Well, last year I predicted a tie, but that didn’t happen. Right? Honestly, I don’t remember much about last year’s Superbowl. I don’t think there were even any good commercials. Really, they should just keep replaying that one where that MacBook Air comes out of that envelope. Out of an envelope! You could just type a memo on your MacBook, put the MacBook an interoffice envelope, and mail that shit around the office. People could write stuff responding to the memo on the MacBook and put it back in the envelope. That’s totally how I would use that almost-$2,000 computer.

Anyway, it’s time to determine the winner of this year’s Superbowl by figuring out who would win in a fight between the teams’ namesakes, in this case, what would happen if a bunch of giants battled a bunch of patriots?

THE PASSING GAME…AND KICKING AND RUNNING

Let’s face it. Giants are fucking huge. If they just drop the ball it’ll travel further forward than a pass by a patriot. Same goes for running, kicking and just about any method of moving the ball from one point to another. I mean did you see Cloverfield? That thing could pretty much get down a city block in one stride, and that was with some seriously fucked up elbows. Can you just imagine if you gave that thing a football? And it didn’t, you know, try to eat it?

Patriots can throw, run and kick as well as any normal-sized human. But that just isn’t good enough, now is it?

ADVANTAGE: GIANTS

PATRIOTISM

Giants may be all big and shit, but do they care about America? Where do they come from, anyway? Are they even legal? We should build a wall between us and Giantville, except that they would probably walk right over it. To them it would be like a slight, brief elevation in the ground. Yeah, we should probably nip that project in bud right now. I don’t what I was thinking.

Patriots, on the other hand, have unquestionable patriotism. It’s right there in the name. They have their own Act! You don’t get a name like Patriots by resisting warrantless wiretapping, not like some unusuallly large people I might mention who for some reason want to keep their gigantic e-mails private. Commies.

ADVANTAGE: USA! USA! USA! (and by that I mean PATRIOTS)

PERFECTION

As we all know, the real life Patriots have a perfect record this season, but you know what? So do the patriots who love this country. They have never failed to act in a way that they believed would make this a better place to live. Whether it was fighting for or against slavery, women’s rights, communism, prohibition, other countries, immigrants, road rage, erectile dysfunction, hillbillies, vampires or the original tenants, patriots always did what they called the patriotic thing.

Giants have been defeated by farmboys gullible enough to buy “magic” beans.

ADVANTAGE: PATRIOTS

STAR POWER

As Vince Lombardi once said, “The number of movies named after you is a critical factor in winning championships.”* Sadly, the Patriots really only have The Patriot to work with here. The Giants, on the other hand, have Giant, My Giant, Iron Giant, James and the Giant Peach, Attack of the Giant Leeches and, of course, Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla (actual alternate title).

The most relevant film, though, to this debate is 1994’s Little Giants, in which Ed O’Neil and Rick Moranis face off via their respective pee wee football teams. I only bring it up to point out that it looks just awful. Like, worse than Dutch.

ADVANTAGE: GIANTS

*=citation needed.

WRITING ABILITY

In these troubled times, the ability to write for oneself has never been more vital. Patriots have a rich history of fluent prose: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” and such. (Yes, I know you can’t have a MORE PERFECT union, Grammar T. Nerdsworth! Thanks for pointing it out!). All a giant ever wrote was “fee fi fo fum.” What the fuck is that?

ADVANTAGE: PATRIOTS

ENDORSEMENTS

I’ll grant you, the Jolly Green Giant is an icon, but patriotism (and, by extension, patriots) has been used to sell just about every product ever made. Especially flags.

ADVANTAGE: PATRIOTS

So, it seems that in spite of diminutive size, patriots could conceivably win in a fight against giants. Especially if you factor in things that have absolutely nothing to do with fighting or playing football.

MY PREDICTION: PATRIOTS WILL WIN THE GAME, BEFORE BEING EATEN WHOLE BY THE GIANTS, WHO WILL STILL BE HUNGRY BECAUSE, LET’S FACE IT, HUMANS ARE LIKE CHEETOS COMPARED TO WHAT A GIANT WOULD NEED TO EAT TO BE FULL, WHICH WOULD PROBABLY BE LIKE A COUPLE OF WHALES, AT LEAST, WHICH WOULD PROBABLY BE VERY FATTY AND NOT GOOD FOR THE GIANTS’ CHOLESTEROL.

