The Screengrab : diablo cody

Morning Deal Report: Diablo Cody’s Zombie Lament

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:45:00 GMT

Diablo Cody will produce an adaptation of Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, a new novel by S.G. Browne. The romantic comedy “centers on a recently deceased Everyman and newly minted zombie who is having trouble adjusting to his new existence. All that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls,” Variety reports.

John Cusack and Rob Corddry are soaking in the Hot Tub Time Machine. “The script, by Josh Heald, follows a group of guys who have grown frustrated with their adult lives. They return to the ski lodge where they partied as teens to find answers and are transported to 1987 via their hot tub, a bubbly time machine,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Best Actor Oscar winner Sean Penn is in talks to join Naomi Watts in Doug Liman’s Fair Game, a drama about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Penn is in talks to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who “watched his wife's CIA status become compromised after he wrote op-ed columns that accused the Bush Administration of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.” Weird – it’s not like Penn to get all political.

Related:
Diablo Cody Unwraps "Jennifer's Body"
John Cusack: Political Poet

A Few Minutes with Neil Gaiman

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Hey, longtime Screengrab fans, you remember our ol’ pal John Constantine, don’t you? He used to make you all angry with his posts theorizing that Diablo Cody is actually Kevin Smith before he took off to the warmer climes of 61 Frames Per Second. Well, John has been begging and pleading and scraping and bowing and really just debasing himself in all sorts of pathetic ways in hopes that we’d link to an interview he did with Neil Gaiman over at The Daily Beast, and we simply can’t take it anymore. Gaiman, as you may know, is the author of the young adult novel Coraline, the movie version of which opens Friday. I have seen it and it’s a creepy good time, if you like that sort of thing. John talks to Gaiman about the movie and how it “lacks people being eaten by vaginas,” as well as his previous fantasy film Mirrormask and his hopes to adapt his own comic book miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living for the screen.

There is also some talk of blowjobs. You can read the full interview here. There – hope you’re happy, John!

Morning Deal Report: The Unholy Steven Spielberg/Diablo Cody Alliance

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Readers of the Morning Deal Report (or any of my other nonsense), take note: vacation beckons me, so I will be posting sporadically over the next two weeks or so. Please, for the sake of the children, keep your grieving to a minimum. Now on with your regularly scheduled briefing.

As you may know, Steven Spielberg and Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody are collaborating on a Showtime series, The United States of Tara. Now, Variety reports that Cody is scripting an untitled comedy for Dreamworks that, like Tara, is based on an idea by Spielberg. No details are available, but I do have to wonder how Spielberg came to the conclusion that Diablo Cody is the vessel through which all his wondrous notions shall be realized. There seems to be a distinct difference in sensibilities here, but maybe it’s just me.

Meanwhile, you knew it wouldn’t be long before Iron Man 2 started revving up, especially once Jon Favreau started whining on his MySpace page that he hadn’t been hired to direct it yet. (This has since been rectified.) Now the super-sequel has a screenwriter. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Justin Theroux has been tapped to pen the follow-up due in April 2010. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Theroux is best known as an actor. David Lynch fans will recall him from Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, but Theroux also has a screenwriting credit on the upcoming Tropic Thunder.

Finally I have to tell you about the Billy Joel documentary Last Play at Shea, which will capture the piano man’s upcoming concert at the soon-to-be-demolished Shea Stadium. Why do I have to tell you about this? Only because of this great Variety quote from producer Steve Cohen: “We wanted to approach this like a Ken Burns documentary, looking at Billy and Shea Stadium’s place in the pantheon of New York.” Yep, the Civil War, baseball, jazz…and Billy Joel. That, my friends, is America.

Related:
Diablo Cody Unwraps "Jennifer's Body"
Adams v. Marvel: Iron Man Turns to Crime?

Diablo Cody Unwraps “Jennifer’s Body”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of knives sharpening in anticipation of Diablo Cody’s screenwriting follow-up to Juno, the horror comedy Jennifer’s Body. A backlash is inevitable – really, it started almost simultaneously with the initial Juno hype, but it’s usually the sophomore effort that really takes it in the shins. If Cody is concerned, there’s not much evidence of it in the recent interviews she’s done to promote the film, which just wrapped shooting in Vancouver.

“I guess I was trying to think of something that was legitimately scary to me as opposed to a marketable horror idea,” Cody told The Province, which describes Jennifer’s Body as “another story about verbal teens -- bookish Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is horrified when a satanic rite turns best pal Jennifer (Megan Fox) into a ravenous man-killer.” Hey, we’ve already had a mumblecore horror movie, so why not one full of snappy, smart-alecky banter?

“All I could think of was girls -- teenaged women are terrifying,” says Cody. “They can be really frightening, really ruthless and irrational -- and evil. So I thought maybe I could literally make a teenaged girl a bogeyman in the classic sense.” Sounds a little Carrie to us, and indeed Cody makes that comparison herself in another interview with Fearnet, also citing The Virgin Suicides, Suspiria and Just One of the Guys, among others. “This is a horror movie--not to sound like a complete pretentious douche bag--but it is a horror movie made by filmmakers and made by people who genuinely care about film. [Director] Karyn [Kusama] was a total horror geek. I’m a horror geek. The producers are into this stuff. This was not a mercenary effort to make something that seemed like it was kind of profile. We wanted to make a horror movie, and we are extremely respectful of the great films that came before us. I think that people will see that in the finished product.”

Jennifer’s Body isn’t scheduled for release until next year. That should give us plenty of time to get these knives nice and sharp.

DVD Digest for April 15, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

For those of you looking to spend this year's tax refund check on DVDs, this won't be a particularly good week for you. But there is at least one exception...

Had you going there, didn't I? My well-documented soft spot for Dr. Uwe Boll notwithstanding, the real gem this week is The Criterion Collection's release of Blast of Silence. Criterion has long been beloved for its top-notch DVD editions of canonical favorites, but just as important in my mind is their tendency to unearth forgotten treasures. Allen Baron's Blast of Silence definitely qualifies, a grim, gritty noir about a hitman carrying out an assignment during the Christmas season. In many ways, the film feels ahead of its time, with Lionel Stander's narration- delivered in the second person- translating wonderfully to our post-Tarantino age. Blast of Silence is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation, and this Criterion release should ensure it reaches the audience it deserves.

Of course, if it's something new you're looking for, there are a couple of those this week. For people looking for indie quirk, there's two different versions of the Oscar-nominated juggernaut Juno (Fox, also Blu-Ray), the two-disc special edition of which includes featurettes called Diablo Cody Is Totally Boss, Jason Reitman for Shizz, and Honest to Blog! Creating Juno. But if you've already gotten all the Juno you can handle, or you simply craving characters who don't talk in grating sound bites, there's also MGM's Lars and the Real Girl, which isn't perfect but which I preferred to its better-hyped counterpart.

In addition, this week also sees the release of Sidney Lumet's "comeback" vehicle Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. I wasn't nearly as big a fan of the film as Scott von Doviak was, but it's good to see Lumet still making films that are worth getting excited about.

And I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the release of Dr. Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (Fox). After catching this in theatres, I remarked to my friends that it was "not good, but kind of awesome," exactly the kind of movie that I would have enjoyed when I was ten years old and fantasy movies weren't as popular as they are now. If nothing else, it's more entertaining than this week's other think-at-your-own-peril new release, Aliens vs. Predator- Requiem (Fox, also Blu-Ray).

As for classics, there's not much outside of our DVD of the week. Fans of late, logy Lean films can get their fix with the release of the A Passage to India Collector's Edition (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Also of note is MGM's two-pack of Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On the Move, for those who are so inclined. And for TV fans, there's The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 (Universal), MGM's Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection (which is missing the original theatrical feature), and American Dad, Volume 3.

Finally, we arrive at the moment where I turn over the column to my friend and yours, Mr. David Huddleston. Not too many condolences this week, only Warner Brothers' HD-DVD release of Bonnie and Clyde. Still, Mr. Huddleston wishes that his condolences weren't necessary, and that the DVD companies would take the hint and get on the Blu-Ray bandwagon so he could make other, more enjoyable plans for his Tuesday mornings.

Vanishing Act: Daniel Waters

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Diablo Cody, take notice. Once upon a time, in a magical land called the 1980s, there was a hip youth-culture screenwriter of the moment named Daniel Waters. He wrote a zeitgeisty movie called Heathers that Variety described as “super-smart black comedy about high school politics and teenage suicide that showcases a host of promising young talents.” Among those talents were Christian Slater, unveiling the Jack Nicholson impression that would sustain his career at least until the release of Kuffs in 1992, future 90210 bad girl Shannen Doherty, and future shoplifter Winona Ryder, who was sort of the Ellen Page of her time. Heathers was a cult hit, and Waters got the lion’s share of the credit. (Director Michael Lehmann’s recent comeback attempt Flakes was described here as a “soggy mess.”)

Waters used his newfound clout to pen two of the most reviled movies (justly or not) of the early 1990s: the Andrew Dice Clay vehicle The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and notorious bomb Hudson Hawk. He managed to reclaim a modicum of respectability by scripting Batman Returns (although much of his work went unused), then did some work on 1993’s Demolition Man before disappearing for eight years. He resurfaced with his debut as a writer-director, Happy Campers, a sort of cross between Heathers and Meatballs that never received a theatrical release.

Another long hiatus followed, but now the L.A. Times catches up with Waters, who has a new movie due in theaters Friday. Sex and Death 101 reunites him with Winona Ryder for the story of a man (Simon Baker) who receives a mysterious email listing all the women he ever has or ever will have sex with. As it happens, Waters has taken up residence in the former home of another man who was no stranger to prolonged vanishing acts, Orson Welles. "I bought the house because I wanted to get that Citizen Kane mojo," says Waters. "Instead I'm getting the end of [Welles'] career, the hanging out with Henry Jaglom, doing wine commercials and magic tricks part of his life. I mean, I enjoy my life, but come on -- where's my Touch of Evil?"

Like Welles before him, Waters also keeps busy “on never-made projects like an adaptation of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land for Tom Hanks.” Is Sex and Death 101 his Touch of Evil? Here’s the trailer – judge for yourself:

Hollywood...Where the Writer is KING!

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The writer's strike has only been over for a few short days, but Sunday's Oscars showed all too plainly the bitterness and recrimination that will likely haunt the motion picture industry for years to come.

Or, at least, it would have if anyone had bothered to mention it.

Outside of few wisecracks by host John Stewart, Diablo Cody's shout-out to her fellow scribes (stripping and non-stripping) and some predictable scripted intro gags, the biggest story in Hollywood for the last three months got barely a mention at the Academy Awards ceremony. While time will tell whether producers and writers can bury the grudges and forget the nasty words exchanged during the walkout, everyone was smiles and sunshine at the 80th Oscars. In fact, it's probably the nicest the two factions have pretended to treat each other in decades. Where is the ugly, backstabbing Hollywood we all know and love?

Oh, that's right. It's waiting for the SAG strike, coming your way this summer!

Juno's Diablo Cody Tries Her Hand at Acting... With Mixed Results

Peter Smith — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:55:00 GMT

She's been a stripper. She's been a blogger. She's been a pop-culture sensation. But Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody is... not much of an actress, judging by this clip from the web videocast series Chasing Windmills. Hit the jump to check it out.

Video here.

2008 Independent Spirits Award

Phil Nugent — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:30:00 GMT

The Independent Spirit Awards, designed as a counterpoint to the Academy Awards (and traditionally handed out the day before the Oscars ceremony) were distributed this past Saturday. It may say something about the current state of the movie industry that, at first glance, the list of nominees did not seem as glaringly different from the list of Oscar nominees as might have been expected, though if the two institutions tended to pick their nominees from basically the same talent pool, they tended to diverge in their selection of winners. Juno won for Best Picture, while its Oscar-garlanded screenwriter, Diablo Cody, took the prize for Best First Screenplay, and its star, Ellen Page, won for Best Actress. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor prize for his work in The Savages, whose writer-director, Tamara Jenkins, won for Best Screenplay. Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress went to Chiwetel Ejiofor (for Talk to Me) and Cate Blanchett, who dedicated her award to her I'm Not There co-star, Heath Ledger. Rounding out the major categories were Julian Schnabel's award as Best Director for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which was also honored for its cinematography, by Janusz Kaminski), John Carney's Once (winner for Best Foreign Film) and Scott Frank's The Lookout (Best First Film). The evening also marked the first appearance of a new award named in honor of the late, great Robert Altman, to honor the film that makes the most impressive use of its ensemble cast; it was given to Todd Haynes's I'm Not There. The movies got a little more independent, or at least a lot more obscure, a bit further down the list with John Eska's August Evening, winner of the John Cassavettes Award for best feature made for under $500,000. Among the hardcore independent filmmakers on hand, Eska did the best job of putting his place in the food chain, in relation to the Philip Seymour Hoffmans and the Cate Blanchetts, in pespective by taking the stage and saying that he wanted to thank his agent, the only problem being that he doesn't have one yet.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Phil's Picks

Phil Nugent — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Let's make sure we're on the same page on this: if you bet money, household chores, or bragging rights on anything you're about to read in this post, you are out of your mind, and while I pity you, I will not admit in a court of law to ever having met you. I got off the Oscar train when I was eight years old and Sissy Spacek didn't win for Carrie; to have continued our relationship beyond that point would have been madness, madness! I claim no inside knowledge or deep understanding of how they decide these things, and the only thing I could tell you about the winners of recent years is that Jennifer Hudson won last year for Dreamgirls. (How do I know this? I was talking to someone on the phone when it was announced, and the woman I was talking to happened to have her TV set on. When Hudson's name was called out, the woman screamed. It turned out that it was a joyous scream, but until she calmed down enough to tell me what the hell was going on, my best guess was that she had just noticed that her couch was on fire.) Anyway, the only thing more completely charmless than the Oscars may be the ugly spectacle of a writer bragging about how little he cares about what he's paid to weigh in on, so now that we've just established that my opinion in this area counts for about as much as hair styling tips from Paul Wolfowitz, here goes:

