Cinematical was just handed this exclusive clip from the film Mongol, which finally arrives in theaters in limited release on June 6 after being nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar. Mongol comes from the award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains), and it follows the early years of Genghis Khan -- before he took on that name, through his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his destiny. Cinematical's Eric D. Snider reviewed the film when it played the Portland Film Festival, and said: "The battle scenes, in particular, are thrilling and visceral without being too nauseating, and Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano's performance as Temudjin has the stoicism and dedication you need for an effective biopic hero." I think it goes without saying that we all love a film with a few good battles in it, and Mongol looks to give us just that ... and then some. Check out the clip above, then the poster, then get your asses to the theater when it arrives on June 6.

Darned politics! It's always getting in the way of our entertainment. This year, there were Oscar worries due to the writers strike. Next year, there is going to be some presidential interference. Unless you've been living on a remote island under a rock, by now you should have caught on that there's a presidential race a-brewing to figure out who is going to replace Dubya in the White House. Whatever person gets picked will have their inauguration on January 20, 2008.

That's the day that the 81st Annual Academy Award nominees were going to be announced, like they are every year, on a Tuesday in mid-January. To completely avoid a showdown, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the Academy will ignore tradition next year and announce the nominees two days later -- Thursday, January 22 at 5:30 am, PST.

So, the Oscar schedule for next year is as follows:

December 1 - Credit forms are due.
December 26 - Nomination ballots are mailed.
January 12 - Ballots are due back.
January 22 - Nominees are announced.
January 28 - Final ballots mailed.
February 2 - Annual nominees luncheon.
February 7 - Scientific and tech achievement awards given.
February 17 - Final ballots due.
February 22 - Fancy-garbed actors and notables flock to the Kodak Theatre for the awards.

Thanks to the local ABC affiliate in Buffalo, NY, we now have a great quote to put on the DVD box of No Country for Old Men: "The guy with no expression who keeps blowing up everything." There it is! That's the best movie of the year in a nutshell. Anyway, in case you haven't seen this yet, a technical snafu up in Buffalo accidentally turned on the newsroom mics in the middle of the Oscar broadcast -- right as they were announcing the best director award for Joel and Ethan Coen. Watch the video above, and listen to the part where the feed cuts out and these folks start talking about the film. One guy goes, "I don't believe in this Oscar bullsh*t, but this was the best movie of the year." Then the female news anchor goes, "What's it about?" And I swear it sounds like someone responds to her question with an answer that goes something like, "It's men. It's about old men." No idea. But it's definitely one of the funnier Oscar goof-ups I've seen in some time. My vote is for the Buffalo news team to host the awards next year.

Here's more on the story, including the names of those involved, from the local Buffalo press.

[via Defamer]

The other day, Erik asked you for your ideas on new Oscar categories to shake things up a bit. I don't think it's Jon Stewart's fault the Oscar's tanked, but will he be asked back next year? I'm betting not, but who knows? Meanwhile, Cinematical's Chris Campbell, who also writes for Spoutblog.com with former Cine EIC Karina Longworth, has some excellent ideas for ways to boost the Oscar ratings.

My favorite among his suggestions is the Gary Busey Red Carpet. Hell yeah! Get rid of Regis, who's about as boring as watching bread get moldy, and bring on the Busey action. He can show up drunk with his fly open, and attack all the talent as they make their walk up the red carpet. It'll be almost like adding a sporting event to the Oscars -- duck and run from Gary Busey before he attacks your neck!

Poor Jennifer Garner would probably have to bring an entourage of everyone who's f*cking her husband, Ben Affleck, to be her body shield against further Busey attacks. For added fun, Busey can bring along his son Jake, who can also get drunk and talk loudly to everyone within ear range about how he's Gary Busey's son. The two of them could become a regular Oscar team like Melissa and Joan Rivers ... only drunker and with less cleavage and plastic surgery.

For more of Chris's ideas, including what Diablo Cody should have really done on that stage, go read the full piece.

Well, that didn't take long. Only two days after the gal took home a best original screenplay Oscar, nude photos of stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody have surfaced online, courtesy of Egotastic. Most of the photos look a tad old, and they definitely shouldn't take anything away from her win (I'm sure the gal is used to being seen without any clothes on), but it does mean we're not exactly ready to stop talking about this rather amusing success story. The images show Cody in some pretty revealing outfits, and in one photo she's actually rocking the whip cream bikini top. Groovy. Then there's a few others of the girl swinging from a stripper pole in what appears to be her own house. Why don't I have one of those yet in my living room? Oh yeah, I'm not hot.

Personally, I couldn't help but snicker when this girl walked up onto the Oscar stage in a leopard-print dress and a "Jonny's Girl" tattoo. I suddenly felt like it was New Year's Eve at a dive bar in Jersey. What's interesting about that particular tattoo is that, according to reports (including Wiki), Cody divorced her husband (aka Jonny) in late 2007. So fellas -- anyone interested in a former stripper-turned-Oscar winner with a tattoo dedicated to her former husband on her arm? Don't all raise your hands at the same time. Nevertheless, we here at Cinematical dig Cody (her body, her tat and her script for Juno) and we wish her nothing but luck going forward.

