As Oscar night approaches, David Edelstein and Hollywood producer Lynda Obst are discussing the race. Check back tonight for Obst's response, and on Friday morning for another round.

To: Lynda Obst
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 12:38 PM
From: David Edelstein
Subject: No Country for Good Cheer

Dear Lynda:

Well, well, well, we do get to talk about the Academy Awards this year. Despite the cancellation of the Golden Globes ceremony (quel agony!), there was no way that Hollywood could have gone without its annual orgy of self-congratulation — the best incentive from a public-relations standpoint to settle the strike. For moviegoers, a year without Oscar is unimaginable. So little in our culture has value on its own terms: Without the opening of the envelope, there is no climax, no catharsis.

I don’t go to a lot of film festivals for reasons I won’t bore you with, but every year I can’t wait to get down to Charlottesville, Virginia, in late October and/or early November. It’s a day or three of low-pressure bliss in one of America’s loveliest college towns in its most beautiful (and allergy-free) season. Last year, I was honored to interview Robert Duvall onstage after a screening of The Apostle — my favorite film of the nineties, a drama in which the protagonist is at once magnificent and dangerously crazy, and which illuminates both the scary and sublime sides of revival-tent evangelism.