Death is the ultimate dramatic device, but great art doesn't emerge from strong devices alone. In Take, the directorial debut of Charles Oliver, the impact of a single, startling tragic death immediately conveys the sense of watching a gravely serious movie, which is definitely the case. However, having immediately provided a tone, Oliver fails to follow up with a story powerful enough to justify it. That's not to say that the experience Ana (Minnie Driver) goes through after her son dies in a freak accident before the start of the film isn't relentlessly bleak, but there's hardly anything distinctive about the circumstances to make viewers care any more than they would if they were glancing at it in the morning headlines.

Still, Olilver has made a quietly observant work solely driven by the specific needs of two downtrodden protagonists with completely believable motives. In flashback, we learn that Ana struggled with her son's elementary school, which wants to put him in a special needs program. Meanwhile, she has a hard time communicating with her husband and finding decent work to get by. Elsewhere, reckless gambling addict Saul (Jeremy Renner) destroys his life in a whirlwind of debt. His misfortune, as it's shown in early scenes at a prison where Saul awaits execution, will lead him to accidentally murder Ana's innocent child, Jesse (Bobby Coleman).

Fidel Castro might be showing up as a character in Steven Soderbergh's Che flicks, but it looks like his daughter, Alina Fernandez, is getting a bit more involved in the movie biz. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Crash co-writer and Oscar winner Bobby Moresco is bringing her story to the big screen. Fernandez will consult, Moresco will possibly direct it, and the project is currently out to writers. However, this won't be a straight biopic.

It seems that her story will somehow be intertwined with the stories of others, like Crash, to "show the Cuban and American perspectives and ideologies along with Fernandez's story." Basically, she's the product of an affair Castro had while married to his first wife. She "spent her childhood in the country's shadow, only learning at age 10 that the man who visited her at night and whom she saw on TV every day was her father." In the '90s, she disguised herself as a Spanish tourist and fled to Spain, and then the US, where she now lives.

Fernandez is involved to try "to make people be a little more aware of how glorious we are and how many limitations we have." I'm sure that will depend on how the film is portrayed and then perceived by audiences. I happened to really dig Crash, but many people were put off by it, so it'll be interesting to see if this project takes on a different tone to circumvent comparisons.

This year, television is going to get one heck of a drama! It's got all the ingredients for a hit. Sex. Dysfunction. Car Crashes. No, no, no. I kid. While I'd love a series based on David Cronenberg's Crash, especially if Elias Koteas was in any way attached, this is about that other one -- you know, the Crash that won the Oscar. Yahoo reports that the adaptation will be cable station Starz's first original drama series, with 13 one-hour episodes planned.

The series even has handful of the film's names coming back behind the camera -- Paul Haggis, Bob Yari, Don Cheadle, and Mark R. Harris. As for in front of the camera -- no cast members have been picked yet, although production is scheduled to begin in the spring.

Now, I'm one of those people who actually really dug the movie. I thought it was interesting, thoughtful, and entirely gripping. I was happy to see it win the big statue. That being said, I wonder how this will play to audiences. Many people have noted it's heavy-handedness, so what will that mean for a weekly series? A few hours of it, sure, thirteen hours -- not so sure. What do you think?

Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis gives a pretty good interview over at the Guardian, parting with some amusing anecdotes, like the fact that David Cronenberg is apparently "quite upset" with him over using Crash as the title of his 2004 film, despite Cronenberg already having a film with that title. He also talks a bit about In the Valley of Elah, and defends its box office, saying that it did well in the Midwestern markets, where people go to see a movie because "I like Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron, she's pretty." Gee, who would have ever thought Paul Haggis had a condescending attitude toward red-staters? Haggis also gives his views on the writer's strike and talks a bit about Million Dollar Baby, but the most interesting thing for me to note is that he's still not ready to part with the title for Bond 22, apparently because he doesn't have one.

According to the interviewer -- don't you wish the Guardian would just print Q&As instead of doing everything in profile, by the way? -- Haggis confirmed that the project is "still known only as Bond 22" and that his "contribution is unlikely to include advice on the title. He admits to never knowing what to call his scripts and when writing Crash, only used it as a working title." Although Haggis is known to have been not-quite-finished with the Bond 22 script when the strike happened, the producers were apparently satisfied enough that they decided to push forward anyway. I guess we'll find out how wise that decision was soon enough. In the meantime, what do you think the title of the next Bond picture should be? Take what you know of Casino Royale and Ian Fleming-sounding titles, and add in what you know so far about the next one -- it will be partially set in South America, it will have another Eurotrash villain, and will have Daniel Craig again.

