I’m not a kid anymore, but somehow I think I’m still as excited about comic book mythology as ever. There’s something very primal about these characters that makes them so attractive, starting with their colourful appearance: Captain America’s red, white and blue costume and shield, Iron Man’s yellow and red armour, Hulk’s green skin, Thor’s red cape and silver hammer… Eye-popping stuff. It’s also interesting to note how each of these superheroes reflects a type of fantastic figure beloved by little boys (and fully grown geeks). There’s a soldier, a robot (sort of), a big monster, some kind of Viking warrior…

Going a bit deeper, one of the things Marvel Comics always got right is making their heroes relatable, however super they might be. So Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, is the weakling whose wishes to be strong are answered, as well as a straight-arrow, old-fashioned fellow who finds himself in a new world he’s not sure he fits in with. Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, is cocky egotism and megalomania personified, but with so much wit and charm on top that you can’t hold his flaws against him. The funny thing about the Hulk is that, when he’s not turning into a green ball of rage, he’s a really nice, easygoing science geek. As for Thor, he’s a bit more out there, Norse deity that he is, yet the issues he has to deal with, his troubled relationship with his brother Loki for instance, are relatively down to earth.

All of these things were well conveyed in the previous Marvel Studios movies – Iron Man 1 and 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger – but never quite as effectively as they are in The Avengers, which is, simply put, the best goddamn superhero flick ever made. "What about The Dark Knight?" you might ask, as my friend and colleague Joseph Belanger did. Well, that may have been a better film-film, but Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies are not actually that comic book-y – they’re more like cop/gangster dramas that happen to feature dudes in costumes.

On the other hand, The Avengers is a tremendous, stupendous, unapologetic superhero extravaganza, quite literally a comic book translated to the screen, using all the most expensive state-of-the-art toys available to a Hollywood blockbuster filmmaker. Most importantly, the guy at the helm, writer-director Joss Whedon, is a smart, resourceful artist who’s genuinely enthusiastic about this stuff. Tellingly, in addition to being the creator of cult TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and the co-writer of films such as Toy Story and the recent The Cabin in the Woods, he has authored a bunch of comic books, including a run on Astonishing X-Men.

Coming from TV, Whedon also has a way with juggling multiple characters and directing an ensemble of actors, and one of the most enjoyable things about The Avengers is the dynamic between de facto leader Captain America (Chris Evans), wiseass genius billionaire Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), fellow brilliant scientist Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and "the other guy" (Hulk), grandiloquent demigod Thor (Chris Hemsworth), plus badass S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).

If only for what might be the all-star cast of the year, the movie is a kick, and it’s worth noting that Whedon doesn’t just rush from one over-the-top set piece to the next – much of the first two acts is devoted to carefully putting all the pieces on the chessboard and developing the characters. But when you get to the film’s last stretch, starting with the awesome "suit up" montage, you’re in for an absolutely astonishing, brilliantly shot and cut, truly epic, special FX-heavy 3D action climax. As Loki (played with slimy arrogance by Tom Hiddleston, who makes a great villain) and his army of Chitauri aliens unleash unholy mayhem upon New York, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes finally stop fighting each other and figure out how to work as a team.

It may not look like it yet, what with the weather in Montreal these days, but the summer movie season has begun – with a Hulk smash!

In the latest issue of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott makes a case for television getting to be increasingly better and more relevant in pop culture than movies. "Movies will never die," he writes, "not as long as a director like Terrence Malick can make every green blade of grass sway like the first dance of creation, but TV is where the action is, the addictions forged, the dream machine operating on all cylinders."

It’s true that there’s been a drastic change in perception with regard to the so-called big and small screens. Used to be that TV was seen as fleeting entertainment that came and went; little bits of comedy or drama in between blocks of commercials, often dumbed down so that it wasn’t that big a deal if you skipped an episode. A show could be a hit, but sooner or later it left prime time to, at best, live on as audiovisual comfort food in the world of reruns.

