Having pioneered tech-noir with Blade Runner, Ridley Scott is trying his hand at classical noir with The Kind One. Variety reports that Scott will direct and produce an adaptation of the Tom Epperson book, with Epperson himself writing the screenplay. The novel is about an amnesiac in 1930s Los Angeles who is informed that before he lost his memory, he was a ruthless gangster named "Two-Gun Danny," and that he works for a fearsome gangland boss. Epperson is a screenwriter by trade, best known for co-writing The Gift with Billy Bob Thornton; The Kind One is his first novel.

The other person to sign on to the project is Casey Affleck, who is clearly enjoying his new lease on life following The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone. He's really the perfect noir hero, scrappy, jaded and intelligent; we saw some of that on display in his brother's film, where he practically disappeared into the tough working-class Boston milieu. He and Scott should be able to hit this one out of the park, if the source material is any good. As always, I'd love to hear from commenters who are familiar with the book.

My pick of the week is Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, which far exceeded my expectations. Casting his younger brother Casey Affleck as a savvy private eye investigating a child kidnapping might have been a disaster, but Casey turned in an exceptional performance, as did Amy Ryan as the missing girl's severely damaged mother. The film has a handsome, autumnal look, and the surfeit of close-ups should make it ideal on the small screen. Miramax's DVD includes an audio commentary by Ben Affleck and his co-scenarist Aaron Stoddard, behind the scenes footage, a casting featurette, deleted scenes, and an extended ending. (See Erik's DVD review here)

Our own James Rocchi said that In the Shadow of the Moon is "one of the best science documentaries in recent memory, and also much more." Directed by David Sington, the film features new interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts and archival footage of the moon missions. I'm a space nut from way back and I'm sorry I missed this in theaters, but I plan to sit very close to the television when I watch this. ThinkFilm's DVD appears to be a bare-bones edition.

In the mood for a coming-of-age tale from Australia? Introducing the Dwights might tickle your fancy. Revolving around a "somewhat eccentric family" of entertainers, Erik Davis called it "sweet, quirky, sincere." (You'll have to read his review again to be reminded why he was left blushing at one point.) Warner Independent's DVD doesn't appear to have any additional features of note, so a rental might do the trick.

Other indie releases include John Turturro's musical drama Romance & Cigarettes, with an audio commentary and deleted scenes, and comedy / drama / romance Blue State, featuring Anna Paquin and Breckin Meyer.

It's easy to finger Amy Ryan's performance in Gone Baby Gone as one of the best of the year, however I'm surprised more notice hasn't been given to the entire cast. After all, this is an ensemble film, with fantastic performances from Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Amy Madigan and a host of Boston locals plucked from obscurity; all of whom were, essentially, asked to play themselves. Gone Baby Gone is a tough film to review, because there are so many plot twists, and criticisms of said plot twists, that it's hard to discuss without giving away some major spoilers. I will say that Gone Baby Gone is a good film; a solid film -- and one that will definitely leave you debating the outcome with whomever you choose to watch it with.

Set and filmed entirely in the Boston area known as Dorchester, Gone Baby Gone revolves around the kidnapping of a little girl and the subsequent investigation into her disappearance. Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan play a pair of local private investigators/lovers who are hired by the missing girl's aunt and uncle in an attempt to solve the case by going through the folks who won't talk to the cops. Ed Harris and John Ashton play the main detectives on the case, Morgan Freeman plays the police captain heading the entire investigation and Amy Ryan plays the little girl's delinquent, drug-addicted mother. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone Baby Gone will certainly hit you emotionally, but how much depends upon whether you buy into the story as it unravels.

It's still hard for me to imagine Casey Affleck as a rising movie star. This isn't to say that I don't think he has talent, but seeing him these days makes me giggle a little bit, because I think back to his days as a tracer hater and his time on 200 Cigarettes, the indie comedy/drama Desert Blue, and of course all that sage advice in American Pie. The man has come a long way, and after finally seeing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone up on the big screen, Variety reports that he's getting into the mob.

Affleck is going to head the noir period piece The Kind One, which Tom Epperson will adapt from his recently published novel. Set in Los Angeles in the 1930s, the film focuses on "an amnesiac (Affleck) who finds himself working for a mobster -- a sadistic killer given the nickname 'the Kind One' -- and falling in love with the thug's girlfriend." There's smarts for you. Or, a big set of brass...well, you get the idea. Once the strike wraps up, which will hopefully be soon, Epperson will turn his work into a script. The writer is a childhood friend of Billy Bob Thornton's, and the two collaborated on Sam Raimi's The Gift back in 2000, so I'm hoping for good things. At the moment, this is all we have. While the star and writer are in place, there's no word on who will direct this puppy.

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees:

Casey Affleck -- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Javier Bardem -- No Country for Old Men

Philip Seymour Hoffman -- Charlie Wilson's War

John Travolta -- Hairspray

Tom Wilkinson -- Michael Clayton

Predicted Winner: Javier Bardem

Once in awhile there comes to cinema a character, and a performance that goes with it, that goes on to haunt us for years. Such a timeless villain is played in No Country for Old Men by Javier Bardem. It's the actor's third Golden Globe nomination and will be his first win. How do I know? Here at Cinematical headquarters we were going to toss a coin to find out if Bardem would get the statue. But then we realized that this award isn't about chance (plus we were afraid of getting an air blast to the skull if it came up that he'd lose). Bardem will win because he deserves the award, because his is the most well-developed and most memorable performance of the bunch.

Now it's your turn to vote ...

