Making his way down the red carpet, the young Mr. Horn spoke of his gratitude towards Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock—his co-stars—neither of whom “had any responsibility to be so kind to me”. He then outwitted one reporter who attempted to get him to describe the poster, (which features the young boys face hidden behind his hands), asking him if he was always that sad.

He replied at length about Asperger's syndrome, a form of which his character suffers from.

The rest of the cast were also impressed by the 13 year old, many of them referencing his eloquence. He told us how he landed his role due to a winning appearance on Teen Jeopardy—after which he was contacted by the producers.

“We hope that this film will show people that the best way to overcome grief is to connect with other people,” he explained. “But I can’t personally know that because I’m lucky enough not to have been through it myself.”

Summing up the focus of the film the young actor surmised. “We’ve tried our best to portray the story in a way that could be seen as accurate. We’ve done our research on 9/11, the victims of 9/11 and also on Asperger's syndrome.”

Max Von Sydow, who plays Horn’s grandfather, told us about what the film means to New York and the difficulties involved in taking a character away from its author. “It is a chance for us to come together. There are certain things that help in the healing process and I think this is one of them.”
He also told us of the challenges the actors (and script writers) faced in conveying the deeper themes of Mr. Foer’s novel. “We had to change [the script] once or twice throughout the process...I’m interested to see what he thinks.”

We also ran into Viola Davis, who in addition to having a role in Extremely Loud, got news of her Golden Globe nomination for best actress, for her turn in the The Help that same day. She was asleep when she heard the news. Of her new film, she said, “It reminds us of a time when we woke up to the fact that we need each other to feel and we need each other to grieve.”

During the pre-screening introductions, Mr. Hanks, seemingly in a volubale mood, made the most of his audience—throwing his hands up in the air and punctuating his contemporaries comments with witticisms of his own. As the credits rolled the cast received a tearful ovation and we too headed home with a lump in our throat.

Horn and New York City.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a bold and honorable film, beautifully made, and sensitively acted (especially by a kid named Thomas Horn, in his first acting role, who literally steals the movie right out from under everyone else). It is meticulously directed. It is richly photographed, with the kind of dreamscape quality that makes New York look like a museum mural. It is also preposterous.

Every talent involved with this endeavor is first-rate. Based on the 2005 best seller by Jonathan Safran Foer, it boasts a screenplay by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump). The cast is exemplary. The direction is by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot). Chris Menges (The Killing Fields) is behind the camera and the music is by Alexandre Desplat (The King’s Speech). The word “quality” is stamped on every frame, and as movies go, it does indeed tower above the norm. In addition, the story is a wrenching mix of hope and despair about disrupted lives in the aftermath of 9/11. So what’s wrong with this picture? Or what’s wrong with me? I was told going in to bring a box of Kleenex. But nobody around me was sobbing. It was two hours and 10 minutes long. I kept checking my watch. I admired all the good work by so many good people, but clearly I found something about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close labored and muddled, and it wasn’t just the title.

Here’s the plot, in a peanut shell. A brilliant 11-year-old boy named Oskar Schell (the remarkable young Mr. Horn, who was discovered stumping the world on the addictive TV show Jeopardy) hears the voice of his beloved dad (Tom Hanks) for the last time on a phone from the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11. Oskar’s world turns upside down from that day forward. His mother, Linda (Sandra Bullock), spends most of her time in bed, unable to give her son the healing he needs. A year after this life-changing horror, a vase falls from the top of his father’s closet and shatters, revealing a mysterious key in a small envelope with the word “Black” on it. It must be a sign. The rest of the movie is about his search all over the city of New York to find the lock that fits the key and possibly the secret that unlocks the future. So with the aid of the back-breaking phone books for the city’s five boroughs, Oskar sets out to ring the doorbells of 472 people named Black, armed with binoculars, an Israeli gas mask, an ancient camera, a cell phone and a tambourine he beats to settle his nerves. Because public transport makes him nervous and he’s afraid of bridges, he walks all the way to Brooklyn to begin his quest. Here is an extremely loquacious, querulous and precocious child, psychologically damaged and easily susceptible to panic, on a mission to locate and interrogate 472 people in a New York maze that would, in real life, take about 472 years. The fact that the search ends in just over two hours of screen time is another puzzler, and for the most part, the adventure is as fascinating as it is daunting.

