NEW ON DVD: DANCE PARTY USA/QUIET CITY

Dance Party USA (2006), the first film by independent filmmaker Aaron Katz (now available in a gorgeous DVD package with Katz’s follow-up, Quiet City (2007), from Benten Films) opens on a Tri-Met train rolling through Portland, Oregon. The dazed, gregarious Gus (Cole Pensinger) sits regaling his slightly more dazed-appearing pal Bill (Ryan White) with a raunchy story about a none-too-hygienic sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl. The story smells too much like fiction for Bill, who calls out his pal in complementary crude language. It’s a conversation between two young men, 17-18-ish, who relate to each other in terms defined by sexual braggadocio, who are comfortable with this kind of give-and-take that is emblematic of the way many young men relate to each other (and have for generations), and who fancy themselves far more swift of wit and articulation than they really are. (In this way and others, Dance Party USA might be termed the anti-Juno.) A chance meet-up with Jessica (Anna Kavan) at a party (the event which the movie‘s title references with deceptive irony) exposes the floundering unease underneath Gus’ friendly jock demeanor. Faced with the relative surety of Jessica’s resolve—she informs him in no uncertain terms that she will not be sleeping with him—Gus finds himself trying to feel out a way to respond to this woman, who has stirred something in him he doesn’t necessarily want to articulate. And in the course of a fumbling conversation that forms the center of the film, Gus confesses a vile date rape scenario, one in which he casts himself as potential savior and then confused, hostile violator, the true version of the story he spun for Bill.

The rest of Dance Party USA is indeed a dance done to and in the rhythms of two restless people desperate to connect to someone—perhaps each other—who must deal with the ramifications of the honesty Jessica inspires in Gus and where it will lead them, if it can lead them anywhere. Director Katz has fashioned his first film in a way that remains true to the sensibility of self-absorbed teenagers without itself becoming bogged down in a morass of self-reflection or self-serving romanticism. His camera is free-floating but patient, willing to settle on Jessica’s relatively mature gaze, or on the squirming self-consciousness of Gus’s self-protecting grin as he begins to reckon with the ways Jessica is beginning to transform him, from a sexual predator to a social partner. What Katz finds in those visages, as well as in the freshly observed city environment in which their small drama plays out, brings flesh to what could have been just another plastic indie D.I.Y. romance of the sort Sundance spits out like sunflower seed shells these days.


Dance Party USA distinguishes itself from its unpretentious form in another way as well—Katz, in concert with Pensinger, who is good in a way that really sneaks up on you, and a young, unformed actress by the name of Natalie Buller, rather daringly give us a scene in which Gus, compelled by his newfound confessional mode, pays a visit to the girl he raped at the party. She doesn’t recognize him, at least at first, yet she invites him in to watch TV, and the scene progresses along an awkward trajectory headed we know not quite where. It’s a bit of a high-wire act that doesn’t pay off in histrionics, certainly, but it does give us a clue that Gus is suddenly, achingly for real, that he’s grown past bullshitting games with his buddies, but also that his growth is no assurance he won’t soon be even more alone than ever.

After 65 minutes the movie ends with one last encounter between Gus and Jessica amongst the dime games and carnival rides of Oaks Park, a rundown Portland amusement park, and a lovely moment of self-discovery and personal risk that is all the more exhilarating for it being the image with which Katz, displaying wisdom befitting a director of many more years than he has as yet put in, chooses to end his film. For these teenagers, much like the ones I know and have known, self-expression comes begrudgingly, with acknowledgment of self-imposed roles that mask every form of insecurity, and at a price, that being fear of true exposure. Gus and Jessica can’t so easily tap into what they feel, and they’re so much more interesting, and real, because of that. I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing Quiet City, which by all accounts is an even more rich and assured film than this first one. But if the evidence displayed in Dance Party USA can be trusted, Aaron Katz has already carved a place for himself among the new voices of American independent film. I can’t wait to see where he takes me on that second disc, and in the many fine films he’s likely to make in the future.

(Dance Party USA and Quiet City are available today on DVD from Benten Films.)

