Best and Worst Best Actor Oscar Winners

Another winter, another best/worth Oscar survey courtesy of Edward Copeland on Film, the always admirable blog that brought you the best and worst best picture winners two years ago and the best and worst best actress winners last year.

This year's survey? True to form, we're on to best actor! I look forward to the period 15 years from now when we can finally tear into the best and worst sound editing Oscar winners.

On the surface, this is probably the easiest of the surveys to date. Roberto Benigni's win for "Life Is Beautiful" is an embarrassment from which the Academy will never fully recover. His isn't just the worst performance ever given a best actor Oscar, it's the worst acting performance of any size for any gender ever given an Oscar.

As for the best best actor, even though he won't get my first-place vote, I can't see any circumstance under which Robert DeNiro doesn't win for "Raging Bull." It's more Method than Method. It's METHOd with capitals M-E-T-H-and-O.

Let's just say that I had an easier time with the Worst than the best. That's the sort of guy I am.

If you have opinions of your own, send 'em on to Eddie (contest rules and requirements available here).

Follow through after the bump for my Best 5 and Worst 5.

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Worst Best Actor Preamble: One of the things I have to take into account here is who these undeserving winners beat. These aren't just the Worst Best Actor winners because their performances were awful. They're the worst because in winning, they kept other superior performances from winning.

My Picks:

5) Jimmy Stewart for "The Philadelphia Story." Yes. I know. This won't be a popular vote. I love Jimmy Stewart. I love "The Philadelphia Story." Heck, I love Jimmy Stewart *in* "The Philadelphia Story." I just don't get the prism through which this likeable and charming performance is Oscar-worthy (I also voted for Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday" last year for the exact same reason). Stewart didn't get Oscar nominations for "How the West Was Won," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Rear Window" or "Vertigo," but of the five nominations he *did* get, this is the least interesting of his performances and I think this being his Oscar win is almost a disservice to his career legacy. I should also add that Stewart's win here probably came at the expense of the best performance of Henry Fonda's career in "Grapes of Wrath," which led to Fonda taking the 1982 best actor win away from both Burt Lancaster and Warren Beatty. With Oscar, it's a vicious circle. Or a slippery slope.

4) Yul Brynner for "The King and I." In the 1950s and 1960s, movies were getting insecure about their place in the entertainment landscape and the Academy fell into a weird rut attempting to prove its prestige by reaffirming praise on a bunch of Tony-winning performances brought to the big screen with only minor alterations. I quite like Paul Scofield's "A Man for All Seasons" performance. Ditto with Jose Ferrer's "Cyrano" turn. But Brynner and Rex Harrison (for "My Fair Lady") are examples of performances that weren't reformatted very well for the big screen. Brynner barks to the back row of the theater for two hours, which becomes mighty boring, though he and Deborah Kerr do dance very nicely together. Probably the best performance he beat that year was Kirk Douglas for "Lust for Life," though James Dean's work in "Giant" has some fans.

3) Art Carney for "Harry and Tonto." This is what I was talking about when I said that sometimes the worst winners aren't the worst because they're bad (Carney is very touching), but because of who they beat. In this case, Carney took best actor from Jack Nicholson in "Chinatown," Al Pacino in "The Godfather II" and possibly the best performance of Dustin Hoffman's career in "Lenny."

2) Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman." Much of the blame here probably has to go to director Martin Brest. We all know that Pacino is capable of being understated and magnificent just as surely as he's capable of being bug-eyed and shouty and I think his Col. Frank Slade could have gone either way except that Brest must have kept encouraging him to go bigger... Bigger... BIGGER! This movie is like a greatest hits montage of Pacino's least subtle acting decisions -- the compulsive sneering, the inexplicable line-barking, the eyes that are meant to be both crazy and inexpressive. The win encouraged all of Pacino's worst tendencies -- has he given more than two or three good performances since? -- and rewarded one of our very best actors at his very worst. Plus, it wasn't like Pacino beat a weak field that year. Robert Downey Jr. for "Chaplin," Stephen Rea for "The Crying Game," Denzel for "Malcolm X" and Clint Eastwood for "Unforgiven" all were robbed.

1) Roberto Benigni for "Life Is Beautiful." Something very weird happened to award voters in the winter of 1998. It's one thing that they became entranced by a mediocre Italian comedian and his grossly superficial and sappy Holocaust comedy, but they also became really amused by what said Italian comedian would do if they kept giving him awards. It was like a psychotic babysitter thinking it was cool to give a six-year-old coffee and Pixie Stix knowing that the kid would be the parents' responsibility later. And, best/worst of all, Benigni willingly played monkey to Hollywood's elite, finding new ways of humiliating himself with each new ceremony, much to the ongoing terror of Helen Hunt, who had to keep presenting him with trophies. Meanwhile, Edward Norton ("American History X"), Nick Nolte ("Affliction") and Ian McKellen ("Gods and Monsters") had to keep watching this pea-brained Pagliacci urinate all over what should have been a competitive race just because his mere presence doubtlessly made Jack Nicholson giggle. I'd bet dollars to donuts that none of the people who voted for Benigni bothered to watch his "Pinocchio," but they all should have been strapped to a chair for the full experience -- dubbed and undubbed.

And now on to my much less passionate listing of...



The Best Best Actor Winners.

5) James Cagney for "Yankee Doodle Dandy." He sings! He dances! He emotes! He plays a real person! Seriously, how could Oscar voters not swoon? If you could bottle Cagney's energy in this film, you could power a small Midwestern town for a year.

4) Gregory Peck for "To Kill a Mockingbird." No offense to Harper Lee, but the reason why kids have spent 45 years wishing Atticus Finch was their father and why criminal defendants (particularly unjustly accused ones) have spent 45 years wishing Atticus Finch was their lawyer has everything to do with Gregory Peck. Perhaps no actor in history has ever played dignity and righteousness as well as Peck, with his rumbling voice and gentle-yet-fiery eyes. This is one of those performances that you can't imagine being improved upon. Or at least I can't. If not for Peck, my own high school turn as Atticus Finch would probably be the definitive interpretation of the role. My Southern accent was very convincing.

3) Robert DeNiro in "Raging Bull." Just cuz I'm not putting it at No. 1 doesn't mean I don't respect the snot out of this showy piece of acting, much moreso than I respect the overall movie it's in, actually.

2) Marlon Brando for "On the Waterfront." This is a performance that's a bit over-celebrated, to the extent that you can only see the iconic scenes and you often lose the quieter, less famous moments that make the movie. To some degree, Brando at that moment was like Wilt Chamberlain when he averaged 50 points-per-game for a season or Babe Ruth when he was hitting more home runs than most teams. He was simply playing a different game. Look at what Brando was doing and compare him to his Oscar competition that year, people like Bing Crosby for "The Country Girl" and James Mason for "A Star Is Born." It's like a whole other game.

1) Daniel Day-Lewis for "My Left Foot." This is a showy, Oscar-ready role and, pardon my French, Day-Lewis acts the shit out of it.

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Belated Oscar Nomination Reax

[The first half of this reaction piece was written Tuesday morning. I put it aside after lunch because I thought that writing about Heath Ledger was, frankly, more important. Apologies...

Then I was swamped with conference calls yesterday.

Really, I might as well not be posting this at all, except that I put a few minute's work into it and I might as well feed the blog.]

It used to be that I'd never miss an Oscar nomination announcement. I only attended once in person, but I've generally woken up, even at 5 a.m. since I moved to the West Coast, to get a first glimpse at all the nominees.

This year, even though insomnia had be up and mostly awake at 4 a.m., I didn't wander into my living room and turn on the TV. When I actually rolled out of bed at 7, I showered and downed an energy drink before booting up my computer and checking the nominations.

My reactions in general can be summed up with a resounding, "Eh." And a shrug. Thanks to the strike and the cancellation of the Golden Globes, this award season has been a wee bit muted, but that doesn't mean that the candidates haven't been shuffled and reshuffled and dealt and re-dealt so many different ways that it's almost inconceivable for anything to be a true surprise.

Tommy Lee Jones sneaking in and grabbing a best actor nomination? No surprise. For "In the Valley of Elah"? Well, that's a surprise, but it's Tommy Lee Jones.

Cate Blanchett picking up that bizarro second nomination for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"? Well, that's a surprise, but it's Cate Blanchett.

I'll do my full "Should Win/Will Win" break-down in February in the days leading up to the Oscars.

But follow through after the bump for some basic reactions...

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The first thing that needs to be said is that to variable degrees, I liked all of the Best Picture nominees. Or I certainly didn't dislike any of them. That's a rare occurrence. I'm accustomed to being able to root against a "Crash" or "Little Miss Sunshine," albeit with only variable success. Not so much, this year. Whenever I get around to writing my Top 10 list -- still catching up on a few more essentials -- "No Country For Old Men" is a lock to be No. 1 and "Atonement" is almost certain to be in the Top 5, no matter how much that infuriates certain of my colleagues. "Juno" may crack the bottom of the Top 10 and, as its lack of review here suggests, I'm still unable to fully process "There Will Be Blood." But I know that as much as it felt like getting beaten over a head with a mallet, I appreciated a lot of it. And even the chilliness I got off of "Michael Clayton" wasn't enough to cause me active disapprobation. It's just a taste thing.