Then, under closer analysis, the questions begin to nag. A peculiar old mute (Max von Sydow) with the words “yes” and “no” either written, tattooed or branded into the palms of his hands, becomes Oskar’s traveling companion throughout the hundreds of miles of streets winding from Manhattan to the Bronx. He shortens the journey (and the movie) by taking the subway. The action is intercut with memories of special times Oskar spent with his dad (providing Mr. Hanks with more than just a walk-on) and the patience and knowledge he learned from their extraordinary relationship. The clever, elaborate strategy the kid maps out to track down every Black in the metropolitan area gets more implausible by the minute. He never goes to school. His mother never goes to work. His grandmother (Zoe Caldwell, in a cameo that consists of no more than a dozen lines of dialogue in a phony German accent) disappears from their lives completely. A nice little literary exercise on paper, perhaps, but I’m afraid it didn’t add up to anything convincing for me on the screen.

It seems like a waste of time to list all the ways the story fails to work, or how the daily actions (especially the geographical challenges) of the boy (and, as it turns out, his mother!) prove downright impossible—because in a film that distills the varied and decimating emotional traumas of 9/11, it’s easy to overlook the flaws. The kid carries the movie and is in every scene. It’s a monumental task and he carries it off heroically in a demanding role that requires a bright youngster who is intensely involved in the moment. Reading the press notes, it’s worth noting that Mr. Horn seems born to play Oskar; he’s a wunderkind who excels in karate, tennis and piano and speaks fluent Croatian and Mandarin. He’s never been in a film before, but I doubt if those abilities will ever be needed, utilized or even understood in Hollywood. Still, he makes this movie worth the effort. Maybe the holes in the plot that need clarification are the fault of the book, which I never read, but Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close did not affect me the way it seems to touch others. Certainly not a bad movie, but a disappointing one. It knocks itself out trying to break your heart, but it’s too starched and blow-dried for its own good. Maybe if it had manipulated me less, it would have moved me more.

rreed@observer.com

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

Running Time 130 minutes

Written by Eric Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer

Directed by Stephen Daldry

Starring Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock

2.5/4

The May 10 issue of People — with Sandra Bullock and her recently adopted baby on the cover — sold 2,225,000 copies off the newsstand. ABC will release complete set of ciruclation data from the first half of the year on August 9.

When the day finally comes to see each other, Mr. Woods goes all suddenly MapQuest: "You are going to be headed to the hyatt lodge. 2815 jorie blvd oak brook, il 60523. Phone 630 990 5800." Then Yelpful: 6:30 p.m.: "Let me know when your about 20 out i will order dinner. And what would you like to eat"... 7:09: "What do you want to eat"... 7:12: "No turkey unless it's a club sandwich."

Food is actually a subject discussed often by forbidden lovers. Stephanie Santoro, the nanny who claimed to have a relationship with Jon Gosselin, published these text messages:

Mr. Gosselin: "I'm worried the girls might say something to Kate. I'm thinking around 10:20. Is that ok. I don't want to ruin your chances on working here."

Ms. Santoro: "That's fine ... I wanna grab a milkshake anyways ... So I'll take the long way ... That' okay...? And thank u love. Really u have no idea how grateful I am to have u as a great friend in my life let along everything else."

Comestibles even make an appearance within some 14,000 text messages exchanged between former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

Mr. Kilpatrick: "At Benz Chilli Bowl. Be there in a ec." (Burp!)

Ms. Beatty: "Page me when you're on you're on the way upstairs so I can cut the TV off."

Mr. Kilpatrick: "Will arrive in 10"

Meanwhile, in the text messages revealed last week between Sandra Bullock's husband, Jesse James (no relation to Joslyn), and Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, there is a one from
Mr. James that says "speaking of licking??" Could be they were meeting up for snow cones.

