What happens in a real estate market where the demand greatly exceeds the supply, which is currently the case in Pacific Palisades? How does the lack of sufficient inventory affect the 300 real estate agents working this area? And what does it do to housing prices? Could it be we are in for a market “crash,” but in a way no one imagined? Just how low can the inventory go? What if there were no homes for sale in the Palisades? “Impossible!” was the overwhelming response of half-a-dozen local realtors contacted by the Palisadian-Post. However, they also said they never imagined inventory being as low as it is now. Currently, there are approximately 50 homes on the market in the Palisades, compared to 82 a year ago. Median price: $2.5 million. Over that price, “there is a five-to-six month supply of houses,” said Coldwell Banker’s Michael Edlen, who has been keeping statistics on the Palisades housing market since 1986. However, under that price, “we have less than a month of inventory at the current rate of sales. So we’re likely to continue to see multiple offers, especially under $2 million.” With housing inventory at a 20-year low, the Palisades real estate market has changed considerably in recent months. Dozens of buyers, many of whom are moving up and are able to pay all cash, find themselves participating in bidding wars in which houses are simply sold to the highest bidder. Traditional real estate evaluation tools, such as appraisals, are becoming skewed. So what does happen in this kind of auction-like frenzy if a property doesn’t appraise? “This market is moving so fast, appraisals have become as much an art as a science just to keep up with what’s going on out there, especially in multiple-offer situations,” Edlen said. “It is pretty hard for a property not to appraise if there are four buyers willing to pay over the asking price.” Now, if houses do fall out of escrow for any number of reasons, it only seems to make them more attractive to the next buyer, who may have already put in a backup offer. What does all this do to housing prices? “They’re just going to keep going up, as long as the inventory is low,” said Scott Gibson, who lives in the Highlands and is president of Coldwell Banker in Greater Los Angeles. “Part of the reason inventory is so low is because homeowners, many of whom have nowhere to go, are choosing to refinance and remodel rather than move. All this remodeling is a good thing because it adds value to the overall housing stock in the community.” Gibson, who recently told the Post that within five years “you won’t be able to buy a property under a million on the Westside,” also sees this market “as one of those rare times when it’s good for both buyers and sellers. Sellers because they can get top dollar and buyers because of continuing low interest rates. Owning property is still one of the best investments you can make.” Beverly Gold, who is also with Coldwell Banker and has lived in the Palisades since 1952, agrees. Having been involved in the sale of almost 90 percent of the homes in The Summit housing project in the Highlands, Gold said she has seen the properties she sold in 1997 “double in value” since then. She currently has five listings in the Palisades, three of which are in escrow. “Last week my $2.8-million listing in the Highlands sold in one day and my $2.9-million listing the week before sold in three days,” she said. How did Gold get so many coveted listings? She said she is in the enviable position of having created “an annuity for myself, having originally sold so many homes in The Summit. My clients are very loyal and call me when they are ready to move up or sell. I am very fortunate.” Anthony Marguleas, of A.M. Realty on Sunset, who deals exclusively with buyers, thinks that the decrease in inventory “will finally weed out a lot of agents in the area. Only the best ones will survive.” Randy Freeman agrees. “It will be the same as it has always been, with 20 percent of the agents around here doing the bulk of the business.” Freeman, an agent with Prudential John Aaroe who has worked in the Palisades for the last 13 years, feels that this market is preferable to the market a decade ago “when there was something like 278 houses on the market and no buyers!” Joan McGoohan, who manages DBL Realtors on Sunset, also prefers this frenzied market to the early 90’s real estate slump. “I remember when you couldn’t give away houses in the Huntington!” which is where she currently lives. “That’s when people were walking away from their homes because they were paying more for their house than it was worth. It was a dreadful time, for everyone. At least now, if people can’t find what they want, they can stay where they are. That’s primarily why there is such a lack of inventory.” As for the growing trend of homeowners being solicited directly by prospective buyers, McGoohan said that while she does not condone the practice, “I don’t blame them. How else are buyers going to find what they want?” John Closson, who lives here and is western regional manager for Prudential John Aaroe, believes that Palisadians will continue “to take advantage of the opportunity to trade up at a lower cost,” although the “fear of locating a suitable replacement property can be paralyzing.”