That's why I have to go to best actor and best actress to find things to root against. Devoted readers and people who have been stuck sitting next to me at any recent point know my feelings for Johnny Depp's "Sweeney Todd" performance. It isn't that I dislike Depp or will begrudge him the Oscar that he will one day win. I'd just have preferred that at least a half-dozen actors grab nominations instead of Depp for what is essentially a one-expression, one-note (literally) performance defined more by hair and make-up than acting.

Oh and on the Tommy Lee Jones issue... Yes, it's a darned odd nomination. Folks didn't see "In the Valley of Elah," much less like it. But here's something I hadn't paid much attention to: While Jones is considered one of those "Everything he does is Oscar-worthy" actors, he hasn't been nominated since winning for "The Fugitive," which was a looooong time ago now. His performance is actually the opposite of Depp's. It looked one-note and taciturn, but it really isn't.

Anyway, I'm railing against Depp and I'm going WAY against the tide on Marion Cotillard, whose slouching and twitching and lip-synching (would that Depp had also lip-synched) moved me less than it moved some other people.

Time to steal from some weekly magazine and whip out my Cheers, Jeers and Confused Shrugs from the nominations...

CHEERS -- Viggo Mortensen's nomination, his first. While "Eastern Promise" remains hamstrung by its final act, Mortensen's performance is the year's best by an actor. Yes, better than Daniel Day-Lewis' magnificent hamminess in "There Will Be Blood."

JEERS -- We all knew that Julian Schnabel was breaking into the best director field for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," a movie that had me rolling both of my good eyes in my sockets for the better part of an hour of increasingly mind-numbing pretentiousness. Sorry. But everybody figured "Juno" would be this year's "Film that directed itself." Instead, Joe Wright got left out for the often gloriously epic orchestration of "Atonement," a technical marvel of scale and depth. And Jason Reitman was nominated for keeping Diablo Cody's script moving. That's just weird.

CONFUSED SHRUG -- I haven't seen "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," but even in the trailer, Cate Blanchett does a lot of shouting to the back row. If the Academy was going for showy and obvious, I'd have greatly preferred a nomination for Amy Adams. If "Enchanted" had made $150 million at the box office, she'd have been nominated. Guarantee. It just wasn't a big hit and so there was no momentum for her to ride.

CHEERS -- I love a supporting actress field that contains both Ruby Dee and Saorise Ronan. That's diversity. Actually, that's a bit of a joke. Beyond Dee, the nomination field is about as lily-white as we've come to expect from the Academy. But in terms of age? You've got Ronan and Ellen Page on one end Dee and Hal Holbrook on the other. So that's *something*.

JEERS -- You know how I said that Amy Adams would have gotten a nomination except that the movie didn't make enough money? Well how the heck did "Enchanted" get three song nominations? I remember the one with the vermin cleaning house, but that's it. Heck, I'd have rather seen one Eddie Vedder's mopey "Into the Wild" songs make it. Just one.

CONFUSED SHRUG -- Love it or hate it, Jonny Greenwood's score for "There Will Be Blood" was more closely tied to the overall make-up of the movie than any other combination of score and film all year. The Academy's decision to deem it ineligible at the last minute is just another predictable embarrassment from a group that just can't stay out of its own way some years.

CHEERS -- He may split the votes with himself leaving the Oscar for the blurry artiness of "Diving Bell," but Roger Deakins' pair of nominations for "No Country for Old Men" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" couldn't be more deserved. And while I'm at it, good for "Roderick Jayes" picking up an editing nomination and giving the Coens nods for directing, producing, writing and editing the year's best movie. Also, on an unrelated note, I'm glad to see Sarah Polley pick up an adapted screenplay nomination for "Away From Her." She's crazy-talented.

JEERS -- If there was a place for "Norbit" to get one nomination, there had to be a place for "Zodiac" to get a nomination. Anywhere. Adapted screenplay? Cinematography? Score? Supporting actor? Heck, production design or costuming?

CONFUSED SHRUG -- Did the nominating voters watch more than five minutes of "Surf's Up"? Because for five minutes, it was funny an innovative. It became intolerable really soon after that. Surely with $200 million in the bank, "Alvin and the Chipmunks" deserved a little recognition. That's a joke. Mostly.

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Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

Like everybody else in the entertainment journalism racket, I spent much of this afternoon trying to think of Heath Ledger anecdotes, trying to be one of those obnoxious people -- Tom O'Neil, I'm looking at you -- who attempt to fabricate a cause for a 28-year-old man's death out of a five minute interview I did at some junket, an interview that was probably #137 out of #673 for the day on his schedule.

It turns out that I couldn't do it.

I only interviewed Ledger once, back in the summer of 2005 as part of a small roundtable for Terry Gilliam's miscalculated "The Brothers Grimm." Paired with Matt Damon for the interview, Ledger was nearly silent. Damon was the polished showman, the Journalist's Actor, always handy with a quote and a smart rejoinder. Ledger was more of a grunter, giving quick and terse answers. When some actors do that, you think they're rude, that they're better than the dog-and-pony-show process. With Ledger, the only impression we got was that he didn't like talking about himself or about his craft because he just wasn't sure what to say. It was three months before the "Brokeback Mountain" buzz had really begun and somebody asked him about the movie and he was genuinely unsure how it was going to play. He was confident that the work had been worthwhile, but not willing to play premature pundit and start raving. He was only an actor, not a self-publicist.

It's too early to know for sure what took Ledger's life, though the media was sure quick to jump to "SUICIDE!!!!" speculation. That's just what we do, I guess. And I guess I can't blame the utterly asinine and unqualified arm chair shrinks who went on CNN and gave out-of-context Ledger quotes about how playing the Joker in "The Dark Knight" left him with difficulties sleeping. Tom O'Neil thought he seemed antsy?!?!? Print it. Geez.

Anyway, I'll let the vultures discuss things they aren't credentialed to discuss.

After the bump, I have a few quotes from my own reviews on Ledger's performances, some excellent, some misguided, never boring.

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To my mind, Heath Ledger was a character actor trapped in a leading man's body. He was like Alec Baldwin in that respect and may have eventually had a similar sort of career arc. Hollywood wanted him to put on armor and win the girl, like in "A Knight's Tale," or to take his place alongside Mel Gibson in "The Patriot." If you look at his studio star turns, though, the only time he was ever 100% comfortable was in "10 Things I Hate About You," a film and performance of effortless charm and dexterity that probably won't get mentioned enough in the days to come. But if he didn't seem like he wanted to be the A-lister toplining "The Four Feathers" or "The Order," he was always able to step into the background and be fourth of fifth billed, but far more interesting, in films like "Monster's Ball."

My first year on the Zap2it movie beat was 2005, a year that saw four very different Ledger performances.

Here's what I said at the time...

On "Lords of Dogtown" : "The film's most striking performances come from Rebecca DeMornay and Heath Ledger. DeMornay, stripped of makeup and actorly ego as Jay's loving, but somewhat daffy Beach Betty mom, is so sympathetic and stabilizing that the film suffers when she's off-screen for extended periods. The same is true of Ledger, who vanishes entirely into Skip's facial hair, teeth and surfer dude speech patterns, delivering the finest Val Kilmer performance the "Top Gun" star never gave."


On "The Brothers Grimm" : "As he did in "Lords of Dogtown" earlier this summer, Ledger finds a previously hidden vein of Val Kilmer, creating a character from wisps of facial hair, funny glasses, a silly accent and an assortment of wild gestures borrowed, it seems, from the film's director. He's very funny, but in taking the comic path, he cheapens the character's credulity, which should be the heart of the film."

On "Brokeback Mountain" : Ledger is truly the film's star, even thought Ennis is as introverted and socially awkward a man as you'll ever meet. Ennis can't really speak or relate to either men or women and as much as desire leads him to Jack, he's equally drawn by the fact that with this other man, he can occasionally smile and joke and let down his guard, step away from the pressure of trying to be the solitary and silent Marlboro man. That Ledger gives Ennis a voice that sounds like the drawling amalgamation of countless Western heroes is intentional. He's trying to be John Wayne on the surface, even if the outside world and his own inner needs clash with that image. In one role after another this year, Ledger has campaigned to avoid movie star status and just be respected as an actor, but this is the first time his promise is fulfilled.


On "Casanova" : For his part, Ledger is superficially charming and little more. This is exactly the kind of generic pretty boy part that he attempted to move away from after "A Knight's Tale." It's enough that he looks the part, because he delivers every line with the same bemused detachment.

The only film in which he was truly bad was "Casanova," which must have seemed like the most commercial of the projects. But Ledger was learning. From what we've seen, his Joker in "The Dark Knight" looked unbearably creepy and psychotic and he was finishing another film with Terry Gilliam which -- let's face it -- might not have been any good, but it probably wouldn't have been boring. We'll miss out on the evolution of an actor who wanted to grow. That's sad.

I'm not good at these tribute things, so I'll stop now...

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MovieWatch: "Cloverfield"

"Cloverfield"
Director: Matt Reeves
Fien Print Rating (Out of 100): 64
In a Nutshell: The first thing that's got to be said is that as "hype-over-substance" movies, "Cloverfield" has a lot more going for itself than, say, "The Blair Witch Project" or "Snakes on a Plane," but it may be lower in its ambitions and aesthetic aims than, say, "Grindhouse."

It's an utter mystery why the "Cloverfield" formula -- cultivate fandom in the J.J. Abrams cult community and paper the world with your ads and trailers -- appears on its way to actually paying big dividends ($16.75 million opening day), while "Snakes on a Plane" effectively tanked. It may have something to do with the fact that "Snakes on a Plane" had one thing and only one things going for it: The best title ever.