View the Slideshow >

View the Slideshow >

The two women began to go out of their way to link to and comment on each other's writings and communicate via Twitter, and Ms. Vargas-Cooper helped Ms. Baker—who asked The Observer not to reveal her day job, where Tumbling is frowned upon—edit some of her writing. When Ms. Baker published an essay on the Duke lacrosse fiasco on the Awl in December, her new friend was one of several commenters who took the high road in defending her against a Negative Nelly in the comments section, asserting, "ELEGANT PIECE, MS. BAKER." And the negative commenter was apparently killed by kindness: he/she staked out Ms. Baker on her personal blog to apologize: "I'm the person who wrote that dick-ish 'Nope, sorry' comment on your Awl article, and it is seriously HAUNTING me! I've never been that mean to someone on the internet, I'm super anti-confrontation and you're a pro and took it pro-ishly, but uggggh I'm sorry I'm such a dick. Really."

With all due respect to the Internet, it has not often been described as a "lovefest"; indeed, it has been better known as a forum for fire-breathing, semi-literate personal attacks. But suddenly, wide swaths of the Web have become bastions of support and earnest civility, where community-members "retweet" or "reblog" each other's bon mots, promiscuously proffer thumbs-up, help sell perfect strangers' books, drive traffic to each other's blogs and real-world events and even defend one another.

"People sometimes will get bent about something and put it on Facebook or Twitter and realize that's just not the tone anymore," said literary PR consultant Lauren Cerand, who kindly posted a comment on this reporter's Facebook wall about a previous article in this newspaper (we had never met in person). "That very cynical voice worked really well from 2003 to 2006." But "really negative people, they don't have a lot of friends." (In other words, you're more likely to think before you tweet when you can actually watch yourself losing your audience with each nasty missive!)

It's not just Internet logrollers riding the wave of positivity. Conan O'Brien signed off from NBC saying, "Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism—it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere." Quite unlike aloof Madonna or spoiled Britney, pop star of the moment Lady Gaga is constantly professing what seems to be sincere, mature gratitude to her fans and creative partners on Twitter. Tom Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson, proclaimed nice "the new black" in the March Harper's Bazaar ("How often have you yawned in boredom when someone has told you about a nice person they know? What did nice do to deserve this treatment?"). Vogue, meanwhile, put Tina Fey—not beautiful, but nice-looking—on its March cover, rather than Keira Knightly or Sienna Miller. Even Bill O'Reilly seems to be softening up. "There are two kinds of political attacks," he said recently, defending President Obama from CPAC. "The personal, meant to diminish the human being, and criticism of policy, meant to persuade people the person in power is doing a bad job… The personal stuff is cheap."

PERHAPS IT'S NOT surprising that we find ourselves softer and more empathetic when so many of us are unemployed and our city's largest moneymaking industry has been publicly dressed down. The New Nice is nibbling gently at New York, a place where it was always O.K.—nay, a matter of survival—not to be nice, a.k.a. bland, submissive and/or irrelevant.

Then again, when examined more closely, there's a reassuring venality to all this e-caring-and-sharing. "All of New York really runs from this idea of the favor economy," pointed out Ms. Cerand, the PR consultant, who recently attracted funding for Girls Write Now, a charity she's involved with, by responding to a tweet. "Can I do a favor now for this person so they'll do one for me later? Some people feel that's really stressful and that everyone's operating, but I feel like that the ambition, for most people, is to be happy and successful, and from a Buddhist perspective that's something to be supported."

And speaking of the "favor economy": Even the Oscars are becoming an inclusive, populist extravaganza this year with 10 Best Picture nominees—including Sandra Bullock's warm-fuzzy-fest The Blind Side—plus Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin sharing—sharing—host duties. Also consider the mellowing of Simon Cowell, who has recently taken to hugging deposed American Idol contestants and encouraging them to keep at it. The actress Gwyneth Paltrow neatly summed up the new outlook, responding to criticisms of her treacly weekly email newsletter, Goop, in USA Today. "I think part of the problem is people get a hit of energy when they are negative about something, and it is a very detrimental way for them to get that hit of energy," said the mother of two. "They do not understand why they do not have a happy life. … I just feel sorry for them."