DIRECTORAMA #15

Mondays can be bittersweet. Sweet in that, yes, you’re still alive. Bitter in that welcome back, as Elvis Costello once put it with just a touch of sarcasm, to the working week and whatever else might be lurking around the corner. One of the ways that I ensure my Mondays stay buoyant, even if it’s just for six panels, is a weekly dose of Peet Gelderblom’s weekly foray into film criticism disguised as a comic strip, the internationally recognized bit of brilliance known as Directorama, a mordant fantasia on an afterworld of auteurs duking it out for artistic supremacy in the afterlife. It should be no news that Directorama is a weekly feature at The House Next Door, and my own praising Peet’s accomplishment with the strip is not an unfamiliar noise. But this week’s installment is particularly poignant, expressive in its simplicity, saying what a whole lot of us felt in the past week, even if we never took time to articulate it. And Peet, with his director’s eye for color, composition and economy of style, manages to say his piece more eloquently than I certainly ever could. Here, by permission from its creator, is Directorama #15, a tribute to the ones who got away.



Get the whole world of Directorama here.

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SOMEONE'S WEEPING, ALL RIGHT...

I envision a moment sometime this weekend when I can just sit down and jot a few notes a la Larry King about things coming up, things on my mind, brief thoughts on recently seen movies, whatever. But until then, I cannot let the Friday that brings us a brand-new chapter in the improbably continuing saga of John Rambo pass without noting the pull quote in the movie’s ad (seen in the Los Angeles Times this morning) from Harry Knowles.


For years my favorite blurb has been from Rex Reed, who shouted from the movie pages about the star of Saturday Night Fever, “John Travolta is so intense, he burns a small hole in the screen.” Well, Knowles’ bizarre quip re Rambo makes Reed’s assessment look downright subtle by comparison. Harry wants us to see Rambo. He really wants us to see it:

“When the film knocks it up to that final gear, Jesus will weep-- and you will cheer!”

Christ, it’s even poetry! Can anyone think of anything they’ve seen that can approach or top that?

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THE SLIFR FORUM: OSCAR NOMINATIONS EDITION (NEW and IMPROVED with the COMPLETE LIST of NOMINEES and PITHY COMMENTARY!)

The Plainview performance of 1972? Is this an Oscar I hold before me, and if so, did it just morph into a chittering mammal meant to signify my descent into madness? And if so, does that mean I didn't win?

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Well, here it is, the earliest hours of January 22, and I just finished vacuuming up the last of the crackling-dry pine remnants from my carpet. The Christmas tree finally came down tonight. Whether it was an act of denial, an attempt to extend the holiday season well beyond its rational limits, or just an act of indifference and/or laziness, the damned thing managed to go about two weeks past its expected shelf life (or stand life, I guess), providing delight for the kids well into 2008 as well as a shower of dead needles grand enough to make Charlie Brown himself envious. I’m sure it’s just a holdover from the Werner Herzog kick I’ve been on all weekend, but the existential numbing that is part and parcel of tree-dismantling did take on an added tingle due to the fact that I was absorbed in Grizzly Man while eliminating ornaments. (I managed to fit in Aguirre the Wrath of God and Stroszek after I finished studying on Saturday, so I guess the holiday season really is over. But, like a cleansing sorbet, I counter-programmed What’s Up, Doc? and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break as second features on the successive dark nights of the German New Wave’s soul, so all was not terminal.)

Anyway, I had planned to spend a little more time throwing around some general observations and thoughts on some of the ways I’ve been spending my time since I last posted, but time has definitely gotten away from me tonight. And before I seal myself up in the bed chamber, I really wanted to make some off-the-cuff Oscar nomination predictions. Well, the hour is literally growing near—we’re just under four hours away from the big reveal as I type this—so my predictions this year are going to be even more off-the-cuff, last-minute and undoubtedly ill-informed than usual. I’m just going to jump in there and see what I can come up with, sans crutches like David Poland’s so-well-chewed-over-as-to-be-pulverized Oscar analyses or even last week’s breathless issue of Entertainment Weekly, which dared to pose the question, Will the Oscars happen?


