Just wanted to add that a couple of days ago, I made a contribution to the agonized theological debate over “why did the chicken cross the road?” that has been called “fantastic” and “hysterical” by the Ironic Catholic — I can assure you that this is the first time any of my jokes have been called this. I will have to put this site on my permanent blog roll!
You can read all the inspired contributions here. (Scroll down to the bottom to find mine).
Well I was right about a couple of things: Ratatouille did get a Best Original Screenplay nod, as did Juno. and I was right about exactly where the Academy would put Philip Seymour Hoffman –- Best Supporting Actor. His being left out in he Best Actor race is all the more noticeable, since his co-star in The Savages, Laura Linney, was nominated for Best Actress. But an excellent strategy on the part of Academy members, because it gives him a better chance to win – though Javier Bardem is gathering a lot of steam.
Hoffman was Charlie Wilson’s only nomination. Tommy Lee Jones as Best Actor for In the Valley of Elah ended up being the Academy’s nod to the political situation in the fiction feature category. On the other hand, three of the five nominations for Best Documentary feature were about the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan: No End in Sight: Taxi to the Dark Side, and Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Experience. Hollywood is determined to make movies about the war, but definitely has trouble making a fiction film on the subject that people want to see.
Ratatouille ended up with five nominations: not only the Best Animated Feature but Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing. No Best Picture nomination. But most of all, it’s a shame Peter O’Toole wasn’t nominated.
Juno was also a big contender: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay. To make this even sweeter, the nominations for the very popular film that informs its audiences that yes, an unborn baby has fingernails, came on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion, just as hundreds of thousands of people were beginning to march in Washington, D. C. The tide, at least in popular culture, is turning.
There was a very surprising strong show for Michael Clayton – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor and Actress, which many people probably didn’t see coming. As my screenwriting teacher at Act One, Janet Batchler, always says, “Actors vote for actors.” The Academy loves Clooney, and this film is seen as his passion project: he’s the film’s executive producer. I guess I’m really going to have to watch it now.
No clear front runner at all. It could be a wide open race. A very strange mood right now in Hollywood, grim stories onscreen (all the main contenders except Juno are on the very serious side) and glitz withdrawal from the writers’ strike offscreen. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
But the writers and producers seem to be talking again, so there is renewed hope we’ll actually see an Oscar ceremony this year. I’m really ready, since I missed last ceremony while I was in Italy filming the St. Elizabeth documentary.
A final note: I spent a lot of time yesterday working, and as I was listening to the Oscar news, I learned from TV about the death of actor Heath Ledger, who was only 28. His sorrowing fans over on imdb.com are calling him “the James Dean of our generation.” I didn’t think Brokeback Mountain was at all as good a film as critics were saying, but Ledger was clearly a very talented young actor. May God welcome him to heaven and bless his family.
Usually, the talk about the Oscars on the night before the nominations is over who will be nominated. This time, most of the talk is over whether the ceremony will be held at all, due to the ongoing writers’ strike, which has already reduced the glitzy Golden Globes to a sober press conference, because no stars would cross the WGA picket line. This may be a more interesting subject than this year’s crop of films. I actually found few films that I was that excited about, and there were many others I haven’t seen, so it seems ridiculous of me to make predictions. Nevertheless. . .
For Best Picture: Both No Country For Old Men and There Will be Blood seem to have a lock on two of the top slots because of all the critics’ awards they’ve received. Both, from all accounts, are exceedingly grim dramas. Will the Academy have room for an exceedingly grim musical and nominate Sweeney Todd?
Other than the top two, the race seems wide open. Other possibilities: Juno, already high in critics’ affections and moving up fast at the box office (the tiny indie comedy is now no. 4). The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Michael Clayton. Into the Wild. Maybe even Once, the little Irish musical drama that won the year’s highest critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes (98%). Falling further and further behind are other films, including American Gangster and Charlie Wilson’s War.
The biggest question about the Best Picture race though, seems to be: will Antonement win a spot? It won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, though this doesn’t mean much, since these awards aren’t highly regarded. But then Entertainment Weekly put the two attractive stars Keira Knightly and James MacAvoy, on its cover ad devoted the cover story to the film. But there is an increasing feeling it will fall out of competition, just as Dreamgirls did last year.
There is always one out of left field surprise. EW also rounded up some online commentators with their attempts to spot the upset contenders. I was delighted to read the following.
“Forget Juno. The real feel-good movie that should be nominated and win for Best Picture is Ratatouille. But since ‘toons have their own category, don’t count on any miracles here. (Pete Hammond, The envelope, LA Times – theenvelope.latimes.com).
Another writer was much more definite.
“SURPRISE! Ratatouille earns Best Picture, Best Director, Screenplay and Animated Feature nominations, and takes the lead in the Best Picture race. (Sasha Stone, awardsdaily.com).”
Of course, since I’ve already written that I think Ratatouille is a better film that Atonement, you won’t be surprised at my prediction (and hope) that Ratatouille will take Antonement’s spot in the Best Picture Race. Come on, Ratatouille even made the AFI’s top ten list of the year!
