"The Road" Headed South?

Often when a discrepancy in plot exists between a novel and its adapted cinematic counterpart, I excuse it and name it to the innate qualities and constraints that separate them as creative mediums. I find it odd when folks assess a film's success by its ability to imitate the events of a book, chronology and all, rejoicing when there are few and feeble or no attempts at all at striking out new thematic territory. Because then what's the point? Why make the film and return to the material? (I, of course, only mean this when the essential ingredients that define a work are still present.) As long as the heart of whatever is being adapted finds its way into the film - or in deleted scenes included on the DVD - then filmmakers can refashion the plot and reinterpret motives and motifs all they please. It's minutiae. The canon of the mythology can accommodate the change in composition. Just like it accommodates variation in audience interpretation. (Are there very many books or films where a thing and all that has to do with the thing must be fixed in order to achieve an adequate understanding or emotional response?)

But, having read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," the inclusion at the beginning of the trailer (our first real glimpse of the thing, which looks bleak and haunting and glorious overall) of news reports that seek to explain or explore in greater (unnecessary) detail how the end of the world came about, is just gratuitous. And, apparently, it's misleading; according to Esquire and the filmmakers (and asserted in no small amount of rhetoric by Harvey Weinstein), none of the first few seconds will be in the final picture. So, I have to ask: then why? Not only will the intro of that trailer (below) not be in the film, which is deceptive, it ends up serving the function of clumping the adaptation in with other post-apocalyptic films that use, by and large, the same phenomena/explanation if not the same imagery as those initial shots of catastrophic phenomena. "I Am Legend," "28 Days Later," "The Happening," "The Quiet Earth," even "Mad Max." As the title suggests, the narrative is not at all about the 'how' but the 'what now?' and the journey for recovery and survival. This is a situation where I would suspend my traditional view on mimicry in adapting other works on film and say that if the film does use the stock footage to launch the survival narrative of the father and son characters, then it's a step in the wrong direction. The opposite direction, even.


Setting up the meat of the film, the road movie aspect, within the context of post-apocalyptic America is essential, yes, but juxtaposing these characters as a response to the terrifying end-of-the-world events that preceded it and showing those events as possible explanation widens the scope of the film so that these sympathetic characters serve as allegorical figures, stand-ins for the human race (which they aren't, the book chronicles their expedition in what might be documentary fashion, not as models of behavior or decision but individual people handling something bigger than them). It also cheapens and dilutes the impact of the narrative by setting in expectations that the film might seek an explanation or arrive at finality to postmodern society. It would become a horror-suspense-thriller about finding solace or the cure in a dead world. (I don't think this would spoil anything, but there are no cures at the end. A world no longer with history doesn't have any determined end point.)

I'm assured by this wonderful article in Esquire by Tom Chiarella, which stops at 3300 words, a rarity in movie journalism these days. This kind of writing I sorely miss. I was not only reminded of the things I loved about this book, but the writing achieved greater nuance through the lens of Chiarella whose prose is as direct as author Cormac McCarthy's is spare. An excerpt via Awards Daily:

Bob Weinstein rolls those trailers, each one assumes the predictable arc of a story compressed to its essence. There is a speed to them that the actual movie — which I saw before seeing the trailers — does not possess or seek to possess, an urgency that feels manufactured. The music is pulse-pounding and urgent, driven to create absurd expectations of action in a movie that quietly elicits worry about the relative friability of the invisible paths that exist between people and what they need. Still, every utterance, every cry for help or hand clasped across the mouth of the boy to suppress a sob, is a fair-enough emanation from the heart of the movie.

The odd thing is, the start of each trailer includes glimpses of a storm, panicky news footage, little puzzle pieces of the world before it ended. No one — not the director or the myriad producers, not the novelist or the screenwriter — had ever even hinted at how it happened, until this.

For someone who loves the book, for anyone who knows the story going in, this is a moment you hoped would never come. Why remind us of the reductive logic of cause and effect? Before the question can be asked, Weinstein stands up, offers his hand, and says, “Okay, we’re going with the first one.” He gives no rationale. And so it seems the metonymic references to the national news, to the weather, to presumed military conflicts laid in as a tonally quiet explanation of what is never known in book or movie, for now will stay in the trailer.