While the quest for a happy life has become a bona fide intellectual project in America (see sidebar), the rare outburst of mean feels like a shock to the system. When novelist Alice Hoffman took to Twitter last June to furiously attack a reviewer in The Boston Globe as a "moron" and an "idiot," it was almost refreshing to see the medium being used to its full, uncensored communicative potential. It felt authentic. (Ms. Hoffman has since erased her account.)

Ms. Hoffman, of course, is a Bostonian; and Dan Baum, who tartly tweeted about his experiences writing for David Remnick to a collective media gasp, lives in Boulder, Colo. New Yorkers, perhaps, understand better than most the value of personal branding, which, on an ever less anonymous and more community-based Internet, means we're producing a steady stream of searchable utterances attached to our name (or avatar), that ultimately defines the size and nature of our circle of influence.

ONE MIGHT ARGUE that products like Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook are designed to manipulate us into niceness.

"There's a lot of incentive and positive reinforcement when you use Tumblr," said David Karp, proprietor of the platform. To "like" someone's post is to click on a heart-shaped symbol—an easy, "friction-less" gesture, he said—but there is no way to express the opposite if you find the post vaguely illiterate. (Similarly, on Facebook, there is no thumbs-down symbol.) There is however plenty to gain in terms of followers for your own blog if you opt to re-post people's posts and add your own witty, positive commentary. Unlike many vicious Web commenters, users of these social-media platforms can be de-friended, unfollowed, ignored and potentially silenced by the platform itself. (Internet users have taken to using these tactics on people behaving badly in real life, too: When Kanye West recently stole the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards to say Beyoncé should have won, Facebook news feeds exploded with tsk-tsks from New Yorkers who surely agreed with him in theory.)

"Part of what's going on is that the act of typing seems public no matter what it's going into," said David Carr, the New York Times media columnist, who tweets about the Olympics and regularly praises his colleagues' work. "So even if it's an email, you have to assume that through some circumstance, it somehow might be public."

But it's not just the fear of losing our megaphone or an electronic "paper trail" that keeps us nice: Unlike on YouTube, whose commenters are made to feel like "third-class citizens" by their position on the page, the size of their font, their alienation from the main content and the incoherence of the hundreds of their fellow commenters, Mr. Karp pointed out that Twitter and Tumblr give everyone the same chance to be heard, and to interact directly with people who, offline, have more power.

This doesn't stop provocateurs like Michael Wolff from sending out purposely mean tweets like this one, in response to a missive publicizing David Brooks' appearance on Charlie Rose: "Or, for more pleasure, kill yourself." But Mr. Wolff, a relatively new tweeter, had 1,670 followers at press time; the Times' Mr. Carr has almost 250,000.

Cultural critic Lee Siegel, a regular contributor to the Daily Beast and The New Republic, described the mutually congratulatory behavior as a "cultural style," not an empathetic shift. "The pressure to please and be popular is what I don't like about this stuff," he said. "That is more lethal to journalism than a bunch of anonymous loons screaming insults."

Later, in an email, he continued: "It's as if the gene that detects insincerity had been removed from us. Or is it that we are all playing this new complicated game of insincerity? I thought we revolted against King George so that we could stop paying taxes to England and to liberate ourselves from obnoxious British insincerity." He suggested Mr. Carr "stop following himself on Twitter and get back to work." Meow!