…or are these strike videos just getting funnier?

This one’s particularly timely for me since it features Josh Radnor and Dr. Wife and I just knocked out season one of How I Met Your Mother last weekend. Yes, season two is already on the way.

For some reason, filmmakers really knew how to make movies about war and crime this year. That having been said, by number one pick has neither.

10. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

“Easiest money we’ll ever get.”

For those of you that thought A Stranger Among Us, Guilty as Sin and Gloria marked the end of the great Sidney Lumet, rest assured he still has plenty of piss, vinegar and depictions of ruthlessly desperate people left in him. And he’s still able to illicit career-best performances from the likes of Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman (who deserves some sort of special award for the year he’s had). Plus, plenty of naked Marisa Tomei, but that totally didn’t influence my opinion. And credit screenwriter Kelly Masterson with drawing characters that are at once despicable, pitiable and, most importantly, enthralling.

9. Gone Baby Gone

“Kids forgive. They don’t judge. They turn the other cheek, and what do they get for it?”

Who’d-a thunk Affleck had it in him? Well, if we paid attention to his Academy Award-winning co-writer credit on Good Will Hunting, we’d at least remember he knew how to tell a story. But to direct a Dennis Lehane adaptation (which he co-wrote with Aaron Stockard) into a film of equal or greater (there, I said it) moral complexity than Master Eastwood’s crack at Lehane is another matter entirely. How many other movies leave you with a question so troubling that you honestly can’t answer it? (Besides Gigli?) And let’s not forget a cast that combines sure-fire stalwarts like Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman with up-and-comers like Michelle Monaghan, Amy Ryan (likely on her way to a Best Supporting Actress win) and Casey Affleck, who proves his ability to carry a film many times over.

8. Grindhouse

“You guys fucked with the wrong Mexican!“

Technically, if you nailed me down to which of the two films that make up Robert Rodgriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece of schlock I prefer and promote to this list, it would be the latter’s Death Proof, which goes beyond paying tribute to the genre and stands on its own as one of the director’s best. But Grindhouse is a complete experience. Three hours in the dark with grueling, nasty fun and faux trailers that put today’s real trailers to shame. And it’s not like Rodriguez’s Planet Terror entry is any slouch. It’s actually more of a pure grindhouse film than Tarantino’s. That having been said, watch Kurt Russell in Death Proof give one of the best performances of his career without anyone seeming to notice.

7. Zodiac

“Do you know more people die in the East Bay commute every three months than that idiot ever killed? He offed a few citizens, wrote a few letters, then faded into footnote… Not that I haven’t been sitting here idly, waiting for you to drop by and reinvigorate my sense of purpose.”

Many directors turned to the 70’s for inspiration this year, but none did it with the artistry of David Fincher in his account of the investigation into the eponymous serial killings. Fincher’s aesthetic evokes a personal tone (indeed, he grew up in the Bay Area under the shadow of the murders) and that may be why the film’s relatively tame violence packs as much of a punch as the more graphic horror of his other serial killer flick. More affecting still are the lives of the men who become obsessed with the case, most notably Paul Avery, portrayed with typical brilliance by Robert Downey, Jr. It doesn’t hurt that this film is nothing short of character actor heaven, with Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Chloe Sevigny, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, Zach Grenier, Adam Goldberg and James LeGros all turning in Hey, It’s That Guy! performances that somehow don’t distract.

6. American Gangster

“Judges, lawyers, cops, politicians. They stop bringing dope into this country, about a hundred thousand people are gonna be out of a job.”

