Academy Awards

Well, the Academy Awards list was released a while back. As a general rule, I really don't care about the Oscars. All awards and "Best of" lists are really nonsense. But, since I do consider myself a movie buff, I feel I am forced to care.

One thing I do appreciate about the Oscars are the nominations. These are chosen only by people in that field, meaning only actors can nominated for Best Actor. To me, this means a nomination is a more relevant show of peer appreciation than the actual award, since that is voted on by everyone (including those who never saw the film).

I found this year to be particularly filled with good movies, so my predictions were much more difficult than usual. Here are my current guesses for some of the major categories, though I reserve the right to change my mind right up until that fateful night.

Original Score:
"Atonement," Dario Marianelli; "The Kite Runner," Alberto Iglesias; "Michael Clayton," James Newton Howard; "Ratatouille," Michael Giacchino; "3:10 to Yuma," Marco Beltrami.

Sound Editing:
"The Bourne Ultimatum," "No Country for Old Men," "Ratatouille," "There Will Be Blood," "Transformers."

Sound Mixing:
"The Bourne Ultimatum," "No Country for Old Men," "Ratatouille," "3:10 to Yuma," "Transformers."

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."

Art Direction:
"American Gangster," "Atonement," "The Golden Compass," "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "There Will Be Blood."

Animated Feature Film:
"Persepolis"; "Ratatouille"; "Surf's Up."

Original Screenplay:
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."

Adapted Screenplay:
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."

Foreign Film:
"Beaufort," Israel; "The Counterfeiters," Austria; "Katyn," Poland; "Mongol," Kazakhstan; "12," Russia.

Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"; Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"; Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"; Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"; Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton."

Supporting Actor:
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."

Actress:
Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"; Julie Christie, "Away From Her"; Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"; Laura Linney, "The Savages"; Ellen Page, "Juno."

Actor:
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."


Director:
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"; Jason Reitman, "Juno"; Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "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."

Real Life Speed Racer!

Yeah, yeah. It's been too long since my last post. Believe it or not, I actually have two movie review posts in the queue, but I just haven't put them up yet. I'm really having a hard time getting myself into the habit of blogging. I may have to force myself to make a daily post until I can get more accustomed to it.

I've been dragging my feet on the movie reviews for a couple of reasons. I want to say too much, and yet I feel like writing too little. I'm having trouble finding the right balance. I really love the style and format and the whole shebang as developed by the guy at Movie Quickie. I really just want to copy/steal everything he's doing and make it my own. That's my goal, anyway.

Also, you may have noticed that I've switched to a three column format. I liked it better in theory than I do in practice. It feels a little cluttered. I don't know. The old one seemed to have too much white space. Hopefully, I'll get used to this one.

Anyway, the point of my post. I watched On The Beach last night. It's pretty good, but really not as good as the book. It was nice to see a movie really take time with it's story (although, there was an early radio transmission that gave away the nuclear war idea about 3 minutes into it, whereas in the book that fact was revealed much, much later). It was also nice to see long takes of actors delivering dialog.

But that's not the real point. The real point is the car race. The premise of the novel and movie, if you don't know, is that Australia is the last habitable place on Earth after a huge nuclear war. The end is coming to Australia as well, but they have to wait for several months as the radioactive cloud slowly moves down to envelop the rest of the planet.

Well, being bored and destined to die, several car fanatics decide to stage a car race, just for themselves. These aren't professional race car drivers, just people who want to race. They zoom around at break-neck speeds with zero concern for the safety of themselves or other drivers.

I think the scene is meant to be a little horrific, in that people are dying and they don't really care. But what struck me the most was how much it looked like any number of races from my boyhood-favorite TV show, Speed Racer! The cars look the same, the crashes look the same. Even the lead driver (Fred Astaire) is driving a car that bears a resemblance to the famed Mach 5, with the headrest, white car, and number 5.

Fortunately for you, I've found a clip of it on YouTube, so you can enjoy it without having to sit through the whole movie. Check it out:

Romance & Cigarettes

Romance & Cigarettes is an unusual musical where song and dance appear unexpectedly in a working class neighborhood. But the movie isn't exactly a musical. Sometimes it's a comedy. More often it's a drama. In truth, it's all over the map, but instead of making it a mess, that actually lends it a lot of its charm.

The basic plot revolves around Nick (James Gandolfini), his wife Kitty (Susan Sarandon), their three daughters, and Nick's mistress Tula (Kate Winslet). There are very interesting dynamics at play between all of the characters as they show the different faces of love that they all have for each other. The story goes through the predictable developments, but spices them up with scenes of wit and subtlety.