It's clear that Internice has its limits. "If Peggy Noonan writes something in The Wall Street Journal that's absurd, ha-ha, it's always fun to make fun of Peggy Noonan," said Ms. Baker, the blogger. "But if I know that person is someone I follow, or they follow me, or I like them, I just think twice. I'm not going to write something just to be provocative or get a cheap laugh." She did that once, she said, when she'd only been on Tumblr for two weeks and had yet to learn the customs, but her sarcastic blog post just ended up making her feel horrible. "It just made me think, O.K., I can do better than this," she said.

mbryan@observer.com

1. Avatar: $68.3 million ($352.1 million total)

Remember when people thought Avatar would be a flop? Just kidding! Down only 10 percent, weekend three of James Cameron's latest history-rewriting epic shattered the record for biggest third weekend gross, a mark previously held by Spider-man, which grossed $45 million during its third weekend in 2002. But that's not all! After just 17 days, Avatar is over $350 million in domestic receipts, meaning it's only the second film in history to reach that number so quickly (The Dark Knight turned that trick in 14 days). And! Avatar also has the distinction of being the only film in history to gross more than $10 million during each day of its release (17 and counting). Oh and did we mention that Avatar is the second highest grossing film released in 2009 and it should pass Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sometime next weekend to earn top honors? Or that it's only the fifth film in history—and second directed by James Cameron—to cross $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales? We didn't think so. In a word: ka-ching. In another: sequel.

2. Sherlock Holmes: $38.3 million ($140.6 million total)

Lost in the shuffle of the Avatar hysteria, Sherlock Holmes continued to rake in cash, though perhaps not as much as Warner Brothers would have liked. On a normal weekend, a 38 percent drop would be considered tremendous for big-budget franchise starter, but, on this weekend, the depreciation represented the largest decline in the top-ten. Still with $140 million in the bank thus far and no real competition for the foreseeable future, Holmes looks poised to cross $200 million in ticket sales. Whether or not the inevitable sequel does as well is a story for another day.

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel: $36.6 million ($157.3 million total)

Seriously, America? The worst part of the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is that it represents a huge step forward from the original. Whereas the first film crossed the $150 million barrier in 20 days, the Squeakquel did so in just 12 days. At that rate, film number three could challenge Avatar. Sigh.

4. It's Complicated: $18.7 million ($59.1 million total)

As usual, Meryl Streep has legs and she knows how to use them. Down just 18 percent, It's Complicated will pass director Nancy Meyers' last bit of adult-themed holiday fun—appropriately titled The Holiday—sometime this week and could challenge the $124.7 million Something's Gotta Give earned in 2003 before it shuffles off to a lifetime of TNT showings. She might not be Sandra Bullock, but there isn't a more reliable female box office draw than Queen Meryl.

5. The Blind Side: $12.6 million ($209 million total)

And speaking of Sandra Bullock... that The Blind Side crossed $200 million at all, let alone after just 45 days is astounding. That it still resides in the top-five and actually saw its ticket sales increase 10 percent from last weekend is, frankly, miraculous. The more money this earns, the greater the chances that Ms. Bullock not only gets an Oscar nomination for her work, but also wins. Lest we forget: Julia Roberts' Best Actress win was for a wildly popular mainstream affair, wherein she got to flash both crazy eyes and a Southern accent. And as anyone who has seen The Blind Side can attest, Ms. Bullock features both of those traits in bunches.

Tuesday: 20/20
While you were sleeping, The Blind Side became one of the biggest hits of the entire year. For those of you who haven't seen it yet (or for those of you who want to relive the story from the comfort of your own couch), ABC's 20/20 is offering "the real story" behind the film. So instead of Sandra Bullock's brassy portrayal of Leigh Ann Tuohy, the Tennessean mother who took in a homeless boy and helped turn him into an NFL superstar, you'll get the actual Leigh Ann Tuohy. But don't worry fans, Ms. Bullock and her on-screen husband, Tim McGraw, make appearances as well. Might we suggest having some Kleenex ready? [ABC, 10 p.m.]

