And the nominees for the 2007 Oscars are...

Thanks for posting these, joe.

Do you think this Scorsese's year, finally?

The knock against Scorsese has always been that he isn't "Hollywood" enough -- i.e. he operates too far outside the orbit of the studios and the major industry players, so he doesn't develop the connections in the industry that would help him when it comes time to vote. I don't know if this is true or not (sounds like a pretty lame explanation, if you ask me). I think he hasn't won yet because he keeps getting nominated in years where there's one nominee who everyone thinks is better than him. Of course, in retrospect, some of those choices leave us scratching our heads in disbelief -- can we honestly say that Kevin Costner did a better job with Dances With Wolves in 1991 than Scorsese did with Goodfellas, or that Robert Redford's directorial effort in Ordinary People deserved the 1981 Oscar over Scorsese's Raging Bull? Hell, he wasn't even nominated for his best film, Taxi Driver.

I haven't seen any of the nominated films, but a lot of people are saying that The Departed may be his best shot at winning since Gangs of New York. But then he's up against Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, and Eastwood has already proven twice that the academy voters like his directorial style. I give the edge to Eastwood.

Of course, more and more, independents are getting noticed despite their "outsidedness." Then, the major studios have been forming "small independent studios" that are making the, hopefully, more artful films.

I was just astonished by all the Oscar nominations "Dreamgirls" garnered without getting nominated for Best Picture.

Thanks for posting this, joe, as I've been really under the gun with putting movie theaters out-of-business (no joke, I'm in large flat-screen plasma, LCD and DLP, home entertainment systems now).

This year has been outstanding for Mexican filmmakers.
9 nominees, 11 nominations, and movies directed by Mexicans have 15 nominations among them.

"Babel" is the best picture I have seen in this decade, IMHO.
"Pan's Labyrinth" is beautiful, sad, terrific and haunting. A feast even for those of us who don't care much about horror.
"Children of Men" is quite good. It was a surprise for me that I really liked it, since I usually abhorr demographic catastrophe films.

I haven't seen "The Departed".
I am very glad "Little Miss Sunshine" got the nod. Critical and sweet.

Watched "Little Miss Sunshine" with Mom -- both thought it was one of the best comedies so far this decade. It must have somehow edged out "Dreamgirls" for the only nomination that wasn't deeply serious fare.

I've seen all the Best Pic nominees except for Letters from Iwo Jima, and I've seen Dreamgirls. I agree that each of those films were better.

Dreamgirls has some surprisingly good performances, and I'm a musical comedy fan, but IMO, it isn't the best picture of the year.

From Box Office Mojo:


As a whole, this year's crop of Best Picture nominees had grossed $243.7 million when nominations were announced. While it was a rise over last year's $186.4 million--which was the least popular group on record--the tally was still relatively low in attendance. For the third year in a row, the Academy did not nominate a true blockbuster, but one movie had crossed the $100 million mark ('The Departed') unlike the previous two years.

CNN) -- A quarter-century after it opened on Broadway, "Dreamgirls" takes off like it means to make up for lost time.

Even as the opening titles roll the dazzling first number is up and running. In no time at all the Dreamettes, Deena, Lorrell and Effie (Beyoncé Knowles, Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson), have lost another talent show but won a new manager, Curtis Taylor (Jamie Foxx), and a big gig, singing backing vocals for R&B star James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy). They're on their way.

Writer-director Bill Condon -- adapting Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger's 1981 Broadway musical, loosely based on the story of the Supremes -- keeps up a breathless pace throughout the girls' heady rise. Even when they hit a bump -- white radio stations won't play black records -- the dilemma is swiftly resolved within the spin of the next 45.

This is the 1960s, and there is a whiff of revolution in the air -- or at least, a glimpse of rioting at a dramatically appropriate moment. Romance too: Lorrell pairs with Jimmy (who's married); Effie hooks up with Curtis. Together, they're on the verge of breaking out of the chitlin circuit and into the mainstream.

Then the movie changes its way -- and, perhaps, loses it.

Plot-wise, Curtis puts pretty girl Deena on lead vocals because she looks better on TV. Effie -- who has a big voice, and the body to match -- walks out. Mood-wise, optimism and uplift gives way to cynicism and bitterness, and musically, R&B and soul morphs into disco and blah Broadway ballads and belters.

Suddenly everyone's singing dialogue at each other like they're Judy Garland doing the weather report.

Condon is a savvy operator -- he wrote the screenplay for "Chicago" and made "Gods and Monsters" and the underrated "Kinsey" -- but trying to smuggle a full-blown old-time musical through the stage door like this won't wash with everyone. At the downtown public preview screening I attended the front row immediately started sniggering.

It gives one pause: Maybe the movie musical in its traditional form is past revival. "Chicago" got by, but audiences haven't been willing to make the same imaginative leap for film versions of "Rent," "The Producers" or "Phantom of the Opera."

