It may be a bit early for this, but I wanted to get my two cents in on some of my favorite performances of 2007 so far, especially since most of these will probably get overlooked in the great Oscar crush of December. The awards almost always go to actors who are involved in biopics, message pictures, costume movies or epics, so let's start with the wonderful Alan Rickman, who has yet to earn a single Oscar nomination. This year, he can be seen toiling away once again in the small role of Severus Snape in the fifth "Harry Potter" film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (283 screens). In the third film, he practically stole the entire movie with the way he read the line "turn to page 394," but in this fifth film, he actually has a scene with some meat to it. In training Harry to block his thoughts, Harry takes a peek into Snape's own mind and finds a disastrously sad childhood. When the flashback ends, the camera lingers on Snape's face for a moment, and Rickman renders an astonishing expression of hurt and hatred that broke my heart and sent chills through my spine.

One costume movie, Becoming Jane (32 screens), was unfairly judged, perhaps because it was too much fun and not somber enough (or not based on a literary source of proper merit). The lovely Miss Anne Hathaway usually lends a kind of smart energy to her best performances, as if she were slightly ahead of the game, and she does so perfectly as the budding Jane Austen. She's playful, but tough, beautiful but restrained. And when she falls in love with her man (James McAvoy), she does so breathlessly and with her whole heart; the movie more or less explains through fantasy how Austen was able to write so passionately from such a dull existence. The real Jane was said to be rather plain, but I'd much rather imagine her like this. Add to this Maggie Smith's delightfully wry supporting performance as the wealthy aunt, who can't understand the impudent youth of today and fires off comically nasty barbs at their expense.

Wouldn't you love to go to a theme park that supplied robots to fulfill all of your fantasies or at least watch people go and fulfill their own? Michael Crichton wrote about that very experience in 1973 and now Billy Ray is writing his take on what an android fantasy amusement park would be like in the remake of Westworld for Warner Brothers. In the original film the theme park supplies three worlds in which humans can play in; a Western themepark, harboring the android of Yul Brynner (the dreamiest bald guy I've laid eyes on), a Medieval world and Roman world. Humans paid a hefty $1,000 admission ticket to be satisfied in any way they desired and the robots were programmed to comply. Unexpectedly, the android Brynner begins to rebel against the programming and begins to attack and kill the humans. Eventually, someone puts an end to the android violence (after three attempts, mind you) by sending the gun-slinging Yul Brynner to his death.

Ray, who most recently came out with the February release Breach, with Laura Linney and Chris Cooper, reported to SCI FI Wire that "I love the basic idea of the movie, which is that our amusements can kill us." He didn't give any thoughts as to eventual casting, however. Who would you cast as the gun-slinging android? I vote Bruce Willis circa the current issue of Vanity Fair or Billy Zane ... he was just so spectacular in Titanic.

By now, I'm sure you've all heard the names Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson; Plame was outed as a CIA agent by White House officials following an op-ed piece in the New York Times written by her husband, Wilson, in which he attacked the Bush administration for manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the current Iraq invasion. It's juicy stuff -- and now that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is on trial defending accusations that he lied to FBI agents investigating the leak -- Warner Bros. has decided to snag the life rights of Plame and Wilson for -- you guessed it -- a delicious Hollywood movie.

Ah, but here's the catch: studio wants to use Plame's upcoming memoir Fair Game for the film, however before it's published the CIA has to approve. As Variety points out, it's ironic that the same government who outed her -- threatening the safety of herself and her family -- can also prevent her from telling the story. Set up as a co-production between Weed Road's Akiva Goldsman and Zucker Productions, producers Jerry and Janet Zucker feel there's more than enough scandal currently out in the media that, while the memoir would be added incentive, it's not a make or break situation. But is it worthy of the big screen treatment? The last two CIA-related pics to hit theaters, The Good Shepherd and Breach, barely made a dent at the box office; these days, it seems folks want their CIA agents to shoot bad guys and blow things up, while bedding a number of beautiful women. Has real life become too boring? Jez and John Butterworth will pen the script, having just completed work on Spike Lee's James Brown biopic, Superbad.

I'd like to think pic's box office draw will rely heavily on its cast, but De Niro had Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie for Shepherd, yet the film still didn't attract a mass audience. I immediately expect Nicole Kidman or Diane Lane to be a frontrunners for Plame, and perhaps Richard Gere for Wilson -- but is this material worthy of a Hollywood picture or more made-for-TV?

The latest film from Tyler Perry, Daddy's Little Girls, is missing two things: Perry's Madea character and a significant opening weekend gross. Could it be coincidence? Or was it simply the result of an overly competitive weekend? In the six days since its Valentine's Day bow, Daddy's Little Girls has earned about $20 million, which is normally a good debut for a February. But this past weekend drew record attendances due to five major new releases, including a superhero action film, a fantastic family pic, a star-billed romantic comedy and a grown-up thriller. It isn't that surprising that a few of those, plus the very popular Norbit, would place higher than a lower-budget, "urban" romantic comedy on the box office chart.

Still, Perry's first picture, Madea's Family Reunion, opened in the same month last year to $30 million. And two years ago, also in the same month, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which Perry wrote but did not direct, opened to $21 million. In the end those films grossed more than double their opening totals. But neither of them went up against any significant challengers at the multiplexes. With another slew of new films opening Friday, it is possible that Daddy's Little Girls will get lost in the mix, and it isn't likely that it will manage to finish with as noticeable a run as its predecessors.