A few other predictions:
Ratatouille will get a nod for Best Original Screenplay for Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava, as will Juno for Diablo Cody.
Charlie Wilson’s War could still earn a Best Adapted Screenplay nod for Aaron Sorkin. This could be Hollywood’s nod to the rash of political dramas; most of the others didn’t do well at all at the box office in a year when everyone went to the movies to forget the grim crisis in Iraq.
Ellen Page will get a Best Actress nomination for Juno. Don’t completely discount the possibility of one or more of the rest of the excellent supporting cast (Alison Janney, J. K. Simmons, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, even Michael Cera) joining her. You can expect a surprise (but really not so surprising) Best Actress nomination for Amy Adams in Enchanted. She certainly redefined the fairy take princess for all time in this delightful film. For Nikki Blonsky, who was so delightful in Hairspray, the question may be whether she is actually nominated for Best Supporting Actress, as newcomers (they used to call them “ingenues”) so often are, or whether she will be nominated in the lead category, as she was at the Golden Globes. For the Oscars, I think she’ll make the Supporting Actress category.
Philip Seymour Hoffman richly deserves a Best Supporting Actor nod for Charlie Wilson’s War. Complicating the situation, he may also be nominated for his lead performance in The Savages. This type of split race often means the nominee won’t win either award. It’s sad when some people are so talented they cancel themselves out! But because of all the heavy-duty competition in the Best Actor race, the supporting race may be his spot. But I also hope Peter O’Toole is nominated in this category for Ratatouille. Part of me really wants to have him win, so he can receive a “real” Oscar before he dies. Besides he was really superb in his role as the world’s most feared restaurant critic.
It will be only a few hours before we are all find out — that our predictions are all nonsense!
Not very much time to post here before the Oscar nominations are announced. I’ve been continuing my efforts to see at least a few of the likely-to-be-nominated films. I’ve seen precisely two. So here goes.
I finally got to see Juno right after I got back from Christmas vacation. All except the late 11 o’clock showing were once again sold out here in NY, this time at the Times Square theater. So I finally got in the last showing of the evening. And the film was as delightful as people had been saying.
Juno MacGuff is a self-confident, quirky sixteen-year-old outsider with a smart mouth. The film opens as she takes a yet another home pregnancy test and confirms once again that yes, she’s going to have a baby. Her first instinct is to go to the “Women Now” clinic for an abortion. But she unexpectedly meets one of her classmates outside picketing the place - who tells Juno that her baby even has fingernails. She goes inside nevertheless. The sleaziness inside, the casual assumption that she is going to continue to be sexually active, and the insistent handing out of condoms really turn Juno off. But it’s the fingernails that haunt her. She leaves before her appointment. This must be the most resounding prolife moment in a movie this year.
The baby’s father, her classmate Paulie Bleecker (Michael Cera), is too dumbfounded to offer any advice when Juno tells him about the baby. Their single sex act was more experimental than passionate. So Juno figures she’d best move on from that relationship, and begins to make plans to find the perfect couple to adopt her baby. Her parents (J. K. Simmons and Alison Janney) turn out to be surprisingly supportive. The adoptive couple, of course, have to be really cool people, from Juno’s perspective. She approves of Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), and and Mark (Jason Bateman), a glamorous yuppie couple. She especially approves of Mark, a songwriter, and a fan of some of the same obscure 70’s bands she loves. They have a hilarious conversation about this early on; when Juno says of one band “You had to have been there,” Mark replies grumpily, “You weren’t even born then!” Things seem great. But unfortunately for Juno things don’t always turn out as you hope. She becomes an outcast at school, where she refers to herself as “The Cautionary Whale.” Even the ultrasound technician judges her. She now suspects that she’s actually in love with Paulie, who’s just invited someone else to the prom. And even Mark and Vanessa aren’t exactly what they seem. There are many surprises, heartbreak and heartwarming developments along the way.
The film’s sparkling script and quirky characters are standouts — though admittedly the hipster quotient of the dialogue frequently approaches surreal levels. And the script at times passes over much of the obvious in its search for the quirky, including the physical discomforts of pregnancy, and some of the recriminations real parents might offer. Some of the late second and third act developments are a little thin. But the movie has a genuine heart, and a brilliant young lead actress, Ellen Page, who can actually make that hip dialogue seem as if it’s realistically coming out of a human mouth — not only that, but this particular individual girl’s mouth. This warm movie has come out of nowhere to become a possible dark horse Best Picture contender.
I’ve also seen Charlie Wilson’s War - in some ways more delightful than I expected, and in other ways a disappointment. A brilliantly witty script with something of a letdown at the end. Some good acting all around and a particularly brilliant performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as a rogue CIA agent who’s a model of keen intelligence, deadpan wit and unflappable cool — all wrapped up in a schlubby pot-bellied figure and unkempt mustache. Believe it or not, he’s based on a real person. But it’s getting late, I still have the Oscar nominations to write about — and more on the film will have to wait for later.
Other films I’ve seen: Enchanted, Hairspray. Those I’ve missed include many of the top contenders: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men; There Will be Blood. The Assassination of Jesse James. The Savages. And on and on. I desperately hope to see Once on video soon. Now on to the Oscars.