Whereas today, cable channels like HBO air daring, critically acclaimed series, without commercials or network censorship. And thanks to DVD/Blu-ray box sets, digital video recorders and Internet streaming, it’s easy to discover or revisit shows on your own timetable. This leads to TV creators taking more chances and trusting the audience more, knowing that success doesn’t begin and end with being able to keep viewers from changing channels to see what else is on.

I remember a time not so long ago when TV was often considered to be merely a stepping stone before graduating to Hollywood, a place for actors to pay their dues before becoming movie stars. For instance, Bruce Willis, Will Smith and George Clooney got their breaks on Moonlighting, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and E.R. respectively, then they quickly moved on to the big screen and never looked back. Some weren’t so lucky and suffered instead from some kind of TV curse, scoring some film roles but never managing to stop being associated with their most famous TV roles first and foremost – e.g., Jason Alexander would always be best known as George Costanza from Seinfeld.

These days, there doesn’t seem to be any stigma surrounding TV. In fact, I’m sure many movie stars would gladly trade places with, say, Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm, 30 Rock‘s Tina Fey or Dexter‘s Michael C. Hall. And it’s more and more common for actors to swing back and forth between the big and small screens. My beloved Jason Segel, for one, alternates between shooting seasons of How I Met Your Mother (my favourite current sitcom) and making flicks like The Muppets, Jeff, Who Lives at Home and the upcoming The Five-Year Engagement. Even Oscar winners go for TV stints, like Kate Winslet in the Mildred Pierce miniseries or Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey (both recently won Emmy Awards for their trouble).

That being said, does that make TV better than movies? I’m still not sure… To me, each form has its pros and cons. Long-form television allows writers to tell a complex story over dozens of hours, all the while developing an ensemble of multidimensional characters. But this can also lead to a certain amount of filler here and there. For example, while Six Feet Under was an amazing series overall, most agree that there were some inferior episodes (some inferior seasons, even).

Also, movies generally tell a whole story, with a beginning, middle and end, which tends to be more satisfying than an almost-unending succession of open endings and cliff-hangers, not to mention unresolved intrigues, plot holes and continuity errors, in the worst cases. I’m told Lost was like that, but personally it’s an earlier J.J. Abrams series, Alias, that frustrated me that way, excessively piling on twists and fizzling out after a few seasons.

In any case, does one even have to choose? I’d rather just keep watching movies and TV, enjoying fine storytelling in whatever form it can be found.

As you know, James Cameron is re-releasing Titanic in 3D, 15 years after it broke records at the box office (those records would stick until 2009, when Cameron’s own Avatar beat them). I remember seeing the film on opening day and loving the hell out of it. Haters gonna hate, but there’s no denying that the picture is incredibly effective, both as a disaster movie and as a love story.

In general, 1997 was a pretty great year for cinema. The biggest flicks at the box office beside Titanic – Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the original Men in Black, Pierce Brosnan’s second turn as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies, Harrison Ford as a terrorist-ass-kicking president in Air Force One – weren’t all that great, but there was plenty more to enjoy.

At the Oscars, the big winners – again, besides Titanic – were Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt for their performances in As Good As It Gets, plus Good Will Hunting (Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor) and L.A. Confidential (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress).

I loved all those films, but my personal favourites from 1997 – that is, the ones I’ve revisited the most often – are Quentin Tarantino’s Elmore Leonard adaptation / Blaxploitation homage Jackie Brown, Paul Verhoeven’s underrated excessive sci-fi satire Starship Troopers, Paul Thomas Anderson’s porn industry epic Boogie Nights, John Woo’s action thriller Face/Off and Jay Roach’s 60s spy movie spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

Music wise, 1997 was the breakthrough year for pop acts like the Spice Girls, Hanson and Puff Daddy, among others, but to me it was all about Radiohead. I was already a fan thanks to 1995′s The Bends, which was and remains to this day one of my all-time favourite LPs, but I was nonetheless blown away by the brilliance of OK Computer, an instant classic that pretty much changed music history. And not to gloat or anything, but I got to see Radiohead at Métropolis the summer that album came out and it was pretty, pretty, pretty good.