The word “juvies” reminds me of the kids I used to see in movies I watched in the 1950s. They were punks, messing around, acting tough in a world defined by the monotony of their lives and their wildly naive view of the future. Director Leslie Neale’s documentary “Juvies” is a blatantly clear, tragic look at teens who have committed crimes-anything from assault and battery to murder-for which they are tried and sentenced as adults. In her film, Neale sets out to tell the stories of 12 kids, each with his or her own set of circumstances, but all dealt a hopeless hand by the criminal justice system. The film will be presented at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 3 at Mount St. Mary’s College in cooperation with Human Rights Watch. Neale, a Rustic Canyon resident, delivers a powerful and convincing treatise on the cruel treatment of children trapped in long prison sentences which one person in the film characterizes as a slow death. Juvenile Hall was established 100 years ago precisely because the state understood then that children and adults are different. Now, according to Neale, that system that was originally designed to protect them has failed. Youth tried in adult criminal courts face the same penalties as adults, including life without parole. While in prison, they receive little or no education, mental health treatment or rehabilitative programming. Neale cites studies that show one of the last areas to develop in adolescents is the ability to prevent impulsive behavior; that the frontal cortex of the brain-the portion that controls impulse and emotion and planning-is still maturing. And that one-half of those teens who commit crimes before 18 will never go on to commit another crime. “Juvies” is almost a prologue to Neale’s first film, “Road to Return,” which dealt with the successful return of ex-cons into society, and prompted a U.S. Senate bill that expanded funding for post-prison transitional programs in six more states. This new documentary came about as a result of Neale’s volunteer work at Central Juvenile Hall at Eastlake Center downtown, where she taught a video production class. In teaching the techniques of filmmaking, Neale instructed kids in interview skills and taught them how to use a camera, but she was completely naïve about the juvenile justice system. “I believed in the headlines,” Neale says. “Even the kids I knew had done horrendous things, the most evil, grievous crimes. At first I didn’t believe a lot of what the kids were telling me. But, I was amazed at their level of honesty and realized that there was a film here.” While working with the kids in Juvenile Hall, Neale watched helplessly as one by one they were sentenced and sent off to adult facilities with no hope for rehabilitation or reform. So she decided her film would follow 12 teens in Juvenile Hall on the uncertain road from trial to sentencing. “We stayed until everybody had been adjudicated, which amounted to four years.” It took an average of 18 months to bring the kids to trial, according to Neale, and in the case of one of the kids in the film-Anait-three years. In structuring the film, Neale focused on kids who represented oft-repeated scenarios.   Liz’s story is that of a child who after escaping from her sexually abusive father, was homeless, drug-addicted and eventually arrested at 15 for manslaughter. Duc suffered physical abuse from his traditional Vietnamese/Chinese father and was arrested for driving a car from which a gun was shot. Although no one was injured and Duc, 16, was not a member of a gang and had no priors, he received a sentence of 35 years to life. Anait was a 14-year-old Armenian immigrant who was naive and made stupid choices. Marya was born into a gang situation and shot her best friend who was sleeping with a boy from an opposite gang. Peter’s story is of a gifted pianist who was arrested at 17 for breaking and entering and assault with a deadly weapon and now faces 30 years in state prison. In order to support these stories, the filmmaker interviewed the kids’ parents, and when she could, the victims. “You have to know the families in order to tell a story,” Neale says. “Some critics say that it’s unethical to get close to these kids. I say it’s unethical not to be close to the kids.” In fact, Neale and associate producer Traci Odom have kept up a relationship with all the kids they highlight in the film. Interspersed with the teens’ stories are interviews with experts in juvenile justice and gangs and prosecutors. Former District Attorney Gil Garcetti even admits that sentences like the one Duc received-during Garcetti’s tenure as D.A.-are unfair and should never have happened. Neale is working with other advocates, including Juvenile Hall Catholic lay chaplain Javier Stauring, in trying to reform the juvenile justice system and sees “Juvies” as filling a hole in the advocacy movement. Neale, a former actress who grew up in Dallas and got a degree in film from the University of Texas, lives in Rustic Canyon with her husband John Densmore and 12-year-old son Luca. Densmore, an original and founding member of The Doors, is executive producer for both films and is a major supporter of Amnesty International Neale is actively supporting two bills introduced by State Sen. Sheila Kuehl that would provide sentencing relief and clarify the language about fitness hearings-the process by which a persecutor determines whether the teen will be tried in juvenile court or adult court depending on the seriousness of the crime. Neale concludes that the fact that more kids are being incarcerated despite the dramatic drop in juvenile crime rates represents the confluence of a number of factors. She points to the fear of our youth, exacerbated by the media, the increasing rise in gangs as a result of our failing education system, and zero tolerance. “We’re not understanding the gang issue. There are over 3,000 gangs in L.A. alone,” she says. Louis Yablonsky, sociology professor and gang expert at Cal State Northridge, says that “The law takes the position that even if you’re not in a gang, you must be affiliated. That’s just wrong. In all these neighborhoods, everyone knows everyone else, and only 3 percent are dangerous to their communities.” Despite the dramatic drop in juvenile crime rates, L.A. County continues to sentence hundreds of kids to decades, even life in prison, Neale says. “The question we have to ask is what is the ultimate cost to society of what we’re doing to juvenile offenders?” Palisadian Pam Bruns is organizing the March 3 screening for “Juvies,” part of the Second Annual Human Rights Film Festival at Mount St. Mary’s in the Little Theater on the Chalon Campus, north of Sunset off Bundy. Admission is free. The guest speakers will be Neale and Javier Stauring.

