'Doubt' Leads Screen Actors Guild Nominees

With one or two exceptions, this is what your acting categories will most likely resemble at the Academy Awards. The Screen Actors Guild has released its list of what matters most in film and television acting for 2008, and there are only a couple selections that are slight surprises. More on that in a second. Doubt took home the most nominations, which isn't a big shock. After all, it has three supporting roles and one unbelievable lead performance, and because it's based on a stage play, the film is a lot more driven by its dialogue. I can't help but think if Frost/Nixon had pushed Michael Sheen for a supporting nomination, he might have made it in that category. Tough to do that, though, when you're the "Frost" part of the equation.Most people might have figured Cate Blanchett would have trumped Angelina Jolie in the Best Actress race, but Jolie gives the much better performance. No slight to Blanchett, but Button is not her best work, and Changeling probably is Jolie's.The Best Actor race is set. Maybe Richard Jenkins doesn't get the Oscar nomination, although what a terrible shame that would be, but the other four guys aren't budging.I was happy to see the Guild honor Slumdog Millionaire and Dev Patel; the ensemble in particular had been overlooked so far this awards season.Best Actor:
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The WrestlerBest Actress:
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road Best Supporting Actor:
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Kate Winslet - The Reader Best Ensemble:
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
 

Box Office - 'Earth Stood Still' is Number One, But...

The hits keep on coming for Fox, and that's a bad thing. The studio, already reeling from a year full of major disappointments like Meet Dave, The X Files: I Want to Believe, City of Ember, Australia, Babylon A.D., Deception, and Mirrors, has one more ticking time bomb on its hands: The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The science fiction remake simply didn't make enough money in its debut to call itself a smash, and it might not recoup its $80 million budget in American ticket sales. A $31 million debut would normally be a good thing, but for a studio that is thanking its lucky stars that The Happening made a little bit of money this summer and can call What Happens in Vegas its crown jewel this year, Fox needed a lot more out of it.The Day the Earth Stood Still was easily the top movie in theaters, but it fell well below projections for its opening weekend, and doesn't resemble a movie that will be a strong contender for very long.Speaking of strong contenders, Four Christmases, Bolt, and Twilight spent their third weekend bunched together, and Bolt now appears very likely to break $100 million in a couple of weeks, which was not a sure thing when the film was released.The Top Five:
1 - The Day the Earth Stood Still ($31 million)
2 - Four Christmases ($13.3 million)
3 - Twilight ($8 million)
4 - Bolt ($7.5 million)
5 - Australia ($4.3 million)

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Movie Review - 'Doubt'

Doubt Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis Directed by John Patrick Shanley Rated PG-13

The beauty of Meryl Streep's performance as Sister Aloysius in Doubt is not in her tough-as-nails demeanor nor is it in the bluster you expect to find (and receive) from an adaptation of such an emotional Tony-winning play. The beauty of Streep's performance, why she so richly deserves her third Academy Award, is in where Streep pulls her punches. Most actors, even great ones like her co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman, can get too invested in the moment, and what begins as a disagreement because an all-out shouting match, because drama is all about, well, drama.But Streep knows when a performance ends and when a character should take over, and she probably knows it instinctively by now. Her Sister Aloysius scares the devil out of Catholic schoolchildren, intimidates her subordinates, and makes a priest question his moral ground, but she does so without ever acting on anything.There is no debate over which performance captivates us throughout this film; Streep has not performed this brilliantly since Angels in America, and even that is quite a compliment, because she hasn't exactly been mailing it in. I have read criticisms about her accent in the film, which is a bit shallow given everything else there is to admire in her work. I was reminded of Geraldine McEwan's scary nun in The Magdalene Sisters, but Streep never has to raise a finger to elicit the same fear or respect.One must be careful revealing details about the story; all that matters is there are two sides to every story, and Sister Aloysius believes hers steadfastly and Father Flynn (Hoffman) isn't backing down, either. Caught in the middle is the kindly Sister James (Amy Adams), who hasn't the backbone of her superior and is somewhat charmed by Father Flynn's gregarious and progressive demeanor.