Well, yes, they will, I dare say, and probably in a more entertaining fashion than thet embarrassing press conference format that recently exposed the Golden Globes as the meaningless charade we’ve always suspected they were. (All those entertaining TV specials featuring drunken movie stars behaving in unseemly—or un-Oscarly—but usually revealing and appealing ways tended to obscure that particular truth.) There’s just too much at stake, prestige-wise as well as local Los Angeles economy-wise, for Gilbert Cates and company to not carry on the annual back-pat. I wonder if there might not even be significant progress in the writer’s strike motivated by an Oscar deadline. As for me personally, I think Conan O’Brien, hilariously bemoaning Life During Writer's Strike in this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, put it best: “The Golden Globes are canceled and the Oscars might be next. I want no part of a world that refuses to congratulate itself.” Zing! Will all things be merry and bright by February 24? I know I’ll stay tuned.

But for now, time is tight, as Booker T. used to say, and I must get these posted before 5:30 a.m. Sure, I could just wait until after 5:30, get the nominations, then make my predictions based on what I already know and adjust the time stamp on my post to make it look like I guessed real good. But no, I won’t do that. And you will know my integrity by the conspicuous lack of accuracy of the following guesses. At this late hour, if I wanted to be revered as an Oscar savant like David Poland, or Rod Lurie before him, wouldn’t I do the cheat to make myself look better? Yes, I would. But when it comes to Oscars, unless there’s big money in an office pool involved, there’s something, I think, to be said for ignorance.

It’s 2:01 a.m. The vibe emanating from Wilshire Boulevard and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is translating, through the Glendale drizzle, a little something like this:




UPDATE 8:25 a.m.: * indicates "Whoops!" (Full list of nominees and some snide commentary coming up as soon as I can wolf down my meager breakfast.)

BEST PICTURE
Into the Wild *
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Atonement will be this year’s Dreamgirls surprise-- for all the money Universal spent convincing TV watchers that everyone loved it, no Best Picture nomination. * And Juno began to peak at just the right time—there's no way it misses getting in on the Best Picture action. My wish: some room at the Kodak Theater for Zodiac.

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney
Daniel Day-Lewis
Johnny Depp
Frank Langella *
Viggo Mortensen

Yeah, I know—nobody can even remember the name of the movie Langella was in (Starting Out in the Evening), but I just can’t believe they’d nominate Ryan Gosling for that inflatable doll movie, or Denzel Washington for American Gangster. It’s a stab in the dark, a shot at how’d-he-ever-guess that? glory. I want my moment. My wish: Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn.

BEST ACTRESS
Amy Adams *
Julie Christie
Ellen Page
Marion Cotillard
Angelina Jolie *

Keira Knightley will get thrown under the Atonement bus. And I just don’t believe people liked The Savages enough for find room for Laura Linney, who, frankly, is less interesting to me with each new performance. (She’s never matched her amazing work in You Can Count on Me, in my humble estimation.) * Maybe Nicole Kidman (Margot at the Wedding) sneaks in there and bounces Amy Adams. My wish: Carice van Houten in Black Book.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Keener *
Amy Ryan
Tilda Swinton
Saoirse Ronan

Even if you chalk up Ronan’s appearance as the token under-age honoree here, this is a very strong category, the equal, I think, of the group of excellent best actor nominees. I thought I’d pick Blanchett in a walk, but that was before I saw Keener’s work this past weekend. And Amy Ryan is still sitting on my desk (in digitized form, of course), so who knows where my allegiance will ultimately fall. My wish: Kelly MacDonald in No Country for Old Men.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War)
Hal Holbrook
Tommy Lee Jones *
J.K. Simmons *

Bardem’s the lock (friend-o), Hoffman, Holbrook and Jones are pretty sure things, and only J.K. Simmons, who everyone has relegated to overlooked status, will be the surprise here. This Juno hater was more generous to the movie’s actors across the board, but many who loathe the movie still think Simmons was the bomb, home skillet. Tom Wilkinson could also sneak in. This category, however, is the one with the most bounty in terms of possible dark horses, and their all on my wish list: John Travolta (Hairspray), Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma), Casey Affleck (Jesse James), Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn), and the darkest horse of all, Barry Corbin (No Country for Old Men).