By MARY MORAN Special to the Palisadian-Post The newly elected Palisades Charter High School Board of Directors held its first meeting on February 17 in the school library. Voting members of the board include principal and executive director Linda Hosford; teachers Holly Korbonski, Minh Ha Ngo and Libby Butler; non-certificated employee Gay Chambers; parents Jonathan Fielding, Ruth Simeon and Jim Suhr; and community members Harriet Leva, Tina Lee and Jack Sutton. Non-voting members are Greg Martins, the school’s acting chief business officer, and Edward Kim, student. Voting by staff, students and parents for the new board members occurred in December and January, and results were announced at the last meeting of the former Governance Council on January 20. Board members will serve until June 2005. Hosford, who plans to retire in June, will serve as an ex-officio member of the board and is the interim secretary. Korbonski, a member of the English Department, is the student-elected teacher representative to the board. She places a high priority on student involvement and on creating a student-friendly environment at PaliHi. Butler, a math teacher and former traveling Palisades student, believes that “Pali has all of the elements necessary to become a school with groundbreaking, innovative programs that serve the needs of a diverse student population.” A math teacher and former Governance Council member, Minh Ha Ngo, the board’s vice- chair, wants to take an active role in creating a school where education is a top priority. The Palisades faculty elected both Butler and Ngo. Gay Chambers, senior office assistant working in the attendance office, is a former Pali student and parent of two Pali graduates. She says, “My love for Pali goes way back and I want to see Pali succeed.” Dr. Jonathan Fielding, a Palisades parent and new board chair, believes that parents need every opportunity to participate in major decisions about school priorities, policies and curriculum changes. As the current Director of Public Health for Los Angeles County, he brings a wealth of expertise in finance, personnel, strategic planning and management to his position on the board. Ruth Simeon is a businesswoman and former teacher and college professor from South Los Angeles, with skills in education, budgeting, human resources, process improvement and operational efficiency. She hopes to represent a broader spectrum of the student population served by Palisades Charter High School. Board treasurer Jim Suhr, a real estate developer and parent of a ninth grader, believes that charter schools are the best path to creating educational excellence in public schools. He brings management, financial and general business skills to the board. Tina Lee is a lawyer from Manhattan Beach who believes that a good high school education “fosters confidence and develops personalities, enabling students to overcome any obstacles they may encounter while pursuing their goals.” Harriet Leva has been involved in governance at Palisades schools for over 10 years. She describes herself as a “good listener and consensus builder” with organizational, analytical and writing skills. Jack Sutton, a local resident whose son graduated from Pali, considers the school “to be a community asset exceeding that of any other high school in the city.” As a lecturer/field coordinator in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and executive officer for Educational Outreach, he believes he can provide a valuable link to the resources available from UCLA. The next board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 16, in the school library. The public is invited.

In characteristic fashion, Tiger Woods celebrates a birdie putt during last year’s Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club. Trailing by 11 strokes on the final day, he closed with a tournament-low 65 to finish tied for fifth. Uncharacteristically, Woods has yet to win this tournament, which begins today, in six tries.