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Fearless Forecast - The Weekend the 'Earth Stood Still'

Don't put too much stock into last weekend. There's always about a 50% drop from Thanksgiving to the weekend that follows it. That's just one of those dark release dates when studios feel they can't make money, like Labor Day. I don't pretend to understand it; that's just the way it is.So this weekend should be better, with The Day the Earth Stood Still arriving tomorrow. Here's a question, though: Would it have done poorly last weekend? Do the studios actually believe a movie with $125 million potential would bomb if the opening weekend just isn't right? But the sci-fi remake is the only game in town, for all practical purposes. If you look at similar releases over the past couple of years, you're in the $35 - $45 million range, and that's about right for this one, too. I actually think it will peak very early and decline quickly, but it should have enough gas in the tank to easily hit $40 million.There's a new Christmas movie, Nothing Like the Holidays, which would attract a large Latino audience if it were more available. Debuting on 1,500 screens can really only break your heart. You're not going to open in the top three (most likely), so the casual observer will watch the box office reports on an entertainment show and just think people aren't interested, because the casual observer probably doesn't realize or remember that The Day the Earth Stood Still opened in 1,900 more theaters. In fact, a movie on 1,500 screens could perform quite well in those locations, just not well enough to overtake movies in twice as many theaters. So on week two, people who didn't see your semi-wide release will think it's a failure and won't check it out then, either.That's an oversimplification, but it's not like Overture Films is going to ramp up to 2,500 or 3,000 screens from this point. It's only downhill from here. They might actually be better served to run in 800 theaters and then expand into more cities. That's the kind of approach a lot of the awards-friendly movies are putting into action. We've seen it with Slumdog Millionaire and Milk already, and now Doubt, Frost/Nixon, and Gran Torino start building a little army one or two cities at a time. They won't finish near the top five, but their pre screen averages will be interesting to watch; last week, Frost/Nixon made $60,000 per screen, more than three times what any other movie could muster.The Top Five:
1 - The Day the Earth Stood Still ($46 million)
2 - Four Christmases ($11 million)
3 - Twilight ($7.5 million)
4 - Bolt ($6.8 million)
5 - Nothing Like the Holidays ($6.5 million)Last week's forecast was a bit of a mixed bag, in part because nobody went to see Punisher. We had it cracking the top five, taking some business away from Quantum of Solace. So we undervalued Four Christmases by a couple million, and Solace and Australia, as well, and gave an extra million to Twilight and Bolt. Not wildly different from the actual results, outside of the Punisher fiasco, but a noteworthy off-target shot, nonetheless.

Early 'Doubt' Review Doubts Streep

In the past, I've done OK predicting the Oscar races well in advance, at least as far as the acting awards go. Sometimes you don't even need to see them to figure out what's going to win: Helen Mirren playing the Queen of England, Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain, Jamie Foxx in Ray (if you'd seen Collateral at that point, that is).

This year, my gaze has been fixed on one performance, and it's not Heath Ledger, who will also probably win. As soon as I saw the trailer for Doubt, I proclaimed that Meryl Streep would win her third Oscar, her second in the Best Actress category, and her first Academy Award in nearly 30 years. It seems like Streep wins all the time, but in fact, she's lost more races than any other actor, by virtue of having the most nominations ever. So, yes, I believe Streep will get her 15th nomination for Doubt, and to top it off, she'll get two Golden Globe nominations, for that film and Mamma Mia! But I predicted she'd win for Doubt. It's coming out at the right time, it has the Broadway pedigree, it's serious, and it's Streep. Plus, when you consider that likely nominee Anne Hathaway was a few months old the last time Streep won an Oscar, you could say she's due. I mean, she's the best actress of her generation, if not ever. You can't shut her down at two Oscars.Well, Todd McCarthy of Variety has seen Doubt, and he says that the one "iffy element" is - surprise, surprise - Meryl Streep:

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