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After Jack succumbed to the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, did you ever think you'd get to see him reunited with Rose? (Aside from that weird ending, I mean). Well, ten years after Titanic, you can now at least see Leo reunited with Kate in this new still from the upcoming movie Revolutionary Road. We've already shown you some photos from the set of the movie, but this is the first in which the actor and actress are seen together. And isn't it wonderful? So, they don't really look anything like Jack and Rose anymore, and so, the time period is 40 years later -- just seeing those kids embracing brings tears to my eyes. Of course, there isn't much going on in the photograph other than Leo and Kate holding each other (are they dancing?). Someone could have just taken a pic of the actors in downtime sharing a hug and we'd have the same effect.

Directed by Kate's husband, Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road tells of a bored, suburban married couple who move to France in order to find new fulfillment in life. Sounds kinda like Mendes' American Beauty mixed with Do Not Disturb. The script is by Justin Haythe, who penned the underrated Robert Redford movie The Clearing, and it is based on the novel from Richard Yates, co-writer of the 1969 war movie The Bridge at Remagen. In addition to reuniting Les o and Kate, the film also reunites the two with fellow Titanic star Kathy Bates. Kate also gets to work with her husband for the first time and she again gets to work with child actor Ty Simkins, who we last saw in Little Children as Patrick Wilson's son -- this time he plays Kate's (and Leo's) son. Revolutionary Road doesn't hit theaters for another 17 months, so hopefully the single photo satisfies you for awhile.

As far as the Oscars are concerned, the best way to get a handle on the year's best films is to look at the Best Screenplay nominees. The writers who vote for the ten films nominated in the Original and Adapted categories are the closest things to outsiders the movie community has. They're generally smarter and lower paid than anyone else, and they tend not to work on movie sets, hobnobbing with famous directors and movie stars. And so they have a more objective outlook on what's good and what's not.

The screenplay category has historically shown more foresight and flexibility than its fellows. After all, some of the past winners include filmmakers William A. Wellman, Orson Welles, Preston Sturges, Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, none of which ever had a shot as Best Director. Other nominees include Budd Boetticher, Andre de Toth, Nicholas Ray, Jacques Tati and Jacques Demy. Certain filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone and Bill Condon won Screenplay Oscars long before their careers as directors took off. And even some genuinely legendary writers have heard their name called: William Saroyan, James Agee, Tennessee Williams, John Steinbeck, Paddy Chayefsky, Vladimir Nabokov and Arthur Miller.

I haven't yet read Tom Perrotta's Little Children, the book writer/director Todd Field and Perrotta adapted together into the film of the same name. It is on my reading list -- I generally like to read the book a film has been adapted from, especially if I really liked the film, which is certainly the case with Little Children. When Field introduced the film at Telluride, he noted that when he and Perrotta set out to adapt the book, they weren't looking to just cut-and-paste the book into a film, but rather to create something entirely new based on the book as source material.

Over at 10 Zen Monkeys, Destiny has an interesting piece up on some bits from the book -- some sexy, some just fairly intense -- that were omitted from the screenplay, and questions whether the film would have been better with them in it. The post has a lot of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film, you might want to hold off reading it until you get a chance to catch it. If you have seen the film, though, it's interesting to read and to imagine what the film might have looked like with these scenes in it.

Little Children was nommed for three Academy Awards, including one for adapted screenplay, and went home empty-handed. Why do you think that happened? Was the competition too tough? The film and the characters too dark and unlikable? Personally, I would have liked to see Jackie Earle Haley take Best Supporting Actor -- it's not easy to imbue an unrepentant pedophile with a sense of humanity and make the audience feel empathy for him, but Haley (along with Phyllis Somerville, who turned in a deeply moving performance as his mother) managed to accomplish that feat.

Once a year or so for the past several years, usually around awards season, somebody somewhere writes a story about how TV has gotten so much better than the movies. This year's article on the state of TV versus the movies is over at Newsweek, and there's a lively debate going on over at Hollywood Elsewhere on the topic, with people trumpeting their favorite TV shows (The Wire, Lost, 24, Heroes, even, god help us, American Idol) over the offerings at the multiplex.

