by a coffee boy’s weak suggestion of a line… Seinfeld then asks him for his name, is told that it’s Carl, asks what Carl does, is told that Carl is the coffee boy, and is then told by Seinfeld to essentially–pardon the pun–buzz off. After Carl leaves the room, a writer says to Seinfeld, “Do you know what Carl’s last name is?” He responds, “No.” The other guy says, “Spielberg.” Seinfeld abruptly says, “I think we can still catch him in the parking lot.” Fade to black. Fade back in, and Seinfeld is delivering coffee to Carl and the team of writers.

Then, Seinfeld turned the reins over to Hickner, who introduced approximately six segments of the film, which ran from roughly two to fifteen minutes in length. The general premise of the film is that Barry B. Benson (voiced by Seinfeld), a young bee with parents concerned that he marry someone who is also ‘Beeish’ (a play on ‘Jewish’), ventures out of the hive, encounters the wonders (packaged honey! Cinnabons!) and surprises (windows, lightbulbs, windshield wipers, and, of course, humans who want his kind dead) of the outside world, and then breaks the cardinal bee law by revealing that bees can actually talk. He does so to express his gratitude to a woman (voiced by Renee Zellweger) who saved his life when her alpha friend tries to swat him. She is fond of him, and he falls hard for her, but theirs is a forbidden love that eventually lands him in a court (the presiding judge is voiced by Oprah Winfrey.) Other scenes feature the voices of Chris Rock, Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Kathy Bates, Larry King, Rip Torn, Megan Mullally and, in a memorable self-mocking cameo, Ray Liotta.

Bottom line? We’re looking at a beautifully animated (vibrantly colors, long tracking shots, etc.) and surprisingly funny film. I am somewhat dumbfounded by its November release date, since it strikes me as more of a summer sort of film, but perhaps it will prove to be a popular alternative to the more serious usual winter fare–it certainly has the potential to appeal across demographics. Ultimately, it will be an important test of the box-office potential of Seinfeld, and one nobody will be watching more closely than DreamWorks ‘ani-maven’ Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has gambled a large budget on Seinfeld despite the fact that the comedian has been off of television and largely unseen for a few years, and has never before appeared in a major motion picture.

According to a report on Variety.com, Clint Eastwood will direct Morgan Freeman in The Human Factor, an Oscar-baity biopic of South Africa’s national hero Nelson Mandela. Eastwood has directed Freeman on two previous films, Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Matt Damon is reportedly in serious talks to co-star.

The following projections are by no means scientific and are arrived at through a variety of means, including advance screenings and insights from trusted industry sources. As always, reader thoughts are welcome in the ‘Comments’ section at the end of this post.

BEST PICTURE
Projected Nominees
(1) American Gangster (Universal)▲
(2) Atonement (Focus Features)
(3) Charlie Wilson’s War (Universal)
(4) There Will Be Blood (Paramount)
(5) Juno (Fox Searchlight) ▲
Major Threats
(6) No Country for Old Men (Miramax)
(7) Sweeney Todd (DreamWorks)
(8) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Miramax)▲
(9) The Kite Runner (DreamWorks)
(10) Lions for Lambs (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)▲
In the Mix
(11) In the Valley of Elah (Warner Independent)
(12) Lust, Caution (Focus Features)
(13) Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Think Film)▲
(14) Things We Lost in the Fire (Paramount)
(15) I’m Not There (The Weinstein Company)
(16) Gone Baby Gone (Miramax)
(17) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Brothers)
(18) The Savages (Fox Searchlight)
(19) Into the Wild (Focus Features)
(20) Lars and the Real Girl (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)▲
On the Outside
(21) Reservation Road (Focus Features)▼
(22) Eastern Promises (Focus Features)
(23) Cassandra’s Dream (The Weinstein Company)▲
(24) Once (Fox Searchlight)
(25) Michael Clayton (Warner Brothers)
(26) The Darjeeling Limited (Fox Searchlight)
(27) Away from Her (Lions Gate)
(28) August Rush (Warner Brothers)
(29) Margot at the Wedding (Paramount Classics)
(30) Love in the Time of Cholera (New Line)▼
(31) In Bloom (Magnolia)
(32) Waitress (Fox Searchlight)
(33) The Golden Age (Universal)▼
Keep in Mind
(34) Sicko (The Weinstein Company)
(35) Ratatouille (Disney)
(36) Rails and Ties (Warner Independent)▲
(37) A Mighty Heart (Paramount Vantage)
(38) The Kingdom (Universal)
(39) Darfur Now (Warner Independent)
(40) The Golden Compass (New Line)
(41) Feast of Love (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
(42) Rendition (New Line)▼
(43) The Brave One (Warner Brothers)
(44) Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Twentieth Century-Fox)
(45) The Namesake (Fox Searchlight)
(46) P.S., I Love You (Warner Brothers)
(47) Across the Universe (Revolution)

BEST DIRECTOR
(1) Ridley Scott (American Gangster)
(2) Joe Wright (Atonement)
(3) Mike Nichols (Charlie Wilson’s War)
(4) Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)
(5) Ethan Coen, Joel Coen (No Country for Old Men)
Major Threats
(6) Jason Reitman (Juno)▲
(7) Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd)
(8) Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)▲
(9) Marc Forster (The Kite Runner)
(10) Robert Redford (Lions for Lambs)▲
In the Mix
(11) Paul Haggis (In the Valley of Elah)
(12) Ang Lee (Lust, Caution)
(13) Sidney Lumet (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)
(14) Suzanne Bier (Things We Lost in the Fire)
(15) Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone)
(16) Todd Haynes (I’m Not There)
(17) Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
(18) Tamara Jenkins (The Savages)
(19) Sean Penn (Into the Wild)
(20) Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl)
On the Outside
(21) Terry George (Reservation Road)▼
(22) David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises)▲
(23) Woody Allen (Cassandra’s Dream)▲
(24) John Carney (Once)
(25) Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)
(26) Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited)
(27) Sarah Polley (Away from Her)
(28) Kirsten Sheridan (August Rush)
(29) Noah Baumbach (Margot at the Wedding)
(30) Mike Newell (Love in the Time of Cholera)▼
(31) Vadim Perelman (In Bloom)
(32) Adrienne Shelley (Waitress)
(33) Shekhar Kapur (The Golden Age)▼
Keep in Mind
(34) Michael Moore (Sicko)
(35) Brad Bird (Ratatouille)
(36) Alison Eastwood (Rails and Ties)▲
(37) Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart)
(38) Peter Berg (The Kingdom)
(39) Ted Braun (Darfur Now)
(40) Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass)
(41) Robert Benton (Feast of Love)
(42) Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn)
(43) Gavin Hood (Rendition)▼
(44) Neil Jordan (The Brave One)
(45) Zach Helm (Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium)
(46) Mira Nair (The Namesake)

BEST ACTOR
Projected Nominees
(1) Denzel Washington (American Gangster)
(2) Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson’s War)
(3) Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
(4) James McAvoy (Atonement)▲
(5) Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)▲
Major Threats
(6) Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men)▲
(7) Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd)
(8) Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah)
(9) Ryan Gosling (Lars and the Real Girl)▲
(10) Joaquin Phoenix (Reservation Road)▼
(11) Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Savages)
In the Mix
(12) George Clooney (Michael Clayton)
(13) Philip Seymour Hoffman (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)▲
(14) Brad Pitt (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
(15) John Cusack (Grace Is Gone)▲
(16) Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)
(17) Mark Ruffalo (Reservation Road)
(18) Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild)
On the Outside
(19) Javier Bardem (Love in the Time of Cholera)▼
(20) Frank Langella (Starting Out in the Evening)
(21) Gordon Pinsett (Away from Her)
(22) Kevin Bacon (Rails and Ties)
(23) Michael Caine (Sleuth)
(24) Glen Hansard (Once)
Keep in Mind
(25 Russell Crowe (3:10 to Yuma)
(26) Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn)
(27) Seth Rogen (Knocked Up)
(28) Don Cheadle (Talk to Me)
(29) Richard Gere (The Hoax)
(30) Jamie Foxx (The Kingdom)
(31) Jake Gyllenhaal (Rendition)

