Quvenzhané Wallis gives her director Behn Zeitlin a big hug.

The red carpet was aglow with the incandescent twinkle of Hollywood’s stars on Monday night at the 22nd annual Independent Film Project Gotham Awards. With Oscar winners Matt Damon and Marion Cotillard amongst the evening’s honorees and the likes of Jack Black, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski and so many more blazing a trail through the double doors of Wall St.’s Cipriani’s, it was no wonder that the less glamorous side of the velvet rope was a veritable press feeding frenzy. Lucky for us, then, that we had sharpened our claws.

As the guests took their seats for the ceremony, The Observer was whisked upstairs to a private viewing room, lest we cavort too rambunctiously with the delicate A-List crowd. There we watched over the evening’s events like demi-gods looking down from the heavens upon the cherubs pecking away at their meals, with eight year old nominee Quvenzhané Williams and 13 year old Jared Gilman leading the underage coterie.

The awards soon got underway, much to the delight of the recipients. Honoring their intentions as champions of independent cinema, the jury not only rewarded the biggest Hollywood names but the industry’s up-and-comers for their contribution to film. Beasts of the Southern Wild writer and director Benh Zeitlin was undoubtedly the big winner of the night, scooping statuettes – well, glass cuboids - for Breakthrough Director alongside the Bingham Ray Award, dedicated to the late film executive.

Mr. Zeitlin was so swept up with his first victory, however, that he scarcely noticed he had procured a second, pausing in his role as the obliging interviewee only to dash back downstairs to claim his newest prize.

“The fact that the film has gotten out into the world has been overwhelming,” he told The Observer, “And I never imagined this many people would not only see it but champion it, and make it their business to help the film get out there. It has completely changed my life.” A spate of critical successes at Cannes, Sundance, the LA Film Festival and the International Film Festival has seen Louisiana-based Mr. Zeitlin’s awards cabinet go from empty to engorged in a matter of months.

Another director honored for his work during the event was David O. Russell, whose work on the likes of The Fighter and new release Silver Linings Playbook secured his status as a deserving IFP Gotham Award recipient. "With an independent film you are with your little family and you work together all day every day, and that’s the real difference," he explained. "You’re all there for the passion, and I prefer that because projects have to come from the heart. You have to dig deep."

Academy Award-winners and Gotham honorees Mr. Damon and Ms. Cotillard are certainly no strangers to widespread acclaim, but both seemed similarly touched by their newest prestigious accolade. Ms. Cotillard was every inch the elegant belle of the ball, dazzling in an array of Chopard jewelry and a stunning Christian Dior couture gown.

Clearly her nationality influences not only her wardrobe but her passion for various projects, telling The Observer: “I really cherish the fact that I’m able to share my French movies worldwide, because we have amazing creativity in France.” The softly spoken actress, who stars in the recently released Rust and Bone, seemed quite overcome with emotion, before continuing: “With this film I had one of the greatest journeys ever, and to share this very unconventional love story outside of my country is something that I enjoy more than anything. I never choose a movie because of whether it’s independent or not, it’s just a story that’s got to take me. But independent movies have the freedom of telling stories that nobody except a special director would tell.”

Mr. Damon echoed the Parisian sweetheart’s sentiments, divulging, “I’ve never set goals for my career. Each movie is just story-telling, and I never wanted to not do a bunch of good movies because I was waiting to make a great one.”

The evening was particularly poignant for the actor, who recalled his first attendance at the Gotham Awards some 15 years earlier in the year Good Will Hunting was released. The best-buddy-Ben-Affleck spot was filled not by his usual partner in crime, but by Mr. Krasinski, who became fast friends with the honoree after meeting on the set of The Adjustment Bureau, in which Mr. Damon and Mr. Krasinski’s wife Ms. Blunt, starred. The Observer did contemplate asking whether Mr. Damon’s onscreen dalliance with his friend’s spouse ever induced some awkward glances around the dinner table, but we opted to forgo stirring the salacious pot on this occasion.

Back to the matter at hand, Mr. Damon said he enjoyed the ubiquitous montage of his roles over the years, but revealed, “It’s always a little cringe inducing – if you have a bad or mediocre day at work, it’s alive forever, so that part [of working in film] is always a little weird.”

But Mr. Damon, who plays the lead in upcoming indie flick Promised Land, needn’t worry about bad days at the office, given that his most recent prize was for Lifetime Achievement – at the grand old age of 42. “I hope this is like a buoy marker – a half time thing,” he laughed. “I want to do this for another 50 years!”