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Even though we're all having a good time geeking out over last night's Oscars telecast, the actual show turned out to be a ratings nightmare. According to preliminary ratings from Nielson, the 80th Academy Awards came in 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever! And 21 percent lower than last year! Damn, looks like at least one record was set last night. So what's the problem? Is it that a majority of the public haven't seen the nominated movies? Is it because the show is too long? Is it because the categories aren't flashy enough?

After they announced the second sound-related award last night, I turned to my friend and noted that they could've easily replaced one of these sound categories with something a little more fan-friendly. Or even if they want to stick with what they have, perhaps more people will watch if they have more say in how the awards show plays out. So in the spirit of brainstorming, what would be a good category to add to future Oscar telecasts? Best fanboy film? Best comedy? Or how about a viewer's choice award? Would something like asking, ya know, actual paying moviegoers which film they liked the best take away from the epic-like ceremony?

What can Oscar do to turn this sucker around? (And no, having Miley Ray Cyrus announce every award is not a good solution.) Sound off below ...

A lot of people will be talking about Marion Cotillard today, whose teary-eyed acceptance speech was just beyond cute. But I feel the night's greatest moment came in two parts -- first when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed Falling Slowly (from the movie Once) on stage, and then when both accepted the Oscar for best song. In a very cool moment, Irglova was cut off at the mic before she could thank anyone, and so after the commercial break Jon Stewart brought her back on stage to finish what she was about to say.

Talk about two kids who deserved a break. This song, from a film that was made for roughly $100,000, beat out Disney and their -- what? -- 13 Enchanted nominations. Was it me, or did each of those Enchanted songs sound exactly the same? This time, however, the Oscar went to the little guy (and girl). You could totally tell that there was a ton of love behind that song -- and even though it was obvious Hansard and Irglova were nervous at the beginning, they finished it off in spectacular fashion. Above, check out their performance at the Oscars, then head after the jump to see both acceptance speeches.

Well here we are. The Oscars are only a few hours away. I was up early this morning ironing the pajamas I'm going to wear tonight while I, along with Kim Voynar and Scott Weinberg, live blog the hell out of the Oscars ceremony. In case you don't know, Kim will be up first live blogging the red carpet at 6pm EST, then each of us will be up front and center for each hour of the broadcast. We always have a ton of fun doing this, so make sure you stop by and say hello.

In the meantime, there's a slew of Oscar-related goodies to feast on. First up, Film School Rejects assembled a list of Oscar picks from across the web -- including predictions from Cinematical, Coming Soon, First Showing, IESB, Latino Review, The Movie Blog, Double Viking and Bullz-Eye. So to see how your picks stack up against those from around the web, head on over here.

Once you're done there, definitely skip over to our Oscars hub. In it, we've included our reviews for practically every nominated film, as well as all of our wacky Oscar predictions, images, polls, the works. Then, since it's only a hop, skip and a jump away, you should definitely check out Moviefone's Oscars Hub. They went all out this year, with a ton of fun galleries, polls -- heck, if it was a topic that could be written about, it's there.

So make sure you keep it tuned right here to Cinematical for the ceremony. We'll be live blogging and updating the winners in real time; it'll almost feel like you're at the actual ceremony ... except more funner!

Animated short films have been eligible to win Oscars since the 1931/32 ceremony. Check out the list of winners on the Academy Awards Web site: all kinds of cartoonish and gorgeous animated styles have taken home awards (although Disney films won all the first eight years). The Three Little Pigs is one of my favorites, but other winners range from the notorious wartime short The Fuehrer's Face to Tom and Jerry in Yankee Doodle Mouse to the Pink Panther and Bugs Bunny. I never thought of Mr. Magoo as an Oscar winner, but he's got two of them, in 1954 and 1956. It's a treasure-trove of fabulous animation, all the way through the years to contemporary winners like Creature Comforts and Harvie Krumpet. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have all these winners on one DVD someday?

In the meantime, LiveJournal blogger Jhayne Holmes (aka porphyre) has found 46 of the Oscar-winning short films available on YouTube, and posted a list with all the links. I have to wonder if some of those shorts will stay online for long, but hopefully you'll have a chance to watch at least a few of them if you act quickly. Her entry also includes links to some of this year's Academy Award nominated shorts, which Jeffrey Anderson reviewed for Cinematical recently. This is a great resource, but be warned -- you can easily waste a whole afternoon watching these wonderful animated shorts.

[Thanks to my friend and longtime blogger Karen M. for the link.]

If you still haven't seen all the Oscar-nominated films, you're not alone. I still haven't seen a number of them, and I have less excuse than most people. After all, I live in a city in which pretty much every nominee has played. Some major contenders I haven't gotten around to -- with little reason for not -- include Atonement, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Into the Wild, all of which are still in theaters and are probably best to see on the big screen.

