Dreamgirls may blow everyone away on Wednesday and sweep aside all the weak sister Best Picture competitors (two of which happen to be Flags of Our Fathers and World Trade Center… sorry but it’s true) but this is a bottom-line fact: Pedro Almodovar‘s Volver and Florian Henckel- Donnersmarck‘s The Lives of Others are profoundly good films — first-rate heart movies that portray how tough life can be in jarring, vibrant terms — and they’re connecting with people all over (I ‘ve been hearing and feeling this). The foreign- tongue, foreign-produced thing will, I suppose, work against them but they definitely deserve full-on consideration for the Best Picture Oscar. The best of the year are The Departed, The Lives of Others, Babel, Volver, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan’s Labyrinth and United 93, in that order,

Reader Mike Sells claims to have seen Dreamgirls and says “it delivers on the level of razzle-dazzle movie-movie spectacle more than anything else this year, with lots of emotional peaks and valleys and a big tearjerking moment at the very end. The story is definitely less contained than the one in Chicago, but works very well on the level of an ensemble saga. Loved it overall.” Chicago ‘s story was “contained” in what way? Because it was mainly about shallow greedy hustlers? Is that what he means?

The general reaction to Gabriele Muccino‘s The Pursuit of Happyness (Columbia, 12.15) — the Will Smith-and-his-son- sleeping-in-bathrooms movie that’s based on a real-life story — has been politely positive all around, but gradually the politeness has given way to little candor farts here and there, and the upshot is that folks are finally saying it’s not a Best Picture contender.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s said to be very nice and warm, but “Frank Capra-esque… emotionally affecting…tiny but timely…light…a reach.” We know what that those words mean. An affecting heart movie, a likely audience hit, a Best Actor nomina- tion for Will Smith…fine, but no golden naked-man cigar for the film itself, and without Best Picture contender cred it’s always a little harder for a Best Actor contender to win through.
The contest is still between Smith vs. Peter O’Toole, I suppose, but the weak- ness-of-Happyness factor is something to mull over.

For the first ten days of the run of Dreamgirls (i.e., Friday, 12.15 to Sunday, 12.24), which is strictly a New York, L.A. and San Fran thing, interested parties will be charged $25 a ticket on a reserved-seat basis. The high-prestige movies used to open in New York and L.A. on a reserved-seat “roadshow” basis back in the late ’50s and ’60s. Still…$50 bucks for two people plus popcorn and whatnot?
DreamWorks is looking to create an aura of specialness with industry and media types by doing this, but cash-wise they’re basically looking to attract gays and the “bling” crowd. This is a bucks-up, all-black musical, after all, and they know that the blings like to flash the cash and parade around, and that most of them will probably leap at the chance to see Dreamgirls on this basis because of the ostentatious “statement” factor.
The blings have taken over the bar at the rear of the Beverly Wilshire. Weekends there are like New Year’s Eve in Dubai…gangstas and ho’s…guys with socks on their head or Iranians with shaved heads pulling up to the valet in $75,000 rich-ass- hole sports cars. The Beverly Wilshire used to have a touch of class…no longer.

The older Borat fans lined up yesterday in stronger than anticipated numbers, and so the projected weekend tally has been kicked up to $28,098,000 (according to one studio estimate), or a flat $29 million (according to Box Office Mojo) or $28.6 million (according to MCN’s Len Klady). The cume is now $67.8 million or thereabouts. A guy told me yesterday he and a couple friends went to a 10 pm show last Wednesday somewhere near the Marina, and that it was damn near sold out. I’m guessing Borat will crest $100 million in about 10 days, give or take. Perhaps as soon as next Sunday.

Asked by N.Y. Times editors to choose five comedies they’d want in their knapsack if they were stranded on a remote desert island (i.e., one with electricity, a 36″ Sony flat screen, a table to put it on, a DVD player and an easy chair), none of these funny-ass professionals — Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Catherine O’Hara, Bernie Mac, Chris Elliott, Christopher Guest, Fred Willard, David Cross, Ricky Gervais, Santiago Segura, Anna Faris plus four others who don’t have very recognizable names — chose Some Like It Hot, okay? Billy Wilder‘s greatest film ever! Recount!

My personal five: Some Like It Hot, The Big Lebowski, Sullivan’s Travels, Dr. Strangelove, Sideways, Flirting With Disaster, Groundhog Day, Prizzi’s Honor, Election, Intolerable Cruelty, Hold That Ghost, Young Frankenstein, Bringing Up Baby, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Planes, Trains and Automobiles . Okay, that’s fifteen…whatever. How about some lists from the readership?