On the other side of the planet, at home in Australia, Hillcoat’s been hearing about these trailers. “We’re so conditioned by postapocalyptic films to be centered on a big event, and they become this high-concept thing. And here there’s this total absence, this negation of explanation. We have to stay with that. So yeah. That’s gonna be a challenge.”

I read the whole thing on my BlackBerry, and again online, and it just makes me more and more intensely excited about seeing this film. (I've also adopted a new goal: to one day write for Esquire. Great articles and topics. Not nearly as surface-level as I once thought.) It does concern me that director John Hillcoat has not been included in how this film gets sold, which makes me afraid that come release day, I'll be surrounded by loud dudes hoping to see some intricate physical action sequences and monsters. That the trailer also sells the "cannibals" as the primary antagonists in the film is another point that I want to contend with that is inaccurate, and hopefully not indicative of anything in the actual film. The primary antagonist isn't other people with crippled ethics and empty stomachs, it's the specter of death itself, and the looming notion that the task of survival can and will at any point become a one-man game, with neither father nor son knowing who would be most fit to stick to the course. But, as I'm reminded by Ryan Adams at AD, these are the people that marketed "The Reader" to $83 million by selling it as a steamy romance instead of as a Holocaust film. These guys, especially Weinstein, want to sell those tickets.

Esquire's calling it the "Most Important Movie of the Year," and that's enough to get my money.

Does "dark and depressing" sound appealing to you?


IMAGE from: Squidoo
TRAILER from: Awards Daily

"Prisoners"' Dilemma

Because the film industry produces most of its pictures in a year as either secondary works (remakes or adaptations) or as the fulfillment of having a high concept commissioned, and because an alarming proportion of spec scripts are turned down or stumble into oblivion, I always find it interesting when a spec script is able to make it to the production rounds. Means it must be that compelling, the material rich or open enough for someone to want to play with it. (Dustin Lance Black shopped "Milk" before it eventually landed in Gus Van Sant's reliable hands.) In the case of this Aaron Guzikowski-penned spec (Endeavor is handling the project and will foot the bill if it comes together accordingly) -- titled "Prisoners" -- it hasn't quite reached pre-production since not even a director has signed firmly yet or discussed openly the potentials of the project, but its stars are aligning.

Christian Bale, my favorite actor (who appears twice on my Ten Favorites list below), is being peddled by The Hollywood Reporter to have signed onto the project along with other attached lead Mark Wahlberg. Their attachment, however, is tenuous at the moment since no bill to speak of (let alone foot) has been drafted -- pay would still need discussing. But if Bryan Singer ("X-Men," "Valkyrie") is involved as has been hinted at by both THR and Entertainment Weekly, then that gives both actors another reason to stay aboard -- assuming, of course, that they enjoy his work as much as I do and any fan of the man's best contribution to the thriller genre, "The Usual Suspects." (That movie certainly beats his latest contribution to the genre, last year's "Valkyrie," which isn't really a bad movie.) Singer said to EW late last month of the project: "I don't know yet. But I'm definitely intrigued. It's a great script. And I'd love to work with Mark." Hope he feels the same way about Christian! I do.

The script is certainly abuzz all about the internet and Hollywood -- one of the reasons these guys are latching onto the thing without signing it into contract -- which I'll assist with this premise (taken from THR):

"After his 6-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped, a small-town carpenter butts heads with a young, brash detective in charge of the investigation. The father is a Bible-reading, deer-hunting survivalist. The cop, meanwhile, can’t wait to get to the city. Feeling failed by the law, the father captures the man he believes responsible and begins to torture him in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he’s convinced are still alive."

THR also says: "There's a lot more there, but we won't spoil it except to say the two leads have great arcs and the supporting players, especially the mothers, have juicy parts. The script is dark -- Disney ain’t touchin' this one -- and a real page-turner." Cinematical says their dreamcasting would entail Wahlberg as the cop and Christian Bale as the Bible-thumping father and I must say I can't disagree with them. Bale is absolutely compelling when he steps into brooding, heavy territory. He's got definite elements of De Niro in his style and methodology and is a brilliant actor when it comes to hypermasculine roles. And Wahlberg's already doing the daddy-gone-nuts thing in Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones" which is still slated for the Oscar season.

Imagine if this film had been done years ago, when both actors were in their physical prime (not that they're too far gone from that stage in life where such a thing is possible, but they are a little older). The dreamteam is set for a good daydream.

Who would win this battle?


