You could go batty trying to figure out why Oscar voters like what they like -- these are the rocket scientists who thought Crash was Best Picture material, as opposed to say, a candidate for the worst movie of that year -- so it was only with mild bemusement that I greeted the Academy's decision this year to snub Atonement director Joe Wright, who deserved a Best Director nomination for every reason you can possibly summon. A few reasons: 1) He managed the extraordinary challenge of taking a piece of dense, modern literature and turning it into a compelling drama and a romance that works as a movie without dumbing down the material. 2) He's a talented, 'every shot counts' style of director, who labors over his shot selections and has the visual acumen of a Stanley Kubrick. 3) He deserved a nomination for his last film and got snubbed that time too.

The Guardian recently got its own elaborate set visit to Wright's upcoming movie The Soloist, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx, and the topic of Wright's snub was on everyone's mind. Downey, in particular, was ready to open up about it, saying that "it's a f**king crime Joe wasn't nominated. He's the goods, man, he really is." When Wright was asked directly about it, he responded "Well, out here it's all they bloody talk about, so yes for twelve hours or so I was gutted because everyone seemed so angry about it on my behalf. Then I just looked around and thought: What am I even thinking? I'm making a movie in Hollywood with these amazing actors I'd only ever seen sitting there in my cinema seat like a mad fan -- and they seem excited to work with me for some reason." A pretty classy response.

The snub talk is only one part of a huge and interesting set visit report that includes new details about The Soloist and a lot of funny stuff with Robert Downey, Jr. Here's a sample, to leave you with -- Downey talking about his working relationship with Wright: "First day, I said 'Listen Joe, just don't f**k with me and we'll be okay.' But the whole point is that we're supposed to f**k with each other and he did f**k with me -- for some reason he got under my skin and f**k, it worked."

Consider this a spoiler warning for the whole post, if you still haven't seen The Kingdom. The people over at RopeofSilicon have found the time amidst all their holiday shopping to sit down and listen to Peter Berg's director's commentary on the upcoming DVD of the film and it contains some interesting reveals. According to Berg, the original script had a fascinating and very dark ending -- too dark for it to make it through to the shooting stage. Remember the character of Haytham, the Saudi policeman who gets beaten by the scary general early in the film, because the general suspects he was involved with the terrorist plot? Well, turns out the general was on to something. The original ending of the film, scrapped by Berg, comes after the death of Abu Hamza and all his goons. We see the team going to the airport and all the Saudi good guys they've met during their trip are there to say goodbye to them, including Haytham. Here's how Berg tells it:

"In the original draft, at this moment, when Jamie went to say goodbye Jamie hugged him and he realized that [Haytham] was carrying a bomb on him and the character of Haytham detonated the bomb and the entire team was killed and it was a very powerful ending. At the end we decided it was just too much." Boo. That would have been a much more powerful ending, and much more evocative of the cultural ambiguity that Berg tries to set up with his current ending. I wish they would have at least shot that ending so that we could see how it plays out in comparison, on the DVD perhaps.

A world within a world comes crashing down in the opening sequence of The Kingdom, the new film from director (and uncredited actor) Peter Berg. An American compound inside Saudi Arabia, where ballgames and barbecues are the norm and uncovered female faces mock the law that applies outside the gates, is attacked by men with machine guns and bombs. The details are thoroughly convincing in this scene -- as machine gun fire sends the Americans fleeing in a panic, one of the terrorists, wearing the uniform of a Saudi policeman, falsely beckons some of them his way before setting off a vest of explosives. Later that night, after first-responders have quarantined the crime-scene and set up their own camp, a second-wave attack hits, destroying the entire area and creating a media event that has to be dealt with one way or the other by the American political machinery. This is a decent set-up for a movie, and it's as well-executed as you'd want a set-up to be, but it gives birth to an oddly-schizophrenic film.

You could almost call The Kingdom a double-feature, although it seems blithely unaware of its bifurcated status. To explain: the first half of the film -- actually, closer to two-thirds -- is professorial and serious, going so far as to offer the audience a tedious lecture on Saudi Arabia's history and political situation, balancing Western-style realpolitik with the needs of a population that seems to prefer living by religious teachings. As the aftermath of the compound bombing seeps back to Washington, an FBI team led by steely-eyed Jamie Foxx and comprised of Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman, seeks an entry point to the situation; they want to go investigate the bombing, but the State Department prefers to recognize the Saudi government's 'no boots on the ground' mandate, lest they come off as looking like puppets. Much screentime is given over to a scheme by Foxx to blackmail a Saudi diplomat in order to get his team access, and everything up to this point is deliberately structured as a political thriller. That's why the second part of the film is so surprising.

Director Peter Berg is trying for something very different in The Kingdom, and the end result is fascinating to watch on-screen, and well worth thinking about after. Berg's other films have all been spins on familiar genres, some more successful than others. Very Bad Things was a stab at bleak black comedy; The Rundown put fresh energy and effort into the tired buddy film; Friday Night Lights turned standard-issue sports film themes and scenes into a brisk, bracing portrait of small-town America. Now, with The Kingdom, he's taking the suspense and structure of a forensic police procedural and putting it on the world stage. After a terrorist attack on a Western oil-company compound in Saudi Arabia -- perfectly structured by Berg as a cascading series of nightmares that go from bad to worse to awful -- that leaves hundreds dead, FBI agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) is insistent that the FBI be allowed to put boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia, despite the insistence of the Saudi and American governments that any such deployment would be politically untenable for both parties.

These are not the concerns of your standard action-flick, but from the jump The Kingdom makes a different class of ambitions and aspirations strikingly clear: The opening credit sequence covers historical highpoints from 1932 (the founding of modern Saudi Arabia) to 1974 (the OPEC oil embargo) to 2001 (the 9-11 attacks, where 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens). There's a difference between background and backdrop, though, and I was glad to see that The Kingdom's Saudi setting isn't just left as a concern for the production design and costuming teams; it's woven into every moment of the film. It would have been easy to have The Kingdom take place in some fictional nation-state, and Berg and screenwriter Matthew Carnahan deserve credit for guts as opposed to taking the easy way out; when The Kingdom does feel thinly-drawn, perhaps that just confirms that the complex nature of Saudi society and our co-dependent relationship with it can't be fit onto the screen within a two-hour span.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Jamie Foxx is returning to the genre that brought him loads of acclaim and an Academy Award -- he has signed on for another musical biopic. Foxx will be portraying Nathaniel Anthony Ayers in The Soloist, the true story of "a homeless musician with schizophrenia who dreams of playing at Walt Disney Concert Hall." Wow. A 1) Homeless 2) Musician with 3) Mental Problems and 4) A Dream? Foxx is pretty much demanding the award here, isn't he? Can't we just give him the Oscar before production begins? They're probably polishing it up for him right now.

So how does this movie differ from all the other schmaltzy musical biopics? Producer Gary Foster tells the Los Angeles Times: "Midnight Cowboy is a perfect example of what we want this movie to feel like. It won't be slick and glossy. It's going to be emotional and real." He says that now, but I'll bet you $100 the movie ends with a teary-eyed audience jumping to its feet and bursting into applause. Joe Wright (director of the surprisingly non-boring Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice as well as the upcoming Knightley film Atonement) will direct the film. Susannah Grant (writer of a very solid run of chick flicks that includes 28 Days and Erin Brockovich) wrote the script, which is based on a 12-part series of articles by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. The film will focus on the relationship between Ayers and Lopez. Lopez has yet to be cast, and his photo doesn't have any casting choices leaping out at me. Any ideas?

It's always a difficult task picking and choosing which stars are or aren't on the A-list. It's not like Hollywood puts out an official list each year, and I'm not crazy about letting the gossip rags define for me who is and isn't among the best of the best. So, the following is based solely on my opinion, and will most certainly be up for debate. Basically, I made these choices based on the actor (or actress') recent track record, including box office take, and also took into account how valuable their name currently is to a film. Feel free to disagree ... or, even better, agree. That said, here are my choices for seven stars about to fall off the A-List:

Jake Gyllenhaal -- While it may take an actor awhile to land on the A-list, there is an express lane and that includes starring in one, over-the-top controversial film. For Gyllenhaal, as well as Heath Ledger, that movie was Brokeback Mountain. Unlike Ledger though (who decided to take a risk and play an iconic villain in next summer's The Dark Knight), Gyllenhaal followed up Brokeback with Proof, Jarhead and Zodiac. Granted, the last film won high praise from critics, but no one went to see it. What would it take for Gyllenhaal to remain on the A-List (and not slide into ensemble hell)? A high-profile romance might. An Oscar-worthy performance might. But Gyllenhaal is interested in neither at this point (Rendition? Eh?), so look for his star to slowly fade until someone convinces him to do Brokeback: The Prequel.

Reese Witherspoon -- And speaking of fading stars, Reese Witherspoon (who co-stars alongside Gyllenhaal in Rendition) has been falling faster than a sorority girl at a keg party. The gal broke onto the A-List following her Oscar-winning performance in Walk the Line, but then chose to follow it up with two bizarre comedies: Just Like Heaven and Penelope. The latter hit the festival circuit, then test screened for what felt like a year -- and, well, I don't even think it ever came out. At least not yet. Apart from Rendition, it appears she'll most likely go the Kate Hudson route: Just keep making romantic comedies until people stop going to see them. For those who absolutely loved films like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, I guess that ain't such a bad thing.

Is it just me, or has Jamie Foxx's stock quietly dropped in the last year? Following his Best Actor Oscar for Ray, the guy went on to star in Stealth, Jarhead, Miami Vice and Dreamgirls. Looking at that list, I guess you can say his role choices have progressively gotten better over the past couple years, but with only one film currently on the agenda (this fall's The Kingdom), the dude will have to pick up some more work before things become a little sketchy. And that's exactly what he's done; The Hollywood Reporter tell us Foxx has signed on to star in Blood on the Leaves for Paramount Pictures and director George C. Wolfe (Lackawanna Blues).

Based on Jeffrey Stetson's novel, Foxx will play a district attorney suffering through all kinds of turmoil when he's brought on to prosecute a black history professor who's on trial for murdering a group of racist white men during the Civil Rights movement. Could this racially-charged legal drama set during the Civil Rights movement be Foxx's chance to get back in Oscar's good graces? You bet your (insert color) ass it is! Foxx, Marcus King and Jaime Rucker King are producing through their Foxxhole shingle, and Paramount is out searching for someone to play the professor on trial. Laurence Fishburne would make for a really great professor (remember him in Higher Learning?), and so if there's a wise direction to head in, that would be it. No word on a release date as of yet, but you Foxx fanatics can check him out this September 28 in The Kingdom.

Peter Berg's military-actioner The Kingdom was supposed to come out this past spring, and got pushed to fall for reasons that escape me at the moment. Anyway, a new trailer for the film has just come online, and there's one thing I really liked about it -- it's scored to US2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" from The Joshua Tree. Aside from that, it strikes me as a sort of an unexpectional mish-mash of the Harrison Ford Jack Ryan movies, where American military professionals are trying to stride through a hostile Middle Eastern country and get shot at, and an Edward Zwick political action movie, with a lot of sympathetic reaction shots of locals trying to tell the Americans what's-what and so on. Also, I regret to say that, based on this trailer, it looks like Jamie Foxx has no intention of broadening his range, ever. Co-starring in the film with Foxx is Jennifer Garner, and I couldn't help but notice that she doesn't have a single word of dialogue in this entire trailer, which runs a good three or four minutes. What's that all about?

The flim's plot revolves around an elite team of FBI agents who are sent into Saudi Arabia to investigate the bombing of an American military base that killed an FBI agent and many other Americans. Somewhere along the way, they decide to enlist the help of a local Saudi and pretty soon they are picking up the trail of the terrorist bomber. Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper also have roles in the film and it's interesting to note that, although from what I understand, a few days of location shooting were done in the Middle East, the film was mostly shot in Arizona. I guess desert is desert, right? The Kingdom is set for release on September 28.