BEST SCREENPLAY:

Diablo Cody takes Best Original for Juno because the voters have actually heard her name — it's not like, having come across it once, you can get it out of your head without laser surgery — and Paul Thomas Anderson takes it for Best Adaptation for There Will Be Blood, because that's what you get when you make a great movie but you aren't going to get Best Picture and the Best Director prize already taken.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Apparently this is going to go to Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There, partly because Blanchett is also nominated for a Best Actress award that she is not getting to get and nominating her twice in one year without giving her anything would just seem silly. A good and sound bit of reasoning, and so I will of course reject it. And not only because I don't get the universally accepted logic by which this is agreed to be a "supporting" performance. Who the hell is she supposed to be supporting? The term ought to mean something other than "Big name actor in a role that is frequently off-screen." She's definitely the unquestioned star of her section of the movie, and while I didn't put a stop watch on it, I'll bet that she has as much screen time as any of the other Dylans. And if it turns out that Richard Gere, say, has a little more actual screen time, I'm not sure that the editor did him a favor by it. Until persuaded otherwise, I shall remain convinced that Blanchett's placement in this category is part of some conspiracy to screw over Amy Ryan, who wouldn't win anyway, because you only win an Oscar for playing a character as skanky as her Gone Baby Gone character if the Academy has already seen you in a bunch of glamour-puss roles and so knew for sure that you were acting. It's a moot point anyway, because I boldly predict that the winner will be Ruby Dee, because she has had a long and distinguished career, because she is 83 years old, because her late husband, Ossie Davis, is much missed, and because even though she didn't have much of a role in American Gangster, she did get to slap Denzel Washington, and he needed slapping.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Hal Holbrook has had a long and distinguished career and is now the same age as Ruby Dee, so if she doesn't win in her category, his chances automatically go up by 50%. But I really don't see it happening. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives the best performance in this category — he's a stone hoot in Charlie Wilson's War, which marks a rare example of an actor giving the Academy three different performances to select for nomination and the Academy choosing the right one. I'd think he had a real chance if it weren't for the fact that he already won not too long ago for Best Actor for Capote, which makes Javier Bardem the needier candidate. Bardem's trigger-happy, unstoppable psycho in a much-discussed hairstyle gave audiences all the fun of watching a Batman villain ply his trade, but it's in an officially certified, critically approved serious film with a literary pedigree, and for this he will be the recipient of much gratitude from voters whose wives dragged them to Atonement. He's already won more than a few awards for this performance, and he'll be throwing one more on the pile.

BEST ACTRESS:

Julie Christie in a lock. Next?

BEST ACTOR:

The conventional wisdom seems to be that this one belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood. I think that George Clooney has a shot for Michael Clayton, which is the kind of hard-hitting, tough-minded, yet still glamorous-looking movie that Hollywood wishes and expects America to take to its bosom. (Clooney looks worn-down and dissipated in it, and a gorgeous-looking man looking as much like hell as he can is the most glamorous thing in the world.) Some would argue that Clooney himself gave the award to Day-Lewis at a recent Newsweek-sponsored gathering where he serenaded his shy British colleague by saying that all actors "bow low to this motherfucker." Indeed, the whole of the media has been going wild these last couple of months about Day-Lewis's position as the great screen actor of our time. I do not disagree. But I happen to be one of those suspicious types who, when I hear conservative pundits on Fox News go on and on about how fearsome a candidate Barack Obama would be against a Republican challenger in November, and how they think that any Republican would just chew Hillary Clinton up and spit her out, I can't help thinking, Okay, would they say that out loud if they really believed it? Hasn't anyone ever heard the one about wanting to be thrown in the brier patch? So, on this baseless idiot notion, I have just decided the media have been building Day-Lewis up in preparation for the shocking upset to come when Clooney takes the prize. Remember, you read it here first! Unless I'm wrong, in which case you can just forget that I said anything.

BEST DIRECTOR:

The Coens, for No Country for Old Men, in a bigger lock than Julie Christie.

