A solid handful of indie titles vie for your attention on the DVD shelves this week. I've already written about the marketing for Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs, my pick of the week, but that shouldn't overshadow the intrinsic quality of the film itself. The DVD from IFC includes Thanks for the Add!, a short film by Swanberg, an audio commentary by Swanberg and actors / co-writers Greta Gerwig and Kent Osborne, behind the scenes footage, and SXSW video production diary spots.

I watched Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (pictured) with expectations set perhaps too high. I thought it would be a thrilling Spanish ghost story; instead it's a rather pallid drama about a mother and a lost son with just a smidgen of suspense and supernatural overtones. Jette Kernion had a response similar to mine, but others liked it much more, including our own Scott Weinberg, who praised it as "entirely captivating from start to finish." The DVD from Picturehouse includes three featurettes and something on the somewhat misleading marketing campaign.

Family dysfunction and elder care may not sound like sexy subjects, but Tamara Jekins "simply takes us into the story of her fascinating characters, and the integrity with which she handles it makes it ring true throughout." That was the reaction of Kim Voynar to The Savages; she was especially impressed by the performances of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The DVD from Fox Searchlight includes an extended scene, director's snapshots, and a featurette entitled "About the Savages."

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.

I just started working the new spring semester as a graduate assistant for a cinema studies course. The professor has divided the semester up into two categories: image and story. This very simple division explains a lot about the movies and the way we think about them. Most people consider movies as stories, and that's it. They evaluate their experience on how well the movie told that story: was it plausible, enjoyable or unique? And it's true that most movies are nothing more than stories. But every so often a movie comes along that tries to do something with images, and I've always been attracted to them. I'm very definitely a "visual learner." I'm one of those people, when introduced to someone, their name goes right through my brain and disappears. But if I can visualize the name, or see it written down, then I'm aces.

This is most likely why The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (9 screens) appealed to me so strongly. Yes, the movie uses clever narration and dialogue but the main emphasis is visual, characters in relation to their surroundings and to each other. I'm also interested in movies that combine space and time; the shots last long enough that the visual schemes have a chance to sink in and mean something. (This is something that only movies can do.) That's probably why I generally despise shaky-cam and fast- cutting. But if you're telling a story, and the main goal is to get to the next turning point, then faster is probably better. I don't mean to say that image is better than story; the most important thing is the emotional result of whatever you're seeing. Some stories have affected me very strongly and provide some of the simplest entertainments: Speed, Run Lola Run, Memento, Spider-Man 2, etc.

As my wife said, it's just not the Oscars if there's nothing to complain about. However, I was impressed that two of the year's toughest films, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (389 screens) and Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men took the most nominations. Typically, the Academy is attracted to much less challenging and easy-to-categorize films (like Atonement). Both films are fairly bleak in their vision, but I suspect There Will Be Blood will sneak out ahead for two reasons: it's an epic, and epics almost always win. And, to quote a character from Sunset Boulevard, it "says a little something" about the current sociopolitical climate.

One of the biggest controversies cropped up over the foreign film category, which came up with five nominations that no one has ever heard of. (The Counterfeiters opens sometime next month and Mongol opens in June.) Not to mention that they ignored top contenders like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (opening this week) and Persepolis (30 screens). Thankfully the outrage has begun discussions on changing the stupid, ancient rules for the category. Currently these rules require each country to submit one film, and multi-national films, such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (107 screens), to be disqualified. A small group of "specialists," rather than the Academy as a whole, votes on the small list of films. The documentary category was less obscure, and although I saw 19 documentaries in 2007, I only managed to see two of the five nominees, No End in Sight and Sicko. I have an Academy screener for Operation Homecoming that I hope to catch soon, and Taxi to the Dark Side (1 screen) is screening for Bay Area press next week.

Yahoo reports that the National Society of Film Critics (made up of 61 film critics across the country) has chosen Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as the Best Picture of the Year, beating The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and No Country for Old Men. Anderson also won Best Director, over Julian Schnabel and the Coen Brothers. Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for Blood, and Robert Elswit received an award for its cinematography. The critics are clearly crazy for Blood, but I don't think it'll take the Best Picture Oscar. It's too cold a film for Oscar voters to fully embrace, and though I know I'm practically alone in this assessment, it's too flawed.

Julie Christie was named Best Actress for her understated performance in Away from Her. Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor for his excellent work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. And Cate Blanchett was selected as Best Supporting Actress for a performance that, for me, didn't amount to much more than a pretty good Bob Dylan impression. No End in Sight, a straightforward account of the bad decisions made by the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq, won Best Documentary. Tamara Jenkins' script for The Savages was named Best Screenplay. I really loved the first half of The Savages but felt the second got distracted with side stories that thinned out the story's impact. Only 41 of the Society's 61 members cast ballots this year (?), and their choices frequently differ from Oscar voters. We'll find out just how much they differ when the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 22nd.

Three new indie releases were left out in the cold this weekend but critical fave Juno vaulted into the overall top 10, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. Two of the new releases are from India: Welcome, a comedy directed by Anees Bazmee and starring Akshay Kumar, Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor, earned $5,180 per screen at 40 locations; Taare Zameen Par, the directorial debut of actor Aamir Khan, who stars as a teacher trying to help an unhappy young student, made $4,330 per screen at 70 engagements.

The other new release, extreme skiing doc Steep, could manage only $1,340 per screen at 17 engagements in winter-sport friendly areas. I wished that the film dug deeper into the questions it raises, but I'm surprised at the cool reception by its target market. Was everyone out on the slopes?

In its third week of release, pregnancy comedy Juno expanded to 304 theaters and raked in $11,184 per screen, which bodes well for its upcoming expansion (Tuesday, December 25) when it moves into 850 theaters. With its PG-13 rating, it looks like it's well-positioned to grab a big chuck of the teen audience that's home from school this week.

Atonement also expanded, though its success continues to be overshadowed by Juno. Joe Wright's period drama earned $6,630 per screen at 297 engagements. The Kite Runner was the third indie that expanded; it made $3,080 per screen at 377 locations, not bad at all for a drama without stars. In that same range of success could be found both The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ($3,890 per screen; 28 theaters) and The Savages ($3,520 per screen at 60 engagements).

No Country for Old Men has topped many critics' list for best of the year; now in its seventh week of release, it declined to $1,389 per screen, but that's at 1,222 theaters. I would imagine the theater count will soon drop, but it should stay in theaters until the Academy Award nominations are announced next month.

The American Film Institute has announced its picks for the ten best films of 2007, and once again it favors Judd Apatow over Joe Wright. Back in 2005, the organization named The 40-Year-Old Virgin as one of the best films of that year, while ignoring Wright's Pride & Prejudice. This time, the AFI has included Knocked Up and left out Atonement, despite the latter's huge presence in the Golden Globe nominations and very probable huge presence in the Oscar race. So, what's going on? Does the AFI really have something against Wright and his very Anglocentric filmmaking? Well, kind of, but only because the organization concentrates on American films (it is, after all, the American Film Institute). To be eligible for the year-end honors, a movie has to have "significant creative and/or production elements from the United States." The movie can even be in a foreign language (non-English, that is) if it is "incontrovertibly American."

Tom O'Neil at the Gold Derby blog still sees some controversy, though. He points out that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which the AFI included this year, was primarily an American production (from Kennedy/Marshall Co. and American director Julian Schnabel) yet had seven foreign partners, while Atonment (directed by a Brit) was also produced by an American company (Relativity Media) and had two foreign partners. I'd add that The Diving Bell is no more "incontrovertibly American" in its subject matter than Atonement -- or even Ratatouille for that matter. While I'm not arguing that Atonement deserved to make the list, I'd assume American Gangster would deserve it more than The Diving Bell, regardless of how much better the latter film may be. At least comedy fans should be happy with the inclusion of Knocked Up, which has so far been left out of most awards season honors.

The complete list is as follows: Knocked Up; Juno; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; No Country for Old Men; There Will Be Blood; Into the Wild; Ratatouille; The Savages; Michael Clayton; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

The San Francisco Film Critics Awards have been announced, and they're especially exciting for us here at Cinematical. Why? Because three of our writers are in the SFFC! Our very own James Rocchi, Jeffrey M. Anderson, and Richard Von Busack are all part of the San Francisco critic "scene." San Fran made some interesting picks, several outside of the expected Oscar nominees. So what were their choices? For Best Foreign Film, they selected Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I am watching when I finish this post). For Best Documentary, they selected No End in Sight (which didn't blow me away, but was certainly well done). Best Adapted Screenplay went to Sarah Polley for Away From Her (great script, one of the most kick-in-the-stomach depressing movies I've seen lately). And Best Original Screenplay went to Tamara Jenkins for The Savages.

Amy Ryan was named Best Supporting Actress for her brilliant portrayal of a highly difficult character in Gone Baby Gone. Ryan's co-star in that film, Casey Affleck, was named Best Supporting Actor for his outstanding work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Best Actress was Julie Christie for Away From Her and Best Actor was George Clooney in Michael Clayton -- two choices I approve of though I disagree with them. Joel and Ethan Coen took Best Director(s) honors for their latest masterpiece, No Country for Old Men. And -- drumroll please -- the Best Picture Award went to Jesse James. A surprising pick perhaps, but it was an absolutely fantastic film, and hopefully the award encourages more people to see it. The SFFC gave a special citation to an indie called Colma: The Musical, "a homegrown song-and-dance extravaganza about the paradoxical drudgery and surreality of life in a city where the dead outnumber the living one thousand to one." That old story again? See the list for yourself here -- it's a San Francisco treat!

Siblings dealing with their dying father trumped a man who can only move one eyelid in a box office battle between two award-worthy independent films. On the face of it, just because of their subject matter, neither would seem likely to draw big crowds, but excellent critical response and festival buzz appear to have paid off.

The Savages opened last Wednesday in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles and earned a very good $38,250 per screen, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman star as the siblings, with Philip Bosco as their father; Tamara Jenkins directed. Cinematical's Kim Voynar wrote: "There are no easy answers in dealing with aging and dying parents, and Jenkins doesn't try to give us one; she simply takes us into the story of her fascinating characters, and the integrity with which she handles it makes it ring true throughout."

The "one eyelid" movie, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, opened at three locations in New York and Los Angeles; weekend receipts reflect a strong per-screen average of $25,100. When he saw it at Cannes, our own James Rocchi said he found himself "on the edge of tears more than a few times ... [it's] a movie well worth seeing, with images and lessons that strike with power and don't let go."

Four other indies opened in one or two theaters in New York and/or Los Angeles, and Leonard Klady at Movie City News has their estimated per-screen earnings: Jessica Yu's doc Protagonist ($4,920; read Christopher Campbell's review); Miles Brandman's "darkly comic" Sex and Breakfast ($3,850), Robert Stone's doc Oswald's Ghost ($1,830; read my review), and Francesco Lucente's drama Badland ($1,220).

At least four other indies also opened, but financial results have not yet surfaced: ice hockey bio-pic The Rocket, prison escape thriller Chronicle of an Escape, foodie/lesbian romantic comedy Nina's Heavenly Delights and Christian Slater-starrer He Was a Quiet Man.

The first feature from Tamara Jenkins, the Natasha Lyonne-headed Slums of Beverly Hills was a pretty darned decent late-90s film. Alan Arkin. Marisa Tomei. Jessica Walter. Mena Suvari. The cast rocked, and the film was dysfunctional fun. So, hearing that she's finally written another feature, one that stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a sister and brother who have to care for their dementia-ridden father... Well, that's just too good to ignore.

Just a few days ago, Cinematical posted a great exclusive clip from The Savages, where Nancy Lenehan is a dementia support group leader who doesn't take too kindly to early nibbles at the refreshment stand. (She might have been in a lot of stuff, but I don't know if I will ever see the woman as anything but Pat, the woman who turned demon for Dead Man's Party.) Anyhow, Jenkins and Linney recently took part in Variety's Screening Series to discuss the film, which Jenkins says: "kind of came bubbling up out of my dark recesses, and then I stuffed it in a drawer and didn't think about it for a long time."

Linney says: "It's one of the best scripts I've ever read." You can't get a much better thumbs up than that, since she has had her share of great films. She continued: "With films of this nature, you really just have to throw yourself off a cliff and go. You really don't have time for a lot of exploration. You have to do as much work as you possibly can before you start, and then hit the ground running and you do not mess around." Well, it doesn't sound like they messed around in any way that could possibly hurt it. Kim Voynar gave it a rave from Sundance, and we can finally see it for ourselves when it hits limited release on November 28.

The Savages, starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a brother and sister who must deal with their aging, estranged father, Lenny (Philip Bosco) who suffers from dementia and has no memory of the sibs' unhappy childhood. I first caught The Savages back in January at Sundance, and I've seen Jenkins speak about the film a couple times, at Sundance and again at Telluride, when she had in intimate early-morning Conversation with Juno director Jason Reitman. As Jenkins has noted, the storyline of The Savages is a challenging pitch to sell -- there's nothing sexy or alluring about dementia and incontinence.

But for folks like myself who are facing the possibility of caring for our own aging parents (and it will be your turn eventually too, younglings), this honest, often funny look at the issues surrounding elder care, brought to life by actors of the caliber of Linney and Hoffman, makes for a great film.

In the scene shown in the above clip, Jon and Wendy Savage have just walked into a support group for dementia ... where they find themselves feeling more than a little uncomfortable ... watch and enjoy. You can also check out Moviefone's great Unscripted session with Hoffman and Linney and read Cinematical's Sundance review of The Savages, to whet your appetite for the film. The Savages opens November 28 in limited release.

If you love movie awards and dog shows, there's a new event that's perfect for you: the Fido Awards, which recognizes cinematic canines. Presented in conjunction with the London Film Festival, these awards were presented Sunday night with the top honor, "Best in World", going to five corgis -- named Poppy, Anna, Alice, Oliver and Megan -- that appear alongside Oscar-winner Helen Mirren in The Queen. The same dogs also won another award, "Best Historical Hounds for a dog/dogs in a film set in bygone days", beating out dogs from Control (I don't even remember a dog in this, which means it makes sense it didn't win) and Molière. Other winners include Travis, a Welsh cardigan corgi named "Comedy Canine for smochiest pooch in a romantic comedy " for his "method-acting" in Year of the Dog, Logan, a "Bernese Mtn English Mastiff X" named "Blockbuster Bowser -- best canine achievement in an action flick" for sharing a beer with Mark Wahlberg in Shooter, and dogs from the short film Dog Flap and the London Film Festival entry Far North. In addition to those from Control and Molière, losers included pups from The Holiday, Feast of Love, Shoot 'Em Up, The Savages (for some reason listed in the action category) and Paddy Considine's short Dog Altogether. Hopefully none of them were Old-Yellered because of their failures.

Isn't that cute? The Fidos are technically considered "the world's first-ever international awards ceremony for canine screen stars," but this isn't the first time awards have been given out to animal performances in film (I would be shocked if it were). Since 1939 -- after a horse was accidentally killed on the set of Jesse James -- the American Humane Association has honored animals in cinema and television with the PATSY Awards (yet apparently the first actual PATSY went to "Francis the Talking Mule" in 1951). Some of the obvious past winners include Lassie, the pig from Green Acres, the dog that played Benji (name: Higgins), Gypsy the horse (from Gypsy Colt) and Orangey the cat, who appeared in Rhubarb and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a full list of the winners through the years, just this spotlight from TCM.

What is your favorite animal performance, canine or otherwise?

It may be a bit early for this, but I wanted to get my two cents in on some of my favorite performances of 2007 so far, especially since most of these will probably get overlooked in the great Oscar crush of December. The awards almost always go to actors who are involved in biopics, message pictures, costume movies or epics, so let's start with the wonderful Alan Rickman, who has yet to earn a single Oscar nomination. This year, he can be seen toiling away once again in the small role of Severus Snape in the fifth "Harry Potter" film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (283 screens). In the third film, he practically stole the entire movie with the way he read the line "turn to page 394," but in this fifth film, he actually has a scene with some meat to it. In training Harry to block his thoughts, Harry takes a peek into Snape's own mind and finds a disastrously sad childhood. When the flashback ends, the camera lingers on Snape's face for a moment, and Rickman renders an astonishing expression of hurt and hatred that broke my heart and sent chills through my spine.