Few in Hollywood like to defend low numbers with such logical explanations, so it is easy to imagine Lionsgate is right now pressuring Perry into adding the Madea character to his next film, Why Did I Get Married?, even though the source play did not feature the character. I think that Madea could very well be Perry's own Jay and Silent Bob.

Welcome to President's Day Weekend, where the multiplexes are stocked with a few pounds of new product, including an FBI espionage drama, a family-friendly kidventure flick, another Tyler Perry concoction, a flashy supehero epic and a sweet 'n' sunny rom-com. Dig in!

Breach -- 80 positive / 22 negative reviews at RottenTomatoes.com.

Pro: "There are some neat, almost delirious scenes of suspense, most of which play against cliche." -- Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Con: "A movie that urgently asserts itself as a spy thriller, but can never quite escape the Bureau's true preoccupation with who is getting the window offices." -- Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News

Pro: "While Breach plays effectively as a cat-and-mouse espionage thriller, its real drama derives from the murky moral and ethical frontier it crosses." -- Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

Con: "The big suspense sequence revolves around whether Hanssen will notice that his briefcase has been moved a smidgen, hardly on a par with Goldfinger giving 007 a laser beam vasectomy." -- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Bonus! "Has real excitement and true craft behind it, which is just one part of the reason why it's such a pleasure to watch." -- James Rocchi, Cinematical

Bridge to Terabithia -- 66 positive / 12 negative at RT.com.

Pro: "A painfully grounded tale of the stripping away of naivete that is adolescence, and how heartbreakingly excruciating an experience that can be." -- MaryAnn Johnason, The Flick Filosopher

Con: "One wonders if the makers of Bridge to Terabithia actually have something against all the people who loved reading Katherine Paterson's award-winning book as children." -- Chris Barsanti, FilmCritic.com

Pro: "Mark my words: it is that rarified breed of masterpiece with a shelf life destined to span many generations." -- Dustin Putnam, TheMovieBoy.com

Con: "The whole affair has been unnecessarily coated in computer-generated magical kingdom fairy dust, no doubt in deference to the perceived needs of a young audience in a post-big screen "Chronicles of Narnia" environment." -- Mary F. Pols, Contra Costa Times

Bonus! "A heartfelt, respectful and remarkably well-done film." -- Kim Voynar, Cinematical

Damn, but there are a lot of movies opening wide this week -- or in the case of two of them, that opened wide on Wednesday. So I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb and make this bold prediction: This is the weekend that Night at the Museum FINALLY falls out of the top five. You heard it here first! Or second, or third, or you know, whatever.

Ghost Rider: Nicolas Cage is the cyclist with the flaming skull and Eva Mendes is the love of his life in this adaptation of the Marvel comic book. To paraphrase the song from Grease 2, "He's a ghooooost rider ... and if he's hot enough, he will burn you through and through, whoa, whoa!" Granted, I may be the only person in history to reference Grease 2 and Ghost Rider in the same sentence ... and I'm OK with that. The film, which is about cyclist Johnny Blaze -- who sells his soul to Mephistopheles to save his father's life, and must then become the vigilante Ghost Rider -- is high-profile to say the least, and it's the only action film opening, and it's showing on a whopping 3,619 screens. You do the math.
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Bridge to Terabithia: We swing to the other end of the moviegoing spectrum with another adaptation, this one of the Newbery (yes, that's how you spell it) Award-winning children's book. Josh Hutcherson (Zathura) is Jess, an introverted farm kid; AnnaSophia Robb (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) is Leslie, the decidedly not introverted new girl who moves in next door. They become friends and create an imaginary kingdom, Terabithia, in the woods across the river. I saw the film last week, and, having read the book, I'll admit I was nervous at the prospect of this being turned into a fantasy flick, with what was only suggested on the page -- Terabithia and its inhabitants -- being made "real." But I shouldn't have worried. The movie manages to pump up the story's visual elements while capturing what makes the book special: the strength of Jess and Leslie's friendship, the power of imagination, and the joy and pain involved in having to grow up. Move over, Museum ...
Get showtimes & tix | Watch trailer | Go behind the scenes | Read Zooey Deschanel AIM chat

Curious to see if Ryan Phillippe can hold his own against old-school pros like Laura Linney and Chris Cooper? Well, I don't seem to detest Phillippe as much as most movie fans do, and based on the new trailer for an upcoming espionage thriller called Breach, I'm beginning to think that Mr. Reese Witherspoon could soon be coming into his own, respect-wise.

Or maybe he's awful. I've no idea.

I do know that Breach is the first film from Billy Ray since he directed 2003's Shattered Glass, although he did (co-)write the screenplays for Suspect Zero and Flightplan in the interim. Based on true events, Breach tells the story of, no not a Caesarian section, but of the biggest security breach in United States history. Phillippe is the young agent tasked with spying on the treasonous Chris Cooper; Ms. Linney plays a high-level security chief of some sort. Also on board are Gary Cole, Dennis Haysbert, Bruce Davison and Kathleen Quinlan. The cast alone feels worthy of eight bucks.

Universal has Breach scheduled for a February 16 release date.

Ryan Phillipe and Chris Cooper will soon be teaming up for Breach (or Hanssen, if IMDb is to be believed) a spy thriller about an FBI agent (Phillipe) tapped to run a division which protects classified evidence. He finds himself teamed up with Cooper, who may or may not be providing information to the KGB (he is). The movie is based on the real life story of Robert Hanssen, who was arrested in 2001. Hanssen spent the years from 1985 to 2001 as a mole, spying for Russia and the KGB for money. He pleaded guilty to espionage and conspiracy in exchange for not receiving the death penalty. He has been serving a life sentence since 2002.