What do Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and David Cronenberg have in common? The first two are considered the founding fathers of psychoanalysis; the latter will be making a film about them. According to ScreenDaily.com, Cronenberg's next project "will be an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure, re-teaming him with Crash producer Jeremy Thomas."

Hampton's play, which premiered in December 2002, is set in the early 20th Century and centers on Jung, portrayed on the London stage by Ralph Fiennes. A review by Lizzie Loveridge at CurtainUp says that Hampton "looks at the issues which initially united these two pioneering psychiatrists and that which eventually divided them and took them off into other areas of investigation." The narrative then plunges into the relationship between Jung and an 18-year-old Russian woman who was his first patient. The CurtainUp reviewer felt that the 2 hour and 25 minute play "tells us more about Jung's affairs than his ideas."

Cronenberg always seems to be shuffling priorities on his projects, dependent on financing and other factors that are probably out of his control, but the combination of Cronenberg and psychoanalysis sounds potent, a great match of filmmaker and subject, and probably a welcome change of pace for the director after A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Producer Jeremy Thomas has an excellent track record; in addition to Crash, he and Cronenberg worked together on Naked Lunch. No word on casting yet, but Fiennes previously gave an excellent performance in Cronenberg's Spider, so I imagine he would be first in line to recreate Jung on the big screen.

Since his Academy Award-nominated turn as a racist cop in Crash, the ever-reliable Matt Dillon has starred as Charles Bukowski's alter-ego in the drama Factotum and played a hapless husband in the disappointing You, Me and Dupree. He also appeared recently in supporting roles in Kevin Bacon's drama Loverboy and opposite Lindsay Lohan in the family comedy Herbie: Fully Loaded. That selection of parts has been typical throughout Dillon's career, as he's moved easily between the independent and studio worlds and is equally at home in both comedies and dramas.

Now The Hollywood Reporter says that he's in final negotiations for two more roles, both crime-related. Dillon will play a detective who intercepts the plans of a group of bank robbers in Bone Deep. The article doesn't say whether Dillon is working for the police or on his own, only that the robbers are trying to pull off a $20 million heist. John Luessenhop is set to direct; he previously made the prison drama Lockdown. I'm hoping Bone Deep will give Dillon a chance to play a sleazy detective, possibly related to his sleazy high school teacher in Wild Things. Few people combine sleaze and charm like Dillon.

Armored features another gang of thieves, this time "armored car guards who plan to empty their truck of $10 million," according to THR. Hmm, does that mean they're more modest than the thieves in Bone Deep? Will the two gangs run into each other while they're trying to get away? No word on what part Dillon would play, but Columbus Short, who just turned down The Green Lantern, will co-star. Nimród Antal (the excellent Kontroll and the surprising Vacancy) will direct. Before those films come out, we can anticipate Dillon in Old Dogs, Nothing But the Truth and Cadillac Records.

One of the 78th Oscars clip montages was devoted to films about big social and cultural issues, and when the clips were done and the cheering muted, host Jon Stewart gave a resigned smile to the camera and delivered a cruel, cutting, it's-funny-because-it's-true joke about Hollywood high-mindedness: " ... And none of those issues were ever a problem again." And that moment came to mind watching In the Valley of Elah. You get a sense of what everyone involved, especially writer-director Paul Haggis, was trying to do -- to make a gripping, engaging drama about Iraq and America -- but as the movie stretches and grasps and strains with sweaty-palmed desperation and clumsiness, you can feel those aspirations slip out of reach. You can tell everyone involved wanted to make an important statement. What they would end up making was a fairly indifferent movie. But hey, if an expatriate Canadian Scientologist who used to write for The Facts of Life can't bring the boys home, who can?

And I may, perhaps, be a little over-the top in the above dismissal, but that might just be because In the Valley of Elah is one of a ever-growing class of movies -- released in the last quarter of the year, festooned with talent, and ostensibly about something -- that desperately want to be seen as 'political' and 'important' modern moviemaking. My initial revulsion at the clumsy coincidences and cardboard characters and cheap tricks in Haggis's previous directorial effort, Crash, gave way to a sort of grudging admiration for the fact that, all things considered, Haggis was trying to talk about race and class. The willingness to look at those topics -- so present in life, so absent on the mainstream big screen -- made Crash seem better than it actually was. And while heaping honors on Crash may not rank on the all-time list of Oscar's worst Best Picture Picks (Forrest Gump, Million Dollar Baby, Around the World in 80 Days, et al.), it's not exactly in the honor roll of Oscar's finest moments.

