Baftas Crazy In Love With ‘Atonement’

· Like Mr. Tumnus having his way with Keira Knightly in a darkened family library, the BAFTAs make sweet, desperate love to Atonement, lavishing 14 nominations on the film; runners-up No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood (nine nods each), like adolescents wandering in on the lovers in mid-thrust, stare with a mix of jealousy and immature incomprehension at the act of carnality unfolding in front of them. (We now end this incredibly labored run of Atonement analogies.) [Variety]
· Breakout Juno star Ellen Page entrusts her red-hot career to first-time director Drew Barrymore, with Page taking a role as a roller-derby-playing “alterna-teen” (no need to stretch too far coming off a hit) in Whip It!
[Variety]

· The American Society of Cinematographers will honor Annette Bening for never making her DPs sully their craft by insisting that all lenses trained upon her be slathered in the youth-conferring lubricants demanded by her more vain peers. [THR]
· Rent will close on June 1st after ten wildly popular, overrated years on Broadway. [THR]
· Forest Whitaker enters the “playing coaches in uplifting sports dramas” phase of his Oscar-winning career, as he’s in negotiations to join the cast of Patriots as the man who led a high school basketball team to the Louisiana state championship following Hurricane Katrina. [Variety]