Using scores from Metacritic, Miller-McCune weighted the critical scores of actors' movies with the relative size of their roles in those movies. The final list shows that everyone who was in Lord of the Rings is an awesome actor with great taste in projects, with Elijah Wood topping the list and Viggo Mortenson and Ian Holm (the British geezer who played Bilbo Baggins) making the top four, too. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as serious an actor as you think he is, and Jessica Alba is as big a hack. Bottoming out the list was Freddie Prinze, Jr., followed by someone named Eddie Griffin and a tragic Matthew Lillard who had so much potential, once. Here's an abridged sampler:

Equally interesting was scatterplot showing the relative niceness and consistency of America's 25 most prolific movie critics. We discover that the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington drinks the kool-aid more than any other critic, followed by the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert's perennially upraised thumbs. The meanest critic in America is the Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov, who gives low scores but deviates regularly. On the other hand, TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh gives low scores and has a relatively low standard deviation from her mean score, meaning she's always stone cold.

[Miller-McCune]

· This year marks the 20th anniversary of an unknown Steven Soderbergh shuffling into town with a print of sex, lies, and videotape and leaving on Harvey Weinstein's hulking shoulders — kind of a for-better-or-for-worse Sundance benchmark touchingly remembered today in the LAT: "'We had very low expectations,' Soderbergh recalled. 'I was hoping the film would be a résumé piece; it would get shown and I could meet some people and maybe get another job.'" So! Lesson to all budding Sundance filmmakers: Low expectations.

· Lesson No. 2: It's just fine to have your Oscar-winning male lead phone his performance in. You might even get that prestigious opening-night slot like Mary & Max director Adam Elliot, who couldn't afford to fly Philip Seymour Hoffman to Australia for looping. Try it sometime!

· This is about as close as we're going to take you to the neighboring Slamdance Film Festival. Sorry.

· While we have our eye on the distributors lobbing cash at this year's likely bidding-war darlings, a distinguished second tier of indies including Zeitgeist, Kino, and the Adam Yauch-owned Oscilloscope Laboratories will do the respectable thing and attempt to acquire actual art. We tip our fur-lined cap. OK, that's enough, it's fucking freezing.

· That said, expect to find the rest of festival society joining David Carr for deep, precious lungfuls of fresh mountain hype. At least he's honest.

As you'll soon learn from the junket audio above—in which a reporter gallingly demands of the actor, "How important was it to you to know what really happened?"—the results are not pretty. His response: "My whole issue with that question is that I think everyone's trying to get me to say what it is. And I think it's so selfish. Soo selfish. Of course I have to fill in the blank of that character—you know that, right? You know that? (Stunned silence.) Say 'yes.' (Nervous laughter.)"

Yes, that's it exactly. This greedy, self-absorbed reporter wanted to trip Hoffman up and have him reveal the truth about what happened between his character and the impressionable African-American schoolboy with whom he developed a suspiciously intimate bond. Had Hoffman fallen for the ruse, it would have instantly rendered the title Doubt utterly obsolete, and ruined the molesty surprise!

We think he's been spending a little too much time under a naked lightbulb in Sister Aloysius Beauvier's interrogation room. We get it. It's all very doubtful. We don't know if you did it. That's what drives the drama. But c'mon—try a poker face next time. Hoffman got so defensive, we're just going to assume he diddled John Patrick Shanley's screenplay in his trailer between takes.

• PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN NEEDS A HUG (OR SOMETHING) [hollywoodoutbreak.com]

Just in time for Halloween, the same digital artiste who conceived the original has sent us his rendering of our proposed dream cast in the breakfast mascot roles they were clearly born to play. Seriously—we don't mean to toot our own horns here, but Jake channels his delicious inspiration right down to those half-cocked eyebrows, wonky smirk, and sleepy boo eyes. What are you waiting for, Hollywood. Poor some milk on this sucker and make some magic happen!