Though set firmly in the 70’s, Ridley Scott’s epic has the timeless quality common to all great crime sagas. What drives this particular rise-and-fall tale, however, is the contrast between dedicated family man/criminal entrepreneur Frank Lucas and dedicated cop/inveterate womanizer Richie Roberts (Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, each knocking their respective roles out of the park). It is a photo negative of The Untouchables, where Ness’ focus on the family (I swear if they say “It’s nice to be married.” one more time in that film…) is the counterpoint to Capone’s solitary existence among a faceless entourage. Also like all great crime sagas, it has a lot more on its mind than crime, touching on issues of race, economics and what exactly makes a “good” man, much of which coalesces in the film’s showstopping verbal mano a mano.

5. 300

“It is not a question of what a Spartan citizen should do, nor a husband, nor a king. Instead, ask yourself, my dearest love, what would a free man do?”

It would be enough for this film to revolutionize filmmaking by delivering on the promise of techniques introduced way back when when Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow hit screens, but Zak Snyder’s war saga delivers tight, brutal storytelling that would work with any technology. Grandiose without faltering into self-parody (or is that just Frank Miller in general?), the film creates that rarity in the action universe, a unique, memorable experience. In context, it’s also surprisingly de-politicized. If you really try you can eke out a “support our troops” subtext, but the strokes here are so broad that about the deepest I think you can dig with any veracity is “Spartans sure could fuck your shit up two times before you hit the ground.”

4. There Will Be Blood

“I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”

From the film that is all about war, but not at all about the current war, to a film that has nothing to do with war, but is particularly about the current war. Suffice it to say Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest masterpiece is swims in two things, oil and religion. Equal parts character study and political allegory, the film piles baptismal imagery on top of another whirlwind performance from Daniel Day-Lewis to produce a dark fable about what happens when an “oil man” who raises misanthropy to an art form comes to town. The scary thing about this is that Anderson, already an accomplished filmmaker, is getting better. And keep your eye on Paul Dano, who between this and Little Miss Sunshine is eclipsing most of his peers.

3. No End in Sight

“When we were first starting the reconstruction, there were 500 ways to do it wrong and two or three ways to do it right. What we didn’t understand is that we were gonna go through all 500.”

While a slew of films attempted to address Iraq from a fictional perspective this year, none had the efficacy of docs on the same topic, which have been rolling out for the past few years. Of all those docs, however, it’s hard to find a more cogent overview than Charles Ferguson’s profile of the first infrastructure-oriented boots on the ground and how they were basically undermined from the very beginning and how that got us where we are today.

Not questioning for a moment whether or not it was a good idea to go in in the first place, No End in Sight instead concerns itself with the dream that was a democratic Iraq and paints a pretty convincing picture that at first, at least, it was achievable. At least that’s the impression you get from the insiders tasked with that mission who very honestly depict the clusterfuck that awaited them.

The most telling stat the film highlights is that the post-WWII occupation of Germany was literally years in the planning. The Iraq occupation, maybe 60 days. And strange as it may sound, after watching the film, the surge actually begins to make sense. Scary, unfortunate, eponymous sense.

More here.

2. Charlie Wilson’s War

“My loyality? For twenty four years people have been trying to kill me! People who know how. And do you think thats because I’m the son of a Greek soda pop maker, or because I’m an American spy. Go fuck youself, you fucking child!”

After the implosion of Studio 60, it seemed we’d lost Aaron Sorkin to a self-righteous, shrill parody of his former self. Maybe it was the distance of adapting someone else’s work, but his first post-60 script (and his first screenplay in 12 years) evidences a return to form.

The same sharp dialog that sets Sorkin apart to the point where you have to ask if a particular actor can speak Sorkin the same way you ask if they can speak Mamet, is firing on all cylinders here, placed in the mouths of some fine performers. Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman in particular form one of the year’s best duos (right up there with Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly in Waitress or Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Talk to Me).

The film also manages to accomplish in the last five minutes what most of this year’s war-themed movies couldn’t manage in two hours. In that short space, the flick makes its point (something like, “If you don’t invest in infrastructure after arming a bunch of people, many of whom would like to kill you, it’ll probably come back to bite you in the ass.”) without much fanfare, and still has more to say than 90 percent of its kith. A lot of that is due to the respect it shows for its audience by letting them do the math.

