Here's Ken Turan on the five Best Picture nominees and what they represent. Good piece. While Turan argues that Michael Clayton is the sole studio best-picture entry, it still got made as a $25-million indie within the system, with major star George Clooney not getting his price upfront and Boston financeer Steve Samuels behind it. I'm going to meet him today at the Indie Spirits.

There were some welcome surprises this nominations morning. (Here's Variety's story.) Atonement made it to best picture. While Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and Joe Wright did not win noms, Saorise Ronin did. Christopher Hampton earned a screenplay nod. The Guilds don't always reflect the Academy, clearly; this means the battle for the fifth slot was fierce. But Atonement got seven noms altogether; Michael Clayton seven, Juno four, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, four, and Sweeney Todd got only three (Johnny Depp, art direction and costume); Juno's Jason Reitman, not Tim Burton, landed a director's slot. A surprise, but well-deserved. (I was talking to him here in Park City last night at the WMA party; he was nervous because he didn't get a writing nom last time for Thank You for Smoking.)

Atonement took the fifth best picture slot away from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Julian Schnabel got director, and Harwood screenplay, but Diving Bell, which is foreign language, didn't make it all the way.

Into the Wild must not have been that strong because Sean Penn and Emile Hirsch did not get nominated. It was shut out earned expected supporting actor nom for Hal Holbrook and editing. Eddie Vedder's music might have gotten in if it hadn't been disqualified. I never thought Into The Wild would score with the Academy, but Paramount Vantage gave it the full court push.

If Jonny Greenwood's score hadn't been disqualified, There Will be Blood might have nine noms to No Country for Old Men's eight. Vantage, Miramax and producer Scott Rudin, who partnered on those two films, are having a very good day.

The Academy loves Cate Blanchett, nominating her twice, for Elizabeth and I'm Not There, movies she dominated. She can do no wrong. Laura Linney beat Angelina Jolie, which is an upset but proves that the Golden Globes and SAG do not necessarily match up with the Academy. The Savages is well respected; so is Linney; so is screenwriter Tamara Jenkins. When in doubt, the Academy goes with the class act. Four solo women screenwriters got nominated, my USA Today pal Susan Wloszczyna pointed out on the phone this morning.

I had a flash that Tommy Lee Jones could be nominated for not only In the Valley of Elah, but also on some level No Country for Old Men. I wish I had listened to that instinct. And Viggo Mortensen got a deserved first Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.

Casey Affleck took the fifth supporting actor slot. And Jennifer Garner didn't make it; Ruby Dee got the older vet slot, for American Gangster.

The full list of noms are on the jump.

OK, so it doesn't look good for Atonement for a best picture Oscar slot. What about McAvoy, Knightley and Wright, pictured here? It's such a competitive year. I'm still scratching my head about why so many folks haven't responded to this wonderful movie the way the British Academy of Film & Television Arts did. Of course, the Brits are rewarding their own. Atonement led the BAFTA pack with 14 noms.

Was the structure too strange? The central figures not likable enough? The Academy usually loves the Brits, the period, the scale and scope of a movie like this. I come back to the same thing. Despite Focus Features' best efforts not to let this happen, the early fest raves in the fall, combined with the withholding of screenings, led to the film finally not meeting expectations. It's doing some business. But this film did not perform with the Guilds the way I expected it to. One other culprit: the high end reviews that knocked it, led by A.O. Scott in the NYT.

The awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, February 10 at the Royal Opera House in London; stateside it's on BBC America on Feb 10 at 6 PM Eastern.

Daniel Day Lewis wins best actor for There Will Be Blood. As expected. He will be the front-runner for the Oscars as well. The comedy Globe winner, Johnny Depp, will be his biggest competition.

Atonement wins drama for Golden Globes. This has little impact whatsoever on the Oscar race. The ballots are in. It helps the eventual nominees look like winners and gain momentum, is all. If in fact Atonement gets many nominations, then this strange Globe win (which will be plastered all over ads everywhere) helps them. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. Same with Sweeney Todd, which is more likely to get lots of technical nods and Depp than best picture.

