Oscar nominations: Surprises and snubs

Before I do any complaining, and yes, there is some to do, let me start with two things that definitely made me smile during this morning's Oscar nominations announcement.

First and foremost, the word "Ratatouille" came up twice, once in the expected animated film category but also with Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco nominated for best original screenplay. A hearty huzzah to that!

The second thing wasn't so much of a surprise, since I predicted it (see the previous post to see just how right or wrong I was overall), but probably the most worthy nominee of all was Hal Holbrook in the category of Best Supporting Actor. I've confessed it here before, but I cried exactly once at a movie theater in 2007, and that moment came when Holbrook's character tried in vain to rescue Emile Hirsch's Christopher McCandless from his ultimate fate.

So much for the good stuff, because, me being me, I have plenty to complain about too.

First of all, I love Cate Blanchett as much or more than the average moviegoer, but "Elizabeth" is just one big flaming turd of a movie. Granted, any charms it has come from the presence of Blanchett and Clive Owen pitching woo, but that's not by a long shot enough to deserve a Best Actress nomination in my book. I was very happy to see Laura Linney make the cut for "The Savages" (and would love to see her win), but Helena Bonham Carter in "Sweeney Todd" was just loads better than Ms. Blanchett in "Elizabeth."

And Cate comes in for double fire from me today, for though I haven't seen "I'm Not There," I have to think her turn as Bob Dylan robbed the very deserving Kelly Macdonald of a slot for her superb work in "No Country for Old Men." I'll be very happy to see see Ruby Dee win this (partly because she's a very worthy winner and partly due to to my continuing atonement tour for assuming that she had died shortly after hubby Ossie Davis), but the snub of Ms. Macdonald was just egregious in my book.

But enough ranting for now. I did manage to predict four of the five Best Picture nominees (did anyone really see "Michael Clayton" coming?), and I'm fairly optimistic the writers will reach a deal and make the Oscars the truly joyous occasion they should be. Peace out.

A bad movie year? Maybe, but here are 20 2007 movies that I just love

It certainly does seem like, especially after our sequel-happy summer, this has been a down year for quality movies. And I can buy that, but there's still been plenty this year to make me smile (and, of course, two more months to go.)

With the caveat that not everything plays in my little corner of the world, here are, for my money, the 20 best movies that have made it out into wide-release world this year (in calendar rather than preferential order, except that "Ratatouille" is easily my favorite movie of the year so far.) Here goes!


Daddy's Little Girls/Why Did I Get Married?
OK, I'm cheating from the outset, because this two-fer means the list includes 21 flicks, but I'm just astounded that Tyler Perry managed to release two movies so good in the same year. Of the two, I'll take "Daddy's Little Girls" by a nose, mostly because Idris Elba is so great in it and because Tyler Perry should keep his movies in Atlanta, where he has a real sense of place.

Breach
This movie is so claustrophobic that I had to watch it twice, the second time on a plane, to truly appreciate it. It's far from your traditional spy-vs.-spy flick, but for a psychological thriller you won't get much better than this Billy Ray movie starring Chris Cooper as Robert Hanssen and a surprisingly good Ryan Philippe as the spy sent in to take him down (with an assist from the always-welcome Laura Linney.)

Starter for 10
I watched this one on a plane too, and I'd call it simply a guilty pleasure if it weren't so charming. In essence, it's a very British take on those John Hughes '80s flicks, with James McAvoy playing very young. Even if that sounds appalling, just give it a chance.

Zodiac
Despite it's early calendar position and carping from misguided critics that it was simply too long, I'm still hoping David Fincher's great movie gets some award-season consideration. Robert Downey Jr., at least, is worthy of a supporting actor nomination for his portrayal of an overzealous and underscrupulous L.A. Times reporter.

300
OK, with the passage of time, I'm willing to concede that this Frank Miller/Zack Snyder flick was, indeed, pretty darn stupid, but so what? It was also the funnest movie of 2007 for my money.