Mike Skinner, a longtime resident and youth sports coach who directed the community-driven campaign to expand, renovate and enhance the four playing fields at the Palisades Recreation Center, has been named Citizen of the Year by the Palisadian-Post. He will be honored on April 29-along with the Golden Sparkplug winners-at the 57th Annual Citizen of the Year banquet at the Riviera Country Club. “Mike began pushing for the long-needed overhaul of the playing fields in 1999, after the new gym was completed,” said Post Publisher Roberta Donohue. “When he realized that city funding for this project simply wasn’t going to happen, he came up with a plan to have the community raise the funds and hire a private contractor to rebuild the fields in accordance with city regulations, then turn everything back over to the city. “After receiving approval from the Dept. of Recreation and Parks, Mike’s group set a goal of $850,000 last March (later raised to $950,000 to provide a $100,000 maintenance fund for upkeep of the fields), and completion of the entire project by October. Miraculously, the fields were ready for AYSO soccer games on November 8 and the bills have been paid.” The state-of-the-art facility will have its official dedication during the Palisades Pony Baseball Association’s traditional Pancake Breakfast festivities on Saturday, March 20. Bob Benton, the town’s sporting goods owner and perennial commissioner of the PPBA, was among those nominating Skinner for Citizen honors. “As someone who has been deeply involved in the affairs of our community for the past 22 years,” Benton wrote, “I have come to understand that a single individual, through his own selfless efforts, can greatly affect the greater good.” He pointed out Skinner’s contributions as a youth football, basketball and baseball coach, and his active role on the Park Advisory Board since its organization in 1998. “But by far the greatest task that Mike set for himself was spearheading what became known as the Field of Dreams project.” “It is difficult to overstate the enormousness of this undertaking,” Benton continued. “A few years ago as the City was filling Potrero Canyon, they built a large wall around our park that left much undeveloped space on the mesa; they took out all the trees that bounded our park; and told us that there was no money to fix anything. Our park was a mess. [At Mike’s urging], the PPBA board of directors decided that we would try and build the project. Mike was our choice to head up the committee. What a choice! He has spent countless hours in meetings, phone calls, design consultations and fundraising. He met with neighbors concerned with parking, crowds and lighting issues. He moderated the often contentious debates over the inclusion of a skatepark, urging mutual understanding between the parties. It was Mike who used his own money to fund the preliminary designs and surveys necessary to get the project rolling, using the reservoir of good will he has built up over the years to urge local officials and prominent residents to get behind the project. Mike commissioned a color rendering and model of the new park that would illustrate for the community what was possible and he would cart it out on Opening Day and the Fourth of July to rally support. And Mike’s only motivation was to replace a park that he truly felt was antiquated and dangerous. Said Benton: “When it became clear that no public funds were available for a project of this size, Mike organized a 100 percent community-based fundraising campaign that has successfully raised enough to money to complete the park. (It is important to remember that he has done all this despite the fact that his own kids are now too old to participate in any of our community-based sports activities.) But Mike did not stop with the completion of our beautiful new park. Along with the Park Advisory Board and a select group of dedicated volunteers, he is continuing his fundraising efforts to ensure that the park is maintained by the community and does not fall into the state of disrepair we saw with the old fields. The result of this gargantuan effort is a wonderful new park, with larger and safer playing fields that are available for both youth and adult sports, joggers, dog lovers and those who just want to enjoy the best of what our community has to offer. “I was taking my usual walk to the park one day in early November to check on the building progress and happened to see Mike out in the middle of the fields mowing the lawn atop the new tractor mower that was purchased as part of the new maintenance program,” Benton concluded. “The 5- and 6-year-olds were about to start playing AYSO soccer on the new fields and Mike wanted to make sure everything was in tip-top shape. Mike Skinner is a busy man who runs his own business here on the Westside and has his own family obligations. But it did not at all surprise me that he would get out there and personally see to it that the children of our community had a safe place to play.” Writing on behalf of the Park Advisory Board to nominate Skinner for the “Citizen” award, member Charlie Castle said: “The wonderful result of Mike’s knowledge and leadership…is complete renovation of the fields, including leveling, installing sprinklers and grass, removing old lights and installing new ones, new seating, dugouts and beautiful landscaping-all quickly done with a minimum of inconvenience for park users and neighbors.” “Citizen” banquet tickets are now on sale. The cost is $60 per person and seating is limited. Please make checks payable to Pacific Palisades Citizen-of-the-Year Dinner and mail them to P.O. Box 725, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 or bring them to the Palisadian-Post office at 839 Via de la Paz.

