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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.

Oh, you can do all the "look at me, I'm a serious actress!" roles you want, Kim Basinger, but you'll always be Vicki Vale to me. Variety is reporting that Basinger is attached to star with Charlize Theron in The Burning Plain. Erik Davis, an officer and a gentleman, told you about the film here. Plain marks the directorial debut of Guillermo Arriaga, the pretty much always excellent screenwriter of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, and the criminally under-seen The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Arriaga wrote the screenplay for Plain as well. The film starts shooting early next month in New Mexico.

The film will intertwine two storylines, one of which takes place in the past, the other in the present. The intersection of stories is a trademark of Arriaga's work, though some detractors (I am not one) would claim he uses the device as a crutch. Basinger plays Gina, "the mother of Charlize Theron's character as seen in childhood." Theron plays Sylvia, a woman trying to "find common ground with her parents after a turbulent childhood." The two stories collide. That description doesn't tell us much, but I'm up for anything Arriaga. As for the lead actresses, Basinger has never made much of an impression on me, but Theron is really shaping up to be quite the talent. Her subdued turn in In the Valley of Elah -- one of the best films of the year, even though no one is seeing the thing -- convinced me that Monster was no fluke.

I first saw Babel at Telluride last year, and I remember how nervous director Alejandro González Iñnáritu was as he introduced the film for one of its first (it may have even been the first) screenings. He talked in his intro about how he set out with Babel to make a film about the ways in which we are different, and ended up making a film about the ways in which we are alike, and how the borders that separate us are less about physical borders between countries, and more about the borders we create within.

Babel's Paramount Vantage 2-Disc Collector's edition comes out today, so if you missed seeing what all the fuss was about during the film's theatrical run (it was nominated for a bevy of Oscars as well), now's your chance to see the film in the comfort of your own home. Babel follows four stories tied loosely together through the common thread of a woman shot by a sniper on a bus in a remote part of Morocco. The woman, Susan (Cate Blanchett) and her husband, Richard (Brad Pitt) are in Morocco taking a trip together in an attempt to heal their marriage, which has fallen apart in the wake of the death of their infant son. They've left their two young children, Mike (Nathan Gamble) and Debbie (Elle Fanning) back home in California in the care of their loving Mexican nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barazza).

Amelia is wholly devoted to her young charges, and has made many personal sacrifices for the sake of the family she works for, but when Susan is shot and their return home is delayed, Amelia faces a wrenching choice: She cannot leave Mike and Debbie, but her only son is getting married in Mexico and she wants to go to his wedding. When Richard's back-up plan for Susan's sister to come and relieve Amelia doesn't pan out, Richard, distraught over his wife's life-threatening injury, commands Amelia to miss her son's wedding and stay with his children. Faced with having to miss the wedding, Amelia makes a decision that will have profound consequences: She takes the children with her into Mexico to attend her son's wedding.

After penning Alejandro González Iñárritu's three most popular films (Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel), screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga has decided to go at it alone. Variety reports Arriaga will make his feature directorial debut on The Burning Plain, with Charlize Theron coming onboard to star and exec produce. Mark Cuban's 2929 Productions will finance the film, while Cuban, Marc Butan, Todd Wagner and Beth Kono will also produce. Known for his complex, intertwining stories, Arriaga will once again return to that format for this film -- focusing mainly on "very intense love stories that take place in different places and times, with characters trying to find the healing powers of love, forgiveness and redemption." Isn't that what all his films are about? Theron will play a woman named Sylvia who attempts to reconcile with her parents after a turbulent childhood.

The film, which will cost under $20 million, currently has no distribution plan in place. Although 2929 Productions has gone day-and-date before, I can't seem them going that route here. Then again, I could be wrong. It was fairly obvious that Arriaga would go solo following the war of words he and Iñárritu found themselves in last year. At one point things became so bitter that Iñárritu banned Arriaga from attending the Babel premiere at Cannes. Since that whole snafu pretty much solidified the fact that their relationship was all but over, it was only a matter of time before Arriaga did his own thing. I guess it will be interesting to see how one does without the other; Arriaga's script for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (directed by Tommy Lee Jones) was good, but I thought the film was just too damn slow ... and long. Is Iñárritu overrated? Is Arriaga really the mastermind behind all that great work? I guess we'll see ...

If someone told you that people were getting sick while at a film, what would you imagine would cause it? Me, I immediately think about gore, especially in the wake of all those realistic, cringe-worthy sorts of scenes we get these days. But no, it's nothing that disturbing. Since Babel has been released in Japan on April 28, at least 15 people have complained that the film has made them ill. These complaints have inspired Gaga Communications to release national news ads warning of the film's propensity to make viewers ill. It was not the subject matter that made them queasy, but the lights.

In one scene, Rinko Kikuchi, whose performance in the film garnered her an Oscar nomination, visits a nightclub. For about one minute, strobe lights flash on the screen -- this is what is making some Japanese viewers queasy. Part of the warning describes: "This feature presentation includes some highly stimulating effects and some customers have complained of feeling ill." Talk about vague. Really, this is no different than what happens at amusement parks. Any ride that has strobe and beating light effects gets that little warning beforehand describing as much. Wouldn't it just be easier to have a strobe warning for any films that have those lights in them? "Highly stimulating effects" can mean anything, and doesn't really describe the why. Heck, I would consider the words more descriptive of a hot sex scene than some flashy strobes. If any of you have read the warning in its entirety, I'd love to know if they ever get specific, or just continue to be vague.

As far as the Oscars are concerned, the best way to get a handle on the year's best films is to look at the Best Screenplay nominees. The writers who vote for the ten films nominated in the Original and Adapted categories are the closest things to outsiders the movie community has. They're generally smarter and lower paid than anyone else, and they tend not to work on movie sets, hobnobbing with famous directors and movie stars. And so they have a more objective outlook on what's good and what's not.

The screenplay category has historically shown more foresight and flexibility than its fellows. After all, some of the past winners include filmmakers William A. Wellman, Orson Welles, Preston Sturges, Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, none of which ever had a shot as Best Director. Other nominees include Budd Boetticher, Andre de Toth, Nicholas Ray, Jacques Tati and Jacques Demy. Certain filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone and Bill Condon won Screenplay Oscars long before their careers as directors took off. And even some genuinely legendary writers have heard their name called: William Saroyan, James Agee, Tennessee Williams, John Steinbeck, Paddy Chayefsky, Vladimir Nabokov and Arthur Miller.

For months now, once-partners Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga have been arguing over credit for the ideas that created the duo's three successful films -- Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. When I reported on the feud earlier this month, screenwriter Arriaga was claiming that he was upset the the films were considered to be his partner's creations, while they were, in fact, his own. His partner was saying the opposite, but much less publicly. Not anymore. Presumably sick of the claims coming from Arriaga, González Iñárritu wrote an open letter to the screenwriter, which was published in a Mexican magazine called Chilango.

According to González Iñárritu, Arriaga holds an "unjustified obsession with claiming the sole authorship of a film." He goes on to tell his ex-partner: "You were not -- and you have never allowed yourself to feel -- part of this team," and "Your declarations are a sad and very reductive end to this wonderful collective process that we have lived and are now celebrating."

It almost sounds like the director is trying to tell the screenwriter to shut up, grin and bear it (instead of fighting for ownership of his ideas). The letter is signed not only by González Iñárritu, but also by Perros star Gael García Bernal, Oscar-nominee Adriana Barraza, composer Gustavo Santaolalla and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Ouch. He might have also wished the writer "luck in your future movies," but the damage has already been done to Arriaga's reputation. Then again, he's the only one of the duo to have a successful award-winner outside of the partnership, so time will tell.

In case you didn't know, tomorrow night is the Oscars. One night of glorious, black-tie back-patting, followed by a couple days of chatter about who wore what and who didn't show upand who had the most god-awful hairstyle, and why this movie shouldn't have won that award. There are folks who are still bitching about Crash's win last year (and probably always will be), and no matter who wins the Best Picture this year, you can bet there will be moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth from various quarters.

Tomorrow night, we here at Cinematical will be live-blogging the Oscars for you, starting at 4PM PST/7PM EST with some chatter about the red carpet, and we'll stick it out until the last, endlessly dull acceptance speech. In the meantime, though, here's what other sites around and about the internet are blogging about in preparation for Hollywood's big night.

Lots of group hug Oscar action after the jump ...

Another week, another Best Picture Oscar nominee arrives on DVD just in time to sway Academy voters. Last Tuesday, it was Martin Scorsese's masterful crime drama The Departed; today, it's Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's sprawling multilingual, multicultural, multi-everything meditation on the simultaneous interconnectedness and disconnectedness that plagues intercultural relationships. Wow, that was a mouthful. On the less heavy end we have a flick in which Hollywood spoofs itself (always good times) and another in which Scarlett Johansson shows off the twins (also always good times). So let's get to it: Here are my top DVD picks for the week.

Babel
Be warned: This most assuredly is not a light romantic comedy to watch on a Friday night as you prepare a romantic dinner at home with your significant other. But it is a must-see for its unflinching depiction of the devastating ramifications of miscommunication on both the personal and global levels. And it showcases phenomenal performances by a graying Brad Pitt, an ailing Cate Blanchett and a Full-Monty-flaunting Rinko Kikuchi.
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Fun Fact: Originally slated for one of the leading roles in a certain Martin Scorsese drama, Brad Pitt departed The Departed so that he could appear in Babel. Crafty guy that he is, Pitt retains a producer credit on The Departed, so he'll be happy if either flick wins Best Picture.

The Prestige
Christopher Nolan's slick thriller didn't get the love it deserved when it hit theaters this fall, thanks in part to that other 2006 magician mystery The Illusionist -- and also in part to Scarlett Johansson/Hugh Jackman overload. While Scarlett in a cleavage-sculpting bodice doesn't sound bad to me, apparently not everyone is of the same opinion. Regardless, The Prestige's strengths lie (primarily) elsewhere. Like the two dueling turn-of-the-century magicians whose tale it tells, The Prestige pulls one hell of a trick on the audience. On the surface, it appears to be the simple tale of two egomaniacs trying to one-up each other, but in reality it's a subtle meditation on the existence of God. If you didn't catch that the first time, go back and take a gander at the film's opening sequence in which Michael Caine asks, "Are you watching closely?" Apparently, you weren't.
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Fun Fact: Jackman and Johansson appeared opposite each other in another 2006 flick, Wooy Allen's Scoop. Alas, there was no magician around to make that one disappear.

Aside from the short film categories, the hardest part of your Oscar pool will be guessing the winners of the artisan trophies. But thanks to guild awards, you can at least have an idea of who to pick on your ballot. This past weekend a number of these guild awards took place, and though none of the winners are sure bets, their chances are now narrowed down a lot.

• Children of Men (and its DP, Emmanuel Lubezki) won the top feature film honor at the American Society of Cinematographers' Outstanding Achievement Awards. A lot of people are rooting for Lubezki for the Oscar, so you can't feel wrong picking him for your pool.
  
• The American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards had a tie for its top award for dramatic film editing, which went to Babel editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise and The Departed editor Thelma Schoonmaker. The ACE also gives out a comedy/musical award, which this year went to Dreamgirls editor Virginia Katz and a documentary award, which this year went to An Inconvenient Truth editors Jay Lash Cassidy and Dan Swietlik. Both Babel and The Departed are nominated for editing Oscars, but since Schoonmaker has already won twice, Mirrione has won only once and Crise has never won, expect the award to go to Babel.
  
• The Costume Designer Guild splits their awards into three categories. The period film winner is Chung Man Yee for The Curse of the Golden Flower. The fantasy film winner is Lala Huete for Pan's Labyrinth. The contemporary film winner is Consolata Boyle for The Queen. Both Chung Man Yee and Consolata Boyle are nominated for Oscars, but the Academy will likely choose something from a period piece. Then again, my predictions for the guild awards were all wrong.
  
• The Art Directors Guild Awards are also split in the same manner, and the honored films were nearly identical to the costumers' honored (and nearly identical to my predictions). The period film winner is Tingxiao Huo for The Curse of the Golden Flower. The fantasy film winner is Eugenio Caballero for Pan's Labyrinth. The contemporary film winner is Peter Lamont for Casino Royale. Of these winners, only Caballero is nominated for an Oscar.