Check Mate

And now for something completely random. I haven't played chess for, like, 11 years. How about you? My favorite character are the knight and the rook but playing always stressed me out.


Nevertheless, I would accept if Joe Wright challenged me. I just wouldn't tell him that despite loving his first two movies (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) I couldn't bring myself to see his third (The Soloist). I walked by a movie theater a couple of weeks ago and the poster was still in the window and I became confused. It was still open??? Or is the movie theater slow with the poster turnover?

Have you ever had that experience... the one where you totally love people involved with a movie, but you just can't bring yourself to see it? I can't even imagine putting The Soloist on my rental queue for its DVD release. What gives?

3 Days...

May you be played by three beautiful and talented people should they ever make a movie about you.

BAFTA "Live" Blogging

Once again, "live" blogging because it sounds better than "tape delay blogging". REFRESH your screen throughout the night for more.Yes, I already know who won Best Actress. Shut Up! Why must everyone spread spoilers around the net?

Instant gratification takes too long
-Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale in Postcards From the Edge

I'm convinced that if someone leaked the Oscar winners the day in advance everyone would spread the good and bad news instantly. No one would care about suspense. It's like how the movie trailers give us all the surprises. Nobody likes surprises, except me. I like to open my presents on Christmas morning. Sue me. So this tape-delay blogging is dedicated to all people who hate spoilers. xoxo. You're my people.

7:52 PM The Boyfriend is watching the Grammys. I have no idea why. His type of music (Björk, Vampire Weekend, The Cure) isn't really Grammyish. Grammy is Beyonce hit the floor wit it. He won't mind when I change the channel.

8:00 PM James McAvoy didn't shave. Keep him away from Johnny Depp.

8:03 PM They are Sparta. Wait. Where is Stephen Fry? Isn't he always the host? I can't understand a word the host is saying (there's some strange echo on BBC America). Keira Knightley is in a very good mood. And it almost sounds like they've added a laugh track to the event, given how appreciative this audience is of every inaudible punchline.

8:11 PM I gues I really need to see this This is England movie. I was happy just watching Paddy Considine (great actor) get happy about the win. I don't even know if he's in it.

8:16 PM Commercials should be outlawed during awards shows.

8:18 Eva Green is pretty. Live blogging leads to astounding revelations like that. You would have never known otherwise. You know who else is pretty? Sam Riley (to your right) who just lost this award. He was so good in Control. Shia Labeouf wins the Rising Star awards. I was sad for Tang Wei who has been robbed -- grand larceny -- all season long. Ah well, ten years from now people will still talk about that performance with Awe, Respect

8:24 I always forget that Thandie Newton is British. The Lives of Others wins Best Foreign Language Film.

8:35 Adapted Screenplay goes to The Diving Bell and Butterfly. Harwood thanks Janusz Kaminski for his cinematography. Remember when Kaminski was married to Holly Hunter? Good times.

8:39 There are more commercials than actual program. It's like watching Saturday Night Live. Which I haven't done in many years (largely because of that program/sponsor ratio problem)

8:49 Marion Cotillard was brought out to present Best Supporting Actor which went to Javier Bardem picking up his 100th (or so) of the season. She is wearing a silver version of the gold thing Nicole Kidman wore in Golden Compass only with a shimmering cape over it. It rather reminds me of the WWF costumes that they were designing on Project Runway last week. The nearly losing outfit by Sweet P. There's no reveal if the cape is open. Duh!

I love the way Marion pronounced "pivotal" when she was talking about their roles (pi-voh-tl) --accents are so cute! Javier Bardem has done a really terrific job all season of varying his speeches within the same basic emotional range. He always very genuinely acknowledges his competitors and stays humble about it. How you look that way and stay humble I shall never know. Europeans are so pretty.

8:56 Somebody just won something for Control but I didn't understand what it was for. Samantha Morton is clapping. I am always surprised at how young she really is (30) since she is not a fashion plate and has never presented herself in a "Hollywood" way. Definitely an actress rather than a celebrity. And what an actress! Seriously: I know some of you haven't seen Morvern Callar and you really must (FB nominee, 2002)

9:04 Saoirse's intro on the Atonement clip is hilarious... "She sees them in the library. She sees them doing things she's never seen done before."
______________________________________That's one way to put it.

