Oscar winner heads to Brandeis

Budding filmmakers at Brandeis get a sneak peek tomorrow of director Errol Morris's latest documentary. As a favor to his friend Alice Kelikian, chair of the university's film-studies program, Morris is screening about 20 minutes of "SOP: Standard Operating Procedure," his new movie about the Abu Ghraib scandal. "I like talking to students," said Morris, who won an Oscar for "The Fog of War." "I used to say that I made films so I could talk after them." Although Rory Kennedy also has made a movie about Abu Ghraib, Morris said his documentary, with music by Danny Elfman, will be very different. "I started before [Kennedy]," he said. "But I'm perfectly happy that that movie came out. It's not as if I have some exclusive lock on this subject." So, who speaks for the Bush administration in his movie? "No one. I'm not interested in the administration's point of view," Morris said. "Believe it or not, this is not a partisan political film. It's an attempt to learn something about the people involved in this -- people we know very little about -- and the story that emerges is very different from the story on the left or the right." With any luck, "SOP" will be finished in time for fall film festivals in Telluride, Toronto, and New York.

Okrent takes on a whole new role

For someone who works with words, Daniel Okrent shows up in a lot of pictures. The founding editor of New England Monthly was featured prominently in the Ken Burns documentary "Baseball" and also appeared in Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown." Now, Okrent's back on the big screen in "The Hoax," director Lasse Hallstr öm's movie about scheming scribe Clifford Irving. (Irving's the one who wrote the phony "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes in 1972.) "I'm told I look very serious and troubled," said Okrent, an associate at Harvard's Shorenstein Center. "I do troubled very well." In the movie, the amateur actor plays a rapacious publishing exec who deals with Irving despite doubts about the veracity of his work. It's an ironic role for Okrent, who was the first ombudsman of The New York Times. "I was able to purge myself of the reputation as the ethical cop," said Okrent.

A really big shoe for Big Papi

Who wouldn't want to celebrate Red Sox Opening Day with Big Papi? Actress and self-proclaimed Sox fan Chloë Sevigny, Colts QB Peyton Manning, pro soccer phenom Thierry Henry, and glam couple Chris Klein and BU alum Ginnifer Goodwin are all on tonight's guest list for when Sox slugger David Ortiz unveils his new Reebok baseball cleat at Underbar. Tonight's red carpet fete will be the first chance to get a glimpse of Ortiz's latest venture with the Canton-based shoemaker, the "Big Papi 2M Mid," which will sell for $100 and be available in August. Also expected to help Ortiz celebrate his new shoe and the news that he's reupped his contract with Reebok are reggaeton artist and Papi pal Daddy Yankee, former Patriots receiver and Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch, Pats players Laurence Maroney and Ben Watson, and MTV VJ Susie Castillo, a former Miss USA from Methuen.

Acting coach Susan Batson is slated to arrive this morning on the red-eye from LA -- where she's been working with Janet Jackson -- just in time to receive an award from the Harvard Medical School. We suspect the Roxbury-bred teacher won't mind the jet lag because the newly christened social justice award she's getting is named for her late mother, Ruth M. Batson, a civil-rights activist and Metco founder who was a leader in the challenge to the Boston Public School system's segregation in the 1960s. Presenting the award will be medical school Dean Joan Y. Reede, who heads the Office for Diversity & Community Partnership, which is hosting the day of events. . . . Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, and Daniel Day-Lewis RSVP'd regrets, but Martin Scorsese is confirmed for this week's Thelma Schoonmaker tribute. The director will be in Boston Thursday for a panel discussion about "The Departed." A celebrated film editor , Schoonmaker won this year's Coolidge Award.

Baseball guru Peter Gammons and Red Sox GM Theo Epstein hosted a mini-concert to celebrate -- again -- Gammons's debut CD at Game On! last night to benefit Epstein's Foundation to Be Named Later.

You can never have enough pitching. Just ask Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia. Appearing yesterday with manager Terry Francona at a promotional event for Dunkin' Donuts, the Sox infielders were asked who they'd most like to see in a Sox uniform. "Roger Clemens," they replied without hesitation.

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