ALL IS LOST

Continuing to earn cool points following their November booking of Enough Said - a marvelous movie that finally landed in our area several months after its initial national release - schedulers for Moline's Nova 6 Cinemas have done it again with the booking of All Is Lost, another critically acclaimed title that managed to bypass the Quad Cities' first-run cineplexes.

January 17, 10:05 a.m.-ish: If it's January, it must be time for our annual demonic-possession thriller in the guise of a "documentary," and yet it still seems strange to be watching Devil's Due. The devil may be, but a mere two weeks after the release of the latest Paranormal Activity, were we audiences really due for another of these things?

HER

Her, writer/director Spike Jonze's tale of a man who falls in love with his computerized operating system, and "she" with him, casts a weirdly hypnotic spell. Although billed as comedy (as least by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), you don't really laugh much, and when you do, the laughter generally sticks in an odd, uncomfortable place in your throat; marveling at the unbridled sincerity of the thing, your chuckles are laced with a slight hint of mockery. Yet damned if Jonze, star Joaquin Phoenix, and the film's superb supporting cast and designers don't make this improbable project pay off in spades. Thoughtful, haunting, and perceptive, and at all times wickedly clever, Her is like a sci-fi Lost in Translation with a Scarlett Johansson you never get to see.

Heading toward January 16's announcement of this year's Academy Award nominees, I think it's safe to say that we know a few things.

We know, for instance, that it'll be a big day for 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, and most likely for American Hustle. We know the Best Supporting Actor category (which, last year, was populated entirely with previous Oscar winners) will be top-heavy with relatively new talent, and the Best Actress category (which, last year, was top-heavy with relatively new talent) will be mostly, perhaps entirely, populated with previous Oscar winners. We know members of the Academy's music branch will throw some loopy, out-of-left-field choice into the Best Original Song lineup, because they always do.

And we know, come January 16, that some incredibly worthy titles are going to get royally screwed.