The Wind the Shakes the Barley
Ken Loach finally finds a subject epic enough to fit his conscience and takes home a well-deserved Palme d'Or for it. Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney play two brothers swept into the Republican movement in early 20th-century Ireland.

The Lookout
Predictably few people saw this off-key bank heist flick starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the promising young actor who you might remember from "Third Rock from the Sun." The movie is at its best when it's just he and Jeff Daniels as two physically and mentally damaged roommates.

Grindhouse
What is there to say about this if you somehow missed the experience in the theater (as many, many people apparently did)? Tarantino made the slightly superior flick in my book, but it just works so much better sewn together with Rodriguez' zombie zoo. My favorite moment of all, however, would still have to be the old-school intermission logo with Dangermouse/Doom/Talib Kweli's "Old School" playing behind it.

Hot Fuzz
Though it certainly had hot competition from Camp Apatow, I think Edgar Wright and friends just may have made the funniest movie of 2007. All those directors who claim to be making "spoof" movies need to watch this riff on big-action movies to see how it's really done.

Waitress
It's still hard not to watch this one without thinking of poor Adrienne Shelley, but if you can manage to do that this sweet little flick still stands the test of time for me. It's occasionally just too syrupy, but Keri Russell, Captain Mal and Andy Griffith are all great.

Knocked Up
This makes No. 11, so I should probably refresh my coffee at this point. Just about the only negative thing I can say about Judd Apatow's movie is that I was hoping for hours and hours of Seth and his stoner buddies just goofing off in the DVD extras, because I love those guys. You do get Jonah Hill's extended and extremely foul riff on "Brokeback Mountain," which makes the DVD worth at least renting by itself.

Ratatouille
Like I said, my favorite movie of 2007 so far, but I think "Gone Baby Gone" (which I just might see today), "Juno" and "American Gangster" will give it some stiff competition. I've been happy to see that this Pixar flick, which only did so-so (by Pixar standards) in the U.S., has just been cleaning up at the worldwide box-office till.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The best of the Harry Potter movies so far, for my money, but take that with the grain of salt that I'm not exactly a Harry Potter fanatic. I did, however, manage to finish reading "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," which was just sensational, even if Dumbledore is gay (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The Simpsons Movie
The only midnight movie I enjoyed this year (the other being "Spidey 3," which just sucked hard in my book.) The Simpsons' flick worked because it was really little more than a 90-minute episode of the show with a lot more time and money thrown in to make the jokes all work (and spiderpig just kicks ass.)

Rocket Science
Opening on the same weekend with the teen flick that comes next on this list certainly didn't do any favors for Jeffrey Blitz' autobiographical followup to the doco "Spellbound." Probably because this utterly charming movie about a stuttering teen growing up in New Jersey made about $5, Mr. Blitz has no upcoming directing credits on the IMBD except for two episodes of "The Office."

Superbad
Of the two Camp Apatow flicks this year, I'll give this one the edge for two reasons: Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are simply two of the funniest guys on the planet and, in it's own warped way, it's a surprisingly sweet movie about hetero man love (made stronger, of course, by the relentless pursuit of beer and chicks.)

Shoot 'Em Up
Even though it plays out at various times like an extended (and very bloody) music video or a warped take on the old Looney Tunes cartoons, I guarantee that if you watch this Michael Davis flick it will make you smile. You can certainly tell from watching it that Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and la bella Monica Bellucci had just as much fun making it as I did watching it.

Eastern Promises
Even if this one doesn't stand up to David Cronenberg's best work, it's still a solidly entertaining gangster flick, which rises to a higher level thanks to Viggo Mortensen's steely performance, which should get some awards-season love too.

The Kingdom
Whew! Only two more movies to go, so I'll probably keep these last two short. Anyone who thinks this political thriller from Peter Berg dumbs things down too much is more than a bit of a snob. 'Nuff said.

Michael Clayton
Tony Gilroy's directing debut is the most satisfying legal thriller I've seen in many years, and Tom Wilkinson's performance as a big-time lawyer who becomes unhinged will linger with you for a long time.

So, there you have it. I hope this offered some ideas for DVD rentals, and as always, please feel free to add any 2007 movies you loved that I have managed to snub. Peace out.

Weekend movie report: Two out of three ain't bad

Man, do I love the fall. So far, three new movies watched (two good, one pretty darn awful) and one more to go today, "Elizabeth," which I'm cautiously optomistic will be better than it's rather harsh reviews. Today I'll deal with the two winners since, after all, Monday's always just a little better with some good news.

We'll start with "Michael Clayton," which, only surprising me a little bit, got absolutely clobbered at the box office by "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married," $21.5 million to $12.1 million.

Now, I can take or leave George Clooney, frankly. Often, especially with "Syriana," he just seems so smug that I want to smack him until he cries. In "Michael Clayton," however, maybe because he's playing a character who's already been pretty beaten-down by life, I found him to be much more bearable.

In Tony Gilroy's unconventional legal thriller he plays the titular character, a "fixer" who's already pretty broken himself. Think of Mr. Wolf from "Pulp Fiction" at the end of a three-day bender and you're in the right ballpark. It's a performance that just worked for me, but most of the credit for "Michael Clayton" being such a satisfying flick goes to Mr. Gilroy and a supporting player to be named later.

Gilroy, who also wrote the screenplay for this summer's smartest thriller, "The Bourne Ultimatum," makes this rather familiar story about a high-powered law firm defending an unsavory chemical company feel fresh mostly by what he leaves out. There's not, at least that I can remember, one courtroom scene, and therefore any way-too-dramatic speeches are kept to the very end. And though there is a "smoking gun" in the form of an incriminating document, it isn't overexposed.

What Gilroy delivers instead is a solid character study, of Clooney's Clayton and even moreso of the lawyer he's sent to "fix," played by the always-welcome Tom Wilkinson. The movie opens with one of his possibly insane monologues, and it's the trajectory of Wilkinson's Arthur Edens that keeps this flick moving at a briskly entertaining pace. I'm almost certain you'll be hearing his name on Oscar night in the supporting category, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he's a winner.

My only beef with Mr. Gilroy's movie is that Tilda Swinton is rather criminally underused as the main attorney for the bad guys, as is The White Shadow as the bad guy in chief. But these are really just quibbles about a movie that deserves to be seen by many, many more people in week two.

Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married

First of all, a hearty huzzah to Mr. Perry on his box-office triumph. I had an inkling that, since my Sunday evening showing - at a time when much of his target audience might still be just returning home from church - was packed, he would come out on top for the weekend. But I had no idea he would clobber Clooney so soundly.

I've been a Tyler Perry supporter (as if he needs me) ever since "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" because he makes movies that are, although clearly flawed, like nothing else you'll see on the big screen now. And while "Why Did I Get Married" represents a real step forward in both star power and mainstream appeal, it retains the magic formula that makes his movies so enjoyable: Self-help mojo just a few degrees removed from "Oprah" but repackaged with real characters and a compelling story.

And, I'm gonna go ahead and open myself to all kinds of fire and compare him favorably to two of my favorite directors, Woody Allen and Pedro Almodovar. Yes, that Woody Allen. The comparison works for me because Perry writes characters that - though they still appeal mainly to people with skin the same color as theirs - are universal in their neuroses (or, in Mr. Perry's hands, "drama.")

In the case of "Why Did I Get Married," the characters are eight college friends - four married couples - who are now approaching middle age and dealing with all kinds of issues. When "Married" works best, they handle these problems with as much humor as tears.

And, with "Married" even more than his other flicks so far, the Almodovar comparison is very strong. Here, he writes four solid female characters, and lets his top two break down in a very similar way to last year's "Dreamgirls."