And with that, our time with Mr. Damon was up, and he was briskly shepherded to the after party with the rest of his showbiz pals. Alas, we did not get the opportunity to put on our dancing shoes and join in the film festivities, but the evening was quite the show itself.

Cipriani Wall Street, 55 Wall Street, cocktail reception at 6:30pm, dinner and awards ceremony at 7:30pm, tickets and information can be found at http://gotham.ifp.org/.

Cotillard in Rust and Bone.

Proving again that her Best Actress Academy Award for playing Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose was no fluke, the marvellously sensual Marion Cotillard, with her wounded doe eyes and look of permanent unfulfilled longing, delivers another kidney punch as a double amputee in love with an illegal bare-knuckle fighter in the French shocker Rust and Bone. Her move to Hollywood was understandable, anxious as she must have been to parlay her 2008 Oscar into a major career development. But so far her unique gifts have been largely wasted in stupid American films like Inception and Contagion. Woody Allen knew what to do with her in Midnight in Paris,but for the most part she’s been forced to work far below her talent level. I’m glad she returned to France for acclaimed filmmaker Jacques Audiard (A Prophet). His blend of measured sips of taut narrative and a detailed visual style brings out Ms. Cotillard’s poignancy. Rust and Bone addresses today’s trendy theme of sex and the disabled with fresh vision, but unlike the runaway hit The Sessions,it does so with a desperate need for wider audience accessibility and considerably less tenderness.

When this movie premiered at September’s Toronto International Film Festival to largely indifferent reviews, one wag commented that “not since Orca has a movie given killer whales such a bum rap.” That’s a funny line, but although I chuckled, I lamented the fact that such a withering dismissal missed the point of the picture entirely. In Rust and Bone, the haunting Ms. Cotillard plays Stephanie, an emotionally hijacked woman who works as a trainer of whales at a Marine World tourist attraction on the French Riviera, connecting with the humongous creatures on a level she cannot reach with humans. During a horrific accident on the job, she is left without legs—embittered, unemployed and without focus. While she negotiates a slow, clouded recovery to learn how to walk again with prostheses, braces and crutches, Stephanie meets Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a homeless drifter and hulking brute who lives with his estranged sister, a supermarket cashier, in a cramped apartment, and supports his neglected 5-year-old son by working as a bouncer and waging bets on street brawls he fights with his bare fists. An uneasy, often challenging relationship ensues, in which writer-director Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain rummage through the detritus of two lost souls who try to save each other from hell and find both pain and solace in their awkward attempts to commit. Even though her character is never fully explored, Ms. Cotillard is heartbreaking, and she is evenly matched in every scene by co-star Mr. Schoenaerts, the vulnerable battering ram fresh from his breakout triumph in last year’s Bullhead. Although their chemistry does more for the familiar “achingly sad girl meets immorally damaged pugilist” storyline than any of Mr. Audiard’s trademark impressionistic camera work, the stylish cinematography is undeniably impressive. But Rust and Bone is still a very depressing piece of work, and at two hours, it’s much too long, sapped by too many extraneous scenes that slow the pace at the wrong times. There’s also a minimalistic shortness of breath in the dialogue that leaves one wanting more, and a bloody, pulverizing final fight scene so ghastly and violent you might not be able to watch it. Mr. Audiard has style galore, but he suffers from the same elephantiasis of the ego as almost all of the current American directors. He doesn’t know how to improve his work with judicious cutting. I’d like to present him with a pair of sharp scissors and show him how to use them on Rust and Bone.

rreed@observer.com

RUST AND BONE

Running Time 120 minutes

Written by Jacques Audiard,
Thomas Bidegain and Craig Davidson (story)

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Starring Marion Cotillard,
Matthias Schoenaerts and Armand Verdure

Marion Cotillard chatting away.

Just when we were sick and tired of cinema screenings and movie premiere parties (Hello nomination-baiting season!), The Cinema Society alongside Dior and Vanity Fair hosted one of its best shindigs yet, at the legendary Indochine restaurant following a showing of the Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard’s 2012 French-Belgian film, which stars Marion Cotillard and dizzyingly sexy Matthias Schoenaerts.

“I’m gonna need eight glasses of Champagne to lift myself up from that one!” one power publicist bellowed to The Observer over the roaring crowd.

“But Marion Cotillard was just amazing!”

This writer unfortunately missed the screening in order to support wounded U.S. servicemen and women uptown for Stand Up For Heroes event, which featured performances by John Mayer, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.