"Cloverfield," in contrast, has a meaningless title, but it's done that one thing that films like "Independence Day" and "Armageddon" were able to do, but duds like the Emmerich "Godzilla" couldn't: It's found its money shot early and milked that sucker for all it was worth. So what that it stole the essence of its money shot from "Planet of the Apes," people respond to iconographic American institutions in peril. We cared before 9/11 and we probably care extra-much now. So that shot of the Statue of Liberty's head bouncing through the street and the poster image of the headless Statue? That's what's made money for "Cloverfield." The online obsessives will take credit, but people who can't even check their e-mail went to go see "Cloverfield" because of the Statue.

I wonder if either audience -- the online obsessives and the ones who just went for the carnage -- is going to be completely satisfied.

More after the bump...

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Before talking more about the movie, I have a couple letter perceptual bones to pick...

While there appears to be general and wide-spread confusion as to who Matt Reeves is, in addition to the tangential conviction that he *must* be a pseudonym for J.J. Abrams, I like to periodically mention that back in college, my very first press junket as a semi-journalist was "The Pallbearer," which simultaneously was supposed to be David Schwimmer's big break as a leading man, Gwyneth Paltrow's big break as a romantic leading lady and Michael Vartan's first turn as a prominent supporting player. That was actually two years before Reeves co-created "Felicity" with Abrams and, as a result, I was like the only person on earth who thought of "Felicity" as "The Matt Reeves Show," because I simply had a better idea of who he was. So Matt Reeves is a real person. He directed this movie. It isn't J.J. Abrams' "Cloverfield." J.J. Abrams is one man who gets an awful lot of credit for things he puts his name, but he can't be everywhere doing everything, can he? It's not like he's Jerry Bruckheimer.

Anywho... Next axe to grind.

The number of articles and reviews that I've skimmed referring the "Cloverfield" having a "cast of unknowns." Lizzy Caplan has been a regular on three or four network TV shows. T.J. Miller is currently (sortta) appearing on a network TV show. Odette Yustman is currently starring on a network TV show and Mike Vogel and Jessica Lucas and Mike Vogel have also appeared on multiple TV shows in prominent roles. I have to admit that I didn't remember who Michael Stahl-David was until I glanced at his IMDB bio, but then I went, "Oh yeah. He was Sean on 'The Black Donnellys." But nearly every member of the cast was *completely* known. Unproven? Absolutely. But to my mind, a movie critic who has never seen or heard of the cast members of "Cloverfield" is as bad as a major league beat writer who suddenly looks in left field, sees some new guy and calls him an "unknown," even if he'd been the team's top prospect for four years. Worse, actually, because TV isn't the minor leagues for movies. I'm just saying that audiences might not necessarily know all of the stars of "Cloverfield," but any movie critic who can't identify many of the fresh young faces just isn't doing their due diligence.

And... Next axe to grind. This one transitions into the review.

There are a lot of people ranting about how they would have preferred not to see the monster, that they were disappointed by the reveal. Granted that the monster looks mighty CG-y. But those people are in denial about what the movie actually is. It's a freakin' monster movie. Even "Alien," a movie that's mostly about "The Haunting"-style insinuation and spookiness, shows the freakin' alien. And a lot. And in close-ups. And in full light. There's a way these movies work -- you see a tail, you see a foot, you see the darned monster. While "Cloverfield" is intended as a heavy-handed 9/11 allegory, it's mostly about a giant critter terrorizing New York City. The desire to keep the monster permanently hidden is rooted in some critical desire for "Cloverfield" to be a better movie than it is, for "Cloverfield" to subvert, undermine and play tricks with the monster movie genre. The problem there? "Cloverfield" doesn't think it's better than it is.

After a little time spent establishing the characters -- cute 20-somethings with nebulous careers in Manhattan -- the movie just goes into monster-overdrive. The entire movie is shaky, hand-held jitters, but I think the compositional choices in "Cloverfield" are more thoughtful than in "Blair Witch" insofar as I only occasionally felt like I was confusing "motional sickness" with "actually being uncomfortable with the action on screen." It's still more "disturbing" than "scary" (dunno why everything's in "quotes") and much of that "disturbing" sensibility comes from the grammar-of-terror that we learned from 9/11, the billowing smoke pouring down the Manhattan streets, the teetering Big Apple buildings, the people staggering around covered in soot and ash. It doesn't over-exploit 9/11 and I may have wanted it to do more of that, to spend more time dealing with characters trying to fathom the unfathomable. The "things popping out of the dark" scares just kept reminding me of other, scarier movies like "The Descent" or "The Host."

As you would expect from a cast of "unknowns" (little joke there), the acting isn't exactly RSC-caliber, though several friends have called it awful, which I disagree with. Within the reach of what they were asked do to, I thought Caplan was very good (with her huge eyes, she's like a silent film waif) and Stahl-David was fine as well and I think any lapses by Yustman or Vogel or Lucas were based on what the director and dialogue asked them to do. Drew Goddard, who wrote the script, has written some amazingly clever episodes of "Buffy," "Angel" and "Lost," but he doesn't go for self-referential fun here and the occasional moments of pop culture glibness fall flat.

I understand that the movie is about a giant critter run amuck in Manhattan, so logic can't really be a point of issue, but some things were tough to swallow. The explanation for why the cameraman remains so carefully attuned to his cinematic project becomes more and more ridiculous as the stakes escalate and the idea that his friends and various military types keep tolerating his seemed weird. Also, even in the confines of the narrative, the rescue mission that the core characters undertake becomes less and less plausible every step of the way.

Even at 84 minutes, "Cloverfield" is padded and I wonder if a more "World War Z" tactic of cobbling together footage from a number of different groups of survivors might have made for a better movie. I'm curious how the residents of The Village or Spanish Harlem faced this event and we save countless characters filming either with cameras or cell phones and I think a more diverse assortment of found footage could have enhanced the storytelling and the momentum. Maybe with a bit of additional length, "Cloverfield" might have proved to be the clue-filed "Lost"-style film that a lot of Abrams-ites seem to have been hoping for. As it stands now, they're forced to read an awful lot into very little.

Oh and stick around for the closing credits. Not for the ending audio transmission, which didn't enthrall me at all. Michael Giacchino's "Roar!" overture, the only score in the movie, is like the greatest '70s Disaster Movie/ '60s Monster Movie pastiche ever.

That's all I've got for now, kids...

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'Idol' Season Begins in Philly

[My apologies, regular blog readers, for the absence of posts in the past couple weeks. Israel plus sickness plus having to feed Zap2it's Guide to American Idol have rendered me a bit swamped. I just wanted to share the tortured analogy with which I began my recap of the "American Idol" series premiere.]

On Jan. 15, the "Idol" Curtain descended over TV.

Follow me, dear readers, as I engage in a twisty analogy.

As World War II ended, the Allied forces -- England and the United States mostly -- greeted the Russians with decidedly mixed emotions.

On one hand, they were all, "Ummm... Thanks for holding ground at Leningrad, Stalin. That was mighty heroic and the loss of Russian life really went above and beyond."

On the other hand, there was a healthy sense of "Ummm... Not to sound ungrateful, but if there's any way you could avoid spreading Communism across all of Europe, we'd really appreciate that. But feel free to keep Poland."

That's the way I imagine other network heads are greeting the seventh season of "American Idol."

On one hand, they're all "Ummm... Thanks for keeping anybody at all watching network television in the midst of this strike. You're helping advertisers remember that network TV is still the best way to reach impressionable eyeballs."

On the other hand, there's a healthy sense of "Ummm... Not to sound ungrateful, but if you could avoid crushing everything in your path and leaving us all battling for fourth, we'd really appreciate that. But feel free to monopolize Fienberg's time."

In this scenario, Simon Cowell is probably Stalin, "American Idol" is the USSR and that's the best explanation I can give for why, after steadfastly refusing to recap audition episodes for the past five years, I found myself glued to the TV on Tuesday night to watch the best and worst of Philadelphia.

For the rest of my recap and my theory on why Angela Martin may already be an unbeatable force of nature, head over here...

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MovieWatch: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

"Sweeney Todd"
Director: Tim Burton
Fien Print Rating (Out of 100): 45
In a Nutshell: [This is gonna be the last blog post for at least the next week, possibly longer. I'll be back in the New Year in full form. Worry not.]

I'm not going to name names, because that would be rude, but when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school, there was an upper classman who was the bee's knees when it came to the theater department. He had the lead in all the plays, which was appropriate because he was a pretty solid actor, particularly by the standards of your basic high school play. But in addition to doing one big play each year, we also did one big musical each year and as inevitably as the play lead would go to this one guy, he'd also get to topline the musical. The problem? As solid as his acting was, he couldn't sing. At all. He couldn't carry a tune or hit a note or stay on rhythm. Knowing both the available lead and his limitations, the theater advisor attempted to choose musicals in which the main role didn't require vocal chops, something like "The Music Man," where you can talk your way through all of the songs.

I kept thinking of this former classmate of mine as I watched Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" on Tuesday night as part of my family's obligatory movie-and-Chinese Christmas.

Unlike my former classmate, "Sweeney Todd" leading man Johnny Depp is capable of carrying a tune. Don't get me wrong. However, unlike "The Music Man," "Sweeney Todd" is a show that requires more than just staying on beat. Stephen Sondheim musicals present particular challenges and Depp is, alas, up to none of them. His vocal failings and the even more grating failings of co-star Helena Bonham Carter contribute majorly to the disappointment I felt watching "Sweeney Todd," but they really weren't the only ones.