How about TV? NBC’s Must See TV Thursdays were more or less at their peak at the time, with a lineup that included E.R., Seinfeld and Friends. Loved the latter two (still do), but I might be even fonder of one show that debuted in 1997 and that’s still on the air 15 years later: Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s crudely animated, gloriously irreverent South Park.

I’m not sure I know what I’m reaching for by listing all of the above… It may just be nostalgia for the pop culture of a year that quite ruled in that regard, didn’t it? Or is it just me? I guess seeing how the re-release of Titanic does in theatres this weekend will give us an idea. I know I’ll be among those checking in with Jack and Rose. And I might as well listen to OK Computer again and watch a few early episodes of South Park for good measure!

The above is a quote from Quentin Tarantino, who’s pretty much my favourite filmmaker for a variety of reasons, most having to do with how damn great movies like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds are. But the fact that he worked in a video store before making it in Hollywood also plays a small part in the affection I feel towards him.

You see, I myself spent five of the best years of my life in a video store, from 2002 to 2007, and everything Tarantino says about working that beat rings true. You do basically spend all day talking about movies and it does get really comfortable!

I’m happy doing the journalist thing, but sometimes I still miss that clubhouse feeling – you know, spending whole evenings talking film with various colleagues (a whole bunch of folks came and went over those five years), particularly when my shift was with Jean Carlo and Sébastien. I love those dudes, but they couldn’t be more different, and we often spent hours arguing about this or that. The dynamic between us three actually inspired a short film in which we more or less played our own roles, Droits d’auteur(e), which was directed by Isabelle Hayeur, one of our favourite customers.

‘Cause yes, in between rants about the misunderstood genius of M. Night Shyamalan or whatnot, we did take time to serve people, which, contrary to what Kevin Smith had video store employee Randal say in Clerks ("This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers!"), added to the fun more often than not. Especially when I was renting DVDs to Jessica Paré, heh.

I’m reminiscing about this stuff because it was announced last week that the very store where I worked, La Boîte Noire Laurier, would be closing down in three months, after 15 years of operation. (The location on Mont-Royal will remain open.)

My old boss, François Poitras, wrote in a statement that excessive tax increases, endless construction work and harmful borough policies were to blame. But, of course, it can’t help that there are so many other ways now to watch movies at home, notably on-demand TV and Internet streaming services, not to mention illegal downloading.

There’ll come a time, if it hasn’t already, when new generations won’t ever experience the pleasure of walking up to your friendly neighbourhood video store, browsing through the aisles and picking up a flick you’ve never heard of before just because the cover caught your attention, or maybe because the clerk recommended it.

As for the next Tarantino, I guess he’ll have to find another, less comfortable way to make a living before he gets his break…

La Boîte Noire
www.boitenoire.com

Tough Shit is sort of an autobiography crossed with a motivational essay, with tons of pop culture references and dick and fart jokes thrown in, natch. Whereas previous books authored by the director of Clerks, Chasing Amy and Red State have either been a collection of magazine columns (Silent Bob Speaks), a compilation of blog posts (My Boring Ass Life) or a transcription of podcasts (Shooting the Shit With Kevin Smith: The Best of SModcast), to my knowledge this is the first time he’s actually sat down to write a book.

As such, there’s some structure and progression throughout Tough Shit – inasmuch as a notorious stoner can stay focused over hundreds of pages! Then again, as fans of Smith’s movies, comics and podcasts know, it’s often in the tangents and random asides that you find his funniest, wittiest gems.

Kevin Smith’s life advice is simple enough, but nonetheless worthy. "In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least trying to accomplish all of your wildest dreams in life," he sums it up in the intro. A few chapters later, he adds: "Figure out what you love to do, then figure out how to get paid to do it."