Of the many musicals that have come out over the past year, this one certainly has less polish. That may be because it was originally released in 2005 and has only now found distribution. However, I think that works in its favor, since it makes you believe the characters are just singing what they feel. Overall, it's a very interesting movie. Maybe not great, but definitely worth a look.

My rating: 3 stars (out of 4)
Ebert's rating: 4 stars (out of 4)
Tomatometer: 49% - Rotten (as of 12/16/07)

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass is a fantasy movie about a young girl and her adventures in a strange world. The world is strange because even though it looks and sounds like early 20th century England, there is magic, fantastic steam-punk contraptions, talking polar bears, and people's souls are on the outside in the form of different animals, which they call daemons. It is that last bit that has created such controversy.

The source material for the movie was the first book in a trilogy referred to as His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. The books apparently have a very anti-Christian lean to them which becomes more forceful (and less metaphorical) as the books progress. Fortunately, I have not read any of the books, so I was not predisposed in any direction toward the film.

The plot, as mentioned above, basically follows Lyra, the young heroine, as she learns about her world, flees the evil Miss Coulter, and attempts to rescue her friends. Along the way she has various encounters and meets a multitude of interesting characters. Lyra also possesses a precious device called an alethiometer, which allows her to see the truth of things. This is the golden compass of the title, and although it was important and much sought after in this film, I imagine its real significance will come later.

Overall, I found the movie to be surprisingly boring. The dialog was rather stiff, and there seemed to be a great deal of explaining, even though by the end there were still several things which I would have like to have explained. Visually, it was beautiful. The objects and machinery of their world was fascinating to look at. The talking CGI polar bears were interesting, but they never came close to looking like real polar bears. Perhaps that wasn't the intent.

As for the controversial bits, I suppose they were still there but certainly toned down to make them more palatable to a wider audience. The Magisterium, the bad guys in the film, want to suppress the truth and tell everyone what to do and think. Typical goals for evil. But no mention is made of the Magisterium being a religion in general, or Catholicism in particular.

My rating: 2 1/2 stars (out of 4)
Ebert's rating: 4 stars (out of 4)
Tomatometer: 44% - Rotten (as of 12/13/07)

This review needs a lot of work, but I'll post it now anyway just to get it done.

One More in the Universe

Crap! How did this happen already? I have about three posts (in my head), and yet it's been a week since my last one. DAMMIT! How in the world do I learn the habit of posting every day? Sigh.

All right. Well, this isn't the post I meant to put out, um, last Friday, but that one will have to wait I guess. I want to do movie reviews, but I'm having trouble getting the graphics together for what I want. It shouldn't be that hard-- mainly I just want to put stars right under the title reflecting my review. But I haven't found stars I like and my HTML skillz are much lacking. (Speaking of which, I would really like to get rid of that red box around my Netflix movies and left-align them. But that's a different story.) Additionally, I'd really like to have widgets that not only linked to Roger Ebert's and Rotten Tomatoes' sites, but also reflected their rating. Bah. I don't think what I want would be too difficult, but I'm burdened by my nearly Neanderthal comprehension of all things Web. Tomorrow I'll put up a rough version that says stuff like "If I were cool, here's where the cool graphic link would be."

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with today's topic. I'm a big Beatles fan, and I really liked the movie Across the Universe. I liked the choreography and I liked the arrangements (mostly) of the songs they used in the movie. One that particularly struck me was "Help" "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as sung by the character Prudence (T. V. Carpio). The slower tempo and the specifics of the character really changed the meaning of the song, which I thought was great.

Now, the character of Prudence actually plays a very minor role in the movie. Her sub-plot almost seems "tacked on" because there's so little of it. However, the other day an early Beatles' tune popped up on my iPod, and all I could think about was how perfect it would have been for her character to sing. I don't know if it would be necessary for a tempo change (although it wouldn't hurt), but the lyrics fit seamlessly. If they originally had more about the Prudence character, I can't imagine that they didn't use this song.

So, here's my prediction: THIS SONG WILL APPEAR IN THE DELETED SCENES.

So, what's the song? You've Got to Hide Your Love Away Lyrics reproduced here until I find a way to embed the song.

Here I stand head in hand
Turn my face to the wall
If she's gone I can't go on
Feelin' two-foot small

Everywhere people stare
Each and every day
I can see them laugh at me
And I hear them say

Hey you've got to hide your love away
Hey you've got to hide your love away

How can I even try
I can never win
Hearing them, seeing them
In the state I'm in

How could she say to me
Love will find a way
Gather round all you clowns
Let me hear you say

Hey you've got to hide your love away
Hey you've got to hide your love away