UPDATE: Here's the estimable Dave Germain's A.P.story. And Variety.

The winners of the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards are:

The Screen Actors Guild nominees took some surprising directions. (Here's Variety's story.) They reflect a few things about SAG, and may not predict Academy voting behavior. The two groups often share noms but also go their separate ways.

Actors LOVE Sean Penn, whose Into the Wild grabbed four noms. Hal Holbrook is still the most likely Oscar nom for this film, but Emile Hirsch and Catherine Keener get a leg up. Remember, actors adore Penn, but the rest of the Academy voters may not.

I hope the attention SAG voters gave Lars and the Real Girl's Ryan Gosling, Eastern Promises' Viggo Mortensen and A Mighty Heart's Angelina Jolie will inspire Academy voters to watch those three films.

Actors love Cate Blanchett. Like the Golden Globes, she grabbed two noms, for best actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and supporting actress for I'm Not There. I doubt the Oscar actors will go for Elizabeth.

SAG voters are somewhat more mainstream than the Academy actors. They steered away from such late-breaking high-brow Academy contenders as Sweeney Todd and Atonement. No Johnny Depp, James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saorise Ronan. They went for There Will be Blood's Daniel Day Lewis, but not Paul Dano. Michael Clayton's George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson continue to gain traction for Academy Oscar slots. SAG voters skipped such foreign-language fare as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Kite Runner, but came through for Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, which was a hit here. It makes sense that they embraced the great ensemble acting in the hugely entertaining 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, Hairspray and No Country for Old Men (both Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem got supporting actor noms).

American Gangster won a best ensemble nod and Ruby Dee is a supporting actress nominee, but Denzel Washington got nothing, not for American Gangster nor The Great Debaters, which some SAG voters may not have had a chance to see. While American Gangster seems to be losing momentum (it has fallen out of the LAT's Buzzmeter poll's top five for best picture) my sense is that many Academy voters like it a lot. Charlie Wilson's War, on the other hand, which opens this weekend, hasn't got a pulse.

The full SAG nominations list is on the jump:

The British Academy Awards, or BAFTAs, have some influence on Oscar voters. And Atonement is expected to get yet another boost when the nominations are announced January 16. But director Joe Wright could face some backlash from his acceptance speech last year, when he chided voters for not awarding Pride & Prejudice star Keira Knightly with a prize, reports Variety's Adam Dawtrey.

With seven nominations, Joe Wright's Atonement led the field of Golden Globe nominations Thursday morning. It was a good day for Denzel Washington, who stars in two films out of seven in the motion picture drama category: American Gangster, in which he stars as a Harlem kingpin, and The Great Debaters, a heart-tugging period drama about an upstart debate team at a black college who take on Harvard, which he also directed. He was also nominated for best actor for American Gangster.

The 80 or so Hollywood Foreign press voters wound up with three ties for fifth place, they say; hence the seven drama slots.

Michael Clayton earned five noms, including George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson. Cate Blanchett landed two noms, for dramatic actress in Elizabeth: The Golden Age and for her supporting role as one of six Bob Dylans in I'm Not There. And Philip Seymour Hoffman won two comedy side noms, as best actor in The Savages and supporting actor in Charlie Wilson's War.

While considered a bellwether for the Oscars, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association generously breaks its best picture and actor candidates into two categories: drama and musical/comedy, while the Motion Picture Academy does not. Thus, on January 22 the Academy may not find room to reward all the musical/comedy Globe entries: Across the Universe, Hairspray, Juno, Sweeney Todd and Charlie Wilson's War, which landed five noms.

The director category reveals the strongest five Globe candidates: Sweeney Todd, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, American Gangster and Atonement. I would not be surprised if those five also wound up as Oscar's best on January 22. While its youthful director Jason Reitman did not land a director Globe mention, Juno, which got nods for comedy, actress (Ellen Page) and screenplay (Diablo Cody) is gaining momentum in the Oscar race.

