• Oscar producers are worried that the alleged inaccessibility of this year’s major nominees will have a negative impact on the telecast’s ratings. But how could that be, when the Best Picture nominees are so full of memorable catchprases? “I drink your milkshake!” “Homeskillet doodle blog!” “I am putting my scruples aside in order to blackmail you in the name of the greater good,” or whatever George Clooney says at the end of Michael Clayton!
• Speaking of bad means and good ends, the Juno phenomena is spilling over to benefit an actual indie film. Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments, which played the Berlin, Toronto and Denver film festivals last year, and which stars Ellen Page, has secured U.S. theatrical distribution via ThinkFilm. Page’s current hotness notwithstanding, the pick-up is something of a surprise, considering that it’s coming three months after McDonald posted raw footage of the film online as part of a contest for its DVD release.
• Owen Wilson will start shooting his first film since his recent breakdown on March 10. Marley and Me, co-starring Jennifer Aniston, is an apparent science fiction film set in an alternate universe in which 40 year-old women can procreate on demand, but chose to purchase dogs instead.

Via Filmmaker comes word that director Bruce McDonald is asking the online masses to recut his latest film, The Tracey Fragments. He’s posted all of the film’s raw footage, including the score by Broken Social Scene, on the film’s website, and is inviting anyone who wishes to download the materials and cut them into music videos, trailers, or full re-edits of the film. Canadian residents can then submit their videos through the same website, and a winner selected by McDonald will receive a Final Cut Pro pirze package, and will have their cut included on the film’s DVD.

The Tracey Fragments is on my short list of films that I’m dying to see right now, and I keep missing my chance. It stars Ellen Page as a 15 year-old girl in search of her lost little brother, and the story is presented in an almost-constant, ever-changing split screen. I missed Tracey at the Toronto Film Festival but have heard nothing but good things from people who saw it there and in Berlin. I was hoping to catch it in Denver, but it turns out I won’t be arriving in town until after it screens. It’s opening in Canada this week, but as far as I know it still doesn’t have US distribution. I’m hoping Ellen Page’s impending uber-hotness will provide a domestic distributor the impetus to pick it up. In the meantime, I’m downloading the footage just to get a peak.