Oscars: 81st Annual Academy Awards

Usually by this time I would have posted a couple of blog entries regarding the Oscars. At the very least I would have posted a list of the nominees and then a followup post with my predictions, but I’m running kind of late this year, and I’ve seen very few of the actual big contenders, although I have seen a few.

I’m not going to repost the list of nominees, but if you want to see them go here.

So, in quick form here are a few of my thoughts:

Actor in a Leading Role:
I think Mickey Rourke has the momentum. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the film. In fact, I’ve only seen one of the films represented in this category. The dark horse that it might be fun to see win is Richard Jenkins. One of those guys you’ve seen a million times, but never knew by name. I’ve heard it’s a terrific performance.

Actor in a Supporting Role:
Heath Ledger has a deserved nod, and I’m sure the sympathy vote. There’s a good chance he’ll win. The fun pick would by Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder.

Actress in a Leading Role:
Kate Winslet is my girl and she seems to be the one to beat. I’ve been a fan for a long time and she may finally pull it off. If someone other than Winslet is to win I would pick Anne Hathaway. Rachel Getting Married was a superb film and her performance was on the money.

Actress in a Supporting Role:
This is a tough category. I think both Amy Adams and Marisa Tomei have some momentum, but I might like to see Penélope Cruz go home with the Oscar. I don’t have a clear picture of this category however.

Animated Feature Film:
I expect Wall-E has this one locked up.

Cinematography:
I’m not sure I can call this. This might be a category where something like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button might get some recognition. I wasn’t a big fan of the film, but it did have some great technical work.

Directing:
Here is where Slumdog Millionaire starts to assert its popularity. I loved this film.

Best Picture:
Also goes to Slumdog Millionaire.

Well, those are the only categories I’ve got any comment at all for. We’ll see how things actually play out tonight. Don’t miss the show.

Oscar chat and fun online

On Sunday night during the Oscar broadcast I’m thinking I might post some comments and opinions during the show. I won’t post them directly here on the blog. Instead I think I’ll post over on Pownce. It seems like a platform a little more suited to short and more frequent bursts of information.

If you want to follow along you can click the link over to the right under My Networks for Pownce to see my public profile there. The comments will be public so you can follow along without joining. If you want to reply I’m pretty sure you will need a Pownce account of your own. Feel free to join and add me as a friend if you like. It’s just another social networking site. I have not been using it very much, but it seems like it might be well suited for this purpose. You don’t need an invite to join, but if you want one you can send me an email or add a comment to this message and I’ll send you one.

You can also follow along here at the blog. I have setup Basic_B to show my public Pownce feed in the sidebar to the right, but I think there will be some lag time. I don’t believe that feed refreshes every time you refresh the page, so you’ll get better and quicker updates if you follow along on the Pownce page directly. Also, I think it only shows about 5 comments at a time. You’ll see more on Pownce.

Another thing to keep in mind is I may not be in real time. I’ve got a tivo so I probably won’t start watching right on time, but I suspect I won’t be far behind. It reaches a certain point and I’ll likely start watching even if it does mean I’ve got to sit through some of the commercials.

And if nobody follows along, and nobody replies, that’s okay too. I’m going to do it anyway, so about halfway through the broadcast if I start responding to imaginary people, just enjoy reading it later on.

Hope to see you online Sunday night.

Oscar predictions

The Academy Awards are this Sunday so I guess it is time I contribute my two cents to the glut of predictions regarding the likely outcomes. Here we go—

Best Actor: I’ve now seen three of these performances. I still haven’t seen Michael Clayton or In the Valley of Elah. That said I think the consensus is that Daniel Day-Lewis is a heavy favorite for his performance in There Will Be Blood. Personally, I would like to see Viggo Mortensen take the award. I think his performance is the more careful and nuanced one. However, I don’t have a big issue over this and won’t feel that the Academy has gone horribly wrong if Day-Lewis does win. I don’t think any of the others are really all that likely, although perhaps Clooney might be a serious dark horse. His movie has had some long legs, and maybe there’s more happening there than I’m aware of.

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem has to be the favorite in this category, and he’s my favorite too. His bad guy performance is absolutely unique and riveting.

Best Actress: This may be the toughest category to have an opinion on. I’ve seen two of the nominated performances in this category: Ellen Page in Juno, and Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose. Although I haven’t seen Cate Blanchett’s performance, I feel like I’ve got some idea what it’s about having seen the first Elizabeth movie. I think all the buzz is in favor of Julie Christie for Away From Her, and I expect she will win, but I wonder if Ellen Page couldn’t be a huge surprise upset. The film and the performance are very unique, and I would enjoy it a great deal if she were to win.

Best Supporting Actress: In this category I’ve also only seen two of the performances. This is the other Cate Blanchett performance in the film I’m not There, and this is the one I think it likely she will win an award for. The only other film I’ve seen here is Atonement and the performance by the young Saoirse Ronan. She gave a good performance, but I don’t think it’s in the same league as Blanchett as Bob Dylan, which was perhaps the most recognizable Bob Dylan in a film where many other actors played him as well.

