Did you know the Saturn Awards were last night? I sure didn't! You'll remember the Saturn Awards as where William Shatner did his famous rendition of "Rocketman" back in 1978. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films has given them out to the best in genre cinema for 34 years now, and this year's picks are ... kind of strange.

The prize for Best Fantasy Film went to Enchanted, which I think is silly in a category that also included Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Stardust, but okay. Then Sweeney Todd took Best Horror Film, which seems to me like a way to avoid giving an award to an actual horror film, like fellow competitors 30 Days of Night, 1408 and The Mist. I guess I can see why Sweeney Todd would be classified as "horror" -- a lot of throats get slit, after all -- but it's a stretch. Then the kicker: Cloverfield wins Best Science-Fiction Film, beating out, among others, Sunshine. The problem is that not only is Cloverfield not a science-fiction film, it's in some ways the opposite of a science-fiction film. Science-fiction entails some sort of larger cosmic context for the fantastic goings-on, which is precisely what Cloverfield refuses to provide. It's a monster movie in its purest form -- horror, not sci-fi.

After a long, hard-fought battle, the second official trailer for The Dark Knight took home top honors at this year's Golden Trailer Awards (with a margin of victory of 44%). The contest, held over at USA Today, tallied votes on films from several different categories -- all of which were chosen as this year's Golden Trailer winners earlier in the month. Among the top trailers users had a chance to vote on were Enchanted (Best Animation/Family), Tropic Thunder (Best Comedy), Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (Best Documentary), No Country for Old Men (Best Drama), I am Legend (Best Horror) and Iron Man (Summer 2008 Blockbuster), among others. While there are certainly other trailers I would've picked to win their respective category (Pineapple Express, for one), I think we can probably all agree that The Dark Knight trailer is definitely tops.

Check out the trailer one more time above, then head on over to USA Today to see what else was nominated (as well as the official site for The Golden Trailer Awards). In your opinion, does anything beat The Dark Knight?

Even though it wasn't necessarily my kind of movie, I can't deny that Enchanted was a huge hit -- and not just for the kiddies either. Looking to capitalize on some of that magic, Variety reports that Warner Bros. has hired Enchanted director Kevin Lima to helm the adaptation of the children's fantasy novel, The Spook's Apprentice (aka, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch). Note: Thankfully, Donald Trump is not involved.

The story will be based on the first book from Joseph Delaney's The Wardstone Chronicles, and it's centered on a young farm boy named Tom in a fictionalized Ireland known as The County. Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son, which in the world of The County means he is privy to all sorts of info about ghosts and goblins. Most of the story focuses on Tom's introduction to a mysterious sorcerer known as The Spook, and his time as his apprentice.

Originally conceived as a project for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, WB already has a script courtesy of Matt Greenberg. Now that Lima has signed to direct, his team of producers will be in charge of re-working the whole thing. In fact, the group has already flown to London to work on the script with Delaney. Lima made his name as an animator for Disney, but has proven that he is just as capable with flesh and blood actors. There is no word on a release date for Apprentice, but judging from the box office returns Lima has been earning for Disney, I doubt WB is going to waste much time.

Enchanted
The yester-year of Disney animation is long in the past, and while you probably won't be getting any epic, artistically-driven Sleeping Beauty-type features any time soon, Enchanted offers those old classic scenes with characters ripped out of the cartoon world and delivered to a crazy and manic Manhattan. Amy Adams' Giselle becomes the victim of her soon-to-be stepmother-in-law's evilness and gets transported to the real world, where life isn't animated and the world is very, very different. From there, we've got cartoon Prince Charmings with James Marsden, who comes to save her, and real life beaus with McDreamy Patrick Dempsey. Oh yes, and of course -- Susan Sarandon as evil mommie dearest doing her best reincarnation of Maleficent.

This is your normal Disney DVD -- there are deleted scenes, bloopers, behind-the-scenes featurettes about the film's "cinematic wizardry," and a pop-up adventure with Pip, Giselle's little friend.

Check out Kim's Review | Buy the DVD

Cinematical has just received seven stills from the hit Disney flick Enchanted (which hits DVD on March 18), along with the source of Classic Disney inspiration. Enchanted was one of those films I missed in the theater, but really want to catch on DVD -- especially after our own Kim Voynar gave it such a glowing review. She said, "Enchanted hits every high note, and a great family film that entertains both the kids and adults is something we can all be truly thankful for." Once again, Enchanted (starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden and Susan Sarandon) will arrive on both DVD and Blu-ray disc on March 18. All seven images are in the gallery below; additionally, feel free to check out Moviefone's Unscripted session with Dempsey and Adams over here.

Note: Release date changed -- thanks for the catch!

Have you ever liked an actor that no one else seems to like? You almost want to keep your adoration to yourself, for fear that you'll be laughed out of a party or a gathering when you say how much you like Josh Hartnett. I actually do like Josh Hartnett, quite a lot. For a pretty boy, he has a very warm screen personality, and though he can appear perfectly comfortable playing a boxer or a cop, he also has a wonderful sense of humor. In short, he's not a brooder or a poser like most of his other pretty boy contemporaries. And yes, he was in Pearl Harbor, but he made up for that with excellent performances in The Virgin Suicides, O, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Hollywood Homicide and The Black Dahlia. Incidentally, these are all under-appreciated or misunderstood movies, just like Josh himself.

