The Screengrab : la vie en rose

Movie Review: "A Girl Cut in Two"

Phil Nugent — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

When the best scene in a movie involves a beautiful young woman looking up worshipfully at her much older lover while crawling towards him on her hands and knees with a peacock's tail attached to her ass, you're either watching a very strange movie or a work of genius. A Girl Cut in Two, the latest from French director Claude Chabrol, isn't a work of genius, but it is the second movie in a week to ride in with the news that hot young babes are putty in the hands of sixtyish grizzled-looking dudes with literary pedigrees. Like Elegy, A Girl Cut in Two has its own literary pedigree: it's an updated take on the Stanford White-Evelyn Nesbit-Harry K. Thaw triangle that blazed across the tabloids in the 1920s and got a second life when E. L. Doctorow used it as the cornerstone of his 1975 novel Ragtime. Here, the stand-in for White is a distinguished, graying novelist, Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand), who is devotedly married but just can't seem to leave those young girls alone. (His agent, who packs a bathing suit when she comes to visit him and his wife in their big house in the country, where she practically camps out on his veranda, is played by the still-stunning Mathilda May, who some of us vulgar Americans will always remember best for her non-speaking, buck naked performance in the 1985 vampires-from-space movie Lifeforce.)

Charles's latest conquest is Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier), a fresh-faced blonde who delivers the weather reports on the TV news, where she's probably the best thing that's ever happened to the phrase "approaching gulf streams." When Charles spots her at his book signing, his eyes seem to pop out on springs, but in a tasteful and refined way, what with him being French and all. He soon secrets her away to his love nest in the city and then, overcome with emotion after she pulls that business with the peacock's tail ("You don't feel humiliated?" "Not even ridiculous."), he takes her to his special club, where classy people with subterranean sex drives get together to do things too shocking for Chabrol to do anything but hint at. He's said that the scenes at the club, where the actors kick back and trade knowing looks and the camera cuts away just when it looks as if we're going to get to see what they're all so smug about, "reflect my desire to explore the theme of perversion without ever showing it." I know that I'm not the one who's been making movies for fifty years, but I can't shake this feeling that giving your characters all kinds of interesting perversions and then not showing them amounts to failing to utilize one of the obvious advantages of making a movie about them in the first place.

I never believed a minute of A Girl Cut in Two, but it does have more of a sustained grip than Chabrol's recent movies, thanks in no small part to Sagnier's surprisingly vulnerable cupcake. Things take a turn for the goofy when the third side of this triangle heaves into sight: the spoiled rich rotter Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel), who professes love for Gabrielle while seething with hatred for Charles. (He blames him for having somehow inflicted shame on his family, but the exact details are either never made clear or were spelled out in subtitles that flashed on the screen while I was checking to make sure that my wristwatch still lights up when I press that little button on the side.) With his psychedelic Thurston Howell III wardrobe and his gelled blonde hair with a fistful of forelock strategically draped over one eye, Magimel looks like a French Owen Wilson fronting an '80s "new romantic" cover band, but the actual dialogue he has to speak has nothing on Spandau Ballet. A Girl Cut in Two begins coughing up blood as soon as it begins devoting whole scenes to his aristocratic crumb-bum family, presided over by a vicious snob of a mother (Caroline Silhol, who played Dietrich in last year's Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose) who suggests an albino Morticia Addams. The last half hour or so, which wraps up with an ending that tops Chinatown in going out of it way to give literal meaning to a metaphorical title, dumps the confusion and chaos of adulterous passion in favor of one more demonstration that the cultured mask of the bourgeoisie masks a nest of serpents and is utterly disposable, though I did like the moment when a mercenary lawyer has a polite conversation with Mother Gaudens, exits the mansion, and as he heads for his car, goes, "Brrrrrrr!" The movie can best be appreciated as a one-hour-fifty-minute trailer for whatever Ludivine Sagnier does next. Whatever that is--Bond girl, female lead to Adam Sandler, Celebrity Detox Center: Paris Edition--I'm there.

Rep Report Addendum – Rendezvous with French Cinema

Peter Smith — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Screengrab contributor Bryan Whitefield reports from the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual Rendezvous with French Cinema program.