Screenplay – adapted and original: I think Diablo Cody for Juno for Best Original Screenplay is about as close to a lock as you are likely to find. For adapted screenplay it is tougher, but I’m going to put my money on the Coen brothers for No Country for Old Men.

The next three categories I find it hard to discuss individually – Cinematography, Director, and Best Picture. These three things are so intertwined that you almost have to discuss them together, and often where one of these is won, so will be others for the same film. But it doesn’t always work that way. There are occasions where I feel that maybe the academy gives one film Best Picture and a different director Best Director in an attempt to spread the good will, but generally I would expect those two awards to go essentially hand in hand. I’ve seen four out of the five nominess in each of these categories.

For Cinematographer my bet is for Roger Deakins to win. For one thing he’s up for two different films, but if he wins it will be for No Country for Old Men. The other movies are all worthy contenders, but I think Deakins has the cachet and the extra odds to pull this one out.

For Director I think Paul Thomas Anderson will win for There Will be Blood. I feel like the awards community has been waiting for this director to do something of this caliber. They just want to reward him for finally doing what everyone thought he was capable of.

And finally, for Best Picture: No Country for Old Men. I don’t think Juno really has a chance here, unlike in Screenplay and Actress. And Atonement, while being a lovely movie, doesn’t present itself as having the grit that I think is being favored this year. It just isn’t a year for a period film of that type to win. And The academy will be satisfied in having given Paul Thomas Anderson his award for Blood. No, I think the Coen brothers are going to walk home with the big award for bringing to life a revelation of a film about a killer, a cop, and a hunted man.

I hope you enjoyed some of these films this year, because it turned out to be a pretty good year. Let me know what you think about my picks and opinions, and enjoy the Oscars on Sunday night.

There Will be Blood

There Will be Blood is an epic film that traces approximately thirty years in the life of a megalomaniacal oil tycoon from the turn of the century. Daniel Plainview is a hard, brutal man who lives with a directness of purpose most of us can only imagine. But the cost for his singlemindedness is high.

Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a slice of epic Americana with There Will be Blood. The film’s scope feels grand, with sprawling shots of desert oil fields, and immense panoramas, and a span of decades. And yet the overall subject matter of the film isn’t about the oil industry itself, but about one individual—Daniel Plainview. There are other characters that play roles in his life: his son H. W., preacher Eli, and Daniel’s brother, but they are just that, characters in his life.

It will be hard for this film to escape comparisons to Citizen Kane; another film that tracked the life and tragedy of a towering individual figure. But where the character of Kane retained some elements of pathos, Plainview abandons nearly all human likeability and descends into an alcohol feuled megalomania of extraordinary proportions.

The film itself is very compelling viewing, and there are a number of good performances. Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is, of course, the one garnering the most attention, and deservedly so. There is a part of me that does wonder if his performance isn’t a bit over embellished, but this character is so huge that it becomes hard to divorce the character from the performance, and perhaps that’s all that needs saying. Paul Dano, as preacher Eli, also gives a very credible and memorable performance.

At the end of it all, I think the one big question that remains for me is, what does it all mean? The movie seems to be about so many things at once: wealth, religion, oil, desire, family, ego. But I don’t think I really know what it was all about, other than a man destroying himself and along the way nearly everyone he comes in contact with.

I recommend it, but be prepared to discuss with friends and fellow moviegoers afterwards. That said, isn’t that sometimes the best kind of movie?

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I was aware of this movie. I had heard the title, I had even heard a little regarding what the movie was about, but I hadn’t really paid that much attention. Then the awards nominations came out (see my post from January 22). I saw the film yesterday. It was stunning.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a film based on the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby an editor of Elle magazine who had a stroke and was completely paralyzed.

The amazing accomplishment of this film, and the reason why Julian Schnabel’s nomination for best director is absolutely deserved, is that the viewer experiences much of the story from the viewpoint of the main character. We are literally behind Jean-Do Bauby’s eye for much of the film, and we see the world as he sees it—confined to a bed or a chair, unable to turn even his head very far, his field of vision limited to the extent that he can move his one good eye.

Eventually the film expands beyond this limited viewpoint and we see sequences from Bauby’s past as well as sequences from his fantasies. By the time this happens we’ve become so accustomed to his perspective that this transformation is a revelation.

It’s hard for me to overstate just how affecting a film this was. The performances were all good. The story is amazing. The cinematography is powerful and is a character itself in the movie. But that should be no wonder given that the cinematographer is Janusz Kaminski.

This movie is an immersion into the life of a remarkable man at a tragic moment, and is the work of a powerful artist expressing himself. Despite the deep elements of tragedy at work in this film, it is still a movie that inspires a little touch of hope in me. It should be seen.