There's no question that Hairspray got a significant boost from the Globe nominations, especially John Travolta in the supporting actor category, who had been overlooked by critics' groups. Also getting much-needed recognition was Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Among the Globe surprises that may not be mirrored on the Oscar side of the ledger:

David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and star Viggo Mortenson earned drama nods.

Angelina Jolie landed a dramatic actress nom for A Mighty Heart.

Jodie Foster was recognized for her role as a Manhattan vigilante in The Brave One.

On the musical/comedy side:

Hairspray's Nikki Blonsky and Sweeney Todd's Helena Bonham Carter landed noms.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts won noms for Charlie Wilson's War.

John C. Reilly landed a nod for the musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Ryan Gosling got a much-needed boost for the indie flick Lars and the Real Girl.

Of the musical/comedy actor nods, the likeliest one to score with the Academy voters is Sweeney Todd's Johnny Depp.

Because the Globes have less stringent criteria for inclusion in its foreign film category, several films that are not eligible for the Oscars made the cut: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Lust, Caution and The Kite Runner. Nominees 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Romania) and Persepolis (France) are considered strong contenders in the foreign Oscar race.

While many would-be awards-season contenders are crying in their beer today, all is not lost. It is possible to forge ahead without Globe noms, as Half-Nelson star Gosling did last year.

The full list of movie nominations is on the jump.

Atonement screened for my last UCLA class Monday night, and they went for it, although you can always tell when a movie has left some folks behind when they ask questions about why the characters behaved the way they did. About a third of the class had read the book. Director Joe Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton explained why the movie was such a difficult challenge.

The structure: when Hampton first wrote the script for Richard Eyre, he fashioned a more conventional framing device with the grown-up Briony Tallis explaining the set-up and then moving into the past. When Wright stepped in, he asked Hampton to redo it from scratch and follow the structure of the book, which leaves the revelations of the adult Briony to the end, as a surprise. This forces the audience to reexamine what they've already learned in a new light, which is always a risky thing to do in a film. Wright and Hampton admitted that they spent more time debating the ending than anything else. Hampton also worked closely with McEwan, who gave notes.

The casting: Wright made the call to cast three different actresses as the 13-year-old, 18-year-old and dying Briony. And he insisted on casting the youngest one first--he wanted a pre-pubescent who could act to establish the character. Then he realized that Redgrave would work perfectly for the elderly Briony; Romula Garai modeled her performance on Saorise Ronan. (All three actresses were stuck with the same short bob.) At first, Wright considered Keira Knightley, who starred in his Pride & Prejudice, for the middle Briony, but when he saw her in her designer duds at the Toronto Fest, he changed his mind and cast her as the sexy ingenue Cecilia. James McAvoy was perfect for the young gardener who attends Cambridge with Cecilia, partly because he's believably working class. The last thing Wright wanted was "a posh actor playing common."

The long shot: As some of you suspected, the 5 1/2-minute long shot on the beach at Dunkirk came about from necessity--Wright would have had to do 40 set-ups in one day--it was written as a montage. The director usually gets about 15 setups a day. The beach had a huge tide, which would be coming in as the day progressed. They planned an elaborate steadicam shot and rehearsed for a day, then did three takes. When Wright looked at the video playback, it was all fuzz. He tried to get another take but lost the light. It wasn't until the actual dailies arrived in film cans that they saw how the shot came out.

The critics: After its stunning launch in Venice, Atonement became a critical and boxoffice smash in Britain. Hampton thinks that sometimes when a lauded movie arrives on these shores, some posh critics feel the need to go after it, he said.

Hampton's next: Stephen Frears (who directed Hampton's adaptation of his play Dangerous Liaisons) is shooting Hampton's script of Colette's Cherie, to star a 50ish actress as an aging woman of the night.

And Wright is working on a local L.A. story, The Soloist, from the LAT's Steve Lopez, about a homeless musician. Jamie Foxx is now starving himself for the role, and practicing the violin.