Now, I can see the value of a well-made television program. I've been addicted to Jack Bauer and 24 since episode one of season one, and I'm not even sure how I feel about seeing 24 up on the big screen. There's something about the intimacy of curling up on the couch each week with Jack, Chloe and the gang that would be lost in translation to the silver screen. And I know lots of folks, some of them living in my very own house, who can't make it through a week without checking in with Heroes or Grey's Anatomy, but that doesn't mean that those shows are better than the films I can see at one of the arthouse cinemas in town (although I might buy the argument that they're better than what's showing down the road at the multiplex).

When I look at my own top ten films for 2006, I see films like Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Liittle Children and The Proposition, films which cry out for a big screen in a dark theater. Even The Lives of Others (which would have had a spot on my list if I'd seen it in time) uses the big screen to make you feel the weight of the Stasi oppression through its gloomy cinematography. TV storytelling may have gotten better over the past decade or so, with more focus on compelling stories, but I'm not sure you can even objectively compare the two media -- even the Newsweek article says, it's like "comparing apples to tubas" -- but then author Devin Gordon goes on to do just that, asserting that television is "running circles" around the movies.

So what do you think? Are your fave TV shows better than the movies Hollywood studios are churning out?

[ via Hollywood Elsewhere ]

There is life after childhood stardom and for some that life consists of Academy Award nominations. I may be revealing my youth when I say that I didn't know that Jackie Earle Haley was a child star (The Bad News Bears) until reading this fact in today's Hollywood Reporter article. What I did know was that his performance in Little Children was both human and chilling. Haley played a child molester just released from prison and still struggling with the demons of his disorder. Haley brings humor, disgust, and childlike anguish to the role; he's a bad guy who makes you feel sorry for him in the end -- definitely a role that is worth an Oscar nomination and a performance worthy of any award.

The nomination itself is award enough for Haley in fact, he would like to "give every Academy member a hug" for the validation. Haley has spent the last 13 years struggling between acting jobs -- a huge gap in work for any actor and enough to question one's abilities as a performer. He filled his bank account with various jobs including limo driving and pizza delivery; thankfully all of that has changed for him now.

Haley is currently trying to make a decision on which project to work on next; he has a few to choose from and with this nomination I'm positive he'll have many to choose from for awhile -- remember when Adrien Brody's career blew up after his Oscar nomination and win for best actor in The Pianist? Luckily, the role that Jackie Earle Haley definitely won't have to choose from is alongside fellow child actors Corey Feldman and Christopher Knight on the reality T.V. show The Surreal Life.

For whatever reason, all the orgs and major awards shows are staying far away from Children of Men, even though the film has shown up on quite a few top ten lists (our own James Rocchi easily picked it as this year's best film). Since I have not seen Children of Men yet (I know, don't kill me, I'm going Sunday), I can't sit here and cycle through what those reasons might be, but I can tell you that the film has finally won an award.

Remember that USC Scripter award I was telling you about recently? For those that don't recall, the Scripter award is handed out each year (by the USC Libraries) to the writers involved in an outstanding film adaptation. Not only do the screenwriters who adapted the (book, short story or novella) get recognized, but also the original author. This year, five films (and their writing teams) were nominated, including Children of Men, Notes on a Scandal, The Devil Wears Prada, The Last King of Scotland and The Illusionist. As I previously noted, Little Children was strangely absent from the finalists, which probably helped Children of Men (and its five screenwriters, as well as original author P.D. James) ultimately win this year's USC Scripter award. Previous winners include Capote and Million Dollar Baby, among others.

If you're a huge Children of Men fan, then might I suggest you cherish this moment folks, as the film will most likely not win anything else this year. The official awards ceremony will be held on February 18 at USC's Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library in Los Angeles.

Why is it that every year as we approach Oscar time, there are always people who feel compelled to write about how this or that award-favored film isn't really original? The latest offender is the Carpetbagger, who rehashes some tired detritus floating around the internet about the shocking -- truly shocking! -- parallels between Little Miss Sunshine and another family road trip comedy, National Lampoon's Vacation (which, for the record, is one of the funniest films ever made).

