This past awards season, the stars of “Precious,” Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique, were center stage. While the actresses dazzled on the red carpet and collected awards statuettes, many in the media pointed to their reign as a positive wave of change in Hollywood, which has continually placed stick-thin actresses on a pedestal.

Meanwhile, Vanity Fair placed a handful of svelte, non-ethnic actresses (think Carey Mulligan and Amanda Seyfried) on the cover of its annual Hollywood issue, which prompted outrage from critics and bloggers who claimed the selection wasn’t representative of modern-day Hollywood.

But was it? When looking at the upcoming summer movies, many of the leading ladies that will grace the big screen seem to be uniformly of a similar size and color: Katherine Heigl, Megan Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cameron Diaz, Kristen Stewart. One exception? Queen Latifah.

It's been eight years since Pierce Brosnan last played James Bond, but the actor still sometimes feels he's living in the shadow of the iconic spy.

In a story in Thursday's paper, Brosnan, 56, acknowledged that in the public's eye, he's still "very connected to the image and history of Bond."

"It just lives with you. It permeates your life," said the actor last week in an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel. "And you know that going in, but the reality of it -- the overcoat is really large, and can be quite heavy at times. So you have to break the shackles of that."

Brosnan has certainly thrown his effort into trying to diversify: by the end of the spring, he will have appeared in five radically different films.

His most recent project, "The Greatest," on which he also served as a producer, opens Friday and tells the story of a father grappling with the death of his son. 

Even the star of that film, Carey Mulligan, said she initially identified with Brosnan as Bond.

“He is my generation’s James Bond,” said the actress. “I played the video game of him with my brother on Nintendo 64.”

But "The Greatest" is a far cry from an action thriller. It shares in the serious tone of March's "Remember Me," in which he was embattled in a different kind of father-son relationship with teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson. There has also been Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," in which Brosnan played an emotionally distant former prime minister, as well as his less dramatic turn as a bearded centaur in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Later this month, he'll serve as the narrator on the environmental documentary "Oceans."

Corey Haim's friend and the costar of one of his final films says news of Haim's sudden passing "does not surprise me."

"I know he's been struggling with substance abuse for quite some time," Anthony Vitale told 24 Frames. Vitale co-wrote and stars in the film "Decisions," one of Haim's final projects.

"I extended an offer to help," Vitale said. But Haim's reaction to it was "lackadaisical and nonchalant, like it wasn't a problem."

Haim died early Wednesday morning of a suspected drug overdose. He was 38.

In "Decisions," a movie that does not yet have distribution, Haim played the lead role, an undercover cop in Los Angeles who is compromised on the job. "It's the classic tale of good versus evil," Vitale said. "And, of course, good wins out in the end. The tagline would be: 'The voice of reason sometimes comes in a gruff, dirty package.'

"It's got a 'Sixth Sense' ending with an 'Unusual Suspects' reveal," Vitale said.

Production wrapped Nov. 1, and editing of the film was finished Tuesday night, he said.

By any measure, Corey Haim's death this morning is tragic. But the news of the former teen idol's passing brought back memories of a certain video he made at the height of his popularity a couple of decades ago. Here it is, in all its frosted-hair, alligator-raft, dibble-dabble glory. R.I.P., Corey Haim.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Several news accounts, including one in the Los Angeles Times, are reporting Wednesday morning that former child star Corey Haim has died at age 38.

Haim, who according to those reports was found unconscious in his San Fernando Valley apartment, was last seen publicly as a reality television personality on A&E's "The Two Coreys," which aired in 2007 and 2008. But like his show costar Corey Feldman, he of course came to prominence as a theatrical film star in the 1980s, headlining movies such as Joel Schumacher's ensemble vampire picture "The Lost Boys" and the high school drama "Lucas," as well as less well-received but equally successful teen-pinup films such as "License to Drive." 

At his most prolific, the Canadian-born Haim starred in 10 movies across a five-year span in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though in the latter part of that spurt, some of the movies were smaller pictures that were not released in theaters.