While this year's crop of films couldn't boast about anything as high profile as last year's opening night film La Vie En Rose, which featured the eventually Oscar-winning performance by Marion Cotillard as French icon Edith Piaf, this popular annual series presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center did include several notable films for cineastes and admirers of all things French.

French New Wave director Claude LeLouch (A Man and A Woman) opened this year's series with his latest film Roman de Gare, a thriller about a popular novelist whose life and fiction become intermingled. Another New Wave veteran, Claude Miller, screened his latest film, A Secret, which focuses on the French-Jewish community during World War II. This is one of two films that feature Mathieu Amalric, the star of Julian Schnabel's much-acclaimed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The other, Nicolas Klotz's Heartbeat Detector/La Question Humaine, could be tagged as a French Michael Clayton with Amalric as an in-house psychologist for a giant chemical company who uncovers some serious big-business skeletons.

Perhaps the most easily digestible film in the series is Cédric Klapisch's Paris which features an ensemble cast led by the consistently excellent Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche. The film certainly has its flaws, and does rely on a multi-line narrative, a screenwriting tool that feels a little too easy at this point, but also gives a view of the city and its many landmarks that feels like a feature-length postcard of Paris itself, sure to invoke memories for those who have been there and further romanticizing it for those who have not.

The shining star of this year's series for me is also likely to be a hate-it-or-love-it film for many — Christophe Honoré's modern musical Love Songs, essentially about a girl-girl-guy threesome. Honoré, no stranger to controversy or mixed reviews, began his career with Ma Mere, a film about mother-son incest generally seen as either a first glimpse of genius or a loathsome pile of shit. His second film, last year's Dans Paris, was met with similar raves and reviles. Love Songs, written by Honoré from a shared personal experience with French songwriter Alex Beaupain, actually uses its beautiful little songs as a narrative trick that allows the characters to stand outside reality and express emotions that would have been lost in a more straight-forward drama. The filmmaking has a stylized yet in-the-moment feeling that evokes the best of the French New Wave. The gifted cast, including Louis Garrel, Ludovine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme and Chiara Mastroianni, allows the songs to fold into the overall action, a big part of why so much of this film works as well as it does. My giving a "musical" a chance is pretty unusual, but this film's inventive storytelling and strong performances won me over immediately and it's certain to be on my year-end list.

Paul Clark (Kinda) Liveblogs the Oscars

Paul Clark — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Well, it's that time of year again, and unlike last year, I'll actually be posting here as the night goes on. While it's difficult to me to actually "live-blog" because my computer faces away from the television, I'll try to post something over every commercial break. Let's see how this goes. Hopefully I'll at least be more coherent than Harry Knowles usually is, but you never know.

4:30 PM- Just for the record, here's my complete list of predictions, so I won't be able to weasel my way out of them later and declare my predictive powers to be any more awesome than they actually are:

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton
Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Best Original Screenplay: Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Best Art Direction: There Will Be Blood (winner: Sweeney Todd)
Best Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
Best Costume Design: Atonement (winner: Elizabeth)
Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight (winner: Taxi to the Dark Side)
Best Documentary Short Subject: Sari's Mother (winner: Freeheld)
Best Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Best Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters
Best Makeup: La Vie en Rose
Best Original Score: Atonement
Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly," Once
Best Animated Short: Peter and the Wolf
Best Live-Action Short: Tanghi Argentini (winner: The Mozart of Pickpockets)
Best Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Best Sound Mixing: No Country for Old Men (winner: The Bourne Ultimatum)
Best Visual Effects: Transformers (winner: Golden Compass)

How will I fare? Stay tuned...

Preshow- Oh, great. Regis is hosting. Better than Joan and Melissa at least.

8:05- Cotillard is so hot. Just wanted to get that out there.

8:06- Host lady to Travolta: "You're not wearing a dress in honor of HAIRSPRAY." Come on, he's not Trey Parker.

8:08- Bardem: "seeking money AND revenge?" All right, did you SEE the movie?

8:10- How many times is Regis going to say "what's wrong with these people?"

8:13- Wow, Mickey Rooney's still alive, and more Yoda-like than ever.