1. Once

“During the daytime people would want to hear songs that they know, just songs that they recognize. I play these song at night or I wouldn’t make any money. People wouldn’t listen.”

I have never really seen a movie like Once. You could compare it to Lost in Translation, but that would neglect the music. You could compare it to Before Sunrise, but that would neglect the scope. You could compare it to a series of music videos (really, really good music videos), but that would neglect the characters.

That last description, though, would probably be the most accurate. Writer/director John Carney presents us with two characters (played with effortless naturalism by Markéta Irglová and The Frames’ Glen Hansard) who fall into what can be best described as real-life music videos. Just watching their relationship develop is charming enough, but the music. Oh, the music. Suffice it to say if I could have downloaded the soundtrack in the theater during the film, I would have.

(Also, as a songwriter, I can tell you this film has some of the most realistic depictions of songwriting I’ve ever seen.)

There is little more to say about the film because so much of it is in the viewing (and hearing). This is the kind of film that makes me use hackneyed terms like “magical” sincerely. It’s an experience. An honest, unironic experience. No war. No crime. Just solid, unique filmmaking.

It was kind of a lose/lose proposition. I don’t know that I would have been happy to see Rambo beat Spartans, but I can’t say I’m thrilled that it went the other way.

2/1

Wide

THE EYE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Jessica Alba’s eye transplant lets her see some freaky shit.

WILL IT SUCK?
Remember last month when I said that there haven’t been any good J-Horror remakes since The Ring? Nothing has changed. (Although, technically, this is an HK-Horror remake.)

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
A little bit of competition from the second frame of Untraceable, but Alba will put a little more spice into an otherwise tepid horror market. $35mil.

STRANGE WILDERNESS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Nature show looks for bigfoot.

WILL IT SUCK?
From the writers behind Say It Isn’t So, Black Knight, Dirty Work, Without a Paddle, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star…do I need to keep going? Because I can.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Spartans‘ success indicates a hungrier-than-expected audience for dumbass comedy. $41mil.

OVER HER DEAD BODY

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Funny Ghost Well, funnier.

WILL IT SUCK?
From the guy who wrote John Tucker Must Die. He directs, too!

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
No offense to Eva Longoria Parker or Paul Rudd (much love), but romcom Fool’s Gold comes out next week with, you know, names. $22mil.

HANNAH MONTANA/MILEY CYRUS: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS CONCERT TOUR

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
U2-3D with a much more popular performer.

WILL IT SUCK?
It’s from the director of Ultimate X: The Movie. The MOVIE!!

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
A lot of people couldn’t get tickets to this show. $17mil.

Limited

CARAMEL

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Beauty Shop: Beirut

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Lebanon’s submission for Best Foreign Oscar, not that that helped.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Also also-ran 4 Months is in its second frame and the following week it gets a little crowded in indie-ville. An Oscar nod would have helped. $1mil.

Next Week: The return of Malcom Jamal-Warner.

After tallying the votes (including e-mails), I have Netflixed season one of How I Met Your Mother. Bring the NPH!

Did you think I’d make this list?

Well, first off, looks like Kathy Bates can cross the picket lines unscathed, although I doubt that the actual announcement was protested. I mean it was 5:30 a.m., fer cryin’ out loud. Still, I was looking forward to seeing at least one of the Coreys. Ah, well. Maybe at the actual ceremony, which will go on no matter what.

As far as the actual nods go, I shot 72.5%. A little worse than last year. But there were some surprises. Mostly, I overestimated Into the Wild and underestimated Atonement…

One of the out of nowhere nods is Tommy Lee Jones for In the Vallley of Elah. I though for sure if he got a nod it would be for No Country for Old Men. I also thought nobody liked Elah.

I thought nobody liked the Elizabeth sequel, either, but Blanchett’s Globe and SAG nod lives on. Other than Al Pacino in the Godfather I and II, and Peter O’Toole in Becket and The Lion in Winter I don’t think anyone else has been nominated twice for playing the same character. O’Toole is a bit more of a parallel since his nods were both in the lead category (Pacino’s first was supporting, second lead) and he got them for playing royalty - King Henry II. No actress, to the best of my knowledge, has ever done this.

