I've already trashed Oscar for not throwing a Best Song nomination to Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild while finding room for 1-2-3 songs from Enchanted and a sappy ballad from the saptacular August Rush. Worse, it ignored Jonny Greenwood's landmark score from There Will Be Blood because the Radiohead innovator referenced other music. Apparently sampling is not a term the Academy of Motion Pictures Farts & Biases has ever heard.

With the Grammy awards this Sunday, it's time to see how music people do with judging movie music. Here are the Grammy nominees for BEST MOVIE SONG:

"Falling Slowly" (from Once)/ Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, songwriters

"Guaranteed" (from Into The Wild)/ Eddie Vedder, songwriter


"Love You I Do" (from Dreamgirls)/Siedah Garrett & Henry Krieger, songwriters

"The Song of The Heart" (from Happy Feet)/Prince Rogers Nelson, songwriter

"You Know My Name" (from Casino Royale)/David Arnold & Chris Cornell, songwriters

Jeez, talk about time warps! Dreamgirls, Happy Feet and Casino Royale came out two years ago. Put that stupidity down to Grammy's dragass eligbility time frame, which is Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007. That leaves "Falling Slowly," the emo hit from Once the only song Oscar and Grammy have in common. But I'm giving Grammy points for including Eddie Vedder, whose songs for Into the Wild helped raise that film's already high-level game. Vedder, after winning a Grammy in 1996, famously said:"I don't know what this means. I don't think it means anything." Hmm.

Moving on to the BEST MOVIE SCORE, here are Grammy's picks:

Babel/ Gustavo Santaolalla, composer

Blood Diamond/James Newton Howard, composer

The Departed/Howard Shore, composer

Happy Feet/John Powell, composer

Pan's Labyrinth/Javier Navarrete, composer

Ratatouille/Michael Giacchino, composer


 Double jeez. Only one new movie in the bunch—Ratatouille, which is a solid choice. Maybe next year, time eligibility rules will let in Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood and Dario Marianelli's tonally experimental score for Atonement, which even tin-earred Oscar found the balls to nominate. If so, congrats are in order. In the meantime, can some friendo find a way to wipe the mold off of Oscar and Grammy rules and recognize the importance of music to movies in a timely manner?

 


It's a tough weekend at the cinema, which is why it's imperative that you listen to Peter Travers give the straight story on some truly questionable films. Click above for Travers' take on The Hottie and the Nottie, Fool's Gold, Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show and In Bruges.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

On the occasion of Fool's Gold, arguably the laziest and stupidest movie of Matthew McConaughey's increasingly lazy and stupid career, I'd like to raise the question: What the hell are you doing, man?

For over a decade, the only guarantee McConaughey's made to audience is that he'll be bare-chested. In Fool's Gold (see photo above), McConaughey's costar Kate Hudson keeps her shirt on, but not our boy. He makes it a pec fest. His old pal Matt Damon ragged on him on Letterman (check the clip on YouTube), mimicking McConaughey's Texas twang as he tells a director: "Today's scene I think would be a good opportunity to take my shirt off."

It's true that McConaughey looks great with his shirt off. But I can remember when people noticed his acting. Here's a few memory nudgers:

DAZED AND CONFUSED 1993 McConaughey debuts with a bang as Dave Wooderson, a twentysomething stoner still hanging with the teens. "That's what I love about high school girls," he says, "I get older, they stay the same age." Primo stuff, right down to the porn star mustache.

A TIME TO KILL 1996 The film version of John Grisham's 1989 novel put McConaughey on the map. Grisham rejected the usual star suspects (Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Woody Harrelson) but sparked when director Joel Schumacher brought him McConaughey, a Texas greenhorn best known as Drew Barrymore's cop loverman in Boys on the Side. Grisham was right to hold out. McConaughey, then twenty six, is dynamite in a performance of smarts, sexiness, scrappy humor and unmistakable star sizzle.

