It looks so fucking charming which already puts it miles ahead of his last two projects. Add in (or rather subtract) the lack of one former boy band member and I'm all for it. I also really like that the humour seems to be more slapsticky awkwardness than just plain meanness or cruelty.

One is the best Doctor.

Money issues? Has he been doing coke again?

I didn't know that. I don't follow the British theater scene so only on his more recent (past decade) work I've heard about.

Yes, really.

He's also great in the musical version of My Sister Eileen in a role originated by the director of the film.

To my knowledge they were fairly acclaimed particularly his one man shows (you can get a sense from Secret Honor what that would be like). That said his wasn't a signature to both worlds in the way Fosse or Bergman were.

But they weren't directing theater that late in the game.

That's absolutely fair to Ross who strikes me more as a conductor for other authors rather than being an author himself. That said I prefer Potter's original series.

@LurkyMcLurkerson:disqus Fact is the best source of satire.

Cinematography has always been a backwards thread for the academy which never has really appreciated experimentalism (that JWH was nominated let alone won is a miracle) and has been easily bought. For the other two categories I'm fine with it as a sort of Cannes-esque compromise since both films are so great.

Danny Boyle and Sam Mendes have gotten accolades for their stage direction recently.

But which version are we counting?

I'm surprised and yet not that you'd not be huge on musicals. There are a lot of great ones out there even if the number of even good ones post this can be counted on one hand.

You should. It, and Fosse, is one of the all time greats.

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate wouldn't it be fair to say somebody in the Man Push Cart situation getting their kid into college would be different from somebody who can afford it easily? They're different (perfectly valid) takes on the same problem. That said if Dowd really wanted to be interesting on…

Haven't seen The Bling Ring, but I was mostly talking about Holofcener. I like most of Coppola. As to ElDan, I'm speculating based on early reports and the tone of the trailer which reminds me of The Informant!.

People, especially critics, do watch films about/ from third world countries/ poor people problems. I don't know about Dowd's stance on any of those but several have been quite successful.

I'm not a fan of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but considering the film is about a prostitute and other seedy things it's probably not analogous to Holofcener (though at the same time I don't think Allen is either as he usually comes at the upper class as a nervous outsider; probably the best analogy to her is people like…

I think there's quite a bit of difference between satire of wall street corruption and rich white people complaining about how bad they've got it in platitudes.