Morning Links, 12-15-06

• That Little Round-Headed Boy has produced the first end-of-year wrap list that I actually enjoyed reading.
• The Dreamgirls backlash marches on: Ryan Stewart, Aaron Hillis and Tony Scott collectively shrug. As usual, Dave Kehr has the best 25-words-or-less summation: "Jamie Foxx is in it because he won an Oscar a couple of years ago, and Eddie Murphy is in it to prove he’s not turning into Bill Cosby."
• This is interesting: Variety asks a few critics to name films that shouldn't have won Oscars, and films that didn't that should have.
• Manohla's really on a roll lately. She neatly sums up the problem with The Good German thusly: "Yet while the language routinely waxes raw in The Good German, the most striking difference between it and a Hollywood film like Casablanca aren’t the expletives, the new film’s calculated cynicism or even that glimpse of bedroom coupling; it’s that the older film feels as if it was made for the satisfaction of the audience while the other feels as if it was made for that of the director alone."

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Morning Links, 12-6-06

• Manohla makes it clear that Inland Empire is an awful lot of work to sit through, but ends up generally recommending it. I'm torn myself. There are moments of pure, cinematic horror and pleasure in the film that rival anything I've ever seen on screen, but in its current incarnaton, I can't imagine ever being able to watch it for a second time. I wrote about the picture here; see video I shot of Lynch at NYFF above.
• Someone call the fat scholars to analyze this one: Beyonce backhands Jennifer Hudson on the Dreamgirls red carpet.
• A plastic surgeon known for resculpting Playboy bunnies has offered to give Britney Spears a free tummy tuck. Because she can't afford it. And because her busy schedule doesn't afford time for regular workouts.
• The nominations for the 2006 Weblog Awards have been announced. None of the blogs I'm associated with got one, but The Chutry Experiment, which I've been reading for years, was nominated in the Best of the Top 5001 - 6750 Blogs category. Very cool. Congrats, Chuck!

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