The new marketing trend this season seems to be flooding YouTube with film clips. For Sweeney Todd, the thinking was, let's get audiences accustomed to the idea of Johnny Depp singing. Here is one of many shots from Atonement: a bravura five-minute tracking shot showing the thousands of soldiers who retreated to the beach at Dunkirk. Here's American Cinematographer on how D.P. Seamus McGarvey pulled it off.

Like many things about this movie--which played well to mixed response at the Academy yesterday, many love it, some don't, just like the critics--this shot has its admirers and detractors. It's a stunning shot, but does it take the viewer out of the movie, or serve a dramatic purpose? It makes you say, 'Wow, what a long shot! Look what Joe Wright did with the camera! Look how complex this is!' I for one get a kick out of bravura shots like this, whether it's Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Robert Altman, Orson Welles, Antonioni or Alfonso Cuaron.

New Line's bid for a new fantasy franchise, The Golden Compass, should overpower the rest of the field this weekend, which also sees a rash of art-house openings led by Atonement, Juno and Grace is Gone. Here's Variety's take.

Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 12/07/07 10:00 a.m. PT):

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

Hannah Montana (upcoming concert movie) “Must Go” 49%

The Golden Compass “Go” 30%

Enchanted Go” 16%

Beowulf “Go” 4%

Juno “Must Go” 3%

Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 12/07/07 10:00 a.m. PT):

Which holiday movie are you most looking forward to seeing?

I Am Legend 31%

National Treasure: Book of Secrets 28%

The Golden Compass 16%

Sweeney Todd 12%

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem 7%

Charlie Wilson’s War 6%

There's no question Atonement played well at the L.A. premiere at the Academy last night, which drew director Joe Wright, supporting actress candidates Saorise Ronan and Vanessa Redgrave (stunning in form-fitting black and gold), and stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Just after the screening, Redgrave was still recovering from seeing the film again, which moved her deeply. Knightley recalled how they all had to listen to Johnny Depp's deep baritone as he practiced Sweeney Todd songs in his trailer during the last Pirates filming; she can't wait to see Sweeney. [Here's her LAT profile.] With a Scottish lilt, McAvoy marveled at how Knightley handles the paparazzi that tend to accumulate around her, and plans to follow Clive Owen's advice when celebrity hits: stay polite, courteous and extremely dull. He said he and his wife "don't get around much."

Tony Scott's Atonement pan in the NYT was also a topic of conversation:

Unlike Mr. Wright’s brisk, romantic film version of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” “Atonement” fails to be anything more than a decorous, heavily decorated and ultimately superficial reading of the book on which it is based. Mr. McEwan’s prose pulls you in immediately and drags you through an intricate, unsettling story, releasing you in a shaken, wrung-out state. The film, after a tantalizing start, sputters to a halt in a welter of grandiose imagery and hurtling montage

As rain leaked through the plastic tent on Wilshire Boulevard, Universal's David Linde was confident that the movie could overcome a few negative reviews, even though Scott will also berate the pic on ABC's Ebert & Roeper show. The movie earned an encouraging 85% fresh reviews on rottentomatoes.com.

Luckily for its Academy campaign, Atonement won a rave from the LAT's Ken Turan, who also read his review on NPR:

An assured and deeply moving work, "Atonement" is at once one of the most affecting of contemporary love stories and a potent meditation on the power of fiction to destroy and create, to divide and possibly heal. It is the kind of novel that doesn't get written very often or, if it does, rarely gets transferred to the screen with the kind of intensity and fidelity we find here.

UPDATE: Newsweek's David Ansen comes close to my take on the movie (see comment below).

Here are some clips:

You can be sure that Universal subsidiary Focus Features' Oscar campaign for James McAvoy in Atonement is behind Universal's postponement of the release of the fantasy action flick Wanted into the summer of 2008. Now, the studio may also be banking that McAvoy's stardom will be enhanced after Atonement. But I don't see all the teen girls who will turn McAvoy into the next Leonardo DiCaprio flocking to Wanted, which looks like a strictly male-driven pic.