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson
Joel and Ethan Coen
Tony Gilroy
Julian Schnabel
Sean Penn *

Yes, I’m predicting a duplicate of the Director’s Guild nominees, which falls perfectly in line with the annual predictable divergence in the line-up of Director and Picture nominees. Juno gets a Pic nomination, but there’s no way even the most rabid fan of the movie votes Jason Reitman a director’s nod. * And Schnabel, whose Diving Bell and the Butterfly is stuck in the no-man’s-land between Best Picture (eligible) and Best Foreign Language Film (ineligible) fills the void beautifully. Everyone else lines up quite well. My wish: David Fincher, plus hidden-camera video footage of Ridley Scott when he finds out he’s been passed over this year.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Away from Her
Charlie Wilson’s War *
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Atonement could sneak in here and save a little face for the movie at large, which will probably be amply represented in the cinematography, costume and art direction categories. But I think not. I’m hoping the Academy will save a spot for Sarah Polley, since a director’s nomination is never gonna happen, and encourage the empathy, sensitivity and storytelling discipline she displayed in her screenplay (and her direction) of Away from Her. Other than that, my wish: Another writer-director, Sean Penn, who provided palpable tension in his presentation of the story of Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild. You could practically feel Penn in there fighting with himself over whether or not to submit to his protagonist’s romantic disillusionment, which makes McCandless’s final realization of the necessity of human connection even more devastating.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
I’m Not There *
Juno
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

My wish: That Ratatouille might actually get nominated and win. My second wish: That Juno might not. My third wish: The sudden, unexpected delivery of $10 million on my doorstep tomorrow morning. Which of these is least likely to come true? Yeah, I know….

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Couldn’t they just give it to Roger Deakins for Jesse James and No Country for Old Men? My wish: Harris Savides for Zodiac.

All right, that’s as far as the hour and my drooping eyelids will allow me to go. It is now exactly 3:00 a.m. and in two and a half more hours you’ll all be able to laugh at me with no shame, yet a sliver of pity, and cry out, “What the hell was he thinkin’?” with genuine concern and moral certitude. But by then no one will care about the two-bit soothsaying of a fella like me. We’ll have moved on to the big questions like: Who was left out? Who got gypped? What were the big surprises? What is lining up to be the biggest embarrassment of the Oscar season? And will there even be a show to tout the eventual winners? I will tack on a complete list of the nominees as an addendum to this post after the sun rises. But until then, let’s get the conversation rolling. The Oscar Nominations Edition of the SLIFR Forum is now officially open!

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UPDATE January 22 11:41 p.m.:

In the light of this morning’s nominations, I was talking today with a friend who tends to be pretty wise when it comes to the Oscars. He’s wise in that he tends not to pay too much attention to them at all. “The Oscars don’t exist” is, I believe, how he put it. Insisting that they did, on some very real level, exist, I persisted in what I was now sure was going to be a very short conversation. I was right. I expressed my happiness over the double nomination for the cinematographer of No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and said something to the effect of, “Roger Deakins did pretty well for himself today. My friend, without missing a beat and betraying no interest in exploring the subject any further, simply said, “Roger Deakins did well for himself by shooting the movies.”