We were hoping for a sighting and perhaps to bavarder with the Oscar-winner.

"Marion had to immediately catch an international flight," one social stalwart dutifully informed us. Of course she had plenty of time to pose for the cameras in her Dior couture, flashing her wondrous baby-bump.

Those that did turn out for the Indochine post-bash made the night memorable. Mischievous attendees included Harley Vieira Newton, Jean-Marc Houmard, Katie Lee, Nan Bush and Bruce Weber, Stefano Tonchi, the mouthy Amy Sacco, Isiah Whitlock and Donna D'Cruz, who off-duty on the DJ gig for the evening.

“I think it’s the food!’ suggested a male model, whose name escaped us.

“These mushroom things and the filet mignon!” he raved between bites.

We schmoozed with model Johannes Huebl and admired Ellen von Unwerth dancing skills. An attempt to question Emma Watson about the premise of the film resulted in a chic pout; her smart phone was of more interest.

The film, which takes place in Antibes, we were told, follows a young man who develops a bond with a whale trainer and traces how their relationship intensifies after a tragic accident. It won critical acclaim at Cannes and the BFI Film Festival. So we shall see how it plays with American audiences. It is en Français.

We got a few words with the Belgian star, Matthias Schoenaerts, but most of it was in Flemish… “I am very excited about the film,” was about all our infantile Nederland skills could reward us.

Nonetheless, the night was about celebration and good vibes. Signature Belvedere cocktails like the Rust and Bone mojitos kept conversation lively and bodies loose until well after midnight.

We told the host of evening and The Cinema Society founder, Andrew Saffir that this was our favorite fête of his thus far. He was unfazed and just smiled politely. With that, we were off to Norwood to continue our foolish, but fabulous escapades.

Marion Cotillard (Getty Images)

There’s another week left in the New York Film Festival—but we’re headed out of town! Last-gasp tumbleweeds like us aren’t going to be anywhere near Lincoln Center today. After our morning coffee (iced—we’re already waxing nostalgic for summer) at Golden Pear, we’ll be heading to the Hamptons International Film Festival, where today’s screenings include early Oscar front-runner Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone (she plays an amputee who has a transformative epiphany while Katy Perry’s “Firework” plays—we kid you not), Helen Hunt’s comeback role as a sex worker employed by an iron lung-bound paralytic in The Sessions and closing night film Not Fade Away, directed by The Sopranos capo di tutti David Chase. Sure, they’ll be in theaters by December—but any excuse to head out to the Hamptons this close to Columbus Day is good enough for us.

Various locations, tickets and information can be found at hamptonsfilmfest.org.

Marion Cotillard.

Fans of The Artist’s Oscar-winning star Jean Dujardin will be delighted to see that he can do caddish modern-day egotist as well as he does caddish silent-film-era egotist. In the opening scene of Little White Lies, the camera tracks Mr. Dujardin, as Ludo, through a club as he looks for cocaine, brusquely propositions girls, dances like an ape to outdated pop music and finally hops on a motorcycle. The camera trails from a respectable distance—the perfect distance to capture Ludo’s motorcycle getting hit by an oncoming truck.

Little White Lies, with its first cut, becomes a radically different film than it might have been: the story of a Parisian rake becomes the tale of a group of friends banding together in the face of mortality. However, they’re not supporting the hospitalized Ludo; they’re going on a pre-planned vacation that was originally set to include an able-bodied Ludo. Though he can’t make it, a sense of foreboding manages to join them on the trip.

Among the vacationers are host Max (François Cluzet), who is obsessive about the quality of his summer home, destroying walls in the hunt for weasels, and Vincent (Benoît Magimel), who’s not gay—really! He just really, really loves Max. And has confessed to him. And the two have mutually decided to get past it. Meanwhile, Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) is so obsessed with the texts his ex is sending him that he drives a motorboat onto dry land, while Marie (Marion Cotillard), Ludo’s former girlfriend, feels regret over leaving Ludo’s bedside and a palpable boredom with her old routine of seducing that she can’t help but keep enacting.

If this sounds like a strange mélange of comedy and drama, well, it is, in precisely the manner of The Big Chill, the new classic that Little White Lies emulates down to its soundtrack of American pop and rock standards. The characters are purposefully distracting themselves from aging and death by discrediting the louche persona of the absent Ludo, whose vices have made him the first of the gang to suffer major misfortune. And yet their distractions lend the film its humor, as the viewers’ attentions, along with the characters’, drift far from his hospital room. The performances and, in turn, the on-screen relationships indicate the sort of chemistry only a group of longtime friends can share.