He continued working through the 1990s and at various points in the last decade, though many of his films were straight-to-DVD efforts. At the time of his death, Haim had a number of projects in development, including the indie thriller "The Pick Up," and was set to play a supporting role in the Mischa Barton teen comedy "The Science of Cool."

Some reports, including one on the website of KTLA, suggest Haim may have died of an accidental overdose. If those reports are true, it would be the third drug-related death of a thirtysomething celebrity since summer, following those of Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein and actress Brittany Murphy.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo: Corey Haim in 2009. Credit: Michael Buckner / Getty Images

With the Oscar luncheon set for Monday in Los Angeles, the mind drifts toward -- well, toward many things, but among them are the people we didn't expect to be seeing at said luncheon. Perhaps topping that list is Maggie Gyllenhaal, who with her sad-but-strong single mother role in "Crazy Heart" upset early-season favorite Julianne Moore for a spot in the supporting actress nominee field.

We'll have more from Gyllenhaal, whom we caught up with last week in Beverly Hills, in the upcoming issue of The Envelope, particularly on the awards field as she sees it. But one question for the actress that we didn't have the space to address in that article is her next move, what with her already, in a film career barely a decade old, having been the indie darling in fan favorites such as "Secretary," Bruce Wayne's girlfriend in fanboy favorite "The Dark Knight" and now an awards-season favorite in Oscar nominee "Crazy Heart."

With the climate for indie projects yielding less precipitation than the skies over British Columbia, the actress says she's trying to take a little more control over her roles. She's dipped her toe in producing waters, buying her first book as well as a stalled script she hopes to revive. (Although both of these are dramas, one of those projects, she says, has comedic elements "but it isn't 'The Hangover' or anything.") She's also reached out to female power players such as director Jane Campion as part of the process of getting these moved through the development pipeline.

"Just having those things in my pocket makes me feel like I have a little power over what films I get to make," Gyllenhaal told 24 Frames. "Because so often I'm at the mercy of what other people are thinking."

The Los Angeles-born, New York-dwelling actress is also taking a page out of the Sundance microbudget playbook, as she contemplates getting actor and writer friends together for a low-budget shoot. "Recently, when I was feeling when there was nothing -- it was a total desert -- I was talking to a friend who's a screenwriter and a friend who's a D.P., and I was saying 'Why don't we just make a movie and do it really cheaply? We have friends who own restaurants and will let us do night shoots. If no one's working anyway, why don't we practice?'"

Gylenhaal's response typifies what many actors who don't have the producing clout of, say, a Tom Hanks (that is, everyone) are trying to do in these tough times of slate reductions and bottlenecks in studio and indie financing: seize a little control over the uncontrollable.

Of course converting awards attention into Hollywood influence is no easy trick; just ask actors such as Adrien Brody, last seen starring in a midnight movie at Sundance. So even as Gyllenhaal "hopes that the nomination will help with some of my projects," she'll be seen in one more studio movie, a family comedy from Universal called "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang" that she recently wrapped, and the last project she'd had in the pantry.

After that? She's open. Open to studio films, open to indie projects, even open to James Cameron-esque motion-capture adventures. "I'm totally willing to let things change," she said with a mixture of gameness and, well, openness. "I'll be blue if someone wants me to."

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo: Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Crazy Heart." Credit: Fox Searchlight

Casting can sometimes influence directors who write their own scripts. For Jason Reitman, he lets the movie take shape as he writes but soon recognizes when an actor is right for the part, which then in turn influences the character's development. For Quentin Tarantino, at least with "Inglourious Basterds," he "didn't have a clue who I was going to cast."

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James Cameron (and friends) on 'Avatar's' box office domination

So how important is the auditioning process in the making of a film? It depends on whom you ask. James Cameron certainly has a different approach than Lee Daniels, for instance.

