Those of you who watched "Shootout" on AMC Sunday mornings are familiar enough with our own Peter Bart and his co-host, producer Peter Guber.  You may, then, have come across the show's Oscar nominees special from earlier this month, which featured interviews with George Clooney, Julian Schnabel, Laura Linney, Marion Cotillard, Hal Holbrook and Brad Bird.

Here's a look at Clooney discussing this year's crop and some differences between the current filmmaking climate and the "glory days" when Bart was hustling material around town:




And Julian Schnabel, yet again talking about his personal fear of being locked into his body and reasons for making "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."  But for me, it never gets old:



There is plenty more to chew on. Give it a look.

•  Kristin Thompson gets into the milkshake thing.  It's here to stay, folks. [DavidBordwell.net]

•  Jeffrey Wells points us to the Coen brothers' Wikipedia page, revealing the helmers' penchant for writing "the archetype of unstoppable evil" into their films. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Sasha Stone offers a "This is your life" look at the work of film editor "Roderick Jaynes."  Hear, hear! [Awards Daily]

•  Gina Piccalo talks to Gil Cates about "Plan A," safely underway with that pesky strike done and over with. [The Envelope]

•  The Coens "don't understand" the awards success and Oscar trajectory of "No Country for Old Men." [Los Angeles Times]

•  David Carr reviews "Atonement" in that bubble-wrapped state of aural diffusion he's making so wildly popular. [The Carpetbagger]

•  David Poland sticks up for poor Julian Schnabel, getting picked on for his eccentric pajama wearing.  I still don't understand why's he's become such an easy target.  I love the guy! [The Hot Blog]

•  William Keck sits down with SAG winner and Oscar nominee Ruby Dee. [USA Today]

•  Anne Thompson rounds up a couple of upcoming Oscar events and seminars. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Jeffrey Wells is hearing that the Oscar-nominated Iraq documentaries might cancel each other out, paving the way for a "War/Dance" win. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  The homoeroticism of "There Will Be Blood" is back -- and with teeth. [Defamer]

•  Sasha Stone points us to the EW cover featuring "Juno" -- "the little movie that did." [Awards Daily]

•  Gina Piccalo covers yesterday's nominees luncheon. [The Envelope]

•  Michael Cieply reports on Sid Ganis' "sweetly diplomatic" speech to luncheon attendees, urging "the importance of keeping Oscar night on track." [New York Times]

•  Diane Garrett covers things in-house. [Variety]

•  Tom O'Neil ponders the correlation between Vanity Fair covers and future Oscar success. [Gold Derby]

•  Carly Mayberry reports on the antics of George Clooney, affable as always, at yesterday's festivities. [Gold Rush]

•  Another interview with the always entertaining Julian Schnabel lands on the net. [CBS]

•  Patrick Goldstein profiles Mandate Pictures, the unsung backers behind the success of "Juno." [Los Angeles Times]

•  Derek Peters writes up Saturday's Scripter Awards in house. [Variety]

•  Susan King does the same at the LA Times. [The Envelope]

•  Jeffrey Wells runs a second hand item conveying Julian Schnabel's response to the Sean Young heckling episode.  The eccentric director comes off like the baby face to say the least. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Sasha Stone talks with "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" money man Scott Rudin. [Awards Daily]

•  Vanity Fair lies out the year's Ultimate Badass Awards. [Little Gold Men]

•  Pete Hammond rattles off a Dear Diary of the weekend's evets, including an Angelina Jolie tribute at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and a Sunday Brunch with "Sicko" helmer Michael Moore. [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil catches up to the video packages running on Oscar.com. [Gold Derby]

•  David Poland live blogs the Super Bowl of all things.  And let us take a moment here:  God bless the New York Football Giants. [The Hot Blog]

•  Lou Lumenick responds to the PGA win for "No Country" and the juggernaut status the film has achieved this awards season.  [New York Post]

•  Oh, and by the way, David took out Goliath. [ESPN]

•  Anne Thompson profiles the successful release pattern of "No Country for Old Men." [Variety]

•  Marc Peyser thinks the the Oscars must die. [Newsweek]

•  Jeffrey Wells begs to differ. [Hollywood Elsehwere]

•  Sasha Stone, in love with "No Country" till the day she dies, tosses an excerpt from the book left lying on the cutting room floor, so to speak. [Awards Daily]

•  Video highlights from last weekend's SAG Awards. [The Envelope]

•  EW places its bets in all fields. [Entertainment Weekly]

•  A list of films not nominated for Best Picture that puts everything into perspective. [Gold Derby]

•  Hank Steuver sits down with the heckled Julian Schnabel. [Washington Post]

•  Nathaniel Rogers is uncomfortable with the way the media and Hollywood at large have responded to Heath Ledger's passing. [The Film Experience]

Tom O'Neil picked up on the story we reported here this morning, and added this snap-shot of the brou-ha-ha for good measure:



Defamer, meanwhile, has the same scoop from a loyal reader, with some more detail to boot.  Here's what their tipster had to say:

...as a faithful reader of your blog, I just wanted to tell you about the AWESOME drama at the DGA Awards Saturday night at the Century City Hotel.  Things were pretty calm for the dinner, but once the award portion of the evening began, has-been actress Sean Young started to get rowdy.  She started talking loudly throughout the show...at times screaming in French at the stage when [Marion Cotillard] took the stage...at other times breaking into song.

