"Whine"stein in an Oscar Snit

Independant Film mogul and hardcover-expose target Harvey Weinstein has come out railing/wailing about the misfortunes of his film "Cold Mountain", specifically the failure of the film to get nominated for best picture. It stands as the first year in 13 that Miramax is not in contention for Best Film, which has the Big Man brisltling. In a Reuers story he explains that his studio was screwed by scheduling.

"With the early (Oscar voting) this year, we fell short, quoth the maven. "We just plain ran out of people who had seen this movie."

See, releasing the film in December--a common move by studios to position their sparkly pictures for Nominations--hurt him because the Oscar ceremony is a month earlier this year and the deadline for voting was moved up, ergo less time for Harv's suits to lobby voters. Lest you get weepy for HW's fortunes let me lay out some statistics that might clear things up--for you and for Harvey.

* Miramax still leads all studios with 15 nominations
* "Return of the King", nominated for best picture, was released the week before Christmas.
* That movie that Harvey is talking about--the one that nobody saw?
It managed to get 7 nominations, including two in acting catagories.

I'm waiting next to hear Weinstein explain that "The Batlle of Shaker Heights" failed to catch on with audiences because Matt and Ben's program appears on cable.