This is intriguing in a strange way, considering that THE FOG OF WAR is very much, for boomers at least, also a relationship movie about a dad. Morris, in fact, calls McNamara "the ultimate father figure."

McNamara, after all, is emblematic of the emotionally brusque, down-to-business dads who were raised in the depression years, fought in World War II, and then got going as organization men and suburban family patriarchs in the '50s -- guys who wouldn't let anyone peek at their soft white underbellies if their lives depended on it.

Morris's McNamara is a guy who, at the very most, lets his feelings of regret about the tragedy of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam War policy, which he didn't really agree with but nonetheless tried like hell to implement before resigning or being fired in early '68, just leak out, like drops of water out of an old pipe in the basement.

If you're a responsible World War II vet, you've gotta be flinty. No heartfelt confessions, no mea culpa's. "I was part of a mechanism...it was the President's decision....we were living the Cold War," etc., etc. The best description of McNamara's Vietnam rationale (as presented in Morris's film) is, "The fog of war ate my homework."

Back to the Oscar thing....

It's just that I've been under the impression that this was to be the year -- finally -- when the Academy's documentary branch would pay the proper respect to Morris, a brilliant, maestro-like filmmaker whom critics have long regarded as a kind of Stanley Kubrick-like figure ...this was going to be the year when the Academy would atone for having ignored Morris's work in years past (never bestowing a nomination, much less an Oscar, for any of his previous eight films, all of them first-rate).

And particularly for having completely blown off his revolutionary, ground-breaking doc THE THIN BLUE LINE ('88) -- a work that not only got an innocent man off death row but forever changed conventional notions about what a documentary could look, move and sound like.

It seems bizarre now, but it was only a few years ago when certain old-guard members of the Academy's documentary division -- a.k.a., the "documentary police" -- were still enforcing repressive notions about what a documentary could and could not be. They believed that documentaries couldn't be too cinematic, and pretty much defined by the no-frills Frederic Wiseman aesthetic -- i.e., footage captured in raw, realistic locations and depicting some kind of verite thing unmolested by directorial vision or manipulation of any kind.

Morris changed all that more decisively than any other filmmaker, and in one fell swoop yet...although it took several years for the changes to gradually take hold.

Actually, there probably are still some in the Academy who are still in league with the "police." There are also probably some liberals who are disappointed that Morris didn't nail McNamara with enough righteous rage for Vietnam. I had a similar reaction when I first saw it in Cannes last May.

I said I had "a beef with the fact that McNamara refuses to weep about guiding this country into its most tragic and ignoble military episode of the 20th Century. I've been looking at this guy all my life as a classic case of wrong-headed constipation, and now along comes Morris trying to alter [this] perception."

The truth, Morris believes, is that "moral choice is never cleanly delineated in life, and not always so obviously, with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and the person in the middle simply saying, 'Oh, I'll pick the good side.'"

It's precisely due to the fact that THE FOG OF WAR doesn't come down four-square or try and present any kind of hard prosecutorial case against McNamara...this is why I've seen it six times and gotten more out of it each time. Nobody tells the whole truth about anything. Everyone sidesteps, bargains, rationalizes...even if we're nailed cold by facts.

I spoke to Morris on Monday morning about all this. He's fascinating to chat with -- thoughtful, reflective, humorous. I can't see fitting our chat into the column today; too much going on. Maybe next week or....

Morris says there'll be a whole extra hour's worth of material on the DVD, which won't be out until June or thereabouts. He said he's meeting with McNamara in Cambridge tomorrow (i.e., Thursday the 12th) to go over the new footage.

I asked if the DVD will include a tape of McNamara's recent widely reported appearance at the University of California at Berkeley, and he said, "Yes, I think it should be on it."

He also mentioned that McNamara, who has steadfastly refused to criticize not only Lyndon Johnson's determinations (even after he left office) but also George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld's conduct of the Iraqi War, is "explicitly critical" of Bush in a recent piece in the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL. Here's the link: http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TP Columnists.

Besides MY ARCHITECT, THE FOG OF WAR's Oscar competition includes BALSEROS, THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND and CAPTURING THE FREIDMANS.

Morris's previous documentary features include MR. DEATH: THE RISE AND FALL OF FRED A. LEUCHTER, JR., STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL, THE THIN BLUE LINE, VERNON, FLORIDA and GATES OF HEAVEN.

Malick and Farrell?

I was totally blown off by everyone I called about this, but there night be something to a report I heard last weekend about Terrence Malick's next film, which may be called THE NEW WORLD and might start rolling sometime in late July with Colin Farrell in the lead, Sarah Green producing, and a $40 million budget.

Malick remains a worshipped '70s icon due to the exalted legends of two of his films , BADLANDS ('73) and DAYS OF HEAVEN ('78)..... and despite all those jungle leaves and slinky alligators and that cloying Texas-twang narration in THE THIN RED LINE, ('98), his last effort. We've all heard about Malick's interest in shooting CHE down the road with Benicio del Toro, but this is a new one.

My interest in this story began with a guy who wrote into Ain't It Cool News last week after attending a class at NYU in which Green (FRIDA) was a guest visitor. He said she told the class at one point that her next film will (a) be directed by Malick , (b) start shooting in July with Farrell in the lead, (c) with a budget of $40 million, and would (d) be "an allegory for the state of things in this country."

I asked a source with a New York production company about what she's heard, and she told me after some checking that the title of this film is THE NEW WORLD, and that Green and Malick had been location-scouting together in South Carolina.

She said she didn't know if THE NEW WORLD would be Malick's next film. He's said to be simultaneously developing and/or preparing CHE at the same time, she reported.

Farrell is going to start shooting ASK THE DUST with director-writer Robert Towne in late April in South Africa, with expectations of finishing after shooting six-day weeks for 55 days. That would free him up for his next film in mid to late July. Towne's wife Luisa told me that "the Malick film has been mentioned in passing," but that neither she nor Robert know anything solid about it.

Farrell will be making a big splash as the great Macedonian conqueror in Oliver Stone's ALEXANDER when it opens at the end of '04.

I called Green two times but she didn't return. Malick's old pal and THIN RED LINE producer Mike Medavoy didn't return calls. I called a number that used to work for Malick's brother Chris in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- zip. Farrell's CAA agent Josh Lieberman and CAA spokesperson Michael Mann were no help. Farrell's publicist Susan Patricola said through an assistant that she knows nothing about Farrell being in any movie directed by Malick.

I also rang an assortment of studio chiefs, agents, and managers about this, and nobody knew anything.

Round Two

I returned to the Santa Barbara Film Festival again last weekend. You're expecting hard- core reporting? Well, there were no more late-night moonlight walks in Montecito with Roger Durling, like the weekend before last. It was just movies, panels, friendly people, etc. Everyone seemed happy about everything, including the watching of an occasional piece of shit.

It boiled down to four days of friendliness, congeniality, and pleasant intrigues from. mid-morning to the early morning of the next day. It all just poured over you...always-stimulating panel discussions, films, great food, a splendid abundance of alcohol (which can get in the way after a couple of days...you have to show discipline), and batallions of alluring over-30 women.

A doc that I found aromatic and intriguing (and also close to my heart, given my love for Paris) was Benjamin Sutherland's PORTRAIT OF A BOOKSTORE AS AN OLD MAN.

It's a nicely textured portrait of George Whitman, the socialist-minded, 92 year-old owner of Shakespeare & Company, the Parisian bookstore that's located just down the street from Boulevard St. Michel and maybe two or three hundred yards across the Seine from Notre Dame. (I got married just around the corner in 1987, at a little church called St. Julien le Pauvre.)

Whitman has been letting anyone with any kind of imagination or literary bent to crash for free on one of the beds in his bookstore since 1951, when he first bought the place. He's the last of the old-style bohemians. The finale of the film comes when Whitman demonstrates his hair-cutting technique, which is to set his hair aflame with a candle -- you have to see it to believe it.

For me, the finest flick shown at the festival by far was Les Blank's BURDEN OF DREAMS, a 1982 documentary shot in Brazil and Peru about the making of Werner Herzog's FITZCARRALDO. It's one of the three best making-of-a-movie docs ever made, along with George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr's HEARTS OF DARKNESS (about the tortured filming of APOCALYPSE NOW) and Keith Fulton and Luis Pepe's LOST IN LA MANCHA. Blank said a Criterion-produced DVD of this film will be in stores come November or December.

The third most likable (and which will probably prove very commercial when it opens later this year) was Rick McKay's BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN YEARS. Guaranteed to appeal to every over-40 person in America who has the slightest affection for Broadway theatre as it existed in the late 1940s, '50s and '60s, it's a big, heartfelt valentine to the good old days before musicals used pre-recorded music and the expectations of people from New Jersey who come to see shows on buses wasn't the end-all and be-all.

Congratulations to George Hickenlooper for winning the festival's Best Documentary Jury award for THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STRIP, a half-comic, half-tearful film about Los Angeles D.J. and legendary scenester Rodney Bingenheimer. (I saw it in Toronto last September and loved it, so much so that I saw most of it again last weekend.) First Look and Samuel Goldwyn paid $1.3 million to acquire MAYOR. It will open in urban theatres on March 26th.

A film about faith and redemption with a mostly African-American cast called WOMAN, THOU ART LOOSED won the festival's best feature film award. It doesn't cut it at all, in my opinion, and will play only to the spiritually converted when it opens commercially.

Directed by Michael Schultz and based on a book by Bishop T.D. Jakes, its one of those get-off-your-ass-and-get-the-message-about-God movies. A touching performance from lead Kimberly Elise is about the only saving grace. The sound seemed second- rate to me, and even the photography didn't seem up to par. (You can't shoot people of a dark complexion in low light -- it makes everything seem dank and gloomy.)

But it's good that Johnny Cochran, an investor in the film, showed up to pose for pictures and attend the pre-screening party at Blue Agave, a cool little club on Cota Street. I was thinking during this shindig about the confluence of Cochran and this film -- hallelujah, go with God, cut off your wife's head and avoid conviction.

