ryan phillipe Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Billy Ray's new film Breach unfolds in the hazy shades of a Washington, D.C. winter -- steely blues and cold grays, concrete and frost outside and pale fluorescent light indoors. Junior FBI man Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is working counter-terrorism, snapping photos from hiding and working on new database methodologies in his spare time -- he's a keener, an eager beaver, and he wants to serve his country and his career. Bureau higher-up Burroughs (Laura Linney) tasks O'Neill with a very specific job -- working as the clerk to FBI data-maven Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), who's heading up the project to create the Bureau's new data-storage and handling protocols ... and, according to Burroughs, is a 'sexual deviant.' O'Neill's supposed to write everything down, make observations, report only to Burroughs and not tell anyone -- even his wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas) about the truth of what he's doing. It's hard for O'Neill, but in another way, it's easy -- because, as it turns out, even he doesn't know the real truth of what he's doing.

As played by Cooper, Hanssen is a stiff-backed hard-ass: he hates the Bureau's bureaucracy, resents his office lacking a window, curses the current data-storage methodology the Bureau uses. He's a fervent Catholic, his life revolving around Latin mass and service to the Bureau. In a series of carefully-crafted scenes, O'Neill gets to know Hanssen a bit -- and while Hanssen is a jerk ("Your name is 'Clerk.' You call me 'Sir' or 'Boss.' ..."), O'Neill can't understand why he's being assigned to ride a guy whose biggest crime seems to be being unlikable. Confronting Burroughs about his assignment -- he used to be tracking terrorists, now he's wasting time babysitting a man two months from mandatory retirement -- Burroughs explains the truth behind the truth. Hanssen has been selling secrets to the Soviets. For the past 22 years.

As you know, the Oscar winners are determined by a highly secret, very scientific process guaranteed to ensure the very best of the nominees in each category will go home with the coveted statue of a naked golden man - and, let's be honest - who doesn't want a naked golden man on their bedside table or mantel? This year, as part of our extensive coverage of the awards show everyone loves to bitch about, we here at Cinematical headquarters are making our own highly scientific Oscar predictions in the top five categories, to assist you in placing bets with your bookies or office betting pools.

A few days ago, James Rocchi gave us his Oscar predictions, based on the Virtual Borgnine (tm), Rocchi's own invention based on the theory that Oscar winners are largely determined by old, rich, white men who have spent their whole lives in show business. Today, straight from the pristine lab located in my kitchen, we bring you Oscar predictions based on the Official Cinematical Pin the Oscar on the Donkey Oscar Prediction Game!

To assist me in the prediction process, I used my five assistants - my four (yup, I said four) younger children, ages 9, 6, 4 and 2, and my husband, Jay (he got to pick Best Picture, so I didn't have to deal with four kids fighting over who got to choose the last winner, but to keep it fair, the kids spun him around no less than 10 times. He's still recovering.) Each assistant was thoroughly blindfolded with an Oscar-worthy purple velveteen blindfold and spun around an appropriate number of times to ensure dizziness and slight nausea, which is pretty much what we feel when watching the Oscars anyhow. For purposes of determining the winner, the nominee that Oscar's head was closest to was judged to be the winner.

Without further ado, the Pin the Oscar on the Donkey Oscar Predictions: