There are many industry folk who feel that John Carney‘s Once was easily one of the best films of 2007, but a greater number don’t feel this way because they haven’t been persuaded that they’ll reap any worthwhile political I.O.U.’s by voting for it. Nominated films are usually made by or acted in by high-powered artists who are “in the game” and might pass along reciprocal favors down the road, or who simply possess an aura of well-established power that Academy members feel comfortable bowing down in front of.

Marketa Irglkova, Glen Hansard at Park City’s Prospector theatre following ’07 Sundance Film Festival showing of Once

Anyway, it’s probably a settled issue that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova‘s “Falling Slowly”, which was nominated today for a Grammy (i.e., Best Song written for a motion picture, TV or other visual media), will be nominated for a Best Song Oscar also. Their main competitor will probably be Eddie Vedder‘s “Guaranteed” (from Into The Wild), which was also Grammy-nommed.

Since Once‘s rep is that of a sweet little film that everyone loved (as opposed to Wild‘s rep of being a powerfully directed film about a brave but asshole-ish nature boy who died because he couldn’t be bothered to own a detailed map of the area he was camping in), it will probably win. I didn’t mean to take a swat at Into The Wild. It’s very strong and commendable with award-level performances, and Sean Penn‘s best directed film ever. But Chris McCandless did die in part because he couldn’t get back to civilization to get treatment for root poisoning, and if he’d had a decent map he could have found his way — but he didn’t.

The front-running Best Foreign Language contenders, I’m told, are Stefan Ruzowitzky‘s The Counterfeiters (Austria), Cao Hamburger‘s The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Brazil), Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud‘s Persepolis (France…but what will the foreign branchers say to an animated entry?), Fatih Akin‘s The Edge of Heaven (Germany), Giuseppe Tornatore‘s The Unknown (Italy), Cristain Mungiu‘s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania) and Juan Antonio Bayona‘s The Orphanage (Spain).

The most-likely Best Feature Documentary contenders are No End in Sight, Autism: The Musical, Body of War, Lake of Fire, Sicko, War/Dance. and A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman.

I accept that I will probably never ever see Outpost in Malaya (a.k.a., The Planter’s Wife), a Jack Hawkins-Claudette Colbert adventure flick with elephants, a cobra and a mongoose. It’s not on DVD, was never issued on VHS and hasn’t even aired on TCM or TNT. But if I hadn’t wandered across this shot of 1952 Times Square, I never would have even heard of this Ken Annakin film. And to think that people lined up to see it, bought popcorn and everything.

The reason Universal has decided to open Charlie Wilson’s War against four other 12.21 releases — Sweeney Todd, Walk Hard, National Treasure: Book Of Secrets and PS I Love You — instead of the previously slated 12.25 is because they’re figuring they can beat Sweeney Todd, which is going for the same semi-educated, over-30 demo. Book of Secrets will have the family-action audience, and the under-30 comedy fans will go to Walk Hard.

And the Harvard Law School grads who patronize every Will Smith film no matter what will still be lining up I Am Legend, which will have opened a week before.

L.A. Times reporter John Horn thinks Charlie Wilson’s War is run into trouble because the date change. But the films that are really going to suck it are Book Of Secrets and P.S. I Love You.

The shenanigans of slippery French producer- distributor Philippe Martinez may well have been the reason that Michael Traeger‘s The Amateurs was kept out of theatres for the last two years, but really good films are never stuck in limbo for too long. And having seen The Amateurs, I feel that L.A. Times reporter John Horn is being generous in implying that this small-town comedy about a group of middle-aged dorks (Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano, William Fichtner, Ted Danson) making a porn flick is worth the price of a ticket.

Sorry, but I don’t think it is. I wouldn’t recommend it as a rental. I know the film has been through rough times and all, but reality is reality.

I saw The Amateurs at the Santa Barbara Film Festival almost three years ago (back when it was called The Moguls), and I was into my agony mode — quiet moaning, foot-tapping, covering face with both hands — less than 20 minutes in. The performances seemed way too broad, the characters too yokelish. And the film, which has been titled Dirty Movie in Germany, is way too chaste. Why make a movie about schlubs making a porno if you’re going to keep everything this zipped and this buttoned?

In the 12.7 L.A. Times piece, Traeger tells Horn that the list of plagues visited on The Amateurs for the last two years or so means “you could only conclude that someone put a curse on us. This is a little indie movie that was struck by unbelievable tragedy.” He also describes the production of The Amateurs as “a blessing.” Not from my end it wasn’t.

A fairly amusing bit concludes this George Clooney/Brad Pitt video that was shown on AMC last night as part of the Julia Roberts American Cinematheque award thing.

The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil talks to Red Carpet District‘s Kris Tapley at last night’s Sweeney Todd premiere.

Tapley: “Charlie Wilson’s War has fallen out…Juno has gained some ground. It’s got even more heart than Little Miss Sunshine. Is Atonement the [current] front runner? I don’t know…is it? The reviews say it’s No Country. I don’t believe in the Michael Clayton [thing]…it was no home run. I think it’s about star power. What fits the classic Oscar profile? Ten years ago The Great Debaters would have been a classic Academy picture. Today…who knows?”

O’Neil: “Covering the Oscars is the Super Bowl of showbiz. We have seen some real best Picture love for No Country for Old Men…it’s at least part of the top five. It’s not, it’s not [the front runner]. I think The Kite Runner is opening way too late…a lot of movies have come out in front of it.”

I naturally meant no harm for the dearly beloved No Country for Old Men when I used the word “taint” in writing about the National Board of Review’s having given its Best Picture award to Joel and Ethan Coen‘s metaphorical crime film. I was referring to the fact that the NBR is regarded with so little respect that getting an award from them might carry a wee bit of an “uh-oh” factor.

Groucho Marx once said “I would never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member,” and I was thinking maybe that some critics might say to themselves, “Let’s not vote for a film that those NBR scuzballs have championed…let’s go in another direction.” It was a strange riff since top-dog critics (or the ones I know) are rarely influenced along such petty lines. Here’s hoping that No Country keeps on going and going, right up to the moment that it wins the Best Picture Oscar.

I didn’t have to see I Am Legend (Warner Bros., 12.14) to presume that serious problems would pop through. The guiding hand of director Francis Lawrence (who gave us the loathsome Constantine after directing music videos for Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson) told me almost everything I needed to know months ago. Add Will Smith‘s almost-deranged-need-to-charm-and- be-loved impulse, which pops up in every film he makes (even The Pursuit of Happyness), and the badness, to me, was all but assured.

And now the first-hand dings from people who’ve actually seen it are coming in. The first was from Red Carpet District‘s Kris Tapley, writing this morning that he “mingled with Anne Thompson long enough to exchange unpleasant opinions on I Am Legend” at last night’s Sweeney Todd premiere.

The second air-rifle pellet came from Coming Soon‘s Edward Douglas: “After much-better variations on the apocalyptic premise like Children of Men and 28 Days Later, I Am Legend seems like little more than retread. Combining the poor choice of Will Smith in the lead role with some of the worst CG work since Van Helsing, this dog makes the recent The Invasion come across like a masterpiece.”

I didn’t use the term “pellet” thoughtlessly. I Am Legend has a rhinoceros hide as far as critical barbs will be concerned. The want-to-see is through the roof, the movie will pull down tens of millions on opening weekend, the public hass no taste, nothing matters, etc.

It turns out there’s one decent DVD store in the Boston area after all — the Video Underground in Jamaica Plain, which is somewhere south of Brookline Village. Open 1 to 11 pm daily, and specializing in independent, cult, foreign, classic and locally made titles. Presumably staffed with knowledgable cineaste types like Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary used to be when they worked at Video Archives.

But that’s all she wrote in this area, and I’m in still grappling with the shock of realizing that if the communal DVD experience is all but obliterated in Boston, it must be pretty much finished nationwide except for the existence of those very few specialty DVD stores serving big-city elites.

What a wonderfully corporate Orwellian world we’re living in! No more going outside to stores where you can view and hold DVDs in your hands before buying them, and perhaps even discuss their merits and demerits with the guy at the counter. No more tasting or savoring life’s rough and tumble at all, really. Instead you go online and order a digital semblance of that rough and tumble, and two or three days later it arrives in your mailbox and you pop it into your DVD or X-Box or PS3 player, and you sit there on your couch, vegging out and munching out on sour cream and onion-flavored Ruffles. (My personal favorite…sorry.)

I’ve been noticing these grotesque life forms — products of an indoor, online-based, sedentary existence — walking down Newbury Street over the last couple of days. Kids with a simian aura, obviously unrefined attitudes, squealing with laughter at each other’s jokes, sounding like Sopranos extras, reeking of cigarettes or pot and carrying around massive loads of whale blubber. Give me a city and a lifestyle that keeps me away from these animals….these harbingers of cultural death. If the ghosts of Honore de Balzac or William Makepeace Thackeray were to run into these kids they’d reach for their muskets and start shooting.

I made the mistake of going to a Best Buy last night in hopes of finding the Ford at Fox collection among the new releases. Forget it. I asked a kid working there if it was at least in the Best Buy database and possibly available at some other store. “What’s this DVD again?” he asked. “Ford at Fox,” I said. “Movies made by John Ford…you know, one of the great all-time directors. An old-time guy.” He didn’t have a wisp of a clue what I was talking about. You don’t have to be a John Ford scholar but to have never heard the words “John” and “Ford” spoken in sequence ….good God.

Here’s a 7.9.06 Boston Globe piece by John Swansburg about the death of the local video store. “It’s a greater loss than you might think,” the subhead reads. No, no…I get it, I get it!