Here are the nominees for Best Documentary Feature. Which should win and why?
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Best Original Screenplay
Here are the nominees for Best Original Screenplay. Who should win and why?
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, Wall-E
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, Wall-E
Best Adapted Screenplay
Here are the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay. Who should win and why?
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Monday, February 25, 2008
And The Winners Are ...
Our august panel of judges is pleased to make the following Oscar Telecast Awards:
Best Dressed:
Katherine Heigl
Amy Adams
Penelope Cruz
Keri Russell
Javier Bardem
Worst Dressed:
Tilda Swinton
Rebecca Miller (Daniel Day Lewis's wife)
Diablo Cody
Denzel Washington
Best Speech:The Coen Brothers
Marketa Irglova (from Once)
Worst Speech:
Robert F. Boyle (lifetime achievement award recipient)
Best Moments of the Night:
Marion Cotillard taking Best Actress awardJon Stewart letting go of a few jokes to give Marketa Irglova time for her speech
The picture of the made-up editor for No Country for Old Men (during the awarding of Best Film Editing) -- it was just one random guy!
The performance of "Falling Slowly" (from Once) by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Our panel is also pleased to announce the winners of the Oscarfest Prediction Contest:
First Place: Mackenzie Smith and Dylan Thompson (tie)
Second Place: Andrew Knopff
Third Place: Christina Drake and Kevin Richey (tie)
Finally, the winner of the Oscarfest Blog Commenting Contest is Henry Chan.
Congratulations to all the winners, who will be receiving gift cards from Regal Cinemas.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Juno: Genuine Connections
A MINI-REVIEW
BY DIANA DEKAJLO
We’ve all been channel surfing and come across a sappy Lifetime movie where a teenage runaway has just returned home after living on the streets for two weeks, after developing a cocaine addiction and acquiring a forty-something sugar-daddy, who’s also her dealer. And, of course, you tune in just as a badly composed score crescendos, and the once-wholesome, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fifteen-year-old turns, weepy eyed, to her single mother, and chokes out, “I’m pregnant.”
Well, thankfully, you won’t find any of this crap in Juno, a movie that follows Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), an edgy, self-assured sixteen-year-old who calls penises “pork swords” and refers to Franklin Roosevelt as “the cute one, with polio.” It’s a breath of fresh air to watch a person on screen who is real. And when I say “real”, I mean, “I-don’t-care-what-you-think, poke-fun-at-herself, doesn’t-take-shit-from-anyone, if-you-don’t-like-me-you-can-fuck-off” –type of real.
In a movie that doesn’t have CGI effects, stuntmen, or stuff exploding every forty-five seconds, you get the chance to appreciate the wit and humor in a very cleverly written script. After walking out of the theater, you feel happily fulfilled, as if you’ve just made a new friend, or rather, a cast of new friends. From Juno’s parents, who’d rather she was “on hard drugs or expelled from school” rather than pregnant, to Paulie Bleecker, Juno’s awkward, lanky, Orange Tic-Tac-obsessed best friend and father of her child, you feel a genuine connection to everyone on screen.
Two ‘Pork Swords’ (or Thumbs, if you prefer) up for Juno.
BY DIANA DEKAJLO
We’ve all been channel surfing and come across a sappy Lifetime movie where a teenage runaway has just returned home after living on the streets for two weeks, after developing a cocaine addiction and acquiring a forty-something sugar-daddy, who’s also her dealer. And, of course, you tune in just as a badly composed score crescendos, and the once-wholesome, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fifteen-year-old turns, weepy eyed, to her single mother, and chokes out, “I’m pregnant.”
Well, thankfully, you won’t find any of this crap in Juno, a movie that follows Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), an edgy, self-assured sixteen-year-old who calls penises “pork swords” and refers to Franklin Roosevelt as “the cute one, with polio.” It’s a breath of fresh air to watch a person on screen who is real. And when I say “real”, I mean, “I-don’t-care-what-you-think, poke-fun-at-herself, doesn’t-take-shit-from-anyone, if-you-don’t-like-me-you-can-fuck-off” –type of real.
In a movie that doesn’t have CGI effects, stuntmen, or stuff exploding every forty-five seconds, you get the chance to appreciate the wit and humor in a very cleverly written script. After walking out of the theater, you feel happily fulfilled, as if you’ve just made a new friend, or rather, a cast of new friends. From Juno’s parents, who’d rather she was “on hard drugs or expelled from school” rather than pregnant, to Paulie Bleecker, Juno’s awkward, lanky, Orange Tic-Tac-obsessed best friend and father of her child, you feel a genuine connection to everyone on screen.
Two ‘Pork Swords’ (or Thumbs, if you prefer) up for Juno.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Bloody Thoughts
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON'S
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
By Professor Deborah Williams
Faculty Fellow
And indeed there was. At the end of the movie I felt bludgeoned: left limp by the force of Daniel Plainview’s energy. Daniel Day-Lewis, as Plainview, gives another brilliant performance (for a serious change of pace, go back to one of his earliest roles, the bottle-blond punker in My Beautiful Laundrette), as a man consumed by ... anger? desire? spite? appetite? Plainview says at one point that he “hates all people” and that as a result he never has to see past anything: to him all the flaws and foibles of humanity are right there on the surface. I’m not sure, however, if he is a hateful character. He’s what my three year old would call “a bad guy,” there’s no doubt about that, but do we hate him? Do we wish for him to fail? Are we pleased that he’s gotten his big fancy house?
As I think about these questions, I think they raise for me a larger question: what did you feel, at all, during the movie, other than to be overwhelmed by the hugeness of the landscape, the immensity of the struggle to bring oil out of the ground, the filth of the world of “oil men,” the inevitable loss of life? The movie is beautiful and the score is fantastic (Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead—thanks, Adisha, for the reminder) and there is a real wallop in the sheer scope of it all ... but emotionally? It kept me at arm’s length: I watched, I admired the acting, the film-making, the historical specificity ... but no connection.
That lack of connection is precisely what’s missing for me when I read other fiction from the period (the movie is based on the early chapters of Upton Sinclair’s book Oil [1927]): the relentless naturalism of Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris, for example, in which bad decisions follow worse decisions, in which human contact is doomed at best and dangerous at worst, and in which “escape” is possible only in death. Plainview is doomed from the beginning, it’s clear; the question is only what will be the instrument of that doom.
Plainview’s world is empty, despite its natural beauty and grandeur, because he can’t find any of the emotional counterparts to anger and envy. And the wretchedness on his face when he realizes that fact is perhaps the one moment in the movie where I felt a connection to this character—but that moment passes almost immediately, swept away by his rage.
So while I concede that the movie is masterfully made and that Lewis is one of the finest actors working today ... this movie isn’t the best movie of the year.
What do you think?
Katha Politt on JUNO
Those of you who have seen Juno might be interested in this piece from the Nation by columnist Katha Pollitt:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt
Let us know what you think of her piece!
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt
Let us know what you think of her piece!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Juno: Exceeding "Expectations"
My Thoughts on Juno
By Professor Patsy Cooper
Faculty Fellow
This is the year of the graphic novel turned movie, right? When we get to see a writer and filmmaker transform minimal dialogue and minimal illustrations into talking, moving pictures. By all accounts, the experiment—Persepolis—is a wonderful success. And I’m going to see it later this month with some 15 UHall residents (watch your email for the ticket announcement).
My problem is that I think I saw it last night with some other UHall residents. Only it was called Juno. And it is, indeed, great. But it wasn’t what I was expecting. I went into the theater knowing only that the movie is a hit. Nominated for Best Picture, in fact. That Ellen Page is some terrific up and coming actress. That Juno’s story is funny and sad and sweet. Mostly, I read any number of reviews that called the movie pro life and —thank God—a red light on unprotected sex. Or called it pro-choice movie and—it’s about time—a green light on the same subject. In any case, moviegoers are at least asked to see the humor in a pregnant sixteen-year-old making her way through the staring crowds of what seems to be a 3,000-kid high school. Funny, Juno may be. Unambiguous and uncontroversial it is not.
Yet, putting the story aside for the moment, for me the most remarkable thing about the movie was how it unfolded through dialogue that was as crisp and efficient as any comic book, sorry, graphic novel, I’ve read. So unexpected was it, that it actually threw me at first. I wondered where a movie could be going after an opening scene in which the clearly agitated Juno is swigging down Sunny D and openly requesting her third pregnancy test from an older, sarcastic, face-it-you’re-preggers, store clerk. Ditto for each scene. Not a word or facial expression is wasted. Each character and event obligingly advanced the plot in a critical way. And as amazing as Ellen Page is as she morphs from the opening line drawing illustrations (just to underscore my point) into walking, talking flesh and blood, she is in excellent company, especially with Allison Janney beside her.
As for the story, like the best of comic books, the movie delivers big time, though I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yes, Juno has pre-meditated, unprotected sex that is totally sanctioned by the movie. But she gets her comeuppance when she takes herself to a bizarre, Cohen Brothers-imagined abortion clinic, which is guarded by a sign-waving fool, who informs Juno that the fetus/child (take your pick, as the movie says) she’s carrying already has fingernails. Good thing her father and stepmother take the news of her pregnancy so well. And good thing there’s a wealthy couple just waiting to adopt the baby. Granted, the woman, Vanessa, seems a bit obsessed with her House Beautiful world, but she really wants a baby and, besides, she’s got a hip, musician husband to balance her out in Juno’s eyes, even if he is bridling a bit under all that domesticity. Clearly, it will all work out in the end.
Of course, you’d have to be downright stupid to view this as your backup plan.
But none of this is what ultimately delivers (no pun intended) the movie. Once I settled into its rhythm, and the idea of a sixteen-year-old offbeat and anti-cheerleader girl with a cheerleader best friend, so sure of herself that she and her nerdy boyfriend are truly cool, I thought I would just sit back and enjoy the ride. The strike for female liberation in the movie, it turns out, however, is not Juno’s rejection of life as a high school musical. Nor is it her deliberate plan to be “sexually active” or have an abortion or not have one. What’s actually liberating is Juno’s discovery that independence, that is, emotional independence, is neither hip nor cool if you can’t make a commitment to the people you believe in. What matters most is that you (and the tic tacs) show up. As does her father. Her stepmother. Bleecker. And, though the movie makes us wait just long enough to wonder if she will, so does Vanessa, who is revealed as a truly cool maternal soul, however uptight. Of course, by then, she’s sans hipster, since he turns out to be a real jerk.
By Professor Patsy Cooper
Faculty Fellow
This is the year of the graphic novel turned movie, right? When we get to see a writer and filmmaker transform minimal dialogue and minimal illustrations into talking, moving pictures. By all accounts, the experiment—Persepolis—is a wonderful success. And I’m going to see it later this month with some 15 UHall residents (watch your email for the ticket announcement).
My problem is that I think I saw it last night with some other UHall residents. Only it was called Juno. And it is, indeed, great. But it wasn’t what I was expecting. I went into the theater knowing only that the movie is a hit. Nominated for Best Picture, in fact. That Ellen Page is some terrific up and coming actress. That Juno’s story is funny and sad and sweet. Mostly, I read any number of reviews that called the movie pro life and —thank God—a red light on unprotected sex. Or called it pro-choice movie and—it’s about time—a green light on the same subject. In any case, moviegoers are at least asked to see the humor in a pregnant sixteen-year-old making her way through the staring crowds of what seems to be a 3,000-kid high school. Funny, Juno may be. Unambiguous and uncontroversial it is not.
Yet, putting the story aside for the moment, for me the most remarkable thing about the movie was how it unfolded through dialogue that was as crisp and efficient as any comic book, sorry, graphic novel, I’ve read. So unexpected was it, that it actually threw me at first. I wondered where a movie could be going after an opening scene in which the clearly agitated Juno is swigging down Sunny D and openly requesting her third pregnancy test from an older, sarcastic, face-it-you’re-preggers, store clerk. Ditto for each scene. Not a word or facial expression is wasted. Each character and event obligingly advanced the plot in a critical way. And as amazing as Ellen Page is as she morphs from the opening line drawing illustrations (just to underscore my point) into walking, talking flesh and blood, she is in excellent company, especially with Allison Janney beside her.
As for the story, like the best of comic books, the movie delivers big time, though I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yes, Juno has pre-meditated, unprotected sex that is totally sanctioned by the movie. But she gets her comeuppance when she takes herself to a bizarre, Cohen Brothers-imagined abortion clinic, which is guarded by a sign-waving fool, who informs Juno that the fetus/child (take your pick, as the movie says) she’s carrying already has fingernails. Good thing her father and stepmother take the news of her pregnancy so well. And good thing there’s a wealthy couple just waiting to adopt the baby. Granted, the woman, Vanessa, seems a bit obsessed with her House Beautiful world, but she really wants a baby and, besides, she’s got a hip, musician husband to balance her out in Juno’s eyes, even if he is bridling a bit under all that domesticity. Clearly, it will all work out in the end.
Of course, you’d have to be downright stupid to view this as your backup plan.
But none of this is what ultimately delivers (no pun intended) the movie. Once I settled into its rhythm, and the idea of a sixteen-year-old offbeat and anti-cheerleader girl with a cheerleader best friend, so sure of herself that she and her nerdy boyfriend are truly cool, I thought I would just sit back and enjoy the ride. The strike for female liberation in the movie, it turns out, however, is not Juno’s rejection of life as a high school musical. Nor is it her deliberate plan to be “sexually active” or have an abortion or not have one. What’s actually liberating is Juno’s discovery that independence, that is, emotional independence, is neither hip nor cool if you can’t make a commitment to the people you believe in. What matters most is that you (and the tic tacs) show up. As does her father. Her stepmother. Bleecker. And, though the movie makes us wait just long enough to wonder if she will, so does Vanessa, who is revealed as a truly cool maternal soul, however uptight. Of course, by then, she’s sans hipster, since he turns out to be a real jerk.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Best Picture 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Picture. Which should win and why?