9:10 The visual effects goes to The Golden Compass. And a whole parade of bad tuxes crosses the stage.


9:26 SORRY. I got swept away into Dior couture with the pale and hypnotic Tilda Swinton. Big Red. I heart her. She won Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton. That's been the most volatile category all season. Her acceptance speech was choice as well, funny heartfelt and the right amount of appreciation and is this for real? awards show kookiness. Plus her date was wearing nail polish. Love. I wish I had transcribed her speech since we won't see an Oscar repeat. It's Ryan vs. Dee vs. Blanchett I think for the Oscar.

9:30 The Coens won Best Director for No Country For Old Men. The clip they showed (the hotel room face/off) is the only scene that's shared --and just barely at that --between any of the leads... in this case Josh Brolin & Javier Bardem. Good choice. So tense. I felt like grabbing the armrest and a handful of popcorn when I'm actually at my computer and blogging with the lights on. For a moment there I was back in the theater.

9:32 Screenplay...

9:35 Nodded off there. So many nominees. Three minutes of nominees. So Juno fever has also hit England, huh? Juno wins Best Original Screenplay.

9:44 Somebody got a tribute award. Somebody who worked on Harry Potter movies. And somebody who loves horses on stage...I mean really loves them... gave him the prize. I don't really get the appeal of Mr. Radcliffe. I'll just say it.

9:50 They're talking about No Country For Old Men. The amount of time they spend discussing the Best Picture nominees reminds me of that one (and one only) AFI ceremony when they had nominees and they did little tiny documentaries on each. It really felt like it was about filmmaking. Though that said, I'm a little bored. Probably because BBC America does the tape delay and therefore nobody cares tonight since they already know who wins. This is probably why none of the usual commenting chaos is going on. Where is everyone? Now is not the time to desert the Film Experience! Not when the Film Experience needs you to make it through this long long season. Not when the Film Experience needs you to help him through the annual process of watching his favorites lose.

9:54 Very nice acceptance speech from a clearly moved Marion Cotillard who just* won Best Actress for La Vie En Rose. *"just" being many many hours ago. Ah, the magic of "live" television. Congratulations Marion. She looks a little like Emily Blunt here, doesn't she?

While they were showing the clips and Cate was hollering away in Elizabeth 2: Full Throttle all I could think was: This is EXACTLY like that clip of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War. I think they even swing their arms the same way. I guess that's why I don't like either performance. Showboating = stinky. To me. The only shouty performance I love this year is Daniel Day-Lewis's because there is a reason "I've abandoned my child" goes to a fever pitch. A good strong valid reason. I can't figure out why Hoffman is always at fever pitch. Tone it down buddy.

10:05 Daniel Day-Lewis's acceptance speech is great. Best Actor for DDL in There Will Be Blood. He always seems so genuine.

From the mine shaft to the bowling alley this came from and belongs to Paul Thomas Anderson

Lovely, right?

10:10 FASHIONS. I totally forgot.

I'm more intrigued by the hair since it's hard to see the fashions unless they're presenters. Samantha Morton's hair line (pictured, left) is so far up there you'd think she just finished filming the Elizabeth movie. But her boyfriend (?) is also working the straight up look. Only his is more Lindsay Buckingham circa 1988. Boy is that hair flying up to heaven.

(I've added a bit about Marion's cape above when she announces supporting actor)

Otherwise best dressed might be Emily Blunt. She had a nice assymetrical shimmery blue number that's probably the evening's best so far. But as she stood there presenting I kept thinking: are these Norma Shearer's cross eyes I see before me? I love the Blunt but I'd never noticed that before. peeperssoclosetogether

10:11 You know how we're always hearing "so and so is Big in Japan"? And it's always like, "really?" And Jeff Goldblum is now onstage presenting Best Picture and the camera has been showing him as often as Keira Knightley. Is he unusually Big in England and I just don't know it. Atonement wins Best Picture. Joe Wright accepting to your left. I always forget who his girlfriend is and I had left myself to believe it was Romola Garai but it's the other three syllable "Ro". Rosamund somebody, Keira's other film sister in the other Joe Wright movie (Pride & Prejudice)

10:18 Anthony Hopkins is getting some tribute action now. But I'm still thinking about Atonement's win.

I've always loved James McAvoy but Atonement made me love Keira Knightley and her super-speed clipped 30s cadences so much more than I ever had before. I almost want to pin her up against the books myself. Provided she wears the green dress. Otherwise, no deal. But yes... I'm excited for the next few years of Robbie & Cecilia ...albeit in separate movies.

10:29 It's starting all over again. What is this, SAG on TBS?

Good night!
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You're Invited ~ Day Two of the Symposium

You are cordially invited to read and comment on day two of the Oscar Symposium


We can't be held responsible for how you react to the Juno and Atonement wars therein. Also bear witness to the vice grip of Daniel Plainview (who keeps trying to get back in the mix), odd tangents on girlpower, and the strange continued absence of No Country For Old Men from the meat of the conversation.

start with day one if you're just joining us.
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Random Troubling Fashion Thought of the Night

if Hollywood & the WGA work it out
__if actors do show up to the Oscars and
______if Keira Knightley attends

...what on god's green earth will she wear? Fashion usually isn't a problem for that one but how can she possibly top Cecilia's emerald dress? And don't we kind of expect her to?

Tues Top Ten: Oscar Nomination Talking Points

There will be thousands of threads to Oscar nomination conversations everywhere but here are ten things that stood out for me...

10 Penguins are unstoppable with Oscar.
First March of the Penguins and then Happy Feet... and now Surf's Up ???? beating the often brilliant The Simpson's Movie for an Animated Feature nomination? Whatever AMPAS. I know you're supposed to wear tuxes to the ceremony but you shouldn't win automatic points for wearing them year 'round. ba-dum-dum (I'm here all week)

09 Marit Allen received a posthumous nomination.
This hardworking costume designer was most famous for her work with Ang Lee (including Brokeback Mountain --those shirts, one inside the other -gah!, Ride With the Devil, Hulk) and on stylized fantasy projects like The Witches and Little Shop of Horrors. She was finally honored with a nomination (for recreating Edith Piaf among others in La Vie En Rose). I had been rooting for this to happen but I didn't expect that she wouldn't be alive to celebrate it. So sad. Here's my tribute page from 2005 (not yet updated)

08 The Academy unfortunately reinforced studio paranoia about release dates.
Michael Clayton was the earliest Best Picture nominee to open and that came as late as October 5th. Zodiac, the third biggest critical champ of the year from a director (David Fincher) who is more than ready for his Oscar moment, received not one nomination after opening in March. Once and Into the Wild, also deeply loved by their constituencies and in the top ten of critical champs, opened in the summer and early fall respectively and neither did well. Expect next year's December glut to get even worse. sigh... moviegoers who go to the cinema year round (like us) are just not rewarded properly for doing so.

07 Best Actress remains the safest big six category for early releases.
We knew Cotillard and Christie were getting nominated way back in the summer and Angelina Jolie, also a summertime girl, was undoubtedly in the just-missed sixth spot. Since movie studios refuse to release the prestige films all year round at least movie lovers can console themselves with the great ladies of the cinema in months that aren't named December. And, as previously discussed, whoever wins Best Actress will make history in one way or another.


06 Naked fight club.
While many attribute Viggo Mortensen's successful Oscar bid for Eastern Promises to that very nude and very violent bathhouse scene, it isn't actually common for male nudity to be rewarded by the Academy. Alan Bates famously tussled in the nude in Women in Love (1969) but only received a BAFTA nomination. Oscar passed him by. Richard Gere and Ewan MacGregor, two famous actors who haven't been shy about disrobing have never been nominated, whether clothed or un... even when they appeared in Oscar-beloved pictures. This film year, dubbed by at least one snarky writer as "the year of the wang", didn't arouse Oscar either. Frank Langella (Starting out in the Evening) and Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) couldn't convert their buzz into a nomination now could they? Methinks Viggo, who turned down Academy membership quite recently, can thank his own actory skill (considerable), the accent (Oscar Bait) and, most importantly, the media friendly double dipping with director David Cronenberg (perhaps the Academy feel guilty about their treatment of A History of Violence?) for the nomination. Director/actor pairings are inherently cool, are they not?

05 Will Enchanted's Amy Adams be singing at the Oscar ceremony?
With her two big numbers both making the original song cut it's a possibility. Though it seems too good to be true. Especially considering the ongoing writers strike and screen actors guild support of the same. Will anyone show up to the Oscars?