Those things we’ve all heard about from various corners, but less common is the realization that "sometimes you can start out doing what you love, and then doing what you love starts to become work."

And so after making arguably his best film, 2006′s Clerks 2, a heartfelt follow-up to his ultra-indie debut, Smith found himself directing moderately entertaining but generic movies like Zack and Miri Make a Porno ("not me pushing at the edge of the envelope or imparting anything new; it’s really just me running out of shit to say in movies") and Cop Out (starring Bruce Willis, who "turned out to be the unhappiest, most bitter, and meanest emo-bitch I’ve ever met at any job I’ve held down" – ouch!).

As much as movies and comic books, Smith loves himself some hockey, and a big chunk of Tough Shit is devoted to Canada’s national pastime, be it throwaway references to the Montreal Forum and Rocket Richard or turning the sport into an existential metaphor ("We’re all hockey players at heart. We’re goal-oriented, but it’s never easy finding twine because we get hit hard when we rush the net…").

And then there’s Wayne Gretzky, who’s become a veritable role model for Smith, who adopted a few of the Greatest’s mottos, notably "Don’t go where the puck’s been; go where it’s gonna be" and "You miss a hundred percent of the shots you never take." In other words, it’s much better to think ahead than to follow behind, and you’re only certain to fail when you do nothing. Whereas if you at least give it a try, you have at least some chance of putting the biscuit in the basket…

In Smith’s case, this meant returning to ultra-indie filmmaking and making a lean and mean little action-horror flick called Red State, which he then took on the road and brought to his fans himself instead of selling it off to a studio and letting them market it. "When Trent Reznor and Radiohead unplugged from their labels and began dealing directly with their audience, they started a fire that would ultimately change the music business forever, putting control back into the hands of the artist. But what happens if you try it in film?"

Works out pretty well, it turns out (read our Kevin Smith cover story from last summer for more on the whole Red State adventure: www.hour.ca/2011/08/11/kevin-smith-silent-bob-no-more). But even though this reignited the filmmaker’s passion, he still plans to hang up his skates, so to speak, after directing one last feature, a hockey comedy entitled Hit Somebody.

As he explains in Tough Shit, it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of other things to keep himself busy with, from his podcast network to his speaking tours and, most recently, the AMC TV reality series Comic Book Men, which is shot at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, his New Jersey comic book store. Not to mention spending time with his wife, daughter and friends, and generally trying to be more like Ferris Bueller, another of his role models, from whom he’s borrowed this quote: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Tough Shit: Life Advice From a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good
By Kevin Smith
Gotham Books, 272 pages

George Stroumboulopoulos and Andrea Martin will host the 32nd annual Genie Awards, which will be broadcast tonight, March 8, at 8 p.m. on CBC, live from the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto.

Then Yves Pelletier and Sylvie Moreau will be at the reins of the 14th edition of the Jutra Awards, which will air on Sunday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. on Radio-Canada, live from Théâtre Saint-Denis.

Here’s who I feel will win, should win and should have been nominated at the Genies and les Jutra in the most high-profile categories:

Best Picture/Best Director

Will win (Genie and Jutra): Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar. Like Incendies last year, this micro_scope production is in a league of its own as both a critical and commercial hit, and it would be very surprising if, after making the Oscar shortlist in the Best Foreign Language Film category, it was passed over by award bodies in its own country and province.

Should win (Genie and Jutra): Monsieur Lazhar, because it also happens to be a wonderful movie that deserves every honour that comes its way, and Falardeau has proved to be truly one of the best filmmakers we have.

Should have been nominated (Genie and Jutra): Deborah Chow’s The High Cost of Living, a powerful, moving drama set in and around Montreal’s Chinatown. It’s now available on DVD if you need to catch up and see this great film. Patrick Demers’ Jaloux, Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie’s Laurentie and Stéphane Lafleur’s En terrains connus would also have been worthy contenders.

Best Actress

Will win (Genie): Rachel Weisz, The Whistleblower, or Michelle Williams, Take This Waltz. I don’t think Genie voters will be able to resist the temptation to award one of these Hollywood stars! Will they show up at the ceremony, though?

Will win (Jutra): Catherine De Léan, Nuit #1. The best part of a film which I otherwise actively disliked.

Should win (Genie and Jutra): French singer (and Johnny Depp’s girlfriend) Vanessa Paradis for her affecting performance in Jean Marc-Vallée’s Café de Flore.

Should have been nominated (Genie and Jutra): Isabelle Blais, The High Cost of Living. Undeniably one of the most gifted actors in Quebec cinema, this two-time Jutra winner outdoes herself in Chow’s film, delivering an absolutely heartbreaking performance.

Best Actor

Will win (Genie): Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method. Though if he does, it’ll be as much for his (vastly superior) turn in Shame than for his solid but not all that exceptional performance in David Cronenberg’s good but not great film.

Will win/Should win (Jutra): Gilbert Sicotte, Le Vendeur. Nothing less than a note-perfect performance.

Should win (Genie): Fellag, Monsieur Lazhar. He’s immensely engaging as the titular character in Falardeau’s film.

Should have been nominated (Genie and Jutra): Emmanuel Schwartz, Laurentie. I get the fact that the film as a whole may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but how can you not acknowledge that Schwartz is a goddamn revelation in it?

Best Supporting Actress

Will win/Should win (Genie and Jutra): Sophie Nélisse, Monsieur Lazhar. What a great little actress! The exceptionally natural and touching performances by her and the other child actors are, perhaps, the best thing about the film.

Should have been nominated (Genie and Jutra): Angèle Coutu, Marécages. As the protagonist’s lesbian grandmother, she’s as endearing as it gets.

Best Supporting Actor

Will win/Should win (Genie): Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method. As Sigmund Freud, Cronenberg’s current fave actor is all kinds of awesome.

Will win/Should win (Jutra): Émilien Néron, Monsieur Lazhar. What I said about Sophie Nélisse above applies to this little guy as well.

Should have been nominated (Genie and Jutra): Paul Doucet, Funkytown. As the flamboyant Jonathan Aaronson (a thinly veiled version of Douglas “Coco” Leopold), Doucet stole scenes left and right in this disco-era ensemble drama from writer Steve Galluccio and director Daniel Roby.

www.genieawards.ca

www.lesjutra.ca

So for this week’s column I’d like to do just that, in 10 selected categories:

Best Picture

Will win: The Artist. Since premiering at Cannes last May and being snapped up by the Weinstein Company, who expressed a desire to take it all the way to the Oscars right away, this love letter to the Hollywood of yesteryear has received countless accolades, including the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy. It’s clearly the frontrunner, which is no small feat considering that it’s: 1) a French production; 2) in black and white; 3) silent. Leave it to awards season wizard Harvey Weinstein, who has already orchestrated the successful Oscar campaigns of four Best Picture winners (The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, The King’s Speech). Will The Artist be his fifth?

Should win: The Tree of Life. Despite some minor flaws, this remains a breathtakingly powerful, impressive and moving work of art.

Should have been nominated: Many lazily dismissed it because it’s a Hollywood remake of a Swedish pulp thriller, but for my money, David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is every bit as masterful as his previous film, The Social Network.

Best Director

Will win: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist. He already bagged the Directors Guild Award and it seems there’s just no stopping this movie’s sweep.

Should win: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life. The impressionistic way he uses images to convey profound thoughts and feelings is truly awe-inspiring.

Should have been nominated: Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin. Whether you like it or not, she directed the hell out of that flick!

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

Will win: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. The legendary New York filmmaker has been nominated no less than 15 times in this category, which has got to be some kind of record, but he’s only won twice, for Annie Hall (1977) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). With the critically acclaimed Midnight in Paris being his highest grossing film ever, this may be the year Woody finally wins an Oscar again.

Should win: Asghar Farhadi, A Separation. I’ve rarely seen a film in which the story unfolds in such a natural yet brilliantly constructed way, and where all the characters are so admirably complex and nuanced.