There. I've gone on record. Looking down the list of movies currently playing on 400 screens or less, I came up with several other actors I like that have not really received the love they deserve. First up, we have Amy Adams, who I just caught in the new Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. As far as I'm concerned, Amy walks on water. She's like a Carole Lombard for the 21st century. That means that she's not particularly suited for low-key "realistic" roles, such as the one she plays in Charlie Wilson's War (97 screens); in that, she basically trails Tom Hanks and occasionally reads some complicated dialogue to him. (I thought Mike Nichols was supposed to be good with actors.) But in Enchanted (329 screens), Amy is perfectly cast as a slightly cartoonish, screwball kook. She can move her eyes and her entire body in very precise ways for outlandish results, but she still retains a strain of humanity; she never spirals off into anything untouchable or unknowable. I thought she deserved an Oscar nomination for this one, but I'm afraid she'll need to put on a lot of "ugly" makeup before she wins anything.

Oscar night is over, and everyone is basking in the glow of the winners. Or, excuse me, the "recipients" of the Oscars. Not too many years back, the politically-correct police changed the language from "and the winner is" to "and the Oscar goes to" because that made the losers sound less like losers. It's a joke now when someone says, "It's an honor just to be nominated," but I believe that's true. I think it would be unbelievably cool to be nominated, even if you were in the Best Documentary Short category and the bouncers tried to keep you from entering the theater. This week's column is dedicated to the losers that were honored just to be nominated.

My favorite film of the year, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which is gone from theaters and available on DVD, received two nominations and lost both, which I expected. But this is a film that, like Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur and many other Westerns, will grow in stature despite its lack of Oscars. The year's other big Western, 3:10 to Yuma, also lost its twin nominations, but will probably endure as long as there remains a small, dedicated audience for Western adventures. On the other hand, I find that very few films in the "disease of the week" genre have much life after the Oscars. But The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (161 screens) will be different, for two reasons: 1) it was actually really, very good, and 2) it didn't win anything.

When evaluating new movies, sometimes a critic will try to envision their staying power. It goes without saying that most movies have no shelf life; they're designed for one opening weekend, or perhaps a few months of buzz leading to an award, but that's it. A year from now, people will be ignoring them on airplanes and then they'll be on sale in the DVD bargain bin. Only a very few titles enter into the general zeitgeist forever, becoming a "cult film." A cult film can be a resurrected flop, something like The Wizard of Oz or Donnie Darko, or it can be a beloved hit, such as Casablanca or the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings films. The only constant is that it's impossible to predict. When I first reviewed Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998), I thought it suffered in comparison to Fargo, but now it has become a cult classic even bigger than its predecessor. Regardless, I thought I'd look at some of the movies currently playing on less than 400 screens and guess their fates.

I'll start with an easy one: Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (316 screens). This is Burton and Johnny Depp's sixth film together, and they bring out the very best instincts in one another. They remind me of no less than Tod Browning and Lon Chaney's sinister collaborations during the silent era. (Their 1927 film The Unknown needs to be seen by everyone.) Depp gets to indulge in his taste for disguise (and funny voices) while Burton taps into his childlike nightmares for new images and ideas. Sure, they will probably never really make a grown-up movie, but several of their collaborations have already stood the test of time, and at least two: Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Ed Wood (1994) have cracked the edges of cult status. In fact, I'd go so far as to add Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Depp's Dead Man and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to make a great cult film festival.

Who else is tired of all the Academy Award technicalities that make this or that ineligible for best song, best score or best foreign film? Well, we can rejoice for a little bit today, because the popular indie film Once will remain in the running for the Best Original Song award in this year's Oscar race. Just yesterday Monika was telling us that the tune "Falling Slowly" was being looked at by the Academy and had a high chance of being disqualified due to its being publicly played before the film's release. Or something. I guess it doesn't matter now, because according to David Carr (aka The Carpetbagger), the track is valid and has been included on the Oscar ballots mailed out this morning.

Carr has printed a statement given to him by phone by music branch executive committee chairman Charles Bernstein, who said (as quoted by Carr), "We needed to address whether the song was written specifically for the the film and the second issue was whether it had been played prior to the inclusion in the film - did this constitute a reason to ineligible-ize it. The first issue was satisfied by a sworn statements attesting to the fact that it was written for the film along with a chronology, and the second issue was settled by the fact that it had only been performed in Europe and the Czech Republic and not in a way that would have given it advantage or influence here."

This should be great news to Once fans, many of whom thought the film's music got the shaft by the Golden Globes and whom may even think the Oscar's one nomination was not enough recognition considering three different songs from Enchanted received nominations. Now, if only we fans of Jonny Greenwood and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days could see the same sort of satisfaction in the score and foreign language categories, respectively.

As if the Best Song category wasn't already completely ridiculous, the lone fresh breeze in that race might lose its spot. If you remember, the Academy selected a ridiculous three songs from Enchanted, one from August Rush, and then the excellent "Falling Slowly" from Once. Now, according to the New York Times, Once might see its song removed. It seems that there are eligibility issues (one would think that would've been sussed out before the nods) -- songs should be written specifically for the film, and since some of the songs were played after the film started to come together, but before it was released, it might be ineligible. That's just a stinking load of offal and baloney.

They should just axe the Best Song category at the Oscars. It's never an accurate portrayal of the original songs that come from each year of film, and it almost never focuses on what's really important -- the song in the context of the film. Sure, one song may be more technically challenging than the other, or have more widespread appeal. However, fact of the matter is, the Oscars are about film -- so the Best Song should really not only be a good song, but reflect the material it is played in.

Sometimes the Academy seems to get that, but most of the time it just falls into this ridiculous rut -- one that this year made Enchanted some example of musical perfection, shadowing the other songs from Once, Kimya Dawson's work on Juno, Eddie Vedder's work on Into the Wild...

[via Anne Thompson]