Another nugget from our chat with the Oscar-winning (and -nominated!) writer/director of "Wall-E," "Finding Nemo" and "A Bug's Life." He's been toiling away on his first live-action project -- "John Carter of Mars," about the Edgar Rice Borroughs character from his 20th-century novel series -- and he's given Pop Vox the scoop on how it's faring.  As of last week, he'd chatted with a half-dozen actors during pre-production; he'll finish up some visuals, solidify Draft No. Two of the script and start location scouting in the coming weeks. He's been a fan of the books since he was a kid, and says he's watched a slew of other directors get this project -- never dreaming he'd end up with it:

Since before I even went to college, I’ve watched somebody almost about to make this film.  And just wanting to see it done, just cheering everybody on.  As a matter of fact, when Robert Rodriguez had it, I remember I saw him at the Vanity Fair party on the night that I won the Oscar for "Nemo" -- I just railed on him and said, ‘You gotta do it right!  You gotta do it right, buddy!”  .... I’m shocked to suddenly find myself, years later, to be the one that might get the chance to do it. 

He calls the project "hugely outside" of his comfort zone -- "I've pretty much set myself up to either make or break my career through this thing," he says.  "It kind of screws with your head, because you’re looking down the abyss of this big scary thing, and like, 'Oh my God, can we or can’t we do this?!'"

We'd never bet against a man who can make a trash compactor have a soul.

I love movie reviews -- which is why a key perk of my day is plopping down in any given Newsweek critic's office and getting the scoop on what's out. "Revolutionary Road: riff."  Their opinions almost never overlap ("Road" was, varyingly, "uggghhh-two-hours-of-fighting" and "mesmerizing"), but the lack of consensus only makes me want to see a film more.

Which is why I read with interest the Wall Street Journal's thoughtful piece last Friday about online movie ratings -- specifically, the knee-jerk reaction of print movie critics when they see their reviews turned into a number.  It's well known that Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes compress critical musings -- tally what percentage of Roger Ebert's thumbs are up -- to limited success and sometimes hilarious results.  (How could you quantify something like A.O. Scott's delicious send-up of "Mamma Mia," equal parts vitriol and generosity, and my favorite review of the year?) As the WSJ writer more bluntly puts it, "A movie that pleases everyone but thrills no one thus can beat out a polarizing masterpiece."  True to form: right now on both sites, palatable pap like "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" wallops Kate Winslet's elegiac, Oscar-nominated turn in the Oscar-nominated "The Reader," which itself earns a D-minus equivalent (RT) and an F equivalent (MC).

These sites haven't yet started to account for the very purposeful way that today's consumer attends movies.  In the age of On Demand, DVR, Netflix and Hulu, those who go and pay their $15 are looking to be pleased or challenged in a very specific, niche way.  What average filmgoer is really crossreferencing the evals for "Marley & Me" against French film "The Class," looking for an expression of each film's merits in like terms? And by the same, like-term token -- by branding "Revolutionary Road" as two-thirds of a good movie -- we're bound to accept that a fusion of "Corky Romano" (20) to "Frost/Nixon" (80) would yield "The Godfather" (100).

Both sites also cull from the reviews of many mainstream critics, with Metacritic weighting the scores of more important voices, and Rotten Tomatoes separating out the elite reviewers into a "Top Critics" tab.  But they can be surprisingly different in what grades they assign. The following are a handful of films nominated for major Academy Awards -- acting, writing, director and best picture, among others -- and how they fared on the two sites:

"The Wrestler."  Nominated for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress.  81 on Metacritic, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. (Wow.)

"The Reader." Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress.  58 on Metacritic; 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.  (Comparable Ratings To: "Zach and Miri Make a Porno," in which a climactic scene involves feces splattering the face of a cameraman).

"Slumdog Millionaire."  Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay.  86 on Metacritic.  94 on Rotten Tomatoes. (That's "generally favorable" at MC to "certified fresh" at RT).

"Frost/Nixon."  Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay.  80 on Metacritic, 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. (Comparable Ratings To:

"Happy-Go-Lucky," "Milk" (both rated the same):  84 on Metacritic; 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

 What do you think?

• SAG Awards!  The Screen Actors Guild rewarded the predictable (Tina Fey for "30 Rock," the first couple in "John Adams") but there were a few surprises: Sean Penn for "Milk" over Globe-winner Mickey Rourke, for example, or Meryl Streep for "Doubt" -- though, it is Meryl Streep.  She was shocked to win, and while showing off her black pants, said, "I didn't even buy a dress!"  The cast of "Slumdog Millionaire" took home the top cast prize. Full list of winners here: [ Associated Press]

• There She Goes, Miss America.  Katie Stam, a 22-year-old college student from Indiana, was crowned Miss America in a Las Vegas Planet Hollywood this weekend -- not that you saw it.  Despite this year notching a 52-percent ratings improvement over last year, only 3.6 million people tuned in to see the winner crowned on TLC.  More than 25 million viewers watched the show in the mid-1990s.  Drastic show makeovers -- like leading in with a reality series, allowing viewers to vote and making the pageant girls act more mainstream -- has failed to hook. [ People]

• Triple Victory for "Monster's Ball" Producer Lee Daniels -- and Mariah Carey.  "Push," a film about parental abuse of a 16-year-old girl in 1980s Harlem, swept on Sunday at Sundance, taking both the Grand Jury Prize and the audience's award for drama, as well as a jury prize for acting.  Daniels directed, while Carey makes a cameo a social worker.  [LA Times]