The recent U.S. involvement in Iraq has become one of the biggest subjects for documentaries in the past few years, and it's hard not to feel weary of watching the variety of movies on this topic, no matter how varied and original they might be. Phil Donahue has contributed to the genre with Body of War, a documentary he co-directed with Austin filmmaker Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500). The movie focuses on the effect that the U.S. conflict in Iraq has had on a single soldier.

Body of War combines two threads of narrative. The first thread follows Tomas Young, who enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 13, 2001 as a reaction to the events of Sept. 11. He ends up being deployed to Iraq, and after only a few days in combat is injured -- a spinal injury. He's paralyzed below the chest and is confined to a wheelchair. Tomas, his bride-to-be and his mom all have to get used to dealing with his range of physical problems as a result of this injury: not only can't he walk, but he's on an ever-changing variety of medications, he can't control his body temperature, he vomits frequently, and experiences sexual difficulties. Meanwhile, his experiences have made him passionately anti-war, and he visits Cindy Sheehan's compound in Crawford, Texas, travels to the offices of several politicians, and speaks out frequently in public.

A lot of people were disappointed with the Golden Globe nominations because they failed to include any tracks from Once in the category for Best Original Song. Will the Oscars make the same mistake? We won't know for another month, but we can at least see that the Academy is deeming the film's songs as eligible. Both "Falling Slowly" and "If You Want Me" have been shortlisted along with 57 other song titles written exclusively for their respective movies. The variety of films is quite interesting and includes musicals (Hairspray), action blockbusters (Transformers), documentaries (Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone), foreign films you've never heard of (56 Drops of Blood), domestic films you've never heard of (Badland) and Hollywood comedies you wish you'd never heard of (Good Luck Chuck).

Aside from Once, which the Academy will have to include if they want people to tune into the musical performances, the nominees are likely to include a song from Enchanted -- I'd pick "Happy Working Song" over the Globes' pick of "That's How You Know" -- a song from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story -- I'd pick "Let's Duet" over "Walk Hard" -- the Eddie Vedder song from Into the Wild (for more "guaranteed" viewers), and the song from Hairspray that wasn't in the Broadway version -- "Come So Far (Got So Far to Go)". I'm sad to see Kimya Dawson not on the list, as I had hoped she had written at least one original tune for the Juno soundtrack. A few of them certainly felt like they were penned exclusively for the film. I'm not sad but was surprised to see that the Bono and Stevie Wonder duet "Love's In Need of Love Today" from Darfur Now was not eligible. But then I realized that despite it seeming like a song written just for an Oscar the film, it's actually pretty old.

With its concentration on the music industry, it's easy to forget that the Grammys have a few movie-related categories. They include best compilation soundtrack album, best score soundtrack album and best song written for motion picture, television or other visual media. One thing that's always odd with the Grammys, though, is how many nominees are so old. Take a look at the score/composer nominees, for example: Babel (Gustavo Santaolalla); Blood Diamond (James Newton Howard); The Departed (Howard Shore); Happy Feet (John Powell); Pan's Labyrinth (Javier Navarrete); Ratatouille (Michael Giacchino). Only the last of those films came out in 2007. But the eligibility period for the Grammys is always October of the previous year until the end of September of the current year. All but Ratatouille's soundtrack were released in October, November and December of 2006. Since the Grammy ceremony is only a couple weeks prior to the Oscars, the ancient films honored are easily seen as that much more old news (Babel won the 2007 Academy Award for score).

Happy Feet was also recognized in the best song category, for "The Song of My Heart" by Prince (who already has the best soundtrack of all time), despite its not having received an Oscar nomination. Same goes for one of its competitors, Casino Royale theme song "You Know My Name", co-written (with David Arnold) and performed by Chris Cornell. Dreamgirls' "Love You I Do", written by Siedah Garrett and Henry Krieger (performed by Jennifer Hudson) is the only overlap from last February's Oscar nominees (it lost to Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth). The other recognized tracks, both from 2007 releases, are Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild and Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová's duet "Falling Slowly" from Once.

Once is also a contender for best compilation soundtrack, though it faces a huge challenger in The Beatles, who are recognized for the album for the Cirque du Soleil show Love (how does that fall into this category and not the one for musical show album?) and indirectly for the soundtrack to the movie Across the Universe, which features covers of the band's tunes performed by the movie's cast. Other soundtrack nominees are retro musicals Dreamgirls and Hairspray. Sorry, fans of High School Musical 2.

Last November, when I brought news about Phil Donahue's directorial debut as a documentary filmmaker, there wasn't much known. We learned that it was focused on a paralyzed Iraq War vet named Tomas Young, that Donahue was financing it himself and that any profits would go to charity and to Young, and that he still had a lot to do before the film would be finished. It seems to be done, though, now. The former talk show host has been screening the doc, which he co-directed with Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500), in his Manhattan apartment, for a number of acquisitions execs from various distributors.

The film now has a title: Body of War (which sounds to me a little too close to Lord of War). It also has newly confirmed controversial subject matter: it criticizes many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, for their support of the Iraq War. Reportedly only one Democrat, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is okay in Donahue's book. Body of War will feature a soundtrack of new music from Eddie Vedder that he wrote specifically for the film. Contrary to what I had predicted, it does not feature Donahue on camera in Michael Moore fashion. Donahue is hoping for a wide theatrical release, though the execs seem to be more interested in a smaller scale. Already the film has been accepted to one of this fall's prestigious film festivals, though it isn't known which -- possibly either Toronto or Venice -- so we'll probably see how it is received publicly before we hear about any concrete distribution plans.