One costume movie, Becoming Jane (32 screens), was unfairly judged, perhaps because it was too much fun and not somber enough (or not based on a literary source of proper merit). The lovely Miss Anne Hathaway usually lends a kind of smart energy to her best performances, as if she were slightly ahead of the game, and she does so perfectly as the budding Jane Austen. She's playful, but tough, beautiful but restrained. And when she falls in love with her man (James McAvoy), she does so breathlessly and with her whole heart; the movie more or less explains through fantasy how Austen was able to write so passionately from such a dull existence. The real Jane was said to be rather plain, but I'd much rather imagine her like this. Add to this Maggie Smith's delightfully wry supporting performance as the wealthy aunt, who can't understand the impudent youth of today and fires off comically nasty barbs at their expense.

It was just before noon on Labor Day, the last day of the Telluride Film Festival, and heaps of passholders were crowded into the Town Park in Telluride for the big passholder Labor Day Picnic, the second of two big feed parties the Telluride Film Festival throws for its passholders. Storm clouds hovered threateningly, but they were nowhere near as threatening as the clouds hovering on the brows of some of the eight women called there to put on a panel for the fest attendees. The panel topic: "Is There a Woman Behind Every Good Movie? The Gender Shift in the Film World."

An hour or so earlier, panelist Tamara Jenkins, director of The Savages, which sneaked at the fest, had gone off on a tangent during her Conversation with Juno director Jason Reitman over at the Courthouse about this very panel, and how being asked to participate in panels on women in film always makes her feel like she's on the "special olympics" panel. "It's either, oh, look, you made a FILM! Isn't that cute," she drolled in a cutsie "let's talk to the baby like it's an idiot" voice or, "You GO, girl" as she thrust her fists in the air. She laughed about it, but the annoyance wasn't a put on. She joked about all the implications of being labeled a "female filmmaker" rather than just a filmmaker ("Tell us, Tamara -- what's it like to direct a film ... while wearing a BRA?") but she made it clear that given her druthers, she'd far prefer that her gender wasn't an issue at all.

A while later, Jenkins was milling about in front of the platform schmoozing with the seven other female filmmakers who had been persuaded to participate in the panel: Diablo Cody (screenwriter of Juno); Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane); Alexandra Sun (producer of Blind Mountain); Laura Linney (The Savages); Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding), Jyll Johnstone (director, Hats Off!) and Sarah Gavron (director, Brick Lane). This formidable group of women got up on the platform, and then we found that this panel about women filmmakers is being led by ... a man. Now, not that I have anything against men (heck, I like some of them quite a lot), but I wasn't the only one who found this a little odd. With all the women writing about film, teaching about film, making films, even staffing this festival, they couldn't find a woman to host this panel? I know Anne Thompson skipped out on Telluride this year, but surely they could have found someone. Anyone? Anyone?

With hundreds of titles playing at the Toronto festival, which ones will emerge as critical or popular favorites? One way to build popular word of mouth is by screening selected titles at other fall festivals. Festival buzz often leads to sales for films without distribution, and that same buzz can increase awareness of films in advance of a theatrical release.

For example, this week AFI Fest announced another 15 titles, according to indieWIRE, of which 11 are screening in Toronto. Bruce MacDonald's The Tracey Fragments and Paprika Steen's With Your Permission will have their US Premieres at the fest, while other buzz titles include Telluride fave Juno, the animated Persepolis, the Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (which was pulled earlier this year from the Los Angeles Film Festival), biopic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages and Austrian Oscar entry The Counterfeiters. As an Asian film fan, I'm excited to see Hao Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon and Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine in the lineup. Two documentaries will world premiere: Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome and 1000 Journals. The fest will open with the North American Premiere of Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs; it runs from November 1-11 in Los Angeles, California.

Starting in less than two weeks, Fantastic Fest is filled with exciting titles for genre fans -- I'm going and my schedule is already overflowing. They've just announced their opening night film will be George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, with director Romero in person. The film premiered Friday night as part of Toronto's Midnight Madness program. Other recently-added films include Flash Point (another Midnight Madness title), The Backwoods (starring Gary Oldman) and Nacho Vigilando's Timecrimes. Look for a BIG Cinematical preview coming next week. The craziness begins September 20 and lasts until September 27 in Austin, Texas.