The glamour girl, Janet Jackson rather than Beyonce, tops the bill but loses much of the spotlight to the big girl, here Jill Scott rather than Jennifer Hudson. And Scott steals the show because she knows that what Perry requires from her - even as she plays a very vulnerable character more than a little prone to crying - is to never forget she's a diva. It's a tremendously likable performance from a new face I think you'll be seeing a lot more of in the future. Rounding out the women are Sharon Leal as a career-minded attorney (and, in the flick, Mr. Perry's wife) and Perry regular Tasha Smith as essentially the Id, as usual the character most likely to provoke outbursts of something along the lines of "You go girl!" from the audience.

This being a Tyler Perry movie, the men get short-shrift by design, but so what? "Why Did I Get Married" isn't a perfect movie by any stretch. The story loses more than a little bit of steam once the four couples leave the Colorado mountain cabin where they go to work out their problems and return to the real world. But overall it's another successful flick that follows the Perry formula that I - and apparently more than a few other people - have grown to love.

A movie world without women? No thanks

When I first saw this, I assumed it had to be a joke. Did the head of a major American movie studio really say he would no longer greenlight any movies with women in the lead role?

And knowing this comes from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily column in L.A. Weekly, it should perhaps be greeted with skepticism, but since I've yet to see any kind of denial I have to assume it's true.

It seems that Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a rather bizarre new decree: "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead."

In case this weren't sick enough by itself, you need only look at what evidence he used to reach this conclusion to see just how wrong it is. What drove this man over the edge? The poor box-office performance of two movies, "The Brave One" and "The Invasion."

Now, I didn't bother to see "The Invasion" because, well, I've seen "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and didn't need to see it again, but I can speak with authority on "The Brave One." Having had about a month to digest this one now I can state firmly that it was the worst movie I saw this summer, and is a strong contender for the overall title for the past five years or so. Is he really proposing we condemn women to the role of sidekick simply because these two awful movie underperformed at the box office? (Yes, apparently.)

Forgive me if I'm unable to come up with much of a cogent argument here, because this just pisses me off and it's still rather early in the morning, not a great combination. But rather than go on a rant about the virtues of women (if you don't know what they are, I'm 100 percent certain I can't help you), I got to thinking about whether or not there is anything we can do about this.

A viewers' boycott of Warner Bros. would make sense, but I'd advocate instead a conscious effort to support what few big box-office movies there are with women in the lead. I could only think of two for the rest of the year, but if there are any others coming up that I've missed please let me know (and I'm not counting conventional romantic comedies here because, well, it would be rather hard to make one of those that wasn't, well, gay without at least one woman in a prominent role.)

The first that comes to mind, and yes, I'm gonna mention it again, is "Juno." If you make the sacrifice of seeing adorable Ellen Page in the lead role (gasp, a woman!), I can virtually guarantee you'll get one of the smartest and funniest movies of the year.

But it starts earlier than that in wide-release land, this weekend in fact. It's a busy fall weekend with a lot of good titles. Personally, I'll be going to see as many as four movies: "We Own the Night," "Michael Clayton," "Tyler Perry's Why Did We Get Married?" and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." Though I can't believe this would actually be necessary, I'd like to make a plea in honor of Mr. Robinov that out of this crowded slate everyone at least take the time to go see "Elizabeth."

With (gasp again!) perhaps the world's greatest actress in the lead role of Queen Elizabeth I, this should be a rousing period tale about Elizabeth's relationship with Sir Walter Raleigh and its impact on the world. There's exactly one review at the IMDB calling it an "awful, boring film," but I'm betting that once a more representative sample comes in the scorecard will tilt back in its favor.

Even if "Elizabeth" does somehow turn out to be horrible, however, that doesn't change the fact that Robinov is a moron, even if, looking at the current slate of movies, he simply was stupid enough to say out loud what must run through the minds of most movie studio chiefs as they greenlight movies. I guess the most I can ask is that you go see as many good movies as possible, and if you do get lucky enough to see one with a woman in the lead role enjoy it while you still can.

"Futurama" to the rescue

Well, that was all rather depressing, so here's a YouTube clip sure to make at least a few people laugh. I'd already seen a rough cut of this, the trailer for the upcoming "Futurama" DVD movie "Bender's Big Score," from ComicCon, but this is of much higher quality. Peace out.