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[bryant]

The Oscar nominees have been announced. My reaction is, as usual, lukewarm. From the top (of the page):

DiCaprio did not deserve a Best Actor nod. Jude Law might have. Bill Murray might also have, but I didn't expect anything there -- the Academy seemed unlikely to recognize his work twice in a row. You only get one quirky nomination per decade, or something. Paul Giamatti, however, is the big slight. What's up with that? My choice would be Clint Eastwood, but if Giamatti had been nominated it'd have been a tough choice.

Alan Alda for Best Supporting Actor? Uh. Also, Morgan Freeman? Uh. This is just the halo effect; the Academy likes giving the hot films lots of nominations. Peter Sarsgaard deserved a nomination for Kinsey. I give this one to Clive Owen either way, though.

As I've mentioned before, Natalie Portman should have been nominated as Best Actress, not as Best Supporting Actress. That's purely people not wanting to piss off Julia Roberts. Laura Linney also deserved a nomination for Kinsey. If Portman had been nominated, she'd be my choice; failing her, I think Kate Winslet, but I have no strong opinion.

If Natalie Portman had been nominated for Best Actress, Cate Blanchett would be my choice here; as is, Portman will win and probably deserves to win. It's an immensely strong category, though. Hey, there's Laura Linney! I couldn't really object to any of the nominees winning; this is a very strong group.

How cute. They nominated Shark Tale to fill out the Best Animated Feature group. Incredibles will win and should win.

Art Direction, Cinematography -- I think these are deserved for The Aviator. It looked incredible.

Directing, um. Nothing for Gondry? How about Brad Bird? Although there's a long argument to be had about animated feature directors; in some ways it's apples and oranges. But it's tough, directing an orange, so I tend to think Bird deserves a nomination here. Of the nominees I'm hard-pressed to choose, but I guess either Million Dollar Baby or The Aviator. I thought the latter was directed well; the problems come from DiCaprio's acting and the meandering screenplay. But the Best Director of the year was Richard Linklater, for Before Sunset, an absolutely outstanding achievement.

No opinions on some of these... The Aviator again for Film Editing. No, wait, Collateral is nominated. That was awesome. Actually, where's the Collateral nomination for Cinematography?

Hm -- ah, Last Life in the Universe was submitted for the 2003 Best Foreign Lanaguge Oscar and, regrettably, was not nominated. Hero was nominated in 2002. And didn't win. Man, those Academy voters are dorks.

I wouldn't give Best Picture to any of the nominees. Admittedly, I didn't see a couple of them, so what do I know? If I had to choose, it'd be Million Dollar Baby, but I don't see how Closer wasn't a better film.

Since when is Before Sunset an Adapted Screenplay? Weird. Give it the win in this category, especially since I'm not enthralled by any of the other nominees as screenplays. Too many structural flaws. And, again, where's Closer?

And finally, I would just barely choose The Incredibles for Best Original Screenplay over Eternal Sunshine. It's a very close call. Move Before Sunset to this category, and I throw my hands up and declare a three-way tie.

Comments

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Although I haven't seen any of the other documentaries nominated, I'm glad to see that Super Size Me was nominataed. It'd be a kick to see Morgan Spurlock get the Oscar.

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

There's precedent for Before Sunset's screenwriting category - apparently basically any movie based on previous movies counts as adapted (i.e. previously published), especially when it's not the same writers - if it's a brand-new screenplay not based on anybody's previous work, it's original; otherwise, it's adapted.

The Color of Money, for instance, was a (nominated) adapted screenplay for being based on The Hustler; Young Frankenstein was also an adapted screenplay nominee.

[bryant]

Aha! OK, that explains it.

[bryant]

Iiii dunno. It's not fair for me to say, because I haven't seen it, but to a degree it struck me as stunt filmmaking.

[braz-king.livejournal.com]

Why does Linklater deserve best director? I enjoyed Before Sunset, and as an aside I called Nina Simone when he was fiddling through the CD collection, which made my sweetheart think I was a genious. That was nice. But I didn't find anything outstanding about the direction. In fact there were things I really didn't like. But I'm interested, why would you give him the naked gold man?

[bryant]

Ah, I'm glad someone asked, cause now I get to ramble.

OK. First off, the movie was presented in realtime, which is always kind of a tricky thing to pull off. Not impossible, but there's a reason why you don't see it too often. (And yeah, I think whoever handles continuity on 24 is pretty awesome too.)

Second, he managed to take characters from a 10 year old movie and update them and make them interesting and keep it from being just a stunt. (Which, honestly, I thought it would be when I first heard about it.) And it's not like there was anything else to distract; it's all them.

Third, I walked out of that movie convinced that it was half-improved. I was stunned when I found out that it was in fact meticulously scripted. Not because I think it's impossible to write that kind of flowing dialogue, but because it's really hard to get actors to deliver it as though it were improv. And, although I like Ethan Hawke, he's not normally that good an actor.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

It is, but the stunt actually becomes minor to the rest of the story. I enjoyed it a lot.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

I would say that's true to a certain extent, but I wouldn't say that it was any more stunt filmmaking than Faranheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Although, after reading your post about Moore, I suppose defending Morgan Spurlock with Michael Moore may not be the best tactic...

[bryant]

I don't have anything against Michael Moore; I like him and I like his movies. He's certainly prone to stunts, though -- it's part of his style (and he uses them well).