A SMALL ARMY OF LITTLE GOLDEN MEN
The annual Hollywood invasion of little golden men has been announced once more. The eightieth such invasion is slated to hit the Kodak Theatre February 24th. Thankfully, the academy didn’t have to roll a steel-belted red carpet over the Writers Guild to make the ceremony happen . . . a year without the biggest televised awards ceremony in the world just might cause the earth to fall off its axis . . . and so it goes with what the late George C. Scott once referred to as, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." The nominees for this year have been announced. There have been no surprises. Here’s a brief listing:BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Diablo Cody: JUNO, Nancy Oliver: LARS AND THE REAL GIRL Tony Gilroy: MICHAEL CLAYTON, Brad Bird: RATATOUILLE, Tamara Jenkins: THE SAVAGES
The Academy seems to be reaching a bit here . . . Ratatouille? And Juno looks cute, but it’s hardly an original screenplay. The only script listed here that has even a vague spark of originality is Nancy Oliver’s, but making a somewhat ompelling drama out of the 1987 Andrew McCarthy/ Kim Cattrall comedy Mannequin still feels vaguely derivative.
WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: Quite a lot, actually. But, just to make a point about how distribution effects the process I’d say that Anamorph, which made the festival circuit this past year without finding a commercial release company, was probably one of the better scripts to come out of the fringe this year. The script was the foundation for a very vivid look into the nature of psychological turbulence. It may not have been brilliant, but it was one of many films far more intelligent than anything that got nominated in this category.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Chris Hampton: ATONEMENT, Sarah Polley AWAY FROM HER, Ronald Harwood THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, The Coens NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Paul Thomas Anderson THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Here is a perfect example of how limited the memory of the Academy seems to be. These are all films that came out very recently. Most of them are out in theaters right now.
WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: Just about anything good that came out in the category in the first half of the year. My favorite adapted film this year was SLEUTH. Harold Pinter’s work there was amazing. Again—it was a small release, so it was completely ignored here.
ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS:
THE GOLDEN COMPASS,
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END,
TRANSFORMERS
For this category, the Academy seems to thro darts at a listing of the top grossing films every year. The visual effects in all of these were pretty impressive, but The Golden Compass was particularly so due to the nature of the story.
WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: There’s a scene in Spider-Man 3 featuring Thomas Haden Church being completely reconstituted out of constituent grains of sand. That was kind of a big deal for me. It showed a kind of dramatic use of special effects rarely seen that was one hell of an advancement in the realm of computer animation.
WHY THE ACADEMY IS REALLY STUPID: All three of the films here (and nearly every other nomination in this category fort the past decade and half or so) features advancements in CGI visual effects. In 1982, when TRON (the first pioneering computer animated film came out,) the Academy did not nominate it for special effects because they felt that TRON “cheated” by using a computer. Years later, they decided that CGI effects were okay and gave awards in the category to CGI-laden films like The Abyss and Jurassic Park. In 1982, it was a little too early for the Academy to understand what was going on in Tron. And this is the group of people designated to recognize cutting edge advances in cinema?
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
RATATOUILLE
3:10 TO YUMA
TRANSFORMERS
Only three films get nominated for visual effects and FIVE get nominated for sound? Wow.
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
RATATOUILLE
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
TRANSFORMERS
Evidently the mixing for 3:10 to Yuma was better than the editing. You listen to the way Yuma is edited and I sounds pretty good, but next to a towering accomplishment like THERE WILL BE BLOOD and it sounds totally inept by comparison . . .
ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
INTO THE WILD
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
When the academy finds a few films it likes, it doesn’t really feel the need to look that far for nominees. I’m pretty certain that more than a dozen films come out in any given year.
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCORE:
Dario Marinelli: ATONEMENT, Alberto Iglesias, THE KITE RUNNER, James Newton Howard: MICHAEL CLAYTON, Michael Gacchino: RATATOUILLE, Marco Beltrami: 3:10 TO YUMA
Everything here is pretty forgettable. It’s all pretty solid musical back-u for th films in question, but it all feels kind of flat.
WHAT THEY OVEROOKED: Danny Elfman’s work for MEET THE ROBINSONS. Didn’t see the move but the score is pure fun . . . this is Elfman in an infectiously silly mood.
ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP:
LA VIE EN ROSE
NORBIT
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Okay—the make-up in NORBIT looked impressive, but I’m not sure it’s anything to be proud of.
WHAT THEY MISSED
I’ll have to settle for mentioning that it kind of surprises me that SWEENY TODD wasn’t mentioned here. It’s quite subtle but very distinctive—an understated achievement is an achievement nonetheless.