Apparently, at least according to Variety, a lot of people are seeing the Oscar nominees on the big screen compared to in previous (recent) years, as cumulatively the five Best Picture contenders have seen a significant bump at the box office since the nominations were announced. I would be extremely excited if I didn't believe the truth is that Juno's tremendous success has elevated the Best Picture box office average. The comedy is showing on far more screens, is much more accessible to a wide audience and has so far earned twice as much money domestically as the next highest-grossing Best Picture nominee. Variety also this week had published a story about how Juno is the one movie that may save the Oscar telecast's ratings, since it's the one movie people have actually been able to or bothered to see. One thing I will note, though, is that Best Picture nominee Michael Clayton came out on DVD this past Tuesday and yet there was still a significant number of people seeing it in theaters through the week. Additionally, I would be interested to know how many people took advantage of yesterday's AMC Theatres-hosted Best Picture marathon.

You already know Cinematical's Oscar predictions ... now it's your turn to vote. Let us know who you think will win at the Oscars on Sunday. And then be sure to come back Sunday night, when we'll be liveblogging the Oscars starting with the red carpet at 7PM EST. And in the meantime, you can see all our Oscar coverage, including predictions and reviews of Oscar-nommed films, at our Oscar hub.

I wanted to find a group of teens to talk to about the Oscars, but I needed a group in which it was likely that at least some of them had actually seen some of the nominated films. So I turned to the high school youth group at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Oklahoma City where Terry, the religious education director, and Mike and Anne, the high school youth advisors, very kindly allowed me to spend a few minutes with their teens at their Wednesday night youth group.

This is a fun, rowdy group of kids, and as I'd suspected, almost all of them had seen at least one of the Oscar-nommed films, several had seen more than one, and many had vocal opinions -- whether they'd seen the films or not. Mike turned out to have seen quite a few of the films, so I'm including his thoughts as well, even though he harassed me about wanting my job. Sadly for Mike, I'm not going anywhere, but at least he gets to have his opinions seen by Cinematical readers far and wide. If the conversations seem a bit ... discombobulated ... well, that's because they were. You try getting a pack of hyper teenagers to settle down and talk about film.

For the third year in a row, I'm turning to my favorite Oscar predictor of all: my kid brother Stephen. He's not really a kid anymore (he's 25 now), but he still has the funniest Oscar picks around. He's also not a very accurate predictor, since only two of his picks from last year were correct. But that doesn't matter -- I like his rants about the films that weren't nominated and should win even better than the picks he makes that are limited to actual nominations. How many other people have you heard complaining that Michelle Pfeiffer and Josh Brolin were robbed ... and in the case of Brolin, not for No Country for Old Men, either.

I managed to get Stephen on the phone for more than five minutes running, which is a difficult feat, and we had a lively discussion about this year's Oscar nominees, as well as the films and talent who weren't recognized by the Academy this year. My only disappointment is that I can't get him very interested in documentaries -- with one notable exception, as you'll see. I'm not good at predicting Oscars, but before I got Stephen on the phone, I predicted which nominees he would pick for Oscars this year, and I was right in every non-actress category (he's extremely particular about actresses).

Over at MTV-land, Josh Horowitz has a rather clever short up in which he inserts himself into the nominees for the Best Picture Oscar. Horowitz gets verbally abused by Keira Knightley, finds out he got Juno pregnant, uses his hamburger phone to call Javier Bardem's serial killer to take care of his "little problem," has a chat by the fire with Daniel Plainview, and gets yelled at by George Clooney. The editing isn't seamless, but it looks quite good, and Horowitz, when he's not being annoying, can be funny.

It's pretty darn amusing (or at least, it was to me, but I've only had one cup of coffee this morning, so it's possible I'm just not awake yet), and just the kind of thing Jon Stewart might do for the Oscars. I wonder if Stewart had something similar planned, saw this online and said, "Damn that Horowitz! He stole our idea!"

What do you think about the video? Funny, or not?
[Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere]

There's a piece up over on the New York Times about Jon Stewart prepping for the Oscars in only eight days, instead of the couple months he thought he'd have before that pesky writers' strike happened. While on the one hand I was kind of holding out for the strike to last past the Oscars, if only to spare myself having to liveblog the event, on the other hand I do like Stewart very much, and of anyone who could be hosting the Oscars this year, I think he's the most likely to make them at least moderately entertaining. Okay, I'll settle for "not painful to watch."

Stewart last hosted the Oscars two years ago (last year's event, you may recall, was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres), and for that event he was invited in December, and had just under two months to prep. This time Stewart and his Daily Show writers have just eight days to write their material, and for the most part, the nominated films don't really seem to lend themselves to a lot of light-hearted humor, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with on short notice.

Are you looking forward to seeing Stewart back on as host? Would you rather they'd picked someone different -- DeGeneres again? Robin Williams? Billy Crystal? Obama? (Just kidding on that one ... well, kinda.) It's your sandbox -- discuss away!

[via Movie City News]