We even have some commenter on this piece on the Carpetbagger's site slamming LMS because the character of Olive resembles that pudgy girl with the big glasses from Blind Melon's "No Rain" video. I don't know about that, but if the directors did get the idea for Olive's look from a music vid, that wouldn't be shocking, either, as they're best known as music video directors. I'd still rather see a girl character who looks like Olive and is true to herself than yet another endlessly "cute" blond kid.

As for the originality argument -- I would challenge anyone bitching about the originality of LMS to name any film that isn't derivative in some way of some other film, book, play, magazine article, or even real life. Oh, heavens! The Queen isn't original, they just pulled that right from real stories about what happened between QEII and Blair! The Departed? Remake. Children of Men? Little Children? Thank You for Smoking? Bah, nothing but adaptations.

Reminds me of an interview with the Black Crowes many years ago when they were accused of not sounding "original" enough, and one of the band members responded tartly that he supposed they could be truly original and bang beaver pelts together, but that wouldn't make for very good music.

[ via Hollywood Elsewhere ]

Even if you consider Borat (full title not necessary) to be primarily a scripted work, it is still a film that works best in its unscripted sequences. This is debatable, sure, but I would like someone at the Writers Guild to tell me what was so great about the actual screenplay used. Personally, I think the scripted parts, as well as the adherence to the plot, are the weakest elements.

Nonetheless, Sacha Baron Cohen and his five collaborators are nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Adapted Screenplay. And despite my questioning of this recognition, I don't really prefer any of its competition. The other titles in the adapted category are Little Children, The Departed, The Devil Wears Prada and Thank You for Smoking. If I had to choose, I'd go with the last of these, but I think the prize will go to the overrated Little Children.

I also don't think the Original Screenplay category is that great, either. The nominees for that award are Little Miss Sunshine, Babel, United 93, Stranger Than Fiction and The Queen. Again, I'd have to go with the last of these, but predict the overrated first.

Hopefully, unlike with other guild awards, the WGA's honors will not reflect the Oscar nominations, which may recognize foreign films Volver and Pan's Labyrinth, which were ineligible here.

The Online Film Critics Society (of which Cinematical's own Scott Weinberg is a member) have spoken, and named their picks for the best films, performances and more of 2006. A recent arrival to the critic's boards awards season, the OFCS has been known for slightly off-center picks that often speak to very different sensibility than print and broadcast critics. As if to demonstrate this very point, a brief persual of the nominees and winners (designated in bold) after the jump will reveal that the OFCS has recognized a broad and fascinating slate of films in 2006 -- including Best Picture honors for United 93, plus individual wins for Oscar dark-horses like Borat, The Fountain, A Scanner Darkly and Children of Men. ...

I think I'm pretty much the only one who wasn't crazy about Little Children, save for a second half that featured an outstanding performance from Jackie Earle Haley (someone give this guy a best supporting something -- please, I beg you). Maybe I caught it at the wrong time (trust me, 10am isn't the best time to catch a flick in the theater, especially when you were up partying the night before), but the thing just moved too slowly ... and another dull performance from Patrick Wilson didn't help. Ever notice how the one thing every Patrick Wilson flick has in common (aside from the fact that Wilson appears in a role) is that whoever co-stars outshines him in almost every conceivable way?

With that said, Wilson has signed on to star opposite Anne Hathaway in Passengers -- remember that supernatural thriller flick we told you about last month? Hathaway herself isn't the most exciting actress, but she's cute, bubbly and you can't help but kind of like her. With Rodrigo García helming, pic revolves around a grief counselor who helps assist the survivors of a plane crash, but becomes wrapped up in a whole mess of thrills and chills when each survivor begins to disappear one by one. Oh, and amidst all this, she finds the time to fall in love with Wilson's character who -- you guessed it -- is one of the survivors. Ronnie Christensen (who makes his feature debut here, having penned a few TV projects like the instant classic Chameleon 3: Dark Angel) wrote the script, and production will begin shortly with Mandate Pictures producing and Columbia Pictures distributing domestically.