I haven't seen Dreamgirls since its release last Christmas, but after sitting down to watch the DVD, which is arriving in stores tomorrow, I pretty much stand by my original opinion -- that the film is a solid B+ as a musical, but didn't exactly have the dramatic heft or originality to be in consideration for the Oscar. Looks like the Academy agreed with me. For those who still haven't seen it, Dreamgirls follows a trio of 60s singers, modeled on The Supremes, as they climb to the top, then fracture over love, money and fame, and then attempt to find success on their own. There are memorable songs, including Jennifer Hudson's signature "I Am Telling You I Am Not Going," and Beyonce Knowles' "Listen" towards the end of the film, and the film finds an interesting way to blend musical numbers together with the traditional style of movie musicals. If you are swept up in the story, you might not even notice the moment when that wall is broken and the actors start communicating to each other through songs instead of words.

Fans will be happy to know that the DVD is no slouch -- it's two discs, packed with a number of behind-the-scenes featurettes, a whole slate of extended and alternate scenes and some more interesting things that you rarely see. My favorite one a series of 'pre-visualization sequences' which means enhanced storyboards that are played in a slide-show sequence along with what I think is an early reading of the script pages. It serves as sort of an animated forerunner to the eventual scene that will be shot, and was probably extremely helpful to the director in setting up some of the musical sequences. In addition to the storyboard-style presentations -- and htere are several of them -- there are also dress rehearsals included, with stand-ins doing the singing and dancing. Some of these sequences even combine the rehearsal with the storyboard sequence, like the one for the "Cadillac Car" number. After watching that one, it seems like most of the hard work of this film was done before the actors even stepped on stage.

Paul Verhoeven's Black Book is currently playing on nine big city screens, and slowly expanding to more in other parts of the country. It's a radical departure for Mr. Verhoeven. It's his first non-English film since The Fourth Man (1983), and it's his first non-exploitation film in decades. It deals directly with the Nazi persecution of the Jews and it runs 145 minutes. Clearly, he's trying to say something here. He wants us to know that, whether or not anyone liked Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990) or Basic Instinct (1992), he never really took those films seriously.

Now, I don't think that's exactly true, but it's certainly the impression one can get. The truth is that while Black Book appears to be more important, dignified and serious than Verhoeven's other films, and while I like it very much, it actually has quite a bit less to say. Films from the lower regions can often get away with more subversive ideas than more prestigious films. For example, Black Book demonstrates once again how awful the Nazis were and how resourceful the Jews were, but Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997) sends a far more sinister message by forcing us into the perspective of the Nazi-like heroes as they try to exterminate an entire species of "bug." The film sweeps you up into a frightening mob mentality, so you cheer for death and destruction well before you realize what's actually happening.

The DGA announced its noms a few moments ago, and I, tragically, had only one right: Martin Scorsese for The Departed. The five official nominees (drum roll, please):

Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
Bill Condon (Dreamgirls)
Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine)
Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu (Babel) and
Stephen Frears (The Queen)

Well, well, well. I suppose it's not shocking that the DGA nommed Condon for Dreamgirls -- they did, after all, shell their award out to Rob Marshall in 2002 for Chicago -- but I'm disappointed that they'd nom Condon over Cuaron. Oscar tends to march to the DGA's beat on Best Director (they've been a matched set for five years running), so it's a pretty safe bet that whoever ends up with the DGA's big gold plate will be counting their chickens in the days leading up to Oscar night.

This was largely a crap shoot, but I am rather shocked not to see Eastwood's name up there. Scorsese wasn't a shocker -- every last film journo whose predicitions were listed on Oscar watch had him on their lists.

My other predictions were Clint Eastwood (for Letters, not Flags), Paul Greengrass (United 93) and Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), and Guillermo del Toro for Pan's Labyrinth -- I was really hoping the recent critical surge for both those films might give them a leg-up, but alas, it was not to be. The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson came the closest to nailing all five -- she's just that good, folks. She was the only hold out who didn't have Eastwood on her list -- the rest of us had him as a shoo-in, but clearly she pegged that one.

The only thing Thompson missed was the Dayton-Faris nod -- to give cred where its due, only Jeff Wells from Hollywood Elsewhere pegged that one (and no doubt he'll be crowing over it, but we'll grant that he has the right to do so). I'm surprised by that nom (especially in light of Cuaron and del Toro, the other two of the Three Amigos) getting the cold shoulder, but nonetheless delighted for the Little Miss Sunshine gang -- that film is just the little movie that could.

So, now that the noms are announced, who do you think will win? And will the winner take the Oscar, to boot?

**UPDATE: I should have looked closer at the predictions grid (that's what I get for writing before I've had my coffee). A second glance showed me that Thompson wasn't the only one whose crystal ball was in top form. Five other pundits scored 4/5, all of them missing only Little Miss Sunshine. The other top predictors were:

Scott Bowles (USA Today)
Pete Hammond (Hollywiretap)
Kris Tapley (InContention)
Sasha Stone (OscarWatch)
Susan Wloszczyna (USA Today)

Santa Barbara seems like a pretty cool place to hold a film festival; nice people, fancy cars, great weather, swanky restaurants ... and oh yeah, the movies. The Santa Barabarians are presently gearing up for their 22nd annual film festival, and I'm here to tell you what they'll be playing. Well, some of what they'll be playing. Well, the big titles anyway.

Based on what Variety tells me, the SBIFF will be offering a solid handful of world premieres, including Joel Schumacher's The Number 23 (which stars Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen), Lake of Fire (a documentary about abortion that comes from the guy who directed American History X) and Christopher Plummer in Man in the Chair, which is a story about the last-surviving Citizen Kane crew member. Interesting.

Not premieres, but potentially quite interesting are "that Dakota Fanning movie" Hounddog, George Hickenlooper's controversial Factory Girl, Michael Apted's Amazing Grace and Sue Kramer's Gray Matters. The fest folks will also take some time from their busy screening schedule to honor filmmakers like Forest Whitaker, Bill Condon, Helen Mirren and Will Smith.

Plus a whole lot more. So if you live within, say, 40-some miles of Santa Barbara and you want to see some interesting flicks between January 25 and February 4, now you have something to do.

The film industry websites were a-flutter yesterday when the news broke that Paramount/Dreamworks planned to send screeners of Dreamgirls to all members of the Directors Guild of America. The studio wanted to make sure the DGA members knew that Bill Condon, who directed the film, should be considered for the guild's 2006 award. Rival studios were in an uproar, because it was believed that the DGA prohibited the sending of screeners to its members -- but apparently the DGA had never formally adopted such a rule. As long as other studios were notified when a promotional DVD of a movie was to be sent, it was perfectly okay. As soon as this rule was clarified, you could bet that every studio possible was preparing to send screeners to the DGA's 13,400 members.

But before the pre-Christmas mail could be swamped with stacks of prestigious movies on DVD to deliver, the DGA decided to reverse its ruling. Dreamgirls will not be arriving in directors' mailboxes this Christmas -- DGA members will just have to hit a theater like the rest of us (although at least they can attend special guild screenings). The Wednesday announcement acnowledged that the previous rule was vague and misunderstood. Therefore, it was unfair to allow screeners this late in the process, since voting closes Jan. 8, without sufficient notice to all distributors to prepare. Next year, however, screeners will be permitted. Various mailing services and studio mailroom clerks are probably overjoyed. No word on how the Dreamgirls folks might feel about it, but if nothing else, the uproar in the media may have helped bring the film into the public eye.

The award season takes off with a bang. An especially big bang was made today by DreamWorks and everyone in the film industry is shaking from it. In an effort to snag a Director's Guild nomination for Dreamgirls' director Bill Condon, DreamWorks was planning to send out a screener copy to every DGA member. This tactic would have been unprecedented in DGA history. Not because it was against DGA policies -- although many thought that to be so -- but for multiple reasons.

First of all, the DGA discourages their members from viewing DVD screeners because they want members to view films in theaters. This makes perfect sense to me especially, as directors; part of the total experience is being in the theater and not watching it on their television sets. It is would have been a huge expense on the studio's part. An astounding expense to be exact. The DGA has 13,400 members and the cost to print DVDs is seven bucks a pop. I couldn't help but do the math to find out exactly how much DreamWorks paid in order to possibly get a nomination; I can barely breath as I type it: $114,800. The film has already made $360,000 in pre-screening sales so perhaps this effort to get a nomination is a mere dent in their budget.

Other studios were very unhappy with the DGA's approval of the Dreamgirls' DVD screener distribution because not a single studio was notified with any time to put up a fight. Production offices were only notified yesterday of DreamWorks' actions and many felt cheated that they were not notified sooner. The DGA's ballots for 2007's award show are due on January 8. For a rival studio to have produced DVDs alone would take up to that date, never giving them the chance to get copies into voter's hands before they seal their envelopes.

However, this awards-season meltdown was averted -- David Poland's always-excellent The Hot Blog has the skinny -- but still: How insane is awards season getting?

For a movie about singing, Dreamgirls is surprisingly shy about also being a musical. Following the highs and lows of a fictional singing trio modeled on The Supremes, the movie spends almost an hour building up steam with musical numbers that are justified by audiences and nearby pianos before the training wheels finally come off. Newcomer Jennifer Hudson does the honors, belting out the first a cappella notes -- "What about me?" -- intended as communication, not entertainment. Hudson plays Effie White, instantly recognizable to us as the singing engine behind her group, The Dreams, even before she sings those notes. Her moderately plus-sized figure would likely preclude her from being part of the group otherwise. The story of Effie and The Dreams will be set in motion when a used-car salesman of a manager, in the form of Jamie Foxx, intrudes on the unsuccessful threesome and begins pouring honey into the ear of the group's honey, Deena, played by Beyonce Knowles. He wants to make Deena a star. If the other Dreams come along for the ride, great.

Dreamgirls is a 'rise and fall' story almost as old as music itself, but it gets a pass for dusting off the musical genre with some inspired performances, including the centerpiece, in which poor Effie is rounded on and attacked for not bowing down and stepping aside in favor of the prettier Deena. She fights back with "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" a wail in the key of pissed-off, as raw and throaty as its title demands. It's so emotional that it eventually descends into some unfortunate American Idol-style theatrics, but since the house is already flattened by that point, it hardly matters. If Hudson has the ability to funnel the closed-fist passion she brings to this role into serious dramatic fare, then we have a new star. Dreamgirls is not the role that will test her, though. It's too much of a comfort zone, and the film itself is not brave. If it really wanted to stun us into silence with its originality, it would have Danny Glover bust out a tune or two.

Last week, I posted in a comment on another entry that I am not a fanboy. I still stand by that remark, especially since I'm not a boy. Give me a choice between a comic-book adaptation and an Austin-made indie and I tend to favor the latter. I have a definite weakness for romantic comedy at times. I prefer snappy dialogue over splashy special effects. But I suspect that fewer people than ever will believe that I am not a fanboy (or fangirl, to be fair) after I tell you that I spent last weekend at the 24-hour Austin film marathon known as the Butt-Numb-a-Thon, which is heralded by many as a litmus test for major film geekiness.

The Butt-Numb-a-Thon (BNAT for short) is an annual event organized by Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News. Knowles programs 11 or 12 movies at Alamo Drafthouse Downtown in Austin -- half are interesting vintage films, and half are movies that haven't been released in theaters yet. The lineup is not made public, so everything's a surprise. Sometimes, the directors of the unreleased films show up for a Q&A session, or send video greetings to the BNAT attendees. It's mostly a private event, which always occurs on the weekend of Knowles' birthday, from noon one day to noon(ish) the next. For the most part, prospective attendees have to apply for admission (thousands fill out the application, and the theater seats 200), and Knowles hand-picks the guests. It's a party and film marathon all in one, and many attendees know each other from past BNATs or from the Ain't It Cool talkback forums. However, there are always a few empty seats because of last-minute cancellations, so it's possible to get into the event as a standby. I had a lot of fun waiting unsuccessfully in the standby line last year, and decided to try it again. A lottery is used to select the lucky standby tickets, and miracle of miracles, I was the last one picked.

Oh man. Based on the people involved (well, person -- for me it's all about Bill Condon) and the early footage, I was already having a really hard time waiting until Christmas to see Dreamgirls. And now that the test screenings have started, resulting in reviews (from people who don't even like musicals) that say things like "this movie is F*CKING AMAZING. Definitely the best I've seen for a long, long time.", and "Dreamgirls is virtually flawless", and "probably the best movie I've seen in a couple of years", I'm pretty much totally freaking out.

Those quotes comes from the four screening reports that were sent to AICN yesterday, right after the first test screening (those spies work fast). While, yes, the reviews are typically hyperbolic, they also offer a lot of detail to support the raves and are tempered by minor criticism, so I feel pretty confident that they weren't written by Beyoncé's mom, or something. That said, however, the write-ups are so positive that, if you're excited about the movie already, it may be dangerous to read them -- like me, you'll just end up royally pissed off that it's only August.

With only six months until the 2007 Academy Award nominees are officially announced, it is obviously time to get the Oscar race started already. Movie City News has begun its Pre-Oscar Preview early this year with its The Gurus of Gold feature. Typically the real Oscar watch doesn't begin until the really good movies (or the award-hungry movies, anyway) start showing in Toronto. But just because none of the Gurus (critics and writers from different outlets) have actually seen most of the expected contenders for Best Picture, that doesn't mean they can't make predictions based on film trailers, buzz, etc. So, each Guru picked 10 movies, which they rated from 1 to 10, that they think have the potential to be nominated (and which also serve as a premature top-ten of 2006 for each Guru).

Based on the picks, or votes, it looks like the probable five nominees will be Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, Bill Condon's Dreamgirls, Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (which screened at Cannes) and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (which some critics have seen). Dark horses include United 93, The Departed, All the King's Men and The Queen (These may change as more Gurus come aboard).

You know the Oscars are getting to be a waste of time when it starts being this easy.