Wednesday: Kill Bill Volume 1 & 2
Since the DVD combining both volumes of Kill Bill that Quentin Tarantino has been teasing us with since the release of the first film back in 2003 has yet to materialize, we'll have to settle for this impromptu back-to-back showing on IFC to get our kung-fu fighting fix. For the record, we prefer the crackling part one, which offers some of Mr. Tarantino's most inspired filmmaking, to the more mature and talky part two. And obvious kudos to Uma Thurman, in a performance that was wrongly ignored by Oscar voters, for mixing the vengeful bride with equal parts sass, smarts, pathos, humor and total badassary. That's not a word, but thanks to Ms. Thurman, it should be. [IFC, 8 p.m.]

Thursday: Jersey Shore
We had been reluctant to start watching the latest television lobotomy from MTV, but why fight against something so delectable? Whether or not Jersey Shore is actually real is beside the point. This show—which is quite possibly the beginning of the 2012 apocalypse—is hilarious, ridiculous and impossible to turn away from. Where else can see someone refer to himself as "The Situation" in a serious manner? No doubt as a gift to people like us (think: anti-social), MTV is airing a new episode of this living train wreck on New Year's Eve, meaning we don't have to head out to overpriced bars to encounter loads house music, fist pumping and hair gel. [MTV, 10 p.m.]

Friday: The Twilight Zone
Call us old fashioned, but New Year's Day wouldn't be New Year's Day without a trip into The Twilight Zone. From the ball drop until January 2, SyFy is airing a marathon of the classic series, which means you can dip in and out as you please. However, for those of you looking for some guidance, make sure to check out "Time Enough At Last" (airing at 10:21 p.m.), the old chestnut starring Burgess Meredith, the apocalypse and a pair of fragile reading glasses. Cue the music! [SyFy, all day]

1. Avatar: $73 million ($73 million total)

James Cameron said Avatar would be a game-changer, and, sure enough, it was. A record-breaking 71 percent of Avatar's gross came from 3-D showings; in dollars, that accounts for nearly $52 million of the $73 million total. Add in the higher ticket prices for the IMAX showings—where Avatar also broke records—and this looks like the type of film that could be capable of crossing $300 million domestic without breaking a sweat. Eerie parallel alert! When it was released in December of 1998, Titanic also wound up with the second biggest December opening ever.

2. The Princess and The Frog: $12.2 million ($44.7 million total)

Maybe The Princess and The Frog is a dud after all. Just one week after a lackluster opening—one that we still thought would lead to long-term success—the Disney film dropped 50 percent to bring its total to an underwhelming $44.7 million. This isn't terrible of course—Frog could still find its way to $80 million—but we can't imagine it's what everyone was expecting from Disney's return to traditional animation. Worse, things won't get any easier when Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel opens on Wednesday and vies for the kiddie audience.

3. The Blind Side: $10 million ($164.7 million total)

For a fifth weekend in a row The Blind Side found a home inside the top-three, which means it's the only film of 2009 to do so (for completists: Taken turned this trick as well, but didn't do it over five consecutive weeks). As if that weren't enough, it also blitzed past The Proposal to become Sandra Bullock's biggest film ever. With The Blind Side cruising towards $200 million, we have to wonder: is it time to start taking Ms. Bullock—fresh off nominations from both the Golden Globes and SAG Awards—seriously as a Best Actress contender?

4. Did You Hear About the Morgans?: $7 million ($7 million total)

Apparently, you did hear about the Morgans and decided to stay home. Sony executives can—and did—blame the weather for this lackluster debut, but we seriously doubt sunny skies would have made a whole lot of difference. Put it this way: even the much-maligned All About Steve scored a bigger opening weekend ($11 million) than The Morgans did.

5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon: $4.3 million ($274.5 million total)

How about New Moon still hanging around like that poster of Robert Pattison in your sister's bedroom? Despite losing 600 theaters, the 'tween smash was able to hold off Invictus—down 52 percent, Clint Eastwood's seasonal entry into the awards derby rang up only $4.1 million in weekend two for a total of $15.8 million—to place in the top-five for a fifth consecutive week. Speaking of top-fives, New Moon also cracked that list for 2009 and will pass The Hangover sometime this week to become the fourth highest grossing film of the year. Director Chris Weitz might not be the King of the World, but we're not sure he really cares right now.