LONE STAR 1996 Working with indie pionner John Sayles, McConaughey shows style and substance as a Texas lawman, circa 1957, trying to force out a brutal, bigoted Sheriff (Kris Kristofferson) and take his job.

OK, you get my point. In the last decade, McConaughey has walked, mostly shirtless, through tired romcoms (The Wedding Planner, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch) and paycheck adventures (U-571, Sahara). He's blown his chance with good directors, such as Steven Spielberg in Amistad and Robert Zemeckis in Contact. Two years ago, in We Are Marshall, he had a solid role as Jack Lengyel, the motivator who took over as coach of West Virginia's Marshall University football team when the players were killed in a 1970 plane crash. And what happens? He overdoes it in a performance so hammy it should have been served with pineapple.

Is all lost? You can see a bit of the old McConaughey in 2001's Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and 2002's Frailty. But they were little movies. And McConaughey is recklessly chasing the big score, at least in box-office terms. I say reckless because, as Fool's Gold proves, McConaughey is starting to look as bored in these movies as I am watching them. He's too good to be the next Paris Hilton, knowing the audience is out there saying, "Show me your titties." Look—and weep—at the titles of his next three McConaughey movies: Surfer Dude, Tropic Thunder, and The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

Don't laugh. Movies seem to have forgotten how to turn us on. So to follow up on my awards that Oscar never thinks of—thanks for your responses last week to Hot Movie Lines ("I drink your milkshake—I drink it up" won in a walk)—let's add Hot Movie Sex. I'm not counting lap dances, like the one in Grindhouse. Also out is chick-flick torture, like P.S. I Love You or No Reservations. Nudity isn't the point either, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's real contact, body and mind, I'm after. Juno provides a view of Michael Cera's skinny legs and a chair. In a year of violent cinema—no way there's any flesh and desire in No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood—filmmakers aren't exactly worried about giving us a hot Valentine's Day. It's a sexual desert out there. Even in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling orders a sex doll and then just talks to her. What's up with that? So here are my nominees for the year's best movie sex. Feel free to argue or name your own sizzle.

ATONEMENT --It's the scene in the library where Keira Knightley and James McAvoy decide not to hold out anymore. He backs her against the bookshelves, lifts her green evening dress above her knees, unzips the pants of his tux and goes for penetration. No hard-ons. We intuit what's going on from their facial exprerssions. It's furtive sex, what with dinner party just outside the door and a twelve year-old girl (Saorise Ronan) interupting them at the point of orgasm. You breathe with these characters. Woody Allen was once asked if sex was dirty. His answer: "It is if you're doing it right." Knightley and McAvoy do it right.

LUST, CAUTION -- Rated NC-17 by the reliably idiotic ratings board, Ang Lee's film goes deeper than counting pelvic thrusts. As a Japanese collaborator during World War II. Tony Leung approaches sex with the sadistic relish he'd use to torture a suspect, while Tang Wei acts the role of subservient vessel. When they both drop the masks and yield to grander passions, the effect is devastating.

WE OWN THE NIGHT --You'd have to go some to find hotter than Eva Mendes steaming it up with Joaquin Phoenix, as her nightclub manager lover, in James Gray's underrated crime thriller.

BLACK BOOK --Remember Carice van Houten as a Jewish spy who dyes her pubic hair blonde to seduce a Nazi officer (Sebastian Koch). See the movie and you'll remember it for a good long time.

WAITRESS --Pregnant Keri Russell getting it on with her OB/GYN Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) in his office. It's a bout of acrobatic lovemaking that damn near makes up for years of frustration with her deadbeat husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto). You feel the need in it.

ONCE --Sweetness props go to Dublin musician Glen Hansard (of the Irish rock band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as the young Czech immigrant he loves. They connected off screen as well. Their musical chemistry is palpable, but light on sexual heat.

Come on, help me here. Who do you think brought the heat?

With Fool's Gold, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins and—save us, please, from damnation!—Paris Hilton's The Hottie & the Nottie opening this weekend, you'll need to stockpile a few of today's new DVD releases.

DON'T GO NEAR

Elizabeth: The Golden Age—I don't care that Cate Blanchett snagged a Best Actress Oscar nomination for returning to her role as the virgin queen. This sequel to 1998's much better Elizabeth is full of hot air and overacting! Sorry, Cate, loved you as Dylan in I'm Not There, but that DVD is not out till May.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS (i.e. you can use the remote to skip the crap parts)

Across the Universe—Julie Taymor's trippy take on the Beatles songbook, wedded to Vietnam-era student war protests and psychedelia, looks and sounds gorgeous. In spots. "Girl," the opener sung by a Liverpool dockworker (Jim Sturgess) is meltingly tender. And "I Want You," staged at an army recruitment office, is a showstopper. You can skip "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," sung by Salma Hayek as not one, but five dancing nurses, and, well, you decide the biggest irritants. It's a fun movie to browse.

TOTALLY COOL

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford—Casey Affleck as the dirty rotten fanboy who shoots Brad Pitt's megastar Jesse in the back deserves his Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. And cheers to Best Cinematography nominee Roger Deakins for turning this 160-minute western in to an art-house tone poem. One caveat. You should have seen this beauty on the big screen—know how i know you didn't? the film's piddlysquat box office—and unless you've got a Rolls Royce of a home-theater, you're missing the full impact.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK

Great World of Sound—This dark and darkly funny look at our American Idol culture is co-written and directed by promising first-timer Craig Zobel and stars no one you ever heard of. I couldn't have liked it more. White boy Martin (Pat Healy) and black dude Clarence (a great Kene Holliday, where's his Oscar nomination?) are job-desperate enough to sign up as talent execs at a sham record company, Great World of Sound. Unlike Idol, the movie doesn't sneer at the talents and no-talents being scammed. It sees all of us as delusional. Don't expect this low-budget indie flick to look like much—you can watch it on an I-Pod with no loss in quality—but does it ever stick with you.

Dudes, while you were partying and watching the Giants drink the Patriots milkshake, chick flicks took over the weekend box-office.

Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus Rip You Off in 3D or whatever the hell this concert flick is called pulled in $29 million (the highest Super Bowl weekend gross ever, sinking even Titanic) in just such 683 theaters. Disney honchos, who produced the film in-house for $7 million in chump change, quickly decided to extend the one-week engagement to however long they can drag the little girls in. Depressed yet?

Jessica Alba came in next, hoisting $13 million for The Eye, a horrorshow in every way except for the horror which is PG-13 rated for wimps.

Next, Katherine Heigl pulled her weight in chick flick gold by adding $8.4 million to the 27 Dresses pot of gold, now totaling $57.1 million. If only the movie didn't fall on the dark sight of bearable.

Hanging in for No. 4 was Juno, the Oscar nominated teen pregnancy juggernaut which added another $7.4 million to the till in its 9th week. Total so far: $110.3 million. That aint fo'shizz.

All that estrogen left the macho flicks—Meet the Spartans and Rambo—free-falling by more than sixty percent. You can't blame those flameouts entirely on the Super Bowl.

Good News: Eva Longoria Parker's career-crushing ghost comedy, Over Her Dead Body, was barely visible at the box-office with a paltry $4.6 million.

Bad News: This weekend brings Fool's Gold, with Kate Hudson emasculating Matthew McConaughey for laughs that never come in what looks like No. 1 for sure.

Disclaimer from me: I've got nothing against chick comedies. Juno is primo. But what was the last really good one? Maybe The Devil Wears Prada? If I'm wrong, enlighten me.

Super Bowl Sunday is the right time to call Hollywood on its football record. Before moving on to the movies themselves, here are my picks for the actors who actually look like they could play football onscreen and those that definitely don't. Feel free to call a timeout.

