It Beats Working	Bill on Movies

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'The Graduate' influential? Yes! But 'Dr. Doolittle'?

The conventional wisdom holds that the 1968 Oscar ceremonies marked a diversion of the current traveled by the film industry in America, heralding vast changes in style and substance that would arrive in the '70s. The five films nominated for Best Picture that year — 1967's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "The Graduate," "In the Heat of the Night," "Doctor Doolittle" and "Bonnie and Clyde" — transformed American movie-making and symbolized a shift from Old Hollywood to New Hollywood.

So says Entertainment Weekly columnist Mark Harris in his new book "Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood" (The Penguin Press, Feb. 18). A lively read, Harris' tome makes its points. But closer scrutiny suggests only "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde" really exerted the kind of influence on other filmmakers (or the movie-going culture) that Harris claims.

Although "In the Heat of the Night" was a great actors' showcase (Rod Steiger won a Best Actor Oscar), gave new impetus to the already successful career of Sidney Portier, and dealt with race relations, it's questionable just how much impact director Norman Jewison's themes, or rather conventional techniques, may have had on later pictures. Ditto for Stanley Kramer's glossy, somewhat labored take on mixed-race marriage, notable mainly for the final pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (before his death that same year). Poitier also lent his noble presence to this one, but the film, for all the emotional gratification it offered, pulled its punches and played out by the numbers. It's hard to defend the notion that it had any lasting influence.

As for "Doctor Doolittle," Harris has to be kidding.

While the author should be praised for trying to deal with the complexities of the people involved and their art, rather than simply retelling old war stories about the production of these films, this is the sort of exercise in manufactured significance that happens when an entertainment journalist can't think of something more substantive to write.

Cinebarre on horizon?

It's not yet carved in bread and wine, much less in stone, but the word on the cinematic grapevine indicates that the Regal Movies at Mount Pleasant may undergo another transformation, this time as the latest in the Cinebarre franchise — a movie-theater chain that offers restaurant food, beer and wine before and during the screening of first-run features.

Giving the scuttlebutt credence is the fact that Cinebarre has filed plans with the town of Mount Pleasant for a refashioning of the MMP theater complex.

The country's largest exhibitors, not least the Regal Entertainment Group that dominates the Charleston market, are investing millions in renovating cinemas, as well as constructing new ones, even in this time of a movie-theater glut. Why? To stem the tide of the home video tsunami and try to lure crowds back into movie theaters.

Cinebarre, specifically, is in partnership with Regal, the world's largest theater chain.

The closest of the chain's theater-restaurants is in Asheville, the Cinebarre Biltmore Square, which claims to be doing bang-up business.

Dinner at the movies hardly is a new concept. Theaters of this sort appeared back in the late '70s. More recently, the American Theater on King Street tried it for a time, and many small independent theaters have served pub food and beer for years. But The New York Times reports that large companies now are merging high-end restaurants, bars and lounges with their cineplexes, with roughly 300 cinema restaurants nationwide out of some 5,900 movie theaters. Dozens more are planned.

Tentative plans are to close two end theaters at the MMP and convert them into a "state-of-the-art" restaurant kitchen.

Euro Sweep

Two Brits, a Spaniard and a Frenchwoman. It's been 44 years since Europeans swept all four major acting awards at the Oscars, and only one of them is a travesty of justice.

Not since Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Peter Ustinov and Lila Ledrova pulled it off in 1964 have the folks across the Big Pond been so dominant.

On Monday, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard claimed the Best Actor and Best Actress prizes, respectively, with heavy favorite Javier Bardem taking Best Supporting Actor. But we suspect Cate Blanchett and Amy Ryan somehow split the vote for Best Supporting Actress, allowing dark horse candidate Tilda Swinton to take the final trophy. Swinton's performance was only third best in her own movie, behind those of Tom Wilkinson and George Clooney. Her work in this film was not even in the same league as Lady Cate's and the night's major upset victim, Ryan.

Trust us, no one was more shocked than Swinton.

Otherwise, the Oscars played out according to form, with no further outrage. There was, however one delightful surprise. It wasn't just the fact that the stars of "Once," Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, won an Academy Award for their song "Falling Slowly," but that Irglova was allowed to return to the podium a second time after the station break to give her acceptance speech. Classy, Oscar, very classy.

Twelve guys, livid

MGM Home Entertainment will release the 50th-anniversary edition of Sidney Lumet's debut feature, the celebrated courtroom drama "12 Angry Men" on Tuesday. Nominated for three Oscars, it was a big-screen remake of the original live-TV version of the play by Reginald Rose — one of the high-water marks of television's Golden Age of the '50s — a caustic "actors' piece" whose potent cast was led by Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, Robert Webber, Edward Binns and Jack Klugman.

Not all of these actors' names may be familiar, such as Binns, but each is instantly recognizable to those of us of a certain age, and among the most accomplished of their generation.

"12 Angry Men" is an intense, claustrophobic tale of a jury of 12 men whose deliberations on the final verdict in the murder trial of a young Latino boy are filled with rancor. It's a top-drawer character study, ably played by some exceptional actors relishing a meaty script.

Bits and Pieces

"Iron Ladies of Liberia," a documentary that goes behind-the-scenes with Africa's first freely elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, will be the Independent Lens Film screening tonight at 6:30 at the main branch of the Charleston County Public Library. ... Next up for Penelope Cruz is "Manolete," co-starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody as a matador fighting to win her back.