Yet the diversions of the group are indulged for far too long. Like a real vacation, Little White Lies goes from fun to exhausting around the halfway mark, as certain scenes drag on. Why are we spending movie minutes watching the gang frolic in the water to Creedence Clearwater Revival? And why, when the water sports get too vicious and lead to a breakdown that has Marie screaming at her friends, does the camera cut away just as she’s reaching high dudgeon? The only consequence is that Marie gets revenge—we suppose it’s “revenge”—by spraying one of her tormentors with whipped cream. It’s not that the film is too long, necessarily. It’s that director Guillaume Canet (Ms. Cotillard’s real-life partner) is too much a member of the group, seeking to convey minor incident at length while pushing major developments onto the back burner—often presented mute with a pop soundtrack overlay. The actors deserve better.

And when they’re given the space to really act, the cast works wonders. Ms. Cotillard, who has struggled in English-language films despite having been given opportunities to work with practically ever major filmmaker in America and Europe, feels here like a newcomer, or perhaps a comeback artist. The dull Christopher Nolan days are forgotten. Rather than playing some outsized femme fatale or object of desire, Ms. Cotillard nails the role of a woman afraid of her own future, and haunted by her past. Mr. Magimel does his part as well, in the story line in which Mr. Canet’s refusal to commit fully to high drama actually succeeds: we never get a full sense of how or why Vincent realized he was in love with his best male friend, and there’s no tiresome exposition. The film, in this case, seems like the best part of hanging out with longtime friends—information just bubbles from the ether, its origin forgotten.

By the time the film ends, the characters have all reckoned with their selfishness—and their apparent lightheartedness, and seemingly ironic fun, throughout seem almost savagely insouciant. The movie justifies, in some sense, its focus on the fun that Marie, Max and company have had when it finally indicts them for their cruelty to Ludo. While it takes some work and attentiveness to get to this point, the film’s evolution into a critique of 30-something self-absorption makes it a small-scale success.

LITTLE WHITE LIES

Running Time 154 minutes

Written and Directed by Guillaume Canet

Starring François Cluzet, Marion Cotillard and Benoît Magimel

Three out of four stars

Marion Cotillard with director Jacques Audiard and costar Matthias Schoenaerts on the red carpet. (Getty Images)

CANNES, FRANCE, MAY 19— Love is in the air here at Cannes, and so is at least one Oscar prospect. Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard is first out of the gate this year with a riveting performance as a double amputee in Jacques Audiard’s tough, achingly beautiful drama Rust and Bone. Crippled by a freak killer whale accident in the south of France (yeah, I just wrote that), Orca trainer Cotillard mends a shattered life by finding mutual redemption in the arms of a stoic single father and amateur kickboxer (played with muscular intensity by human bicep Matthias Schoenaerts). On paper—and in lesser hands—this Riviera romance would seem preposterous. But Mr. Audiard, an alchemist of character studies, conjures up his world with expert flair, and creates a stunning, deeply felt portrait of passion and compassion between a woman aching to connect and a man hiding behind his brute strength. And the broken but gingerly resolute Ms. Cotillard is commanding in a legless role considerably sexier than Gary Sinise’s bitter Vietnam vet from Forrest Gump, aided by breathtakingly seamless digital technology that makes Lieutenant Dan look like the victim of a bad eraser attack.

But the festival’s most naked performance, emotionally and physically, goes thus far to Margarethe Tiesel, the brave star of Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Love. Playing a zaftig Austrian sex tourist who goes to Kenya and finds herself overwhelmed by eager ebony action, Tiesel lets that sunburned, middle-aged cellulite all hang out while surrounded by lean African gigolos groping both her flesh and her pocketbook. An obvious critique of European colonialism that quickly becomes a fascinating study of mutual exploitation and self-destructive loneliness, Paradise: Love will haunt you like a bad wet dream. (And—due to a massive amount of unsexy sexual situations that just barely stop short of hardcore—U.S. audiences should cross their fingers that an adventurous distributor will pick it up).

