Sweet Land on DVD today: Check it out

I posted earlier about how I thought Ali Selim's Sweet Land was last year's best film not to be nominated for an Oscar.

The independently produced and distributed film scored a DVD distribution deal with Fox, and the DVD hits stores today.

The film, starring Elizabeth Reaser (left) and Tim Guinee, was met with near-universal critical acclaim and won Selim the Best First Feature award at the Independent Spirit Awards. On the other hand, a reviewer in this week's Entertainment Weekly gives the DVD a C-plus, calling it "a treacly story" (and, in the same issue, Red Dawn gets a B).

Check out Sweet Land on DVD and decide for yourself.

Knocked Up: A bundle of joy

During the past decade, writer-director Judd Apatow has assembled a sort of repertory company of his own actors, who reappear in projects such as the TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, Seth Rogen, who played wise-cracking supporting players in Freaks and Virgin, steps into the lead role in Apatow's latest film, Knocked Up -- which is, by the way, the funniest movie I've seen in a long time.

Rogen plays Ben, a guy in his early 20s living with his buddies whose main interests are smoking a lot of weed and launching a Web site about movie nude scenes. At a club, he meets Alison (Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy), and despite his social haplessness beyond his circle of stoner dudes, they end up in a one-night stand and, wouldn't you know it, a few weeks later the stick turns pink. Unlike in a lot of films, in Knocked Up everyone pretty much Does the Right Thing -- Alison tells Ben about the baby and lets him be a part of the pregnancy; Ben agrees ("I'm on board") and stays by Alison side, at least most of the time. In other words, Ben got lucky -- but so did Alison in that Ben actually turns out to be a decent guy.

Along the way, there are laughs -- a lot of them. Many of the jokes are of the gross-out variety, and and a lot of the resulting laughs are the I-can't-believe-I'm-laughing-at-this kind. But the film and its characters are so irresistibly likable that you can't help yourself. They may be childish, but their hearts are in the right place. A lot of the best lines belong to the supporting cast -- Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel and Jonah Hill as Ben's friends; Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife, who, one suspects, had a lot to do with this being more than just a guy movie) as Alison's sister, Debbie; and the pitch-perfect Paul Rudd as Debbie's husband, Pete. Apatow alumni James Franco (Freaks) and Steve Carell (Virgin) have cameos as themselves.

If the film has a weakness, it's Alison, although this is no fault of Heigl's. Alison is essentially the film's straight man, and we never really gain much insight into why she makes the choices she does. And if she has any friends other than her sister, we never meet them.

But this is a comedy, after all, and as a comedy it's a smashing success. Comedies don't do so well at the Oscars, but last year Little Miss Sunshine snagged best original screenplay. Knocked Up -- written as well as directed by Apatow -- just might crash the party this year.

Waitress: A colorful slice of life

For a few months after the Oscars, there just wasn't much out there at the ol' cineplex. That changed when Waitress came along. Initially released just in New York and L.A., it got good buzz and quickly got a national release later in May. It's got a great cast: Keri Russell, who we liked in the late '90s TV series "Felicity"; Nathan Fillion ("Firefly"); Jeremy Sisto ("Six Feet Under"); and Cheryl Hines ("Curb Your Enthusiasm").

The premise isn't a shockingly original one. Russell plays Jenna, a waitress at a Southern diner married to an abusive nightmare of a husband (Sisto). She finds out she's pregnant -- news that she receives with horror because it means she's tied to her husband forever. In desperation, she launches into an affair with the town's hunky OB/GYN, Dr. Pomatter (Fillion, whose wide-eyed earnestness successfully defuses the inherent ick factor here).

What elevates the film beyond Lifetime chick-flick status are the sharp script and stylized (I'm trying not to say "quirky") direction of Adrienne Shelly, who also appears in the film as one of Jenna's fellow waitresses. Jenna's specialty is pies, and each pie she makes (which we see in sped-up video as if through Jenna's imagination) sheds light on her emotional state (I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie). There's also an irresistible sequence where Russell walks through her day in a starry-eyed, lovestruck reverie, set to the tune of "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake. It's a great scene, and one that makes subversive use of Russell's cutie-pie image. Andy Griffith also appears in a small but important role.

The end of the film has some added emotional resonance because of the knowledge that Shelly, in real life, was murdered in New York City shortly after completing the film. It leaves you wondering what might have been, but it also leaves you grateful that we have this heartfelt diamond in the rough to remember her by.

Another 9 (or 10) years, another 100 movies

The American Film Institute has released its new, updated list of the best 100 movies, nine years after releasing its original list in 1998 (although it's the "10th anniversary" list -- no one ever said moviemakers were good at math). No surprise that Citizen Kane is still No. 1 -- but there are a few eyebrow-raising big moves: Raging Bull up from 24 to 4, Vertigo up from 61 to 9, The Searchers up from 96 to 12.

Four newer films made the cut: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at 50 (big thumbs up), Saving Private Ryan at 71 (thumbs up again); Titanic at 83 (ehhhh) and The Sixth Sense at 89 (huh?).

Another new addition is one of my favorites and a major oversight the first time around, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (96).

Among the dropouts: Doctor Zhivago, Dances With Wolves and The Jazz Singer. I love Dances With Wolves, but I fear Costner's stock is really down these days.

On the other hand, Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull) is really reaping the goodwill associated with his Lifetime Achievement Award oops I mean Best Picture Oscar earlier this year. Hollywood just loves Marty right now.

As you can tell I'm a sucker for lists like this, although AFI has kind of turned these into kind of a cheap cottage industry. Let's see: "100 Years, 100 Stars," "100 Years, 100 Laughs," "100 Years, 100 Film Scores" -- it was either start over or they'd be down to "100 Years, 100 Fart Jokes."

UPDATE: Roger Ebert asks: "What? No Fargo?" It was No. 84; now it's off the list. Grrrr.

Jack Valenti: 1921-2007

We interrupt our post-Oscar hibernation to note the death at age 85 of Jack Valenti, for 38 years (1966-2004) the president of the Motion Picture Association of America. He was a controversial figure, and not everyone agreed with his stands on the ratings system and antipiracy technology, but there's no arguing that he was an effective spokesperson for the industry.

The morning after

Here's what critics had to say about last night's Oscarcast:

Newsweek: An "unusually warm and fuzzy Oscarcast."

New York Times: "For all the red carpet gowns and glitter, inside the Kodak Theater the evening was molded to DeGeneres’ low-key comic style."

Washington Post: The show was "a bore and a horror," but DeGeneres was "crisp and unpretentious."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "The pacing was off, and the intentional padding seemed egregious. It's not what people tune in to watch."

San Francisco Chronicle: "It was long. It was flat. And it was bloated. Worst of all, it was boring."

Chicago Tribune: "DeGeneres’ light approach made what can be a long night more enjoyable."

Roger Ebert: "The most elegant and somehow gentle Oscarcast I can remember."

Los Angeles Times: "Gospel singers, interpretive dance troupes, a sound effects choir . . . after being glued to the tube for nearly four hours, it felt more like we'd just watched a PBS pledge drive, not the 79th annual Oscar ceremony."

The scorecard

No dominant film this year -- but then we knew that going in. This year's multiple Oscar winners:

The Departed: 4
Pan's Labyrinth: 3
Little Miss Sunshine: 2
Dreamgirls: 2
An Inconvenient Truth: 2

On my Oscar ballot, I got 15 correct out of the 24 awards. I was 8 for 8 in the big awards, but there were too many upsets in the smaller categories. I'll get 'em next year!

Wrap-up: Winners and losers

The big winners at the Academy Awards:

The Departed: Four Oscars, the most of any film, out of five nominations. (The only loser: supporting actor Mark Wahlberg.)
Martin Scorsese: If you saw the surge of excitement when his name was announced showed, pretty much everyone in Hollywood wanted this guy to win this year. It was Marty's party.
Pan's Labyrinth: Five nominations, three wins -- although it did not, as expected, win best foreign film. That went to ...
The Lives of Others: Pan's was more widely known, but this critically acclaimed but little-seen German film benefited from the rule that voters in this category must see all five films.
Ellen DeGeneres: Not many killer jokes that got big laughs, but overall she did a fine job filling the shoes of Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. She'll be back.

The losers:

Babel: Seven nominations, only one Oscar, for Guillermo Santaolalla's score.
Children of Men: Three nominations, zero Oscars.
Dreamgirls: Eight nominations, two Oscars, for supporting actress and sound mixing. Shut out for original song.

And a couple of mixed bags:

Little Miss Sunshine: It got best original screenplay and Alan Arkin scored a mild upset as best supporting actor, but it missed out on the biggest prize of the night.
The show itself: Producer Laura Ziskin's offbeat opening worked well, as did the decision to push the supporting actor awards further back into the show. The show was short on the pomposity that has marked many Oscars in the past. But: The show really seemed to lose steam in the second half -- and some of the later pieces, like Michael Mann's montage about what movies say about America, seemed pointless.

Best picture: The Departed

There wasn't really a favorite this year, but this was the safe pick. Compared with the electricity that would have run through the Kodak Theater with a win by Babel or Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed's victory seemed almost anticlimactic. but it completed a victorious night for Martin Scorsese.

The show's final running time was under four hours after all: 3 hours 50 minutes.

Best director: Martin Scorsese

It's the moment he's been waiting for ... for 30 years. He got a standing O from the house. He thanked all the people who had wished this for him over the years, "even strangers ... in elevators!" Congrats, Marty.

Best actor: Forest Whitaker

Wow. His speech on what acting means to him is the most powerful acceptance speech so far: Lots of tears in the audience, not just Whitaker's wife Keisha but also fellow nominee Will Smith.

Best actress: Helen Mirren

No upset here: "This is the biggest and the best gold star that I've ever had in my life." She also saluted QEII herself, ending with a topper that may or may not have been an homage to James Cameron as she held the Oscar aloft: "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the queen."

Philip Seymour Hoffman looks like he needs a nap.

Push comes to shove

Now we get down to brass tacks: the Big Four awards.

R.I.P.

OK, I'll admit it; I have a soft spot for every year's montage of recently deceased film figures. Jodie Foster, who introduced it, lent some unexpected poignance to it this year when she said (while choking up) that she lost a good friend herself recently.

No upset in this year's Applause-O-Meter winner: Robert Altman.

No Marty curse here

Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's longtime editor, just won her third Oscar for film editing; her first two were for Raging Bull and The Aviator.

'Wake Up' wins it

The big question with original song was whether the Dreamgirls vote would be split among its three nominated songs. I guess the answer was yes -- Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" took the Oscar. One more loss in my pool.

'Ewwww' moment

The announcer guy just called Jennifer Lopez an "excellent reason for high-definition television." Stay classy, Oscars!

J-Lo: Bad choice in dress, by the way.

It's Jennifer Hudson singing "Love You I Do." Gotta watch.

EDIT: Is it me or did we just come dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction there?

No. 2 for Little Miss Sunshine

But everyone already thought Michael Arndt's screenplay would win, so it looks like best picture is still up for grabs.