Craig's MovieBlog

Academy Awards: One Man's Odds for Best Picture

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times printed Patrick Goldstein's latest odds on the Best Picture candidates, as there are 7 weeks to go before the nominations are announced..  Check out the full article for all the detail, but in summary:

The Favorites:

• Dreamgirls: 4-1
• The Queen: 6-1
• The Departed: 9-1
• Little Miss Sunshine: 10-1

Contenders:

• Flags of our Fathers: 12-1
• Letters from Iwo Jima: 12-1
• The Good Shepherd: 14-1
• Babel: 15-1
• United 93: 16-1
• World Trade Center: 16-1
• Volver: 18-1

Longshots:

• Children of Men: 20-1
• The Pursuit of Happyness: 22-1
• Little Children: 25-1
• Blood Diamond: 30-1
• Bobby: 40-1
• Apocalypto: 60-1

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice... I mean, Movie City News, The Gurus o' Gold have compiled their latest votes for all the categories.  Here's their top 10 for Best Picture Nominees:

1. Dreamgirls
2. The Departed
3. The Queen
4. Babel
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Letters from Iwo Jima
7. Volver
8. Flags of our Fathers
9. Little Children
10. The Pursuit of Happyness

Ben Affleck Wins Best Actor and the Love of a Junket Reporter

Have we entered a parallel dimension where Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are scraping by on reality TV shows?  Is Martin Scorsese doing TV movies of the week on Lifetime?  Because Ben Affleck won Best Actor for his role as George Reeves in Hollywoodland at the Venice Film Festival.

However this happened, it's definitely got to be a relief for Ben.  Not only has he been hammered by the press recently for his poor film choices and weak box office performance, been trailed endlessly since his relationship with J Lo and then Jennifer Garner, but because his 2004 boozy grope-fest with reporter/junket whore Anne-Marie Losique has made it onto YouTube, and it is ugly.  I remember her interviewing Ben at the Pearl Harbor junket, and it was the same thing, only Ben wasn't completely shitfaced.  This clip was a few years later for Jersey Girl.

Note: I'm using the junket-whore term in a completely non-sexual way (which you may not believe when you watch the video), but that's what these people are.  I admit doing this myself for two years (before I truly understood how the system worked), and it's gross.  I got to interview amazing celebrities, but I was flown out to a great city, was put up in a gorgeous hotel, got access to movie stars, was able to see films before everyone else in fantastic screening rooms, and then I'm supposed to review the film with an unbiased perspective?  Please...  Oh, and if you don't say nice things, you're not invited back.  Eric D. Snider recently wrote some funny columns about his experience at the World Trade Center junket, and then how his blog got him banned from future junkets or local press screenings.  Heeee-larious.

If you want to read about my "confessions of a junket-whore" days, here are a few trip reports that I wrote back in the day.  My friends tell me they're quite funny, but they could just be making me feel good:

• 9/9/2000 - The Toronto Festivus for the Rest of Us
• 10/15/2000 - Right in the Kisser from Charlize
• 12/12/2000 - Four Movies, Three Nights
• 12/22/2000 - Spider-Man, Neo, and The Lord of the Rings
• 5/28/2001 - American Cheese (Pearl Harbor junket)

The Oscars Already?

Movie City News has posted a Pre-Season, Pre-Toronto, Pre-Oscar Preview, and only Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers received a vote from every analyst.  Dreamgirls missed on just one ballot.

Here's the top 10... in August, for what it's worth:

1. Flags of our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Paul Haggis and William Broyles Jr.
2. Dreamgirls, directed by Bill Condon, based on the Broadway show, starring Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, and Beyonce Knowles
3. The Good German, directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Paul Attanasio, starring George Clooney (of course) and Cate Blanchett
4. Babel, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett (again)
5. World Trade Center, directed by Oliver Stone, starring Nicolas Cage
6. The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, remake of Infernal Affairs, starring everyone: Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, etc...
7. All the King's Men, directed by Steven Zaillan, starring everyone else: Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini, Patricia Clarkson, etc...
8. A Good Year, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe and Albert Finney
9. United 93, directed by Paul Greengrass - the only film on the list already released
10. The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Helen Mirren

World Trade Center Trailer

Over at Movie Marketing Madness, Chris says, "It looks like Oliver Stone has officially turned in his testicles and become... I don't know... Chris Columbus or someone."

And with that, please enjoy the new trailer for Oliver Stone's World Trade Center.

Sometimes these posts just write themselves.

Jeffrey Wells Looks Forward to the Summer

In this week's piece, he's surprisingly optimistic about the big films coming out this summer, rather than the normal huge studio dreck that normally accompanies June, July, and August.

Here, he riffs on (and offers alternatives to) Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, The DaVinci Code, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Break-Up, Cars, Nacho Libre, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Lady in the Water, Miami Vice, Flags of our Fathers, Apocalypto, World Trade Center, and Snakes on a Plane.