Babel (R, Great Escape Theatre) - In a year that saw a spectacularly inclusive roster of nominees, the seven citations for Alejandro González Iñárritu's globe-trotting drama - Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi), Original Screenplay (Guillermo Arriaga), Editing, and Original Score - seemed not only inevitable, but just. But where is Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography nod?

Blood Diamond (R, not in local release) - Never underestimate the Academy's susceptibility to liberal guilt. Leonardo DiCaprio received a Best Actor nod for his South African patois; Djimon Hounsou received a Supporting Actor nomination for screaming really loudly; and the film's Sound, Sound Effects, and Editing were cited because, I dunno, Blood Diamond struck voters as a fun movie about genocide, or something.

STOMP THE YARD

Before seeing Stomp the Yard, in which a young hip-hop dancer from Los Angeles adjusts to fraternity life at Atlanta's Truth University, I didn't know much about step dancing. But after watching director Sylvain White's inspirational drama, I discovered that there are apparently two distinct types - there's great step dancing and then there's really great step dancing. Though the movie is ostensibly a coming-of-age story wherein our hero, DJ (Columbus Short), finds respect and love during his first year of school, it's really just 8 Mile or Bring It On for the dance world, as warring frats compete to see whose moves out-step whose. (Step dancing - frequently practiced at African-American universities - is a combination of marching and precise choreography, generally accompanied by chants and, in this movie's case, taunts.) Yet it's pretty easy to guess which groups of dancers will be considered the greatest in Stomp the Yard - it's whichever dancers go next.

Most of my friends have all but given up on going to the movies, and considering the quality of most movies nowadays, it's pretty hard to blame them. But what's alarming is that the people I talk to don't seem to be boycotting the cineplex in protest of what they're showing; they're protesting the audiences. And in that case, it's really hard to blame them.

Barnyard (PG) - As it had been at least six or seven hours since I had last seen a computer-animated family movie at the cineplex, I was delighted to catch a screening of Barnyard. Unfortunately, it only took about six or seven hours to all but completely forget the experience; the film is your standard pap about Believing in Yourself and Sticking by Your Friends and such, and it may hopelessly confuse the young kids it's geared towards - I'm sorry, but male cows? With udders? Yet, for what it is, it's agreeable enough and boasts a surprisingly bouncy soundtrack, and the movie displays a welcome nasty streak - when Danny Glover's sage, kindly mule kicked that elderly farmer in the head, knocking him unconscious, I laughed pretty hard. When he did it twice more, I laughed twice as hard.