Yahoo reports that the National Society of Film Critics (made up of 61 film critics across the country) has chosen Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as the Best Picture of the Year, beating The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and No Country for Old Men. Anderson also won Best Director, over Julian Schnabel and the Coen Brothers. Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for Blood, and Robert Elswit received an award for its cinematography. The critics are clearly crazy for Blood, but I don't think it'll take the Best Picture Oscar. It's too cold a film for Oscar voters to fully embrace, and though I know I'm practically alone in this assessment, it's too flawed.

Julie Christie was named Best Actress for her understated performance in Away from Her. Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor for his excellent work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. And Cate Blanchett was selected as Best Supporting Actress for a performance that, for me, didn't amount to much more than a pretty good Bob Dylan impression. No End in Sight, a straightforward account of the bad decisions made by the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq, won Best Documentary. Tamara Jenkins' script for The Savages was named Best Screenplay. I really loved the first half of The Savages but felt the second got distracted with side stories that thinned out the story's impact. Only 41 of the Society's 61 members cast ballots this year (?), and their choices frequently differ from Oscar voters. We'll find out just how much they differ when the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 22nd.

I was a little hard on the International Press Academy last year, but they made some ridiculous decisions when handing out their Satellite Awards. Still, at least they came off as being different than every other year-end awards giver by picking winners like Joseph Cross and X-Men: The Last Stand (best comedic actor and best editing, respectively). Those are at least some interesting, unpredictable picks, right? This year, I feel the need to be harder on the organization, because it's gone totally predictable in honoring No Country for Old Men, Juno, Sicko, American Gangster, Ratatouille, Diablo Cody and Christopher Hampton, among others. The actors they honored -- Marion Cotillard, Viggo Mortensen, Ellen Page, Ryan Gosling, Tom Wilkinson/Casey Affleck (tied) and Amy Ryan -- aren't all the most obvious choices, but they aren't shocking, either. Couldn't they have at least gone with nominee Clive Owen or his nominated "comedy or musical" Shoot 'Em Up (!?!?!?), or something?

Not that the winners aren't deserving, but what good is yet another awards ceremony if it's not going to distinguish itself from the Golden Globes, which are the Satellite's unrecognized yet unmistakable "baby daddy". Yeah, the Hollywood Foreign Press will likely go with some other winners, but they won't seem that different. Again, I do salute the IPA for having a documentary category, though it wouldn't have hurt to give The King of Kong its one possible prestigious(?) award -- not that it was actually a better film than fellow nominee No End in Sight. Also, it's always enjoyable to see what the IPA picks for best DVDs (The Prestige for overall; Borat and Masters of Horror Season 1 (tied) for extras; Ratatouille for youth-oriented; Ken Burns' The War for documentary; The Graduate 40th Anniversary Edition for classic). For the rest of the nominees and winners, head over to Variety.

Earlier this week, I along with 20 other San Francisco film critics assembled at an undisclosed location -- okay, it was a café -- to vote on the best films, best performances and best other stuff of 2007. It's an interesting experience. I spent a few weeks combing through the year's releases, coming up with my own choices. Then I second-guessed some of them, deciding whether I should eliminate certain choices. If I was absolutely certain that someone would make the final ballot, then I would cast a vote for someone more obscure, someone I really liked. After doing that, I scrapped the whole thing and went back to my favorites in each category, regardless of where they placed.

For Best Supporting Actress, I selected Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone (301 screens) as my #1 choice, comfortable in my certainty that she was a dark horse and that no one else would pick her. She was far from being the focus of that film, but she knocked a home run in her few scenes as a horrible, drug-ridden mother who has lost her baby girl. As a bonus, she was also in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (321 screens), a film that also made a decent showing on my personal ballot. (She lost a few points by being in the wretched Dan in Real Life, but gained them back again by being on TV's "The Wire.") In any case, Ryan not only made our final ballot, but she actually won. Congratulations, Amy! My other picks, Taraji P. Henson in Talk to Me, Kristen Thomson in Away from Her, and Maggie Smith in Becoming Jane, didn't make it so far. As for my fifth pick, Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There (148 screens), you've not heard that last of her.

The San Francisco Film Critics Awards have been announced, and they're especially exciting for us here at Cinematical. Why? Because three of our writers are in the SFFC! Our very own James Rocchi, Jeffrey M. Anderson, and Richard Von Busack are all part of the San Francisco critic "scene." San Fran made some interesting picks, several outside of the expected Oscar nominees. So what were their choices? For Best Foreign Film, they selected Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I am watching when I finish this post). For Best Documentary, they selected No End in Sight (which didn't blow me away, but was certainly well done). Best Adapted Screenplay went to Sarah Polley for Away From Her (great script, one of the most kick-in-the-stomach depressing movies I've seen lately). And Best Original Screenplay went to Tamara Jenkins for The Savages.

Amy Ryan was named Best Supporting Actress for her brilliant portrayal of a highly difficult character in Gone Baby Gone. Ryan's co-star in that film, Casey Affleck, was named Best Supporting Actor for his outstanding work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Best Actress was Julie Christie for Away From Her and Best Actor was George Clooney in Michael Clayton -- two choices I approve of though I disagree with them. Joel and Ethan Coen took Best Director(s) honors for their latest masterpiece, No Country for Old Men. And -- drumroll please -- the Best Picture Award went to Jesse James. A surprising pick perhaps, but it was an absolutely fantastic film, and hopefully the award encourages more people to see it. The SFFC gave a special citation to an indie called Colma: The Musical, "a homegrown song-and-dance extravaganza about the paradoxical drudgery and surreality of life in a city where the dead outnumber the living one thousand to one." That old story again? See the list for yourself here -- it's a San Francisco treat!

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.