But we've already given Haggis rewards for his lazy storytelling, his cheap sentimentality, his glib and clumsy narrative tricks -- so who could fault him for coming back to them again and again? In the Valley of Elah is very much in the mold of Million Dollar Baby -- where an older man uses his lifetime of experience to try and do the right thing even though doing the wrong thing would be a hell of a lot easier. It's also got Crash's delusions of moral grandeur. Yes, In the Valley of Elah is about great and mighty topics, but it's somehow both self-satisfied and self-righteous, both preachy and predictable.

According to John Horn of the L.A. Times, the film critics of Dallas/Ft. Worth are the best at predicting the Oscars. Yes, the DFA Film Critics Association frequently chooses as its own pick for best picture the same film that goes on to win best picture at the Academy Awards. And when I say frequently, I mean that the group has done this in four of the past five years. Last year they didn't pick Crash (not that anybody saw that coming save for Chicago, right?). Horn doesn't mention that they also didn't match in 2000.

This year, the DFAFCA has picked United 93 as their favorite film of 2006, so as long as Crash was just a fluke, it probably should get the Oscar. Horn doesn't analyze any of the other categories nor how Dallas/Ft. Worth correlates with the Oscars in them, so I took a look myself. In the major categories the group is as scattered with the hits and misses as any group. The actress has matched only twice in six years; the actor three times.

But it is a good bet this time the group's picks for actor and actress will be honored in February. Like nearly every other group in the country, it went with Mirren and Whitaker. Supporting actor and actress were a bit more interesting, going to Jackie Earle Haley and Cate Blanchett (for Notes on a Scandal), respectively. Though the comeback kid Haley did well with NY and SF critics, I'm pretty sure that this is Blanchett's first critic group mention (she is nominated for the Satellite and the Golden Globe). As far as how the DFWFCA rates compared to the supporting Oscars, it has matched only one actor and one actress in six years.

The group does fairly well with best director, picking four of the last six Oscar-winners. Their pick this year is Martin Scorsese (as it was in '04).

The rest of the awards, which are more or less with the majority, can be read here.

American independent cinema frequently introduces us to customs and traditions we might not see otherwise. Films about unfamiliar wedding ceremonies, ethnic neighborhoods and religious ceremonies are given exposure year after year, thanks mostly to audiences who want to see something new or different. Sure, the films may often be the result of minority filmmakers representing their backgrounds for all to see, but it is the common moviegoers who curiously accept and enable these cultural showcases.

Now we have Quinceañera, which skips the representative filmmaker and fittingly shows us a community from a detached perspective -- our perspective, and the filmmakers'. Written and directed by two white guys (Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland), the film looks at the coming of age of a young Mexican-American girl, and of her L.A. neighborhood, Echo Park, from clearly an outsider's point of view.

It is great to know that no matter what happens, we've got the actors and actresses and screenwriters fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Who needs Superman when we've got these honorable folks:

• Tom Hanks has been named an honorary member of the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame. What? You didn't know he was an Army Ranger? That's because he wasn't. He only played one in the movies. And that is apparently enough to be honored, though not enough to actually care about being honored. Cited for his portrayal of a World War II Army Ranger in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks couldn't even manage to show up to the induction ceremony, where he was also recognized for his work on Band of Brothers, his role as national spokesman for the World War II Memorial Campaign and for his serving as honorary chairman of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign. Sure, he's a busy man, but his lack of attendance and lack of actually being a Ranger puts him far below the following honorees:
• Brad Pitt has been named one of Newsweek's "15 People Who Make America Great" for drawing attention to African causes. He and girlfriend Angelina Jolie were recognized for selling photos of their baby for $4 million. Oh yeah, and giving the money to charity. Wait, doesn't that mean he should be on the list of people who make Africa great?
• Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, makes Earth great. He donated $2 million to Amnesty International to use in the aid of former child soldiers all over the world. He wasn't technically honored for it, but I thought that I'd point it out anyway.  I'm sure he got an award from God or something.
• Charlize Theron, who also just raised money for Africa, was given the Los Angeles Film Festival's Spirit of Independence award. The awards director, Dawn Hudson, said that, "She's taken on challenging roles in her career when other movie stars don't." So, I think she got the award for being in Aeon Flux.
• Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco were given the Humanitas Prize for their screenplay for Crash. The award is said to honor work that helps "liberate, enrich and unify society." I think there's been a mistake, because if there is one movie that didn't unify society this year, it is Crash. When it won the Oscar for Best Picture, I thought we were going to have a civil war because of how people took the news.