Best-Picture Race Lands Outside Mainstream
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By the numbers, the Academy Awards are roughly 50 percent less relevant than they have been the last five years. While all five candidates for the top Oscar have managed respectable ticket sales, they collectively have been seen by fewer moviegoers than any batch of best-picture nominees in 20 years.
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Hollywood's annual Oscar race heats  up this week with a key group of U.S. movie awards and  nominations that is expected to narrow contenders for the  world's top movie awards.
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While four wide releases  hit theaters on Friday, the weekend movie scene is shaping up  as one for car enthusiasts of all ages with two racing-themed  films likely parked among the top box-office slots when the  dust settles.
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Fatih Akin is riding two  horses as the Oscar race for foreign-language feature rounds  the far bend, heading to the January 22 announcement of Academy  Award nominations.
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There&#39;s no official  starting gun to the annual Oscar race, and the finish line for  the 80th Annual Academy Awards isn&#39;t until February 24. But a  number of races already have begun -- some quietly, some not so  quietly.
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After the nations' critics hail the films no one is going to see, the Hollywood Foreign Press find a middle way to prestige and popularity
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A box-office surprise, the movie jabs hard at Americans' biases.
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Okay, a few days ago I wrote a review of the Diving Bell and the Butterfly saying it could be the best picture of 2007, but even so you might want to skip it because the truth it reveals might be something you don't want to look at. It's a fine picture, but a tough one. Another wonderful but tough picture is No Country for Old Men. It's one of those movies that leaves so much unresolved that you walk out of the theater not sure which foot goes in front of the other. On a second viewing it makes much more sense. The world isn't necessarily as crazy as it at first seemed. But there's a movie that is also incredibly well crafted, and gets better every time you think about it -- Juno. I didn't realize how much I liked it until I heard someone compare it to Little Miss Sunshine, a movie that I did not enjoy, unlike everyone else it seems. I loved Juno because it organizes its sweetness into love for one person, the star of the movie, Juno. But everyone, no matter how dorky or clueless (and some of the adults are truly dorky and clueless) shares the love. The movie has a wholeness, an unqualified goodness, you not only walk out of the theater in love with Juno and everyone else in the movie, but your heart is warmed for everyone, including yourself. It's that good.  All three remind how good movies can be. And there were some not-too-bad movies at the end of 2007, for example, Atonement, which some didn't like, but I did. 3:10 to Yuma is a well-crafted genre picture. Michael Clayton was a perfect showcase for the talents of George Clooney. Great acting and a simple story in The Savages.  Which one was the best? I'd hate to have to choose!
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Thoroughbred race horses are riding  high as purse money grows along with television audiences for  the sport made even more popular by Hollywood movies such as  "Seabiscuit."
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It is a race that echoes the Beta versus VHS format competition of the 1980s. Only this time the technology is high-definition DVDs, and the stakes are even higher.
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The yet-untitled film will deal with adventure sports.
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LOS ANGELES  - There just might be blood. The domestic boxoffice will feature a kind of midwinter mayhem this weekend, as strong holdover films are joined in a competitive fray by four wide-release debutants and Oscar-rejuvenated titles.
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Hollywood's major studios are  parading their big Oscar contenders, but low-budget art films  and even animated movies are stealing their thunder as the  contest warms up for the U.S. film industry's top honors.
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Digital photo rivals are popping out of nowhere. So much for the paparazzi.
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Lesser-known movies are  stealing the spotlight from star-studded ones at the annual  Sundance Film Festival this week, making the top U.S. event for  independent films among the least predictable in years.
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TORONTO--Despite the buzz surrounding Hollywood-backed   blockbusters like Brad Pitt's Babel and Sean Penn's All the   King's Men, audiences and film jurors gave their top praise to two   indies--one that flew in virtually under the radar, the other which   squawked its way to the headlines.
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Oscar season is only just getting under way, but a presumptive front-runner would have to be Clint EastwoodÂs the World War II epic about the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.