Should have been nominated: Will Reiser, 50/50. A deeply personal screenplay which, instead of indulging in self-pity, manages to make us laugh (almost) as much as it makes us cry.

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Will win: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants. Though I moderately enjoyed the film, it should be disqualified just for the awfully contrived exposition delivered through thick slabs of voiceover narration during the first act. Show, don’t tell!

Should win: Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s quite a feat to have taken that complex, intricate 432-page John le Carré novel and made it flow on screen, without dumbing it down.

Should have been nominated: X-Men: First Class. This kind of movie never gets any respect, but I was wowed by the way Matthew Vaughn and his co-writers juggled decades of comic book continuity and imagined an alternate-history Cuban Missile Crisis in which our favourite mutants were directly involved.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Will win: Jean Dujardin in The Artist. The industry clearly loves this picture, and a lot of that has to do with Dujardin’s winning tragicomic performance as a washed-out silent film star.

Should win: Demián Bichir, A Better Life. Even though he’s not a charismatic Hollywood star like Clooney or Pitt, a funny and charming performer à la Dujardin or as respected a veteran character actor as Gary Oldman, Bichir, who you may remember as Fidel Castro in Soderbergh’s Che, would be a totally deserving winner. As an illegal immigrant worker who dreams of "a better life" for his teenage son, he conveys overwhelming dignity and humanity, often with little dialogue.

Should have been nominated: Michael Fassbender, Shame. Alternately confident and awkward, suave and repulsive, seemingly addicted to sex yet afraid of intimacy, his character is one of the more fascinating the movies have given us in 2011. How the hell did the Academy pass him over?

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Will win: Viola Davis, The Help. For more than a decade, she has shined in a series of bit parts, and now she’s finally scored a high-profile role in the only bona fide popular hit in the Oscar race this year. Even Meryl Streep agrees that it’s Viola’s year!

Should win: Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. As Lisbeth Salander, the young starlet is endlessly cool, fascinating, badass, moving, unpredictable, funny, disturbing… I really hope Mara will get to play Lisbeth again in the two other parts of the Millennium trilogy.

Should have been nominated: Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia. Say what you will about Lars von Trier and his films, he always gets the best out of his actresses. See also: Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, Björk in Dancer in the Dark, Nicole Kidman in Dogville, Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist, etc.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Will win: Christopher Plummer, Beginners. As a 75-year-old gay man who finally comes out of the closet, the former Montrealer is as endearing as it gets. If he wins the Oscar, it would be his first in a career that stretches over more than half a century, unbelievably enough.

Should win: Nick Nolte, Warrior. This surprisingly affecting MMA drama was sadly underseen while it was in theatres. Had it been the hit it deserved to be, Nolte, who’s also still Oscar-less, might have deservedly been awarded for this heartbreaking performance.

Should have been nominated: Albert Brooks, Drive. Throughout his career, Brooks has written, directed and starred in many great comedies. With this villainous role, though, he showed a scary-intense side we’d never really seen before.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Will win: Octavia Spencer, The Help. While hardly as respected and deserving as Viola Davis, Spencer did contribute to making The Help such a crowd-pleaser.

Should win: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids. Because she’s hilarious in the flick, sure, but also because she includes a lot of pathos and little grace notes in her performance. In the end, you just want to hug the big silly girl…

Should have been nominated: Ellen Page, Super. The Juno star has made quirkiness into an art form, but here she’s more hilariously goofy and weird than ever.

Best Foreign Language Film

Will win: Monsieur Lazhar (Canada). This may just be wish fulfillment, but I do think that Philippe Falardeau’s wonderful film has a shot.

Should win: A Separation (Iran). Then again, how can you deny the genius of Asghar Farhadi’s film, which already won the Golden Bear, the Golden Globe and many other awards?

Should have been nominated: I didn’t see enough of the eligible films to tell you.