8:13- JUNO: "the little movie that could." Way to go, Fox Searchlight marketing team.

8:23- Uh-oh, there's Hilary Swank. Nobody tell Nathaniel, OK? "People say you can play any kind of role." OK, WHAT? It's Hilary Swank, not Meryl Streep.

8:27- Remember this for next year, ABC- fewer random stars, more Bill Conti.

8:29- XAVIER Bardem? Come on, Regis, you've had time to practice your pronunciations.

8:30- FYI, I'll be boldfacing all the predictions I get right, in case you're keeping score at home.

8:33- Maybe they should hire Arnold to transport the Oscars every year. Would've saved them a big headache back in 2000.

8:34- Jack's next to Javier Bardem. Mothers, lock up your daughters...

8:36- "Oscar-nominated psychopathic killer movies." Wow, a Dorothy Hamill reference. You definitely don't get this from Whoopi.

8:38- NORBIT- "too often the Academy ignores movies that aren't good." OK, Oscar director, where's the Rick Baker cutaway shot? That's just sloppy, buds.

8:40- A stripper named Olympia Dukakis- forget Chigurh and Plainview, that's the most disturbing image we'll get tonight.

8:42- Spike Lee likes the black President joke. You're doing well, Jon.

8:44- Costume Design- I miss the models they had last year. Much better than the diagrams. Gah... ELIZABETH? Lots of costumes, but to what end? At least she kept it short.

8:51- Some of those production numbers are frightening, but none so much as accompanying the montage with Celine Dion. Classy wrap-up with Chaplin though.

8:53- Carell/Hathaway- must we really play the GET SMART theme? Hathaway's pretty smoking though. And Carell's clueless schtick still works. Yes... first correct prediction of the night. Go RATATOUILLE. Fun story too- Brad Bird is so cool.

8:57- Cutting from Heigl to Keri Russell? Is this a pregnancy-movie-themed edit? Yeesh. Also, settle down Heigl. But hey, LA VIE EN ROSE won. Go me. At least it wasn't frickin' NORBIT.

9:01- First song nominee- "Happy Working Song", quite possibly the first Oscar-nominated song with the lyric about scrubbing a toilet. Adams is a charmer, but did we really need to nominate 5 songs this year? 3 ENCHANTED songs seems like a lot of padding in my opinion. At least there's no production number behind her.

9:09- Stop trying so hard to be funny, Rock Dwayne. Yikes... THE GOLDEN COMPASS? Granted, it's the least terrible of the five movies, but the effects weren't all that stellar, except of course for the polar bear ripping the other polar bear's jaw off. That was awesome.

9:12- That's two bum predictions in a row for me. SWEENEY TODD sort of deserves it too though, so I won't complain.

9:14- Yes, Cate's awesome. But why not mention her cameo in HOT FUZZ?

9:17- Much as I love Casey Affleck's performance, this is the wrong category for him... Bardem- what other scene would they have picked? Hoffman, likewise... wow, that's a lot of applause for Holbrook. Could an upset happen? Nope, guess not. Also, I'm guessing Wilkinson will have an Oscar within the next decade. Nice quick speech, Bardem. Too bad most native English-speaking winners can't keep it that brief.

9:24- At least wasting our time with fake montages is more entertaining than wasting our time with real montages. Also, Pee Wee!

9:26- Holy crap, who's responsible for such prosaic and literal-minded lyrics? The little girl's good though, even if she does sound like she's auditioning for Teenage Idol. Still, this better not beat "Falling Slowly".

9:30- Sweet, it's Owen Wilson. He could use some more practice reading the TelePrompter though. Ick... THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS won. Probably the least of the nominees, at least in my estimation.

9:32- Wait, BEE MOVIE? Couldn't they afford RATATOUILLE? The bees montage was pretty amusing though. Go MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI! OK, PETER AND THE WOLF wins. I predicted this, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

9:36- Alan Arkin rules. Nice little speech there- don't know if he wrote it, but he made it his own. Hope you were watching folks, you've just watched Ruby Dee's entire performance in AMERICAN GANGSTER. And wow, it must've been tough to find a non-foulmouthed scene for Amy Ryan. Yesssssssss... Tilda wins. Righteous. She's so cool. Much better speeches this year all around, I'd say.

9:45- "The always fantastic Jessica Alba." Unless she's trying to act, that is. At least she's only presenting the Sci-Tech awards, fitting since I'm not entirely convinced she's not a special effects creation herself.

9:47- Brolin, you were robbed bud. At least you got a Muriel Award this year. Pretty obviously, it goes to the Coens. We'll be seeing plenty of them tonight, methinks. "We've only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy." Nice.

9:50- Hey, there's Sid Ganis. Time to get myself a drink. Wait, MICHAEL BAY's in the Academy? That explains so much.

9:53- This was a pretty fun production number in the movie, but it's really not that great a song. Chenoweth actually sounds quite a bit like Amy Adams, although she's a more polished singer to be sure. All these dancers look kind of dumb outside the context of the movie, I gotta say.

10:02- Angelina Jolie baby jokes never get old. Right? RIGHT???

10:03- Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill- awesome. Way to liven up the Sound Editing category. I'm calling BOURNE for this one, but who knows? Damn, I got it. How about that? And see, these are the people who should be getting flustered, not the professional actors.

10:06- Oh sweet, "Halle" and "Dame Judi" are doing the Sound Mixing category too. I'm guessing this'll be NO COUNTRY, although maybe Kevin O'Connell might get finally get his for TRANSFORMERS. Nope, this one's BOURNE too. Cool, I guess. And nice shirt, buddy.

10:10- Wait, Best Actress already? Go Carice Van Houten! Oh, never mind. Whitaker's gotten much better at public speaking since last year. Look at Cate cringe- she knows how terrible the movie is. But it's not like she'd say no. Christie, always classy. And you know what would be awesome? If they could use a Cotillard clip where we hear her real voice for more than a second. Wow, Cate was pretty happy about Cotillard winning. And since I predicted her, so am I. I mean, just look at her up there- she's glowing. Only question is whether an American can take home Best Actor, since otherwise the foreign actors are sweeping.

10:19- This commercial lead-in was brought to you by Wii.

10:20- Farrell presents "Falling Slowly." Because, you see, he's Irish, and the movie's Irish, so why not? Sounds good though. Also, nice music shop motif in the background with the guitars and all. At least there aren't any slow-motion dancers. But why the orchestra?

10:24- Come on Jack, try a little harder to sell what's been written for you. You're an actor, right?

10:26- Best Picture montage- yikes, some of these HURT. I won't even say which ones, you know the ones you hate.

10:29- Best Editing. I bet BOURNE, but I'm hoping for NO COUNTRY, just to see what'll happen. Alas, Roderick Jaynes' Oscar will have to wait.

10:32- Nice jab at IMDb, Jon. And holy NECKLACE, Nicole! Cool montage for Robert Boyle- pretty impressive filmography, I gotta say, and looking darn good for 98. I hadn't even heard who had gotten the honorary award, but now that I know I must say they've made a fine choice.

10:43- Holy crap, I forgot Andrzej Wajda's new film was up for Best Foreign-Language Film. And of course the WWII movie wins. Yeesh, that was easy.

10:47- Oh Jesus, THIS song? Boooooooooo-ring. Didn't they have a "Blame Canada"-style spoof song they could've nominated? It would've livened things up, that's for sure. And they say this guy's name is John McLaughlin? I was sort of hoping it'd be the dude from The McLaughlin Group instead of yet another sensitive, blandly hunky singer. If this song beats "Falling Slowly" I'm throwing my shoes at my television. So if the liveblogging stops abruptly, you'll know why.

10:50- This is one of your favorite categories, Travolta? Funny, it's one of my least favorites, since they usually pick sentimental junk. Naturally, I will except "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp." WHEW, thank GOD. I was afraid I'd have to use my next Screengrab paycheck to replace my TV.

10:57- A propos of absolutely nothing- I like Stewart well enough, but am I the only one who'd welcome an Oscar ceremony hosted by "Halle" and "Dame Judi"?

10:58- Wow, Stewart just invited Marketa Irglova back to finish her speech. Extremely classy of him. I sort of take back what I just said about Halle and Dame Judi.

11:00- OK Cameron, have you seen SUNRISE? Doesn't sound like it. Almost all these cinematography nominations are awesome- THERE WILL BE BLOOD takes it. Sorry Deakins. And way to recognize everybody else.

11:03- "Two time Academy Award nominee Hilary Swank"- somewhere, Annette Bening cringes.

11:07- Why can't they put the necrology in chronological order by the dates they passed away? By saving the "biggest name" for last, it's like they're making a value judgment on whose death is most notable. For example, I like Heath Ledger, but how is career more worthy of remembrance than Ousmane Sembene? Just a thought.

11:10- This category sucks without THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Predicting ATONEMENT, rooting for RATATOUILLE. And ATONEMENT it is. Wow, I'm actually doing pretty darn well tonight.

11:13- See, we can't bring the soldiers home, or they'd have to come up with a different gimmicky Oscar presentation. The winner is... FREEHELD, about homosexual soldiers. Had I known that I would've predicted that instead of going with the cutest-sounding name.

11:17- I've only seen two of these- SICKO and NO END IN SIGHT. NO END IN SIGHT is the better of the two, but LAKE OF FIRE blows them both away. So does THE KING OF KONG, for that matter. Of course, can you imagine the documentary branch honoring a movie about video games? Well, looks like I'm wrong here too- TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE takes the award.

11:25- Harrison Ford walks onstage to Indiana Jones theme- too obvious? WAKE UP, HARRISON! Wait, think he's drunk? Please MICHAEL CLAYTON... Please MICHAEL CLAYTON... nope, JUNO. Well, that's a point for me in the Oscar contest anyway. Grumble grumble... also, that tattoo is super-classy. I bet Tom Hanks has one just like it.

11:32- Helen Mirren just said "cojones"- she's awesome. Awesome pick for the Day-Lewis clip- powerful and bravura but not the "milkshake" bit everyone knows by heart. Who's that with Viggo? And of course Day-Lewis wins. What else is there to say but "DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINAGE"!!!!!!!!! "The handsomest bludgeon in town"- well put, man. I wonder what he'll be doing next?

11:44- What if the Coens DIDN'T win??? Guess we'll never find out. Whew... I could listen to the Coen brothers talk all day. Some part of me wants to see "Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go" included on the NO COUNTRY DVD.

11:46- Should be NO COUNTRY. Would be awesome if it was THERE WILL BE BLOOD as well, but I doubt it. As I suspected... NO COUNTRY it is. Now we get more of the Coens onstage, which is fine by me. And hey, it's not even midnight yet! Rudin: "with the opportunity for making movies comes the responsibility of making them good." Someone please relay this message to Joel Schumacher.

Well, everything turned out more or less as expected- a solid Oscar ceremony for a year when the very possibility of a ceremony was long in doubt. Good job keeping it moving along, while still finding time to bring back Marketa Irglova, a truly gracious move by Stewart and probably the highlight of the night for me.

No big surprises, but also no bad surprises, and I'll take that. Looks like I got 17 out of 24 categories right. Hope you did as well or better, unless of course you're in the same Oscar pool I'm in this year.

Hope you've enjoyed reading. Sorry I wasn't funnier. Good night.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Paul's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

All right, Screengrab regulars. You've no doubt taken a gander at the Oscar predictions from Leonard Pierce and Scott Von Doviak, which if nothing else have demonstrated that Screengrab's sense of humor remains intact. Now have a gander at — well, I was going to say the REAL predictions, but since you've already seen my nomination predictions, I can't in good conscience make such a grandiose claim. But Leonard has sent out a call, and I have no choice but to answer it.

Here goes nothing. . .

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan has been racking up critics' awards, but I think Hollywood insiders could be turned off by her unpleasant character. Saoirse Ronan might have had a shot with a bigger Atonement groundswell, but I don't see it happening now. Ruby Dee, SAG Award or no, should be happy just to be nominated. This brings us to Cate Blanchett as not-quite-Dylan, and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. This is Blanchett's to lose. . . or would be had she not won just three years ago. The performance — more than a stunt — is might impressive, but I think Swinton sneaks in for the upset here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Bardem's still the one to beat here, friend-o. If anyone beats him, it'll be Grand Old Actor Hal Holbrook, although his chances would've been better had Into the Wild gotten a Best Picture nomination.