BEST FORM ON THE FIELD

Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard (1974) Reynolds actually played football in his native Florida and his skills show in this prison flick which has some of the best football action ever.

Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty 1979 Nolte looks like he could take the abuse and the glory in this lively film version of Peter Gent's best-selling exposé of the NFL.

Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday 1999 Foxx captures the grit and the arrogance of a quarterback about to find NFL megastardom in Oliver Stone's over the top (when is Stone ever subtle?) but entertaining football epic.

WORST SADSACK CASES OF GRIDIRON ACTING

Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard 2005 Sandler as a pro quarterback makes no sense except comically in this retread of the Burt Reynolds jailbreak movie that makes you appreciate Reynolds all the more.

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Why suffer through Hannah Montana's 3-D movie or Over Her Dead Body this weekend? Instead, take a guided tour of Heath Ledger's best performances in A Knight's Tale, Monster's Ball and Brokeback Mountain and reflect on the fallen actor's considerable talent.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Come on moviegoers, you know the stuff opening this weekend is drool: Over Her Dead Body with Eva Longoria Parker and The Eye with Jessica Alba? Puhleese! Plus, Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus in a 3D concert is not my idea of the best of both worlds.

So out of respect for Heath Ledger, why not spend time with a few of his best and most surprising films. Look, Ledger made some crap. You try watching The Order or Four Feathers. But he always provided something fascinating to watch, something extra. While the tabloids dish about how many drugs he did or didn't abuse, let's concentrate on what's essential about a exceptional actor who died too soon at twenty eight. His mistakes didn't make Heath Ledger unique, his talent did. And through his movies that talent lives on. Here are a few Ledger films you need to know, in the order of their release:

A Knight's Tale 2001 Ledger told me how much he hated the poster for this tale of a knight wannabe. Can't blame him. The studio was selling his blonde hair and ringlets. He'd already done two movies, 1999's Ten Things I Hate About You with Julia Stiles and 2000's The Patriot with Mel Gibson, that traded on his looks. Ledger wanted to trade up into acting. And he acts with scrappy, subversive skill in A Knight's Tale. Director Brian Helgeland, who wrote the terrific scripts for L.A. Confidential and Mystic River, is messing with medieval history here. You don't see many movies about jousting with a Queen soundtrack. Helgeland surrounded Ledger with good actors, such as Rufus Sewell, Mark Addy and Paul Bettany, who does a fun spin on Chaucer. And Ledger laces his knight with teasing wit. He will, he will rock you.

Monster's Ball 2001 Most people remember this film for Halle Berry's Oscar-winning turn as the child-abusing widow of a death-row inmate, played by P. Diddy. But Ledger, in the supporting role of a prison guard following in the dogged footsteps of his dad (Billy Bob Thornton), works small miracles.

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There are all kind of awards for movies, but none for the most memorable lines. Screw that. This may be one award that actually means something. I can't think of The Godfather without hearing, "I made him an offer he can't refuse." Movies that suck can also have lines that stick. The 2003 Bruce Willis clunker Tears of the Sun stays with me only for the moment when Navy SEAL Willis turns to his men like John Wayne reborn and says, "cowboy the fuck up."

So let's put the movies of 2007 to the test. What are the lines you'll never forget? Vote for the ones below or pick your own. I want names, and I want to rank them. Game on.

"I drink you milkshake—I drink it up!" --Daniel Day-Lewis to Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood

"Call it, friendo." --Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

"I am Shiva, the god death." --Tom Wilkinson going wacko on George Clooney in Michael Clayton

"Nobody has gotten a handjob in cargo pants since Nam." --Jonah Hill in Superbad

"If any of us gets laid tonight it's because of Eric Bana in Munich" --Seth Rogen on the Jewish self image in Knocked Up

"I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into." --Ellen Page in Juno

(to a crucifix) "How does it feel?" --Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in* I'm Not There*