Best Short Film (Animated)

Haven’t seen most of the films in the running, so I have no idea, but I just wanted to congratulate the National Film Board of Canada once again for scoring two nods in this category, for Dimanche (Sunday) by Patrick Doyon and Wild Life by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby – the NFB’s 71st and 72nd Oscar nominations overall. Not too shabby!

Always thought that was a funny line, with some truth to it. But it doesn’t change how much I love The Doors and the six trippy LPs they released between their formation in 1965 and Morrison’s untimely death on July 3, 1971, at the fateful age of 27 (like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when they died the previous fall).

Originally launched less than three months before their frontman passed away, L.A. Woman is being reissued this week in a new 40th anniversary edition from Rhino. In addition to the original album, it includes a second disc featuring alternate versions of eight of the songs, complete with studio chatter, plus their cover of blues standard Rock Me and, most interestingly, a recently discovered, never-before-heard track entitled She Smells So Nice. It’s no lost classic or anything, but it’s got a good groove.

Also newly in stores, courtesy of the good folks at Eagle Rock Entertainment, is Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Story of L.A. Woman, an hour-long documentary produced and directed by Martin R. Smith. Mixing talking-head segments with archival footage, including live performances from The Doors back in the day, the film succinctly establishes the context the band evolved in before moving on to the actual creation of L.A. Woman in late 1970, early 1971.

Nearly every song from the album gets its own chapter, where it’s discussed by various journalists (Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres, radio DJ Jim Ladd, etc.) and collaborators (former manager Bruce Botnick, Elektra Records founder Bill Siddons, etc.), as well as the three surviving members of The Doors – Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore – who not only talk about the songs, but often grab their instruments to play some of their classic keyboard lines, guitar riffs and drum fills.

Funky opening track The Changeling, a "James Brown tribute," is described as a warning from Morrison. "See me change/ Yeah, I’m leaving’ town/ On a midnight train," sings the Lizard King, probably aware already that he would move to Paris once the album was completed, ostensibly to devote himself to being a writer.

As the documentary explains, though, another factor might have been The Doors’ disastrous show in Miami on March 1, 1969, during which a heavily inebriated Morrison ranted at the audience ("You’re all a bunch of fuckin’ idiots! You’re all a bunch of slaves!") and allegedly exposed himself, resulting in him being busted for lewd and lascivious behaviour, indecent exposure, open profanity and drunkenness. At the time of his departure for Paris, his case was still in court and he was facing a prison sentence… Which makes his cry of "Come on, set me free!" in Been Down So Long feel all the more heartfelt.

Also touched upon are the band’s cover of John Lee Hooker’s Crawling King Snake; hit single Love Her Madly, one of the tracks featuring Jerry Scheff, Elvis Presley’s bassist at the time; The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat), which was initially a poem Morrison recited during concerts; Hyacinth House, which someone says is "the loneliest song Jim ever wrote"; L.A. Woman, with its "rock and roll film noir" vibe and the famous "Mr. Mojo Risin" line, an anagram for Jim Morrison and a reference to a blues term for sexuality, hence the orgasmic climax of the song!

And then there’s Riders on the Storm, which closes this final album from The Doors on a jazzy, eerie note. "Girl you gotta love your man/ Take him by the hand/ Make him understand/ The world on you depends/ Our life will never end…"

Within six months of landing in Paris and hopefully getting "a clean slate," Jim Morrison’s life did end… But as his bandmates point out in the last minutes of Mr. Mojo Risin’, his artistic legacy remains. Clearly, 40-some years later, the legend of Jim Morrison is still very much alive. Regardless of whether you think he was a drunken buffoon or a poet.

- Sunset Rubdown, Dragon’s Lair

Okay, so by now, unless neither you nor anyone in your entourage is a gamer, you’ve probably heard about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the consensus choice for the Best Video Game of 2011. Since its release last November, some 10 million units of the Bethesda Softworks game have been shipped, which adds up to about $650-million in retail sales. I myself bought a copy of the PS3 version over the holidays, and it’s more or less taken over all of my free time!