My Dano pipe dream failed to materialize in the Supporting Actor category, but I am glad to see Philip Seymour Hoffman and, by extension, Charlie Wilson’s War, get some love. He really is crucial to making that movie work.

I’m really happy for Tony Gilroy and Jason Reitman for getting to the show on their first and second films respectively, but neither of those slots could have gone to my boy Burton? Damn.

The only category I nailed was Original Screenplay which surprised me because (a) I never get that one right and (b) I made what I thought was a far out prediction with Ratatouille.

No animated nod for The Simpsons Movie? Surf’s Up gets a nod but no love for Groening? I thought they adored him out there.

After the Academy (or France) eliminated early favorites Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days before the gun even went off, we knew the foreign category would be, well, foreign to most of us. Looks like The Counterfeiters is the only one here I’ve even heard of. (I didn’t even know it was foreign.)

That’s a whole lot of Iraq in the doc category.

Let me make this clear, the FX in Golden Compass, by and large, sucked. There are about a dozen films that should have had that slot before it.

Glad to see Bourne Ultimatum get an editing nod. That kind of work is unleashing a whole new action aesthetic (which some people hate) that relies heavily on judicious cutting.

Very disappointed to see Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood not make the cut for Best Score. For shame.

At least some love for Once, not surprisingly, in the Best Song category. Think they nominated enough songs from Enchanted?

For once the make-up category makes sense. And not for nothing, but that should go to La Vie en Rose right now…

Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose and in real life.

11. The Matrix - Morpheus/Neo Matchup

“Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? You think that’s air you’re breathing now?”

It is the rare sequence that manages to combine exposition with action at all, much less do both well. But this scene from the Wachowski Bros. 1999 breakthrough meshes Hong Kong ethic with sci-fi-losophy to help explain the film’s premise. It also happens that another word for this mesh is gaming.

The timing of The Matrix could hardly have been more ideal. PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox were all within a year or two of release. Within three years, video game revenues would surpass those of theatrical release. Gaming was about to break. This is an action sequence for that generation.

Intellectually, the parallels are clear. Morpheus and Neo fight in a computer construct. Their agility and strength are based on mental, not physical parameters. Aurally, the techno in the sequence’s mid-section evokes fighting games. Visually the iconography is even more blatant. They are framed initially like they are in MortalVirtuaStreetKombat 3. All they’re missing are status bars above their heads.

(The rest of the photography goes light years beyond this device. Cinematographer Bill Pope combines gorgeous slo-mo shots with fluid Steadicam choreography, dancing with Morpeus and Neo as they spar.)

All this focus on video game imagery is not to say the filmmakers abandon that which makes a traditional action sequence great. You still have character revealed through combat. As they begin, the poses they strike tell you everything you need to know about their state of mind. Neo is cocky, full of excess motion. Morpheus is calm, stately.

The fight itself is unique in that, because of the context of the scene, few punches actually connect. Master Woo-ping Yuen manages to make choreography composed of blocks interesting. It doesn’t hurt that the context also allows him to make liberal use of wirework, with the Wachowskis providing license in the script, as gravity is a malleable concept in this universe.

In another nice character touch, Mouse manages to illicit the first moment of enthusiasm from the jaded crew by announcing who is fighting. This shows how you can enhance a sequence by giving it an audience especially when you show that audience, which has been phased by nothing else, is suddenly paying attention. It means we should be paying attention.

Again, we see the advantages of teaching your actors to fight, in this case, over 8 months of training. Keanu improvises a little nose rub move in the middle of the scene that just nails Neo’s attitude. This is what an actor can bring to a fight that a stuntman, because you really can’t see his face, cannot.

Of course, stuntmen would probably not bruise each other as much. Keanu and Laurence got pretty banged up.

See also: The rest of The Matrix, any fight in Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Rock bar fight in The Rundown.

Next: The final 10. Some are obvious. Others will probably piss you off.