The best panel discussion was on Thursday night at Campbell Hall on the campus of the University of Santa Barbara in Isla Vista. Called "The Truth in Non-Fiction," it featured Hickenlooper, Blank, McKay, HOOP DREAMS director Steve James, and WAGING PEACE director Barbara Trent.

The most arousing moment happened when Hickenlooper said that just about all the political documentaries are hatched by people in the media who are sympathetic to lefty causes. Trent, a hard-core poltical filmmaker (THE PANAMA DECEPTION), disagreed with him and said the media isn't leftish or iconoclastic enough. I asked if any politically right-of-center types have ever made any good docs, and nobody could name any. It was interesting when Hickenlooper revealed that his mother was a radical-left organizer type.

Bust 'em!

It's very exciting these days from a spectator perspective to follow a really tough reporter from the NEW YORK TIMES trying to aggressively nail Hollywood stories. It hasn't been this way for a long while, and it's kind of like watching Magic Johnson on the court.

Sharon Waxman, formerly of the WASHINGTON POST, is a good egg in my book, but she's no cruise-along good-time Susie, which many in this town would prefer (trust me) from a representative of a paper as influential as the TIMES. Forgive her, Lord, but she's got a pulse. As upsetting as this can seem at times to keepers of the gates, forward-motion energy on the part of a reporter can be agreeably stimulating.

You could say that her latest blast -- a story that ran last Monday asserting that director William Friedkin's career is largely happening due to nepotism on the part of his wife, Paramount chairman Sherry Lansing -- isn't really news, since everyone has taken that assertion for granted for a long while.

The point is that running this in the TIMES turns it into a big fat embarassment for all concerned, including Viacom chief Sumner Redstone, who owns Paramount and controls everything and everyone on the lot.

"Since 1994 Mr. Friedkin, a celebrated director in the 1970's, has made four feature films, all at Paramount, three of them box office flops, one a financial disappointment," Waxman reported. "So the choice of Mr. Friedkin to direct a big-budget movie about the Hollywood lawyer Sidney Korshak is sparking new talk of nepotism at a moment when the studio is in poor financial health."

Besides the announcement of the Korshak project, Waxman's story was generated by a revelation in Joe Eszterhas's new autobiographical book "Animal" (Knopf) that Freidkin got the job of director of JADE, a 1995 Paramount-produced thriller, due to Lansing's wanting him to have it. Eszterhas wrote that Lansing's only concern was that she was going to be criticized for arranging this "and wanted me to say it was my idea for Billy to direct JADE, not hers."

In Monday's story Waxman asked Brian Grazer, producer of the Korshak film, if nepotism had played a role in Friedkin's hiring. "I don't know," Grazer answered. "I don't know. It's a tough one. I have no answer. What answer can I have?"

Waxman then asked Friedkin himself, but he declined to answer questions about any possible conflict of interest. "I'm not going to comment on that," he said. "I don't know that it's fair to raise the question."

He said unfair but he really meant uncool. If you've been here long enough you learn you're not supposed to go public and report on patty-cake sweetheart deals that everyone knows are part of what makes this town run. You don't "out" these arrangements. It's considered bad form.

This could all blow over...or maybe it won't. Maybe something will happen down the road. A friend who's been around for decades told me at a screening we attended on Tuesday night that the story could be "the kiss of death" for Lansing. He meant that Redstone may resent having to deal with the fallout over this story and....well, fill in the blank.

It's not pretty sometimes, and it certainly isn't pleasant for those who get written about in stories like these, but this is what good reporters do on occasion.....sorry.

A publicist I spoke to during the Sundance Film Festival last month said he was worried about Waxman's aggressive approach to her job. His view was that "you have to deal" in this town -- i.e., go easy, be circumspect, don't be too much of a hammer -- and he wasn't sure Waxman had the right attitude. I beg to differ. I think she's a champ.

Where Is It?

I was supposed to run in last Wednesday's column a review of the high-expectation films of '04 that will be out during the final quarter. I didn't get around to it. (It was mainly Roger Durling's fault, not mine.) I was going to run it today but Durling interfered again. I'm now shooting for Friday or next Wednesday, at the very latest.

Jesus and Batteries

PR Newswire ran a story a few days ago saying that the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet, driven by Bobby Labonte, will sport a special paint scheme featuring art for Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST at the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15.

Everyone presumes that guys with mullets and their wives and kids are going to turn out big for Gibson's pic, which opens on Wednesday, 2.25. A good way to penetrate with this demographic is to hawk the film at blue-collar events like the Daytona 500. But why stop there? Why not put THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST art on potato chip bags, six packs of beer and other products enjoyed by the down-home faithful?

The PR Newswire story said that James Caviezel, the actor who plays Jesus in Gibson's film, will attend the Daytona 500 as a guest of Interstate Batteries Chairman Norm Miller.

"This outstanding movie factually portrays the most important 12 hours in history," said Miller. "We are privileged to be a part of its promotion to the world. Besides that, it may well be the number one box-office attraction of the year. I certainly hope so!"