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James Cameron (and friends) on 'Avatar's' box office domination

Box-office pundits, including our own colleague Ben Fritz, are abuzz over the question of whether "Dear John" could finally take down "Avatar" at the box office this weekend, knocking the film off its No. 1 perch for the first time since it opened the week before Christmas.

To do that, the Nicholas Sparks-derived tearjerker would probably need to make at least $20 million and hope that enough Avatar-inclined men stay home in anticipation of the Peyton Manning show on Sunday; in other words, prospective filmgoers would need to opt for the man in blue over the blue men.

That's a tall order even on Super Bowl weekend, and even as "Avatar" has been in theaters for nearly two months. "Dear John" simply may not be tearjerky enough -- the premiere we attended didn't include nearly as many in the crowd reaching for Kleenexes as you might have expected -- and Sparks has a tendency toward solid but not overwhelming numbers his first frame out. (The last three films based on his books all opened remarkably close to one another, in the $12-million to $14-million range.)

But "Avatar's" uncanny knack for avoiding drops comes from more than just its ability to squash lesser films in its path (particularly the lesser films of January and February). It's something inherent to the movie and, indeed, to all movies with more staying power than the guy in the Cialis commercial. "Twilight" and "Transformers" may be cultural phenomena, able to attract 8 million or 9 million people in a single stroke. But the long hold requires a more subtle skill: the ability to stay in the public consciousness long enough to roust people who never thought they'd want to see your movie -- marketing by attrition, in a way -- or luring those who've seen it before to come out again. You need, in other words, a profound ability to renew yourself.

A look back at the films that have managed to do this  -- all but one released before the start of the big-opening/quick-drop era of the 1990s (that one exception was, of course, "Titanic," the king of the long hold) shows a telling pattern. Of the top 10 holds in movie history, several films -- "Back to the Future," "E.T," "Fatal Attraction" --are particular types of cultural conversation pieces that come along just a couple times in a generation, and are going to do repeat business just by dint of their place in the zeitgeist.

But most of the others are not nearly as distinctive, more like movies everyone enjoyed but few would deem groundbreaking. They do all share something, else, though: nearly all combine several distinct and unlikely genres.

"Ghostbusters," for instance (which held for 10 consecutive weeks)  is a supernatural adventure with a "Saturday Night Live" level of comedy. "Crocodile Dundee" (nine weeks) is a fish-out-of-water comedy and an outback adventure. "Beverly Hills Cop" (14 weeks) is a fish-out-of-water comedy that's also a (relatively) dense police procedural. Even "Titanic" combined one movie with another: Cameron-esque spectacle and a melodramatic love story (and Leonardo DiCaprio, a genre unto himself).

It's admittedly hard to pinpoint a single overarching reason why a film will hold the top spot for months. But given these examples, it's also clear that when you have one movie that's really two, you may also have a film that will be flocked to by one audience and then quietly, over time, discovered by another.

In this light, Avatar's achievement is even more surprising,since it's really only trying to be  one thing -- an action epic (that love story isn't exactly "Gone With the Wind)." But it does bring a second element -- only it's not narrative, but technological. Most people buying tickets to the Cameron-fest at this late date may not have been initially interested but are coming out because they want to see if the film really looks as good or as different as everyone says it does. Or, as the anecdotal reports are suggesting, they've seen it, but they want to see it again in a different format. Sometimes it's good to have comedy to go along with your action. And sometimes it's just good to have some cool-looking blue people.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo: "Avatar." Credit: 20th Century Fox

Until Tuesday morning, Sandra Bullock had never been nominated for an Oscar. Now, she and Jeff Bridges -- who got his first Oscar nod 38 years ago -- are in the same club: Both could be considered front-runners for their respective roles in "The Blind Side" and "Crazy Heart."

And although Bullock and Bridges are both veterans, the acting Oscar nominations include some  newcomers in Carey Mulligan, who plays a British teenager in "An Education," and Jeremy Renner, who portrays an expert bomb defuser in "The Hurt Locker."

Watch the video for Times film critic Kenneth Turan and writer John Horn, on the scene at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

-- Scott Sandell

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