• Previously: Javier Bardem's Next Role To Turn Your Milk Chocolatey [Defamer]

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Period. When we called our shot for Brad Pitt as the likely winner in a crowded Best Actor field, we hadn't yet seen Hoffman as Caden Cotard, a Schenectady, N.Y., regional theater director at odds with his painter wife Adele (Catherine Keener) and his own chronically afflicted body. When Adele and his young daughter leave him for new, famous lives in Berlin, Caden spends the next 30 years funneling a Macarthur "genius" grant into staging his masterpiece: A city within a city, populated by himself, his doppelganger (Tom Noonan), his doppelganger's doppelganger and those of the people closest to him. Yet nobody and nothing is as close to Caden as his own admitted psychosis, the layers of which collapse onto and into each other in scene after scene.

Sounds great, right? Except, well, it is. Portraying a man vexed by doctors, lovers, work and ultimately himself (aging decades in the process), Hoffman digs into an adventure of suffering as ludicrous as it is bittersweet. In one crucial scene when the hunt for his estranged daughter takes him to Berlin, what little interaction they have both validates and fetishizes his paranoia — just one of dozens of metaphysical stunts that make Hoffman's performance thrilling and really kind of inspiring. He not only gets but owns all this mindbending melancholy, and for the maybe first time ever, we felt like we had a guide in our tumble down the Kaufman rabbit hole.

2. Six extraordinary roles for women. Starting with Samantha Morton as Caden's theater receptionist-turned-lover-turned-right-hand Hazel (and then Emily Watson as the woman who depicts her in his play), Synecdoche features enough dynamic parts for actresses to fill its own Oscar category. Michelle Williams and Dianne Wiest contribute brilliant turns as Caden's second wife and fourth doppelganger, respectively, but Hope Davis walks away with her scenes as arguably the world's worst couples therapist:

3. Charlie Kaufman gets to be Charlie Kaufman. Like director and former collaborator Michel Gondry, whose screenwriting debut Science of Sleep found a grandly ambitious balance of theory and technique that slipped through the twee seams of their Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman and his vision seem more potent and personal on their own. (Don't get us started about his overrated work with Spike Jonze.) It's another nifty trick under the circumstances; as Manohla Dargis alludes to in her fantastic NYT review, an opus about failure is itself a staggering creative success that took decidedly less than a lifetime to make. And for better or worse, it can happen to you. Maybe not the part about bedding Michelle Williams, but that never ends well anyway.

4. Hazel lives in a house on fire. Why? Kaufman professes not to know, but it makes already great scenes (and a classic, climactic bit of dark humor) altogether memorable.

5. Adele Lack's paintings. The square-inch canvases on display through the weekend at the Montalban Gallery are too absurdly small to require the paint-spattered basement workshop where Keener's character composes them, but we think their clues to Caden's past, present and future symbolize the rewards viewers earn for accepting an artist's challenge. Sound familiar? Like so much of the rest of Synecdoche, New York, it really is your life. We'd sincerely hate to see you miss it.

Boomp3.com

It must’ve been a case of déjà vu for actor Jonah Hill as a photographer sneaked up on him again while jogging in Hollywood. However, this time around, the photographer did not tempt Hill with cupcakes or other delicious treats. Instead, the photographer was more interested in Hill’s beard and simply asked, “What’s the deal with the beard, dude?” Hill explained that he was growing the beard because he’s going to do a guest spot on Deadliest Catch as well as to make a stab at credibility. Hill said, “Philip Seymour Hoffman has a really nice beard growing there. He’s pretty well respected. Maybe, if I had one of those things, I’d be able to do more dramatic work. Something intense or maybe a part as Nick Nolte’s crazy long lost son.”

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*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.

“No one has talked to me about it ever — never,” replied Hoffman. “It happened, like, five years ago, too. It was a rumor back then and it’s still a rumor. [laughs] It’s just in the press. It’s funny.”

...“I’m such a fan of those movies,” related Hoffman. “Comic book movies in general I look forward to — I am a real cheerleader for them. I want them to do well because those are terrific stories. As a kid I was a big comic book collector. What [Nolan]’s doing is taking it in a whole other exciting great place. I’m more a fan, so the interest of being in it isn’t that great. It’s more the interest in wanting to see the next one. It’s probably better that way.”