She yelled at a video clip of George Clooney from Michael Clayton and then would start nuzzling the neck of her date (who seemed oblivious) but it was when Julian Schnabel took the stage toward the end of the evening that she really went kook...yelling at him to "get on with it" and to "move it on" (The DGA Awards are unique, they let all of the film nominees say something about their films and thank their crews before naming the winner at the end of the night).

Julian yelled back at her to "Have another drink, Honey" and started to leave the stage before the crowd yelled at him to stay. He continued to talk and Sean stood up and mad[e] a big production of putting on her white fur coat, walking around in a circle and then taking her seat again.  Finally a security guard came over and grabbed her arm and yanked her through the tables to the side door and tossed her out.

What a town.

•  The final guild out of the gate, the Motion Picture Sound Editors, annouce nominees for the Golden Reel Awards. [Variety]

•  Sasha Stone cooks up one of her infmaous Oscar comparison charts.  This time: SAG vs. Oscar. [Awards Daily]

•  Jeff Anderson finds plenty of room to complain about this or that, re: the nominations.  He also reveals a profound ignorance for certain crafts categories. [Cinematical]

•  Tom O'Neil has a new theory in the books.  Somethign about multile nominated contenders yielding one win, I think.  I got lost in the data.  You give it a shot. [Gold Derby]

•  Daniel Day-Lewis hits the daily talk show circuit with the owner of the world. [Oprah.com]

•  Gerard Kennedy begins reacting to Oscar's tech nominations, some surprising, most expected. [In Contention]

•  The Gurus o' Gold chime in post-noms.  "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" take the #1 and #2 spots.  Scott Rudin does back-flips. [Movie City News]

•  Mike Russell sits down with "Persepolis" creator Marjane Satrapi in 2-D black and white. [Culture Pulp]

•  T.L. Stanley thinks there is no backlash in the cards for the most backlash-prone of the Best Picture contenders. [Gold Rush]

•  In a long interview never lacking the color of its subject, Mick Brown sits down with the Oscar-nominated Julian Schnabel to talk art, Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and Schnabel.  Good times. [The Daily Telegraph]

•  After years of disavowing Oscar bloggers, Stu VanAirdale finds his new role as...Oscar blogger. [Little Gold Men]

•  He also agonizes over the glut of Oscar prognosticators.  I'm sure he still cashes the checks, though. [Little Gold Men]

1979-2008

•  Phil Gallo rounds up a list of 2008 Oscar factoids here at homebase. [Variety]

•  Calling from Rome regarding his Best Director nomiantion, Julian Schnabel has this bit of dry excitement for Paula Schwartz: "They're going to buy me a bottle of champagne and we're going to act like we're excited." [The Carpetbagger]

•  Another rudimentary list of nominee reactions, but with some fresh faces nonetheless: Scott Rudin and Andrzej Wajda among them. [Movie City News]

•  Nathaniel Rogers, thinking outside the box as always, ponders the Top 10 Oscar Talking Points of yesterday's goings on. [The Film Experience]

•  New York Magazine asks the brothers Coen about Oscar nominee "Roderick Jaynes." [Vulture]

•  Peter Martin thinks "There Will Be Blood" is one Oscar nomination short of its destiny, thank you very much. [Cinematical]

•  Boy, T.L. Stanley really hates "Juno." [Gold Rush]

•  No, she really hates "Juno." [Gold Rush]

•  Ramin Satoodeh, meanwhile, chalks Jason Reitman's Best Director nomination for "Juno" up as the morning's most surprising nominee. [The Gold Digger]

•  Pete Hammond has his own idea of the surprises, and calls the Best Makeup showing for "Norbit" his "favorite nom of the day."  Here's hoping Pete's winning sense of humor is shinging through there. [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil pours over the various guild misteps this season, where Oscar prognostication is concerned. [Gold Derby]

•  Anthony Breznican and Susan Wloszczyna dig into "the long strange Oscar season" of 2007. [USA Today]

•  And Gary Strauss rounds up Oscar's snubs. [USA Today]

•  Alexandra Peers has the scoop on Julian Schnabel's latest art exhibit, "Navigations," amidst critical and industry kudos for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." [Vulture]

•  Dave Karger sits down with "In the Valley of Elah" and "No Country for Old Men" star Tommy Lee Jones. [Entertainment Weekly]

•  NBC is set to loose a bundle due to cancellation of the Golden Globes telecast. [Wall Street Journal]

•  The soundtrack to "Juno" lands at #8 on the Billboard charts. ("Sonic Youth sucks.  It's just noise.") [Extended Play]

•  The People's Choice Awards weren't much of a hit with the "people." [Variety]

•  "No Country" wins yet another Best Picture award, this time from the Online Film Critics Society. [Variety]

•  Jeffrey Wells is four-square behind "I drink your milkshake" as a marketing must for Paramount Vantage's "There Will Be Blood" Oscar campaign. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  David Poland talks to "Sweeney Todd" helmer Tim Burton. [The Hot Blog]

•  Nathaniel Rogers launches a new podcast series, beginning with the heart-stopping Marisa Tomei.  (Hey, she stops my heart.) [The Film Experience]

•  Oh yeah...Gurus 2.0. [Movie City News]

Yes, the BFCA awards are tonight, but tomorrow brings the most anticipated announcement of the Oscar season: the Directors Guild of America's list of feature film nominees.  According to the DGA's official site, Guild president Michael Apted will make the announcement at 10:00 a.m. (PT).