The brevity of my friend’s water cooler manner notwithstanding, it’s hard to disagree with the baldly stated fact or the sentiment behind it. The Oscars are what they are, but this year they tend to be reminders not of embarrassments, as they so often seem to be, but of the riches the movies had to offer in 2007. It is to be giddy when one realizes that not only did two of the honest-to-God best pictures of 2007 actually make the cut, pictures that might, in a “normal” year, be thought to be too difficult or nihilistic or relentlessly violent for Academy tastes, but that those two same pictures appear to be, barring a swell of support for the Little Home Skillet That Could, the front-runners. But it would do good to also be reminded that the eventual winner is often not one for the ages, often not the one movie of five that people end up remembering fondly or with reverence (Anyone up for a screening of Gandhi at the home theater tonight?). The Oscars give us something to talk about in the early part of the year, usually centering on how they’re really not worth talking about. I can’t disagree. But I also can’t deny the charge I get thinking that something or someone I really like might get honored, or the disappointment I feel when someone or something really great gets snubbed. (Catherine Keener, the cast, crew, screenwriter and director of Zodiac, this Big Gulp bicarbonate of soda is for you.)

To force the ceremony into further perspective, the nominations were today unveiled in the shadow of our continued plunge down the rabbit hole of Iraq, the WGA strike and, for shocking, sobering good measure, the sad death of Heath Ledger at age 28. So you didn’t get that expected Oscar nod. So your favorite candidate for Best Makeup won’t be invited to the big dance. Kiss your wife, your husband and your kids and continue living a good life. When it’s all said and done, honored or not, in a world that sometimes seems insane and/or incomprehensible, we still have the movies that mattered there to help us try to make some sense of it all. The year’s best movies did that, and some of them are actually on the following list. Salute!

Best Picture of the Year
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

It was just simply too much to ask that Zodiac, a box-office dud that opened in March, would make any waves in the major categories. Obviously I would have tossed Juno out on its ear to make room for Fincher’s brilliant film, or The Assassination of Jesse James or, if Oscar wanted so badly to honor a great film about today’s troubled teens, Superbad. But Atonement has been, over the past few weeks, gaining ground in my rear-view mirror—I’m actually looking forward to finally seeing it now, and I wouldn’t mind giving Michael Clayton another try either. My preference: No Country for Old Men

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
George Clooney Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen Eastern Promises

If Day-Lewis promises, should the show actually take place, to hurl a bowling ball in the general direction of Gilbert Cates, I say just give him the statue now and get it over with. Cheers to Viggo Mortensen, and to Tommy Lee Jones for being good enough to keep a movie few saw and fewer liked on the radar. My preference: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie Away from Her
Marion Cotillard La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney The Savages
Ellen Page Juno

Kudos to Cate Blanchett for inspiring young British actresses everywhere to insist their agents get them an opportunity to play Queen Elizabeth at some time in their careers. It should be obvious by now that the quality of the film doesn’t matter. You plays the queen, you gets nommed, and you maybe even get the statue itself, right, Dame Judi? But the only scenario I can imagine that will muss Julie Christie’s hair this year is a surprise attack by Edith Piaf. Ellen Page and Laura Linney are just honored to be, you know. My preference: Julie Christie

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
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
Hal Holbrook Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson Michael Clayton

I really do need to see Charlie Wilson’s War, I suppose. I liked Hoffman’s other two performances, though I was underwhelmed by Sidney Lumet’s movie I enjoyed how he seemed to physically channeling David Huddleston throughout. And the actor’s branch is really forcing my hand as to a second screening of Michael Clayton, which I saw the first time while extremely drowsy. I would love to see either Casey Affleck or Hal Holbrook win here, but my heart again matches up, as it has I every category so far, with who I think actually will win. Step on up, friend-o. My preference: Javier Bardem

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Cate Blanchett I'm Not There
Ruby Dee American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan Atonement
Amy Ryan Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton Michael Clayton

I like the idea of Ruby Dee being nominated, but really, American Gangster was nothing special and her role was slight at best. I have yet to check in on Saoirse Ronan or Amy Ryan, and I do remember Tilda Swinton translating her emotional flop sweat very effectively. But how do I feel? How do I feel? Blanchett in a walk. My preference: Cate Blanchett

(Gee, this is shaping up to be a happy year in front of the TV for me, if it all turns out like I think it’s going to so far. As a reality check, though, I need only refer myself to my list of predictions above.)

Best Achievement in Directing
Paul Thomas Anderson There Will Be Blood
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman Juno
Julian Schnabel The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Despite the presence of Reitman (hunh?) and Gilroy, who match up with Best Picture nominees, and despite Julian Schnabel’s strong showing down the stretch, this looks like a two-movie, three-man race to me. Will the Academy decide that the Coens are too cold and calculating, favoring the shaggy epic canvas of Anderson? Or will they find Anderson’s work too bizarre for Oscar tastes and award the Coens for more than just their film’s technical mastery? My preference: Ethan and Joel Coen

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Juno Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl Nancy Oliver
Michael Clayton Tony Gilroy
Ratatouille Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco
The Savages Tamara Jenkins

This is the only one Juno gets. There Will Be Quirk. My preference: Ratatouille

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Atonement Christopher Hampton
Away from Her Sarah Polley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Ronald Harwood
No Country for Old Men Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood Paul Thomas Anderson

I’m so happy to see Sarah Polley among the final five that it totally offsets the reality that she has absolutely no chance to win. Harwood has a shot if voters decide to give bleak nihilism a pass here, but I think the Coens’ model of literary adaptation will be too irresistible. My preference: No Country for Old Men

Best Achievement in Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Roger Deakins
Atonement Seamus McGarvey
No Country for Old Men Roger Deakins
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Janusz Kaminski
There Will Be Blood Robert Elswit

Can’t Deakins win for both movies? Come on! Can’t he? Just this once? And wherefore art thou, Harris Savides? My preference: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Best Achievement in Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum Christopher Rouse
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Juliette Welfling
Into the Wild Jay Cassidy
No Country for Old Men Roderick Jaynes (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
There Will Be Blood Dylan Tichenor

This one usually goes hand in hand with the Best Picture winner, which, barring heavy influence from the actors branch for Michael Clayton, suggest that the Picture category really is a two-movie contest. And though this wouldn't be the first time a pseudonym was nomijnated (anyone recall P.H. Vazak?), does anyone know if this would be the first time one actually took the award home? My preference: No Country for Old Men

Best Achievement in Art Direction
American Gangster Arthur Max, Beth A. Rubino
Atonement Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
The Golden Compass Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo
There Will Be Blood Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson

This is the one category outside of Best Actor where There Will be Blood has a decent chance to reign supreme, unless Oscar goes for the more obvious company of Atonement or Sweeney Todd. My guess? They won’t. My preference: There Will Be Blood

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Across the Universe Albert Wolsky
Atonement Jacqueline Durran
Elizabeth: The Golden Age Alexandra Byrne
La Vie en Rose Marit Allen
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Colleen Atwood

Yikes. My preference: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Achievement in Makeup
La Vie en Rose Didier Lavergne, Jan Archibald
Norbit Rick Baker, Kazuhiro Tsuji
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Ve Neill, Martin Samuel

Wouldn’t it be just too delicious if the movie that allegedly killed Eddie Murphy’s chance to win an Oscar himself last year ends up winning one itself for making him up in the year’s most foul and contemptuous drag? The other choices are a man with an octopus face or a crooner with shaved eyebrows. Can’t we just retroactively nominate Rob Bottin for John Carpenter’s The Thing in honor of that movie’s 25th anniversary last year? My “preference”: Norbit

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Atonement Dario Marianelli
The Kite Runner Alberto Iglesias
Michael Clayton James Newton Howard
Ratatouille Michael Giacchino
3:10 to Yuma Marco Beltrami

My preference: Ratatouille

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
August Rush Nominees to Be Determined ("Raise It Up")
Enchanted Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz ("Happy Working Song")
Enchanted Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz ("So Close")
Enchanted Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz ("That's How You Know")
Once Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová (“Falling Slowly”)

My preference: “Falling Slowly”

Best Achievement in Sound
The Bourne Ultimatum Scott Millan, David Parker, Kirk Francis
No Country for Old Men Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, Peter F. Kurland
Ratatouille Randy Thom, Michael Semanick, Doc Kane
3:10 to Yuma Paul Massey, David Giammarco, Jim Stuebe
Transformers Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Peter J. Devlin