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Achievement in Directing 2008
Here are the nominees for Achievement in Directing. Who should win and why?
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Best Actress 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Who should win and why?
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno
Best Actor 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Who should win and why?
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
Best Supporting Actress 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. Who should win and why?
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Best Supporting Actor 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Who should win and why?
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
Best Foreign Language Film 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Which should win and why?
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyn (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
12 (Russia)
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyn (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
12 (Russia)
Best Documentary Feature 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Documentary Feature. Which should win and why?
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance
Best Original Screenplay 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Original Screenplay. Who should win and why?
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Best Adapted Screenplay 2008
Here are the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay. Who should win and why?
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Best Animated Feature
Here are the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year. Which should win and why?
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Babel
After seeing "Babel" last night with a UHall group, I find it even more curious that "Children of Men" wasn't nominated for Best Picture. But I'll get to that in a minute.
One of the things I noticed about " Babel" had to do with the presence--and absence--of mothers. The woman who gets shot in Morocco (the always wonderful Cate Blanchett) is a mother mourning the loss of a dead child, but she's also an absent mother who allows her illegal immigrant nanny to do all the nurturing of her two other children; the deaf-mute Japanese girl howls silently for affection (okay, sex or at very least physical contact) and her mother shot herself in the head (and the girl found the body); the mother of the two boys in Morocco is rendered almost invisible by the culture in which she lives.
I'm not quite sure what ot make of this observation--I'm not sure the movie does much with it, either. In fact, there's a lot in that movie, too much, in fact, to be handled adequately. A lot of the people in our group thought that the movie was...well, "pretentious" was one word people used; "over-wrought" was another; "contrived" was yet another. I think this is pretty harsh criticism and I'm willing to give the movie more points for attempting something Big.
"Children of Men" attempts something Big, too, and succeeds far more fully than does Babel (or the other movies that were nominated, for that matter). On the one hand, CofM is basically a chase movie (will they get away, will they escape); but it's also a meditation about Otherness, about community, about nation...
The problem for Cuaron's movie, I think, is that it's too close to home. The people in that movie all look like Us; England is too similar, it's all too eerily "us" and not enough "them." In "Babel," however, despite the attempts to show that we're all connected, all the bad things that happen seem to happen Somewhere Else, to people Far Away. Even the scenes in the US desert just north of the Mexican border, or the scenes with Blanchett and Pitt...all seem Other and thus safer.
I haven't seen all the movies that have been nominated for BP this year but a glance at the titles does seem to suggest that these are movies that are...safe. Quirky, maybe (Little Miss...), slightly risky (the Japanese focus for Eastwood, but c'mon, it's Eastwood, how risky is that?), really gory (Scorese, natch), but... safe.
One of the things I noticed about " Babel" had to do with the presence--and absence--of mothers. The woman who gets shot in Morocco (the always wonderful Cate Blanchett) is a mother mourning the loss of a dead child, but she's also an absent mother who allows her illegal immigrant nanny to do all the nurturing of her two other children; the deaf-mute Japanese girl howls silently for affection (okay, sex or at very least physical contact) and her mother shot herself in the head (and the girl found the body); the mother of the two boys in Morocco is rendered almost invisible by the culture in which she lives.
I'm not quite sure what ot make of this observation--I'm not sure the movie does much with it, either. In fact, there's a lot in that movie, too much, in fact, to be handled adequately. A lot of the people in our group thought that the movie was...well, "pretentious" was one word people used; "over-wrought" was another; "contrived" was yet another. I think this is pretty harsh criticism and I'm willing to give the movie more points for attempting something Big.
"Children of Men" attempts something Big, too, and succeeds far more fully than does Babel (or the other movies that were nominated, for that matter). On the one hand, CofM is basically a chase movie (will they get away, will they escape); but it's also a meditation about Otherness, about community, about nation...
The problem for Cuaron's movie, I think, is that it's too close to home. The people in that movie all look like Us; England is too similar, it's all too eerily "us" and not enough "them." In "Babel," however, despite the attempts to show that we're all connected, all the bad things that happen seem to happen Somewhere Else, to people Far Away. Even the scenes in the US desert just north of the Mexican border, or the scenes with Blanchett and Pitt...all seem Other and thus safer.
I haven't seen all the movies that have been nominated for BP this year but a glance at the titles does seem to suggest that these are movies that are...safe. Quirky, maybe (Little Miss...), slightly risky (the Japanese focus for Eastwood, but c'mon, it's Eastwood, how risky is that?), really gory (Scorese, natch), but... safe.
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