Things We Found in the Mailbox

By Katey Rich

Halle Berry's Oscar chances might have just gotten better.

More Oscar-related news (because it's never too early to have visions of gold statuettes dancing in your head): Paramount will be sending screener copies of the Halle Berry-Benicio Del Toro starrer Things We Lost in the Fire to the 6,000 Oscar-voting members of the Academy this Friday, the same day the film opens in theaters. This "day-and-date" release strategy for Oscar-voters often happens in December, when a gajillion Oscar hopefuls all open on the same day you've vowed to finish your Christmas shopping. As an article in the New York Times pointed out last week, that rush of content is happening earlier and earlier now that the Oscars have been pushed back to February: this weekend Things We Lost goes head to head with prestige-seeking Rendition, Reservation Road, and Gone Baby Gone, not to mention mega-hyped vampire thriller 30 Days of Night. You can see the appeal of letting Academy members have their own copy within arm's reach.

Robert Downey Jr. in Zodiac

Perhaps even odder, though, is Paramount's decision to also send to members of the Producer's Guild and Screen Actors Guild the director's cut of Zodiac, David Fincher's thriller that received good reviews (like Film Journal's) but virtually no audience when it debuted back in March. Variety reports that this is the first time the studio has sent out the director's cut of any film as screeners; apparently Paramount said it was to "show its support of Fincher and the movie." Academy rules forbid any cut other than the theatrical version for award consideration, but given that this is Hollywood, there's a lot of overlap.

As will probably become clear as this blog grows, Oscar horse races are better than real horse races as far as I'm concerned. I have no idea whether Things We Lost actually stands a chance--though our Bruce Feld had his problems with the film--but maybe these ingenious tricks to get attention are enough to make me root for the underdog.