My preference: No Country for Old Men

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum Karen M. Baker, Per Hallberg
No Country for Old Men Skip Lievsay
Ratatouille Randy Thom, Michael Silvers
There Will Be Blood Matthew Wood
Transformers Mike Hopkins, Ethan Van der Ryn

My preference: No Country for Old Men

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
The Golden Compass Michael L. Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, Trevor Wood
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charlie Gibson, John Frazier
Transformers Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, John Frazier

My preference: Transformers

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Persepolis Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
Ratatouille Brad Bird
Surf's Up Ash Brannon, Chris Buck

I hope to see Persepolis this weekend. Until then… My Preference: Ratatouille

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Fälscher, Die (Austria)
Beaufort (Israel)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
Katyn (Poland)
12 (Russia)

Best Documentary, Feature
No End in Sight Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience Richard Robbins
Sicko Michael Moore, Meghan O'Hara
Taxi to the Dark Side Alex Gibney, Eva Orner
War Dance Andrea Nix, Sean Fine

Best Documentary, Short Subjects
Freeheld Cynthia Wade, Vanessa Roth
Corona, La Amanda Micheli, Isabel Vega
Salim Baba Tim Sternberg, Francisco Bello
Sari's Mother James Longley

Best Short Film, Animated
Même les pigeons vont au paradis Samuel Tourneux, Vanesse Simon
I Met the Walrus Josh Raskin
Madame Tutli-Putli Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski
Moya lyubov Aleksandr Petrov
Peter & the Wolf Suzie Templeton, Hugh Welchman

Best Short Film, Live Action
Om natten Christian E. Christiansen, Louise Vesth
Supplente, Il Andera Jublin
Mozart des pickpockets, Le Philippe Pollet-Villard
Tanghi argentine Guy Thys, Anja Daelemans
The Tonto Woman Daniel Barber, Matthew Brown

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UPDATE 1/23/08 11:35 a.m.: Just when the glow of the Juno nominations was beginning to get too much, here comes David Edelstein to restore some perspective to the nominations, to grumble about some omissions (Frank Langella!) and remind everyone again why Juno is no good. The only problem is, he makes a chilling and believable case for how No Country for Old Men vs. There Will Be Blood might split the vote and create a crevice for you-know-who to crawl through, big belly or not. Read it and weep.

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THE SLIFR TOP 11 (+ 10) 2007 YEAR IN REVIEW

About a third of the way into Mary Roach’s delightful and fascinating book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, the author takes a typical comic-relief aside during an examination of an article in a scientific journal:

“Meanwhile it’s business as usual on the facing page, with dysentery expert W.S. Dawson holding forth on fecal sampling—whether it is preferable to ‘introduce the swab’ into the rectum or to take a specimen directly from ‘the motion.’ *

* I’m trying to work out how this makes sense as a noun meaning ‘the product of a bowel movement.’ This is not Dawson’s personal euphemistic misstep; the usage persists in medical writing today. Should you have had the misfortune of visiting a web page called the Constipation Page, you will have seen the phrase, ‘the motion or stool is very dry or hard.’ Perhaps this is why the term ‘motion pictures’ was replaced by ‘movies.’ Now that I see it on the page, ‘movie’ would have been a far better B.M. euphemism than ‘motion.’ I’d love to chat, but I need to make a movie.”

The notion of a super-huge, convulsive bowel movement taken not only by Hollywood but the film industry at large is probably a mental image that more than a few critics, to say nothing of paying customers at the box office, have familiarized themselves with in years past. My memory of the entire decade of the ‘80s, with some notable exceptions, seems like one long painful dump into the annals of cinema history. And even though the past few years have been markedly better, there were still plenty of us who take the time to compose these year-end round-ups who just couldn’t resist the opportunity, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, to complain that it has been the business of mediocrity as usual at the box office, at the studios and on the festival circuit. But not so 2007. This year has been so good that I’ve had even more impetus than usual to try to catch up with as many films as possible, and that is the more than reasonable suspicion that what I’m chasing after might actually be worth catching. Last year it was hard for me to get too twisted up about missing out on the likes of Apocalypto and Miss Potter before it came time to hunker down and write about the year. But this year I have tried, and failed, to make time for No End In Sight (currently in my DVD player), The Orphanage, Persepolis, Romance and Cigarettes, Into the Wild and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly among many, many others, and this year it kinda hurts.