BEST PICTURE:

The big pictures here are obviously No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and I think they're going to cancel each other out. Both are impressive, violent movies that actually alienate as many potential voters as they attract. For the same reasons that I think George Clooney is an attractive candidate for Best Actor, his movie, Michael Clayton, has the smell of a loser to it. So the contrarian, can't-we-all-just-get-alone vote will go to putting either Juno or Atonement over the top. After it won at the Golden Globes, I thought that Atonement, with its period romance and literary prestige, was a shoo-in, but since then I have shifted over to favoring Juno, partly because I got bored with my previous position, partly because Juno is this year's Little Miss Sunshine, and Little Miss Sunshine lost last year. That means that the partisans of indie-flavored whimsy will be harder-driving this year. Also, it came out later in the year than Little Miss Sunshine, and is lucky in its timing: I calculate that the backlash against the backlash against Juno is now on a rising wave and will crest in time for the awards Sunday. It will flatten out the next morning and the papers will be full of "What were we thinking" pieces for the next two weeks.

Indie Box-Office Roundup: Weekend of February 15-17, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:17:00 GMT

Continuing its strong appeal to arthouse audiences, Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit has moved up to #1 atop this week's Indie Box-Office Roundup. The Israeli comedy, released in the US by Sony Pictures Classics, managed an impressive per-screen average of $11,267, up from $9,642 last week. At a time when the big Hollywood releases are opening big and falling fast, it's good to see a movie that really catches on with audiences like this. A movie like The Band's Visit may never pull in Cloverfield grosses, but in its limited release it should have more staying power than most would-be blockbusters.

Also maintaining a strong showing over President's Day Weekend was last week's chart-topper, Focus Features' In Bruges, now at #2 with a $10,420 per-screen average in its second week of release. Martin McDonough's film is still expanding its release, so expect the averages to dip somewhat in the following weeks.

The weekend's top premiere was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, the inaugural release from Weinstein Company offshoot Third Rail Releasing. Romero's film, his fifth Dead movie to date, garnered a solid $6,549 per screen, and will expand to 10 more markets for the weekend of February 29.

Rounding out the top 5 were Cao Hamburger's The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (City Lights) and the self-distributed David and Layla. Also of note was Magnolia's program of 2007 Oscar-nominated Short Films, which finished #9 on the list. However, I find their figures more than a bit dubious, considering I had to pay separate admissions for the Animated and Live-Action programs.

Finally, Juno-watch! The movie that Roger Ebert called "his true love" finished just outside the top 10 this week, raking in $2,993 per screen, finishing ahead of last week's top wide-ish release, There Will Be Blood. Next week could see a bump in a number of current limited releases, depending on how the Oscars pan out. So hopefully we'll get a nice surge for PT Anderson, not so much for Diablo Cody and Ivan Reitman's kid.

Top 10, Weekend of February 15-17:
1. The Band's Visit [Sony Pictures Classics] ($11,267 per screen)
2. In Bruges [Focus Features] ($10,420 per screen)
3. George A. Romero's Diary Of The Dead [Third Rail Releasing] ($6,549 per screen)
4. The Year My Parents Went On Vacation [City Lights Pictures Releasing] ($5,430 per screen)
5. David & Layla [David & Layla, LLC] ($5,007 per screen)
6. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days [IFC First Take] ($4,808 per screen)
7. How To Cook Your Life [Roadside Attractions] ($3,704 per screen)
8. The Business of Being Born [International Film Circuit] ($3,608 per screen)
9. 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films [Magnolia Pictures] ($3,605 per screen)
10. Caramel [Roadside Attractions] ($3,360 per screen)

Source: IndieWire.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Paul's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

All right, Screengrab regulars. You've no doubt taken a gander at the Oscar predictions from Leonard Pierce and Scott Von Doviak, which if nothing else have demonstrated that Screengrab's sense of humor remains intact. Now have a gander at — well, I was going to say the REAL predictions, but since you've already seen my nomination predictions, I can't in good conscience make such a grandiose claim. But Leonard has sent out a call, and I have no choice but to answer it.

Here goes nothing. . .

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan has been racking up critics' awards, but I think Hollywood insiders could be turned off by her unpleasant character. Saoirse Ronan might have had a shot with a bigger Atonement groundswell, but I don't see it happening now. Ruby Dee, SAG Award or no, should be happy just to be nominated. This brings us to Cate Blanchett as not-quite-Dylan, and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. This is Blanchett's to lose. . . or would be had she not won just three years ago. The performance — more than a stunt — is might impressive, but I think Swinton sneaks in for the upset here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Bardem's still the one to beat here, friend-o. If anyone beats him, it'll be Grand Old Actor Hal Holbrook, although his chances would've been better had Into the Wild gotten a Best Picture nomination.

BEST ACTRESS: Leonard and Scott are all about Christie, but I think this is a closer race than they're predicting. Juno lives and dies by Ellen Page's performance, but the voters might find her too young to get behind. I'm going out on a limb and predicting Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, though any of these three could take home the Oscar.

