Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

Go see Capote now. It's shocking that this is a debut feature film with a first-time screenwriter - it's really that good. This isn't a traditional biopic but concerns one particular period in the great Truman Capote's life, the time when he was working on his landmark "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood. Clifton Collins, Jr. is sensational as Perry Smith, one of the two young murderers, and as Capote, well, Philip Seymour Hoffman might want to start working on an Oscar speech. He doesn't just have Capote's hand gestures and vocal tics down, it's as if he let Capote overtake his being. This is a performance on par with Jamie Foxx's in Ray; it's Hoffman's Oscar to lose at this point. And Capote is the best film I've seen yet this year.