But it is the nature of my particular role that I am not privy to the completism of the average film critic. That was true when I wrote this column last year, and it is even more so this year—time is more precious than ever and the amount of it I can devote to seeing films and writing about them is increasingly rare. Vicarious enjoyment, and the vicarious thrill of seeing someone else articulate their feelings about a film, are two of the reasons why Internet access to writers like Jim Emerson, Matt Zoller Seitz, Kim Morgan, Manohla Dargis, David Edelstein, Peet Gelderblom, A.O. Scott, Larry Aydlette, Edward Copeland, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Campaspe, David Bordwell, D.K. Holm, Kimberly Lindbergs, Walter Chaw and even Armond White remains as important to me (perhaps more so) than ever. And even though the quality of this year’s crop of films (especially those bottlenecked at the end of the Oscar-consideration season) was especially good, I saw about 15 or so fewer new releases in the calendar year than I did during the same period in 2007. This is why I feel like context is such an important part of the year-end game for me. I don’t want to pretend for even a second that what I’m writing here is in any way a comprehensive, all-encompassing look back, because there is plenty I’ve yet to experience, and plenty I will have missed altogether that might have put a new and/or different slant on how the year fell together for me. It’s why I don’t even feel comfortable at my particular station making statements like “the best ---- of the year!” (And that’s aside from the fact that even for a critic who’s seen 200 movies in a year, a statement like that tends to tell the reader a whole lot of nothing about the actual subject at hand.)

As I am still press-pass-less, I’m still forced to be as choosy as I can be about the films I laid down my hard-earned cash to see—which is another reason why I think of 2007 as especially stellar, because those choices were a hell of a lot easier to make this year. (The most difficult thing was deciding which of five or six likely terrific movies to see in an evening, when I could only choose one.) And again, many of the choices I make with my green have a lot to do with the tastes of my daughters who, though they are not as movie-driven as I was at their ages, still do love the experience. I would love to trade my Shrek the Third and Bee Movie for, say, Redacted or Gone Baby Gone at this late date. But I wouldn’t touch Ratatouille or Hairspray, two of their favorites of the year, and mine.

Still, the list of films I missed this year that I regret not being able to talk about in any meaningful or interesting way is, of course, far longer than I would like it to be. So if and when you hear me speaking of the best performances of the year, or the best anything, just remember that I have not yet seen any of the following, and use that information to color my choices any way you choose:

Movies I Would Have Liked to See in a Theater (And In Some Cases Still Might): Across the Universe; Amazing Grace; American Fork; Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters; Atonement; Beowulf; Blood Car; The Brave One; Breach; Bridge to Terabithia; Charlie Wilson’s War; Colossal Youth; Diva (rerelease); The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Eagle vs. Shark; Firehouse Dog; Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days; Fracture; Freedom Writers; Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird; The Golden Compass; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; The Heartbreak Kid; Helvetica; Honeydripper; I Am Legend; In the Valley of Elah; Into the Wild; Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains; Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten; Manufactured Landscapes; The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters; The Kite Runner; La Vie en Rose; Lady Chatterly; The Lookout; Mr. Bean’s Holiday; Mr. Brooks; Nancy Drew; No End in Sight; The Orphanage; Persepolis; Redacted; Romance and Cigarettes; Rush Hour 3; Sicko; Spider-Man 3; Starting Out in the Evening; Syndromes and a Century; Terror’s Advocate; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; War; We Own the Night; Year of the Dog and Youth Without Youth.

2007 Releases In Which I Have Virtually No Interest:
Aliens vs. Predator; Requiem; Atonement; The Bucket List; Charlie Wilson’s War; The Great Debaters; I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry; I Think I Love My Wife; Lars and the Real Girl; The Last Mimzy; Lions for Lambs;