At about 7:10 p.m. last Friday, a fully loaded cement truck weighing an estimated 66,000 pounds rammed into a parked car on the west side of Palisades Drive just above Michael Lane, propelling it 200 feet down the street towards the center strip. No one was in the car, a black Nissan Altima owned by Highlands resident Rory Ritts. Skid marks indicate that the Mack truck jumped the sidewalk after striking the Nissan from behind, crashed into several trees and broke a main water sprinkler valve on the embankment before veering across the street and turning over on the center strip, its cab crushed. The driver, Vincent Parks, who managed to walk away from the vehicle, was treated at UCLA Medical Center and released early Saturday morning. “My back still hurts,” Parks, 41, told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday afternoon. “They said I bruised my ribs from the impact. I’m on pain medication.” According to both the LAPD and firemen on the scene, the accident was caused by brake failure. “Apparently the brakes overheated,” said Captain Bill Ernst of Station 23. Parks said that he has been driving trucks for five years, but has been working for Associated Ready Mix for only four months. He said he received basic training on driving a Mack in the first month of his employment and the particular truck he was driving last Friday (a 1989 model) was inspected a week earlier. Doyle Davis, a dispatcher with Associated, said that company trucks are inspected every three months, and that unless they pass, “they don’t go out on the road.” Friday’s near-disaster began earlier when Parks, slowed by traffic on PCH, was 90 minutes late making a scheduled delivery to a Highlands residential construction site. Discovering when he reached the site that his contact had left, he decided to make his way back down Palisades Dr., but not before trying to get in touch with his dispatcher. When his cell phone didn’t work, Parks said he thought briefly of dumping his load, as he was not sure the aging truck would make it back down to Sunset, “given the weight it was carrying.” Parks said his troubles continued when he tried to “pump the brakes.” When he realized that “they were gone” and he continued to pick up speed, he said he thought the safest thing to do would be to crash into a big tree. “It was either that or keep going down the hill head first.” At that point he thought he had “a 50/50 chance of surviving this.” He said he missed the first tree he targeted and slammed into the Nissan instead. From there, he remembers hitting a light pole before heading straight for a tree in the median. He said he didn’t recall the truck rolling on its side or how he got out of the cab. And he has no idea how fast the truck was going before it crashed. “All I know is that the weight of the truck kept pushing me forward,” said Parks, a father of two. “I thought of trying to jump out but realized that was impossible. So I just did what I could to stop the truck.” Rory Ritts, the director of product development for a large mail-order house, has been parking his 2001 Nissan in the same spot for the past two years-across the street from his townhouse at 1646 Palisades Dr., where he lives with his wife Linda and their three children. Ritts, 50, said that he had been home for about 15 minutes on Friday and hadn’t even finished unpacking his car for the long weekend when “I heard this crash. And then another crash. And then silence. I ran downstairs to look outside and noticed my car wasn’t there anymore. Looking down the hill, I spotted what looked like a monster lying on the median and my car was next to it, blocking the road.” Ritts then saw the driver walking around the wreck, and described a scene that “looked like a war zone. There was smoke and the smell of fuel, and cement and water everywhere. I saw some of my personal belongings on the street. There were papers from my briefcase, some samples I was working on, my flashlight, trade magazines and my garage door opener, which was smashed to bits.” Ritts said he lost everything that was in the Nissan in the crash, including his laptop, dry cleaning, prescription eyeglasses, tools, a baby stroller and a Valentine’s gift for his wife. “It was a silver bracelet. The police think it probably disintegrated on impact. It’s a miracle no one was killed. It was lucky Friday the 13th for both of us, I guess.” Parks, nursing his wounds this week, feels the same way. “I’m just so grateful no one else was hurt. I apologize to Mr. Ritts and what I did to his car. I just tried to steer the truck out of the way, as best I could.”