Wanted, which also stars Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie in what look like trademark formula roles, will now open on the prime date of June 27. They play members of a secret society; Wanted will surely be visually interesting, as it is the first English-language film directed by Russian Timur Bekmambetov (the Night Watch series).

Wanted now goes up against Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, possibly because Valkyrie may not be considered a big gun for that date, even with Tom Cruise starring.

Here's the trailer:

Yes, Focus has been keeping quiet about Atonement. But believe me--even though it plays somewhat better for women than for men--think great wartime epics like The English Patient, Reds, Dr. Zhivago--this one is going to stick.

While I admire Kris Tapley's attempt to make some sense out of the blizzard of Oscar predictions out there, I remain convinced that until the prognosticators see Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney Todd, the two films that many of us got invited to see Monday, none of these lists make much sense. Richard Corliss in Time suggests that "audiences will have a great time watching" Charlie Wilson's War, which seemed to play for Oprah Winfrey's Chicago audience. Oprah raved about Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance, as guests Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts (who tried to get out of shooting a bikini scene while four weeks pregnant) nodded politely. My hunch is that Hoffman won't get nommed for best actor for The Savages or Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but will get a supporting nom for Charlie Wilson's War.

Clearly, the non-pro fans on Movie City News and Awards Daily are voting with their youthful hearts and not thinking much about the Academy's tastes. Into the Wild is a popular movie that has a chance at some noms, especially for Hal Holbrook, but because of the way the movie was written, shot and performed, the different branches of the Academy may not take it seriously enough. It's shot doc-style on location, it looks like it was performed on the fly. I suspect the editor has a better shot than Penn as director or writer, Emile Hirsch as actor, or the cinematography. The Academy admires fakery, sets, costumes and literature. As an organic whole, Into the Wild is an entertaining, thought-provoking emotionally rewarding movie. But it's a long-shot as an Academy contender.

David Fincher's Zodiac is another movie that isn't gaining Oscar momentum. It was well-reviewed last summer March, and many critics will include it on their ten-bests. But its time has come and gone. It was an expensive big-budget studio failure. It's indulgently long, and Fincher's insistence on verisimilitude meant not giving viewers a satisfying narrative arc. The movie has its merits--hell, it will be on my ten best list---but an Oscar contender needs to have enthusiastic supporters, few detractors and a passionate push behind it. It needs confidence. Zodiac has too many deficits. Paramount is already gearing up to make a major Oscar push for Fincher's next, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as star-crossed lovers twisted by time, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I got into a heated debate with someone in the office yesterday about Enchanted, the animated/live action comedy that brilliantly spoofs Disney's classic animated musicals. This movie is just what the doctor ordered: entertaining, witty, engaging, delirious fun. It's a three-quadrant accessible family musical that will grow and grow and grow through the holidays. Whatever it opens at Wednesday, it will keep building: the movie could wind up one of the year's biggest grossers. Men will initially resist the chick flick's charms, but they should eventually get pulled into Enchanted's vortex. Amy Adams gives a full-blown star breakout performance (on Oprah, a clip of her from Charlie Wilson's War caused both Hanks and Roberts to chime, "Amy Adams," naming her the It Girl of the moment). Adams could land, Julie Andrews-style, a nomination for best actress. (Why Disney isn't thumping the movie harder, I don't know. Most of us media folks didn't see it until last week. UPDATE: And yet again, the Academy screening committee in its wisdom has scheduled Alvin and the Chipmunks during its prime December viewing season, and not Enchanted.)

But Enchanted is not your standard-issue Oscar movie. Director Kevin Lima (Tarzan, 102 Dalmations) has made a successful crossover from animation. Bill Kelly's script is witty and smart and should land a nomination. But will it? Let's be honest about the Academy. They are SNOBS! They are high-minded, nose-in-the-air, classists. The more literary, historic, and pretentious the better. (EW's Mark Harris explains the Oscar predicting game.) The last animated film to make it to Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast (for which Lima did character animation), before there was an animation category. Sure, I'd also like to see the best-reviewed movie of the year, Pixar's fabulous Ratatouille, score screenplay, director and picture. It deserves it. But it won't necessarily happen.

