A few months ago, I visited the UK set of Batman Begins for Moviefone.com. My write-up of the set visit is now up at the site. The piece was an exercise in entertainment journalism haiku; as both a film- and comic-geek, it was rather difficult to restrict myself to the short space alotted.

Continuing (and concluding) my responses to the numerous interesting comments on my previous piece on the screener DVDs that the studios sent out to BAFTA (and, presumably, Oscar) voters…
Steven Smith wrote:

Thanks for the great article. I, personally, have never understood the approach of stamping “For Your Consideration” at the bottom of viewing copies. It doesn’t seem like a significant deterrant for someone likely to copy it and for the sort of person that buys their favorite movies off the floor of a subway platform. Digital tracking numbers though? That degree of panoptic, Orwellian paranoia sends a chill through my spine that makes me want to unplug my modem and paint my windows black.

In an attempt to update Movable Type last week, I ended up breaking it, and thus was not able to continue posting my responses to the feedback I got on my BAFTA screeners post. I’ll do that later today.
In the meantime, check out this jaw-dropping remix of one of my favorite movies of all time: Singin’ In The Rain (via Ben Hammersley’s Dangerous Precedent). It’s a little disappointing to discover that it’s an ad, rather than the work of some lone genius with a computer, and the guy whose body they’ve dubbed in is not as good at breakdancing as Gene Kelly was at his kind of dancing–but it’s still a breathtaking display of technology.

…so don’t go the Oscars. Screeners for Million Dollar Baby and Sideways weren’t sent out to BAFTA voters, and, as a result, the former ended up receiving zero BAFTA nods and the latter received only one. Nonetheless, Sideways got five Oscar nominations, and Million Dollar Baby got seven. As I mentioned in a previous post, running up a string of awards can help plant a film in the minds of the voters of other shows; but as these two films show, if your ultimate goal is that Oscar nomination, you don’t have to run the table of all previous awards shows.
But note that The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou didn’t get a single Oscar nomination. Is it because Wes Anderson just isn’t to the Academy’s taste? Maybe–but the fact that he got an Oscar nomination for The Royal Tanenbaums makes that unlikely. I’m willing to bet that BVI sent out those same utterly unwatchable screeners to Oscar voters.
Historians, take note: Wes Anderson may just have become the first filmmaker to lose a shot at an Oscar through an anti-piracy scheme.

As a followup to my previous post on BAFTA voting, I wanted to write a bit about the techniques that the studios have been using to make sure the screener DVDs they’re sending out to awards-show voters don’t fall into the hands of pirates. Along the way, you’ll learn why House of Flying Daggers got 9 BAFTA nominations while neither Million Dollar Baby nor Hero got any, and why Wes Anderson should be absolutely furious at Buena Vista pictures. But first, I’m going to tell you a joke.