Follow through after the bump for a bit more in the review department, though this may be short-ish, since I'm on a tight schedule today...

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I'm usually capable of making exceptions when actors can do one thing required for a role and not others. I, for example, think that Kevin Costner is good in both "13 Days" and "JFK" despite the fact that he cannot do Boston or Southern accents and his tin-ear occasionally hurts. I just happen to think there's more to what he does in those movies.

With Depp in "Sweeney Todd," it's one thing that the melody of every song has been clipped because his range is mighty limited. He barks out every line in the same gruff brogue, all in a three or four note range. Because he's talking through most of the songs, he keeps his British accent intact (more than, say, [the far more melodically gifted] John Travolta singing in "Hairspray" can say) and between the accent and the necessary over-production of his vocals, many of the words get muffled as well. So if you have a leading man who causes the melodies to be trimmed and causes the words to be lost, what business does he have a Sondheim musical? None, I'd say.

To make matters worse, Depp never changes his expression the entire movie. I get it. Sweeney Todd is miserable and vengeance only makes him less happy. But I've seen Depp do Kabuki-painted sorrow before in Tim Burton movies and Edward Scissorhands was a character with much more variation And how much of Depp's performance comes courtesy of that make-up anyway? The hair, the costumes, the make-up? It's a mighty superficial turn.

Depp is so unremittingly morose that he at least makes Carter look like she's committed to a well-rounded performance, even though she's essentially mixed Bellatrix Lestrange with just a dash of Marla from "Fight Club" and called it a day. While Depp's voice is negligible, but not tin-eared, Carter just mewls in the same high pitched voice, only occasionally finding the tune. And Mrs. Lovett is a part that has drawn Broadway legends including Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone. Singing really isn't optional. Look, I'm not going to say that Carter -- a perfectly talented actress, don't get me wrong -- doesn't find a few emotional grace notes in the movie's final act, but if she can't sing the part, she isn't doing the job.

The funny part is that there are people in the cast who *can* sing. Basically, if you recognize the actor, their voice is at best limited. If the actor is somebody you've never seen before, they'll be able to sing. So Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener and Ed Sanders, the film's younger and less known stars, all have strong voices and one can only imagine the production chores necessary to blend the on-pitch stars with Carter or Depp on several duets.

I'd blame Depp and Carter more, but Burton made his own bed here and he almost seems to be using the limitations of his actors as an excuse to limit himself. After one glorious effects shot in which the camera zips from the harbor through London to Lovett's Pie Shop, Burton mostly keeps his more flamboyant tendencies in check, resulting in a might claustrophobic movie. There's virtually no choreography for the actors and the camera work and editing are also needlessly restrained. With the exception of "By the Sea," Burton and DP Dariusz Wolski's color scheme is unremittingly and dully dark. The splashes of blood are supposed to provide variation, but once you've seen seven or eight spurts of arterial blood, haven't you seen them all? Burton seems to be convinced that viewers will continue to either be amused or discussed by the same throat-slashing effects and the same body dumping shot every time, but I grew bored quite rapidly. I wonder why Burton didn't approach SFX and make-up master Greg Nicotero to deliver some original and varied throat slashing. It really might have made a big different.

Even production director Dante Ferretti, one of my absolute favorite talents, is working on utter autopilot with his limited London cityscapes and miniature-laden skylines. Since this is the sort of thing Ferretti does in his sleep, maybe somebody else should have been handed the job for more inspiration.

"Sweeney Todd" isn't a boring musical. It's mighty gloomy, but it has Sondheim's wit throughout and it actually had romance if done properly. Burton's interpretation, for my money, was wrong on most every level. I've gotta put this one down as one of my bigger disappointments of the year.

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MovieWatch: "Lars and the Real Girl"

"Lars and the Real Girl"
Director: Craig Gillespie
Fien Print Rating (Out of 100): 67
In a Nutshell: [Side note: This is gonna get written up in a dozen trend pieces by Monday, but since I haven't seen it anywhere, I wanna get it out there: There have been plenty of small-screen casualties of the writers strike already, but the Judd Apatow produced "Walk Hard" is the first big screen product to whither because of the strike.

It was partially Sony's mistake, releasing "Walk Hard" at a time when the movie was never going to be able to generate maximum buzz anyway. Sony got cocky about the power of the Judd Apatow name, which isn't, it turns out, 100% magic. Duh.

But "Walk Hard" never stood a chance because it was too hard to market based 100% on TV ads. People didn't have a clue what the mockumentary was supposed to be, how they were supposed to response. You know what would have helped? John C. Reilly on every talk show in America, both as a guest and performing songs from the movie. How about John C. Reilly as host of "Saturday Night Live" with musical guest Dewey Cox. Maybe a surprise Reilly cameo with Jenna Fischer on "The Office"?

Things like "I Am Legend" and "National Treasure 2" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and even "Enchanted" sell themselves. Even "Enchanted," though... Nobody's going to say it, but that movie hasn't come close to performing up to the standards set by something like "Night at the Museum" last year. That movie should have started playing at Thanksgiving and by Christmas it should have been over $200 million, but instead it's going to top out at $120 million, even if it gets a holiday bump. Based on cost and advertising, "Enchanted" isn't a smash hit at all, regardless of what media reports might have suggested. But if Amy Adams had been able to run the late night gauntlet, that movie's awareness would have been far better. I hate to say it, but for a movie like "Enchanted," that difference in box office isn't just about money, it's about whether or not Adams receives an Oscar nomination. After its first weekend, I'd have told you she was a sure thing. Now? Doubtful.

Would "The Golden Compass" have tanked somewhat less if Dakota Blue Richards had gotten to sit down next to Letterman and Leno? I doubt it, but it wouldn't have hurt. Getting Gerard Butler out there for "P.S. I Love You" would have helped that movie and Tom Hanks is always gold on the late night circuit and it looks like "Charlie Wilson's War" could have used a bit of a boost.]

Anyway, follow through after the bump for my thoughts on "Lars and the Real Girl," since that's what the blog subject line promised...

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I was telling a friend last night that "I Am Legend" was a great movie to see alone, or perhaps just accompanied by your friendly German shepherd. "Lars and the Real Girl" is another mighty good alone movie, particularly when seen in the Landmark Theatre's living room screening room, where my nifty little love seat might have been perfectly shared with a life-sized sex doll.

I'd sort of held off on seeing "Lars and the Real Girl" for fear that it might come across as both unnecessarily twee -- finally a chance to use that word outside of the context of "Pushing Daisies" -- and out of fear that Gosling's inevitable actorly affections might irk me. I mean, nobody's arguing that Gosling's one of his generation's very best actors, but nothing he does a thespian is invisible. You're constantly aware that he's put a lot of effort into creating a character, even if it's in something as forgettable as "Fracture." So I was a bit concerned that Gosling playing a twitchy, mustached outcast might be more than I could handle.

Ultimately, "Lars and the Real Girl" wasn't even vaguely troubling or offensive or disturbing (the latter perhaps to its detriment). It was sweet, touching and mighty slight, though all of the actors -- from Gosling on down -- do admirable and watchable work.

I wrote my first casting stories about "Lars and the Real Girl" for Zap2it in the late summer of 2006 and it was hard not to be amused by the premise, described as the story of "a lonely man who falls in love with a doll he finds on the Internet."

Under normal circumstances, Nancy Oliver's script probably would have gone one of two directions: If it ended up in the hands of, say, the Farrelly Brothers, some of it would have been rewritten, but the result would have been a raunchy, R-rated lark with almost the exact same structure and concluding sweetness, but a lot more references to vacuum sucking action and precision molding. Or, if it had ended up in the hands of, say, Eli Roth, the main character's doll -- a wheelchair-bound beauty named Bianca -- would have eventually encouraged Lars to start killing people so that they could be together forever, like Anthony Hopkins' character in magic.

In the hands of Craig Gillespie -- whose only other feature credit was a 90-minute movie spun out of the lone joke that it's antagonist's last name was "Woodcock" -- what it ultimately settles for is to be a saccharine fable with an interesting enough psychological underpinning that's finally less important than the Capra-esque theme about communities banding together to support the individual. "Lars and the Real Girl" is about one man's internal fantasy, but anybody watching the movie is likely to think that the whole film is set in a fantasy land.

Some of the more boorish characters make a joke about how Bianca's the perfect woman because she can't talk back. That vein of misogyny vanishes pretty early because you never doubt that the doll is sort of being used as pneumatically sculpted set of training wheels for the inevitable real girl, played by Kelli Garner.

While there are several references to the doll's anatomical correctness, she's almost immediately desexualized. From the first time she's introduced, Lars goes out of his way to make her stay with his brother and sister-in-law just so that there can never be any consideration that he's using the doll as anything other than a romantic surrogate. While she arrives dressed like a tawdry call girl, she's quickly redressed to the standards of bland upper Northwest asexuality and although she's initially made up like a bit of a tart, her painted face is as flexible as her body and by the end she isn't wearing any make-up at all. Her threat to the community, in fact, is almost entirely governed by her degree of sexuality, but by the end of the movie, Bianca is almost interchangeable with the main character of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

[Oye, I could go on with the comparison between "Lars and the Real Girl" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- a treatise on the ways in which people read their own values and desires onto largely inanimate objects, but that might get too problematic and over-intellectual.]

The fact that nobody views Bianca as a sex doll after the initial description saves Oliver and Gillespie from getting into any sort of murky water. My initial guess, upon Bianca's arrival, was that what it would take to shake Lars out of his spell would be him catching somebody using Bianca for her God-created purpose. It's a bit astounding that the filmmakers never go anywhere near that direction. Because Lars obviously isn't having sex with Bianca and because no other man thinks to experiment on her, she can be safely pushed aside as a longterm threat. Garner's Margo may be a bit awkward, but she's still played by Kelli Garner -- albeit Garner in her indie "I'm wearing no make-up so you might believe me as anything other than a pillow-lipped bombshell" mode -- so you know that she can do better than Lars. This is a bit like "Happiness" or "Little Children" where we're forced to accept that Jane Adams is so un-beautiful that she'd most attract perverts and pedophiles.

Lars is neither of those things, but nobody's going to leave capable of figuring out what he is. Is he just a Walter Mitty-esque dreamer with mommy issues? Are the mommy issues far worse than a little daydreaming and could Lars really use several decades of therapy with Patricia Clarkson's versatile Dagmar? Does Lars have Asbergers or some other form of low-level autism? Probably we're not supposed to think it matters.

There's some weird subtext in the movie that argues that people in OntarWisconsMinnesDakota (whereever it takes place) are so very bored that they'd gladly get together and take part in this sort of communal delusion, because it beats shoveling or it's a nice break from bowling. And then there's the next step that argues that women in OntarWisconsMinnesDakota are so starved for man-love (presumably a kind of man-love that doesn't come home drunk and abusive) that they (or Garner's adorable Margo) can look at Lars and go "Well, other than the INSANITY [and fashion sense and anxiety and moustache], that guy's a catch]." That's a big suspension of disbelief, but I kind of made it.

Similarly, some people have complained about my first point in the last paragraph, that the whole movie hinges on a couple meetings and well-timed e-mails that miraculous caused everybody in two towns to play along with Lars' delusion. I mean *nobody* says a hostile or mocking word to him. I'm OK with that, because it all fits into a Capra-esque framework, like the way that Gary Cooper's Mr. Deeds was, as one old woman put it, just a bit pixilated, but everybody was OK with it because if you live in a small town, everybody has secrets and weirdness and you put up with it because it's home. At the end of the day, I found this giant hoax far more believable than, say, David Fincher's "The Game," in which several thousand residents of at least two countries got together to throw an obnoxious rich guy a surprise birthday party.

I wonder if maybe Gosling -- as good as he is and as acclaimed as the performance has been and as much as nobody would be seeing the movie now with said acclaim -- was the wrong actor for this kind of story. The story may be Capra-esque, but Gosling is giving a Method-style performance and his commitment to realism is a weird match. I guess "Harvey" a movie I might want to compare with "Lars," but Jimmy Stewart's performance in "Harvey" (and in the Capra movies) isn't the sort of performance Stewart was giving later in his career. He's an Everyman, who sees a giant bunny. Gosling isn't an Everyman. His presence may make "Lars" a more respectable movie, but it just may not be what the genre demands. Regardless, he's good.

Also contributing greatly are Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider. Mortimer's one of my very favorite actresses working now and several websites, when her unspecified casting was initially announced, speculated that she might have been playing the doll. That idea intrigues me. I'm also intrigued by what a fine supporting actor Schneider has been this fall (see also "The Assassination of Jesse James...") and by just how many millions of viewers will love the links between Schneider's work in "Lars and the Real Girl" and his work in David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls." MILLIONS.

OK. I'm way past rambling now. Time to start packing.

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MovieWatch: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Director: Julian Schnabel
Fien Print Rating (Out of 100): 58
In a Nutshell: [Sigh. Another of those reviews I just couldn't make myself write. And, as always, I blame my Zap2it responsibilities, Facebook and Twitter. But here goes...]

As a story, the tale of paralyzed Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a paralyzing stroke but still wrote a book about his experiences with "locked-in syndrome" by blinking one one eye, is about as remarkable as they come.

Julian Schnabel's film about Bauby (Mattieu Amalric) is an intellectual exercise, just about as experimental a film as the mainstream media and award-givers have embraced in the past 30 years.

More after the bump on why I'll gladly salute cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, as well as Amalric to some degree, but why I can't get behind the movie...

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This actually isn't difficult to explain. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is supposed to be a movie that transports you, it's supposed to trap the viewer in the body of a man who's trapped in his own body and then it's supposed to set the viewer free, as Bauby's imagination liberated him.

Unfortunately, the only mind I was transported into was Schnabel's. I was conscious of every contrived aspect of formal calculation.

For around 15 minutes, I was filled with admiration. I loved the way Schnabel and Kaminski created the perspective of a man whose entire universe seems to be limited to the orbit of his eyeball. Schnabel and Kaminski make every blink feel like the slamming of a door and every tear runs the risk of obliterating everything. To eyes unaccustomed to the flooding sun, every woman is like an auraed angel.

You don't really get many first-person POV movies. The list includes curios like "Lady in the Lake" and the interesting first third of "Dark Passage" and as hard as the entirely subjective camera is to pull off in a mystery, where at least the viewer is conspiring with a character out to solve a murder, it's even more difficult here. Since we're party to Bauby's internal monologue, which is at least somewhat screenwriter Ronald Harwood's invention, the restriction isn't total and the POV isn't pure, so it only feels like a minor sell-out when Schnabel begins to cheat the conceit.

It's one thing, I think, for Schnabel to break strict POV for Bauby's fantasies and his memories, but the camera steps outside the confined body on a number of occasions within the hospital. That, to me at least, felt like a cheat. Christ, once Schnabel was forcing viewers to sit through every flippin' blink of Bauby's florid ocular dictation, he might as well have just stuck to his guns. I mean, obviously people are just crazy-impressed by Amalric's compelling and convincing and emphatic eye-rolling as the paralyzed Bauby, but I wonder how much of that is a cheap stunt. And I'm not saying it's a stunt by Amalric, who looks like he was probably having a mighty unpleasant time. But it's a stunt for Schnabel. The more you show of the invalid Bauby, the more full-of-life the memories and fantasies of the fully able Bauby seem to be. Despite the fact that we're lead to believe that Bauby was this fun-loving bon vivant, nothing in the fantasies or flashbacks really reinforce that idea, so it's all about the contrast. When Amalric gets to behave normally -- and I remain perpetually distracted by his resemblance to Roman Polanski -- it's heightened by extension of those omniscient POV cutaways, those cheating moments.

Because Schnabel's approach to the material was the true star of the movie, I can't say that I ever felt anything for or about Bauby. So I say wondering how much that was intentional. I wondered if the viewer is supposed to care for and about Bauby only through the dew-eyed affection of every nurse, therapist and former lover who enters the room. Everybody keeps discussing Bauby as heroic, as being soulful, as miraculous. And, as I started this review, I have no doubt that he was. So again, Schnabel gets to take a shortcut and show us unwavering affected imagery coupled with the sort of flowery prose that's best written, I guess, by hormonal teenagers and paralyzed Frenchmen. Everybody on-screen swoons, so viewers do as well.

So I got annoyed by that. I got annoyed by the POV. And I got distracted by the fact that I was never exactly sure how many women there were in the movie in the first place. The one I was best able to keep track of was Emmanuelle Seigner and that was largely because I kept debating if she'd been cast entirely because she's married in real life to Amalric's "Chinatown"-directing doppelganger. And while I know it's racist to say that all French Brunettes look alike to me, but reading the IMDB credits has already caused me to realize that the woman I thought Bauby was in Lourdes with wasn't, in fact, the woman he was really in Lourdes with, which must mean either that I wasn't paying close enough attention or that my that time I was going off into my own locked-in world.

There you go. I know lots of people love this movie. I know lots of people are moved (as opposed to bored) to tears by it. And all I can say is that I felt like I was watching an art gallery film installation that was meant to be seen in five minute snippets before moving on. Perhaps after checking out other parts of the gallery, you could return, discover that the main character was still blinking out an over-written sentence (he really ought to have gone more Hemmingway-esque) and leave again. Sitting for 112 minutes at a stretch was too much, but maybe if I'd gone and watched 45 minutes of "Juno" in the middle, I might have had more tolerance for the bookending.

I put "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" in a similar category to "I'm Not There." They're both movies that are so superficially intellectualized that critics are falling over themselves to think the intellectualization is worth the effort. I guess I'm a boor.

[P.S. Max Von Sydow is a lion. Whenever he was on screen I was instantly more involved and more moved than when he was gone. I'd rather have watched a movie about a 90-something man in failing health who have to cope with the idea that his son has become even more infirm than he is.]

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2008 Golden Globe Nomination Reax -- TV

I used my "I Am Legend" review as an excuse to resist finishing my Golden Globe reactions.

Now I'm using the second half of my Golden Globe reactions as an excuse to resist finishing a review of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

I'm using both as excuses to resist blogging on the second season finale of "Dexter" for Zap2it.

If blogging is an excuse to avoid other blogging and other blogging is an excuse to avoid writing for other blogs, where does the cycle begin and end?

I don't know. What I do know is that after the bump, I'll complain a little bit about the TV side of this week's Golden Globe nominations announcement.

The movie side complaints are here.

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Best TV Series, Drama

"Big Love," HBO
"Damages," FX
"Grey's Anatomy," ABC
"House," FOX
"Mad Men," AMC
"The Tudors," Showtime

REACTION: Can we just get this one out of the way first. The HFPA nominates SIX dramas in this category, but can't find a place for "The Sopranos," "Dexter," "Friday Night Lights" or "Lost"? That's unbearable. It was a poor year for "Grey's Anatomy." "The Tudors" was an often-dreadful soap opera. And "Damages" had a seven or eight episode swoon in the middle. So it's not like this six-nominate category doesn't have soft spots. But I'm ever-so-glad to see "Mad Men" nominated and, given the other contenders, I'd love to see it win.

Best TV Series, Comedy

"30 Rock," NBC
"Californication," Showtime
"Entourage," HBO
"Extras," HBO
"Pushing Daisies," ABC

REACTION: Did anybody in the HFPA watch "Entourage" this year? Apparently not. Jeez it was awful like 15 episodes. "Californication" was beyond erratic and probably should only have been recognized for Duchovny's performance. Nominating those two shows and ignoring "The Office" and "Weeds" pretty much invalidates any grouping of nominees. I mean, I respect the desire to mix up the usual assortment of names, but not just to nominate random things for the sake of nominating random things.

Best Miniseries or Movie

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," HBO
"The Company," TNT
"Longford," HBO
"The State Within," BBC America
"Five Days," HBO

REACTIONS: I have nothing to say here, though I keep meaning to eventually sit down and watch my screener of "Longford." It looked good. If only I had time enough...

Best Actor, Drama Series

Michael C Hall, "Dexter"
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"
Hugh Laurie, "House"
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, "The Tudors"
Bill Paxton, "Big Love"

REACTIONS: It's not that I don't like Bill Paxton's performance on "Big Love," much less the show itself, but I don't see it as actually being award-worthy. What Hamm is doing in "Man Men" may be a touch too subtle, but I'm glad it got recognition. In fact, given a vote, I'd go with Hamm, but Hall wouldn't be far off. But where's James Gandolfini, y'all? I know he doesn't "play the game" and kiss up in the ways that the HFPA likes and he isn't hip and pretty like Rhys Meyers, but good gravy...

Best Actress, Drama Series

Patricia Arquette, "Medium"
Glenn Close, "Damages"
Minnie Driver, "The Riches"
Edie Falco, "The Sopranos"
Sally Field, "Brothers & Sisters"
Holly Hunter, "Saving Grace"
Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer"

REACTION: In case you didn't know, this is the golden age for white actresses in TV dramas. Is there any other way to approach this list of seven nominees? It's group that contains two Oscar winners, plus two additional former Oscar nominees, plus two former Emmy winners and the only person not to fit in any of those categories is Sedgwick and she won the Globe last year. Tough category. Also a weird category, since Close and Field arguably aren't the female leads on their own shows. I continue to lament the absence of Connie Britton in categories of this ilk. Or maybe Jeanne Tripplehorn for "Big Love"?

Best Actor, Comedy Series

Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"
Steve Carell, "The Office"
David Duchovny, "Californication"
Ricky Gervais, "Extras"
Lee Pace, "Pushing Daisies"

REACTION: I like what Pace is doing on "Pushing Daisies," but to my mind he's essentially the straight-man and the laughs are coming from Kristen Chenowith and Chi McBride who were both, as you'll see, left off the supporting list. There are so few comedies on TV that I can't even bring myself to think of anybody who's been clearly and unjustly left off this list. Baldwin is the obvious deserving winner, particular if the voters have recently watched his scene with Tracy in the psychiatrists office. I'd still expect Duchovny to win for smirking for 26 minutes a week.



Best Actress, Comedy Series

Christina Applegate, "Samantha Who?"
America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"
Tina Fey, "30 Rock"
Anna Friel, "Pushing Daisies"
Mary-Louise Parker, "Weeds"

REACTION: Isn't it impressive how quickly the bloom has gone off the rose of last year's new Globe favorites? Ferrera's the only "Ugly Betty" nomination and "Heroes" has vanished entirely. I love Christina Applegate's performance in "Samantha Who?" It has a force-of-nature quality about it in that she's obviously trying to hard to make it work even when the scripts aren't necessarily all that funny. That's impressive, but then I think of how sitcom-y and unremarkable "Weeds" would be with any other leading lady. Mary-Louise Parker should really just win everything always. Oh and the thing about America Ferrera is that even though she's playing the main character on a show called "Ugly Betty," in real life she isn't ugly at all. I haven't mentioned that for a while.

Best Actor, Miniseries or Movie

Adam Beach, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
Jim Broadbent, "Longford"
Ernest Borgnine, "A Grandpa for Christmas"
Jason Isaacs, "The State Within"
James Nesbitt, "Jekyll"

REACTION: If there is an iota of justice in the world, 90-something thespian Ernest Borgnine will finally get the respect he deserves for being one of my all-time favorite guest voices on "The Simpsons." Otherwise, James Nesbitt probably deserves it. He was pretty spectacular at times in "Jekyll." I suspect, though, that Borgnine would have made a more compelling Jekyll, though, than Nesbitt would have made a believable grandpa for Christmas. Advantage, Borgnine.

Best Actress, Miniseries of Movie

Bryce Dallas Howard, "As You Like It"
Queen Latifah, "Life Support"
Debra Messing, "The Starter Wife"
Sissy Spacek, "Pictures of Hollis Woods"
Ruth Wilson, "Jane Eyre"

REACTION: Hmmm... The Queen or Opie's Daughter? The Queen or My Favorite Skrunt? Hmmm... I'm goin' with Sissy Spacek, even though her movie had nothing to do with taking pictures of a forest.

Best Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or Movie

Ted Danson, "Damages"
Kevin Dillon, "Entourage"
Jeremy Piven, "Entourage"
Andy Serkis, "Longford"
William Shatner, "Boston Legal"
Donald Sutherland, "Dirty Sexy Money"

REACTION: The Golden Globes used to love Donald's little boy and that FOX show he does. Poor Kiefer. Wasting away in jail. I think we should give Donald the Globe just to make up for the embarrassment of having to go visit his son in the hoosegow. Really, I'd vote for ANYBODY who isn't Jeremy Piven. Yes, we all liked Ari three years ago. Hug it out, bitch! HAH!!! Still funny. But enough already with the love for The Pivs. I'm going with either Kiefer's Dad or Gollum.

Best Supporting Actress, Series, Miniseries or Movie

Rose Byrne, "Damages"
Katherine Heigl, "Grey's Anatomy"
Rachel Griffiths, "Brothers & Sisters"
Samantha Morton, "Longford"
Anna Paquin, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
Jaime Pressly, "My Name Is Earl"

REACTIONS: Katherine Heigl's all "Hmmm... Maybe if I hadn't shat all over the movie that made me a movie star in Vanity Fair, maybe I'd have two Golden Globe nominations, just like Cate Blanchett." Rose Byrne's all, "Wait. I'm the lead actress in my show." Anna Paquin's all "Isn't it disturbing how hot the little girl from 'The Piano' has gotten?" Jaime Pressley's all "If anybody ever asks me about being a trampy Maxim model again, I'm gonna kill 'em." And Samantha Morton's all "I'm the best actress in the group... LOVE ME." I've already forgotten that Rachel Griffiths was nominated.

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MovieWatch: "I Am Legend"

"I Am Legend"
Director: Francis Lawrence
Fien Print Rating (out of 100): 65
In a Nutshell: I actually went out to see "I Am Legend" on an IMAX screen -- something I don't usually do -- because I wanted to see the first six minutes of "The Dark Knight." Unlike "I Am Legend," which was shot in a standard format and augmented for the IMAX screen, parts of Christopher Nolan's sequel to "Batman Begins were actually shot in 70mm, including the opening.

A seemingly standard-issue bank heist that introduces Heath Ledger's Joker, the six-minutes were probably enough to convince me that when I see "The Dark Knight," it'll be in IMAX. The sheer enormity and detail of the prelude was outstanding, with the opening Gotham cityscape -- daytime, probably Chicago -- proving unexpectedly breathtaking. The dialogue cracked, William Fichtner has a kickass early appearance and Ledger looks to have taken the Joker character in a new and different direction.

I'm probably anticipating "The Dark Knight" more than any other film next summer, including "Indiana Jones and the Quest for Profit."

As for "I Am Legend," the movie was probably better than I expected, since my expectations were fairly low. For at least an hour, it's a moody, evocative, depressingly thrilling studio ride, all anchored by a performance from Will Smith that's sure to be underrated. It's a bit of a dead end by the conclusion, but at least Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman's script doesn't 100% turn on Richard Matheson's novel.

More on that later. After the bump. And the appropriate spoiler warnings.

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Goldsman and Protosevich have cobbled a Frankenstein's monster of a script that pulls in elements from both Matheson's short novel, but somewhat more from the 1971 Charlton Heston "classic" "The Omega Man." If you're familiar with both source materials, it's easy to imagine them pulling plot points from one and then the other, picking and choosing.

The thing, and I think I've said it before, is that "I Am Legend" presumably cost well over $100 million to make, but a straight forward adaptation of Matheson's novel could be made for a tenth that, even with a recognizable star. With a box office behemoth like Smith, you could still adapt Matheson for, say, $50 million. With "28 Days Later," Danny Boyle proved you can make a city look evacuated on a shoestring budget if you're clever. With "The Descent," Neil Marshall showed how darkness and a well-spent costume budget showed how creature-based terror can also be executed on the cheap.

Francis Lawrence, who also directed the rather awful "Constantine," is giddy with the idea of turning New York City into a ghost town (in the book and "Omega Man," it's LA). The first 20 minutes of the movie is one pull-back shot after another to expose the desolation of Times Square, Washington Square, the Met, etc. It's all done with a rather heavy computer assist, because it isn't enough to have Manhattan empty, you have to also get a corn field growing next to the TKTS line. I'm not sure on the agricultural believability there, but it's no biggie. Extra expense is thrown in, for no meaningful reason, to show herds of deer racing through the city. Granted that viewers are likely to appreciate the overkill, it's overkill nonetheless. Expensive overkill. For me, the shots that were provided by cinematographer Andrew Lesnie were better than the ones manufactured by the effects house.

The movie's best special effect, and hardly its cheapest, is Smith. At least a half-dozen times during the movie I found myself thanking the studio Gods that the long-gestating project never went forward with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead. With movies like "Predator," California's governor proved he's capable of being the only actor on the screen for large periods of time, but Smith's likeability holds "I Am Legend" together. He's able to find rueful humor where few actors could, he's convincingly physical and, mostly, he holds the screen when nobody else is around. He's acting with mannequins and a dog for most of the time, but despite the lack of human bounce-back, his energy never falters. I also appreciated the filmmakers' willingness to let Smith's Neville be just as nearly deranged as you'd expect a man to be if he'd spent 1000 days in a concrete jungle battling unseen creatures.

Since Smith is mostly talking to himself (or his wonderful German Shepherd Sam), the dialogue is minimal, which is good because the more he talks, the more clumsy the movie gets. One of the writers must have had what he figured was an epiphany that the perfect soundtrack to "I Am Legend" would be Bob Marley's "Legend." Unfortunately, having moved beyond the coincidental names, that writer had to add scenes justifying the linkage, somewhat to the movie's overall disadvantage. That's one of those things where a writer is better off letting the audience decide if they want to connect the dots, rather than forcing the issue.

"I Am Legend" is hardly an art movie, but it occasional exhibits an indie movie's willingness to let viewers connect the dots. Many aspects of our hero's day to day life are left to the viewers' imaginations. Everything from the final decline of humanity to how Neville came to have key works of art hanging in his apartment are hinted at if you care, but left unspoken. I think a similar less-is-more approach would have been better for the creatures as well.

In Matheson's "I Am Legend," the adversaries are called vampires. In "Omega Man," they're far closer to albino zombies. In this "I Am Legend," they're called "Dark Seekers" and beyond the idea that they're wicked fast, wicked agile and wicked hungry for living human flesh, we don't learn much about them. They're scary, but the best scenes of the movie are mostly Smith dealing with his own paranoia and the traumatic memories of what happened to his wife and child.

[SPOILERS COMING FOR THE BOOK and MOVIE adaptations.]

In Lawrence's vision, the Dark Seekers aren't capable of speech and they're mostly computer generated whenever possible. One of the most haunting aspects to Matheson's book is the idea that the creatures still have some vestigial memory of their former lives [like the hero's neighbor returning to his house every night wailing "Neville!"] and one of the most scary aspects is that they're learning. "Omega Men" went a little overboard on this, to the point that the zombies' speech patterns have become weirdly colonial or Victorian without explanation. The most provocative idea in the book, in my opinion, is that the creatures are an extension of human evolution, that Neville's resistant DNA might be the unacceptable mutation, not theirs. The creatures are ready to open up shop on a new level of humanity and they're being tormented by this regressive Old Human. Neville is the insurgent preventing them from restoring order. Lawrence's "I Am Legend" doesn't get close to that and the ending of the movie suffers accordingly. The idea that the Dark Seekers are becoming less scared of the light and that they're maybe capable of setting traps is mentioned, but never realized. The creatures just grunt.

I think there was a question of how far the filmmakers were willing to go with the post-9/11 undertones to the city. Repeated references to Ground Zero and uncanny images of New York City in panic aside, "I Am Legend" only tiptoes around what might have been the point of a differently focused film. Turning the Dark Seekers into the lawful inhabitants of New York, battling against the unmovable American military force? It might have made a point, but probably not the one they wanted to make. So instead you get an ending that isn't a happy one, but it's hopeful in the way that "Omega Man" is hopeful, rather than the way Matheson ends his book.]

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2008 Golden Globe Nomination Reax -- Movies

I meant to get to this yesterday, but between computer problems, the Mitchell Report, an office lunch and general exhaustion, I failed.

The Golden Globe nominations are always a good chance to look at the state of affairs when it comes to Oscars, but also to mock the Hollywood Foreign Press, so I'll do that.

Since my Zap2it colleague Rick took the trouble to format the nominees, I'll just react to everything as best as I can after the bump. I guess this'll be long. And probably pointless. They *are* just the Golden Globe nominations after all...

I've split my reactions into movies and TV nominations. The movie nomination reactions are below. The TV reactions will be in a different post. Maybe later today, maybe over the weekend.

Click through...

Best Picture, Drama

"American Gangster"
"Atonement"
"Eastern Promises"
"The Great Debaters"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"

REACTION: Seven nominees? Way to go out on a limb. I haven't seen "The Great Debaters," but I have friends who assure me that it has no place on this list. I know that "American Gangster" doesn't belong here. And as much as I'd never hesitate to salute David Cronenberg, "Eastern Promises" falls apart in the end and isn't really worthy of its place. It's a good race between "Atonement" and "No Country For Old Men."

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy

"Across the Universe"
"Charlie Wilson's War"
"Hairspray"
"Juno"
"Sweeney Todd"

REACTION: Problem: I desperately want to make fun of the selection of "Across the Universe" here, because the trailers were so very bad, but I haven't seen the movie. So I can't. Fortunately, I've seen "Hairspray," so I'm comfortable saying that that slot could have been better occupied by "Waitress," "Once," "Knocked Up," "Superbad," "The Hoax," or even "The Savages." "Sweeney Todd" probably wins here, though this could be a good test of the dark-horse status of "Juno."

Best Actor, Drama

George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
James McAvoy, "Atonement"
Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises"
Denzel Washington, "American Gangster"

REACTION: Looking forward to seeing "There Will Be Blood" and nothing I've seen from the trailers do anything to indicate that Day-Lewis isn't, as always, award worthy. Clooney and McAvoy have a similar Old Hollywood star power that anchors their movies. As much as I'd have removed "Eastern Promises" from the picture field, I'm glad to see Mortensen here. That leaves Denzel Washington for the overhyped, overrated "American Gangster." It's a fine performance but nothing in it offers anything that we haven't seen Denzel do a dozen times. Folks I'd have wanted to see nominated in Washington's place could have included Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"), Josh Brolin ("No Country For Old Men"), Christian Bale ("Rescue Dawn"), Joseph Gordon Levitt ("The Lookout"), Joaquin Phoenix ("We Own the Night"), Gordon Pinsent ("Away From Her") and maybe even Emile Hirsch ("Into the Wild"). I'm also not sure which categories Russell Crowe ("3:10 to Yuma," *not* "American Gangster") and Chris Cooper ("Breach") were submitted for, but whether supporting or lead, they deserved consideration. I figure Clooney upsets Day-Lewis here, because the Globes lurv him.

Best Actress, Drama

Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie, "Away from Her"
Jodie Foster, "The Brave One"
Angelina Jolie, "A Mighty Heart"
Keira Knightley, "Atonement"

REACTION: Because the musical/comedy field is extra strong for actresses this year (more on the misplaced Marion Cotillard later), the actress-drama category is extra weak this year, hence Blanchett and Foster for movies that people hated and Knightley for a good performance that isn't the sort of thing award-watchers usually remember. Thinking back over the year, I have a difficult time thinking of other performances that even deserve to be here. Christie probably wins, but don't under-estimate the HFPA's love for Jolie.

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy

Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd"
Ryan Gosling, "Lars and the Real Girl"
Tom Hanks, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Savages"
John C. Reilly, "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"

REACTION: I probably need to go see "Lars and the Real Girl," don't I? Sigh. Don't feel like it! This category is strange because "The Savages," as I've said before, isn't really a comedy and although funny things happen to Hoffman's character, his isn't a comedic performance. It's a very good performance, but he isn't doing the same things as Hanks or Reilly or Depp. I'd personally have replaced Hanks with Glen Hansard ("Once") or possibly Richard Gere ("The Hoax"). From what I can guess, the other four nominees are really just fodder for Depp anyway. He can't possibly lose.



Best Actress, Musical or Comedy

Amy Adams, "Enchanted"
Nikki Blonsky, "Hairspray"
Helena Bonham Carter, "Sweeney Todd"
Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Ellen Page, "Juno"

REACTION: It wasn't that hated "Hairspray," but this category realistically had four locked-in nominees, with one free-floating spot. It went to Nikki Blonsky solely for being exuberant. It's here that I'd have rather seen Keri Russell ("Waitress"), Marketa Irglova ("Once"), Katherine Heigl ("Knocked Up") or, particularly, Laura Linney ("The Savages"). Don't get me started, though, on Marion Cotillard's presence here. Not only is "La Vie en Rose" not a musical, but Cotillard just lip-synched her role anyway, so if the movie *were* a musical, she wouldn't have anything to do with its musicality. The Globes *love* coronating Hot Young Things and Amy Adams is this year's Hot Young Thing. Unless Ellen Page is this year's Hot Young Thing. Could be interesting!