The trick with Oscar predicting is feeling where the momentum is going and looking into the future, down the line. The best prognosticators have seen the movies, one. And two, they're not rooting for their favorites. They're staying ruthlessly objective. Do I have some pics I'm rooting for? Sure. But I have to take that into account and remain clear-eyed. The year I let emotions get the better of me and predicted that Beauty and the Beast would win, I was so wrong.

As for the Academy docs short list of 15, they are the the best-known and best-reviewed: the full list is on the jump.

Planet Gossip feels the love for Atonement star and Elle cover girl Keira Knightley.

While Brit producer Working Title's sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age got off to a rocky start, the movie should still have a fighting chance in such Oscar tech categories as art direction and costume (not score, though). It is not widely known that Working Title has enjoyed a long and illustrious relationship with Oscar: since 1986 their films have landed 38 noms and four wins. (See chart.) Here's a taste of my column on Working Title:

Working Title co-heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have the best of both worlds.

They're the big fish at the top of the British film pond, drawing top scripts and directors. At the same time, they boast a rich seven-year first-look deal with Universal Pictures, which finances and releases their films Stateside via the studio or Focus Features, and overseas, where their films earn the lion's share of their grosses. This fall they're back in the Oscar race with Focus Features' World War II romantic epic "Atonement," starring Keira Knightley and Vanessa Redgrave, which is shaping up to be the award season's early front runner.

Because Working Title is so profitable for Universal, they have earned rare autonomy within the studio -- they even control their own international marketing. Bevan and Fellner nurture edgy American fare from the likes of the Coen brothers and "United 93" helmer Paul Greengrass alongside comedies like the "Mr. Bean" films, which have vastly more appeal to global auds than they do to Americans.

While they still wince at their biggest box office debacle, the $55-million bigscreen version of Brit kid fave "The Thunderbirds," Bevan and Fellner are enjoying the fruits of maturity, churning out such global sequels as "Mr. Bean's Holiday," starring Rowan Atkinson, alongside the ambitious $55-million sequel "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," in which Cate Blanchett reprises her role as the British monarch. "Golden Age" did not woo critics and crowds at September's Toronto Fest as well as "Atonement," which is steadily building Oscar buzz.

Working Title has enjoyed a long and fruitful dance with the Oscars. Since 1986's "My Beautiful Laundrette," which earned a writing nom for Hanif Kureishi, Working Title has earned 38 Oscar nominations and four wins: best actress for Susan Sarandon for "Dead Man Walking" and Frances McDormand for "Fargo," which also scored for original screenplay, and a makeup prize for "Elizabeth."

Here's Bevan and Fellner's Toronto Fest interview on Shootout:

[Posted by Peter Debruge]
Just stumbled across this preview screening writeup of Atonement, which opens the Venice Film Festival tomorrow. So what does Pride & Prejudice’s Joe Wright make of Ian McEwan’s celebrated novel? Says the spy:

There are parallels with The English Patient, both stories told by a dying narrator, of love and loss against the backdrop of the war. There's even a cameo for Anthony Minghella as an interviewer.

According to IMDb, this is Minghella’s first appearance in front of the camera (does anyone remember another?), so he must’ve had a good reason to accept the gig. Given the crowded season ahead, he could prove a good-luck charm (though Minghella’s own quite wonderful Breaking and Entering didn’t quite catch on last year).

By taking Atonement to Venice, then Toronto, Focus is repeating a strategy that served them well on Brokeback Mountain (the Golden Lion win effectively kicked off six months of accolades for that picture).

Incidentally, Ang Lee’s latest, Lust, Caution is also going to Venice, but something tells me the Mandarin dialogue, NC-17 rating and “what’s it about?” plot could cool its chances (then again, there are those who think the Acad’s just waiting to award Lee for some good, hetero lovemaking).

P.S. Don't miss this video (or these pics, snapped by an extra during Atonement's most audacious scene) revealing the set of the Dunkirk evacuation. There's at least one Oscar nom right there: