Juno
She came onto the scene with a bang, charming audiences and quickly becoming a sensation. Of course, after the press she got, and buzz that followed, many have grown sick of the snarky teen and her Diablo Cody dialog that often crosses over the line from quirky to tired, but one thing always remains -- the phenomenon that followed the film centers on the fact that it's a wildly enjoyable comedy.

Ellen Page stars as Juno, a young woman who has discovered that she's gotten pregnant from an interlude with Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). After mulling over her options, she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption -- to the awkwardly yuppie couple Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman). The story is simple, and it's the delivery that gives Juno charm. Within the over-the-top dialog exists real, flawed characters and a lot of heart. This is the sort of film that exists on many levels. For some, it will be utterly perfect as they delight in undone doodles, a melange of cultural references, and a moment in time that wonderfully encapsulates today and yesterday. For most of the rest, it will still be a great and enjoyable comedy because there are so many pieces to the Juno puzzle -- one might not capture you, but another piece is sure to.

There are three DVDs to choose from, and each one ups the ante on the other -- refreshingly, no matter which you pick, you're sure to get a large selection of goodies to watch. On the single disc version, there's a bunch of deleted scenes, a gag reel, gag take, cast & crew jam, and even screen tests. When you add another disc to the mix, there's a digital copy and four featurettes -- about the kids, Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman, and creating the film. Finally, with the Blu-Ray option, you get all of the above features plus two extras from Fox Movie Channel Presents.

Check out Scott's Review, and Kim's | Buy the One-Disc, Two-Disc, Blu-Ray

Usually, heavy drama and inspirational fare are mixed into hard-hitting or heart-sagging packages. But sometimes, the tough-to-swallow is mixed with comedy -- not in a way where the funny is the only thing that matters, but in a way that helps move the story and keep you out of that moviegoer depression. When done right, it can be a really enjoyable experience -- one that makes you think, feel, and laugh.

Now, I'm cheating a little bit for this double feature. One of the films just came out on DVD this week, but the other doesn't come out until Tuesday (Double Feature of the Future!). But having received both screeners, and having them sitting here on the desk, looking at me, I couldn't help but use them because they go so well together. Both contain some pretty dramatic moments, but the drama is couched in levity. I present: Music Within and Lars and the Real Girl -- two films that embrace the marriage of comedy and drama, as well as people who get past their own fears and offer help to others.

When it comes to lists, Cinematical likes to keep things brief. Some of you think the alliterative Cinematical Seven is a bit too small when it comes to movie lists. I can't count the times I've been asked to up my list to 10 to add a few here or there, which is why I try to refrain from titling them with words like "best." There is always something missing. However, I imagine it would be harder to miss something if you upped the count to 50, and make it a list spanning only one year. Yes, this is what Moviefone has done. Out of the few hundred movies that were released this year, they've come up with their Top 50 of 2007.

Starting off the list is Transformers, which our own Erik Davis described as "one of the biggest, baddest action flicks we've seen in a long time." From there, well, you can guess most of the films that made the list -- they're the big blockbusters that people flocked to, like 300, and the art flicks smaller groups raved about, like Lars and the Real Girl. Of course, I don't know if I'd keep all of the contenders in this best-of list (Hairspray); however, we're not talking about a list of 10, so not every film can be wondrous. The list is mainly North American offerings, although you will spot a few of the international biggies like The Lives of Others and Lust, Caution.

Check out the list and weigh in: did they get it right? Are there some glaring omissions? Travesties that shouldn't be on any list with the word "best" in it?

Most people consider the National Board of Review irrelevant, and yet they continue to write about the organization's annual film honors. Like the Oscars, though, it doesn't matter if the NBR is irrelevant or not. It's been around for nearly a century now, and it's been a significant part of awards season for many decades. Maybe the organization is made up of paid-entry film buffs rather than critics or "experts" but at the end of the day its members are simply movie lovers like you and me. And sometimes those members even champion and endorse movies that deserve that extra notice.

Sure, the 2007 mentions by the NBR seem so exhaustive that I almost can't even think of a movie that didn't get an award. Also, many of them seem like obvious and predictable decisions (doesn't this just mean the movies were noteworthy enough to receive the awards anyway?). Some of the winners, though, are pretty satisfying. Tim Burton probably won't win an Oscar for best director, so it's good to see him honored here. Also, I wouldn't have expected Lars and the Real Girl to get an original screenplay mention from anywhere. Nor did I expect for The Bucket List to land on any top ten lists. Mostly, I'm delighted to see Casey Affleck recognized for his acting.

Check out all the awards after the jump.

The Write Stuff interview series continues this week with Nancy Oliver. Nancy got her big break writing for one of my all-time favorite television shows -- Six Feet Under. She also wrote the script for the wonderful new film Lars and the Real Girl. The movie is about a young man named Lars (Ryan Gosling), his relationship with a sex doll, and how it affects those around him. Lars is in theaters now.

Cinematical: Take us through how you got your start as a writer.

Nancy Oliver: I have always written, since I was a little girl. I would rather have been a rock star, but that didn't work out. I got serious about it when I was about 21, which was a while ago. I had seen Saturday Night Live, and at the time I was acting in college, but nobody was casting me because I was totally wrong for everything. So seeing SNL, I started thinking I could do that. Alan Ball and I were friends in college so we put on our first show together and it took off from there. We had a theater company for a long time, and wrote and produced all our material.

Cinematical: Was the desire ever to get into another medium or would you have been happy doing that the rest of your life?

NO: I was interested in every kind of writing. I was possessed by theater because I had the means to do it, whereas to get to a camera is a different sort of path. I didn't head specifically for television or film until I had sort of already turned myself into a writer. I wanted to have a certain command of what I did and a certain knowledge of styles, and I just wanted to be able to handle myself technically and in terms of craft before I came to L.A.

Cinematical: And Six Feet Under was your first television gig? How did you get on there?

NO: Yeah, it was my first legit job. I had been writing content for the website for a year, and I had a job reading scripts for Alan. After the first two seasons, they changed up the writing staff, and I came on in the third season. We had worked together for over 20 years, but the job came as a big surprise to me. I didn't expect it and didn't go looking for it. And I was actually going back to Florida at the time, giving up on show business when the Six Feet Under job came through.

I sure would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver pitched her script for Lars and the Real Girl: "See, it's about this guy who falls in love with a sex doll -- only he doesn't use the doll for sex, see? He's delusional, and he really thinks she's a real person, get it? Oh, but it's not a comedy, it's really kind of melancholy and depressing." Not the sexiest pitch in the world to have to sell, is it? And yet, the concept works -- and works very well -- if you're able to suspend a fair amount of disbelief.

The best thing about the film, nor surprisingly, is Ryan Gosling, who's proven to have quite a remarkable range as an actor. In last year's Half Nelson, Gosling made a crack-addicted middle-school teacher sympathetic; as Lars, he takes on the challenge of creating an emotionally disconnected and delusional character that the audience can connect with. It's a difficult trick to pull off; the character of Lars is so completely out of touch emotionally and socially from everyone around him, that the hardest bit to suspend disbelief around is that any of the people in the small town in which he lives would actually go to the lengths they do in order to help him. But maybe I'm just jaded from eight years of living in Seattle, where people tend to refer to the interpersonal dynamic as "Seattle-friendly" (translation: friendly enough on the surface, but the emotional walls don't come down too easily).

Craig Gillespie's upcoming film, Lars and the Real Girl, has inspired intrigue and curiosity for months now because it's a hard film to peg. Initially, it looked to be a black comedy full of quirk and strangeness, as a man begins to date a Real Doll, rather than finding a living, breathing real girl. The trailer didn't help matters, seeming much more comedic than dramatic, but as I said in my review from TIFF: "While the title insinuates that it's a wacky comedy, it's actually a smart, well-crafted, and heart-wrenching film that smoothly discusses the intricacies of loss and depression."

Now the film is further subverting expectations with it's marketing plan. Reuters reports that church leaders will be involved in the film's promo screenings, which will come out before the film goes into wide release on October 26 (it hits LA and NYC theaters this week). SKE distribution head Bingham Ray says: "We've found an enormous response from mainstream Christian groups. Some pastors may discuss the film as part of their sermons." Usually, films that target church groups have a distinct religious message that includes themes, or icons, like Evan Almighty or The Passion of the Christ.

That being said, it's not surprising that churches are showing interest -- Lars might be in love with a Real Doll, but he is also a kind, thoughtful religious man who is active in both his community and his church. In fact, religion and the church are represented in the film with warmth, without biting social commentary. Still, whoever would have thought that church groups would show interest in and embrace a film that includes a Real Doll?!

The initial footage for Lars and the Real Girl, which came out last month, presented a quirky, jaw-dropping world where Ryan Gosling gets a Real Doll to cure his loneliness. It looked to be a strange, black, indie comedy -- lots of laughs and possible lasciviousness. But that just skims the surface of this film, and to call it a comedy is to ignore the profound depth of Craig Gillespie's feature. While the title insinuates that it's a wacky comedy, it's actually a smart, well-crafted, and heart-wrenching film that smoothly discusses the intricacies of loss and depression. It has many humorous moments, but they serve to relieve tension, not drive the story.

Lars is a young man who spent much of his life alone with his widower father. When his dad finally passed on, his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), moved home with his wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). With his brother back and his father gone, Lars retreated not only to the garage, but further into himself. Karin, however, is determined to break Lars out of his shell and get him involved in the family. It is obvious that he cares about them, but at the same time, he uses any excuse possible to avoid Karin's invitations.

Many thanks to Erik for filling in for me on last week's Trailer Park. Now that I'm all rested and recreated, let's look at some films that take us to some weird place either internally or externally. This week on Trailer Park we're traveling from the inner mind to the outer limits.

Right at Your Door
In an all too believable scenario, several dirty bombs are detonated in Los Angeles, sending a radioactive cloud into the sky. Rory Cochrane -- who to me will always be that little stoner from Dazed and Confused -- plays Brad, a man whose wife has gone into the city and he wonders if he'll ever see her again. With the roads jammed, he attempts to make his home as airtight as possible, sealing up every crack and crevice. The radio warns against contact with anyone who was in the vicinity of the blasts as they will be highly contaminated, so when Brad's wife finally does make it back, it's not the happy homecoming we had all hoped for. As realistic as the premise may be, the trailer had me thinking about zombie movies. A large scale catastrophe which results in people barricading themselves inside for fear of the people outside? Sounds like Night of the Living Dead to me, which itself used radiation to explain the menace. Bleak and apocalyptic but fascinating as hell, I'm looking forward to seeing this one. The film starts its limited theatrical release to U.S. theaters on August 24. Have a look at the trailer right here:


The Nines
Usually I find myself gritting my teeth over trailers that don't actually tell you what the movie is about. Isn't that the whole point? This trailer plays its hand close to its vest, not really telling the viewer what's going on, but showing enough to really make me curious. Delightfully vague is how I would describe it. Ryan Reynolds plays three characters: a troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer who find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways. There appears to be some Matrix-esque reality bending at work here. Are these three different aspects of the same person? Are these characters in a computer game? Am I dying to find out? A resounding "yup" to the former. Cinematical's own Erik Davis posted an exclusive look at the poster here. The Nines goes into limited release on August 31.

Since we turned into this century, Ryan Gosling has been pretty busy with dramas -- thriller, sports, crime, drugs, romance -- you name it. The work has built him a pretty cushy career, which is only helped by the fact that his role in Half Nelson gained him an Oscar nomination. But if you're Canadian, or spent time in the land of the maple leaf in the '90s, he's the kid from Breaker High -- the show about kids who go to school on a cruise ship (check out the old credit sequence here to see Gosling all young and stuff). He's finally breaking out of the dreary, for some fun of a much more adult variety -- if you haven't heard yet, he's starring in a little indie flick called Lars and the Real Girl.

By real girl, they mean real doll. Yes, the guy who romanced Rachel McAdams in The Notebook is now romancing an inanimate object, and no, she doesn't seem to come to life like Kim Cattrall did. The premise is simple -- guy is lonely, so he gets himself a doll. But instead of delighting in Bianca's "company" in the privacy of his home, he makes everyone accept her as his girlfriend. There was recently a clip of the film on ET, and Defamer has now thrown it up. The scenes show everyone freaking out about Bianca, and the fact that this guy is pretending that the sex doll is a real person. He tells everyone she's a missionary (get the joke?), and he carts her around in a wheelchair. While the premise is definitely interesting, it's Gosling's performance that is making the film particularly tasty. If the whole movie is half as good as the current scenes, I have a feeling this man is going to be huge for a very long time.