Why? It’s visually stunning for one, plus there’s tons of fun to be had using swords, magic spells and whatnot to kill countless evil characters and bloodthirsty creatures. But what really keeps me coming back to it every other day is the superb storytelling. I’ve only completed the main quest so far, and it has proved more involving and thought-provoking than most movies I’ve seen in the past year. Speaking of which, the makers of the game actually cast such renowned film actors as Academy Award nominees Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow and Joan Allen to voice some of the characters. Not too shabby, eh?

Dealing with a civil war between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloak rebellion, dragon attacks, an ancient prophecy, the last surviving members of the mysterious Blades Order, a "time wound" and the Nordic afterlife, among other things, Skyrim also allows the player to roam freely through its incredibly vast fantasy world, walking from place to place, meeting people, getting into adventures (like Caine in Kung Fu, or Jules Winnfield post-Pulp Fiction, basically!).

I guess you have to be into this kind of stuff for it to connect with you as intensely as it did for me, who nearly wore out the golden cartridge of the original 8-bit Nintendo The Legend of Zelda as a kid, and who couldn’t be a bigger fan of movies like Conan the Barbarian (the original Schwarzenegger flick, obviously), The Lord of the Rings and the underrated Beowulf.

All I know is that I’ve spent way too many hours playing Skyrim lately, and I’m afraid I’ll keep doing so for quite a while (unless I run into one of those lagging/crashing issues which reportedly affect the PS3 version once your save files become too big). Game on!

It occurred to me after the fact that, in one way or another, all these movies might not exist if it wasn’t for Judd Apatow. Now, while the writer-director of The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Funny People actually produced Anchorman and Bridesmaids, he didn’t have anything to with the making of the other two…

Then again, Apatow contributed to transforming Paul Rudd from a wholesome romantic lead (e.g., Clueless) to a hilarious comic actor by having him play supporting parts in the aforementioned Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, as well as in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Year One and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Speaking of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that film was written by and starred Jason Segel, whom Apatow had previously cast in Knocked Up and, way back when, in the short-lived but memorable 1999-2000 high school TV series Freaks and Geeks, alongside fellow future comedy stars James Franco and Seth Rogen. While we’re playing connect the dots, let’s mention that before directing Bad Teacher (and Walk Hard), Jake Kasdan helmed five episodes of Freaks and Geeks, a show that was created by… Bridesmaids director Paul Feig. Kasdan and Feig also both worked on another Apatow TV production, Undeclared (2001-2002), which starred Montreal’s own Jay Baruchel, plus Rogen and Segel, among others.

So there you have it: The Hollywood comedy scene wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for Judd Apatow and all the talented people he’s brought together. Like I said, even when he’s not directly involved, for instance in the wonderful Jason Segel-Paul Rudd bromantic comedy I Love You, Man, you can still feel his influence somehow.

This year should be a big one for Apatow. In addition to being the highest grossing movie he’s ever been associated with, Bridesmaids has made the American Film Institute’s Top 10 Movies of the Year list, earned two Golden Globe nominations (Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy and Best Actress-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Kristen Wiig), been shortlisted by the Producers Guild of America Awards, the Writers Guild Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and is bound to get a few Oscar nods as well, defying the Academy’s usual bias against comedies.

Meanwhile, Apatow is putting the finishing touches to his fourth feature as a writer-director, This Is Forty. Due in theatres on December 21, it’s a spin-off from Knocked Up in which Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprise the roles of Pete and Debbie; the supporting cast includes Bridesmaids scene-stealer Melissa McCarthy, Megan Fox, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow and, who else, Jason Segel.

Earlier this year, we’ll also be able to see two other Apatow productions: The Five-Year Engagement, which reunites Segel with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller (release date: April 27), and Wanderlust, with Rudd shacking up again with The Object of My Affection co-star Jennifer Aniston (February 24).

It’s Judd Apatow’s world; we’re just laughing in it.