While not quite as graphic, Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills delivers an equally charged portrait of a lovelorn women (Cristina Flutur) victimized by a religious and civic order that literally crucifies her for raging against the machine. Her only hope is to convince her childhood friend and onetime lesbian lover (Cosmina Stratan) to give up her monastic vows so they can be together again, and somehow escape the suffocating layers of institutional control that have defined their entire lives. Winner of the Palme d’Or five years ago for his communist-era abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, the Romanian auteur paints an ambitious portrait of systemic repression and distrust that implicates orphanages, foster homes, police stations, hospitals, and churches. This is Cannes as its best: ambitious themes writ large in experiences that are all too human.

At the movies, incomprehensible gibberish has become a way of life, but it usually takes time before it's clear that a movie really stinks. Inception, Christopher Nolan's latest assault on rational coherence, wastes no time. It cuts straight to the chase that leads to the junkpile without passing go, although before it drags its sorry butt to a merciful finale, you'll be desperately in need of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

Writer-director Nolan is an elegant Hollywood hack from London whose movies are a colossal waste of time, money and I.Q. points. "Elegant" because his work always has a crisp use of color, shading and shadows, and "hack" because he always takes an expensive germ of an idea, reduces it to a series of cheap gimmicks and shreds it through a Cuisinart until it looks and sounds like every other incoherent empty B-movie made by people who haven't got a clue about plot, character development or narrative trajectory. Like other Christopher Nolan head scratchers-the brainless Memento, the perilously inert Insomnia, the contrived illusionist thriller The Prestige, the idiotic Batman Begins and the mechanical, maniacally baffling and laughably overrated The Dark Knight-this latest deadly exercise in smart-aleck filmmaking without purpose from Mr. Nolan's scrambled eggs for brains makes no sense whatsoever. Is it clear that I have consistently hated his movies without exception, and I have yet to see one of them that makes one lick of sense. It's difficult to believe he didn't also write, direct and produce the unthinkable Synecdoche, New York. But as usual, like bottom feeder Charlie Kaufman, Mr. Nolan's reputation as an arrogant maverick draws a first-rate cast of players, none of whom have an inkling of what they're doing or what this movie is about in the first place, and all of whom have been seen to better advantage elsewhere. Especially Leonardo DiCaprio, who remains one of the screen's most gullible talents. After his recent debacle in Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's dopey insane-asylum bomb, one hoped for something more substantial from the easily misled Leo, not another deranged turkey like Inception. He should have stayed in bed.

I'd like to tell you just how bad Inception really is, but since it is barely even remotely lucid, no sane description is possible. Let's see. It opens with crashing waves on a beach. In the middle of a July heat wave, I wanted to jump in, but the thrill didn't last. Cut to the battered face of Leo, looking like a 14-year-old washed ashore facedown from a toy sailboat. He has come from another location conjured up in a dream, and is fond of muttering jabberwocky like "I am the most skilled extractor of dreams." In other words, he can close his eyes, enter somebody else's dreams with his pock-marked baby face and blow up China. The excellent Marion Cotillard, who has spiraled a long way down from her Oscar-winning role as Edith Piaf, growing a wart in the center of her forehead in the bargain, is the ghost of his ex-wife. Leo lives in a state of guilt for her death. He is also a thief, plowing his way through dark kitchens waving guns with silencers to relieve locked safes of their contents. Living in a continual dream state, he wants only to get home to his father (Michael Caine in a walk-on of fewer than a dozen lines) and two kids, but first he must, according to the production notes, "extract valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state when the mind is at its most vulnerable." To this end, Mr. Nolan works in something about the world of corporate espionage that turns Leo into an international fugitive. Now, Leo and his team of special "extractors" must achieve "inception"-meaning that instead of stealing dreams, they must plant some. If you're still awake, you're one step ahead of me. I dozed off ages ago.

Policed around the globe by anonymous forces, Leo is aided by a pretty college student (Ellen Page from Juno) with a kinetic knowledge of dream therapy who acts as a "brain architect" (whatever that is); a loyal assistant (a big waste of charismatic Joseph-Gordon Levitt) who floats through space without gravity; a two-fisted barfly (Tom Hardy from Guy Ritchie's abysmal RocknRolla); and assorted villains who sometimes double as saints (Tom Berenger, Cillian Murphy and Japan's Ken Watanabe from The Last Samurai). The script is gibberish: "We extracted every bit of information you had in there." "This isn't gonna work-wake him up!" "I'm not in your dream-you're in mine!" Every new dream brings to life a new picture postcard. One minute they're flying over Manhattan ("Our ride's on the roof!"). The next, they're heading for Buenos Aires by helicopter. In Mumbai, they join people sleeping on cots in a sort of opium den where the patients pay to wake up. "I'm getting off in Kyoto," says Leo, leaving the bullet train, and I wanted to shout, "Take me with you-and the movie, too!" In Christopher Nolan movies, I never know whether he's going to find an ending or not, but I never have any problem finding the exit.