04 Atonement survives the guild cold shoulder.
What does it mean exactly? I'm tempted to say that the "pre-ordained" nominee always survives (think Steven Spielberg's Munich, too, which had a rocky pre-nomination showing) no matter how rough the pre-season is... or Letters From Iwo Jima subbing for the non-starter Flags of Our Fathers. But then, Dreamgirls didn't, so... Maybe a high Golden Globe profile still retains more Oscar-influencing power than people want to admit. At least if it's in the dramatic race. You can probably blame them (partially) for Cate Blanchett's revival in the lead category. Speaking of...

03 Cate Blanchett is now plotting to unseat Kate Winslet as Oscar's favorite actress whose name is not Meryl Streep. The glorious Ms. Winslet has amassed the most nominations (5) at the youngest age of any actress ever. But Cate Blanchett, who is only six years her senior, has now tied her for nominations. To give you a bit of perspective about how big an accomplishment this is on both of their parts, consider that in the 80 year history of the Oscars, only 16 women have more nominations for acting. Kate and Cate, both in only their second decade of screen acting and likely to be acting until they're taking Judi Dench style roles and beyond, are already in the top 25 of all time. If Cate keeps up her cast-in-everything default-nominee pace she may eventually knock Kate out of the record books in this particular way (Winslet doesn't work as much). A further annoying note: I haven't yet done the research but I believe The Golden Age is now the worst reviewed movie in decades to receive a lead acting nomination.

02 40%ish of the nominated screenplays are written by women.
Tamara Jenkins (The Savages), Sarah Polley (Away From Her) -yes!, Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl) and Diablo Cody (Juno) are all in the mix. Bonus points: All of them are first time nominees and one of them will clearly win... though 'honest to blog' [gag] isn't a win really overdoing it for the very clever but overwritten Juno?

01 All the directors are first time nominees.
Well, sort of. Previously the Coen Bros were viewed by the Academy or guild rules or whatnot as a director/writer pair and not just "The Coen Bros" so essentially you have six directors nominated, five of whom are officially first timers. Hey, it's a stretch yes but isn't that what statistics are for: bending them to serve some talking point purpose? Ta-da! I'm a talking head.

previous top tens
film experience greatest hits of 2007
ways to make the oscars entertaining w/out film clips
black actresses who deserve bigger careers

Final Oscar Nomination Predictions

Oh, Keira...

"oh please let this envelope contain my name!"

Sweet glamour puss in your emerald dress. It probably won't happen for you or Atonement this year. But who knows? There's only five names for each category and there's been seven names refusing to fall out of the race in almost every category. It's been a fascinating and rewarding film year but a confounding one for Oscar Predictions. Which is pretty fun if you stop to really consider the point of predicting. If it's too easy, why bother? Just wait for the news.

Usually by this time there is often a clear shortlist in each category with maybe one person or film here or there threatening to "spoil" suddenly ... like say supporting actor this year. That's typically "settled" with one or two upsets-in-waiting if the voters are feeling frisky. But this year: Best Picture itself has but one lock. Crazy. Anything could fall out.

I blame this rather upset-possible lineup on distribution patterns (as I am prone to do) and on the weird fact that it was NOT a year that cried wolf. The December films turned out to be strong. Yet they all got off to such a late start that it's been very difficult to separate manufactured hype from honest to god great buzz.

Read the rest...
for final thoughts and predictions and projected nomination tallies

Atonement and EW's Oscar Predictions

Prestige epic Atonement (my review and on my top ten list) just got much easier to see. It added hundreds of screens today just as its Oscar buzz began to dwindle. There's definitely evidence of a backlash brewing (already boiling?) but hopefully you'll see it and decide for yourself. Whether the sudden "so what?" greeting it is another example of a typical long buzz/late release combo problem (Memoirs of a Geisha, Dreamgirls, also suffered that way, though Atonement is a better film than either of those recent glitzy December stumblers) or something else (a challenging film dismissed due to its distinctly romantic bent) is for each person to decide for themselves. One wonders exactly why some movies wait so long to come out. Timing... 'tis a tricky thing.

It's just one man's opinion (mine, duh) but I think the December release, while favored by virtually all studios for Oscar campaigns, only works in the way they intend it to when the film is not considered a front runner and is more of a surprise movie --we didn't hear much about Million Dollar Baby before it was released and There Will Be Blood, which has a lot of heat right now, was never an "Oscar Front runner" though it was heavily anticipated in cinephile circles.

Anyway, Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue Entertainment Weekly chose Keira & James to sell their famous Oscar issue (pictured left). Yum. and Ummmm, unless they know something we don't... those Atonement Oscar bids are looking really unlikely now. FWIW, I think both Keira and James are super in the movie. It's just that both leading categories are overflowing with strong candidates this year.

On a personal note: I'm shocked but also delighted to see that a publication as big as Entertainment Weekly went for the same 'big surprise' Actress prediction as I did in my predictions. Cross your fingers if you also enjoy the work of Laura Linney. She needs all the psychic goodwill she can muster, given the way the precursors have treated her.

WGA: Not Striking From Honoring Their Own

You've probably already seen them but here ya go. The Writers Guild of America nominations:

Original Screenplay
Juno , Knocked Up , Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton , The Savages

Three films that have had a degree of awards season traction but were still snubbed: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, American Gangster and Ratatouille (this last one so deserved to be here) --we'll see if any of them can rally and knock one of these out with Oscar's different set of writers branch voters.

Adapted Screenplay
The Diving Bell and Butterfly , Into the Wild , No Country For...
There Will Be Blood , Zodiac

I'm thrilled to see Zodiac show up and I hope that we see a repeat with Oscar since the film has been unfairly ignored (save for the OFCS Nominations) during awards season. This list is not that far off from the Oscar Predictions I posted yesterday. This list is, though, another stumbling block for Atonement. Seems the Best Picture shorlisting dream was all in little Briony's overactive imagination ...and ours.

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Laura Linkey

Must See
Deadline Hollywood "Speechless #11" with Laura Linney. Another video in support of the writers strike. This is laugh out loud funny. Question: Is The Lovely Laura Linney™ trying to transform us all into subservient loveslaves for 2007...I ask cuz it's totally working. I already sent this to Nick who replied "Is she not totally better in this clip than, like, all of the Best Actress nominees from '05?" to which I must reply in the affirmative. Hilarious.

More Linnkey
In the Company of Glenn grapples with that mysterious hotel room sequence in No Country for Old Men [there be spoilers]
the Moviegoer Roger Deakins on "the boys" (i.e. the Coen Bros)
Boy Culture investigates the NY Times "Movies Rock" segment and predicts an Oscar nom for Travolta in Hairspray
Derfwad Manor confesses to having secret boyfriends ... and she's got (mostly) good taste. But props for managing to give it up for The Bening along the way

music break
current this isn't really current but it's so sci-fi I was mesmerized. "Björk has one", it figures
Arjan Writes about Pink's "Dear Mr. President" -Pink is so underappreciated

one last thing
Are you as sick as I am of waiting around for Atonement to open? Release that damn thing already -- Give me Joe guiding Keira & James... now.

Naked Gold Man: The Supporting Actress Stock Shortage

He's 13 1/2 inches tall. He wears only a sword. He's shiny. Everybody wants him. He's the Naked Gold Man and this is a new weekly Sunday series --my attempt to keep Oscar discussion corraled in the weekends until we're truly in the season.

Previously: The Michael Clayton Fix

A truth as I see it: There is never a shortage of quality “for your consideration” candidates for any acting category at the Oscars. The truth as other people see it: There is often a shortage of viable contenders in one acting category or another at the Oscars and that shortage usually occurs in the actress categories (This year, the age old “empty!” gripe is aimed at the Supporting Actress category).

These truths may seem contradictory but they’re not. The variable that causes the disconnect is this: Though there is never a shortage of quality work there is sometimes a shortage of stock roles that are typically deemed worthy of attention. When this disconnecting factor occurs people say a category is empty. But the category is never empty. You just have to look beyond the usual suspects; Actors do award worthy work in non-traditional roles and less “baity” genres frequently.

To cite three quick examples: Daryl Hannah slam dunked her boo!hiss! Elle Driver role in the Kill Bill movies, many film buffs think that Drew Barrymore was astonishing in Scream (any less of a performance and would people really still be talking about her scene more than a decade later?) and everyone in the known universe loves the depths and weird wonder of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns. But the cold hard truth is that actors don’t win awards (and are rarely nominated) for nontraditional triumphs.