BEST ACTOR: You know, had Sweeney Todd made any money at the box office, this could have been Johnny Depp's year. But as it is, Daniel Day-Lewis is untouchable, and anyone who denies it is a bastard from a basket.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Much as I'd love to see a Ratatouille upset, this race comes down the Hollywood veteran vs. the feisty newcomer. Good as the Michael Clayton screenplay is, this award almost always goes to the most show-offy screenplay, which this year is almost certainly Juno. Add in a Hollywood-friendly backstory and Diablo Cody's sudden ubiquity, and you've got an Oscar waiting to happen.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece, but it's more of a directorial and acting showcase than a triumph of screenwriting. Atonement has all the ingredients of an Oscar-bait literary adaptation, but will have to make do with a few technical awards. Which means No Country for Old Men will bring the Coen brothers their second Oscar to date — or third, should the film win Best Editing.

BEST DIRECTOR: Of the nominated directors, the Coens are the Oscar veterans, and are well-liked in the industry. How else to explain an out-of-nowhere screenplay nomination for O Brother, Where Art Thou? back in the day. If anyone has a shot, it's Paul Thomas Anderson, but don't bet on it. Even if there's an upset for Best Picture, when it comes to this category, you can't stop what's coming.

BEST PICTURE: No Country is the favorite here, partly because nobody can seem to agree on what might upset it. I'm still predicting No Country to take this prize, but allow me to float my theory for a possible spoiler: Michael Clayton. Think about it — it's both a thriller and a serious drama, starring an immensely popular movie star and a supporting cast full of familiar and talented character actors. The film contains a lot of appeal for the actor-heavy voting body, especially when you consider that it earned three acting nominations this year while no other film received more than one. If the voting members of the Academy choose to forego the darkness of No Country for something more Hollywood, count on this (more so than Juno, which skews too young and feels too lightweight to be Best Picture material) to be their alternative of choice. Could be worse — at least it's not Crash.

Screengrab Bets The Oscars: Scott’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:30:00 GMT

My colleague Mr. Leonard Pierce has thrown down the gauntlet, so now it’s up to me to pick it up and swat him about the face with it. Don’t get me wrong, Leonard is a good friend and well-meaning individual, but he is also a very crazy person with some very crazy Oscar picks. If you want to win your office pool, you need to stick with me.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Here we go by the double nomination rule. There is no chance Cate Blanchett will win for her lead role in Elizabeth II: Electric Boogaloo, so her performance as Bob Dylan…er, excuse me, Jude Quinn should bring home the gold this year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

There is no safer bet this year than Javier Bardem winning for his chilling turn in No Country for Old Men. Let’s just hope he remembers to thank his hairdresser.

BEST ACTRESS:

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know anything about Away from Her or Julie Christie’s performance in it. I do know she’s already won a bunch of awards for it, however, and I don’t see any reason for that to change now.

BEST ACTOR:

Daniel Day-Lewis will drink George Clooney’s milkshake! He will drink it up!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Atonement is a prestige literary adaptation, but I’m not sensing any momentum (or Atonementum, if you will). There Will Be Blood is adapted from the first part of a book nobody has read. Cormac McCarthy is the big name here, and even if No Country for Old Men isn’t his most acclaimed work, there’s no denying it was adapted about as well as could be imagined; it’s my pick.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

The backlash to the Juno backlash will begin once Diablo Cody takes home this award, followed shortly by the backlash to the backlash backlash.

BEST DIRECTOR:

I don’t see any candidates strong enough to take this one away from the Coens. They look like the grand old men of cinema next to P.T. Anderson, and the remaining nominees are horses ranging from dark (Gilroy) to darkest (Reitman).

BEST PICTURE:

Don’t make me use the term Atonementum again. The big enchilada is going home with No Country for Old Men.

Screengrab Bets The Oscars: Leonard's Picks

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:30:00 GMT

With the 80th annual Academy Awards less than two weeks away, and with the WGA strike apparently near its end (assuring that there actually will be an Oscar ceremony, and not just a handful of star-struck entertainment journalists trying to figure out who the TelePrompTer works), it's time for us here at the Screengrab to suck it up. It's time for us to do what every other film writer in the world, self-respecting or otherwise, is doing, and lay down our picks for the big to-do. Since I've always had a knack for making a jackass out of myself on the internet, I'll be the first: under the cut, you'll find my picks for who deserves to take home a statuette come Oscar night in eigh different categories, and who's going to walk away with the gold, regardless of merit. Over the next thirteen days, I'm hoping my Screengrab colleagues will join me in this endeavor, and then, come March, at least one of us can strut around talking about how smart we are.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

There's a fine crowd of candidates this time around, and it's hard to pick a winner — there's no obvious failings just as there's no obvious standouts. All told, Cate Blanchett should win for her turn as Dylan in I'm Not There, but I'm predicting it will actually end up in the hands of Amy Ryan for the surprising Gone Baby Gone.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

If, as I'm predicting, the Coen Brothers are shut out again this year, that means even more that Javier Bardem should win for his performance as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. However, given his spate of terrific roles towards the end of the year, I'm predicting it will go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Charlie Wilson's War.

BEST ACTRESS:

Ellen Page surely deserves recognition for the breakout performance she delivered in Juno, and there's a slight possibility she'll get it. However, I think the Academy will go the other direction — since Hal Holbrook won't be getting an old-timer's award, Julie Christie will take home the gold for the little-seen Away from Her.

BEST ACTOR:

Although there's an off chance that George Clooney will take home the gold, I'm picking Daniel Day-Lewis' colossal performance in There Will Be Blood as both my should-win and will-win. Past performance and academy voting patterns be damned: it's a towering, masterful job of acting that carries the entire movie.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Traditionally, the screenplay categories are the thanks-for-playing awards for the year's best movies, but which for whatever reason aren't going to get one of the big awards. As such, it's a dead heat between No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and my money's on Paul Thomas Anderson this year.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

If ever there are a sold-gold, lead-pipe lock in the history of solid-gold, lead-pipe locks, it's Diablo Cody winning Oscar gold this year for Juno. Bet the farm on it.

BEST DIRECTOR:

For filmmakers as talented and distinctive as the Coen Brothers never to have won an Oscar is a crime, but this isn't their Departed year. They'll be shut out again, though, leaving open the question of who gets it. P.T. Anderson seems obvious, but I'm gonna say this is a divisive year and Tony Gilroy takes it for Michael Clayton.

BEST PICTURE:

If Juno wins, the very balance of nature will be forever thrown askew. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are the most deserving, but are perceived as overly nihilistic and grim. Michael Clayton could be the winner by default, but I think it'll go to Atonement, the very definition of an Academy prestige picture.

Screengrab Speculation: Who is Diablo Cody REALLY?

John Constantine — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:29:00 GMT

That’s right ‘Grabbers. It’s another Juno post. This time though, Uncle John’s got a little something different than the usual praise or backlash piece. After much consideration, I have realized that writer Diablo Cody is not a real person.

I got to see Juno back at the tail end of November and liked it well enough. It is a cute movie, it knows it’s a cute movie and since being cute seems to be its chief ambition, I find it hard to heap either serious praise or scorn on it. At the time though, something about Juno seemed very familiar. Something about the overt nostalgia evoked by its suburban pastoral setting, its color palette, its costuming, twee soundtrack, and 80s pop culture references seemed to recall something very specific. Some person…

I present to you the theory that

Is in fact

Yes, Diablo Cody is actually Kevin Smith. Shocking I know and no doubt disturbing for those readers with a folder on their desktop labeled DCStripperPicsHAWT. But it’s true. The full theory is deep and riddled with evidence provided by the internet and coffee stained back issues of Entertainment Weekly but here are three bullet points to back up the claim:

1) Nobody Talks Like That – Kevin Smith’s fall from commercial and critical grace in the past eight years signaled the death of quirky-monologue-as-conversation in movies. This was a good thing. But Juno resurrects the insipid rat-a-tat dialogue stylings found in Clerks and Mallrats and cashes in Star Wars references for Thundercats and other flotsam from 1985. Nobody says, “Honest to blog.” Nobody says, “Try not to suck any more dicks on your way through the parking lot.” These things were written by the same person.

2) Nobody Likes Kevin Smith Anymore, Needed to Become Somebody Else – By the time Jersey Girl flopped, Smith had already overstayed his welcome in the average moviegoers mind. Clerks 2 wasn’t exactly the kind of success to bring them back into the theater either. In order to regain the buzz surrounding his early success, Smith needed to somehow become an indie breakout again. Creating a sexy new persona was just the ticket and it worked swimmingly.

3) Both Former Strippers

We’re through the looking glass now, dear reader.

Morning Deal Report: Golden Globes Take a Fall

Peter Smith — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:05:00 GMT

Annnnd, the Golden Globes bite it. I'm all in favor of awards shows kerploding; the only concern is that the writers will get blamed for pooping the party, when they really have every reason to be striking. But this'll cost the studios a lot of money and promotion. Maybe it'd be easier to just pay the writers for their work? No?