Through the use of computer-generated effects, buildings fold like cardboard containers, cars drive upside down and the only way you can wake up within the dream is death. None of this prattling drivel adds up to one iota of cogent or convincing logic. You never know who anyone is, what their goals are, who they work for or what they're doing. Since there's nothing to act, the cast doesn't even bother. It's the easiest kind of movie to make, because all you have to do is strike poses and change expressions. It all culminates on skis in the middle of a blizzard, as Leo is pursued by machine-gun-equipped snowmobiles, but you don't even know who's driving them. I have no idea what the market is for this jabbering twaddle-probably people who fritter away their time playing video games, which I'm willing to bet pretty much describes Christopher Nolan. He labors over turning out arty horror films and sci-fi action thrillers with pretensions to alternate reality, but he's clueless about how to deal with reality, honest emotions or relevant issues.

Inception is the kind of pretentious perplexity in which one or two reels could be mischievously transposed, or even projected backward, and nobody would know the difference. It's pretty much what we've come to expect from summer movies in general and Christopher Nolan movies in particular, but I keep wondering: Can he do anything of more lasting value? He's got vision, but creating jigsaw puzzles nobody can figure out and using actors as puppets who say idiotic things, dwarfed by sets like sliding Tinker Toys, doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment to me.

rreed@observer.com

INCEPTION
Running time 148 minutes
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe

1 Eyeball out of 4

After all, the themes of years past--“Superheroes” in 2008 and “The Model as Muse” in 2009--resulted in numerous disasters, including lamé turbons (Kate Moss), strange lighting strike patterns (Lake Bell), thigh high boots (Madonna) and inappropriate cleavage and leggage (Blake Lively). Judging from this year’s looks, the famous ladies have wised up and classed it up. Truthfully, the disasters were far fewer than we’ve seen in the past.

Stay tuned for a full red carpet report from Chloe Malle, but for now enjoy a slideshow of our favorite looks from last night. 

Avatar

What's the story: It's so nice that James Cameron, the ostensible King of the World, decided to tackle something small for his follow-up to Titanic. Ha! If you haven't heard of Avatar by now, we can only assume you've just arrived to earth from Pandora. After years of hype and speculation, the 3-D spectacle hits theaters today and—surprise!—apparently delivers on all the hype and speculation. (And, really, when was the last time something like that happened?) The reviews, even from the most hardened critics have been glowing, filled with terms like "awesome" and "beautiful," and it's even drawn comparisons to The Jazz Singer because of its game-changing ability. Here at the Observer, our Sara Vilkomerson sums up Mr. Cameron's latest thusly: "Staggering outside after two hours and 40 minutes of this thing, I felt like I had to lie down and take a nap." Someone get us a pair of 3-D glasses and a blanket, stat!

Who should see it: Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan (he's blue like the Na'vi aliens!)

Nine

What's the story: Nope, this is not "The Tiger Woods Story." Nine, based on the Broadway musical adaptation of Fellini's 8 1/2, comes from Chicago director Rob Marshall and features a cavalcade of female stars ranging from Oscar contenders like the lovely Marion Cotillard and Penelope Cruz to old war horses like Sophia Loren and Dame Judi Dench and everyone in between (Kate Hudson, Fergie, Nicole Kidman). And! As the man these ladies spend the movie orbiting around, the milkshake drinking Daniel Day-Lewis. The reviews for Nine have been mixed, but if you think we're going to pass on the opportunity to see Daniel Plainview sing and dance, you clearly don't know us very well.

Who should see it: Tiger Woods.

Have You Heard About The Morgans?

What's the story: To answer the question posed by the title: unfortunately, yes. This latest bit of romantic comedy pabulum—the type of film we're sure New York Times film critic Manhola Dargis would have an expletive ready for—stars the nominally charming Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker as a warring Manhattan couple banished to Middle America by the Witness Protection Program. (Don't ask.) And, wouldn't you know it: they fight! And have culture clashes with the locals! And, uh, you might as well just rent The Ugly Truth or The Proposal instead.

Who should see it: Those unlucky enough to get shutout of Avatar showings.

Also opening this weekend: Jeff Bridges gets his Oscar-hype on in the country western drama Crazy Heart; and all hail Emily Blunt as the Queen in The Young Victoria.