2007 - The Year in Docs

Cloverfield kicks your ass, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Biggest. January. Open. Ever. And the 10th biggest in Paramount history (which makes me kind of sad for Paramount). Also tripling my prediction, 27 Dresses, on it’s way to a solid $60mil. take. Who said you can’t release successful films in January? (Oh, right, all of the previous Januaries.)

1/25

Wide

UNTRACEABLE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
A guy uses the interwebs to kill folk.

WILL IT SUCK?
Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Frequency, Fracture) has potential and one of the eighteen screenwriters did Resurrecting the Champ, which is supposed to not suck, but it’ll take a lot more than that to convince me to go see a movie where I (a) know everything from the trailer already and (b) have to watch a depiction of the Internet that will probably make Ted Stevens look like Vint Cerf.

Early buzz is mixed, which is a hell of a lot better than I expected.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
With Rambo sucking up most of the oxygen and Cloverfield’s second frame drawing true thriller junkies and The Eye opening the following week, this doesn’t stand a chance. $16mil.

RAMBO

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
If it worked for Rocky…

WILL IT SUCK?
Sly was able to write and direct the Rocky franchise back into critical acclaim for the first time in 30 years, so far be it from me to say he can’t do it again. I will remind you, however, that he did write and direct Staying Alive, arguably the best bad film ever, so it’s kind of a win-win.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The only thing as high profile as this is Cloverfield, and that’ll be on its second frame. $71mil.

HOW SHE MOVE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Indie You Got Served

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good and the director did the underseen Touch of Pink.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
No idea why they’re releasing this wide. I would think their edge is in treating this like an indie and letting word of mouth buoy a platform release. That having been said, Stomp the Yard might as well have been an indie for all its no-name cast, and it did just fine with a wide release. $27mil.

MEET THE SPARTANS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
300 Movie

WILL IT SUCK?
By most accounts the Movie movies have been getting progressively worse, and they didn’t exactly start off as classics of American comedy.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
They’ve seen diminishing financial returns as well. $29mil.

Limited

THE AIR I BREATHE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Interweaving plot ensemble drama based upon four emotional cornerstones. What? I’m not going to tell you what they are; that would be a spoiler.

WILL IT SUCK?
The emotions are played by Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser and Kevin Bacon. John Cho plays Bart. He is not one of the emotions. In spite of this all sounding like a community college drama class acting exercise, the early buzz is very good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The type of movie that, in spite of a strong cast, gets forgotten before anyone knows it was out. Just look at Feast of Love. Exactly. $4mil.

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Woman in 80’s Romania tries to get an abortion.

WILL IT SUCK?
Has already won a crapload of awards (though to everyone’s confuzzlement, will not be an Oscar contender). Three of them were at Cannes including, oh, what’s that little one? Oh, right, the Palme D’Or.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It’s hard to get better buzz for a foreign film. $2mil.

U2 3D

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
3D concert flick that was clearly designed to force me into an IMAX theater.

WILL IT SUCK?
That doesn’t seem to be the point. The main thing being hawked about this film is that it’s the first live action flick to be entirely shot, posted (whatever the hell that means) and edited in 3D. Mark Pellington, who helped conceive Zoo TV and directed the “Jeremy” video and thus never has to do anything else again to be eternally cool, co-directs.

I, of course, am U2’s bitch so I hereby declare this to be the greatest film ever made, sight unseen.

Early buzz, coincidentally, is quite good (although I suspect that’s just a bunch of U2 fanatics chiming in on IMDB, not that there’s anything wrong with that).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Ironically, where releasing a mainstream film (Rattle and Hum) got them nowhere, releasing a 3D film on far fewer screens may show better returns. $9mil.

Next Week: Jessica Alba in a movie about a body part. No, not either of those.

Well, they’ve got a poster, so…they’ve got that going for them.

More of a mystery than who will be nominated is who will cross the picket lines to announce the nominations:

(a) Larry King and the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” dude.

(b) The Coreys

(c) Tay Zonday and the “Thriller” Cebu prison dance squad

(d) “Leave Britney alone!” guy and a ham sandwich.

The nominations will be announced from the Denny’s in Weehawken, N.J. Here’s what I think they will be…

Best Supporting Actress

That’s a man, baby! Oh, no, wait. It’s not.