I recently chatted with Supporting Actress expert and archivist Stinky Lulu (who hosts monthly “smackdown” retrospectives of his favorite Oscar category –this month: 1940) and asked him to help me identify the five most commonly Oscarable “types” within this particular category. We came up with the following “perfect” (i.e. most traditional) Supporting Actress Shortlist. It would consist of these five character blueprints in descending order of nominated frequency:

Read the rest ...for Oscar's 5 favorite supporting actress "types" and thoughts on the women of Atonement and other golden hopefuls
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Impatience

I would like to see these movies right now. Please and thanks.


I do not wish to wait until October 2nd, October 6th and December 7th respectively.

Notes from Venice - Day 1

Boyd from European Films reports on the ongoing Venice Film Festival

Mood: expectant
Weather: sultry
Films seen: Gruz 200, Se jie (Lust Caution)
Gripe of the day: jellyfish
People currently on the same square mile of earth as I am: Keira Knightley (right, portrayed by Fabrizio Maltese), James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave, Rupert Everett, Zhang Yimou, Catherine Breillat, Gregg Araki, Paul Verhoeven

The fireworks that marked the end of the Venice Film Festival opening gala and the beginning of the Atonement party on the exclusive Excelsior beach (yes, the beach where Gustav ogled Tadzio) have only just finished to pierce the eardrums of the poor inhabitants of the Venetian Lido, so it is time to check in with a first report on the 2007 edition of the oldest festival in the world.

A calm day today as the festival tries to put everything that is needed for a smooth festival run properly into place: wireless connections that are not yet working, printers that are not yet connected, passes that have gone missing, bikes that get stolen, jellyfish that sting bathers who have temporarily given up on having internet access... well you get the idea.

Opening film Atonement was generally well received, though the Italians I spoke to seemed to think it was too long and too classical in its approach. The international press seemed more taken in by exactly this sort of old-fashioned grandeur, and I tend to agree with them (I saw the film a couple of weeks ago, here's my review of Atonement).

Also on the menu today was the Competition Se jie (Lust, Caution) from Ang Lee, the director who brought us Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain. At a whopping 156 minutes, the film is something of an endurance test on the behind, and the explicit nature of the film's sex scenes will be hotly debated and might turn some people off (the keyword is "some" not "off" -- you perverts). Though completely functional and artistically viable, the lust part of Lust, Caution would be considered too explicit for a mainstream Hollywood film, let alone for a film from China!

As I have mentioned before, the trailer and the poster left me rather cold. As I suspected, they cannot do the complexity of the film justice or show some of the film's best scenes (notably the various demonstrations of positions from the Kama Sutra).

Also because of its running time (that amongst other things allows for a too leisurely and unfocused start), the film is not a full-fledged masterpiece, but one has to admire Lee for taking the no-holds-barred approach for this spy story set in 1940s Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Its two protagonists, veteran Tony Leung and newcomer Wei Tang, are both exceptional, and technical credits are extremely polished, from the period costumes and production design to the cinematography (by Brokeback's Rodrigo Prieto) and Alexandre Desplat's lush score. The characters are unforgettable, but as a whole the film feels just a bit too indulgent on the lust part of the equation. Read my full review of Se jie (Lust, Caution).

Notes from Venice - Day 0

Thanks to Nathaniel for his graceful intro!

For those unfamiliar with me and my site european-films.net: nice to virtually meet you all. I'm Boyd, a kid with a movie tic trapped in a 27-year-old's body. I've been writing about film since Salma Hayek was robbed of an Oscar. Over at european-films.net I cover European films (duh!) and also cover all the major films (European and otherwise) that play at the major European film festivals, which means I travel in circles from Berlin to Cannes to Venice to Berlin each year. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it!

Venice is actually my favorite festival because of its special place on the calender (the first true Oscar launchpad), the nice climate, great food and (not unimportant) their great taste in movies. I mean, they gave Brokeback Mountain the Golden Lion just two years ago. And check out their track record: Monsoon Wedding, Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Belle de Jour, Last Year at Marienbad, Aparajito, Rashomon... these are all considered classics.

The Venice Film Festival will in fact celebrate its 75th anniversary this year -- take that Cannes, which celebrated its 60th b-day in May -- but its 2007 edition is only the 64th time the festival takes place. The festival is part of a much larger cultural organization called the Biennale, which, as the name indicates, organizes (or at least used to organize) cultural events every other year.

So, the 64th/75th anniversary edition will kick off on Wednesday with the world premiere of Atonement, Joe Wright's follow-up to his much lauded debut Pride & Prejudice. I've already had a sneak peek a couple of weeks ago and I can tell you that the movie, an adaptation of the eponymous bestseller by Ian McEwan, will likely be a big awards contender. It is not a flawless masterpiece, but as romances go, it is pretty heartbreaking and unforgettable.

The couple played by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy will have entire multiplexes fumbling for the Kleenexes in the dark and will leave Oscar-voters little choice but nominate them again (Knightley) or for the first time (McAvoy, who was shamelessly overlooked for his work on The Last King of Scotland). Read my full Atonement review here.

Something possibly even more fun than guessing Oscar nominees and winners is guessing the gay characters and/or elements in the recently announced line-up of the Queer Lion Award, a new prize at the Venice Film Festival that will award a film that "accurately portrays homosexual characters or themes". Who is playing gay? Most of the films listed are not particularly explicit about the gay angle in the material released so far. Could it be Brad Pitt? Casey Affleck? Owen Wilson? Adrien Brody? Michael Caine? Jude Law? Or perhaps a lovely foreign-accented man such as Bruno Todeschini, Benoît Magimel, Sami Bouajila or Daniel Wu?

US films on the Queer Lion contenders list are four: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Pitt and Affleck; Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited with Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman and the indie flicks Speed of Life (Superheroes) from Ed Radtke, a juvenile delinquent drama, and the road trip movie Searchers 2.0 from Alex Cox. Law and Caine co-star in the Kenneth Branagh's UK remake of 1972's Sleuth, which also starred Caine.

Start your guesses/wish lists for possible gay characters in the comments, and I'll be checking in from Wednesday on to tell you all about it.

Atonement Teaser

It's absolutely silly to prejudge movies before seeing them... but I'm silly. Here is the teaser for Atonement (which you'll recall is all over my early bird Oscar predictions)


This first look gives me hope that those predix weren't totally foolish. It looks terrific at least: costumes, cinematography, a sweeping epic feel and a hint of serious performances --lots of shots of James McAvoy and Keira Knightley both looking grave and potentially wonderful. What say ye?

Picture & Director: Early Oscar Predictions

I've lost me mind trying to do these April Fools Too Early Oscar Predictions. It's like an OCD ritual. It makes me frakkin' crazy. All the second guessing, the multiple options, the domino effect of one prediction begetting another. Nevertheless if you are silly enough (like myself) to attempt to see the unforseeable it can be fun to tell yourself stories about what might happen in a cinematic year.

Here are my detailed thoughts on Best Picture and a not so detailed look at Best Director (an entire lineup of newbies ---what am I thinking?). I've made two minor tech predix adjustment (in sound and editing) as I rethink some of this but as soon as the actors and actresses go up it can all be considered final first predictions.

Bragging and Self Flagellation
I have one of the very best track records on the net for predictions this early. (27% success rate last year before we knew anything) Though that sounds like bragging I must also remind you that I fall down in the prognosticating ranks as we get closer to the final nomination predictions in January. I'm not sure how I let the other pundits overtake me. Maybe I'm too caught up in possible upsets? too emotionally attached to the movies by then? I'm not sure. But this far out I do enviably well. (27% probably doesn't sound enviable but just try it one year. Write them up and shove them in a drawer. Pull them back out in January. You'll be shocked.)

Actors and Actresses will be up tonight and then we can leave Oscar predix behind and get back to non-statue like topics for the spring and summer

Keira. She Wears It Well?

What is Keira Knightley's secret...deft career choices? lucky breaks? Is it the come hither jutting skeleton? Whatever it is Keira Knightley is the new Zell...well, if she's not quite the star of red carpet glamour yet, she's certainly becoming a go-to fashion plate onscreen. Theoretically this year's Costume Design Oscar race could be all about dressing Keira up. She's in three costume extravaganzas including box office behemoth Pirates of the Caribbean: At Trilogy's End, literary adaptation Atonement (wherein she's reunited with both director and costumer from Pride & Prejudice) and Silk (pictured) wherein she's costumed by none other than Akira Kurosawa's daughter. I'm not making this up.

My predictions for Oscar's Costume Design competition

Spot on or way off? What do you think of the guesswork?