Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Oscars

The Oscar nominations are out. I have seen all but one of the best picture nominees, which makes me really pissed I missed seeing Michael Clayton at the Red Vic a couple of weeks ago. Still, I have my personal preferences...

Best Picture -- this one is hard. I loved all of the movies I saw in this category. I think that "No Country" was probably the actual best one. But I loved Juno to pieces, and it's grown on me even more since I saw it the second time (waiting for it to come out at the Parkway now). I don't think it will win. Damn, ok, this is a hard category.

Best Actor -- I've only seen two of these and I gotta throw my vote behind Daniel Day-Lewis.

Best Actress -- Again, only seen two of them. Laura Linney was great in "The Savages," Ellen Page was great in "Juno." I think my vote is for Ellen Page, as sad as that makes me feel for Laura Linney, who I love.

Supporting categories I have only seen two of each -- Javier Bardem is my pick of those for actor, and Cate Blanchett for actress (though the little girl in Atonement was good).

Director, I'm torn between Reitman and the Coen brothers. Adapted screenplay, between Atonement and No Country. Original screenplay I'm going with Juno, but I totally loved Ratatouille (sure it will win for animated feature), and Lars & the Real Girl was good as well. Art direction (I can't believe I have an opinion on this!) I think I'm going with Sweeney Todd, and cinematography I'm for There Will Be Blood or No Country... they had a lot of similarities so it's so hard. I can't believe that Jonny Greenwood didn't get a nomination for the "There Will Be Blood" score. It really made the movie.

So there are my probably ill-informed summaries. I'm actually shocked, looking at this list, by how FEW of the nominees I've actually seen! I missed "American Gangster" and "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," all of which I wanted to see, and I also missed "Easter Promises," which I guess I can get on DVD now. I totally missed that "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" even came out in the theater! Anyway, I guess I need to either download some things illegally, or just feel like an ignoramus come Oscar night... which... I don't know... how is that even going to happen with no writers? This is a bummer.

3 comments:

D said...

I know you just kidding about the "download illegally " line

Ellen said...

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is ridiculous, but not ridiculous good. I caught a free screening, and Clive Owen pretending to be Sir Walter Pirate Raleigh was pretty cool, but it's not as good as the original by a long shot.

I appreciate that a bunch of the nominees I haven't seen (Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Brad Pitt By The Coward Casey Affleck [spoiler?] among them) are coming out on DVD early in February. I wonder what Academy voters did before DVD screeners...

bethany said...

i started reading posts at the top today, before realizing you're on a roll ;-) i probably shouldn't say that i've seen most of these movies in the past 2 weeks... and pretty much all illegally... but i feign ignorance when they suddenly appear on our computer. we watched juno on sunday night and i totally fell in love with it. i want to watch it again, like now.

also, did you see once? that was superb. su-perb.