BEST ACTRESS: Leonard and Scott are all about Christie, but I think this is a closer race than they're predicting. Juno lives and dies by Ellen Page's performance, but the voters might find her too young to get behind. I'm going out on a limb and predicting Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, though any of these three could take home the Oscar.

BEST ACTOR: You know, had Sweeney Todd made any money at the box office, this could have been Johnny Depp's year. But as it is, Daniel Day-Lewis is untouchable, and anyone who denies it is a bastard from a basket.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Much as I'd love to see a Ratatouille upset, this race comes down the Hollywood veteran vs. the feisty newcomer. Good as the Michael Clayton screenplay is, this award almost always goes to the most show-offy screenplay, which this year is almost certainly Juno. Add in a Hollywood-friendly backstory and Diablo Cody's sudden ubiquity, and you've got an Oscar waiting to happen.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece, but it's more of a directorial and acting showcase than a triumph of screenwriting. Atonement has all the ingredients of an Oscar-bait literary adaptation, but will have to make do with a few technical awards. Which means No Country for Old Men will bring the Coen brothers their second Oscar to date — or third, should the film win Best Editing.

BEST DIRECTOR: Of the nominated directors, the Coens are the Oscar veterans, and are well-liked in the industry. How else to explain an out-of-nowhere screenplay nomination for O Brother, Where Art Thou? back in the day. If anyone has a shot, it's Paul Thomas Anderson, but don't bet on it. Even if there's an upset for Best Picture, when it comes to this category, you can't stop what's coming.

BEST PICTURE: No Country is the favorite here, partly because nobody can seem to agree on what might upset it. I'm still predicting No Country to take this prize, but allow me to float my theory for a possible spoiler: Michael Clayton. Think about it — it's both a thriller and a serious drama, starring an immensely popular movie star and a supporting cast full of familiar and talented character actors. The film contains a lot of appeal for the actor-heavy voting body, especially when you consider that it earned three acting nominations this year while no other film received more than one. If the voting members of the Academy choose to forego the darkness of No Country for something more Hollywood, count on this (more so than Juno, which skews too young and feels too lightweight to be Best Picture material) to be their alternative of choice. Could be worse — at least it's not Crash.

Paul Clark Predicts the Oscar Nominees

Paul Clark — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT

"Nobody knows anything." Screenwriter William Goldman immortalized that phrase a few decades ago, and it's as true this Oscar season as it's always been. Perhaps even more so — not only are many Oscar races still wide-open, but the status of the ceremony itself is up in the air. But for now the show is still happening, which means the nominations are set to be announced tomorrow morning. Here are my hasty, shot-in-the-dark predictions in the top six categories:

Best Picture:
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men

I think we can all agree that No Country is in, right? Beyond that, it's something of a crap shoot. Michael Clayton is the kind of classy star vehicle the Academy usually responds to, and audience favorite Juno has become too big a word of mouth phenomenon to ignore. At one point, Atonement was looking like a front-runner for the win, but its Oscar buzz has subsided. On the other side of the coin, There Will Be Blood may be too bleak for the voters to embrace — it would have a better chance were it the year's undisputed critical champ, but with No Country in the mix, PTA's masterpiece could be shut out here. Instead, I'm predicting The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an acclaimed true-life story that's only gaining momentum, and Into the Wild, the year's most Oscar-baity film directed by a respected actor, which is something that tends to go over well with the actor-filled Academy membership.

