Cutaways, Take 4

Well, the Golden Globes have come and gone. A few brief observations:

1. We would never have suspected that the most surprisingly down-to-earth and, darn it, poignant acceptance speech would come from Teri Hatcher.
2. Jamie Foxx is an excellent actor and all, but he needs to get over himself; besides, we think Paul Giamatti wuz robbed.
3. How does "The Aviator" win Best Motion Picture and its director, Martin Scorsese, not win an award, too? Who does the foreign press think directed the friggin' movie? Howard Hughes?
4. Kudos to Jason Bateman for listing all the writers of "Arrested Development." Classy move.
5. William Shatner's a class act, too.
6. Geoffery Rush must have marital troubles: Barely remembered to kiss his wife, and failed to acknowledge her in his acceptance speech (take note, Mary Hart! You read it here first!).
7. Poor Mariska Hargitay of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" must have been freezing. With apologies to a dear friend whose line I must now steal: That woman's nipples were stiffer than Jerry Orbach.

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Ain't It Cool News gives us a rundown of some incredible films to look for this year. Here are a few I'm particularly hot 'n' bothered about:

Robert Rodriguez joins forces with graphic comics writer Frank Miller for "Sin City." Incredible cast, and the trailer looks tee-rific.

The H.G. Wells sci-fi classic "War of the Worlds" gets the Spielberg treatment and Tom Cruise gets star billing. You know, I can't bend spoons with my mind or anything, but something tells me this will make a lot of money.

Sam Mendes directs his third film, "Jarhead." After "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition," what more of a reason do you need to know this will kick ass?

There's really no logical reason I should be looking forward to what surely will be a disappointing big-screen version of "Bewitched." But here's the deal: I had a mad crush on Elizabeth Montgomery up until I entered junior high, and I had a mad crush on Nicole Kidman up until ... well, until my wife began reading this post. So, yeah, I'll see it -- but the corns on my foot are telling me director-writer Nora Ephon cannot be trusted.

Cameron Crowe offers us a coming-home drama, "Elizabethtown" (which, incidentally, was partly shot in Oklahoma). "Vanilla Sky" excluded, I'm convinced Crowe can do no wrong.

A true master of B-movie horror, the exalted George Romero, returns to the zombie genre (as opposed to, say, historical costume dramas) with "Land of the Dead." I have a bad feeling about this, but there's no way I'd miss it. Bonus bit: The guys from "Shaun of the Dead" will have cameos as the undead.

I have hope for James Mangold's biopic of Johnny Cash, "Walk the Line." Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon star as, respectively, the Man in Black and June Carter Cash.

"Tim Burton's Corpse Bride." With a title like that, what else do you want?

"Charlie & the Chocolate Factory." As a friend of mine recently suggested, this might just be the very movie that Tim Burton was born to make -- or, as Steve Martin phrased it back in "The Jerk"; it could be Tim's "special purpose." Alas, I must throw up a red flag: Burton admits he's "no fan" of the original 1971 flick, and we all remember what favors the director did for "Planet of the Apes."

Roman Polanski will turn his attention to a telling of "Oliver Twist." We suspect this will be a particularly harrowing account of Dickensian proportions.

I will always give a new Ridley Scott movie a chance, and so I'm eager for his "Kingdom of Heaven," an action-adventure yarn following a knight during the Crusades. Big red flag, though: Orlando Bloom, quickly becoming this decade's Ryan O'Neal (and that's no compliment).

Douglas McGrath's "Every Word Is True" examines Truman Capote's work in compiling his true crime classic, "In Cold Blood," an amazing book about two crooks and a senseless murder in Kansas. Oddly enough, Capote is the subject of two movies to open this year."Capote" is notable mainly for its cast, including the incomparable Philip Seymour Hoffman as the author and the equally incomparable Catherine Keener as "To Kill a Mocklingbird" novelist Harper Lee.

First, the eye-rolling news: Another "Batman" movie. Now, wipe the vomit from your chin and listen up. "Batman Begins" is directed by Christopher Nolan, who saw that the world needed a movie told in reverse order, and he gave us "Memento," and he saw that it was good.

We're mighty close to reaching the say-uncle point on comic book movies, but as a onetime Marvel devotee, I have to admit my inner geek is having doubleback wackadoo spasms for "The Fantastic Four." That said, I'm not sure that the genius behind the Jimmy Fallon bomb "Taxi" is the right choice to direct.

I'm not ashamed to admit it: I really liked "A Beautiful Mind." So, yes, I'm looking forward to director Ron Howard and badboy Russell Crowe reuniting for the real-life boxing saga of 1930s-era boxer James Braddock in "Cinderella Man." Just keep Hillary Duff out of the mix and no one gets hurt.

Peter Jackson does "King Kong," complete with (presumably) mind-boggling CGI effects up the proverbial wazoo and Naomi Watts as the Faye Wray damsel in distress. Be still my gentle heart.

Richard Linklater's upcoming "A Scanner Darkly," based on a Philip K. Dick novel, is detailed via a blog maintained by frequent Linklater performer Wiley Wiggins. Yeah, yeah -- the movie stars Keanu Reeves, but I still wanna see it.

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The Writers Guild of America has weighed in with its selections for the best screenplays of last year. The interesting nominee, for best adaptation, is "Saturday Night Live"'s Tina Fey for her "Mean Girls." It's not a masterpiece by any stretch -- and maybe a just a tiny bit redundant if you've seen 1989's "Heathers" -- but this bubblegum-flavored black comedy has moments of bitchy fun and wry observations before it eventually sputters out of energy and opts for the neatly wrapped resolutions.

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Stop the presses! Warner Brothers has announced it will back a movie version of the old 1960s espionage TV series, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Oh, sure, it might not mean much in the, like, real scheme of things, y'know, but tonight I will go to bed just a bit happier and wiser, just knowing.

Yeah, yeah, it'll suck. I know that. But still, a boy can dream, can't he?

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Movie City News wraps up the best movies of 2004, according to the collective wisdom of movie critics.

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The Movie Blog tells us that Liam Neeson is set to portray Abraham Lincoln in a Steven Spielberg project that, in turn, is based on a to-be published biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Neesom is a great actor, no doubt, plus he's a tall mo-fo to boot, so we can see him as our 16th President, albeit as one with a thick Irish accent. Spielberg can occasionally strumble when he takes on Big Message flicks (think "Amistad" and Anthony Hopkins' never-ending dissertation at the end). Still, we are eager for the Abe and Mary Todd meet-cute scene.

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The other day, I'm surfing with the remote control and come across "Battlestar Galactica" on the Sci-Fi Channel. Why in God's name, I wondered, would it be airing reruns of that kitschy and forgettable series? And then I realized it was a new show, which led to the more perplexing: Why in God's name are they doing a new version of a kitschy and forgettable series? Are we to seek shelter in a closet or bathroom away from any windows and await the return of Pink Lady and Jeff?

That said, the Vodka Pundit absolutely swears by this new "Battlestar," so who knows? Maybe we'll give it a shot.

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Oh, and I give it up to The Movie Blog for its wise and even-handed meditation on why there just isn't enough nudity in mainstream movies anymore.