SCOOPED first by: Awards Daily
IMAGES from: Celeb9 and Fused Film

Ten Characters

Perhaps this is one of those online trends/memes that's sweeping the blogosphere (at least the strata that orients most of their content around personal opinion and taste than big breaking Hollywood news), but I've been tagged by The Film Doctor (whose own list makes me jealous) to come up with ten movie characters that I love. My heart always races when I begin to think of these things, as I do think about them often (favorite femme fatales, villains, anti-heroes, movie superheroes, animal-characters, etc.) but never definitively. Most of the time I spring a short playlist of related films tied together by a common variable that's only three or four films long before I stop, or give up. Ten, that's a whole new ball game. It's also a great question for the frequent moviegoer because, really, how often does a character really stand out - so much that they dwarf every other aspect, and character, of the film? Unless you're just a people person and love everyone, not often.

[Note: I tried to exclude characters adapted from other works, but I failed. At least I succeded in keeping real life people -biopics, duh - off the list. I also found it too difficult to refrain from taking performance into account. It's like discussing an author's style without discussing exemplary passages!]
Not in any particular order...

Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins" (1964)
Two women from the movies shaped my view of the rest of the female population from childhood to now, and this is one of them (the other is next on the list). Julie Andrews has a spot reserved in my heart forever between her work in this and The Sound of Music. But this is her more memorable performance, and the character herself is indelible, easily magical. When she's singing to her reflection and it actually sang back, I thought: how wonderful would it have been for our bleak world if Mary Poppins existed, and as a pair! They'd heal the world! There's an innate sadness to this film that I always found beautiful. When the kids separate and prove themselves to their father at the bank in front of his superiors, it's the birdies leaving the nest. When I moved away from home and said "Bye, Mom" for the nth time but it being the first time that it meant something different than it had always meant before, it reminded me of Mary Poppins. [Quote: "As I expected. 'Mary Poppins, practically perfectly in every way.'"]

Ellen Ripley in "Alien" (1979), "Aliens" (1986), and sequels (1992, 1997).
When I was younger, my favorite scenes from the first two films were the very last ones in the films - when she's waiting to fling the alien from the pod while nursing herself to keep sane in the suit, and when she's inside of the cargo carrier yelling at the Queen to get away from Newt ("...you bitch!") They're more visceral and satisfying and fun. But upon watching the films again with my girlfriend, I found I was magnetized to her being a book-abiding officer (debating with the captain to let the crew back in with the specimen in Alien; arguing with Ash in Alien) and being an upfront, troubled but sympathetic mother-figure with both Jonesy the cat and Newt. An ideal woman: multi-faceted and kickass. [Quote: "Micro changes in air density, my ass."]

Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho" (2000)
This is a character that is excessive and disturbing, and masterfully restrained as a performance. It's self-aware but not indulgent. Bateman can be viewed very obviously as a cautionary tale about materialism and social responsibility, which then makes the character laughable and absurd, but when viewed against the context of AIDS, hypermasculinity, bigotry and idealism, the film is sinister and downright scary. The scene where Bateman washes his hands after being beckoned to by a closeted gay friend is at first funny, but then consider how many anti-gay mini-narratives there are on FML.com. This stuff can be real. [Quote: "You're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death, and then play around with your blood."]

Maxine Lund in "Being John Malkovich" (1999)
As much as I love Kate Winslet's turn as an eccentric, forward but addictive Clementine in Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I think I love Catherine Keener as Maxine Lund more in this Kaufman story. She's blasphemous, manipulative, enigmatic, and very irresistable. Kaufman's knack for strange asides and unexplained flourishes in the dialogue work for Maxine incredibly well, and her lines are so full of double-entendres and innuendo that I wonder how it might actually be like to work with her. [Quote: "You're right, my darling, it's so much more. It's playing with people!"]

Harry Fabian in "Night and the City" (1950)
I love a good scoundrel when the actor is invested in playing him all the way through. Harry Fabian is a man who has a million and one plans to fame and glory and riches - of course riches - but his plans always fail. Not because his investment in the plans wanes, no, he sticks it through all the way, but because he plays himself so high and so hard that he can't win without sticking it to the very people he's borrowing from, himself included. I'm certainly not that type, I travel in always-cautious waters, so I can admire him while also dreading the plank he's drawing out for himself. A plan off the deep end and a bridge over troubled waters: all the same for him.

Mrs. Eleanor Iselin in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
This is one of those rare times where I can say that I've little recollection of a Meryl Streep performance (there was a half-as-good remake of this if you can recall yourself), but that's the case here, though I've little guilt since this is Angela Lansbury we're talking about and this is a performance and character that, I think, should've given Nurse Ratched a run for her money on the AFI list of villains (Ratched being the next-highest female villain after the Wicked Witch). She's sly, she's endlessly persuasive, she's a closeted Communist (at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, too!), and she was only two years older than Raymond Shaw. [This is based on a novel by Richard Condon, but I can't resist a strong female villain.][Quote: "But now, we have come almost to the end. One last step. And then when I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me."]

Jake Gittes in "Chinatown" (1974)
Like I said: I like a good scoundrel. Jack Nicholson plays 'em the best. This one's good on his own, too, you know. His joke about the "Chinamen"? I still don't get it, but I know it's offensive and I still laugh when I'm with friends who've never seen the film and they turn and glance about before opening their mouths. Testing to see if it should be obvious. I also can't tell if Gittes is supposed to be a pretty good private eye, he's so often putting himself and his cohorts (the gorgeous Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Mulwray, for instance) into danger that he shouldn't even be hirable. It's Drunken Monkey as Detective. [Quote: "Let me explain something to you, Walsh. This business requires a certain amount of finesse."]

Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" (1976)
My generation seems to be all about pitting Al Pacino against Robert De Niro as if they're the only living actors over the age of 55. And most of my generation seems to be all about Scarface and his little friend (or any variation thereof) but I found the peformance gratuitous and harsh. Bickle, on the other hand, is unsettling and utterly fascinating in a way not unlike Manchurian Candidate's Mrs. Iselin. It's a descent story, too, like Scarface, but isn't locked into that political/social arena - this is about personal stakes and masculinity in an emasculating world. Trivia: this is the film that got Daniel Day-Lewis to come to America as a serious screen actor. [Quote: "June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight."]

Selma Jezkova in "Dancer in the Dark" (2000)
A character that's even more tragic because you know, deep down and without saying it aloud, that it's partly her own fault. She's Lars von Trier's attack on America's law system, but where he might've intended it as a blitz against our society's bloodlust and requirement of a scapegoat in incidences of crime, I think Selma ended up being the manifestation of a lament of the necessity of social institutions and the reciprocity between the collective and the individual in order for those institutions to work. Notice that no one ever says we should change the law to prevent these things from happening. [Quote: "Because you just know when it goes really big... and the camera goes like out of the roof... and you just know it's going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song... and the film would just go on forever. "]

Jim Graham in "Empire of the Sun" (1987)
The face of undying hope. This is in many ways Steven Spielberg's most unique film. He's never made a film like this again and he probably never will. His treatment and framing of youths here works so tremendously well because it's set in harrowing circumstances but colored so vividly and strangely, almost fleeting, as to be childlike yet wise and lived-in. Jim's spunk, his voracious appetite for collectibles and aviation-related tidbits and toys, and his gait are all put on full display so that we never forget he's a child. He never actually grows up. The film never makes wartimes look fun, or even manageable. But Jim endures. It's strange when we see him quiet and removed, aloof, as his parents search for him amongst the myriad of lost kiddies. You think they don't deserve a young man of his heart and spirit. [Quote: "Help me, I'm British."]

Some honorable mentions:
-- Clementine Kruczynski in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004)
-- Linda Partridge in "Magnolia" (1999)
-- John Rooney in "Road to Perdition" (2002)
-- Lady Helen Port-Huntley in "The Saddest Music in the World" (2003)
-- Bai Ling in "2046"

And, perhaps later this year, I can induct into the list...
-- Carol, the Wild Thing in "Where the Wild Things Are" [the link is a new poster, via Awards Daily, that is actually more aesthetically pleasing than the first one]

As for who I tag to do this next... I tag Karen at Reel Artsy, and YOU since I don't really know who else I possibly could tag that contributes to a blog that would even somehow find this to refer back to. Leave them in the comments!

Who are your favorite characters?

