Well, the big day has finally arrived, a day of glitz and glamour, and this year with more than a little controversy preceding the event, as host television network ABC will institute a five-second tape delay during the Academy Awards telecast, the first time the network has ever done so.

All that controversy serves to do, though, is generate more interest in the broadcast, which averages 1 billion viewers each year.

To date, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has taken in almost $65 million at the box-office, in only its first three days of release, shattering all records for an independently-made, foreign-language film. Box office update, projected, as of Sunday morning: $118 million total-to-date, in the first 5 days of release, $33 million on Saturday, and a $76 million weekend.
Entertainment Weekly predicted that ‘Passion’ would bring in $40 million over the weekend, but with $23 million on Friday alone … were forced to revise their original estimates when final results were published Sunday.
Holy &^%$*! Meanwhile, in this update, MovieCityNews columnist Leonard Klady weighs in on the weekend box-offices’ record-breaking results.
In London’s Daily Mirror, Christopher Hitchens adds his voice to the continuing controversy surrounding the film.

Just back from a screening of The Girl Next Door which, if you read the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.com, will suggest that the film is a masterpiece. Well, I don’t know about masterpiece, but ‘Girl’ is certainly a disconcerting film, a more sexually overt Risky Business for the new millennium, by way of American Pie and John Waters.
Ostensibly the story of a buttoned down high-schooler (“The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys'” Emile Hirsch) and a former porn star (Elisha Cuthbert of “24”), there are some wonderful touches in the film. Jamie Anderson’s lambent cinematography casts the picture in an alluring light throughout. First-rate editing by Vanilla Sky’s Mark Livoisi adds a flourish to the storytelling that keeps the viewer involved. And, with better material, helmer Luke Greenfield could become an important director, given his obvious storytelling talent (the rapturous first kiss scene borders on the breathtaking in both its simplicity and loveliness).
The movie really doesn’t know what it wants to be, though: a soft-core tease flick, a warm-hearted tale of love and redemption, a commentary on the au courant sexual mores of the ‘Y’ generation, or … who knows what?
Still, with a great soundtrack (David Gray’s “This Year’s Love” is used to particularly good effect), winning performances from almost all of the actors involved, terrific production values, and a challenging and impudent (although only fitfully articulate) script, ‘The Girl Next Door’ is certain to be controversial come its release date, April 9th, given the political climate in the U.S. regarding acknowledgement of adolescent sexuality, an uninhibited sexual expression that is celebrated in the film from beginning to end.
Recommendable? Yes, with reservations. Even given those reservations, ‘The Girl Next Door’ stands head and shoulders above anything else released by Hollywood thus far in 2004. Watch for it in six weeks.

Much has been written about Mel Gibson’s new movie, The Passion of the Christ, but none more impassioned than what you’ll read in David Poland’s Hot Button column today.