BEST ACTRESS
Projected Nominees
(1) Ellen Page (Juno)▲
(2) Keira Knightley (Atonement)
(3) Laura Linney (The Savages)
(4) Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose)
(5) Halle Berry (Things We Lost in the Fire)▼
Major Threats
(6) Julie Christie (Away from Her)
(7) Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Love in the Time of Cholera)
(8) Cate Blanchett (The Golden Age)
(9) Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart)
(10) Julia Roberts (Charlie Wilson’s War)▲
(11) Nicole Kidman (Margot at the Wedding)
(12) Uma Thurman (In Bloom)
(13) Keri Russell (Waitress)
In the Mix
(14) Marcia Gay Harden (Rails and Ties)
(15) Keri Russell (August Rush)
(16) Reese Witherspoon (Rendition)
(17) Jodie Foster (The Brave One)▼
(18) Naomi Watts (Eastern Promises)
On the Outside
(19) Marketa Irglova (Once)
Keep in Mind
(20) Anne Hathaway (Becoming Jane)
(21) Hilary Swank (P.S., I Love You)
(22) Renee Zellweger (Leatherheads)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Projected Nominees
(1) Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
(2) Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War)
(3) Benicio Del Toro (Things We Lost in the Fire)
(4) Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood)
(5) Russell Crowe (American Gangster)▲
Major Threats
(6) Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)
(7) Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)▲
(8) Alan Rickman (Sweeney Todd)
(9) John Travolta (Hairspray)
(10) Tom Cruise (Lions for Lambs)▲
In the Mix
(11) Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild)▲
(12) Armin Mueller-Stahl (Eastern Promises)▲
(13) Adrien Brody (The Darjeeling Limited)
(14) Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men)
(15) Max von Sydow (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
(16) Philip Bosco (The Savages)
On the Outside
(17) Ed Harris (Gone Baby Gone)
(18) Albert Finney (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)
(19) Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma)
(20) Dustin Hoffman (Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium)
Keep in Mind
(21) Clive Owen (The Golden Age)▼
(22) Liev Schreiber (Love in the Time of Cholera)
(23) Christian Bale (I’m Not There)
(24) Omar Metwally (Rendition)
(25) Jason Bateman (Juno)
(26) Robert Downey, Jr. (Zodiac)
(27) Michael Cera (Juno)
(28) Peter Sarsgaard (Rendition)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Projected Nominees
(1) Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There)
(2) Helena Bonham Carter (Sweeney Todd)▲
(3) Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding)
(4) Marisa Tomei (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)▲
(5) Meryl Streep (Lions for Lambs)▲
Major Threats
(6) Kelly MacDonald (No Country for Old Men)▲
(7) Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
(8) Evan Rachel Wood (In Bloom)
(9) Jennifer Connelly (Reservation Road)
(10) Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)
(11) Jennifer Garner (Juno)
(12) Nicole Kidman (The Golden Compass)
In the Mix
(13) Romola Garai (Atonement)
(14) Michelle Pfeiffer (Hairspray)
(15) Abbie Cornish (The Golden Age)▼
(16) Vanessa Redgrave (Atonement)
(17) Ruby Dee (American Gangster)▲
(18) Charlize Theron (In the Valley of Elah)
On the Outside
(19) Susan Sarandon (In the Valley of Elah)
(20) Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)
(21) Samantha Morton (The Golden Age)▼
(22) Olympia Dukakis (Away from Her)
(23) Hayley Atwell (Cassandra’s Dream)
Keep in Mind
(24) Anjelica Huston (The Darjeeling Limited)
(25) Tabu (The Namesake)
(26) Lauren Bacall (The Walker)
(27) Emily Blunt (The Jane Austen Book Club)▼

• Just got a very cool invite for later this month to a special presentation of 45 minutes of the highly-anticipated, not-yet-complete animated-comedy Bee Movie (DreamWorks) which will be moderated by creator Jerry Seinfeld, along with directors Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner. (The film is set to open nationwide on November 2.)
• Festivalgoers at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival gave their highest honor, the Audience Award, to the hometown favorite Eastern Promises (Focus Features), which is Canadian director David Cronenberg‘s latest ‘venereal horror’ film. Juno (Fox Searchlight), directed by Jason Reitman, was my personal favorite film of the festival, and reportedly finished a close second.
• Talk about bankable: Jodie Foster has carried yet another movie to a number one box-office opening. The Brave One (Warner Brothers) held off a strong second week showing by 3:10 to Yuma and a mediocre opening by Mr. Woodcock to snatch the top spot. This film—following in the recent footsteps of Panic Room, Flightplan, and Inside Man—reaffirms Foster’s status as one of the few women who can really open a movie strong. (The Foster Allure was recently dissected in a fascinating Sunday New York Times piece by Manohla Dargis that is well worth a read.)
• My gut feeling is that the immensely talented young actress Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen) is pulling a Britney Spears and driving her career right into the ground by parading around with ‘boy’friend Marilyn Manson. Wood, who turned twenty last week, reportedly will be appearing in Manson’s upcoming horror film Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. Obviously, she’s entitled to do what she wants to do, but one hopes she is aware that the relationship is not winning her many news fans—and is without question turning off some of her older ones—and the timing could not be worse: Wood has three new films coming out over the next few weeks, King of California (Nu Image), Across the Universe (Revolution) and In Bloom (2929 International).
• The Boston Film Festival got underway on Friday night with the premiere of Grace Is Gone (The Weinstein Company), a film that stars John Cusack as a man whose wife has been killed in Iraq and who must now find a way to break the news to his two young daughters, well aware that doing so will rob them of their innocence forever. I was disappointed to have to miss the screening, since I was out of town, but I look forward to catching some of the rest of the festival, starting with Wednesday night’s premiere of In the Land of Merry Misfits.
• Shia LeBeouf slipped up at the MTV Video Music Awards and prematurely announced the name of the upcoming fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) will hit theaters on May 22, 2008. (How important is this? Well, they could call it Indiana Jones and the Trip to the Gynecologist and it would still have a huge opening.)