"Evening Sun" Over Texas Skies

"A ruthless grudge match between two old foes. Lines are drawn, threats are made, and the simmering tension under the Tennessee sun erupts, inevitably, into savagery." I have not yet discovered where this premise - or is it an excerpt from a book or poem? - for "That Evening Sun" comes from or if it was chalked up by the filmmakers for the sake of SXSW programs, but it's spreading like wildfire all across the internet, wherever this trailer shows up, although it is a mighty fine way of summing up the film. At least by the looks of this exceptionally unsettling trailer, it is. The film, directed by Scott Teems, brings to mind Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," which is also about exceedingly normal people on the descent after a confrontation turns volatile, and after bad actions become irrevocable. It just won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast (but lost out to "Made in China" for Overall Narrative Feature) as well as the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at SXSW in Austin, Texas, which wraps on the 22nd. I can't wait to see this.


The film stars Hal Holbrook from "Into the Wild" doing his best Walt Kowalski impersonation (from Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino") though this film looks a little more consistent in its gritty, bucolic tone, and Holbrook himself looks less self-aware, as if this were a new sort of character for him. And now he's front and center. Mia Wasikowska, Ray McKinnon, Carrie Preston and Walter Goggins also star.

Other winners of the fest in Austin were "45365" for Documentary Feature, directed by Bill Ross, which explores everyday life in Middle America - but specifically Sidney, Ohio, which provides its zip code as the title - and the people who keep it going. (Diane Sawyer's special about Appalachia that aired a few weeks ago on ABC could append this exploration, although this is Kentucky and the film's in Ohio.) Honorable mention for the category went to "The Way We Get By" by Aron Gaudet. As for the Emerging Visions Award, that went to "Motherland" by Jennifer Steinman, about six grieving mothers and their journey to Africa in an effort to test the theory that "giving is healing." "MINE" by Geralyn Pezanoski won the Audience Documentary Feature, which uses the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath of lost and abandoned pets to explore issues of race, class and animal welfare in America. And as I mentioned already, "Made in China" won Best Narrative Feature. Directed by Judi Krant, it is about an inventor who gets lost in Shanghai and ultimately discovers that "it takes more than a bright idea to succeed." More details about these films are at Variety. More awards and winners at Filmmaker Magazine.

Will you be peering into the "Evening Sun"?


TRAILER from: Trailer Addict
SCOOPED first by: Variety

Rubenesque Comedians

It's nice that Annie Leibovitz can poke fun at her own work (in this case, it's another Vanity Fair cover shot, this one from 2006 with Tom Ford, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley - Rachel McAdams was set to feature as well but dropped out after the clothes dropped off) despite being one of the foremost celebrity photographers in modern publication, and she's doing it with some good company. From left to right: Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel. Also known as: the new Dirty Pretty Things. (Does it seem strange, though, that she's referenced herself twice in this one shoot? But at least they're not redoing the whole "mock-celebs-who-act-badly" premise.) This time, it's essentially the school of Judd Apatow where the previous shoot was oriented around comediennes de SNL and their ilk. Also featured in the new issue: Danny McBride from "Pineapple Express," Russell Brand from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," and Apatow's own wife Leslie Mann who will play Adam Sandler's love interest in the upcoming "Funny People." Some funny people, alright, love the nude suits.



IMAGE from: Hollywood Elsewhere

Give Her A Movie

A few weeks ago, Elisabeth Rappe at Cinematical chalked up a rather intriguing question that studio execs are always asking themselves to prepare for the year's Oscar bait season: Who's in need of a biopic? They're a favorite of Hollywood, because they adapt the lives of mostly famous people into often conventionalized yet fascinating portraits that're ripe with drama, triumph, humor, tragedy and social commentary - a perfect mixture to appeal to Academy members. They also run opposite of ensemble flicks, of course, by highlighting the notoriety or stardom of a single person; and it's no wonder you'll find more nominated performances from a biopic than an ensemble piece because more depth and imitation is found in these than can fit in a film populated by a small soccer team of six or seven. The popularity and success scale of biopics resembles a bell curve, with those biopics which explore very famous people tending to hit the mark and make it to Oscar with at least an acting nomination of some sort ("Ray," "Ali," "Walk the Line," "The Queen") while also laying favor to the most obscure people - those who might be notable or important to their field or circle, but who lack the elements which we require to be called famous ("La Vie en Rose" about French singer Edith Piaf, "Milk" which explored well-known but not famous local politician Harvey Milk, "The Last King of Scotland"'s Idi Amin or "Hotel Rwanda"'s Paul Rusesabagina).