Best Actor:
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Even if the Academy decides to overlook There Will Be Blood, they won't be able to deny the awesomeness of Day-Lewis' blazing performance as Plainview. Likewise, Clooney and Depp have recently become Academy favorites, and I dare say that had Sweeney Todd done more business Depp would've been the one to beat here. Hirsch is a bit iffier here given his age, but he carries Into the Wild on his capable shoulders, and if the film gets nominated I'm guessing he will be too. With the recent groundswell for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I think Matthieu Amalric should be seen as a contender here, although not nearly as much as if he was an American star. Instead, I'm going with Mortensen — Eastern Promises didn't exactly set the world on fire, but his performance was the highlight, and I think voters will take the opportunity to honor him not only for this role but also for his overlooked turns in A History of Violence and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Best Actress:
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Ellen Page, Juno

Throughout this awards season, three names kept popping up in this rare — Christie, Cotillard, and Page. So it's pretty safe to assume they'll make it in. That leaves us two spots in a relatively weak year for buzzed-about performances (sadly, Black Book's Carice Van Houten has no traction whatsoever). With very little competition, Jolie should make the cut — the film didn't make much of a dent, but her stardom has kept her in the race. The final spot is anyone's guess. High-profile star turns (Jodie Foster in The Brave One, Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age) have flopped at the box office, while respected performers in independent films (notably Laura Linney in The Savages) have been lost in the year-end shuffle. That leaves Amy Adams in Enchanted, a star-making performance by a previous nominee in a hit movie that's still fresh in people's minds.

Best Director:
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Sean Penn, Into the Wild
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

At this point, Best Director is the Coens' to lose. Even if someone else takes home Best Picture, I think it's still their year in this category. I also think the Directors Branch will be impressed by Sean Penn's metamorphosis into serious filmmaker, as well as Schnabel's unconventional, inspired filmmaking choices in Diving Bell. For this year's semi-obligatory non-Best Picture-nominated director, I'm predicting Anderson, a respected maverick whose filmmaking chops in There Will Be Blood are undeniable even if the film itself is too much for some audiences. Of the two remaining Best Picture nominees, I think Gilroy has the edge over Juno's Jason Reitman for two reasons: (1) crowd-pleasing comedies tend to get shut out of this category, and (2) Gilroy is a veteran screenwriter makes an impressive directorial debut. But don't be surprised if another "lone director" — say, Sidney Lumet for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, or Tim Burton for Sweeney Todd — gets the nod instead.

Best Supporting Actor:
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

In a year without Bardem, this race might have come down to Grand Old Actor Holbrook vs. veteran character actor Wilkinson. But Bardem casts a long shadow over this category, with Chigurh the creepiest villain in an Oscar-feted film since Hannibal Lecter. Charlie Wilson's War wasn't the Oscar juggernaut that it was predicted to be, but I still think Hoffman's scene-stealing turn will make it in. I think this year's biggest surprise will be the absence of Casey Affleck's performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Affleck's the only serious competition Bardem has had among the precursor awards, but Jesse James was a box-office flop and Affleck's performance could give voters the willies. Max Von Sydow's affecting turn in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly might have had a chance here — as a means of honoring one of the world's most esteemed actors and, by extension, his recently-departed longtime collaborator Ingmar Bergman — except that he might not have enough screentime to be a contender. Instead, I'm giving the edge to Jones, an Academy favorite who came roaring back this year to give two acclaimed performances after a decade's worth of commercial crap.

Best Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Catherine Keener, Into the Wild
Kelly MacDonald, No Country for Old Men
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Once again, three names keep popping up in this category: Blanchett, Ryan, and Swinton. I think they'll all get nominated, though who will win remains to be seen (early shot-in-the-dark prediction: a Swinton upset). The other two spots are less certain. But consider that, more than any other category, the Best Supporting Actress nominees are largely composed of performers who starred opposite other Oscar nominees. In this respect, I think contenders such as Ruby Dee in American Gangster, Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and especially Saoirse Ronan in Atonement, are at a disadvantage here. Instead, I'm predicting the fourth spot to go to Catherine Keener, getting her third nomination in this category for her moving turn in Into the Wild. The final slot comes down to Jennifer Garner in Juno and Kelly MacDonald in No Country for Old Men. Despite Garner's greater name recognition, I'm giving the edge to MacDonald, both for No Country's frontrunner status and for playing one of Oscar's favorite characters, the supportive, long-suffering wife. But honestly, it could go either way.

Watch for the Oscar nominations tomorrow, January 22. And remember, nobody knows anything.