Best Supporting Actor

Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"
John Travolta, "Hairspray"
Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

REACTION: It can never be said enough: The Golden Globe voters are -- pardon my vernacular -- star-fuckers. Otherwise there can't be any justification for including John Travolta's mediocre "Hairspray" performance, in which he spoke with one horrible Baltimore accent and then sang in a different voice entirely. If it was a weak year for supporting performances, that would be one thing, but this is the category where we could have had Hal Holbrook ("Into the Wild"), Tommy Lee Jones ("No Country for Old Men"), Philip Bosco ("The Savages"), Irfan Khan ("The Namesake"), J.K. Simmons ("Juno"), Robert Downey Jr. ("Zodiac"), Ed Harris ("Gone Baby Gone") or Ethan Hawke ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead") and that's just off the top of my head. I'm gonna be rooting for Bardem and Hoffman here, but I wouldn't complain about Affleck.

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Julia Roberts, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Saorise Ronan, "Atonement"
Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

REACTION: Roberts' inclusion is another example of pure-and-simple star-fucking. She's not bad, but she doesn't belong. I also can't really imagine Saorise Ronan getting an Oscar nomination, though I thought she was perfectly worthy, as such things go. The race between Blanchett, Ryan and Swinton may be one of the night's most interesting. Blanchett has the star-power, but Ryan has been scooping up the awards by the dozen. Who else might I have liked to see recognized? Jennifer Jason Leigh ("Margot at the Wedding"), Kelly MacDonald ("No Country For Old Men"), Marisa Tomei ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead") or Jennifer Garner ("Juno").

Best Director

Tim Burton, "Sweeney Todd"
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Ridley Scott, "American Gangster"
Joe Wright, "Atonement"

REACTION: Because the Globes split dramas, musical-comedy and foreign into never-the-twain-shall-meet categories, the melting pot screenplay and director categories are always more interesting and crowded and usually do a better job of foreshadowing the Oscars. In this case, Ridley Scott's inclusion is comical. Not having seen "There Will Be Blood," I can't guarantee that Paul Thomas Anderson's directorial craft is superior, but I'm gonna just make that assumption, eh?

Best Screenplay

Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Christopher Hampton, "Atonement"
Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Aaron Sorkin, "Charlie Wilson's War"

REACTION: These will eventually be split out into adapted and original screenplays for the Oscars and that's, you know, the sane and reasonable thing to do. How do you compare the Coens' ultra-literal adaptation of "No Country" to Cody's linguistically marvelous, structurally familiar "Juno"? And how do you grade Sorkin for the cushy, light-minded version of "War" that made it to theaters or for the far tougher, far more political script he actually wrote? And how could this list possibly not include Tony Gilroy's "Michael Clayton" script?

Best Original Song

"That's How You Know," from "Enchanted"
"Grace Is Gone," from "Grace Is Gone"
"Guaranteed," from "Into the Wild"
"Despedida," from "Love in the Time of Cholera"
"Walk Hard," from "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"

REACTION: My motto is that as long as "Lyra" from "The Golden Compass" and that awful Annie Lennox thing from "In the Valley of Elah" aren't nominated, it's all good. That being said, surely there ought to have been room for a song from "Once." This is one of the categories that the Golden Globes are notoriously far separate from the Oscars on.

Best Original Score

Michael Brook, "Into the Wild"
Clint Eastwood, "Grace Is Gone"
Alberto Iglesias, "The Kite Runner"
Dario Marianelli, "Atonement"
Howard Shore, "Eastern Promises"

REACTION: Dario Marianelli's score for "Atonement" is brilliant. Alberto Iglesias' score for "The Kite Runner" is comically cheesy. I really liked what Carter Burwell did on both "The Hoax" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." Somehow Burwell has never been nominated for an Oscar. I don't get that.

Best Animated Film

"Bee Movie"
"Ratatouille"
"The Simpsons Movie"

REACTION: No "Beowulf"? Vaguely interesting. "Persepolis" wasn't eligible, so don't read anything into this.

Best Foreign Language Film

"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"The Kite Runner"
"Lust, Caution"
"Persepolis"

REACTION: "The Kite Runner" doesn't really belong here, but the Golden Globes have weird eligibility rules. Finally gonna go see "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" this weekend. As it is, I've been very poorly behaved when it comes to foreign language movies this year. Where's "The Orphanage," darnit?

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MovieWatch: "Atonement"

"Atonement"
Director: Joe Wright
Fien Print Rating: 82
In a Nutshell: [Before getting into this already delayed review... I've been so hard on "How I Met Your Mother" this season that I've gotta give it up for tonight's episode, which probably the season's peak and not just because it gave extra screentime to Wendy the Waitress (who could now become the Gunther of McLarens). So what are the chances that Stella the Tattoo Remover is The Mother? I suspect the kids would have caught on.]

There may be better movies in 2007 (though I can only think of two or three thus far), but no other 2007 release is likely to match "Atonement" in terms of prestige spit-and-polish. Based on the acclaimed novel by Ian McEwan, "Atonement" is made with a technical meticulousness and an old-fashioned flair that you don't see very often. Throughout the film, I kept thinking of the literary craftsmanship that Anthony Minghella brought to films from "The English Patient" to "Cold Mountain" to "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (one of the underappreciated masterpieces of the past decade), the respect for the idea that filmmaking with the glint of awards in your eyes isn't always a recipe for disaster. That's why, in one of the final scenes, I was able to identify Minghella as he did a cameo as a TV interviewer. I guess I know what he looks like anyway, but even if I wasn't sure, it just seemed right.

The interesting question might be if Joe Wright has already moved ahead of Minghella in the ranks of prestige filmmakers, if the disappointment of "Breaking & Entering" (a movie that lurks somewhere low in my Netflix queue) should put Wright at the top of the list to tackle any Booker Prize winning novel or novel by a Booker Prize winner. I've only seen two things directed by Wright, but I know the guy has mad chops.

His adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice" was smart and funny, but also elegant and romantic. Working on a larger scale with "Atonement," he shows a pure filmmaker's eye and ear. If there are flaws to "Atonement" -- and there are -- they come from a structure or flow that I have to assume came from McEwan's novel, a rhythm that satisfies a reader dedicating many hours to a work in a way somewhat different from the demands of an audience entranced for two hours.

More discussion [somewhat abbreviated by my standards, since I just wanna post this and be done with it] after the bump...

Click through...

[There are probably spoilers here... Not if you've read the book, I wager. And not MASSIVE spoilers regardless.]

I was hooked on the craftsmanship of "Atonement" almost instantly. The movie opens with the titles typed out on the screen, as from an old Corona typewriter. The typewriter is wielded by Saorise Ronan's Briony as she works on her latest literary effort and within seconds, Dario Marianelli's score picks up the percussion of the typing and integrates it. Then, as Briony goes running off with her play in hand, Wright and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey match the camera movement to the rhythm of the music and Paul Tothill's edit captures the syncopation perfectly. There is a precision to every gesture and technical aspect of "Atonement" and it's been put to use in a rather haunting story about the dangers and potential salvation of storytelling.

Storytelling and perspective are essential to "Atonement" and Christopher Hampton's adaptation unspools through a number of frames. There are flashbacks, fantasies and events shown from obstructed or partial points-of-view only to be retold again. The problem in the storytelling comes through the three ages of Briony. Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave do more than just share the same haircut and birthmark. Their matching mannerisms create a through-line for the story. But there's no avoiding the fact that the first part of the story is the most entertaining, the second part the most powerful and then the third part exists just to tie together what came before. It doesn't do it badly by any means, but the momentum can't help but wane.

All three of the actresses playing Briony are splendid, but it's hard to think of any performance that falls flat. James McAvoy finally steps up as a movie star, giving a likeable and assertive turn. If he'd been as strong and memorable in "The Last King of Scotland," Forest Whitaker might have had to win his Oscar for supporting actor, instead of dominating the screen. He's matched by Keira Knightley, whose excellence isn't in the moments of brassy confidence, which we've seen her play well in the past, but in the glimpses of weakness and surrender. I don't know if any of the film's stars are showy enough to get the attention of Oscar voters, but that shouldn't detract from their actual quality.

I'm guessing "Atonement" will get plenty of Oscar attention across the technical board.

My second favorite movie of last year was Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men," one of those rare movies where everybody walked out talking about two or three amazing tracking shocks, head-scratching cinematic oddities that left everybody in awe of the director's vision and the cinematographer's craft. "Atonement" has a couple doozies as well, but the one that'll attract the buzz is a shot that surveys the wreckage of the British army on the beach at Dunkirk. The Dunkirk Beach Shot from "Atonement" probably doesn't have quite the same level of difficulty as the series of impossible tracking shots in the "Children of Men" Refugee Camp. Rather than breathlessly unfolding a full action scene in one take, the "Atonement" shot breathlessly unfolds the full scope of a dark hour in military history. You need know nothing at all about the Dunkirk evacuation to feel the hopelessness. It's beautiful.

McGarvey has to be considered at the forefront of this year's Oscar cinematography race along with Roger Deakins and, from what I hear, Janusz Kaminski. Throw in inevitable Oscar nods for costume, production design and hopefully for Marianelli's music and "Atonement" should play well through February.

OK. Seriously. Cutting this short. Good movie. Go see it. They don't make many like this anymore and when they make 'em like this, they're usually embalmed curios -- stuffy, fussy and dull. "Atonement" is none of those things.

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