On the Ground at One of Oscar Season's Early Proving Grounds
I take in the kickoff of the Montclair Film Festival, with 'Conclave' director Edward Berger, Sony Pictures Classics' Tom Bernard and its influential creative-class crowd

Greetings from New York City, where tonight I’ll be joining the flood of East Coast film writers seething with envy that Los Angeles had its big early screening of Gladiator II three days before we did. The momen…