"Dreamgirls" is a much better movie, no doubt about it, dynamically edited and bristling with energy. Hudson sings her heart out, and whenever she and Eddie Murphy are on screen the movie lights up. Both are good bets for Oscar recognition.

However, Beyonce is all too persuasively bland and Foxx is disappointing in a role that could have used more shading. To be fair to them, Condon never allows the very brief dramatic scenes to build. Everything is a cue for the next showstopper -- two dozen of them.

Along the way, the film has salient observations to make on how crossover success comes at the cost of artistic integrity (or in Jimmy Early's case, raunch). But as a slice of potted pop history it feels, well, potted -- not least because it wants those Oscars more than it cares about Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, the homogenization of pop or the fate of the civil rights movement.

In reality, the Supremes' first singer, Florence Ballard, died in poverty in her early 30s. In "Dreamgirls," Effie White is allowed a triumphant comeback -- sweet vindication for Hudson, of course, but also for the hoariest showbiz clichés.

"Dreamgirls" runs 130 minutes


'JUDY GARLAND DOING THE WEATHER REPORT" IS RIGHT.

It is hard to take a musical too seriously. "Anyway..." with a special nod to Ellen DeGeneres, who I think is going to be great... here are my current predictions:


Best motion picture of the year
"Babel"

Achievement in directing
"The Departed" (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Peter O'Toole in "Venus"

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Alan Arkin in "Little Miss Sunshine" (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Helen Mirren in "The Queen" (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Jennifer Hudson in "Dreamgirls"

Best animated feature film of the year
"Cars" (Buena Vista) John Lasseter

Adapted screenplay
"Children of Men" (Universal)

Original screenplay
"Babel" (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Best foreign language film
"Water" Hamilton-Mehta Production, Canada

My bets and desires:

Best Motion Picture of the Year:

Babel Babel

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland Forest Whitaker

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:

Helen Mirren for The Queen (2006) Penélope Cruz for Volver


Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:

Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine Alan Arkin


Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:

Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls Adriana Barraza for Babel

Best Achievement in Directing:

Martin Scorsese for The Departed Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen:

Little Miss Sunshine: Michael Arndt Babel: Guillermo Arriaga


Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published:

Children of Men: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby Children of Men


Best Achievement in Cinematography:

Children of Men: Emmanuel Lubezki Children of Men

Best Achievement in Editing:

Babel: Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione Children of Men: Alfonso Cuarón, Alex Rodríguez

Best Achievement in Art Direction:

Dreamgirls: John Myhre, Nancy Haigh El Laberinto del Fauno: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta


Best Achievement in Costume Design:

Marie Antoinette: Milena Canonero


Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures:

Notes on a Scandal: Philip Glass


Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Nominees:

Cars: John Lasseter

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year:

El Laberinto del Fauno El Laberinto del Fauno

fbaezer, Why do you think "Babel" is the best film? My wife and I saw it this past week, and we both felt disappointed, even though I understood the connections of the story from Morocco to Japan to California.

I think it effectively sends several messages.
The most obvious one, the fact that we all speak some kind of Japanese Sign Language. We truly understand only those who live in a similar culture (or subculture). Many actions in the film seem illogical to many... yet they respond to a certain cultural logic. The conclusion is wise: what we finally have to support us in our nakedness is our family... and some human solidarity, sometimes.
This leads to other thread of thought: how to understand family, and what it means. One leit motiv is the fear to somehow lose our kids. Every family in the film has kids (even the one who's getting married, a kid to his mother), and somehow everyone acts thinking about them.
Then there's the stupidity element. People are not evil, average people are good willing. But the road to hell is paved by good will, if we make wrong choices. We make wrong choices because we are stupid... i.e, we don't understand. Sometimes stupidity seems evil.
I think the four intertwined stories were great, enjoyed best the Mexican and the Japanese one. Most of the acting is terrific. And even then, both Kikuchi and Barraza steal the film, IMHO. The cinematography is very good, the pace is right, and the ending is the most powerful and devastating one I've seen since Kurosawa's "Ran".

I agree that the Mexican story was one of the most powerful of the whole, because, I suppose, it was so "close to home." That's the reality for so many in our society, but especially for the Mexicans - in California and the southern states.

Having been on many organized tours in third world countries, and having lived in Morocco for one year in the late fifties, I could relate to the frustrations of the passengers of that bus while the husband tries to take care of his wife with a gunshot wound in no man's land.

As for that Japanese girl, she has mental illness probably precipitated by the loss of her mother at such a young age and being deaf and dumb. The treatment by her peers, and their environment where drugs and drinking is commonplace doesn't help. That her father happened to be the well to do, generous hunter is believable. His life is his job, and not his daughter.

What else?

My American Renaissance prof raved about Pan's Labyrinth.

Can anyone give a summary or an idea of why it's so wonderful?

I also believe it's wonderful.

stuh started a thread on it:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90608&highlight=

Thank you