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
BEAUFORT
THE COUNTERFEITERS
KATYN
MONGOL
12
There are some good films here. I hope to see some of them some day. Milwaukee is a lower-tier market for foreign films. With a few notable exceptions, we usually get them the year after they’ve been released elsewhere. One or two of these might have come out here, actually . . . the distribution scheme for foreign films needs to change, is all I’m saying.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN:
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
ATONEMENT
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
LA VIE EN ROSE
SWEENEY TODD
All the films here have pretty impressive costuming, but there’s so much good work done in this area every year that choosing “the best” seems kind of absurd. It’s all made to fit different moods and if you’re noticing the costuming at all, chances are the costume artists didn’t do their job that well. It needs to blend in. This, of course, could be said of nearly every category . . .
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
ATONEMENT
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Given the sheer variety of different moods captured by cinematographers every year . . . some of them extremely talented, this category seems to be the most arbitrary of them all.
BEST ART DIRECTION:
AMERICAN GANGSTER
ATONEMENT
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
SWEENEY TODD
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
SWEENEY TODD is a good choice here, but is it any more impressive than THE GOLDEN COMPASS? It’s just different. The same could be said of a number of films that haven’t been nominated.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:
PERSEPOLIS
RATATOUILLE
SURF’S UP
Judging from the three they chose this year, the academy didn’t see many animated films. Politics generally sells at these things, which is why PERSEPOLIS is probably going to win. RATATOUILLE has been nominated in enough other places, however, that it just might come away with this one.
WHAT THEY MISSED:
The best animated film I saw this year was PAPRIKA. The trippy Japanese film was released on this side of the Pacific in 2007, but seeing as how it was released in its native country in November of 2006, it doesn’t qualify. AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATRES was probably the single most inexplicable achievement for a commercial animated film this year. It is, by far, a lot more progressive than anything the Academy has looked at this year in ANY category.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Cate Blanchette I’M NOT HERE
Ruby Dee AMERICAN GANGSTER
Saoirse Ronan ATONEMENT
Amy Ryan GONE BABY GONE
Tilda Swinton MICHAEL CLAYTON
This is kind of an interesting selection of actresses. Classy academy-bait like Blanchette and Swinton are joined by an 83-year-old woman, a thirteen-year-old girl and a woman who played a drug-addicted mother. Evidently this is the academy trying to diversify its nominees again . . .
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
CaseyAffleck THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES
Javier Bardem NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Phillip Seymour Hoffman CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
Hal Holbrook INTO THE WILD
Tom Wilkinson MICHAEL CLAYTON
Hands down the best choice here would be Hoffman in CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR. I think part of the reason why I liked his performance here so much was the fact that I didn’t expect to like the film at all. Honestly, he is the only reason to see this film, but he’s a really good reason.
BEST LEAD ACTRESS:
Cate Blanchette ELIZABETH
Julie Christie AWAY FROM HER
Marion Cotillard LA VIE EN ROSE
Laura Linney THE SAVAGES
Ellen Page JUNO
And Blanchete gets nominated for two different roles in two different films . . . the tiny Nova Scotian girl has wan a number of awards for JUNO already. It’s all too easy to play a bright, tough girl in a movie so engineered to tug at heartstrings. Personally I found her far more compelling as a girl who could walk though walls in a huge special effects blockbuster from a couple of years ago. She managed to seem distinct amidst all the flaming cars flying through the air and whatnot. That was a challenge.
BEST LEAD ACTOR:
George Clooney MICHAEL CLAYTON
Daniel Day-Lewis THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Johnny Depp SWEENEY TODD
Tommy Lee Jones IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Viggo Mortensen EASTERN PROMISES
The list is like a who’s who of famous screen actors, which makes a lot of sense. The problem is that, while nearly all of the performances represented here were good, they weren’t surprisingly good.
WHAT THEY MISSED:
Jude Law was actually really impressive in SLEUTH . . . probably his best performance to date and one of the best of the year. Law played an actor opposite a typically austere and particularly sinister Michael Caine. Law’s performance here was a huge surprise . . . particularly for those of us who were unaware that Law and Caine were the only people in the film.
BEST DIRECTOR:
Julian Schnabel THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Jason Reitman JUNO
Tony Gilroy MICHAEL CLAYTON
The Coens NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Paul Thomas Anderson THERE WILL BE BLOOD
BEST PICTURE:
ATONEMENT
JUNO
MICHAEL CLAYTON
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
I don’t think that there’s anything that I can say in either of these last two categories that I haven’t already said. If you must watch John Stewart, do so where he belongs on basic cable. Save yourselves.
Posted by rbickerstaff on 01/29 at 05:06 PM