But what happened? There's plenty of finger-pointing to go around, but none of it in Viggo's direction:

· Blame Warner Bros.: Pundits were optimistic about his supporting turn in Appaloosa, the Ed Harris-directed Western that Warner attempted to platform opposite The Duchess in mid-September. It fell off not only moviegoers' radar but the entire box-office (and Oscar-season) map a few weeks later, expanding to 1,000 screens and getting pummeled by the likes of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Religulous and Rachel Getting Married. Expect Warner to redirect whatever Academy screeners it had whipped up into retail when the DVD is released Jan. 13.

· Blame Harvey: While a handful of unlucky staffers packed up their desks, the Weinstein Company cleared even more budget space by tossing a collection of '08 releases into storage. Among them: The much-anticipated (and arguably unfinished) Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road, featuring Mortensen as a father struggling through an ashy post-apocalyptic wasteland with his son and a shopping cart. It was likely the actor's best shot for a 2008 nod, and now — with literally no other Viggo films in development for next year and the Weinsteins on a little more stable footing after The Reader release squabble — it becomes his best shot for 2009.

· Blame ThinkFilm: The indie distributor had the Holocaust drama Good — of which Mortensen is reportedly most proud — in its queue for the end of the year before financier David Bergstein's wheels flew off last summer. Think has battled back to the extent it can, getting Good in theaters today, just in time for an Oscar qualifying run. But despite its campaign prowess (and success) as recently as last year, the money and time aren't there to push Mortensen to the kind of visibility required in a tough year for Best Actor hopefuls. Which reminds us:

· Blame Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, Frank Langella, Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt and Richard Jenkins. The six front-runners for this year's Best Actor prize love Mortensen as much as the rest of us. That doesn't mean they wouldn't run him over in their crowded campaign bus before letting him on, Holocaust movie or not. There's always '09.

Boomp3.com

The unusually warm fall weather must’ve gotten the best of Renee Zellweger at the Los Angeles premiere of Appaloosa. As the Jerry Maguire star sauntered down the red carpet, she tugged and pulled the shoulder portion of her designer gown further off her neck and shoulder region. “It’s a lovely piece," Zellweger said. "But those things were smothering me like a bad boyfriend. You know: The kind that apologizes for every thing and, you know, just smothers.” As Zellweger reached the end of the red carpet, the temperature dropped a bit and she began to hike the shoulder portion back over her exposed flesh. “Sometimes," Zellweger added, "we make mistakes and we need a bit of coverage, like when you take back that smothering boyfriend. All he was guilty of was caring.”

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Mortensen adores Good, which ThinkFilm plans to release by year's end. But the film is directed by Brazilian director Vicente Amorim, who is not in the Academy directors' club.

Mortensen's third fall pic, John Hillcoat's film version of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road, wasn't ready for the film fests. The 2929 Entertainment pic is set for release November 26 by Dimension/MGM, which suggests that despite its literary pedigree (and the Oscar Best Picture win for No Country for Old Men, based on McCarthy's book), the film may not be on Harvey Weinstein's Oscar must-push list.

Nevertheless, Hillcoat's follow-up to his bleak, brilliant Aussie Western The Proposition got a once-over in New York Magazine's fall preview issue, with Hillcoat indirectly slagging the likes of Cloverfield ("We wanted something more resonant than, you know, the Statue of Liberty cut in half") while keeping mum on Viggo's performance as a father dragging his son through the ashy aftermath of apocalypse. Until we can judge for ourselves, we have the stills above to turn us on/off. Correct us if we're wrong, but like another pivotal dramaturgical maxim of our era, no one we know ever won an Oscar after going "Full Shopping Cart."

• Awards Season Watch: Mortensen Trifecta [Thompson on Hollywood]
• Dossier: John Hillcoat [NYM]