Karyn Kusama (Girlfight. . . and Aeon Flux) will direct Jennifer's Body, ~~Brook Busey-Hunt's~~ Diablo Cody's follow-up to Juno.

Ridley Scott just never slows down, huh? His next project is The Reykjavik Summit, about Reagan and Gorbachev's '86 nuke talks. Ridley Scott made some of my favorite movies, but political acuity is not is strong suit. When this turns out to be a Reagan hagiography, I'm gonna barf.

Chicago Film Roundup, End-of-Year Edition

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:20:00 GMT

Every month or so, the Screengrab bigwigs indulge me by allowing me to take a look at what's happening on the film scene in my beloved hometown of Chicago. Here's what's up in the City of Big Shoulders: in the Tribune, film critic Michael Phillips winds up the "2007 Chicagoans of the Year" feature in an interview with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, who, like many others, made what she calls "the mass exodus from cow college to Chicago" in order to spend a hipster sojourn in the big town before moving on to Minneapolis and, eventually, Los Angeles. Cody discusses how living in Chicago shaped her writing and turned her into a raging cynic, an attitude that persisted through the early stages of Juno ("Oh, won't I be the little edgy-pants, writing a dark movie about a pregnant teenager") until its outlook was leavened into something more hopeful during the collaboration with director Jason Reitman. In the Sun-Times, grand old man of Chicago film writing (and outspoken Iraq War critic) Roger Ebert takes a look back at William Wyler's celebrated 1946 naturalist post-war drama, The Best Years of Our Lives. Calling for a more comprehensive DVD package of the film, Ebert claims that "as long as we have wars and returning veterans", the movie will not be dated. He also discusses the film's down-to-earth approach, reflected in its visual storytelling: "The film makes no effort to paint these men as extraordinary," he says of the wounded and psychologically damaged WWII vets who are its central characters. "Their lives, their characters, their prospects are all more or less average, and Wyler doesn't pump in superfluous drama. That's why the movie is so effective...Wyler employed remarkable visuals to make some of his points. He was working with the great cinematographer Gregg Toland, known for his deep-focus photography on such films as Citizen Kane, and often Wyler uses deep-focus instead of cutting, so that the meaning of a scene can reveal itself to us, instead of being pounded down with close-ups." Finally, over at the Chicago Reader, the big news surrounds the announcement that lead film writer/national treasure Jonathan Rosenbaum will be retiring from the weekly in February. Devotees eagerly await the official word, which will come next week in his best-of-2007 column (which is also expected to be his last regular column for the paper). Although he will continue writing sporadically, the Reader's "On Film" section is already sparse, tissue-thin and infrequently updated; without Rosenbaum's sometimes frustrating but always intelligent criticism, it may lose a lot of readers it'll never get back.

Blogging Your Way to the Top

Peter Smith — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Have you heard the old joke about the woman who tried to make it in Hollywood by sleeping with all the writers? That's a pretty bad recipe for success, but it can't possibly be worse than blogging. Hell, I've been doing it for ten years now, and the only screenplay I ever wrote almost got me sued. Still, Diablo Cody — former stripper, internet It Girl, and author of the screenplay for Juno — seems to think it's possibly to find Hollywood success via blogging, and in Wired, she lets us in on the five-step plan. Steps One and Two (study writing and start blogging) are pretty easy, but "publish your memoir at age twenty-four" is a bit beyond most of us, and Step Five (produce a TV show for Steven Spielberg) doesn't seem to have helped Skip Lusk's career much. — Leonard Pierce

[Step Six: Be named "Diablo Cody." — ed.]

Morning Deal Report: Scorsese and DiCaprio, Sitting in a Tree

Peter Smith — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Martin Scorsese has announced his next project: the Dennis Lehane adaptation Shutter Island. (Dennis Lehane — so hot right now.) Once again, Scorsese will team up with his new De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio. . .

Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody (now there's a handle) will direct much-discussed Transformers thespian Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body, a comedy about a cheerleader who kills boys due to demonic possession.

Great World of Sound director Craig Zobel has a new project: Turkey in the Straw, about a small-town political standoff in which a candidate shoots his competitor. I am very curious what this'll be like.

Julia Stiles falls in love with her stalker Paddy Considine in Cry of the Owl.

Steve Buscemi will take a major role in John Rabe, a sort of Chinese Schindler's List about a German businessman who saved hundreds of thousands of Chinese lives in the Nanjing massacre. (Buscemi plays American doctor Robert Wilson, not Rabe.) With no disrespect to Rabe's real heroism and humanity, it's interesting how many films use massive historical crimes to elevate the filmic heroism and humanity of their (usually white) heroes. Call it the Mississippi Burning syndrome. I hope Buscemi's good judgment is in effect here.

— Peter Smith