When further pressed for his level of interest in the role if Warner Bros. approached him about the role, Hoffman said, “I don’t know. I think I’m more interested in seeing someone else do it. I don’t know if I’d be a good Penguin to be quite honest. [laughs]”

Truth be told, we could never quite believe the rumors that placed both the Penguin and Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's next film — does he really want to remake Batman Returns? Similarly, we don't expect Johnny Depp as the Riddler, since that villain already toplined the third installment of the prior series. If, as he's said, Nolan intends to dip much deeper into Batman's rogues gallery, let's start the rumors right here, right now. Can we get an "amen" for Shia as Killer Croc?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• ‘Dark Knight’ Update: Philip Seymour Hoffman Responds To Casting Rumor, ‘I Don’t Know If I’d Be A Good Penguin’ [MTV]

Boomp3.com

Deadliest Catch star Philip Seymour Hoffman just returned to solid land after being out to sea for a few months catching crabs. Hoffman arrived just in time to partake in the Toronto Film Festival and was looking forward to watching some movies. Hoffman said, "As long as it doesn't involve fish, fishing or the ocean, I'll watch it. I'll even watch that new Nicolas Cage movie."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*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.

boomp3.com

Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman was spotted at famed Italian restaurant, Saint Ambroeus, enjoying a hardy spaghetti lunch. Hoffman was enjoying the peace and tranquility of his lunch until a few photographers showed up and snapped away. Hoffman attempted to create a fort around his table using menus and a book to block from being spied on. However, a strong gust of wind knocked over the fort right as the Charlie Wilson's War star took a bite of his meal.

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

*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.

Like his resilient cousins in the roach family, Roger Friedman naturally outlasted the meltdown and later delivered his sterling, tasteful review, "Gwyneth Paltrow Bares a Breast in Film":

You don't really think of Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow as the racy type. But in her new film, Two Lovers, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival Monday night, she quite surprisingly bares a single breast. The shot is, shall we say, head-on into the camera. And it's for more than a couple of seconds. This is no wardrobe malfunction. It's on purpose. (To paraphrase a great Seinfeld quote: "They're real ... and they're spectacular!")

Of course, this moment — it's the left breast, by the way — is meant to be part of the story; it's exactly what her manipulative character would do to land her man, in this case a character played by Joaquin Phoenix. In Two Lovers, Phoenix plays a mentally jumbled lonely guy who tries to juggle romances with both Paltrow's selfish car crash of a mistress and Vinessa Shaw's girl next door.

Thank you, Roger — back to the hospital, now. Other viewers including Anne Thompson, Glenn Kenny and even Jeffrey Wells (who, mere months after notoriously requesting nude stills of Shaw from 3:10 to Yuma director James Mangold, thinks she's miscast here) managed entire reviews without mentioning the nudity, expressing admiration for the film overall. It's still looking for US distribution, which we hear films featuring Oscar-winning actresses' breasts are highly likely to find.

Also seeking a buyer is Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director creating "the ultimate play: a city within a city within a warehouse," according to The Hollywood Reporter's interview Monday with Kaufman — who would like to object to his reputation as a recluse, damn it:

The first thing people will say to me in interviews is that you don't do interviews and I'll say "Well, I'm sitting here talking to you!" I don't particularly like to be photographed and I don't like to talk about my personal life — that doesn't make me a recluse. My feeling is that my work speaks about my life in ways that are very generous. ... I live a regular mundane life in Los Angeles. Don't know what else to say except I'm not here cowering in a corner. I don't have a veil over my head. I don't say "I vant to be alone."

Got it! Now that that's settled, perhaps Kaufman and his backers at Sidney Kimmel Pictures might want to answer Anne Thompson's fantastic question: Why the nervous rush to screen it for impatient buyers before its premiere on May 23? "If they had the goods," she writes, "the sellers would hang tough and force the buyers to just stick around and wait." It's still inconclusive to those of us stranded on this side of the Atlantic, but a new batch of clips featuring an aged Hoffman, a tattooed Michelle Williams and the word "urologist" used as a punchline has us smelling a hit. Happy selling, gang.

UPDATE: Our hunch-dar appears to have betrayed us; we've heard from Manohla Dargis herself that she was not the angry critic who fled the Two Lovers scene. We regret the misread; these blind items just get harder and harder!

[Photo: Getty Images]

Though Paper didn't dare dig up any terribly revealing visuals of the gory scenes in question (Ed. Note - What a bunch of squares!), we dug up a few from his top five. For all two of you interested in salivating over Hoffman's flabby butt, Patrick Dempsey's censored full-frontal or Julie Andrews' surprisingly perfect rack, today's your day.

Julie Andrews kinda makes us wanna switch sides in S.O.B.:

Patrick Dempsey, the lone attractive male example on Paper's list, in Some Girls:

And PSH giving Marisa Tomei the ol' doggie in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead:

• CINEMANIAC'S TOP TEN WORST NUDE SCENES OF ALL TIME [Papermag.com]

Still, sharp-minded Oscar watchers (not an Alzheimer's joke, we swear!) might recall us noting a similarly skintastic rundown of last year's Breast Supporting Actress nominees, and, quite frankly, if Dame Judi Dench shaking her funbags didn't kill us, then we imagine we'd survive a glimpse at Holbrook in high-waisted swim trunks. The guy, after all, has been satisfying Dixie Carter for years, and she's a lot of woman.

• This Year's Oscar Nominees: A Shirtless Gallery [The Sword]

• Previously: We Are All In This Thing Together: Liveblogging The Oscars [Defamer]

Best Male actor to cry during his acceptance speech at the 2006 Oscars: 10 - 1

Any actor to trip and fall on stage at the 2006 Oscars: 10 - 1

Any major acting acceptance speech at the 2006 Oscars to beat the record for the longest Oscar acceptance speech**: 20 - 1
**Longest Acceptance speech must be over 5mins & 30secs, applies to best actor/actress/best supporting actor/actress categories only.

Any actress to walk on stage with her dress tucked into her knickers at the 2006 Oscars: 100 - 1

Best Actress to walk on stage with toilet roll stuck to her shoe at the 2006 Oscars: 100 - 1

Actually, they might want to adjust their odds on the crying thing, considering that prohibitive Best Actor favorite Hoffman has already revealed to David Letterman that if he wins, he's going to bark like a dog for the full duration of his speech. They could possibly run another line on the over/under for how long it takes for two spokesmodels to drag Hoffman's body off the stage should the yelping exceed his alloted 60 seconds, forcing producer Gil Cates to order his balcony snipers to fire and cut short a still-promising career.

• Oscar Night Specials 2006 [Paddy Power]

"I was lucky," he said. "I got famous late in life. Had I been famous at 21, I would have been shooting crack into my eye or something stupid. It is much better when you get older."

Are we the only ones who feel like Hoffman and Clooney collided on their way out of the Humbled By Success Soundbite Seminar at the Oscar nominees luncheon, and in the ensuing snarl of swag-bags and "Fuck Your Agent: How To Keep Your Acceptance Speech Under 90 Seconds" pamphlets, the two actors accidentally switched their carefully workshopped "perils of young fame" quotes? Maybe it's merely the accumulation of their career choices up to this point, but it's just so much easier to picture Clooney "19 and beautiful" and Hoffman shooting crack into his eyeball.

• Dad's approval the ultimate Oscar for Clooney [Reuters]
• Previously: Philip Seymour Hoffman Hits The Campaign Trail [Defamer]

Fresh out of New York University s drama school, Hoffman was lured into New York City s fast life. "It was all that [drugs and alcohol], yeah, it was anything I could get my hands on I liked it all," he tells Kroft.

But he saw the need to change early. "I went [to rehab], I got sober when I was 22 years old," says the 38-year-old Oscar nominee. "You get panicked and I got panicked for my life," says Hoffman. "It really was just that."

He also realizes that getting sober before he got famous was a blessing. It makes him look at today s young acting stars in a concerned way.

"I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they re beautiful and famous and rich," Hoffman says. "I m like, Oh my God. I d be dead. You know what I mean? I d be 19, beautiful, famous and rich. That would be it," he tells Kroft. "I think back at that time. I think if I had the money, that kind of money and stuff. So, yeah [I would have died]."

We're happy that Hoffman, one of our favorite actors, decided to make this campaign trail stop instead of going the clich d, undignified route of breaking down in front of Barbara Walters. Walters, we imagine, will soon be trying to induce Ledger into crocodile tears by making him consider the dark journey that lead him from the forgettable rock-and-roll jousting of A Knight's Tale to that tender, indelible cinematic moment atop a compliant Jake Gyllenhaal.

• Philip Seymour Hoffman Gets Candid [CBS News]
• Previously: Venn Diagram Oscar Predictions [Defamer]