Rappe's own suggestions of Lev Trotsky and Mary Wollstonecraft (definitely the latter in the above, which is a pity on both accounts) come at the heels of the announcements that action star Steve McQueen and literary giant Ernest Hemingway will both be getting their dues finally in cinematic form (have neither been explored before? comment below!). For the purpose of this game we're playing, since I am asking for your thoughts on who you think is deserving of a biopic, let's see how obscure we can get with our choices. Or, even better, the most famous people yet to have a biopic - there's real blasphemy being committed out there with some of the glaring omissions that are coming to the fore with these new announcements (like Steven Spielberg's long and hard attempts at getting his Lincoln picture made, which might be getting yet another push - ack!).

Some of these biopics are getting really strange ("W.," for instance), but a lot of creativity has been fuelling some of the latest projects and the biopics of the last few years. Which brings me to my personal choice. We've had films which used extensive amounts of Bob Dylan's music, then we've got "I'm Not There" which may be the most inspired and most unique angle for a biopic yet (though the Diane Arbus pic, "Fur," was also quite odd and captivating). Why not devote an entire film to music's other great, female singer-songwriter - Joni Mitchell? She's a magnificent musician and hugely influential, as influential as Dylan I'd contend, and her life has been quite amazing with her frequenting the likes of Dylan, Janis Joplin, Carole King, and Herbie Hancock over the course of her long career, and straddling cultural moments like the beatnik movement, Woodstock (which she didn't actually attend), folk going electric, the rise of MTV and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The movie could cast two different leads to play the younger, more delicate and higher-pitched Mitchell and the older Mitchell with her drops in octaves and resurgence as a more politically-charged artist.

Who fits the bill for a biopic?

IMAGE from: More Things
IMAGE from: The Cinematic Art

the big show.

Here are my predictions for the nominees and winners of this year's Academy Awards ceremony, if it does indeed happen, and it seems it will because show producers are vehemently saying that it will take place whether the writers support it or not. (The Oscars have continually brought in millions, perhaps billions, of dollars into the Los Angeles and California economy, so it not happening would be not only distressing for Hollywood, but also the many businesses who count on the Oscars for profit and sustenance.) I'm crossing my fingers for the negotiations and I hope they occur sooner than later (with or without mediation by A-listers, guild heads, etc.) so that dues can be paid to those who have contributed most last year to the art of films, which is as important as making films.

There are some glaring omissions when it comes to categories, but I'm working on it.

Best Original Score
Atonement -- Will Win / Should Win
There Will Be Blood -- Could Win
Into the Wild
Beowulf
Ratatouille

Best Cinematography
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- Will Win
There Will Be Blood -- Should Win
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -- Could Win

Best Editing
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- Will Win
Michael Clayton -- Could Win
Atonement -- Should Win
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men

Best Original Screenplay
Juno -- Will Win / Should Win
Michael Clayton -- Could Win
Ratatouille
The Savages
Lars and the Real Girl

Best Adaptated Screenplay
No Country for Old Men -- Will Win / Should Win
There Will Be Blood -- Could Win
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Art Direction
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- Will Win / Should Win
Atonement
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
300 -- Could Win
Across the Universe

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett :: I'm Not There -- Will Win / Should Win
Tilda Swinton :: Michael Clayton -- Could Win
Amy Ryan :: Gone Baby Gone -- Could Win
Saoirse Rohan :: Atonement
Catherine Keener :: Into the Wild

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem :: No Country for Old Men -- Will Win / Should Win
Casey Affleck :: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -- Could Win
Philip Seymour Hoffman :: Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson :: Michael Clayton
Hal Holbrook :: Into the Wild

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis :: There Will Be Blood -- Will Win / Should Win
George Clooney :: Michael Clayton -- Could Win
Johnny Depp :: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Viggo Mortenson :: Eastern Promises
Ryan Gosling :: Lars and the Real Girl

Best Actress
Julie Christie :: Away From Her -- Will Win / Should Win
Ellen Page :: Juno -- Could Win
Marion Cotillard :: La Vie en Rose -- Could Win
Angelina Jolie :: A Mighty Heart
Amy Adams :: Enchanted

Best Director
The Coen Brothers :: No Country for Old Men -- Will Win / Should Win
Paul Thomas Anderson :: There Will Be Blood -- Could Win
Sean Penn :: Into the Wild -- Could Win
Tim Burton :: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Julian Schnabel :: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Picture
No Country for Old Men -- Will Win
There Will Be Blood -- Should Win
Atonement -- Could Win
Juno
Michael Clayton