For Palisadian Kenneth Turan, who works fulltime watching an overwhelming number of movies produced every year and writing about them, the Oscar contest is always an exciting crescendo. But less so this year, the Los Angeles Times film critic told Optimist Club members Tuesday morning. “I wish I was coming here in a more exciting year,” said Turan, who took over the prognosticator’s role once filled by retired Times critic Charles Champlin. Speaking of his Times colleague, Turan was humbled. “It means a lot to me to follow Chuck Champlin; he is a great gentleman in the reviewing business.” Back to the contest, Turan said that the projected Oscar winners on February 29 have been uniformly agreed upon, although he did hold out the possibility that there will be some surprises. “The Academy is just like the Optimist Club, except bigger. What is a good film is a matter of individual taste. Nobody picks the best film, they pick what they like.” Characterizing his critical remarks as probably pretty close to what everyone is saying, Turan offered his list of winners, leading off with “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” as the Best Picture. “There really isn’t another film that has this much enthusiastic support,” he said. “Brian Helgeland’s ‘Mystic River’ is good, but it’s running against a trilogy. ‘Lord of the Rings’ has been nominated three times before and there’s a feeling that the Academy would be remiss if they didn’t pick this film. The Tolkien adaptation was an idea that nobody wanted to make, Turan explained. All the studios turned it down, no doubt daunted by the prospect of investing hundreds of millions of dollars into something that might have been a flop. Turan also gave the nod to director Peter Jackson for taking on just such a challenge, which required shooting three films simultaneously and at several different locations. He also credited Jackson for not only engaging the audience with technological wizardry, but also eliciting good acting. In the Best Actor and Actress categories, Turan narrowed the field to two-person races. While he predicts that Sean Penn will win for “Mystic River,” he agreed that Bill Murray’s laconic performance in “Lost In Translation” probably was the best role of his career. “It’s possible he will win, but the Academy mostly goes for serious performances,” Turan said, referring to the powerful role Penn enacted in “Mystic River.” “Sean has been nominated four times, including for ‘I Am Sam.’ If you’re nominated for ‘I Am Sam,’ you’ll win for “Mystic River.” If Turan’s serious role theory pans out, Charlize Theron, who makes an incredible transformation into the hooker who takes grisly vengeance on men in “Monster” will win the Oscar for Best Actress. He noted that the Academy voters also like the “stunt aspect of casting, people playing against type.” Theron, a beautiful woman, gained a lot of weight, put on false teeth and blotched up her face to play the role. The dark horse for Best Actress could be Diane Keaton in “Something’s Gotta Give,” if the Academy members want to acknowledge a good performance but also to honor older actresses doing good work. In the supporting categories, Turan puts his money on Tim Robbins in “Mystic River” and Renee Zellweger in “Cold Mountain.” In discussing the Best Original Screenplay, Turan once again predicted that “Lord of the Rings” would win. “The question is, is there ‘Hobbit’ fatigue or will they want there to be a [‘Lord of the Ring’] sweep? Often the Academy will give each nominated film for Best Picture an Oscar in another category so that the picture finds a place to win.” For Best Original Screenplay, Turan saw the contest as coming down to second-generation filmmakers: Sofia Coppola (daughter of Frances Ford Coppola) for “Lost in Translation” and Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot,” “In The Name of the Father”) and his daughters Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan for “In America.” Who makes up this amorphous Academy? one Optimist wondered. The Academy has about 5,000 members, including about 1,000 actors and an average of 300 in the other categories, such as writers, directors, art directors and cinematographers. Each branch nominates the films in their category, but the entire Academy, including executives and publicists, votes on all the categories. Conscientious Academy members will watch all the films nominated, said Turan-a daunting task at best, and impossible if the Motion Picture Association of America had barred the use of tapes as they had threatened to do to minimize piracy. But Turan endorsed the use of tapes enthusiastically, explaining that the nature of the Academy changed when tapes came in and gave small pictures a good shot. Citing Newmarket Films’ “Whale Rider,” which garnered a Best Actress nomination for star Keisha Castle-Hughes, Turan said that Newmarket sent out a lot of tapes early. “Smaller companies count on these tapes, it’s life or death for small films.” Another Academy rule change propelled Brazil’s “City of God” onto the radar screen with four nominations, including Best Achievement in Directing for Fernando Meirelles. This film was nominated because any foreign film that had not been nominated for Best Foreign Film the year before and opened in theaters the following year was eligible for consideration in any category. “These four nominations show the adventuresomeness of the Academy,” Turan said. Having reviewed for the Times for the last 12 years, Turan says that he does not worry about being pressured to write a favorable or unfavorable review. “Films have a life and death of their own, regardless of critics,” he said. “You have to do what you feel.” The relationship between box-office success and quality films boils down to the audience. “The reality of today’s movie business is that younger people, under 25, go to the movies once a week. It’s a small population, but most of the young people who go to the movies like them. Films are expensive, $60 to $120 million, and tens of millions of dollars are spent on advertising. Therefore, they dumb down the movies, and worry about anything that will turn people off.” Turan advised the Optimist audience to go to more movies, pick carefully and read reviews.