The DGA has long been considered the best predictor of the eventual Best Picture outcome at the Academy.  Going back over the last 35 years, the Guild has picked 139 of 170 nominees for an accuracy rate of 80% or so.  That's better than any of us "pros" could ever hope to manage, that's for sure.  The Guild has displayed 100% accuracy on nine separate occassions, the four of the last five years being chief among them.  Prior to 1970, the DGA sported 10 nominees for feature films, which makes tallying those totals kind of pointless, but this sufficient chunk of data ought to be enough to persuade you that tomorrow's announcement is an important one.

Tom O'Neil has been collecting predictions from various Oscarweb prognosticators over at Gold Derby, yours truly included.  You can see my black and white take on tomorrow's likely five over there, but let's take a moment to dig into the hopefuls in this space as well.

No one but no one can be considered a shoo-in except for the Coen brothers, whose "No Country for Old Men" has shown up this naysayer by already displaying some grit last month, taking down two Screen Actors Guild nomiantions.  (Critics awards just don't compute for me as great indicator of an industry award.)  Beyond that, it's really a free-for-all.

Sean Penn has been getting stellar reactions at DGA screenings of "Into the Wild," a film already leading the way at the BFCA and SAG.  One would have to consider the actor/director to be on solid ground.

Ridley Scott is a helmer clearly revered by his guild, taking down nominations in some cases that didn't correspond to Best Picture nods ("Thelma & Louise," "Black Hawk Down").  "American Gangster" was the only film to be making any box office headway until "Juno" came around, and two SAG nominations (in surprising categories) indicate industry love for the product.

Speaking of "Juno," Jason Reitman's film has been unfairly relegated to consideration as "the 'Little Miss Sunshine' of 2007," when that's really not a computeable comparison.  Nevertheless, naysayers have been left mouth agape as the film has taken some major monetary strides on its way to potentially securing the light-hearted slot of the season with AMPAS.  Reitman's showing up here tomorrow should come as no surprise if it comes to pass, especially given all those TV directors in the guild with ties to actors like Allison Janney, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner.

There is a real opportunity for spoilerific things to happen, I think, outside of these strong potential candidates.  Tim Burton, for instance, has already nabbed a nomination from the BFCA and a win with the National Board of Review for helming the screen adaptation of "Sweeney Todd."

Denzel Washington, meanwhile, has seen his film, "The Great Debaters," met with standing ovations at DGA screenings.  But then, who wouldn't stand for Denzel?

Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" has been a critical darling throughout the precursor season, but did his Los Angeles antics while promoting the film leave a bad taste in voters' mouths?

Any number of peripheral surprises could pop up, from James Mangold ("3:10 to Yuma"") to Tony Gilroy (one to really watch for "Michael Clayton"), even Sidney Lumet ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"), a nominee here even when ignored by the Acadey ("Serpico," "Murder on the Orient Express").  David Fincher could even make good on a year-end rally of support for "Zodiac."

The real spoiler to watch, however, might just be Paul Thomas Anderson, whose "There Will Be Blood" has been the talk of the town, at least for the past two weeks.  A nomination tomorrow could be the first real step toward Best Picture aspirations, as an endorsement from the DGA has proven itself to be a telling seal of approval indeed.

But the safe bet always seems to surface, no?  Which leaves us with the very real possibility that Joe Wright could slide in for "Atonement," a film that lost steam after the festival circuit and a strong HFPA showing, but is still lingering in the mix nonetheless.

What do I know, right?  Whatever happens tomorrow, it still ain't the end of the road.  Crazy things happen, like Christopher Nolan grabbing a mention for "Memento" in 2000 or Robert Zemeckis sliding in for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in 1988.  You just never can be too sure, so we'll have to see what the directors have in store for us in the morning.

As part of the weekend's Eye on the Oscars: Directors Roundup Feature Issue, Robert Koehler gives the auteur theory a once over by looking at filmmakers like David Fincher, Sidney Lumet and the Coen brothers, but there's also a very interesting collection of helmer profiles from Broadway directors to sift through.

There's Michael Mayer ("Spring Awakening") on Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"); Jack O'Brien ("Hairspray") on Sidney Lumet ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"); Des McAnuff ("Jersey Boys") on Anton Corbijn ("Control"); and Doug Hughes ("Doubt") on Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton:") among many others.  Give it a look.

I love these artist on artist things.  If you missed it the first time around, be sure to check out Variety's round-up of actors sizing up their colleagues from November.