Cate Blanchett - I’m Not There

Play a dude, get a nod. It’s that simple.

Ruby Dee - American Gangster

Probably the only love this film will get.

Catherine Keener - Into the Wild

Basically a nod for being involved with this film.

Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone

The one to beat, but Blanchett will not go gentle.

Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

And she didn’t get a nod for Orlando?

Sorely overlooked: Cheryl Hines in Waitress.

Best Supporting Actor

Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Extremely Long Title

Way to beat your bro to a nod.

Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men

The one to…oh, he’s got it already.

Paul Dano - There Will Be Blood

Wishful thinking on my part, but I’m hoping that once enough of the Academy gets to see his performance, they’ll make up for the lack of kudos it got all awards season.

Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild

Career nod.

Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

Deserves it, too.

Sorely overlooked: Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Atonement - Christopher Hampton

The best shot this flick has at a nod.

Charlie Wilson’s War - Aaron Sorkin

About freakin’ time. Though Ronald Harwood’s Diving Bell adaptation could knock this out of contention.

Into the Wild - Sean Penn

I think a lot of the love for this film will be as much about respect for Penn as anything else.

No Country for Old Men - Joel and Ethan Coen

The one to beat.

There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

Adapt Upton Sinclair, get a nod. Just kidding.

Sorely overlooked: James Vanderbilt’s Zodiac script, though I consider it a mild spoiler.

Best Original Screenplay

Juno - Diablo Cody

Come on. Her name is Diablo Cody. She used to strip! (Little known fact, so did the Coen Bros. And they were goooood.)

Lars and the Real Girl - Nancy Oliver

This year’s “little-seen indie” nod, though there are actually quite a few of those.

Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy

Think it deserves it for the “Are we good?” line alone.

Ratatouille - Brad Bird

Kind of a long shot, but I’ve got a hunch.

The Savages - Tamara Jenkins

Assuming I’m right, it’ll be nice to see majority female screenwriters in this category for the first time since, um, ever?

Sorely overlooked: Severance. I know. But honestly one of the most clever scripts of the year. Knocked Up and Superbad could be spoilers here, btw.

Best Actress

Amy Adams - Enchanted

Riding Critics Choice and Golden Globes nods. Keira could spoil for Atonement.

Julie Christie - Away From Her

Sort of the favorite.

Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose

My favorite in a very strong field.

Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart

Strangely overlooked so far.

Ellen Page - Juno

The other favorite.

Sorely overlooked: Wei Tang in Lust, Caution and Carice van Houten in Black Book.

Best Actor

George Clooney - Michael Clayton

If Daniel Day weren’t up in here, he’d be looking at his second statue.

Emil Hirsch - Into the Wild

Penn-mentum.

Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood

There will be a second Oscar.

Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl

Only his second nod, but it feels like he’s deserved a win for much longer.

Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises

Sort of retroactive for A History of Violence, if you ask me.

Sorely overlooked: Chris Cooper in Breach, Denzel and Russell in American Gangster, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood

Shockingly, would be his first Best Director nod.

Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Ditto.

Joel and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men

The ones to beat.

Sean Penn - Into the Wild

The Academy’s way of saying, “Wait, this is your fourth feature? Really? Good for you!”

Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Film might actually get many more nods, but at least this one for sure.

Sorely overlooked: Todd Haynes for I’m Not There, a feat of direction above all else.

Best Picture

Into the Wild

You didn’t think it was gonna come all this way and not get with this award, did you?

Juno

The Little Miss Sunshine of yadda, yadda, yadda…

Michael Clayton

I’m as surprised as you are. Not because it’s a bad film. I just didn’t think anyone was paying attention.

No Country for Old Men

The one to beat, thought Atonement didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

There Will Be Blood

Country’s only real competition.

Atonement and Diving Bell could spoil any but the last two.

Sorely overlooked: Once, American Gangster, Charlie Wilson’s War

So, the nominees will be attached to those little things pizza places stick on your doorknobs on Tuesday morning, before the winners are announced in a mass e-mail in late February. Enjoy!